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ZZT the Fifth posted:I just loving wasted $60 buying Abomination Vaults for Foundry off Paizo's website, because I had already owned the content through a Humble Bundle purchase. A couple of pages back, but I was catching up on this thread and wanted to say that I did the same thing a couple of months ago. I sent Paizo an email explaining, and they refunded my purchase, no questions. They were super chill about it.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 18:26 |
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# ? May 22, 2024 19:06 |
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3 Action Economist posted:This is why you shouldn't always be fighting PL+2, or PL, or PL-3. You need a mix. Please relay this to Paizos AP writers. Outlaws and Gatewalkers both seem to prefer single higher level enemies.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 18:48 |
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Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:Please relay this to Paizos AP writers. Outlaws and Gatewalkers both seem to prefer single higher level enemies. There's a bunch in Outlaws, sure. But in my experience there's been tons of fights against PL or PL-1 or lower goons. Quite fun for my players when the really get to stack their Frightened debuffs, almost guaranteeing crits for my gunslingers. I've been pretty happy with the mix. There's been quite a lot of mental-immune or phys-resistant monsters though, which can frustrate players who've built for stuff like that. Something I would have put a light warning for, if I had known when I started the AP.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 19:50 |
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VikingofRock posted:My game had a player re-roll with halfling luck after failing a save against a gorgon's breath weapon, which would have petrified him for a minute, with a save every turn. Of course, his re-roll was a crit failure, and he became petrified permanently. I told him that, since he still had a hero point, I'd let him roll it at the end of his next turn and try to break out of the stone one last time, and thankfully he succeeded. But ever since then, when the party fails a roll on a particularly scary effect, they are usually reluctant to roll a hero point lest they suffer a critical failure instead. I use a house rule that treats Hero Point rerolls as a fortune effect, so the player uses the better result rather than the second. I picked it up from my PF2 GM and it makes things so much better.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 20:41 |
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5-Headed Snake God posted:I use a house rule that treats Hero Point rerolls as a fortune effect, so the player uses the better result rather than the second. I picked it up from my PF2 GM and it makes things so much better. That's great, I'm stealing that. I will credit you though, so I'm sure my players will be very concerned when I tell them I got the idea from 5 Headed Snake God.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 20:54 |
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sugar free jazz posted:you should be glad that combat is dynamic and you can’t always rely on doing the same thing over and over Really, this is the main thing higher level encounters force. You can't just rely on the thing you've built up doing. But yeah, you do want a mix, because otherwise you're going to have the opposite problem, where you only have things that are good against higher level enemies.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 21:12 |
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Russad posted:A couple of pages back, but I was catching up on this thread and wanted to say that I did the same thing a couple of months ago. I sent Paizo an email explaining, and they refunded my purchase, no questions. They were super chill about it. I sent them an email over two weeks ago and they still haven't responded. I've been following up every week, and nothing happened.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 21:19 |
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Cyouni posted:But yeah, you do want a mix, because otherwise you're going to have the opposite problem, where you only have things that are good against higher level enemies. which is to say, having only played APs in pf2, i have never once even considered spending a spell slot much less a class feat on anything with the incapacitation tag
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 21:22 |
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atelier morgan posted:which is to say, having only played APs in pf2, i have never once even considered spending a spell slot much less a class feat on anything with the incapacitation tag I think if you are playing a spontaneous spellcaster you should take at least one aoe incapacitation signature spell so that you can shut down fights that are vulnerable to incapicitation. By level 7 or 8 the opportunity cost is really low and even something like a max rank calm emotions can trivialize an otherwise challenging fight against multiple foes in a way other max rank spells can't. It feels a lot worse memorizing an incapacitation spell as a wizard or druid because not encountering any worthwhile targets is a very real possibility. Related but also due to how cheap scrolls are, I've found spontaneous spellcasters significantly better than prepared spellcasters in pf2e. Druids at least have great focus spells, clerics have so many heals, and the new witch stuff is neat, but wizards don't really get anything to make up for how bad prepared casting ends up being.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 22:07 |
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Wizards (at least the good subclasses) get so many top rank spells that I, a sorcerer, wish I had.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 22:39 |
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The Monster Core is lovely, but we need illustrations for the Water, Wood, and Metal Scamps. It's not a crime that they didn't fill out the illustrations, but it feels like a crime.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 23:47 |
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mind the walrus posted:The Monster Core is lovely, but we need illustrations for the Water, Wood, and Metal Scamps. It's not a crime that they didn't fill out the illustrations, but it feels like a crime. Oh, come on, those have to be in Rage of Elements. *checks book* What the hell? There's no published art for them anywhere?
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 01:15 |
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5-Headed Snake God posted:I use a house rule that treats Hero Point rerolls as a fortune effect, so the player uses the better result rather than the second. I picked it up from my PF2 GM and it makes things so much better. Another cool house rule I've seen is that if the HP roll is worse than the initial roll it stands, but your hero point is immediately refunded. Because hero points are supposed to be heroes pulling off crazy poo poo, so if you didn't pull it off you the point isn't spent and you can try to do different crazy poo poo later.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 03:25 |
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The problem with most incapacitation spells is they're competing with Slow, which doesn't have the incapacitation tag even though it has just as much potential to shut someone down as a lot of incapacitation stuff, if not more. Tbh Slow should just be nerfed, it's WAY too good.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 04:04 |
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Kvantum posted:Oh, come on, those have to be in Rage of Elements. And that person should be fired. Out of a cannon. Like how do you make the cutest, most marketable thing this side of a Leshy and then go "eh 3 is good?" On the other hand -- the new dragons gently caress, especially when paired with the stuff in Bestiary 2 and 3.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 04:30 |
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For those who don’t know Scamps are the new Mephits.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 05:45 |
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Hellioning posted:Wizards (at least the good subclasses) get so many top rank spells that I, a sorcerer, wish I had. Good point, the one good wizard subclass is really good.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 06:47 |
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KPC_Mammon posted:Good point, the one good wizard subclass is really good. it's good in the most annoying and irritating way possible it doesn't even exist at level 1, which is one of the fundamental problems with dnd that pf2 otherwise completely avoids
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 10:26 |
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Infinity Gaia posted:The problem with most incapacitation spells is they're competing with Slow, which doesn't have the incapacitation tag even though it has just as much potential to shut someone down as a lot of incapacitation stuff, if not more. One of my tables has decided to just completely do away with Slow. Aside from it just blowing every other spell with similar effects out of the water it's also stupid how early and easily accessible it is. Our GMs could choose to give it to every other spellcasting enemy and it'd become a massive pain to deal with for the party as well, with very little counter-play aside from constantly bringing Haste just to even it out. Clerical Terrors fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Apr 10, 2024 |
# ? Apr 10, 2024 10:30 |
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Spells continue to be the worst balanced aspect of PF2. A ton of them are complete garbage and then you have a couple that are just way better than the alternatives. The effectiveness difference between a caster that picks the mechanically strong spells compared to one who picks mostly bad/mediocre ones is massive.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 11:37 |
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Andrast posted:Spells continue to be the worst balanced aspect of PF2. A ton of them are complete garbage and then you have a couple that are just way better than the alternatives. Yeah I can see that. Loose Time's Arrow on round one from my Cleric (with Druid archetype) is a huge game changer. Whereas say, Lightning Bolt? Fun sure, but not nearly as effective.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 12:52 |
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I was thinking about just getting rid of the incapacitation trait in my game. Most of the time the enemy is going to at least get the success result from the spell which isn't too bad. The bard in my party tried to use paralyze and it typically fails but the wizard uses slow, and it usually works. Worse case I can just lie about the roll the enemy got and say it's a critical success. I have a question about items. Can players use an item of any level that they get or do they have to be the level of the item? I've been giving out a bunch of money to encourage people to look at all the items and they are able to afford stuff a level or two above them. It hasn't been an issue yet but I was wondering if there is an actual rule about it I missed.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 14:09 |
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atelier morgan posted:it's good in the most annoying and irritating way possible Edit: gurragadon posted:I have a question about items. Can players use an item of any level that they get or do they have to be the level of the item? I've been giving out a bunch of money to encourage people to look at all the items and they are able to afford stuff a level or two above them. It hasn't been an issue yet but I was wondering if there is an actual rule about it I missed. (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2147) quote:While characters can use items of any level, GMs should keep in mind that allowing characters access to items far above their current level may have a negative impact on the game. SithDrummer fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Apr 10, 2024 |
# ? Apr 10, 2024 14:09 |
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gurragadon posted:I have a question about items. Can players use an item of any level that they get or do they have to be the level of the item? I've been giving out a bunch of money to encourage people to look at all the items and they are able to afford stuff a level or two above them. It hasn't been an issue yet but I was wondering if there is an actual rule about it I missed. They can use any item they get their hands on. I love giving out somewhat above the curve consumables (with a soft house rule that those are for using and not selling), since that really helps making the various really mediocre consumables feel really impactful.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 14:13 |
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gurragadon posted:I was thinking about just getting rid of the incapacitation trait in my game. Most of the time the enemy is going to at least get the success result from the spell which isn't too bad. The bard in my party tried to use paralyze and it typically fails but the wizard uses slow, and it usually works. Worse case I can just lie about the roll the enemy got and say it's a critical success. There was a lot of discussion about this yesterday in Ronald the Rules Lawyer's discord and IMO if one were going to change up Incapacitation in any significant way, the most elegant way to do it would be to remove the ability to upgrade Success to Critical Success - so essentially it would become "+1 degree of success, up to Success". You'd still have the chance of the enemy rolling a CS naturally but a lot of spells have a plenty good enough Success effect that as someone who's been playing a whole shitton of Witch lately would have no problem with it. Though IMO I don't really think incap is that big of an issue as-is if you're diversifying your spell picks and what defenses you can target.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 14:13 |
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Incapacitation is fine but if it exists in an environment where most of the challenging fights are going to be against solos or like a couple of +1s those spells will seem terrible. You want your highest level spells to be effective in the difficult fights.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 14:54 |
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Andrast posted:Spells continue to be the worst balanced aspect of PF2. A ton of them are complete garbage and then you have a couple that are just way better than the alternatives. To be fair, that's been the case with every single edition of D&D and its clones. Gigantic lists of largely underwhelming, worthless, or incredibly (read: overly) niche poo poo that nobody is ever going to know when to prepare ahead of time—and no spontaneous caster will ever take—with a handful of insanely brokenly powerful spells tucked away between mountains of hot garbage. System mastery of spells has always been the most important factor for high-end character optimization in D&D-alikes, largely because powerful spells can do poo poo that nothing else can. Each spell has its own set of special rules, essentially, that can just straight up contradict the rest of the rules. Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 10, 2024 |
# ? Apr 10, 2024 16:46 |
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I’ve been playing a cleric in a weekly game, and I very often am not sure what to do with my 3rd action. I discussed it in this thread a while ago, I think, but my character conceit is that I am 2 kobolds in a trench coat - so I took the cavalier dedication and reskinned a goat as another kobold. We’re… level 4, I think? Enough that I get a free move action with my mount every turn, so with a 2 action spell (usually electric arc), I’m sort of at a loss. I know I can recall knowledge, but often we don’t really need to know anything additional about the nooks we’re stomping. I expect this will change in the future. I also just realized the other day that there’s no shield proficiency, so I can just get a shield the next time we’re in Otari and raise a shield at the end of my turn as well. But just wondering if there’s something else I should be doing. It’s Abom Vaults, so I opted for a casty cleric, rather than a war cleric to keep out of peoples’ way. It’s my first cleric and my first PF2E character, I’m open to suggestions or pointing me at beginner resources. ZZT the Fifth posted:I sent them an email over two weeks ago and they still haven't responded. I've been following up every week, and nothing happened.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 18:23 |
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You have hit on the correct answer. Other good options can include demoralize, bon mot, and mediocre strikes
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 18:28 |
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Russad posted:I’ve been playing a cleric in a weekly game, and I very often am not sure what to do with my 3rd action. Depending on what your hand situation looks like, the Shield cantrip might be better than an actual shield - it's one less AC, but as a cloistered cleric you can't Shield Block normally so the Shield cantrip would give you some flexibility in that regard, and it can be used against spell effects too. I dunno what your stat layout looks like, but other considerations would be grabbing Battle Medicine to heal without burning Heal uses (and the mobility of a mount would help, especially if you took Impressive Mount so it has the free move), Bon Mot to soften Will saves, or Demoralize to slap on Frightened (and capitalize on Bon Mot-reduced will saves). Aid is also an option if you don't think you'll need your Reaction (and thematic for a kobold since they're usually about team tactics and helping their warren mates).
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 18:33 |
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For some reason I was under the impression that regular aid requires two actions to prepare. It's part of why I love Wit swashbucklers so much This changes everything
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 18:51 |
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Harold Fjord posted:For some reason I was under the impression that regular aid requires two actions to prepare. The primary advantage of wit swashbuckler is being able to aid at range. The drawback is that you are still a swashbuckler. Pistolero does ranged aiding significantly better on my experience.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 18:57 |
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KPC_Mammon posted:The primary advantage of wit swashbuckler is being able to aid at range. The drawback is that you are still a swashbuckler. Pistolero does ranged aiding significantly better on my experience. Swashbucklers are pretty great outside of the early levels where all their flaws are at their worst
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:11 |
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Harold Fjord posted:You have hit on the correct answer. Other good options can include demoralize, bon mot, and mediocre strikes More to the point, these should be *first* actions. The third action can be a strike, so long as it isn't the third strike in a row. Everyone thinks "What do I do with my third!?" but the real question should be what's best to use on your first/second so that the third isn't at full MAP, and the enemy is weaker.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:14 |
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SithDrummer posted:What's the "one good wizard subclass" you're talking about? spell blending. you have one more top level spell (and perhaps one more top-1 level spell later one) is just unquestionably better, in exchange for having fewer low level spells you might other get some flavor or utility use out of but generally aren't mechanically valuable: it's boring.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:29 |
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atelier morgan posted:wizard: it's boring.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:32 |
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Dick Burglar posted:To be fair, that's been the case with every single edition of D&D and its clones. Gigantic lists of largely underwhelming, worthless, or incredibly (read: overly) niche poo poo that nobody is ever going to know when to prepare ahead of time—and no spontaneous caster will ever take—with a handful of insanely brokenly powerful spells tucked away between mountains of hot garbage. Edit: quote:spell blending
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:32 |
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Andrast posted:Swashbucklers are pretty great outside of the early levels where all their flaws are at their worst That's great to hear. I personally played a wit swashbuckler through level 4 and it was garbage, significantly worse than a pistolero, which already isn't a top tier class. I'm really optimistic about player core 2 improving swashbuckler, investigator, oracle, and alchemist, which are all thematically really interesting but feel terrible to some degree at early levels.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 19:53 |
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Wit Swash is also one of those that really scale the higher you go, because of how Aid scales.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 20:14 |
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# ? May 22, 2024 19:06 |
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KPC_Mammon posted:That's great to hear. I personally played a wit swashbuckler through level 4 and it was garbage, significantly worse than a pistolero, which already isn't a top tier class. I'm really optimistic about player core 2 improving swashbuckler, investigator, oracle, and alchemist, which are all thematically really interesting but feel terrible to some degree at early levels. Yeah, low level swashes can feel really goddamn bad since none of your stuff is consistent. As levels go up your mandatory skills checks aren't going to fail all the time and swashes have really good feats at 8+ as well. Class could really use an automatically scaling skill too. After the glow up remaster witches got, I'm pretty optimistic about all the classes you listed feeling a lot better with player core 2.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 20:14 |