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sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

way too many. Works best with 4-5 and gets worse fast in either direction

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sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Lurks With Wolves posted:

I will say, Pathfinder 2e does feel like it's handles the stuff on that map in a much more fun way than 1e did. At the very least, it hits 'fun' more reliably. Take the Mwangi Expanse, the Africa joke on that map. In 1e, I hated it because it was just a random slice of colonial Africa they dropped into the setting because Paizo's executives like pulp stories set in that era. 2e feels like they're trying to be more respectful about integrating it into a fantasy setting, instead of just being A Historical Setting, But Fantasy.

I mean I guess but there was also like nothing written about the mwangi expanse other than the 30 page sargava companion which kinda counts?

Can’t say I’ve noticed any huge shifts in style personally

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

yeah guess i forgot about serpent's skull and heart of the jungle, that ap was awful

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Anyone run ruby phoenix? What was good what needed to be tossed? Gonna be reskinning as a tournament anime

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

hyphz posted:

Ew boy. Ok, I had a hell of a time running this one, and it does require a fair amount of tweaking.

Spoilers ahoy for the rest of the message.

Generally

Hao Jin is a goddamn Mary Sue (her name is basically Mary Sue!). I had to tone her down a bit, which wasn't that difficult given the errors in other areas of the adventure. Yea, she's a powerful magician but she loses touch with people who aren't and is a bit untethered from the real world. She's also under a heck of a lot of stress given that wars are fought over who she sides with, which she never asked for. It's important that she's sympathetic for the plot to resonate properly, so don't be afraid to tone her down a bit.

There are too few references to the larger plot early on. It's perfectly possible for the players to get all the way through without actually knowing the background. I ended up having to have Hao Jin explain it at the very end, which was kind of awkward.

I played this with the Stamina rules to allow easier regeneration between rounds but make health loss within rounds more significant. This worked pretty well in theme, although I had to rescind it for the last few battles.

Part 1

The tournament rules are woefully inadequate for the capabilities of level 11 characters, and most of the other team members and enforcers have only immediate combat spells. This means that party members with invisibility/mind control/summoning/teleport other can screw things up completely between matches. It's probably worth clarifying that this kind of shenanigans will get them disqualified if it's something your PCs might consider.

Because of the way the adventure is written, the PCs have to manage scarce spell resources but the opposing teams don't. This isn't very fair for a tournament, so I fudged that the arenas magically allow everyone to use all their spell slots while in a fight then resit them to how they were before the match as they leave. Planey waney stuff or something.

The main part of the adventure is trying to be Fortnite built in the PF2 engine, but it doesn't work that well because PCs don't have that much motivation to do anything but explore. Don't be too surprised if your players just want to "look for another team to fight them" since that's the only way they get ahead early on. I basically had to ignore most of the island geography and just give them the encounters in the order that might be interesting. Basically, if the PCs play to try to win the tournament as best they can according to the rules, the adventure breaks. It's counting on them to just treat it like a hex-crawl.

Also, the adventure has the treasure pickups apart from the static encounters. Again, it's trying to be Fortnite, but this doesn't work at all in an environment where you can't play over and over again and "learn the map". Instead just where the PCs randomly wander can give them a hard adventure or a really easy one. I just put the treasure packets with the monsters.

In Event 5, watch out for particularly opportunistic PCs attempting to challenge the opposing team after saving them while they're exhausted.

In Event 8, we have the traditional problem of "assult on the base" encounters in Pathfinder APs, which is that there is no way for the PCs to know that the opposition isn't infinite until the source is stopped, and no way for them to investigate that source. Be ready for the PCs to wander around outside the temple.

Event 11: the PCs may well have all the points they need by this stage, which can make this amusing, as in my case the enemy team left the arena perimeter and the PCs just went "huh. Well, we're alright jack."

Event 12: no, they don't disintegrate Hao Jin. If they do that, the PCs will rightfully run for the hills from these obviously incredibly powerful casters. Save the Phoenix thing for the ending.

The exhibition events are kind of daft, since Hao Jin won't allow anyone to be permanently harmed there is no reason not to volunteer for all of them. Obviously the adventure wants the PCs to do this, but it might be a bit awkward.

Phoenix Challenge: for the magical genius that she is, it seems Hao Jin forgot that Fly is a level 4 spell.

The Lightkeepers: Blue Viper may need some buffing or modification. He is practically useless until the final encounter because of the onset times on his poisons.

Part 2

The Sixth Pillar Archetype is considered broken by the designers themselves. Don't grant it to players.

Event 3: if your PCs are the strongly heroic type, they might think this is an invitation to start trying to hunt down the Golden League in the city.

The tournament itself is fine, depending on how heavily munchkinised your player group is. You may need to tell the players that the adventure does not actually require that they win the tournament, otherwise they may switch off if they think the result is predestined.

Drake Race: The "chase subsystem" does not work for vehicles and honestly barely works at all. This is used at least twice in this adventure. You might end up needing to fudge heavily or even just graft another one on instead (I suggest pinching one from Savage Worlds if it comes to that)

Challenge of Falling Stars: make sure to start both teams separated and on different levels of the arena. If they all start at the bottom, there is no reason for them to engage with any part of the map, since they just want to fight each other.

Blood and Beauty: there goes Hao Jin forgetting about Fly again.

Panic on the Seven Dragons Bridge: making the encounter about saving the crowds kind of complicates things. PCs may be concerned about what happens if a dead 50'x50' creature falls on a bridge. Also bear in mind that if any PC has a "knocks prone.." ability, technically that causes a flying creature to plummet all the way to the ground and potentially require several rounds of full movement to get back to where it was, which can bypass or disrupt many aerial fights.

If you want to keep Hao Jin even more humanized, bear in mind that a powerful planar sorceress has shown up in their city, and then the place has had to be evacuated due to planar creature attacks. What would you think?

Razu: seriously, someone stick that chase subsystem where the sun doesn't shine.

Part 3

The thing about S------ controlling geography in the demiplane should be thrown out instantly. It means he's either an idiot or he would defeat the PCs trivially.

G1: the map does not show the tunnels or "lookout windows", so this may require some sudden amendments.

G2: why would someone leave a bunch of astronomy equipment lying outside exposed to the elements? This is only part of a very strong suspicion I have that the G- area was actually built as a dungeon and then converted to an island at the last minute for the AP.

The Night Parade: another bit of evidence for the "dungeon" theory is that this takes place in a clearing, and jungle surrounding a clearing isn't necessarily impassible. PCs who can take to the trees or fly over them can trivially attack the Parade from areas it cannot enter due to its size.

G5: don't show the PCs the picture of the Dimensional Darkside Mirror that's printed in the adventure. Their response will be "we walk up behind it and push it over."

The Grand Dojo: remember what I said about Blue Viper? Plum Rain Deluge + Tears of Death is a potential one shot TPK. Be very careful with this.

H4/H5: crawl-experienced PCs are not going to use a magic pillow or a magic rope in the heart of their enemy's base.

Ending: to lower the Mary Sue element a bit, I had Hao Jin do the phoenix thing while still within the Lighthouse and then appear seriously wounded and disoriented, and let the PCs rush her back to Goka on their craft (watch out for PCs with Legendary Medic, of course) for medical attention. I also added a bit about the empress's scouts having found Tino's Toughest in the woods, just so they know they're alright. This also slowed down the ending a bit, because it's otherwise a bit sudden.


Appreciate it! I'll take a look at some of these things, particularly the chase stuff, and wing it a bit with some others like the spell slots etc. Glad there's not whole books that are just garbage or mummy's mask/crimson throne random encounter filler problems.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Sep 8, 2022

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

current title is fine as an extension of the 3.75 title imo

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

i've never played 5e, but pf2e is orders of magnitude less complex than pf1e. it seems complicated if you're looking at the rulebook for the first time, but once you play the game it's incredibly straightforward

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

The Golux posted:

what do those do in 2e? Do you just mean a staff that is a magical weapon or an actual casting staff? And as a 1e player not familiar with shadow signet.

staves are one of the main items casters use and they basically give you extra spells


Shadow SIgnet:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1073

changes a spell attack to a reflex or fort dc instead, i haven't seen this item before and that is insanely good

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Failboattootoot posted:

Want to switch my group off of Lancer and the system vote ultimately landed on this. Haven't read the rules yet but I've done some casual flipping through the book and it seems cool and I am excited. What I would like to know is how does this game actually deal with caster supremacy? The op says, "It also gets rid of Caster supremacy. spellcasters are still extremely strong, but a lot of their strength is in their utility now. The fighter, surprisingly enough is probably the biggest damage class in the game, which feels amazing." but that's the actual problem; linear martials versus quadratic casters. Doesn't matter if the fighter is the highest dps, dps was never why casters were strong to begin with. It was their monopoly on utility and capacity to trivialize encounters with save or die/suck spells/magical means of evading the environment (fly, knock, summon monster, etc.).

At a casual flip through, it's hard for me to parse exactly what actually stymies casters. I have a hunch it's that all of the actually busted utility spells are uncommon/rare/rituals so you largely don't suffer from the wizard or cleric always being a days rest away from having the easiest answer. I know focus spells are talked about a fair bit and they do seem to fit the mold (like monk getting access to quivering palm and ethereal jaunt, both of which are the kind of thing I'm talking about so it's good) but I also didn't see any fighter or rogue focus spells. Is a lot of utility just shunted off into skill feats? Do a lot of class and ancestry feats bolt on spell-like things to fighter and rogue? I see wands still exist, what exactly stops some nerd with a wand of summon monster 1 from invalidating the rogue as a trapfinder?

In short:

Casters get a lot less spells per day, and the power level of the spells across the board is majorly decreased. Compare PF1 Haste to PF2 Haste, for example. Out of combat utility and mobility took the hardest hits in terms of nerfs imho. Even spells like Detect Magic function completely differently and are much less powerful in adventuring.

At the same time skills got majorly buffed and you can do a lot more things without having casting.


Other than the Bard casters aren’t a big issue, and even Bards are not anywhere near as broken as a like Arcanist or Wizard in PF1. They’re just noticeably better.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Just to be clear, when a stat block says "DC 32 Weed Lore (trained) to create high quality weed butter, DC37 Nature (expert) pack the makeshift apple bong, or DC40 Religion (master) to loosely roll a joint" the PC needs to have expert training in nature or master training in religion to do those things

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Honestly just shoving more enemies in and using elite templates as appropriate within the xp budget has worked very well with 5 players and I don’t imagine it’s very different with 6

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Syrinxx posted:

I would like to play in this Adventure Path

fist of the purp phoenix, book 1: madness on reefer island

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

eeeyyy oooh I’m smithin here let’s go rocks baby love da rocks

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

depends on their relation to the ownership of the means of production within a capitalist system. typically they would not be bourgeoisie though due to them actually doing the labor to produce things

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

what exactly is happening in this stat block


https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=827

does the tick swarm really use Cling and deal 1d6 damage to itself every time it uses a damaging action

does it only use Cling once a turn when it has a reaction and then it just.....doesn't have a reaction anymore?


I'm very confused

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Harold Fjord posted:

Not when it uses a damaging action, the reaction trigger is a creature moving out of a space the swarm covers. This is most likely happening on a players turn.

The regular attack is



Epi Lepi posted:

Yeah that's worded oddly. I would assume its an either/or, either the effect of Cling triggers on a reaction or as part of the attack but it doesn't use the reaction as part of the attack.


Cling is the reaction and it's apparently triggered on every damaging action by "plus Cling," as is Tick Fever regardless of damage actually being applied.


Maybe the idea is that they should be using Cling and applying Tick Fever every round even if they have to spend the whole turn moving, which is why they have it as a reaction and it's intentionally limited to once per turn by being a reaction and it just reads really weird. The goal of the Tick Swarm is to just crawl all over people and be gross crawly bugs kind of thing.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

ShallNoiseUpon posted:

The lack of clarity on that ability is kind of shocking but I believe the intent is that Cling, when part of the Swarming Bites Strike is a subordinate action that does not required triggering the reaction or using the per turn reaction.

This is even weirder then because it’s applying persistent damage that doesn’t stack, so it’s just hitting itself for 1d6 for no reason


if i use these stupid things again i'll just have them only apply Cling and hit themselves if the target isn't already under the effects of Cling

sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Nov 8, 2022

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

"everything finds you delicious" owns though

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Chevy Slyme posted:


And there’s also this rules clarification which… is interesting.

quote:


Page 451 (Clarification): How do extra critical effects work on a creature immune to critical hits?
Immunity to critical hits reads “When a creature immune to critical hits is critically hit by a Strike or other attack that deals damage, it takes normal damage instead of double damage.” This means what it says: The attack deals normal damage instead of double damage. Other effects specific to a critical hit still occur, such as critical specialization effects and extra damage dice from traits like deadly and fatal. You also still have the option to use abilities that trigger on critical hits, like the vorpal rune’s reaction (though many creatures immune to crits also don’t need heads to live, lucky devils). Your GM can still say no to extremely strange consequences of this rule on a case-by-case basis.

this is stupid as gently caress

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Chevy Slyme posted:

I actually kind of like it - it’s not intuitive without the clarification at all, but I think it’s maybe more interesting -though they should rephrase existing statblocks to read immune to “Critical Damage” to clarify this, and then you have a new design space to grant complete crit immunity.

In particular though, I like that it lets crits always feel good for folks that are built around them, even against enemies that won’t get straight up murdered by said crits. It makes playing a gunslinger, for example, feel a lot better if you get your fatal dice even if you don’t do double damage.

sometimes things are immune to whatever abilities your character has and you have to do other stuff and figure it out and that's fine. are we just gonna get rid of fire immunity because sometimes it sorta sucks if you have a bunch of fire spells prepped?


literally just had a conversation in this thread about immunity to mind effecting and no one is suggesting to get rid of that, because while it's sometimes annoying, especially if it's concentrated in a campaign, it's still good to have around

sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jan 4, 2023

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Chevy Slyme posted:

Think of this as the fire resistance companion to fire immunity. It’s more interesting when both exist.

no! because there is no crit immunity anymore! both don't exist! <:mad:>

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

ancestries having ability score combos was good and getting rid of that is bad and makes things more samey in a boring way

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Jen X posted:

They still have them, this is an alternate option more or less replacing the flaws rule

the difference between an elf sorcerer then and now isn't the ability to choose what scores you want, as you already could do that, it's that they don't have to end up with some random -STR or -WIS or whatever to get to their preferred boosts

oh it's just an alternate rule set, then i misread it and whatever that seems fine

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Blockhouse posted:

I feel like I'm seeing this posts and losing my mind.

Heritages and ancestry feats still exist.



what part is confusing to you about how if one avenue of differentiation is removed, things are more similar. other things can also exist.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

MadScientistWorking posted:

Because its the most asinine stupidest form of differentiation in the game.


is this what 5e people are like or something im so confused

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

i have in my possession a copy of ogl 1.2 and it has been interpreted by a big law lawyer and rolling for stats is now the only legal way to make characters

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

yeah pathbuilder updates absurdly fast, there've been times things are updated on pathbuilder before on aon

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

queeb posted:

Ok awesome, that may be a better idea before diving into something as huge as kingmaker.

Is 3 an OK party size for PF2E? We made 5E work, we have a 4th that sometimes plays but usually its 3 players and me DM.

APs are generally written for 4 but it’s really really easy to adjust encounters down using xp budgets

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Pasha posted:

I have read most of the PF2E main rulebook, but never played it myself. How "tactical" do the players need to actually be in order to play the game? Some of the people that I regularly play with have a hard time doing well in any sort of tactical situations, so I am wondering if PF2E might not be the best system for our group ...

tuning encounters is extremely easy so if combat difficulty is the thing you're worried about you can just remove monsters or apply templates and use lower xp budgets as targets

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Nehru the Damaja posted:

Hi, absolutely new to P2e and might be joining a game soon. I had two questions about some of the class variety:

1) Is there enough meat to the Investigator class that it has things to do outside of very specific mystery-oriented stories?

2) What's the big difference between the niche of the Thaumaturge and the Witch?

Yeah investigators don't have to be played in only sherlock holmes style campaigns, they're cool.

They're just completely different. Witches are full casters, Thaumaturges figure out you're allergic to shellfish and throw clams at you then hit you with a stick.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Red Metal posted:

aon and a spreadsheet

jesus christ

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Even at 5 it’s not great. Casters and casting are pretty mediocre except for Bards. particularly the out of combat utility spells, but also the combat stuff.

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Syrinxx posted:

As other have said, encourage her to stick with it until 3+, or possibly let her rebuild a spontaneous caster. Also ensure she is getting a wand or stave at level 2 and frequently beyond that.

Before she knows it she will be dropping 300 point chain lightnings while the martials miss their attacks

uhhh should definitely not expect to out damage martials outside of really rare circumstances where aoe spells are blowing up a bunch of chumps and should reaaaally not expect 300 damage chain lightnings unless you’re up against the same type of huge group of chumps where your martials are also extremely not missing attacks

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Roadie posted:

It's not because the rules are 'slightly different', it's because for most classes they're just boring. There are lots of examples, but the most obvious is the optimal operative, whose course of action every single turn in combat for the entire campaign is to move and trick attack with a single minmaxed skill.

*nervously adjusts collar looking at pages of discussion on cantrips and the Heal spell*

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Crafting is a day job check and makes the same money as repairing barrels and growing cabbage.

It’s balanced in the sense that it is pretty much totally worthless. it’s really bad and stupid

It’s only useful for repairing shields and other equipment

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

KPC_Mammon posted:

The alkenstar campaign hands out several hundred gold in crafting materials. You can either sell them for half value or make them into discounted stuff.

Seems like if you want crafting in a game GMs need to support it by giving out materials. It is easy to do, just give a % of the expected treasure per level as materials. Use a higher % the more important you want crafting to be.

I'm glad crafting isn't busted in this game. As someone who played a 3.x artificer that could turn a small bit of xp into huge amounts of money and items and completely break the game I never want see crafting better than adventuring for becoming more powerful again. It sucked.

“Crafting materials” is honestly such a lazy, insulting and garbage bandaid for a terrible crafting system lmao

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

KPC_Mammon posted:

I've never seen someone who actuality gave a poo poo about crafting and didn't just want free power. The original posted complaint was exactly this.

I know coming from other systems people immediately gravitate towards wizards and crafting because it is how you break those other games and I'm glad they end up disappointed.

Uh sorry that you play with people who are or are yourself a dick about crafting in other systems, maybe don’t do that? What a terrible attitude. Crafting should be good and worthwhile to do and not mechanically equivalent to panhandling but being really good at panhandling.

It sucks to have to homebrew a crafting system or go third party because my players want to make cool poo poo from giant mantises. People like making cool things and there’s nothing in the system itself to support that and it’s a bad thing that it’s missing

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

KPC_Mammon posted:

Yeah, I recently played with a crafting wizard who was a huge dick in and out of the game. It sucks.

How is that related to your strange need for crafting to be better at making money than being a legendary performer called upon by the heavens themselves to arrange and perform in a brand new opera?

Each skill having an equivalent way to make money is a feature, not a bug.

What part of “I want my players to make cool poo poo from mantis parts” sounds like I want this to be about making money.

The current system, which is dogshit, is explicitly in those terms and it is in fact ridiculous that all day jobs are mechanically equivalent it’s dumb as hell. It’s just the PFS system which was also totally worthless


The idea of a virtuoso musician and a legendary artisan just rolling the same check for the same result is also horrible. let them do different things, doing different things is good.

sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Feb 5, 2023

sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Facebook Aunt posted:

In a way it makes sense. Imagine you slay a dragon and wind up with 5,000 gp worth of dragon hide. You could sell it for 2,500 gp to a merchant, or use it and put the full 5,000 of value toward crafting your dragon hide armor. That's where the financial saving in crafting it yourself comes from.

It is disappointing to hear that crafting sucks, when the alchemist and inventor flavor text are all about inventing and crafting poo poo. A rogue could also pick up a few crafting feats without much trouble.

It really doesn’t make sense. If that’s your approach just delete crafting, take it out back and put it out of its misery because it’s already basically dead. It adds nothing but a little extra stupid bookkeeping.

If you’re that intensely freaked out about game economy for some reason and at the same time totally unable to talk to each other about the game you want to play, just remove it and move on.

Personally, I vote for a cool and good and useful crafting system vOv

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sugar free jazz
Mar 5, 2008

Chevy Slyme posted:

Right, the problem is that it doesn’t even fulfill that goal of “this is a system that provides players with access to the specific items they want instead of the ones the GM gives them” because of the specific requirement for tons of downtime which other players don’t have anything useful to do with. Setting aside for a moment the “crafting isn’t cool enough I want to make a weapon out of the trophies of my fallen foes” crowd for a moment, because, 1) they have a solution it’s called battlezoo, and 2) the fist party system we do have was never meant for them, the primary goal of the crafting system is obviously “get the items you want, rather than more items. That’s fine, and it tracks with the overall system balance goals. But if that’s the design intent of the system, then disconnect it from the earn income rules and let it be usable without literally weeks of downtime. As it is, we have no choice but to engage with the “balanced against earn income” portion of the ruleset when all a lot of players really want is being able to use the whole item list in AoN as a shopping list, rather than being told by the GM “there’s nobody in this podunk town who will sell you a Wounding rune” or whatever.


Battlezoo is 3rd party and if they should be making actual functional systems as first party material.

You need a formula to make items. They do not sell those in the podunk towns. So the crafting system is designed around a level 7 feat and edge case campaigns where you can’t get to a city? That’s ridiculous lol

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