What's pathfinder 2e like? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Hellpyre

2019-11-29, 07:58 PM

Cool thanks. How does it compare to PF1e then? More/less crunchy? Love given to both magic and non magic classes? How are character options? Is it close enough to PF1e/3.5 to use supplementary material from them like prestige classes etc?

I'm going to try and go a bit more indepth answering here, so be forewarned: ahead be blocks of text. Surrender hope, all ye who read here.

First off - I am not a fan of how PF2e has turned out so far. My judgement is certainly going to be colored by that, so hopefully someone who has embraced the system will also give an impression of it. That said:

Pathfinder 2e has got a lot of mechanical ideas that sound fantastic, like they would work out to an engaging experience - but the actual implementation of those ideas tend to take all their potential and hang it in a bathroom stall, so to speak. A lot of players moved on to PF1e instead of D&D 4e because they liked the fiddly bits of 3.5 and wanted more of that experience. PF2e has fiddly bits in spades, but...basically none of them feel like it mattered that you took it.

Take class advancement - most of your abilities come in the form of mix-and-match class feats. However, those feats mostly sort out into long trees, so the mix-and-match factor sort of just evaporates. You look at the system and it seems to promise that you can pick the appealing things at each level, but in reality you either stick with the thing you picked way earlier or else get, say, an ability that is deaigned to be good for level 5 as your level 15 ability. It works out to be less customizable than archetypes already were for most actual use cases I encountered when I ran it for a bit.

And then there's proficencies. Having all of your rolls scale with level while proficencies add a static bonus ends up ludicrous in terms of challenge design. An 8th level wizard with no investment into the thieving arts will outdo a 3rd level rogue at anything the rogue specialized in, and because all the numbers scale at the same rate, no challenge ever really feels different. If your GM throws a level appropriate challenge at a group, and then a few levels later throws the same challenge at them, even if they haven't done anything to improve their abilities in that arena it becomes much easier. If you throw a challenge under the expected DCs for a level, any proficienies in relevant areas trivialize it. And yet many proficiencies are locked to specific classes, and so you need to pick at CharGen what you want to be good at, and hope you picked right for your GM's style.

And then there is the action system. It really is an elegant thing, with just the right levers in place for controlling action economy the keep the game challenging but fair. And then you see what constitutes some of the actions, and you start to wonder why the cleric gets to scale the potency of their abilities by using more actions, while the fighter or paladin gets hit with an action tax to use a shield while fighting. You only get one reaction, unless suddenly you don't, unless something else says nevermind, you can't use that extra reaction here.

Overall, it feels like Paizo wanted to explain to people that they were having badwrongfun by trying to branch a class out of its assigned niche, and boy does it feel like someone at the game just told me that I shouldn't want to play a character that way. By which I mean, it feels like I don't want to stay at a PF2e table.

TLDR: I really don't hate the system, but I think it isn't enjoyable as is. So I wouldn't use my game-playing time to do something that is a solid "meh".

Pufferwockey

2019-11-30, 04:16 AM

Well as long as i liked the available feat trees i don'tthink I'd like them any less than the class subclass system in 5e, because they sound like they're effectively just the class subclass system in practice. If my precious rangers get a fair shakeI'd still lean towards making the switch.

That proficiency thing sounds like one heckuva bugbear though, and if I'm reading you correctly non magic combat types get a rotten deal on the turn economy on top of not getting magic which sounds pretty awful too. I'll make sure to take an in depth look before trying to talk the table in to learning a new system.

Thanks for taking the time for the in depth answer.

Pex

2019-11-30, 04:57 AM

Anonymouswizard

2019-11-30, 06:17 AM

And then there's proficencies. Having all of your rolls scale with level while proficencies add a static bonus ends up ludicrous in terms of challenge design. An 8th level wizard with no investment into the thieving arts will outdo a 3rd level rogue at anything the rogue specialized in, and because all the numbers scale at the same rate, no challenge ever really feels different. If your GM throws a level appropriate challenge at a group, and then a few levels later throws the same challenge at them, even if they haven't done anything to improve their abilities in that arena it becomes much easier. If you throw a challenge under the expected DCs for a level, any proficienies in relevant areas trivialize it. And yet many proficiencies are locked to specific classes, and so you need to pick at CharGen what you want to be good at, and hope you picked right for your GM's style.

This is one of the reasons I've not actually bought Pathfinder 2e, despite finding SF a big improvement over PF1E. The way Skills work just turns me off, it's just a multi-level version of 4e's skill system. I've yet to see a system make Proficienies more attractive to me than Skill Ranks, and I just don't like generic 'level bonus to everything' systems.

Sometimes I feel like wanting your character to be bad at something is a minority opinion, but just as I don't create a Wizard to have a high 'hot things with swords' skill (most of the time, in point but systems I tend to gosh instead of going pure scholar), but if I do create a knight I don't want a lot of knowledge about magic due to being high level (knowledge of heraldry is more this character's thing).

gkathellar

2019-11-30, 06:56 AM

Sometimes I feel like wanting your character to be bad at something is a minority opinion, but just as I don't create a Wizard to have a high 'hot things with swords' skill (most of the time, in point but systems I tend to gosh instead of going pure scholar), but if I do create a knight I don't want a lot of knowledge about magic due to being high level (knowledge of heraldry is more this character's thing).

That's not how the proficiency system works, it's worth noting. Unlike 4E, you don't get +Level to skills unless you're proficient in them. So your hypothetical knight would only have a lot of knowledge of magic if they'd specifically trained in the Arcana skill.

Pugwampy

2019-11-30, 10:01 AM

Wow unbelievable . The whole reason for PF coming into existence was because 4e was incompatible to 3.5 . Now PAIZO are doing the same thing ?

CharonsHelper

2019-11-30, 10:19 AM

Wow unbelievable . The whole reason for PF coming into existence was because 4e was incompatible to 3.5 . Now PAIZO are doing the same thing ?

Not really. PF came into existence because so many people didn't like 4e and were much happier to keep playing a (mostly) improved version of 3.5 via Pathfinder.

If 4e had been generally liked, PF wouldn't have taken off how it did.

Obvious example: There was no Pathfinder equivalent of 2e at the time, because most D&D gamers liked 3rd edition when it came out.

Hellpyre

2019-11-30, 11:58 AM

NomGarret

2019-11-30, 12:17 PM

That's not how the proficiency system works, it's worth noting. Unlike 4E, you don't get +Level to skills unless you're proficient in them. So your hypothetical knight would only have a lot of knowledge of magic if they'd specifically trained in the Arcana skill.

OTOH it does advance at twice the pace of 4e, so your barbarian won’t recognize fire runes, unless he’s trained, at which point he’ll eclipse the knowledge of a random academy student even faster than in 4e.

On a sales pitch level, there’s plenty to like about P2, but it’s when you dig deeper that it gets muddy. The action economy is simple, sure. I’ve had plenty of times where players have had trouble (often conveniently) remembering what kind of actions their abilities used. So the idea of getting three actions you can mix and match however you like is appealing. The trick is that each of those abilities should occasionally be a better choice than “hit it again.” It’s usually not.

The other key choice is breaking everything down to feats. Whereas in P1 you were swapping things out with archetypes and alternate racial abilities, P2 just gives you pools of feats and lets you pick. On first glance, you see a ton of feats, but when you start building things back up, you see how many it takes to get back to the competencies you would get in P1. A certain amount of this is fine, as removing chaff abilities that don’t fit a concept is fine. Does P2 go too far, though?

Part of the feat problem is the sheer number of prerequisites. So many of these are feat trees and everything is level-gated. If the math of the game actually requires that degree of level-gating, I can’t see it. To me it looks like the designers are very concerned I might accidentally make an interesting character that doesn’t match their build ideas. Personally, I think you can cut in half all level requirements before say, 16, and the game would run just fine.

Remuko

2019-11-30, 12:57 PM

Did they errata that, or is my copy of the 2e CRB misprinted? Mine states that all proficiencies get +level, but I looked at Nethys and saw it as you described, which I certainly perfer.

I dont see the disagreement? They said you dont get the + level bonus unless you are proficient. You say the book says "all proficiencies get +level" which means non-proficiencies dont get +level, which is exactly what they said?

gkathellar

2019-11-30, 02:17 PM

I dont see the disagreement? They said you dont get the + level bonus unless you are proficient. You say the book says "all proficiencies get +level" which means non-proficiencies dont get +level, which is exactly what they said?

Exactly so. What makes it a little confusing is that untrained skills are the only non-proficient stat that's likely to end up on a character sheet (since most characters will only use weapons and armor they're proficient in). For every other stat you're ever going to refer to, you'll be getting (Level)+2+Modifier+Misc at a minimum. Only untrained skills are ever going to be rolled with Modifier+Misc.

I will say, it's understandable for people to miss this. Proficiency is presented really sloppily - the equation should really be a cutout in bold somewhere, considering how important it is. Instead it's explained in natural language in the second half of an unmarked paragraph on page 10. If you're skimming, you might miss it entirely.

torrasque666

2019-11-30, 02:44 PM

Did they errata that, or is my copy of the 2e CRB misprinted? Mine states that all proficiencies get +level, but I looked at Nethys and saw it as you described, which I certainly perfer.

Page 10 dude.
If you’re untrained at a statistic, your proficiency bonus is +0—you must rely solely on the raw potential of your ability modifier. If your proficiency rank for a statistic is trained, expert, master, and legendary, your bonus equals your character’s level plus another number based on the rank (2, 4, 6, and 8, respectively). Proficiency ranks are part of almost every statistic in the game. Emphasis mine.

I will say, it's understandable for people to miss this. Proficiency is presented really sloppily - the equation should really be a cutout in bold somewhere, considering how important it is. Instead it's explained in natural language in the second half of an unmarked paragraph on page 10. If you're skimming, you might miss it entirely. Yeah, but the character sheet in the back, which I'm sure they expected most people would be copying to make their characters, has the same explanation.

Pufferwockey

2019-11-30, 02:57 PM

I havent found a place in the book that lays it all out clearly but it looks to me like a character trained in a specific skill, save or weapon gets +level +proficiency bonus(2,4,6 or 8) +ability score modifier to the roll, whereas an untrained character just get's +ability score modifier. Is that right? Does a 20th level rogue with 20 dex get +33 to stealth(or hide or move silently or whatever the skills are called)?

The problem I'm seeing there is that, at higher levels, it would seem to either make untrained skill checks not worth attempting even for characters with +4s or +5s in the appropriate ability scores and/or make trained skill checks trivial.

EDIT I guess thats only like 5 points higher than what one would have gotten from a fully trained class skill in 3.5 but it still seems nuts to a guy who's been using 5e for a couple years

Hellpyre

2019-11-30, 04:12 PM

Page 10 dude. Emphasis mine.

Ah. Mine is off then. It states the correct numbers, except that, like my copy of the playtest rulebook said untrained gets level-2, mine explicitly states that untrained gets level+0

Rynjin

2019-11-30, 04:38 PM

For those transitioning from Pathfinder 1 to Pathfinder 2 a potential reason to dislike it for those who dislike it is you have to pay for things you used to get for free. In Pathfinder getting a level in a class or being a particular race just means poof now you can do something. In Pathfinder 2 you have to choose to select it by paying a feat. You get feats every level but depending on level can only use the feat for particular things. One level is for a class ability while another level is for skill use. Racial abilities are nerf hit hard with this. You do not get everything a race had in the beginning. You have to spend a feat at a later level for what you used to get at character creation.

I think I understand why they did it this way. The whole of character creation and leveling is the archetype system to be as customizable as possible. I haven't played it to give an informed opinion on how well it works, but I can say it makes the game quite complex. 5E probably spoiled customers in its simplicity of creating a character and leveling. You have choices, but they're limited. Pathfinder 2 makes Pathfinder 1 character creation look like a first grade reader. Complexity is not inherently a bad thing, but tastes will vary.

"Complex" is I think too good of a word for it. Complexity implies value.

PF2e is just complicated. A whole bunch of fiddly bull**** that doesn't add a ton of value to the game. The options themselves are simple and bare of much impact, but there are so many of them it overwhelms just looking at it in certain ways, and ha sa lot of "feels bad" mixed in, as you mentioned.

Pathfinder 1 is complex game; there are more meaningful choices to make any time a choice is forced. Hell, Savage Worlds is a complex game in that regard too. 5e sidesteps the issue by being simple instead, which while not my cup of tea, points to a clear design goal that Wizards tried and succeeded at hitting.

Pathfinder 2e is a hodgepodge of sometimes conflicting ideas that don't all work together. It is a nugget of something good with a kudzu of poorly implemented ideas hanging off of it.

Kurald Galain

2019-11-30, 06:44 PM

The problem I'm seeing there is that, at higher levels, it would seem to either make untrained skill checks not worth attempting even for characters with +4s or +5s in the appropriate ability scores and/or make trained skill checks trivial.
Yes, and that's intentional. Expert vs. rookie means expert wins (like in 3E/PF), not that rookie defeats expert around 30% of the time (like in 4E/5E). The whole point of being an expert is that you automatically (or almost automatically) succeed at standard checks (like in basically every RPG ever except 4E/5E); and adventure writers should (and do) take that into account.

Not that I'm a fan of P2, but this is one of the spots where it meets its own design principles well.

Crake

2019-11-30, 06:49 PM

Yes, and that's intentional. Expert vs. rookie means expert wins (like in 3E/PF), not that rookie defeats expert around 30% of the time (like in 4E/5E). The whole point of being an expert is that you automatically (or almost automatically) succeed at standard checks (like in basically every RPG ever except 4E/5E); and adventure writers should (and do) take that into account.

Not that I'm a fan of P2, but this is one of the spots where it meets its own design principles well.

This is one thing that irks me about 2e, the fact that everything gets bumped down a success category on a 1, even skills. So unless you beat the DC of something by 10 on a natural 1 (beating something by 10 is a critical success), your success is dropped down to a failure. This is something that my DM used to implement for skills in 3.5 (+/-10 on a natural 1/20), and it was a universally hated rule.

Pufferwockey

2019-11-30, 07:47 PM

But my understanding that a 20th level rogue with legendary proficiency in stealth an 20 dex gets +33 on stealth checks is correct?

Yes, and that's intentional. Expert vs. rookie means expert wins (like in 3E/PF), not that rookie defeats expert around 30% of the time (like in 4E/5E). The whole point of being an expert is that you automatically (or almost automatically) succeed at standard checks (like in basically every RPG ever except 4E/5E); and adventure writers should (and do) take that into account.

Not that I'm a fan of P2, but this is one of the spots where it meets its own design principles well.

Here I think we're starting to get in to the flaws of the d20 based system where someone stronger than a real life record setting weightlifter (20 str) only beats an average joe with 10 str at arm wrestling something like 3/4 of the time (just a number I remember from way back, haven't actually done the math recently). The solution as it was explained to me is that rolls are only required when there are consequences to failure and there is an element of chaos in the environment, like an ongoing fight, in which scrubs can get lucky and experts can have routine tasks go wrong.

My problem with the extreme bonuses at high level and what must be correspondingly high DCs is that I want characters attempt stuff outside their fields of expertise. Of course even the sorcerer who got 16 or better dex (which is spectacularly nimble for normal humans) for their AC isn't going to be as good as a trained acrobat, but when their back is to a metaphorical wall and they tell the GM they want to try something weird, I think a well designed game walks the line of not making the character who took proficiency or ranks or whatever in acrobatics feel cheated while still offering the sorcerer decent chance of managing to buckle some swash.

The Glyphstone

2019-11-30, 07:57 PM

It almost sounds like they're trying to transition into a modular class-free system, but can't actually manage to break free of the siloing that comes inherent to class-based RPGs.

Morty

2019-11-30, 08:07 PM

It almost sounds like they're trying to transition into a modular class-free system, but can't actually manage to break free of the siloing that comes inherent to class-based RPGs.

I'm not sure. Making more feats class-dependent and organizing them into level-based lists is less modular, not more.

The Glyphstone

2019-11-30, 08:09 PM

I'm not sure. Making more feats class-dependent and organizing them into level-based lists is less modular, not more.

The idea of choosing your abilities A la carte via feats-every-level is semi-modular - but that's sort of what I meant, they made a half-hearted stab at it then stuck with the class-based silos anyways just slightly broken up.

Pex

2019-11-30, 11:25 PM

Yes, and that's intentional. Expert vs. rookie means expert wins (like in 3E/PF), not that rookie defeats expert around 30% of the time (like in 4E/5E). The whole point of being an expert is that you automatically (or almost automatically) succeed at standard checks (like in basically every RPG ever except 4E/5E); and adventure writers should (and do) take that into account.

Not that I'm a fan of P2, but this is one of the spots where it meets its own design principles well.

Lofty goal. Unfortunately it has to fight against people who think there must be a chance of failure for everything. They'll never accept autosuccess as a thing. It's beyond the thread topic, but it's a problem for every game system. Some people even object to Take 10/20 that 3E/Pathfinder 1 has. In 5E they'll always demand a roll, never letting the PC do something just because the player wants to do it. However, I agree a novice should not succeed where an expert fails.

Firechanter

2019-12-01, 12:14 AM

I'll mostly echo Hellpyre's assessment, with some addendums:

PF2 pretends to offer a plethora of choices, but most of these turn out to have very little impact. So they are basically phantom choices. Half of your choices fall into feat chains, so if you once make the choice to start a chain you're pretty much nailed down on it, unless you want to gimp yourself. The other half are rather meaningless super-situational miniature bonuses that may actually have an actual impact on the game less than 1 in a hundred times.

--

The other day I read an analogy on reddit that started out promising but then failed to follow through, so I'd like to offer my (expanded) version of it:

Imagine D20 games as ways to get a functional model robot:

3.5 and PF are a robotics kit. It is complicated and hard to learn, with rules on rules interacting with rules. The box contains lots of useless parts and many of the rules interactions aren't officially documented, so it can be very frustrating if you're not that much into robotics. However, it is very rewarding once you get the hang of it. Great for people who like to build their own robot.

5E is a toy robot. You don't build it yourself and it doesn't do much, but you get to pick the colour and have fun. Great for people who just want a toy.

PF2 is a model robot kit. You get to assemble the pieces yourself, but they are colour-coded and fit only in exactly the one way intended by the manufacturer, the only thing you really pick is the decals, and in the end you get a toy robot. Great for people who want to tell themselves they've built their own robot.

martixy

2019-12-01, 02:00 AM

"Complex" is I think too good of a word for it. Complexity implies value.

Ah, here is where you are wrong, my good man.

For you see, there exist two separate concepts:
Depth
and
Complexity

Depth is a desirable trait. However you have to buy depth with complexity. None of it is actually implied. And having tons of complexity without gaining much depth from it is about the worst combination you can pull off.

This is a classic game design principle.
Here is a short video on the topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU) (guess who).

Between Hellpyre's thoughful analysis and Firechanter's analogy it is clear the designers failed terribly at the above design precept.

Lofty goal. Unfortunately it has to fight against people who think there must be a chance of failure for everything. They'll never accept autosuccess as a thing. It's beyond the thread topic, but it's a problem for every game system. Some people even object to Take 10/20 that 3E/Pathfinder 1 has. In 5E they'll always demand a roll, never letting the PC do something just because the player wants to do it. However, I agree a novice should not succeed where an expert fails.
It is what I call "circus gaming". 5e is the Heartstone of 3.5/PF1s Magic. It is no less valid a way of playing a game than any other. I has appeal. Perhaps broader appeal than the other option, in a culture of game streaming and "Let's plays". I however find it particularly unenjoyable (as does most of my gaming group). So, though we lament it, we suck up the complexity that buys us the depth we want of our game.

MeeposFire

2019-12-01, 02:36 AM

Not really. PF came into existence because so many people didn't like 4e and were much happier to keep playing a (mostly) improved version of 3.5 via Pathfinder.

If 4e had been generally liked, PF wouldn't have taken off how it did.

Obvious example: There was no Pathfinder equivalent of 2e at the time, because most D&D gamers liked 3rd edition when it came out.

I hate to break it to you but there were retro clones for AD&D and basic D&D when 3e came out (heck there were retro clones for 1e AD&D when 2e and basic were being produced and they are not that much different). Also there were a lot of people that disliked 3e when it came out and never switched or switched later.

One thing that helped 3e though was that a lot of people were also tired of 2e because 2e was really similar to 1e and basic D&D which meant that they were playing the same game essentially as they were in teh 70's and at that time there were a lot of new RPGs that did things very differently and 2e was seen as an old system. When 3e came out it appeared as really different and so was able to bring in people that thought D&D was getting stale.

So while there were retro clones they did not have the same impact or support that PF did (remember too that no other retro clone had such a helping hand as the 3e SRD).

Kurald Galain

2019-12-01, 03:44 AM

The solution as it was explained to me is that rolls are only required when there are consequences to failure and there is an element of chaos in the environmentTurns out that doesn't work so well in practice.

My problem with the extreme bonuses at high level and what must be correspondingly high DCs is that I want characters attempt stuff outside their fields of expertise.Yes. The best way to work with "extreme" bonuses is set the DCs such that the rookies can succeed, not such that the experts can fail. It's really ok if experts succeed at their expertise; that's what they've built their character for (and note that almost no RPG, outside of 4E/5E, has an issue with this).

It helps to define a "challenge" as a complex situation that the PCs need to resolve somehow, not as a series of checks. For instance, "get your whole caravan across the river" is a challenge, whereas "make three swim checks" is not.

As Pex points out, there are two distinct playstyles here (i.e. "everything has a significant chance of failure" vs. "experts succeed at their expertise"). It is worth noting that 3E/P1 support both of these (one at low level, the other at higher level), whereas 5E/P2 only support the first one. Anyway, for a more extensive discussion on this topic, see the regular complaints about the skill system in the 5E forum.

Rynjin

2019-12-01, 03:48 AM

Ah, here is where you are wrong, my good man.

For you see, there exist two separate concepts:
Depth
and
Complexity

Depth is a desirable trait. However you have to buy depth with complexity. None of it is actually implied. And having tons of complexity without gaining much depth from it is about the worst combination you can pull off.

This is a classic game design principle.
Here is a short video on the topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU) (guess who).

Between Hellpyre's thoughful analysis and Firechanter's analogy it is clear the designers failed terribly at the above design precept.

That's a matter of semantics, really. The video says everything I said but substitutes "complex" for "depth" and "complicated" for "complex".

"Complex" is a word that has almost always connoted desirability to me. Good food has complex flavors. Fine art and compositions often use complex artistic or musical techniques. But nobody ever says "this is complicated" as a compliment.

martixy

2019-12-01, 04:12 AM

That's a matter of semantics, really. The video says everything I said but substitutes "complex" for "depth" and "complicated" for "complex".

"Complex" is a word that has almost always connoted desirability to me. Good food has complex flavors. Fine art and compositions often use complex artistic or musical techniques. But nobody ever says "this is complicated" as a compliment.

Ah. So now we have established common language and determined that we are in agreement. I do like the video's semantics better. Yours sound too similar. :)

Rynjin

2019-12-01, 04:15 AM

Whatever you prefer. =)

Morty

2019-12-01, 06:40 AM

The idea of choosing your abilities A la carte via feats-every-level is semi-modular - but that's sort of what I meant, they made a half-hearted stab at it then stuck with the class-based silos anyways just slightly broken up.

Yeah, it feels like PF2E sort of runs into the inherent limitations of the d20 system. Levels and classes inherently restrict any kind of modularity and PF1E only achieves any kind of variety by sheer volume that you need to sift through - it's a restrictive system by nature. 5E side-steps the problem by not trying to be varied or modular. PF2E does, but the tools it has are very ill-suited for the purpose.

Crake

2019-12-01, 07:21 AM

The solution as it was explained to me is that rolls are only required when there are consequences to failure and there is an element of chaos in the environment, like an ongoing fight, in which scrubs can get lucky and experts can have routine tasks go wrong.

The issue with this logic is that there's always a consequence for failure: Time lost. Unless you literally have no time constraints beyond your slowly decaying mortal coil, there's always a consequence for failure, no matter what.

CharonsHelper

2019-12-01, 11:06 AM

I hate to break it to you but there were retro clones for AD&D and basic D&D when 3e came out (heck there were retro clones for 1e AD&D when 2e and basic were being produced and they are not that much different). Also there were a lot of people that disliked 3e when it came out and never switched or switched later.

One thing that helped 3e though was that a lot of people were also tired of 2e because 2e was really similar to 1e and basic D&D which meant that they were playing the same game essentially as they were in teh 70's and at that time there were a lot of new RPGs that did things very differently and 2e was seen as an old system. When 3e came out it appeared as really different and so was able to bring in people that thought D&D was getting stale.

So while there were retro clones they did not have the same impact or support that PF did (remember too that no other retro clone had such a helping hand as the 3e SRD).

I realize that there were retro clones. I should have been clearer; I meant that none became a Pathfinder in it's popularity and actually overthrowing D&D's market dominance for an edition etc.

NomGarret

2019-12-01, 11:15 AM

Yeah, it feels like PF2E sort of runs into the inherent limitations of the d20 system. Levels and classes inherently restrict any kind of modularity and PF1E only achieves any kind of variety by sheer volume that you need to sift through - it's a restrictive system by nature. 5E side-steps the problem by not trying to be varied or modular. PF2E does, but the tools it has are very ill-suited for the purpose.

P2 strikes me as a system that’s asking for bloat. That’s not necessarily bad. Being the active game that regularly cranks out new content in contrast to 5e’s deliberately lethargic release schedule is appealing.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-01, 11:25 AM

P2 strikes me as a system that’s asking for bloat. That’s not necessarily bad.
That's assuming that Paizo is willing to print more interesting options than they have in the PHB. The playtest for the next splatbook isn't promising though (e.g. it has an investigator class that has to jump through hoops to get a whopping +1 non-stacking bonus...)

The Glyphstone

2019-12-01, 11:27 AM

P2 strikes me as a system that’s asking for bloat. That’s not necessarily bad. Being the active game that regularly cranks out new content in contrast to 5e’s deliberately lethargic release schedule is appealing.

The bloat has to be meaningful, as well. A book that contains 50 new feats is a lot less exciting if those feats are actually five 1e feats broken up into 10 incremental level-based fractions apiece.

Eldonauran

2019-12-01, 11:45 AM

I've been playing PF2 for a good bit now. I have to agree that it is its own system and has little resemblance to PF1. I like PF2 as a system but, if I was honest, I still prefer PF1 (without question). D&D 3.5 was a system that I grew to love and that continued with PF1. I like that while the GM has his Rule 0 to fall back on, both the player and GM have mechanics that limit them in one way or the other, yet an amazing amount of freedom with customization. PF2 feels a bit too "loose" in that area to me and the mechanics between classes seem too similar.

That's just my opinion, after all. What I will say for certain, is that there are things from PF2 that I love and will be bringing into PF1 as houserules. Namely, the hero point mechanics and three action system. PF1 Unchained has these rules for use, and with slight modification, they will blend in well. I'm also going to adapt cantrips to be useful, and scale, like in PF2.

GrayDeath

2019-12-01, 11:57 AM

Preface: I have only rad PF and played a one shot.

But to me it seems that Paizo made the same mistake that was made when transitioning from 3rd DSA (The Dark Eye) to 4th, just not quite on the same magnitude.
They added a LOT extra options, piecemail and unnecessarily" complex interconnectedness, to achieve their goal of softening up the CLass differentiation...and failed doing so, as 2/3rds of the options at the least are either entirely useless, lock you on a tree direction, or are actually only sounding like they may help you and at best dont impede you at building your character.

Now I am the last person that would say that a PF 2 should only be an "optimized" PF 1 (as if I am honest, for longer Games I prefer non Class Systems and "better spread" rolling mechanics), but Paizo obvfiously had some cool Ideas, but "had" to shoehorn them into "seeming like a D0 Derivative from afar" out of oear of loosing too many customers.

As you might have guessed given the negative tone: I dont like it. At all.
For what it seems to be trying to do, there are many many of better Systems out there, and for "Keeping a D&Dish feel but freer" it falls flat rather completely.

patchyman

2019-12-01, 09:11 PM

And then there's proficencies. Having all of your rolls scale with level while proficencies add a static bonus ends up ludicrous in terms of challenge design. An 8th level wizard with no investment into the thieving arts will outdo a 3rd level rogue at anything the rogue specialized in, and because all the numbers scale at the same rate, no challenge ever really feels different. If your GM throws a level appropriate challenge at a group, and then a few levels later throws the same challenge at them, even if they haven't done anything to improve their abilities in that arena it becomes much easier. If you throw a challenge under the expected DCs for a level, any proficienies in relevant areas trivialize it. And yet many proficiencies are locked to specific classes, and so you need to pick at CharGen what you want to be good at, and hope you picked right for your GM's style.

I’m a 5e player and DM, but I picked up the P2 Core book, read it and have started playing in a campaign (so far, we have finished one session).

For the way I DM, the proficiency system in P2 doesn’t work, for different reasons than Hellpyre gave.

While the party specializing into roles is both normal and desirable, when I DM, players cannot assume (for instance) that only the party Face will make social rolls. The half-elf bard may be charming, but the lord may want to speak to the fighter with the noble background, the dwarven blacksmith may only speak Dwarven, and druids may only share their secrets with other druids. The Face will still make 80% of social checks, but you can’t just assume a check will never come up for your character.

In P2, past low levels, an untrained character will essentially never succeed at those checks, and since the critical failure range is so large for untrained characters, the system actively discourages anyone but the specialist making a skill check. Certain classes and low Int characters also have too few skills to really participate in the skills minigame.

This is also a serious problem for smaller parties, where the party may not be able to cover all skills.

Pugwampy

2019-12-02, 07:29 AM

I ma skipping PF 2e if its not backwards compatable .

stack

2019-12-02, 08:14 AM

I’m a 5e player and DM, but I picked up the P2 Core book, read it and have started playing in a campaign (so far, we have finished one session).

For the way I DM, the proficiency system in P2 doesn’t work, for different reasons than Hellpyre gave.

While the party specializing into roles is both normal and desirable, when I DM, players cannot assume (for instance) that only the party Face will make social rolls. The half-elf bard may be charming, but the lord may want to speak to the fighter with the noble background, the dwarven blacksmith may only speak Dwarven, and druids may only share their secrets with other druids. The Face will still make 80% of social checks, but you can’t just assume a check will never come up for your character.

In P2, past low levels, an untrained character will essentially never succeed at those checks, and since the critical failure range is so large for untrained characters, the system actively discourages anyone but the specialist making a skill check. Certain classes and low Int characters also have too few skills to really participate in the skills minigame.

This is also a serious problem for smaller parties, where the party may not be able to cover all skills.

While this is different from 5e, it is not so different from 3/3.5/PF1, where characters that don't max skill ranks are often left out of making particular checks.

Firechanter

2019-12-02, 08:15 AM

I ma skipping PF 2e if its not backwards compatable .

Well, it isn't.

PF2 feats, roughly speaking, are anywhere between 1/2 and 1/60 of a PF feat.
For instance, PF Improved Initiative gives +4 to Ini.
PF2 it's called Incredible Initiative and gives a +2.

PF Skill Focus gives a flat +3 to all checks with a skill, scaling to +6 beyond 10th level.
PF2 skill feats typically give something like a +1 in situational circumstances that may or may not apply for one check in ten. Or you have to pay a feat just to be allowed to do something that you can just _do_ in PF.

So long story short, there is absolutely no reason ever to use a PF2 resource in a PF game. And conversely, if you allow PF material in a PF2 game, no-one in their right mind will ever take a PF2 option.

BTW I also personally resent the Paizo devs for their ridiculous hyperbole. A 10% chance to move further up the Initiative order is not incredible. And applying the smallest mathematically possible bonus (+1) has nothing to do with "supreme confidence" when navigating the wilderness.

stack

2019-12-02, 08:17 AM

...
BTW I also personally resent the Paizo devs for their ridiculous hyperbole. A 10% chance to move further up the Initiative order is not incredible. And applying the smallest mathematically possible bonus (+1) has nothing to do with "supreme confidence" when navigating the wilderness.

Hey now, I can be supremely confident in any number of things I know nothing about. :smalltongue:

Crake

2019-12-02, 08:24 AM

While this is different from 5e, it is not so different from 3/3.5/PF1, where characters that don't max skill ranks are often left out of making particular checks.

Not really. A lot of skills scale significantly faster than the DCs do, if the DCs scale at all. Most, if not all of the physical skills have static DCs, spellcraft and concentration both scale at 1/2 level. Aside from that, the rest are generally opposed checks, so it'll be against an enemy's check, which means sure, if the enemy has max ranks, you'll have a hard time against them if you're only say, half ranking, but it's not impossible, however, against an enemy with NO ranks, you'll be doing much better than someone with no ranks as well.

Pretty much all of my players always get at least 5 or so ranks in the physical skills for just that reason, it's really not the issue you think it is.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-02, 08:36 AM

BTW I also personally resent the Paizo devs for their ridiculous hyperbole. A 10% chance to move further up the Initiative order is not incredible. And applying the smallest mathematically possible bonus (+1) has nothing to do with "supreme confidence" when navigating the wilderness.
I completely agree. The class descriptions are full of how you BECOME LEGENDARY!!!1! at anything from attack rolls to saving throws, which in all cases means "you get a +2 bonus".

"Legendary feats" in P2 (i.e. level 15+) include such utter marvels as
getting a cryptic hint from a religious book
earning more money when performing
ignoring class/spell prerequisites when crafting
making someone shaken for two rounds
communicating with someone if you don't share a language

Whooo! Legendary!!! Incredible!!!!!

Dr. Cliché

2019-12-02, 08:52 AM

I have to say, I'm very sad that PF2 changed the skill system because PF1 had my favourite skill system out of any D&D/PF game I've played.

Crake

2019-12-02, 09:21 AM

ignoring class/spell prerequisites when crafting

I like how this is a feat in 2e, when it's just something someone can do normally in 1e, though admittedly, in 3.5e it would be a big deal.

HeraldOfExius

2019-12-02, 09:22 AM

Not really. A lot of skills scale significantly faster than the DCs do, if the DCs scale at all. Most, if not all of the physical skills have static DCs, spellcraft and concentration both scale at 1/2 level. Aside from that, the rest are generally opposed checks, so it'll be against an enemy's check, which means sure, if the enemy has max ranks, you'll have a hard time against them if you're only say, half ranking, but it's not impossible, however, against an enemy with NO ranks, you'll be doing much better than someone with no ranks as well.

Pretty much all of my players always get at least 5 or so ranks in the physical skills for just that reason, it's really not the issue you think it is.

If Starfinder and PF2 are anything to go on, Paizo seems to think that skills should be maxed out or not used at all. Why they continue to put scaling systems like this into their games when they obviously don't want the difficulty of anything to change over the course of all 20 levels is beyond me.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-02, 09:36 AM

I like how this is a feat in 2e, when it's just something someone can do normally in 1e, though admittedly, in 3.5e it would be a big deal.

It may be a big deal, but is it LEGEDNARY?!?!!

Firechanter

2019-12-02, 09:55 AM

I have to say, I'm very sad that PF2 changed the skill system because PF1 had my favourite skill system out of any D&D/PF game I've played.

The PF skill system does have it perks, yes. It's easy to get a reasonable skill bonus for skills that don't need that much attention. The consolidation is a decent effort. I also like that Skill Focus scales (rather abruptly however), and I like that Int items offer extra maxed-out skills. And that there are ways (mostly through traits) to expand your class skill list.

Of course it's not perfect. The consolidation is sometimes weird. Perception is the single most important skill in the game, bar none. And why haven't Climb, Jump and Swim been rolled into Athletics? Why is Jump part of Acrobatics? -- ofc everything can be houseruled, but that doesn't mean it's not wonky in the first place.

patchyman

2019-12-02, 10:29 AM

While this is different from 5e, it is not so different from 3/3.5/PF1, where characters that don't max skill ranks are often left out of making particular checks.

I’m not a Pathfinder expert, but I believe there is a critical (groan!) difference between the systems.

In P1, at level 1, a barbarian is untrained at a skill and has an average attribute (total +0). If he chooses to attempt a DC 15 skill, he has a 5% chance to critically fail, 65% chance to fail and a 30% to succeed. In most circumstances, it is worthwhile for him to at least try.

In P2, same circumstances, the barbarian has a 20% chance to critically fail, 50% chance to fail and a 30% chance to succeed. In most circumstances, it is now worthwhile for him not to try to avoid making things worse.

Psyren

2019-12-02, 10:35 AM

If Starfinder and PF2 are anything to go on, Paizo seems to think that skills should be maxed out or not used at all. Why they continue to put scaling systems like this into their games when they obviously don't want the difficulty of anything to change over the course of all 20 levels is beyond me.

Starfinder uses a mix of scaling and flat DCs just like P1 and 3.5 do. There are still instances where dabbling in a skill can yield positive results, but a party-based game rewarding specialization is understandable too.

And why haven't Climb, Jump and Swim been rolled into Athletics? Why is Jump part of Acrobatics? -- ofc everything can be houseruled, but that doesn't mean it's not wonky in the first place.

Starfinder actually did this - we may roll it back to PF1 in our next campaign as it feels like a positive change and is also a softer landing for the folks who are coming over from 5e.

Morty

2019-12-02, 10:54 AM

P2 strikes me as a system that’s asking for bloat. That’s not necessarily bad. Being the active game that regularly cranks out new content in contrast to 5e’s deliberately lethargic release schedule is appealing.

Being an active game that's releasing new content doesn't necessitate being so restrictive that you need new content. Keeping the supplement treadmill to a minimum is a lesson 5E has learned from 3E and 4E quite well, to give credit where it's due.

stack

2019-12-02, 11:00 AM

I’m not a Pathfinder expert, but I believe there is a critical (groan!) difference between the systems.

In P1, at level 1, a barbarian is untrained at a skill and has an average attribute (total +0). If he chooses to attempt a DC 15 skill, he has a 5% chance to critically fail, 65% chance to fail and a 30% to succeed. In most circumstances, it is worthwhile for him to at least try.

In P2, same circumstances, the barbarian has a 20% chance to critically fail, 50% chance to fail and a 30% chance to succeed. In most circumstances, it is now worthwhile for him not to try to avoid making things worse.

My point was more that in 5e, the difference between trained and untrained is a +6 bonus at level 20 (barring expertise via rogue, feat, etc.), verses +20 skill ranks and a possible +3 class skill (PF1) and +22 trained (PF2). How DCs are set and the prevalence of critical failures are of course relevant to the overall discussion, but beyond the basic point I was making. In my play experience in PF1, non-face characters tend not to bother with social checks (maybe aiding another), untrained characters can't even attempt knowledge skills with DC above 10, etc.

The ease of adding additional trained skills is also relevant. In PF2, you get 9 skill increases (or 19, if a rogue, plus you can get more via feats and boosting tertiary or quaternary stats is unavoidable, so the cost of +2 INT as you level for an additional trained skill is low). While you will often be using the skill boosts to boost proficiency level on key skills, you have the option to have a lot of trained skills (going from +0 to +(level+2)).

HeraldOfExius

2019-12-02, 11:14 AM

Starfinder uses a mix of scaling and flat DCs just like P1 and 3.5 do. There are still instances where dabbling in a skill can yield positive results, but a party-based game rewarding specialization is understandable too.

The DCs in PF1 that scaled which I can remember off the top of my head are any opposed checks (scales with opponents' bonuses), knowledge about creatures (scales with CR), spellcraft and some UMD (scales with spell/caster level), acrobatics (scales with opponents' CMD or how far/high you want to jump). The scaling is almost always a result of taking on stronger opponents. The spellcraft and UMD scaling is probably the closest to Starfinder's ship DC scaling in that it pertains to using better stuff (to take on stronger opponents), but even then it doesn't make using things you already had harder just because you upgraded something else (as is the case with Starfinder ships). Some characters just want to have a +10 bonus to UMD to take 10 with wands outside of combat, not a +30 to reliably use 9th level scrolls in combat.

Psyren

2019-12-02, 11:36 AM

The DCs in PF1 that scaled which I can remember off the top of my head are any opposed checks (scales with opponents' bonuses), knowledge about creatures (scales with CR), spellcraft and some UMD (scales with spell/caster level), acrobatics (scales with opponents' CMD or how far/high you want to jump). The scaling is almost always a result of taking on stronger opponents. The spellcraft and UMD scaling is probably the closest to Starfinder's ship DC scaling in that it pertains to using better stuff (to take on stronger opponents), but even then it doesn't make using things you already had harder just because you upgraded something else (as is the case with Starfinder ships). Some characters just want to have a +10 bonus to UMD to take 10 with wands outside of combat, not a +30 to reliably use 9th level scrolls in combat.

Yeah, I know all this :smalltongue: but there are still static DCs too. Movement-related skills like Ride, Fly, Climb and Swim all have static DCs use cases for example - you can drop a few points in each and then use items, traits, and/or taking 10 to make these checks. A few points in Knowledge let you at least roll trained checks - creature DCs may scale, but other topics tend to be flat, if you have extra points and either want to cover a gap or be a backup. In short, there are plenty of skills you don't have to max out.

As for Starfinder, it's consolidated down from 35 skills in PF1 to 20; this was itself a consolidation from 3.5's 40+.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-02, 12:35 PM

Psyren

2019-12-02, 01:37 PM

Yes, and the catch is that far from all enemies have maxed out checks, either. As opposed to 4E/P2, where everything scales equally with the party level; and to 5E, where basically nothing scales. Personally I find that the approach that some things scale, some things don't leads to more variation.

This is a good point too. Not every CR 3 opponent is going to have a +10 Perception mod to counter your +10 Stealth, even the ones that have it as a class skill.

Firechanter

2019-12-02, 05:40 PM

Oh yeah, keep in mind that PF2 doesn't have Take 10. You can buy a feat for _one_ skill that allows you to take 10 - but if you do that you forgo your ability bonus or any other bonuses apart from Proficiency, so its value is in reality a lot less than 10. And I say again: one feat. Per skill. This is ridiculous.

[do note that it was even way worse in the playtest - there it would be a fixed result of 10 for the entire _check_, which meant it was worth about Take 5 at first level and became completely useless by level 4. But still, the final version simply doesn't cut it either.]

stack

2019-12-02, 07:34 PM

Assurance has a use for combat maneuvers against mooks, since you ignore the multiple attack penalty, but yeah, paying for take 10 hurts.

NomGarret

2019-12-02, 10:28 PM

Which just leads to another seemingly needless restriction: why should combat maneuvers suffer the multiple attack penalty? I might occasionally Shove an opponent if it has a 10 point better chance of succeeding than just trying to hit it a third time that round. If both are a long shot I’ll take the damage every time.

Crake

2019-12-02, 10:52 PM

In P1, at level 1, a barbarian is untrained at a skill and has an average attribute (total +0). If he chooses to attempt a DC 15 skill, he has a 5% chance to critically fail, 65% chance to fail and a 30% to succeed. In most circumstances, it is worthwhile for him to at least try.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in p1, there was no critical fail on skills by default. There were some skills where things went extra wrong if you failed by a certain degree (swim and climb being the most obvious ones, where if you failed by 5 or more, you sank/fell), but none of that was tied to your dice roll specifically, only your final result.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-03, 01:35 AM

Which just leads to another seemingly needless restriction: why should combat maneuvers suffer the multiple attack penalty?
A better question may be, why have the multiple attack penalty in the first place? Especially when about one-third of the combat feats are about removing the penalty in highly specific circumstances.

I get that they don't want characters to stand still and "full attack" each round... but then, why not simply forbid that, like in 4E or 5E? The penalty is just a kludge.

Kitsuneymg

2019-12-03, 05:27 AM

Alexvrahr

2019-12-03, 05:30 AM

Assurance is weird. '10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).' means that ability bonuses do not apply and that blows a hole in verisimilitude. No idea why they made it work that way.

A better question may be, why have the multiple attack penalty in the first place? Especially when about one-third of the combat feats are about removing the penalty in highly specific circumstances.

I get that they don't want characters to stand still and "full attack" each round... but then, why not simply forbid that, like in 4E or 5E? The penalty is just a kludge.
It is odd, but it's a development of a kludge in a PF1 book, Pathfinder Unchained. Having found that to more or less work they developed that rather than try something else I guess.

Three actions and a reaction is a simpler and easier to learn system than D&D 3.x/PF1's plethora of action types. In play it does seem to be popular. It's not the worst idea they've had.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-03, 05:37 AM

Three actions and a reaction is a simpler and easier to learn system than D&D 3.x/PF1's plethora of action types. In play it does seem to be popular. It's not the worst idea they've had.
It's a great idea, and clearly simpler than what 4E and 5E are doing.

It's just too bad that many feats arbitrarily cost two or three or zero actions to use; there's no rhyme or reason to that.

Serafina

2019-12-03, 06:20 AM

The multiple attack penalty is a perfect example of legacy code in 2e. 3.5/PF had BAB-Iteratives, and the multi-attack penalty is somewhat reminiscent of that.
But ultimately, if the designers wanted to disincentivize multiple attacks except for people who invest feats into them - well, then they could have just restricted you to one attack action per turn!

What to do with the other actions you have in the three-action system?
Well, move, use the help action, defend yourself better, feint or maybe some other combat maneuvers that don't count as an attack, cast a spell (oh hey something that benefits gishes), the system can offer a lot of options.

And all the martial classes can then offer really good Two-Action Attacks that offer two attacks and a move, or three attacks, or throw in a bonus, or some combination of all of that.
But no, instead they built martial classes around reducing a penalty on something everyone can do.

Crake

2019-12-03, 07:18 AM

UMD. If you failed and rolled a natural 1, you can’t use that item for 24 hours.

Bolded for emphasis. If you don't fail on a 1, you don't still automatically get penalized for rolling badly like you do in pf2.

patchyman

2019-12-03, 08:14 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in p1, there was no critical fail on skills by default. There were some skills where things went extra wrong if you failed by a certain degree (swim and climb being the most obvious ones, where if you failed by 5 or more, you sank/fell), but none of that was tied to your dice roll specifically, only your final result.

I’m not principally a Pathfinder 1 player, but if true: this reinforces my point. In many circumstances, a skill check is worth trying even if you only have a 25% chance of success.

In P2, a 25% chance of success means a 25% chance of a crit fail, so you are better off not even trying.

In my games, I want to encourage players to try things outside of their specialty, not punish them for doing. (Also, past level 5, a player is highly unlikely to succeed on an untrained check, which compounds the issue).

Firechanter

2019-12-03, 09:41 AM

Kurald Galain

2019-12-03, 09:49 AM

I don't know if it's prescribed by the rules what happens on a crit fail. Maybe it just means "not only have you lost time, you also can't try again", whereas a regular fail just means "you lose time but can try again". If you handle it that way, it still never hurts to try. But of course, if crit fails mean "Bad Things Happen", then you are probably better off not risking it.

Bad things happen.

The diplomacy and intimidate skills, for instance, explicitly worsen the target's attitude on a crit-fail.

(edit) Crit-failing any knowledge check, including decipher, identifying magic, and gather info, gives misleading info. Crit-failing medicine or repair deals damage to whom/whatever you're trying to fix. Crit-failing to pick a lock breaks your picks, crit-failing to handle an animal makes it misbehave, and crit-failing a day job gets you fired.

That's actually a good point that these rules discourage people from contributing if they aren't the expert.

EldritchWeaver

2019-12-03, 11:04 AM

Some characters just want to have a +10 bonus to UMD to take 10 with wands outside of combat, not a +30 to reliably use 9th level scrolls in combat.

You can't take 10 for UMD.

Xervous

2019-12-03, 11:05 AM

On a related topic to crit fails are crit successes. One big thing about PF2e that hasn’t been dredged up yet are the degrees of success that spell effects are shackled to. Many of the classic effects of notable 3.5/pf1 spells are gated behind the enemy critically failing their save, and even then at a reduction vs their legacy counterparts. With reduced spell slots you’re looking at casters lobbing fireballs for consistency, rolling unfavorable dice for a slim chance at trading their actions for proportionally more of team monster’s actions, or popping in with a spell here and there while banking their slots for the plot solving spells they still have a monopoly on. Also many of the noteworthy BFC spells have a cute little tag that downgrades the spells degree of success by 1 vs monsters above your level effectively giving them +10 to the save.

While it’s an exaggeration it’s not far off the mark to paint pf2e as a game of “smack it until it stops moving”. 4e had some BFC gems, marks etc. and even still tended to devolve into numeric slogs.

Jack Eisenworth

2019-12-03, 11:37 AM

I completely agree. The class descriptions are full of how you BECOME LEGENDARY!!!1! at anything from attack rolls to saving throws, which in all cases means "you get a +2 bonus".

"Legendary feats" in P2 (i.e. level 15+) include such utter marvels as
getting a cryptic hint from a religious book
earning more money when performing
ignoring class/spell prerequisites when crafting
making someone shaken for two rounds
communicating with someone if you don't share a language

Whooo! Legendary!!! Incredible!!!!!
It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

Psyren

2019-12-03, 11:57 AM

Bad things happen.

The diplomacy and intimidate skills, for instance, explicitly worsen the target's attitude on a crit-fail.

(edit) Crit-failing any knowledge check, including decipher, identifying magic, and gather info, gives misleading info. Crit-failing medicine or repair deals damage to whom/whatever you're trying to fix. Crit-failing to pick a lock breaks your picks, crit-failing to handle an animal makes it misbehave, and crit-failing a day job gets you fired.

That's actually a good point that these rules discourage people from contributing if they aren't the expert.

Agreed - the scaling is a problem, like they took the worst parts of 5e and 3e and mashed them together. I might dislike 5e's bounded accuracy on a conceptual level, but at least it dovetails nicely with autoscaling, because bounded accuracy means untrained folks still have a shot, and trained folks can more readily dispense with rolling altogether. In PF2, not only is the roll more warranted because the ranges are bigger, your shot is correspondingly much smaller, and you can actively be penalized for failing.

On one hand, I can certainly see the realism there - being really bad at medicine does mean you can actively do more harm trying to help than by doing nothing. Breaking your picks if you're bad at lockpicking also makes sense, and while I buy this last one the least, being really uninformed on a topic could in theory mean you believe any urban legend or rumor you hear about it.

On the other hand, I don't know if they stopped to think about how fun these mechanics are to actually play - especially when the chance of such a drastically negative result can get to be so crazy high. I don't think fidelity should be such a primary focus when designing a game that is ultimately escapist, and I think that the d20 distribution might ultimately be at odds with that kind of fidelity anyway.

Troacctid

2019-12-03, 12:32 PM

patchyman

2019-12-03, 12:32 PM

Kurald Galain

2019-12-03, 02:55 PM

My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speedBeing able to climb and swim well is hardly legendary. It's also something that in PF1, you can do at first level (and in P2, with a second-level spell). (edit) Turns out there's a level 2 feat that gives a swim speed in P2, so clearly that's not a level 15 ability.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like BlindnessRemove Blindness is a 5th-level ability, not 15th level. Again, how is that legendary?

literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.Ok, that's pretty legendary, I'll give you that. Still, you can also do that at first level, with Feather Fall.

...looks like you're proving my point for me :smallamused:t

Rynjin

2019-12-03, 03:29 PM

It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

Be real. A.) Are you ever going to get that far? The typical Pathfinder game ends at level 10-12, and Adventure Paths typically end at 15-16 as well. I see no reason PF2 will be any different. B.) What exactly are you using that for which is meant to be a challenge for a 15th level Rogue? People have been able to fly for 10 levels already still, and being able to climb and swim is nice,

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

Neat I guess, but if these are the better options I'm still not impressed. These are low level class abilities in Pathfinder.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

People are used to Pathfinder. So when you're stating things that can already be done in Pathfinder as if they're revolutionary cool options, and they're higher level locked than those same options (and yes the dispelling strikes thing is in Pathfinder; not as bloat, but as a Core Rulebook Rogue Talent) people are going to look at you weird. Most of the "legendary" stuff is neat at best, but typically not very USEFUL, like sneaking through a pinhole (which again is a thing that can be done at level 3 with a simple scroll of Gaseous Form).

PF2 doesn't provide any reason to want to swap to it, is the issue. I would take these options on a character if they were available at a reasonable level in Pathfinder, but they are not going to draw me away from a game which is superior in most ways. They are not "legendary" enough to make me want to swap games.

The game needed to have a lot more killer apps, cool things (UNIQUE things, not just reprints of old abilities) classes can do at every level range, not just the "legendary" levels to make a lot of people want to switch.

Segev

2019-12-03, 03:33 PM

Conceptually, the "class feats" are something Paizo was doing in a LOT of classes in PF1. And DSP's works seem to follow similar patterns.

But each class had a unique list of "class feats," and most were named something different.

Rogue Talents
Investigator Talents
Soulknife Blade Skills
Magus Arcana
Occultist Focus Powers
etc.

But in PF1, especially towards later efforts, there was less fear of these being interesting and useful than there seems to be in PF2. In PF2, all the bonuses are smaller. All the features are broken up between multiple feats. And the chains of feats - from what I'm reading, as I haven't studied this closely enough - seem more rigid if you want anything good out of them. Most of the "talent" type things in PF1 were equally good across the board, and at worst were level-gated. I don't think many were more than one deep in talent prereqs, and few even were that far without being extremely obviously useless without the prereq. Very few prereqs weren't worth taking on their own, too.

I think part of the issue, too, is that these "talent" things that are sort-of like PF2 "class feats" offered more flexibility in internal class design than these "class feats" do. By trying to universalize "class feats" as a concept, PF2 gave up the ability to, for exampe, tie Occultist Focus Powers to Occultist Implements. No, not practically; you really could say "Prerequisite: Occultist level 3, Necromancy Implement" to fit a Class Feat as an Occultist Focus Power. But when PF1 left these as things that were not mandatory for every class, and were just a generalizable build mechanic (which can have different pacing by level, and different implementations and costs, and different presentations where the structure made sense), they felt more natural to shape to the class, rather than to shape the class to accommodate them.

If PF2 had gone further in allowing cross-feat-tree selection, it might have done better. There's a relatively old idea of making feats worth a number of "points," and giving characters, instead of feat slots, "feat points" at various levels to spend. If PF2 had done that, making the lower-ranked feats have lower costs in feat points, and giving MORE feat points at higher levels, characters could either buy the expensive, high-end feat at the next stage of their tree, or buy a couple of feats from lower down in a new tree, "catching up" with their current one. It'd be more akin to how old-school multiclassing worked, where you have lower overall level, but more classes at that level.

PF2's problem seems to be that it tried to go more general, then lock everything down tighter than PF1 had it. It tried to create a structure where you have more choices to make, but then fled from inventing interesting choices and made you choose between things you got all of in PF1. It tried to be very open to freeform design and mix-and-match, and then cowered away from letting those choices be meaningful. Numbers got smaller, feats got broken up, and even with more choices, you have fewer options and less oomph at the end of the design process.

It has some interesting ideas, but seems afraid to exercise them.

GrayDeath

2019-12-03, 04:14 PM

It has some interesting ideas, but seems afraid to exercise them.

This, I think, sums it up perfectly.

Paizo did receive a lot of feedback in the playtests (not just in PF 2 mind!) regarding "you dont need to make it all suck so badly (paraphrasing) out of fear that a nonwizard, noncleric/nonX might actually have cool stuff too"....but alas, it seems they merely wanted to make the game THEY wanted to make. (also see their iron refusal to do anything like Tome of Battle themselves).

I guess as soon as PF2 fails to sell even half as well as PF1 did they MIGHT understand that its usually not the best idea for a game you intend to sell....but well, it might be too late by then.

Shame. PF 1 games were my overall favourite D&D Experience....

Elves

2019-12-03, 04:16 PM

NomGarret

2019-12-03, 04:19 PM

patchyman

2019-12-03, 04:44 PM

I mean, those are cool abilities, but they come online not only later than they do in P1, but at a higher level than they do in just about any similar game. What cool things can I do at levels 1-5, or 5-10? These are the levels most people spend most of their time playing. And a lot of them are neat, but situational. How many of these situational abilities does a character actually have in their toolkit?

In Jack’s defence, the question was about Legendary skills, i.e. skills only available in the final tier of the game.

Martials are pretty cool in the game and have a variety of options. It’s just a shame that it feels like you are fighting for each +1.

Psyren

2019-12-03, 05:46 PM

What were they even trying to do with Pathfinder 2? Was there any reason to make it other than their slowing revenue streams from the previous one? The way it's worked out it seems like they've fractured their brand pretty badly.

If they were going to do a Pathfinder 2, and they wanted it to be a very different system, it needed to be framed as a 5e alternative. Pathfinder was made as a D&D alternative and they should have embraced that -- it actually lends them more legitimacy than most original fantasy RPGs. Otherwise, they should have kept the changes small.

It's painful, but sometimes that's the best way to find out what most people actually want. WotC listened to the online echo chambers that valued balance above all else and we got 4e. Only after it cratered (no offense 4e fans) were they truly able to get the feedback they needed to make 5e, and that proved to be a roaring success. I expect a similar progression with PF2 going into PF3 and SF2, both of which I expect to look a lot more similar to PF1 than P2 currently does, and make better use of digital tools.

Shame. PF 1 games were my overall favourite D&D Experience....

Uh, P1 hasn't gone anywhere and they're even still making material for it, it just won't be hardcover releases. No need to get out the bagpipes yet.

GrayDeath

2019-12-03, 07:28 PM

Uh, P1 hasn't gone anywhere and they're even still making material for it, it just won't be hardcover releases. No need to get out the bagpipes yet.

I know.

Its jsut that I see quite a big potential for Paizo to...shall we say be much less successful, and hence many a product not to come out.

And the only store here hosting Pathfinder has switched to PF exclusively already ...so yeah, less a "oh woe is me" and more a "Oh, woe may be Paizo..." ^^

Elves

2019-12-03, 08:14 PM

It's painful, but sometimes that's the best way to find out what most people actually want. WotC listened to the online echo chambers that valued balance above all else and we got 4e. Only after it cratered (no offense 4e fans) were they truly able to get the feedback they needed to make 5e, and that proved to be a roaring success. I expect a similar progression with PF2 going into PF3 and SF2, both of which I expect to look a lot more similar to PF1 than P2 currently does, and make better use of digital tools.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think 3.5>4th and PF1>PF2 is a good comparison. 4e wasn't an inherently bad move. Its idea was to make things a little more MMOish/video gamey at a time when MMOs were very popular, and to remove the wonky/legacy elements of 3e design. It maybe made things a little too homogenous, should have payed more lip service to brand continuity, and as it turned out the reaction wasn't great. But it had a reason to exist and it was trying to do something.

PF2 has much less of a reason to exist and is a much more foreseeable failure. Possibly it came out of the idea that people played PF because they like character customization, so people would like much more modular character customization. Of course, what people actually liked about it is that it's a way of playing an "improved" version of a game they already like.

Any attempt to develop genuine PF brand loyalty would have to be either about continuing to refine the existing system, or solidifying the game's function as the off-brand "improved" D&D. But trying to use the PF brand to sell a different system that has no connection with what's going on in D&D shows a more basic misunderstanding than 4e did.

Psyren

2019-12-03, 11:11 PM

I know.

Its jsut that I see quite a big potential for Paizo to...shall we say be much less successful, and hence many a product not to come out.

And the only store here hosting Pathfinder has switched to PF exclusively already ...so yeah, less a "oh woe is me" and more a "Oh, woe may be Paizo..." ^^

Eh, Starfinder is still #2 at least - I think they have a cushion to figure things out before they have to start pawning the silverware.

And even if they don't... well, my P1 and 3.5 books aren't going anywhere :smalltongue:

I get what you're saying, but I don't think 3.5>4th and PF1>PF2 is a good comparison. 4e wasn't an inherently bad move. Its idea was to make things a little more MMOish/video gamey at a time when MMOs were very popular, and to remove the wonky/legacy elements of 3e design. It maybe made things a little too homogenous, should have payed more lip service to brand continuity, and as it turned out the reaction wasn't great. But it had a reason to exist and it was trying to do something.

PF2 has much less of a reason to exist and is a much more foreseeable failure. Possibly it came out of the idea that people played PF because they like character customization, so people would like much more modular character customization. Of course, what people actually liked about it is that it's a way of playing an "improved" version of a game they already like.

Any attempt to develop genuine PF brand loyalty would have to be either about continuing to refine the existing system, or solidifying the game's function as the off-brand "improved" D&D. But trying to use the PF brand to sell a different system that has no connection with what's going on in D&D shows a more basic misunderstanding than 4e did.

I wasn't comparing the design goals so much as the impetus. Paizo had some echo chambers/blind spots of its own, one of the more prominent being the PFS audience, and fell into a similar trap of listening to the loudest voices instead of the most numerous. Like WotC, they had no reason until having failed to ever think that they were aimed the wrong way.

Whether they capitalize on this and make a Coke Classic-style comeback remains to be seen, but I think it's doable.

Elves

2019-12-03, 11:35 PM

Like WotC, they had no reason until having failed to ever think that they were aimed the wrong way.

What I'm saying is exactly that a priori 4e was not doomed to failure but a priori PF2 was. PF doesn't have the brand strength to try something like this in the first place.

Psyren

2019-12-03, 11:59 PM

What I'm saying is exactly that a priori 4e was not doomed to failure but a priori PF2 was. PF doesn't have the brand strength to try something like this in the first place.

I don't agree, they're the second most well-known in the market; I think you're underestimating their brand.

Besides, whether we think they could or should have tried this is a moot point - they did try it, and there's nothing we can do now except see what they do next.

Segev

2019-12-04, 01:12 AM

Paizo had some echo chambers/blind spots of its own, one of the more prominent being the PFS audience, and fell into a similar trap of listening to the loudest voices instead of the most numerous. Like WotC, they had no reason until having failed to ever think that they were aimed the wrong way.

I actually hung out around the CharOp boards for WotC when 4e was being planned, so I saw where things were going (and got shouted down a lot when I argued why they were bad ideas), but I have never been on Paizo's boards and I don't hang out around PFS folks much. What were the loud voices there shouting for? I'm not sure if I can judge PF2's success or failure at achieving those stated goals without knowing them, but I am already looking askance at it because I can't divine those goals from what PF2 has done. PF2, like I said, feels like it had some interesting ideas and innovations but wasn't bold enough to really exploit them, and so wound up trying to repurpose it back to being something "more familiar" and erring on the side of minimal power handed out to PCs.

I have a hard time believing that "don't give us cool stuff" and "we want smaller numbers for attacks, but bigger numbers for skills" was the "loud voices" echo chamber, so I'm not sure what it was.

Can anybody offer insight, please?

Kurald Galain

2019-12-04, 01:21 AM

What I'm saying is exactly that a priori 4e was not doomed to failure but a priori PF2 was. PF doesn't have the brand strength to try something like this in the first place.
Why not? It's been the most popular RPG brand in the world for a few years (until 5E took over); that's plenty of strength. From a marketing perspective, it certainly makes sense to build a new product to compete with 5E better.

I actually hung out around the CharOp boards for WotC when 4e was being planned, so I saw where things were going (and got shouted down a lot when I argued why they were bad ideas), but I have never been on Paizo's boards and I don't hang out around PFS folks much. What were the loud voices there shouting for?]
I've been very active in PFS and have never heard voices shouting for this. As near as I can tell, the whole theory that "they did it for PFS" (or "they did it for the APs") is just internet speculation and not based on anything Paizo has said.

Arutema

2019-12-04, 02:19 AM

Uh, P1 hasn't gone anywhere and they're even still making material for it, it just won't be hardcover releases. No need to get out the bagpipes yet.

The upcoming softcover releases for PF1 are simply reprints of earlier hardcovers with no changes or errata. No new first-party mechanics or adventures or even needed updates *cough*Ultimate Wilderness*cough* are coming. It's dead Jim.

Sir Chuckles

2019-12-04, 03:26 AM

It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

Part of my issue with all these abilities are that they are feats and that, even then, you've actually oversold them. You can cure a dozen people of Blindness. (teacher voice)Operative word being can.(/teacher voice) You have to beat the effect's DC and also spend an hour attempting it. And you only get one attempt per day per target.

Even without spells, many of those effects are reproducible at far lower levels. For two class feats from Swashbuckler, you can get Climb and Swim speeds, +5ft of movement, +1 to multiple skills, 2d6 precision damage, +20ft to Jump distance, and a -10 to all Jump DCs.
Again, at fourth level.

If that's not proof positive that Paizo has issues, I dunno what is.

Additionally, I really take issue with the naming scheme of "Legendary". I'm literally Legendary at Medicine but can't do anything with that besides a slightly higher bonus without dedicating another feat to it. Someone tried to explain to me that being Legendary at a skill doesn't mean you're Legendary at all parts of the skill. Being a Legendary Thief doesn't mean you're Legendary at Pickpocketing. You need the feat for that. Which is just...weird to me.

Which really sums up how I feel about PF2. Why is it so needlessly fiddly? Why are there so many complex moving half-parts? Why is every cog the size of a pin needle? It's a wholly unapproachable system to just about any newcomer to TTRPGs and confusing to parse even for us long-time players. Why does it exist? Why does it gate off so many things? Why did it release a boatload of cross-class Dedication Feats so strictly tied to Golarion lore and mechanically awful?

Why?

Crake

2019-12-04, 03:51 AM

As near as I can tell, the whole theory that "they did it for PFS" (or "they did it for the APs") is just internet speculation and not based on anything Paizo has said.

Well, I mean, it's hardly unfounded speculation. You could see how having a very narrow band of expected capabilities would make PFS and APs much easier to design and run.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-04, 03:53 AM

Well, I mean, it's hardly unfounded speculation. You could see how having a very narrow band of expected capabilities would make PFS and APs much easier to design and run.

I have seen zero evidence that there have ever been problems designing and/or running PFS and APs.

Crake

2019-12-04, 04:18 AM

I have seen zero evidence that there have ever been problems designing and/or running PFS and APs.

Just because there haven't been problems, doesn't mean they can't try and make it more streamlined?

Firechanter

2019-12-04, 04:23 AM

For some reason, Paizo is convinced that their Frankenstein flesh golem of a setting that is Golarion is an active selling point and people actually care about it.

Also, I'm reminded of a Tweet someone from Paizo (I think JJ) let off a couple of months ago; can't find it anymore but it was something to the extent of "I don't get why people are giving us flak for PF2, I mean what do they expect, that we go back to PF1? Not happening."

As for why PF2 even exists and what its design goals are -- hard to tell, since Paizo flat out refused to disclose them. I can see why they needed a fresh start because the PF Bloat has become immense, and is now at a point that is probably worse than 3.5's at the end of its production cycle. I had hoped for a PF2 that would be basically a de-bloated PF1, so why did they produce something so very different?
I can imagine two theories, not mutually exclusive:

Concerning PFS, and AP design in general, I think PF2 does make some sense: it is extremely predictable. With PF1, an adventure author has no way of knowing in advance whether a 12th-level character will walk around on his little stubby dwarven legs and do 1d12+3 damage per round at +22 attack bonus with a crossbow, or fly and teleport and dish out >200DPR with attack bonuses >+30. With PF2, they know exactly what capabilities any character will have at any given level. So as adventure designer you know what you can throw at players and how hard it will be for them to overcome these challenges.

Secondly, it might appeal to players who enjoy 5E's low power level and "bounded accuracy" randomness (i.e. a die roll will always mater), but prefer precise rules for every kind of situation rather than 5E's fuzzy "rulings not rules" approach.

Of course, you can't have it all: predictability and meaningful customization are by necessity mutually exclusive. So as they advertise offering plenty of customization, while determined to keep the results predictable, it necessarily means that these choices are, at the end of the day, meaningless.
Might I add that at this point, the entire hyperbolic nomenclature with "Legendary" and "Incredible" and "supreme" etc just feels like mockery.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-04, 04:34 AM

For some reason, Paizo is convinced that their Frankenstein flesh golem of a setting that is Golarion is an active selling point and people actually care about it. And they are entirely correct on this point. Paizo's strength has always been writing stories, not rules. Golarion is very popular, and Paizo adventures are generally miles ahead of what WOTC is publishing.

As for why PF2 even exists and what its design goals are -- hard to tell, since Paizo flat out refused to disclose them.They posted their design goals about a year ago (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgao?Halfway-to-Doomsday). We're well aware what they are. The question is whether the design meets these goals.

With PF1, an adventure author has no way of knowing in advance whether a 12th-level character will walk around on his little stubby dwarven legs and do 1d12+3 damage per round at +22 attack bonus with a crossbow, or fly and teleport and dish out >200DPR with attack bonuses >+30.As I posted above, there is zero indication that this is or has ever been a problem (for actual players, as opposed to forum theory).

Firechanter

2019-12-04, 04:52 AM

First off, thanks for the link, I wasn't aware that they actually did publish this. During playtest last summer, they actively refused to, and then I stopped caring.
That said, well, half of what they list is rather wishy-washy and has little if anything to do with game design. As for the other half, that can be discussed.

Secondly, concerning Golarion, I must only know a different kind of players. Only one of them enjoys delving deep into the fluff, the others simply don't care or actively dislike Golarion. Personally, I think some elements of the world are fine, but on the whole Golarion is not a setting, it's a conglomeration of about one or two dozen settings. They work well when used as intended: isolated from each other. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That makes it difficult to argue that the setting matters at all.

Morty

2019-12-04, 05:23 AM

If PF1 was based on 3.5e, PF2 seems like it's based more on 4e. Aesthetically, its classes are presented almost the exact same way, with pages and pages of class-specific powers sorted by level and everyone using the same basic progression for everything. They cribbed the feat-based multiclassing system and the scaling, proficiency-based skill system from 4e. And everything has tags, and rules are generally tight and unambiguous, etc.

I've only ever built one PF2 character, but honestly, it felt a lot like I was making a 4e character, except instead of choosing from different varieties of cool and impactful combat powers each level, I was choosing from different varieties of marginal numerical bonuses. To put it another way, in 3.5e terms, PF2 is the fighter to 4e's warblade.

It does rather look like they took some 4E design elements, but the wrong ones. And focused on the form rather than the function. So they use 4E-style formatting and language for abilities that firmly avoid 4E's actual selling points, such as cool and impactful martial powers or per-encounter abilities in general. They even made barbarian rage and monk's stunning fist into at-will randomized abilities. And, of course, everything is feats.

This is despite having Path of War and Spheres of Might to draw on - or even their own stamina points. Maybe their customer data indicated most players don't want anything of the sort. Which wouldn't surprise me, particularly given 5E's success. Heavily downplaying resources other than per-rest ones might be an attempt to distance PF2E from 5E, I suppose.

I would experience a profound sense of schadenfreude if Paizo were to crash and burn over this, but I likewise don't think they will. Their first attempt at making their own mechanics instead of cribbing someone else's popular ones isn't very inspiring, though.

Albions_Angel

2019-12-04, 06:39 AM

Firechanter

2019-12-04, 06:51 AM

Morty

2019-12-04, 06:57 AM

What do you mean by "randomized" in terms of class abilities? Rage gives some piddly fixed bonuses (and a penalty).
"+2 damage, -1 AC" certainly doesn't feel like "frothing at the mouth, unstoppable berserker juggernaut" to me, anyway.

Hm, it seems I was working off an older version of the ability from the playtest. They've simplified it a lot since then. But my point is that even the iconic and traditional "impressive but limited" non-spell abilities were reworked into something you can do at will. With effects scaled down appropriately.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-04, 07:09 AM

But my point is that even the iconic and traditional "impressive but limited" non-spell abilities were reworked into something you can do at will. With effects scaled down appropriately.
It's not really that they increased the frequency and decreased the potency.

Rage in P1 was already effectively unlimited, because the limit is so high that in practice you'll never run out (except at level 1 maybe). So it didn't need the nerf it got (from +2 hit and damage in P1, to +0 to hit / +2 to damage in P2).

Monk stunning fist in P1 has a daily limit, but in P2 it is instead limited to once per round and cannot be used in conjunction with other effects (like Power Attack). That's a lateral move, not a real increase. So this, too, didn't need the nerf it got (in P1 you lose a turn, drop your weapon, and take a defense penalty; in P2 you lose one action with no further drawbacks).

So yeah, both are weaker, and I don't see a good reason for that. It's not like those abilities were overpowered in P1.

GrayDeath

2019-12-04, 10:50 AM

They posted their design goals about a year ago (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgao?Halfway-to-Doomsday). We're well aware what they are. The question is whether the design meets these goals.

Wasnt aware they finally did that, but, well. Except for point 4 (which they did hit spot on, if not in a way I personally like) and point 5 which, if one is open to fiddly semimodular games instead of something like say Fate, or SW or whatever, they kinda hit, their points are a lot of hot air (or Politician talk if you prefer).
Writing little, saying nothing of factual value.

Sigh....

Morty

2019-12-04, 12:51 PM

It's not really that they increased the frequency and decreased the potency.

Rage in P1 was already effectively unlimited, because the limit is so high that in practice you'll never run out (except at level 1 maybe). So it didn't need the nerf it got (from +2 hit and damage in P1, to +0 to hit / +2 to damage in P2).

Monk stunning fist in P1 has a daily limit, but in P2 it is instead limited to once per round and cannot be used in conjunction with other effects (like Power Attack). That's a lateral move, not a real increase. So this, too, didn't need the nerf it got (in P1 you lose a turn, drop your weapon, and take a defense penalty; in P2 you lose one action with no further drawbacks).

So yeah, both are weaker, and I don't see a good reason for that. It's not like those abilities were overpowered in P1.

Stunning fist is also an incapacitation effect, making it that much harder to land on enemies of a higher level than yours. So yes, it's hard to argue with that.

Crake

2019-12-04, 01:53 PM

I do wonder if we are all expecting the wrong thing from PF2 as PF1 and 3.5e players. Thats not so say I think PF2 gets it right, I think it might be more miss than hit this time. But...

Ok, so lets set some things out.

3.5e and other d20 products are... complicated. Lets not drag up the complex/complicated argument, lets just say theres a lot of rules, and a lot of maths, and that can be intimidating for new groups. Sure, there are balance issues but at most tables, they dont matter. Most tables wont have the wizard taking all the right spells, or even good spells.

4e is also complicated, but in a different way. Its a different kind of roleplaying game. I dont know a whole heap about it, only that 3.5e players tend to dislike it.

Then there is 5e. 5e is 3.5e and 2e and bits of 4e, but really, really easy to access. Its CRAZY successful. It has done more to pull in NEW players than any other edition. Period. Its shallow but thats its strength. I hate it, but millions of others LOVE it for that exact reason.

Now lets take a sample group, that I think is fairly representative of PF2s target audience.

My girlfriends gaming group started with 4th. They liked it but found it clunky. When 5e came out, they took to it like a duck to water. They have played nothing else since its release. And you know what, they are starting to get bored. Even with UA, they have just about covered every possible combination, and are growing frustrated with certain aspects. But my attempts to get them into 3.5e or PF1 have fallen flat. There is just too much there. Too much to learn all at once, when I am the only one that knows it in a group of 8.

But the two main DMs in that group have been reading PF2. And they like it. A lot. Its got the ease of 5e, with more options to play with, and elements of 4e that they liked. There are obvious paths for feat chains, but the ability to break out of them if you need, something you cant do with 5e (archetypes lock you in HARD). Multiclassing is easier. You can focus on becoming a better fighter OR a better Orc, or BOTH. And they dont have to trudge through hundreds of spat books to do it.

Now, I think when they try it, it will become obvious that its not all it says it is, but thats actually not the point. Its the RIGHT DIRECTION for them. I think this will backfire for the devs, but its literally what a lot of 5e players are looking for, now they have cut their teeth on the "easy mode".

I wonder if the popularity of 5th is really because of it's simplicity, or simply because of the growing streaming culture that let people actually watch a gaming session and see how fun it actually is? Not to mention the much bigger effort that went into marketing for 5e compared to previous editions. I wonder if 3.5 had been released during the same time, with the same marketing behind it, whether it might also have been just as popular?

As an aside, I don't think 5e's "simplicity" is really such a huge part of it's success, and really, is it THAT simple as people make it out to be? And is 3.5 really THAT complicated? Or does it merely have so much source material that people FEEL like it's more complicated than it really is? I've had this discussion on a few occasions with my friends, and I've actually come to the realization that 3.5 isn't actually that complicated if you don't want it to be. The base mechanics are all rather straightforward, and really, almost identical to 5e in many ways, the only thing is that there's more numbers to keep track of, you have BAB, base saves, and skill ranks, instead of one universal proficiency modifier, but those only really come into question at level up, and the rest of the time, it's all just neatly on your character sheet.

But the difference is that 3.5 CAN be complicated, and I've definitely seen a culture that ENCOURAGES making complicated characters, and trying to eek out every little bonus, and I think that has always been 3.5's appeal. Not that it is complicated, but rather that it's as complicated that as you want it to be.

Wasnt aware they finally did that, but, well. Except for point 4 (which they did hit spot on, if not in a way I personally like) and point 5 which, if one is open to fiddly semimodular games instead of something like say Fate, or SW or whatever, they kinda hit, their points are a lot of hot air (or Politician talk if you prefer).
Writing little, saying nothing of factual value.

Sigh....

It's almost like... they didn't actually state their true design goals? Hmm, wonder why that might be? Surely they didn't do it to have something to point to for the people who were getting angry about them not revealing their design goals, right?

Psyren

2019-12-04, 01:54 PM

For some reason, Paizo is convinced that their Frankenstein flesh golem of a setting that is Golarion is an active selling point and people actually care about it.

I assure you, a great many people do care about Golarion. Firechanter might not, but that's not a viable data point to make setting decisions around.

They work well when used as intended: isolated from each other. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That makes it difficult to argue that the setting matters at all.

And this is straight-up false; the interplay between nations, powers, and of course divinities is a big part of what makes Golarion appealing. It's a setting that can accommodate intersectional adventurers just as readily as self-contained ones.

Heavily downplaying resources other than per-rest ones might be an attempt to distance PF2E from 5E, I suppose.

Uh... wouldn't that move them closer to 5e? Everything there is "per-rest."

Now, I think when they try it, it will become obvious that its not all it says it is, but thats actually not the point. Its the RIGHT DIRECTION for them. I think this will backfire for the devs, but its literally what a lot of 5e players are looking for, now they have cut their teeth on the "easy mode".

I think P1 has enough patches, fixes and solid content that P2 could just be a streamlined version of that with the chaff cut out. Take a bunch of the clarifications they've provided in FAQ and books like Ultimate Intrigue/Campaign and make them baseline, along with a bunch of the stuff from Unchained. Design a great experience from levels 1-15 and then make everything past that be a glorious, partially-balanced mess the way it is now. Embrace being the rules-heavy, high-magic, yet still accessible and open-source Android alternative to 5th edition's iOS.

Morty

2019-12-04, 02:12 PM

I wonder if the popularity of 5th is really because of it's simplicity, or simply because of the growing streaming culture that let people actually watch a gaming session and see how fun it actually is? Not to mention the much bigger effort that went into marketing for 5e compared to previous editions. I wonder if 3.5 had been released during the same time, with the same marketing behind it, whether it might also have been just as popular?

As an aside, I don't think 5e's "simplicity" is really such a huge part of it's success, and really, is it THAT simple as people make it out to be? And is 3.5 really THAT complicated? Or does it merely have so much source material that people FEEL like it's more complicated than it really is? I've had this discussion on a few occasions with my friends, and I've actually come to the realization that 3.5 isn't actually that complicated if you don't want it to be. The base mechanics are all rather straightforward, and really, almost identical to 5e in many ways, the only thing is that there's more numbers to keep track of, you have BAB, base saves, and skill ranks, instead of one universal proficiency modifier, but those only really come into question at level up, and the rest of the time, it's all just neatly on your character sheet.

But the difference is that 3.5 CAN be complicated, and I've definitely seen a culture that ENCOURAGES making complicated characters, and trying to eek out every little bonus, and I think that has always been 3.5's appeal. Not that it is complicated, but rather that it's as complicated that as you want it to be.

A lot of it is obviously marketing, but that has always been the case for D&D. And you've actually hit the nail on the head here - 5E isn't just simpler but also appearing simpler. It cuts away a lot of the illusion of complexity 3.5/Pathfinder are wrapped up in and pares things down to basic elements.

Uh... wouldn't that move them closer to 5e? Everything there is "per-rest."

Yes, short rests or long rests. Even with short rests being extended to an hour when compared to 4E's five minute ones, they're still a distinct pacing method. PF2E, as far as I can tell, seems to have either daily or at-will abilities, with some "once per every X minutes" in-between. Those are effectively per-encounter ones, I suppose.

Firechanter

2019-12-04, 05:11 PM

I assure you, a great many people do care about Golarion. Firechanter might not, but that's not a viable data point to make setting decisions around.

As I wrote further down, my sample is "pretty much everyone I ever played or talked about PF with IRL". Most of these people don't care about Golarion at all, and the small remainder who likes to delve into it would be just as happy with any other fleshed-out setting you show them. None of them said anything like "oh, please let's play in Golarion, I like the setting so much", ever.

And this is straight-up false; the interplay between nations, powers, and of course divinities is a big part of what makes Golarion appealing. It's a setting that can accommodate intersectional adventurers just as readily as self-contained ones.

How does that happen? The individual APs focus on one setting. The events may change the setting significantly. (Rulers changing, kingdoms being created or erased, etc.) But the APs do not interact with each other. How one AP ended bears no impact on what happens in the next one, at least for the APs I know (which is, admittedly, less than half so feel free to enlighten me).
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a bad thing. I am not a fan of metaplot-heavy settings that expect you to keep book whether you're currently writing August 3417 or January 3418. I know settings like that and find them rather terrible. But it's not like this is par of the course everywhere.

Alexvrahr

2019-12-04, 06:30 PM

Regarding PF2's failure or otherwise, while general comparable sales figures are hard to come by it's not hard to check on Amazon and see a book's sales rank, then convert that to an approximate current (not total) figure for sales via that channel. By that measure D&D 5e is a monster which has near 20 times PF2's current sales, though a couple months ago it was only 10:1 in 5e's favor. Savage Worlds has about half PF2's current sales on Amazon, Starfinder about a third. Everything else I could think of was lower down the sales ranks.

Psyren

2019-12-04, 07:13 PM

As I wrote further down, my sample is "pretty much everyone I ever played or talked about PF with IRL". Most of these people don't care about Golarion at all, and the small remainder who likes to delve into it would be just as happy with any other fleshed-out setting you show them. None of them said anything like "oh, please let's play in Golarion, I like the setting so much", ever.

The plural of anecdote is not data; "Firechanter and his IRL friends" is not a meaningful data point for setting decisions either, I'm thankful sorry to say.

But the APs do not interact with each other.

In PFS they absolutely do. There is continuity and storylines that roll from one "season" of APs to the next, and the world evolves as a result. This is no different than how other RPGA sanctioned play like Living Greyhawk and Mark of Heroes worked.

If you're just talking about home games - well yeah, of course changing the world is up to each individual GM in that case.

They posted their design goals about a year ago (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sgao?Halfway-to-Doomsday). We're well aware what they are. The question is whether the design meets these goals.

Agreed, they did give a clear (if broad) sense of what they were after. With that said, the issues I have with their list:

1) is a fine goal. I think they missed a big opportunity for accessibility in the form of digital solo play. However simpler P2 might be (I personally don't think it is at all, but I'm biased since I didn't have a lot to learn to pick up P1) one thing that's certain is that it's more complicated than 5e.

2) is far too broad to be a design goal. You can tell Golarion stories using any system that can do swords and magic, from FATE to GURPS, it tells us absolutely nothing about the system itself.

3) is by far the best selling point for a Pathfinder 2 (for me at least), but they didn't have to scrap PF1 to do it. I would have much preferred a 1.5 that uses Unchained mechanics like Stamina, Simplified Spellcasting and Revised Crafting.

4) all you need for this one is a higher opportunity cost to spellcasting, which Simplified Spellcasting would have done. 5e pulled this off extremely well - not only are spell slots and caster powers like wildshape much more limited (but easier to regain during the day), but the Concentration mechanic makes piling on a bunch of buffs to take martial jobs impossible.

5) Like #2, this is not a design goal - simply having a new edition number will encourage new people to try it. At best, it seems to be implying perhaps that PF1 wasn't welcoming to all?

Regarding PF2's failure or otherwise, while general comparable sales figures are hard to come by it's not hard to check on Amazon and see a book's sales rank, then convert that to an approximate current (not total) figure for sales via that channel. By that measure D&D 5e is a monster which has near 20 times PF2's current sales, though a couple months ago it was only 10:1 in 5e's favor. Savage Worlds has about half PF2's current sales on Amazon, Starfinder about a third. Everything else I could think of was lower down the sales ranks.

My usual source is ICv2, but I didn't yet find the post-PF2-launch numbers. Pre-launch, the top two were 5e and Starfinder, while P1 had slipped to 5th place behind Star Wars and... something.

NomGarret

2019-12-04, 08:26 PM

The thing about the goals is they are so broad and subjective, it’s hard to really glean anything useful from them. There’s nothing in there that gives a sense of what the devs thought wasn’t working in P1 that should be improved, only some general areas of strength to build on and areas where there’s always room to improve. Now, maybe one lesson they took from the 4e development process was not to be too open about what you feel doesn’t work, since it’s going to end up being someone’s favorite thing you’ve just trashed, but this approach is not without its own troubles.

Sloanzilla

2019-12-04, 11:37 PM

This is obviously an emotional response, but I guess I just feel like saying "OK, look, I really enjoy playing 3.X. How many different companies do I need to explain that to?"

I wonder if they could have just upped the whole Unchained thing into a 3.9ish ruleset.

Put me down as someone who does care about Golarion and Adventure Paths. It felt zoney at first, but has really evolved into one of my favorite worlds. That said, Midwives to Death did have some issues.

Sir Chuckles

2019-12-05, 01:20 AM

On PF2-5e comparisons:

Although the clearly did make a push to appeal to 5e players, people coming in from 5e have been a large portion of the vocal confusing on the system, at least in other discussion areas. Partly because PF2 does not have bounded accuracy by 5e's meaning of it, where the same goblin from 10 levels ago can still hit and injure you, though is still less of a threat due to new abilities you have. PF2's "bounded accuracy" maintains 3.PF's rising numbers, as evidenced by the way proficiency add your level, but instead creates flat under-the-chassis math. Yes, you have +10 more to hit, but all the enemies also have at least the same to AC.

I've seen some people saying that ease-of-access is comparable, but it's largely not. PF2 is clunky as heck in play. Just as, if not more, clunky than 3.PF. Although the action system should have streamlined things, the things that Paizo did with it, such as the constantly variable action abilities and frequent use of Reactions for key abilities, it tends to clog up a player's turn. Building a character is a bit a of a nightmare even in core only. The way every feat is a line means you're automatically forced to plan like you're playing Path of Exile means choices you make at creation will affect every single choice down the line. Cayden Cailen save you if you open up the dozens of "Prestige Dedications" or your GM enforces feat rarity.

Psyren

2019-12-05, 01:28 AM

I wonder if they could have just upped the whole Unchained thing into a 3.9ish ruleset.

This is more or less what I was hoping PF2 would be. What we got instead was... not that.

If P2 truly craters though (which will take a while - like 4e, they're enjoying a big burst of success as people try the system) maybe they'll revisit this idea.

This is obviously an emotional response, but I guess I just feel like saying "OK, look, I really enjoy playing 3.X. How many different companies do I need to explain that to?"

For all its flaws, 3.x strikes a very solid balance between game and simulation, one I don't think any other edition of D&D has been able to match. Its biggest weaknesses are bloat and fiddly modifier-tracking, both of which 5e did away with, but as technology continues to advance I think those weaknesses will eventually fade and/or morph into strengths.

Lucas Yew

2019-12-05, 02:16 AM

Well, at least PF2 has equal base bonus scaling (full level for everyone) between PCs and NPCs, unlike 4E (half level VS full level) or 5E (HD based VS CR based), which is a big plus for me, a "simulationist" at heart. It's quite satisfying to auto crit on low"er" level mook armies appearing now and then, swiping them away from the face of the world...

Plus that non-magical classes no longer have to sacrifice their attack stat increase (single +1 every 4 levels in PF1, four +2s only becoming +1 from base score 18 every 5 levels in PF2) to do non combat cool things starting right from core is an advancement indeed.

And automatic damage scaling guaranteed only for the weapon users (Greater Weapon Specialization) not the casters (auto scaling moved from damage to DC) is another desirable point for me. It was frankly disgusting to see PF1 casters getting freebie damage scaling for every single lower level spell slots while martials struggling with full attack movement restrictions to juice out their own level appropriate damage scaling.
Although still outsourcing quite a chunk of damage in magic weapons is disappointing indeed (and those playtesters who won't understand the "internal skill > external equipment" Asian fantasy main ideas too).

Anyway, I think the biggest future selling point for PF2 is that the rules are still (almost) completely OGL compliant (= legally free). As 5E doesn't seem to be willing to expand the SRD (even intra-core, especially the other DMG contents like FIREARMS, Epic Boons, and the sample Aasimar), this is a big boon for players like me.

Firechanter

2019-12-05, 07:19 AM

Yes of course, PF2 does have some good aspects.
OGL and legal online availability of course is a huge plus.

Per character development, more inherent stat increases (and less dependency on magic gear) are a nice touch, although I am not a fan of the slowed progression beyond 18.

-- As a corresponding downside, the ability generation process is needlessly fiddly, and again simulates a freedom of choice and impact that just isn't there. You have to go through four steps (Race,Background, Class, Individual Boosts) to end up with, say, one out of three feasible arrays. They might just as well have printed these arrays and have players pick. There, 3 lines instead of four paragraphs.

Core mechanics: okay this is probably much a matter of taste, as some people love the 3 Action System, but personally I don't like it. Especially that they still didn't get rid of iterative attack penalties.

Another good thing they did was reduce bonus types. Maybe they overshot a little with reduction to just 2 (?) types, but it's definitely a good thing not to have to keep track whether you benefit from X because it's a Morale bonus and you might already have a Morale bonus running from Y; not to mention that often bonus types were unintuitive (why on Oerth is Inspire Courage a Competence bonus and not Morale?), and authors liked pulling completely new bonus types out of their arse when they wanted to make sure their new toy would stack, because the literally 20 types listed in the PRD obv aren't enough.

On the other hand, they didn't do the same for conditions, and I had really hoped for decluttering that list. PF1 had something like - not recounting them now - 36 conditions, and many of them effectively just mean "You get a -2". PF2 has actually one more.

The magic weapons are a bit of both good and bad. The good news is that even Fighters can just make and upgrade their own magic weapon and armour now. I appreciate that. The bad news is that the item dependency is even worse than in 3E. In 3E, when you were separated from your main weapon you could pick up another, and attack with fewer bonuses, but could still do your full attack. In PF2, Full Attacks have been replaced by extra damage dice tied to the weapon, so if you pick up a different sidearm you lose these, too. Would have been so easy to make the extra damage dice a function of the class, not the weapon. Aside the fact that bundling the damage into fewer attacks increases swinginess, as everything hinges on fewer rolls. I can see how fewer rolls would speed up gameplay, but personally I prefer consistency.

To sum up, my biggest beefs with PF2 are:
- Meaningless and impact-less phantom choices, dictated by the tight math, especially bitter as they are coupled with hyperbolic terminology that feels like a mockery of the player
- The tight math itself, that makes level King and everything outside your immediate level range pointless, one way or other
- Also for the same reasons, the immensely reduced power level compared to 3E
- The fact they didn't clean up the plethora of conditions.

Kraynic

2019-12-05, 12:47 PM

Yes of course, PF2 does have some good aspects.
Another good thing they did was reduce bonus types. Maybe they overshot a little with reduction to just 2 (?) types, but it's definitely a good thing not to have to keep track whether you benefit from X because it's a Morale bonus and you might already have a Morale bonus running from Y; not to mention that often bonus types were unintuitive (why on Oerth is Inspire Courage a Competence bonus and not Morale?), and authors liked pulling completely new bonus types out of their arse when they wanted to make sure their new toy would stack, because the literally 20 types listed in the PRD obv aren't enough.

Speaking as someone playing a bard in a long running PF1 game, Inspire Courage is a competence bonus to weapon attacks and damage so that the primary combat buff benefit of having you in the party for your first 4 or 5 levels of play can't be replaced by a 1st level cleric spell (bless) that has superior duration scaling.

The Glyphstone

2019-12-05, 12:56 PM

Speaking as someone playing a bard in a long running PF1 game, Inspire Courage is a competence bonus to weapon attacks and damage so that the primary combat buff benefit of having you in the party for your first 4 or 5 levels of play can't be replaced by a 1st level cleric spell (bless) that has superior duration scaling.

That does just compound the problem, or at least pass the buck though. Bless should be a Sacred/Profane bonus, not a Morale bonus, and Inspire Courage should be a Morale bonus, not a Competence bonus.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-05, 01:03 PM

That does just compound the problem, or at least pass the buck though. Bless should be a Sacred/Profane bonus, not a Morale bonus, and Inspire Courage should be a Morale bonus, not a Competence bonus.

Fair. Also, there shouldn't be a bonus typed sacred-except-if-your-deity-is-evil-then-profane-except-if-you're-neutral-you-can-make-them-stack-even-though-they're-contradictory.

Psyren

2019-12-05, 01:28 PM

I agree there are far too many in P1, which of course had to bring all the ones over from 3.5 and even added a couple more.

Here's the full list of bonus types from P1:

alchemical
armor
base attack
circumstance
competence
deflection
dodge
enhancement
inherent
insight
luck
morale
natural armor (which is both a bonus type, and an attribute that can be boosted by other bonuses!)
profane
racial
resistance
sacred
shield
size
trait

It's bonkers. I would definitely remove at least half of these in P2. We don't need both luck and circumstance for example, and "proficiency" can replace base attack, trait, and competence. Inherent and Resistance don't need to be bonus types at all, and sacred/profane/insight can be folded into "divine."

Firechanter

2019-12-05, 01:32 PM

Eggsacly.
Sacred/Profane should simply be a Divine bonus.
And Divine Favour should also give that, not a Luck bonus (although I'm the first to admit I took Fate's Favoured exactly for that).
Well, it goes on like that. It's really tricky to find a reasonable cut off point what should and shouldn't be a bonus type.

Crake

2019-12-05, 01:35 PM

Psyren

2019-12-05, 01:51 PM

Imagine if they'd just called it a "divine" bonus. Uhh, I mean, what firechanter said.

*dejectedly kicks can on dirt road*

Crake

2019-12-05, 02:25 PM

*dejectedly kicks can on dirt road*

Uhh.. I mean.. Uhh... what everyone before me apparently beat me to.

Segev

2019-12-05, 02:34 PM

Fair. Also, there shouldn't be a bonus typed sacred-except-if-your-deity-is-evil-then-profane-except-if-you're-neutral-you-can-make-them-stack-even-though-they're-contradictory.

Heck, you could keep both "sacred" and "profane" as subtypes to the "divine" bonus type. They'd be used more to register with detect evil/good and to interact with other such things.

Alternatively, they could be defined such that you can't benefit from any sort of "antithetical" bonus to one you're already enjoying. Because it is funny that, right now, per the RAW, you could have a +2 Sacred Bonus to hit and a +2 Profane Bonus to hit, and they'd stack. :smallbiggrin:

Elves

2019-12-05, 02:39 PM

Beyond that, the only compressibility I can see is racial and inherent, and possibly resistance and enhancement. It doesn't seem too bloated.

Psyren

2019-12-05, 04:48 PM

Beyond that, the only compressibility I can see is racial and inherent, and possibly resistance and enhancement. It doesn't seem too bloated.

By "that" do you mean just p+s = divine, or all the other consolidations I mentioned?

And I have more too - "Natural Armor" is only needed if you have some form of touch AC, which 5e has proven you don't actually need. Without that you can just make a creature's base AC be something other than 10. Similarly without touch AC, you don't need both deflection and shield.

zlefin

2019-12-05, 05:10 PM

NigelWalmsley

2019-12-05, 08:06 PM

Beyond that, the only compressibility I can see is racial and inherent, and possibly resistance and enhancement. It doesn't seem too bloated.

Why do you need the bonus types at all? Just declare either "all bonuses stack" or "all bonuses overlap" (maybe "all bonuses except level and stat overlap"), then balance things around that. Having a giant list of compatible bonuses is just like the second option except it rewards people who have nothing better to do than memorize rulebooks, and makes "our intern looked up a new synonym for 'better'" into a source of balance problems.

Elves

2019-12-06, 12:10 AM

Personally, it seems to me like it'd be pretty easy (time consuming, but easy) to make a 3.9-ish ruleset. So I'd say they certainly could have if that's what they had chosen to do.

The problem for PF is, they became popular thanks to backlash against WOTC, so what do they do now that the GP is happy with WOTC? The answer is, essentially, just what they were doing -- providing a more complex/"bloated" alternative to 5e. The right thing to do would have been 3.9, probably based heavily on their Unchained line and the Spheres systems. Streamlined, sure.

By "that" do you mean just p+s = divine, or all the other consolidations I mentioned?

And I have more too - "Natural Armor" is only needed if you have some form of touch AC, which 5e has proven you don't actually need. Without that you can just make a creature's base AC be something other than 10. Similarly without touch AC, you don't need both deflection and shield.
I skimmed and didn't see you were talking about what you wanted from PF2. In a new system, sure, simplify or get rid of bonus stacking altogether.

A luck bonus makes sense. Extraordinary luck is a fantasy trope. Rolling insight into divine doesn't make sense. Combining competence and base attack could, though since skill tools provide competence that means either a new tool bonus type or rolling tools into...enhancement?

PoeticallyPsyco

2019-12-06, 12:19 AM

Heck, you could keep both "sacred" and "profane" as subtypes to the "divine" bonus type. They'd be used more to register with detect evil/good and to interact with other such things.

It seems like almost every single person who looked at "profane" and "sacred" immediately went "why not a single bonus called 'divine'?" :smallbiggrin:

Easily amused poster, away!

Morty

2019-12-06, 04:50 AM

The problem for PF is, they became popular thanks to backlash against WOTC, so what do they do now that the GP is happy with WOTC? The answer is, essentially, just what they were doing -- providing a more complex/"bloated" alternative to 5e. The right thing to do would have been 3.9, probably based heavily on their Unchained line and the Spheres systems. Streamlined, sure.

Implementing the Spheres system instead of spell-casting would make the 4E edition wars look tame, I'm pretty sure. Not sure about Spheres of Might; there's a lot of resistance to a dedicated martial subsystem but SoM is careful and subdued in similar ways to PF2E - only better in several ways. Some Unchained ideas seem to have made it to PF2E, like the actions and skill feats, but they're poorly handled.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-06, 05:53 AM

Implementing the Spheres system instead of spell-casting would make the 4E edition wars look tame, I'm pretty sure. Not sure about Spheres of Might; there's a lot of resistance to a dedicated martial subsystem but SoM is careful and subdued in similar ways to PF2E - only better in several ways. Some Unchained ideas seem to have made it to PF2E, like the actions and skill feats, but they're poorly handled.
I see a lot of similarity between P1's skill feats ("unlocks") and P2's skills.

Like, earlier in this thread there was someone who found it amazing, awe-inspiring, and downright epic that his character could get a climb speed at level fifteen? P1's skill unlocks do the exact same thing: they give cool abilities, but at a much later level than these abilities are normally available. Like, getting a climb speed at level one isn't all that hard.

Climbing trees real well doesn't make you Cuchulainn yet.

Psyren

2019-12-06, 01:20 PM

A luck bonus makes sense. Extraordinary luck is a fantasy trope.

Not denying that but I don't think it needs to be tracked as its own bonus type; Luck can either be viewed as a favorable circumstance, or just made untyped since luck can modify any roll in existence and be both good or bad.

Rolling insight into divine doesn't make sense.

Perhaps but it doesn't need to be its own either. Insight bonuses come from effects that provide information or improve your faculties; I went with divine because of the "divination" connotation moreso than the godly one, but I'd be open to folding it somewhere else like enhancement or combining it with competence. Just so long as it doesn't stay on its own.

Why do you need the bonus types at all? Just declare either "all bonuses stack" or "all bonuses overlap" (maybe "all bonuses except level and stat overlap"), then balance things around that. Having a giant list of compatible bonuses is just like the second option except it rewards people who have nothing better to do than memorize rulebooks, and makes "our intern looked up a new synonym for 'better'" into a source of balance problems.

I don't think eliminating all bonus types is good either. The purpose of bonus types is to allow for granular situations, which in turn creates mechanical depth. For example, if you're wearing a shield and someone knocks the shield out of your hand, but you use your now-free-hand to drink a speed potion that helps you dodge incoming arrows instead of blocking them, and the whole time you're playing a race with thicker-than-average skin and wearing studded leather, bonus types help you to mechanically describe what exactly happens to your chance to be hit.

Mastery of a system involves optimally capitalizing on that depth - i.e. identifying which bonuses stack, and stacking as many of those bonuses as possible. I think that is a fun activity that not only do a lot of 3.x players enjoy, but that can be enjoyed by lots of RPG players, and more importantly creates a clear distinction between PF and 5e.

The main issue is that 20 different bonus types is way too many. If we could cut that in half or even down to a quarter it would be ideal.

Morty

2019-12-06, 05:18 PM

I see a lot of similarity between P1's skill feats ("unlocks") and P2's skills.

Like, earlier in this thread there was someone who found it amazing, awe-inspiring, and downright epic that his character could get a climb speed at level fifteen? P1's skill unlocks do the exact same thing: they give cool abilities, but at a much later level than these abilities are normally available. Like, getting a climb speed at level one isn't all that hard.

Climbing trees real well doesn't make you Cuchulainn yet.

I'm not very familiar with the PF1E skill unlocks, really. I looked at them when people were speculating that they might turn up in PF2E. But there is a sense of over-cautiousness to the PF2E skill feats, undoubtedly.

Kane0

2019-12-07, 04:22 PM

Alexvrahr

2019-12-07, 08:40 PM

The evidence from D&D 4e is that 3 bonus types is too few, even if it makes the math easy you get the situations where things that feel like they should work together just don't. Honestly, the failure to learn from others mistakes is the most disappointing part of PF2. PF1's 20 is too many, but somewhere between those two numbers there is a better balance.

Firechanter

2019-12-07, 09:03 PM

In theory, full agreement that something like 10 bonus types would be a good middle ground. In practice, it turns out to be pretty difficult deciding which bonus types have to go or which should be amalgamated. We all agree Sacred/Profane should just be Divine, but after that the difficulties start.

It would probably help a lot if for starters bonus types were _assigned_ less haphazardly. If the logic which source gives which type was more stringent, there wouldn't be as much strain.

Crake

2019-12-07, 09:43 PM

Personally, I think there's no issue with having a lot of bonus types. Bonus types indicate the impetus behind a bonus or penalty, and explain why they don't stack (insight bonuses for example, grant you supernatural understanding of the situation, knowing something twice doesn't help you). To that end, I believe there should be as many bonus types as necessary to describe the source of these bonuses, and I honestly see no real issue with even expanding the list of bonus types. If you instead try to pigeon hole bonuses into a limited list, you're going to run into circumstances where bonuses wouldn't really fit into any category, and thus must be placed in one or another where it doesn't really belong.

The only issue becomes when bonus types are being changed for the purposes of balance, and thus they're no longer intuitive, for example, when pathfinder made the decision to change inspire courage from 3.5's morale bonus to a competence bonus instead, because it didn't stack with other buffs. When you start doing that is when it becomes no longer immediately apparent when two buffs shouldn't logically stack, and that's when issues arise.

Kane0

2019-12-07, 11:54 PM

Rule of threes? Three types that stack, three that dont?

Kurald Galain

2019-12-08, 05:31 AM

Rule of threes? Three types that stack, three that dont?
I'd think that would end up confusing people. Like, it took me literally years to notice that racial bonuses stack for whatever reason.

In my opinion, five or six bonus types total, and all of them don't stack with themselves, and no untyped bonuses. Same for damage, really; imho P1 and 4E have too many damage types, and I don't like the concept of "untyped" damage either.

Kane0

2019-12-08, 10:16 PM

I'd think that would end up confusing people. Like, it took me literally years to notice that racial bonuses stack for whatever reason.

In my opinion, five or six bonus types total, and all of them don't stack with themselves, and no untyped bonuses. Same for damage, really; imho P1 and 4E have too many damage types, and I don't like the concept of "untyped" damage either.

Are we talking bonuses for attacks, checks, AC or a combination of them? Some (like dodge and deflection) don't really translate.

Acid, Cold, Crushing, Fire, Electrical, Negative Energy, Piercing, Positive Energy, Psychic, Slashing, Sonic? Plus maybe poison depending on how you want to handle that.

Morty

2019-12-09, 04:18 AM

I don't think the three physical damage types have ever been useful for anything, so cutting them down to just physical removes two very nicely.

Crake

2019-12-09, 04:23 AM

I don't think the three physical damage types have ever been useful for anything, so cutting them down to just physical removes two very nicely.

There's plenty of DRs that are based on the kind of physical damage you deal? Also, oozes only split if you use slashing or piercing, so you can bludgeon them to death.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-09, 04:43 AM

Acid, Cold, Crushing, Fire, Electrical, Negative Energy, Piercing, Positive Energy, Psychic, Slashing, Sonic? Plus maybe poison depending on how you want to handle that.
One game I've seen does it with just four (blunt, sharp, energy, psychic). I'd consider either combining acid+fire+cold+elec+sonic to just "energy"; or combine negative+cold, positive+lightning, acid+fire, and crushing+sonic.

The tactical implication of having few elements is that you end up picking your equipment and buffs accordingly, whereas the implication of having many elements is to just specialize in one in particular and it ends up working more often than not. This is similar to how the 3E ranger's Favored Enemy doesn't really work, because there are WAY too many different enemy types; if there were just four or five, you'd know that it applies like 20% of all battles, and that's relevant. I've found that in 4E, elemental resistance doesn't really affect your tactics all that much - if an enemy has e.g. fire resistance 10 and you're a fire specialist, then your fire spells at -10 still deal more damage than (e.g.) your cold spells; so except in the rare case of immunity, you just do what you always do. And I prefer more diversity than that.

Firechanter

2019-12-09, 05:50 AM

Morty

2019-12-09, 05:52 AM

There's plenty of DRs that are based on the kind of physical damage you deal? Also, oozes only split if you use slashing or piercing, so you can bludgeon them to death.

There's not really "plenty". It's the same collection of monsters in every edition - skeletons, oozes, Rakshasa for whatever reason. Moreover, nothing particularly valuable is lost if we get rid of it. It's mostly just D&D's inconsistently applied realism. "Do less damage unless you switch weapons" doesn't make for interesting tactical choices.

Boci

2019-12-09, 06:06 AM

There's not really "plenty". It's the same collection of monsters in every edition - skeletons, oozes, Rakshasa for whatever reason.

My understanding is rakashasa have it because they were one of the first non-Western mythological creature to feature in D&D, and so they tried to give it an obscure defense to make it seem more exotic.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-09, 06:16 AM

There's not really "plenty". It's the same collection of monsters in every edition - skeletons, oozes, Rakshasa for whatever reason.
D&D Raskshasa are not so much based on mythology, but on one particular film that Gygax happened to like. In that film, the rakshasa is defeated by a blessed crossbow bolt; hence, defeating it requires a good and piercing weapon, and it gets immunity (in earlier editions) or resistance (in 3E) to most other things.

And yeah, that's baggage. Nobody likes "gotcha" monsters.

Boci

2019-12-09, 06:21 AM

Nobody likes "gotcha" monsters.

I know this is just a turn of phrase, but their are over 6 billion people in the world and I gurantee you some people do like "gotcha" monsters. And I do have a place in my heart for them myself. If the group doesn't like gotcha monsters than the DM shouldn't use them, but I think there's room in a monster manual for 1 or 2 of them.

Morty

2019-12-09, 06:23 AM

D&D Raskshasa are not so much based on mythology, but on one particular film that Gygax happened to like. In that film, the rakshasa is defeated by a blessed crossbow bolt; hence, defeating it requires a good and piercing weapon, and it gets immunity (in earlier editions) or resistance (in 3E) to most other things.

And yeah, that's baggage. Nobody likes "gotcha" monsters.

I should know that many elements of D&D that persist to this day are based on something Gygax thought was a good idea 40+ years ago, but I still manage to be surprised.

Crake

2019-12-09, 06:28 AM

Specific physical resistance like DR5/Slashing is relatively rare. Zombies, Skeletons, and special cases like Oozes, okay. For about 99% of enemies it's just baggage, though.

Also, I don't think 5 or 6 energy types are too much. I like that for instance demons, devils and angels all have different weaknesses.

This does not compare to the, what, 37 or so creature types that dilute Favoured Enemy.

Uhh, pretty much every plant creature has DR/slashing, clay golems have bludgeoning, also, any creature that uses swallow whole, only slashing and pieceing can actually escape the gizzard. Oh, and of course swarms take half damage from slashing and piercing, but full damage from blugeoning, unless they're small enough to be immune to weapon damage altogether.

So yeah, I'd say having a delineation between different kinds of physical damage is worth keeping. Honestly, is it even an issue having different damage types? Unless there's a specifically outlined interaction, which would be immediately apparent, the damage type is irrelevant, but trying to pigeon hole things into groups of damage types makes those interactions that SHOULD exist, far more difficult to implement. Like, if fireball deals energy damage, how does that interact with say, a red dragon vs a white dragon? Are they both immune to energy damage? Are they both vulnerable to energy damage? Or what?

There's not really "plenty". It's the same collection of monsters in every edition - skeletons, oozes, Rakshasa for whatever reason. Moreover, nothing particularly valuable is lost if we get rid of it. It's mostly just D&D's inconsistently applied realism. "Do less damage unless you switch weapons" doesn't make for interesting tactical choices.

You say nothing in particular is lost if you get rid of it, but what do you think is gained from getting rid of it? What, simplicity? Not really? More like dumbing down, which I would say is a bad thing.

D&D Raskshasa are not so much based on mythology, but on one particular film that Gygax happened to like. In that film, the rakshasa is defeated by a blessed crossbow bolt; hence, defeating it requires a good and piercing weapon, and it gets immunity (in earlier editions) or resistance (in 3E) to most other things.

And yeah, that's baggage. Nobody likes "gotcha" monsters.

I mean, to be fair, it wasn't that the rakshasa was dealt normal damage by a blessed crossbow bolt, it was that it was slain immediately by a blessed crossbow bolt. To combat that insane weakness, it was given immunity to all but 9th level spells, and DR20/+3 (which I mean, in the grand scheme of things that was 3.0, is really not that much). 3.5 changed it to really high SR, and DR/good and piercing, to basically make the creature less vulnerable to blessed crossbow bolts, but also just less difficult to defeat by other means.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-09, 06:39 AM

Honestly, is it even an issue having different damage types? Unless there's a specifically outlined interaction, which would be immediately apparent, the damage type is irrelevant, but trying to pigeon hole things into groups of damage types makes those interactions that SHOULD exist, far more difficult to implement. Like, if fireball deals energy damage, how does that interact with say, a red dragon vs a white dragon? Are they both immune to energy damage? Are they both vulnerable to energy damage? Or what?

Well, it depends on whether your system allows you to pick from fire / cold / lightning, or from fire / cold / lightning / acid / poison / radiant / negative / positive / gravity / force.

There surely are players who can keep track of, and prepare for, the latter. But with too much granularity, many players will just lose focus.

Crake

2019-12-09, 06:42 AM

Well, it depends on whether your system allows you to pick from fire / cold / lightning, or from fire / cold / lightning / acid / poison / radiant / negative / positive / gravity / force.

There surely are players who can keep track of, and prepare for, the latter. But with too much granularity, many players will just lose focus.

Why is it necessary that players keep track of it in the first place? As I said, unless a specific interaction comes up, the damage type is irrelevant anyway, and when an interaction does arise, whether it was one out of 3 different damage types or one of 20, does it really make a difference? All you're doing is homogenising if you're putting it all under one blanket type, you're not making anything easier or better.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-09, 07:19 AM

Why is it necessary that players keep track of it in the first place? As I said, unless a specific interaction comes up, the damage type is irrelevant anyway, and when an interaction does arise, whether it was one out of 3 different damage types or one of 20, does it really make a difference?

Yes, because there surely are players who can keep track of, and prepare for, twenty options. But with too much granularity, many players will just lose focus.

Morty

2019-12-09, 07:20 AM

You say nothing in particular is lost if you get rid of it, but what do you think is gained from getting rid of it? What, simplicity? Not really? More like dumbing down, which I would say is a bad thing.

If you don't want to call it simplicity, call it elegance and cleaning up. Physical damage types don't come up often and don't provide interesting gameplay when they do. An axe-wielding warrior will just switch to a hammer when facing skeletons and proceed do the same thing they were going to do. If they know what they're facing in advance, they don't even need to waste an action. On higher levels it becomes inconvenient because they either have multiple magic weapons or using an appropriate damage type costs them effectiveness - but that's not something we want either.

Damage types aren't real complexity or good complexity, they're an illusion of complexity because they make weapons look different when they're really not. Are you suggesting we leave it in because it looks nice on a page?

Crake

2019-12-09, 08:00 AM

Yes, because there surely are players who can keep track of, and prepare for, twenty options. But with too much granularity, many players will just lose focus.

If they're preparing, they should be preparing for the task ahead of them, so again, whether it's one out of 3 or one out of 20, it wouldn't matter, they're preparing against the one. If they're trying to get a blanket immunity to everything, then that's a different issue.

If you don't want to call it simplicity, call it elegance and cleaning up. Physical damage types don't come up often and don't provide interesting gameplay when they do. An axe-wielding warrior will just switch to a hammer when facing skeletons and proceed do the same thing they were going to do. If they know what they're facing in advance, they don't even need to waste an action. On higher levels it becomes inconvenient because they either have multiple magic weapons or using an appropriate damage type costs them effectiveness - but that's not something we want either.

Damage types aren't real complexity or good complexity, they're an illusion of complexity because they make weapons look different when they're really not. Are you suggesting we leave it in because it looks nice on a page?

Maybe they don't come up often in your games, but they certainly come up often enough in my games. And swapping to a different weapon can be a meaningful change if you're specialized in that kind of weapon. Take an gunslinger for example, for enemies weak to slashing, they have to decide between just trying to power through the DR, or swap out and try something else. In the case of say, a plant monster with DR/slashing, that gunslinger may instead get some alchemical fire, and use that for the fight.

Sure, if you're just playing ubercharger warriors who deal hundreds of damage, and casters who solve scenarios with a handful of spells, these minor distinctions seem trivial, but when you play a more grounded and gritty sort of game like my table tends to do, those minor differences are actually far more meaningful than you make them out to be.

As an aside, if you just have "physical" damage, then how do you handle say, a treant who's resistant to all but slashing damage? I mean, even 5e has differentiation between piercing, slashing and bludgeoning.

Morty

2019-12-09, 01:26 PM

Maybe they don't come up often in your games, but they certainly come up often enough in my games.

We can swap anectodes all day long, but the number of monsters where it's relevant just isn't that high.

And swapping to a different weapon can be a meaningful change if you're specialized in that kind of weapon. Take an gunslinger for example, for enemies weak to slashing, they have to decide between just trying to power through the DR, or swap out and try something else. In the case of say, a plant monster with DR/slashing, that gunslinger may instead get some alchemical fire, and use that for the fight.

I'm glad you brought it up, because damage types do disproportionately affect ranged characters, who are hard-pressed to use damage other than piercing. And I think gunslingers of all classes hardly need more difficulty in doing their one and only job. Or be forced to deal a whopping 1d6 damage with alchemical fire. Powering through the DR is far more likely, in which case the gunslinger just does less damage against this particular enemy and there's nothing they can do about it.

Sure, if you're just playing ubercharger warriors who deal hundreds of damage, and casters who solve scenarios with a handful of spells, these minor distinctions seem trivial, but when you play a more grounded and gritty sort of game like my table tends to do, those minor differences are actually far more meaningful than you make them out to be.

I'm not sure where you got those assumptions about what and how I play or how they're relevant.

As an aside, if you just have "physical" damage, then how do you handle say, a treant who's resistant to all but slashing damage? I mean, even 5e has differentiation between piercing, slashing and bludgeoning.

I... wouldn't? That's the whole point. Treants being more vulnerable to slashing damage is some kind of half-baked attempt at realism, since you cut trees down with axes... only chopping a tree down with a woodcutter's axe isn't the same thing as slicing it with a sword's edge. 5E's inclusion of the three types is one of many elements it includes because people expect them, rather than because they serve any real purpose.

Boci

2019-12-09, 02:00 PM

I... wouldn't? That's the whole point. Treants being more vulnerable to slashing damage is some kind of half-baked attempt at realism, since you cut trees down with axes... only chopping a tree down with a woodcutter's axe isn't the same thing as slicing it with a sword's edge. 5E's inclusion of the three types is one of many elements it includes because people expect them, rather than because they serve any real purpose.

5e also removed crit mods from weapons, so without damage types, there's no mechanical difference between a mace and a sword, which seems like a disservice to martials types. Wizard gets a variety elemental damage types to choose from with mechanical implications, whilst fighters get to choose the paint job on their d8 weapon?

Morty

2019-12-09, 02:31 PM

5e also removed crit mods from weapons, so without damage types, there's no mechanical difference between a mace and a sword, which seems like a disservice to martials types. Wizard gets a variety elemental damage types to choose from with mechanical implications, whilst fighters get to choose the paint job on their d8 weapon?

Damage types aren't a meaningful mechanical difference. Not even to the degree critical modifiers are, and critical modifiers aren't terribly impactful to begin with. The actual choice lies in whether you wield a weapon and shield, two weapons, a two-hander or something else - both in 3E and 5E.

stack

2019-12-09, 02:44 PM

In PF2, bite (jaws, fangs, etc.) don't deal B/P/S by default, generally only doing piercing, making specific resistances on the PC side more useful.

Kane0

2019-12-09, 04:51 PM

Physical, mental, spiritual, chemical, thermal? Plus wherever you'd fit lightning in, electromagnetic?

Nobody answered my question though, when talking bonuses are we talking bonuses for attacks, saves, checks, AC or a combination? Bonus types like luck could apply to them all but others like dodge and deflection not so much.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-09, 05:10 PM

Nobody answered my question though, when talking bonuses are we talking bonuses for attacks, saves, checks, AC or a combination? Bonus types like luck could apply to them all but others like dodge and deflection not so much.

I would use only bonuses that can potentially apply to every category. There's no reason why "deflection" couldn't be considered a luck bonus instead, or something like that.

NomGarret

2019-12-09, 05:49 PM

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-09, 07:15 PM

Yeah, the conversation seems to have shifted from discussing bonus types to discussing damage types. I’m not sure where I fall on either track, aside from somewhere in the middle. What is important is that the other game elements match up to wherever you fall in the scale.

If swapping between different damage types is an expectation, then characters should have reasonable backup plans at all levels where you expect this. In my experience, carrying spare weapons for martial characters is only worth it at very low levels. The effectiveness gap grows very quickly between Plan A and Plan B.

That's because damage is strongly tied to weapon not character. I'd think damage type DR would work better in a system where damage is more based on your characters innate ability than in their weapon.

Besides that, there's always the issue of D20 only assuming a very simple use of a weapon when you can do a lot more. A sword can stab and slash but the pommel can also bludgeon. A spear pierces but the shaft makes for a decent quarterstaff and most martial arts recognize this. So even if you can't spear an ooze you can still bonk it with your spear which should be accounted for but isn't.

NomGarret

2019-12-09, 08:36 PM

So maybe a system with a few maneuvers, say Bash, Slash, and Pierce? Individual weapons might have limits or modifiers to how they can be used. A sword can slash or pierce, an arrow can pierce, while an axe can slash or to a lesser extent bash. It gives some design space for maneuver boosting as well as counters. Adding a slight R/P/S mini game of trying to predict which block to throw up would fit into P2’s action system pretty well, actually.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-09, 08:44 PM

That sounds good. You could even key different effects and damage depending ob the maneuver so that a spear could be pierce d8/bleed on crit and bash d6 and a Hanmer could be bash d8/stun on crit. I like the idea of having different types of stances or counters and I think it'd be interesting if players had to, like, set down a card indicating the kind of strike they use while the opponent tries to do the same with their defense card.

Though I do guess this would make the game complex, I think it may be fun to design a game around that.

NomGarret

2019-12-09, 09:01 PM

Ideally, you wouldn’t have to add too much complexity. Even if the defender declares their stance, which for the sake of nominally still speaking in P2 terms would be akin to using the Raise a Shield action, that still puts the attacker in the position of deciding whether to try and break through or take the easier, less potent route.

Crake

2019-12-09, 11:37 PM

We can swap anectodes all day long, but the number of monsters where it's relevant just isn't that high.

Well, the number of monsters with either physical-specific DR, swallow whole, or the split ability isn't a statistically insignificant amount, especially considering that any creature large enough can pick up the snatch and swallow feat. So i'd say "just isn't that high" would be objectively untrue.

I'm glad you brought it up, because damage types do disproportionately affect ranged characters, who are hard-pressed to use damage other than piercing. And I think gunslingers of all classes hardly need more difficulty in doing their one and only job. Or be forced to deal a whopping 1d6 damage with alchemical fire. Powering through the DR is far more likely, in which case the gunslinger just does less damage against this particular enemy and there's nothing they can do about it.

Well, gunslingers specifically actually do both piercing AND blugeoning with their weapons. The pathfinder feat clustered shots also helps overcoming DR in that it makes all of your attacks for each round only get affected by DR once, and the aformentioned alchemist's fire does 2d6 damage per flask that hits, over 2 rounds, and thus likely actually does about on par what a 1d12 musket would do, it's just slightly more expensive. Without clustered shots though, powering through DR may not be an option if it's DR 10 and you only have, say, a rifle that does 1d10.

I'm not sure where you got those assumptions about what and how I play or how they're relevant.

That was the hypothetical "your", not you specifically. I'm saying, if you play at high end optimization where things like DR become basically irrelevant due to the proportionate damage, then yeah, it's basically irrelevant.

I... wouldn't? That's the whole point. Treants being more vulnerable to slashing damage is some kind of half-baked attempt at realism, since you cut trees down with axes... only chopping a tree down with a woodcutter's axe isn't the same thing as slicing it with a sword's edge. 5E's inclusion of the three types is one of many elements it includes because people expect them, rather than because they serve any real purpose.

I dunno about half baked, but I'll tell you what, you take a sword and try to use it to chop at wood, and then take a club and try to beat the wood, and then take a shiv, and try to stab the wood. Then tell me which you think will chop the wood first. I'd say the sword would, pretty much every time. Yes, you're right, the way a sword and an axe function is decently different, but the fact is, chopping at a tree, regardless of what kind of too you're using, is vastly more effective than blugeoning or stabbing it. If you want a game where punching a tree is just as effective as chopping it, sure, go ahead and eliminate those damage types, but not everyone wants a game where everything is so homogenised that what kind of weapon you're using becomes irrelevant. But I mean, next thing you know, you're gonna be advocating for dealing fire damage to fire elementals, or poisoning undead.

That's because damage is strongly tied to weapon not character. I'd think damage type DR would work better in a system where damage is more based on your characters innate ability than in their weapon.

Besides that, there's always the issue of D20 only assuming a very simple use of a weapon when you can do a lot more. A sword can stab and slash but the pommel can also bludgeon. A spear pierces but the shaft makes for a decent quarterstaff and most martial arts recognize this. So even if you can't spear an ooze you can still bonk it with your spear which should be accounted for but isn't.

Some weapons actually do account for various methods of using the weapon. Daggers for example are slashing or piercing, depending on whether you're slicing or stabbing, and for cases like a sword's pommel, that's generally covered by the improvised weapons rules, because a sword's pommel doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as it's bladed edge. Spears are also likewise generally thinner than a quarterstaff, so don't have as much weight behind them to deal the same damage, and the spear's tip does actually impede it's use directly as a quarterstaff, so I'd imagine it would come under the improvised weapon rules as well, though maybe with a reduced penalty.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-10, 05:10 AM

Serafina

2019-12-10, 06:08 AM

Ironically, that's where the super-high mechanical granularity of Pathfinder does it a disservice.
I can't just have "a sword", or a "one-handed sword". It's specifically a "short sword", or a "cutlass", or a "scimitar", or a "long sword", or any number of other options you get for swords.
But not only does this narrow down your weapon choice to one mechanically optimal choice (whatever that may be for your character), but it also obscures how your character actually fights with that weapon!

Because for all the detail in the weapon profiles, nothing in them suggests anything about the complexity with which such weapons are actually used.
A Longsword is apparently just a Slashing weapon, despite it's potential for thrusts and be levered into gaps in armor (piercing damage), or to use it's pommel to hammer opponents with concussive force (bludgeoning damage). Those are inherent parts of how people proficient with a longsword fight with a longsword, and not exotic techniques - they should be neither feats nor exotic proficiencies, but they aren't represented at all on the profile.
The same could be said for a huge number of other weapons.

Now you could solve all that by massively re-working the weapon tables, and keep just as many weapons.
But in my opinion, your first approach should be to massively trim the amount of weapons you have. You are not going to find success in trying to differentiate a dozen types of one-handed swords from one another, or half a dozen types of pole-arms from one another, or the like. If you try, you'll once again put each weapon into too specific a niche at best, or at worst rob it of every feel of how people actually fought with it.

Crake

2019-12-10, 06:30 AM

I really don't think just saying improvised weapon is good enough when using a spear that way is intended in many martial arts styles. If you look into medieval combat guides you can see how they treated every part of the sword as a weapon in itself. Sure, the spear may deal less damage than a true quarterstaff and may not have its crit effect but hitting with its shaft is not improvising but just using the weapon to its fullest. Same with the sword - hitting someone with the pommel is not improvising but using it as intended.

I am aware that different weapons can deal different damage types of damage in D20 but I do think that if different types of damage are to be had then it would be interesting to add more depth to weapons themselves.

Intended use of the weapon or not, using the pommel of the sword is most definitely a more unweildy use of the weapon, and the improvised weapon penalties represent that unwieldyness. As for a spear, it would depend on what kind of spear you're talking about, but generally speaking, they don't carry the same weight, and may be very flexible, to the point where striking someone with it may not even impart any significant force through their armor, hence, again, a penalty to hit.

For weapons that do have multiple styles of use, the choice is there in the damage type, it will say for example "slashing or piercing", or ones that do multiple, like a morning star, say "bludgeoning and piercing". If you feel like certain weapons should have more options, it's not difficult to add, though you'll find that, for example, a longsword is actually quite difficult to strike with a thrust accurately, as it's not weighted and balanced for that kind of attack, which... again, would be represented by a penalty to hit. Thrusting weapons will tend to have their weight closer to the hand, while chopping weapons will have their weight further along the blade to take advantage of inertia, hence why longswords are slashing and shortswords are piercing.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-10, 07:08 AM

Intended use of the weapon or not, using the pommel of the sword is most definitely a more unweildy use of the weapon, and the improvised weapon penalties represent that unwieldyness. As for a spear, it would depend on what kind of spear you're talking about, but generally speaking, they don't carry the same weight, and may be very flexible, to the point where striking someone with it may not even impart any significant force through their armor, hence, again, a penalty to hit.

For weapons that do have multiple styles of use, the choice is there in the damage type, it will say for example "slashing or piercing", or ones that do multiple, like a morning star, say "bludgeoning and piercing". If you feel like certain weapons should have more options, it's not difficult to add, though you'll find that, for example, a longsword is actually quite difficult to strike with a thrust accurately, as it's not weighted and balanced for that kind of attack, which... again, would be represented by a penalty to hit. Thrusting weapons will tend to have their weight closer to the hand, while chopping weapons will have their weight further along the blade to take advantage of inertia, hence why longswords are slashing and shortswords are piercing.

This can be represented by a reduced damage die and no critical hit effects. I'm not arguing that hitting someone with the shaft of a spear or the pommel of a sword is as effective as using a quarterstaff or a mace. I'm arguing that those weapons were often designed with those uses in mind and thus they could (and perhaps should) be represented. You can even break it down even more by having a weapon, say a sword, be "Slashing d8/Piercing (-2) d6/bludgeoning (-4) d4". The numbers between parentheses are a to-hit penalty on that specific use.

By doing this on the weapon and not on a general, catch all term like 'improvised' you can actually make weapon designs relatively different from each other and given how crit rules work on 2E, this makes the choice quite relevant in a lot of cases.

Ironically, that's where the super-high mechanical granularity of Pathfinder does it a disservice.
I can't just have "a sword", or a "one-handed sword". It's specifically a "short sword", or a "cutlass", or a "scimitar", or a "long sword", or any number of other options you get for swords.
But not only does this narrow down your weapon choice to one mechanically optimal choice (whatever that may be for your character), but it also obscures how your character actually fights with that weapon!

Because for all the detail in the weapon profiles, nothing in them suggests anything about the complexity with which such weapons are actually used.
A Longsword is apparently just a Slashing weapon, despite it's potential for thrusts and be levered into gaps in armor (piercing damage), or to use it's pommel to hammer opponents with concussive force (bludgeoning damage). Those are inherent parts of how people proficient with a longsword fight with a longsword, and not exotic techniques - they should be neither feats nor exotic proficiencies, but they aren't represented at all on the profile.
The same could be said for a huge number of other weapons.

Now you could solve all that by massively re-working the weapon tables, and keep just as many weapons.
But in my opinion, your first approach should be to massively trim the amount of weapons you have. You are not going to find success in trying to differentiate a dozen types of one-handed swords from one another, or half a dozen types of pole-arms from one another, or the like. If you try, you'll once again put each weapon into too specific a niche at best, or at worst rob it of every feel of how people actually fought with it.

I think this all comes down to how poorly martial arts are represented in D20. It's all very broad strokes, severely lacking in tactics and improvisation. I can understand why it happens and the value of simplicity but I still feel like if the basic tactics were a bit more advnced then maybe the martial characters could feel like they're not really just standing around doing full attacks all the time.

The special maneuvers - like trip and so on - are interesting, but very hard to fit into play and that's in part because of how hit points work and the fact that just dealing damage is often the most optimal way of fighting. If I were to compare, combat in D20 feels a lot like combat in The Elder Scrolls and I'd argue something closer to Dark Souls or, even better, Nioh, would be more interesting. That is, combat comes down less to who has more DPR and more to who can get a good strike first.

Weapons are the same. You usually just use the biggest hit dice you can find but even that usually only comes down to one or two points of damage from one weapon to another, on average. If weapons had a few more complex properties it'd open more tactical options and then things like different types of damage could be relevant when dealing with creatures.

Sir Chuckles

2019-12-10, 10:44 AM

I've always considered experimenting with a houserule where you could use an unlisted damage type for a step down in dice size if it's a clearly feasible method, stabbing with a longsword, or two steps down if it's explainable but not really feasible, like a butt spike on a battleaxe. It wouldn't make it an improvised weapon, either. I would allow all feats and similar abilities to still apply. I've seen GMs make it an improvised weapon and it make the practice genuinely pointless. The to-hit penalty is one thing, but it usually also means you lose access to relevant feats and is a bit annoying when you might also lose access to enchantments. "You have a +1 Flaming Longsword, not a +1 Flaming Pommel!"

The reason I've never really tried to implement this stuff is that, outside a few specific undead, 3.5, PF, and PF2 don't really have many meaningful enemies with specific DR against them, as others have said. And they become fewer and further between as you level up. MM2-5 enemies, from 3.0, were the major bastion of weird DRs and vulnerabilities to damage types, and even then it was still mostly undead. Blood Hulks were neat.

None of the systems are really purpose-built for that level of granularity and introducing it might be neat, but it's just that: neat. Novelty and potentially annoying.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-10, 10:57 AM

That's one of the problems with PF 2e. It does not evaluate the assumptions made nearly a decade ago. If every monster had some type of resistance them different damag types would be far more relevant since it'd always come up. An skeleton might have good resistance to slashing and piercing while a zombie resists piercing and so on.

Honestly, for a system that's ostensibly all about fighting monsters, D&D/PF always lacked complexity in its monster design.

Psyren

2019-12-10, 01:21 PM

I've always considered experimenting with a houserule where you could use an unlisted damage type for a step down in dice size if it's a clearly feasible method, stabbing with a longsword, or two steps down if it's explainable but not really feasible, like a butt spike on a battleaxe. It wouldn't make it an improvised weapon, either. I would allow all feats and similar abilities to still apply. I've seen GMs make it an improvised weapon and it make the practice genuinely pointless. The to-hit penalty is one thing, but it usually also means you lose access to relevant feats and is a bit annoying when you might also lose access to enchantments. "You have a +1 Flaming Longsword, not a +1 Flaming Pommel!"

In P1 this is simply a feat: Weapon Versatility (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/weapon-versatility-combat/). You need Weapon Focus with the weapon in question, but that allows you to keep the same damage amount, weapon properties, and use your other feats with that weapon as well e.g. Weapon Specialization.

The reason I've never really tried to implement this stuff is that, outside a few specific undead, 3.5, PF, and PF2 don't really have many meaningful enemies with specific DR against them, as others have said. And they become fewer and further between as you level up.

There are use cases for multiple damage types other than DR though. For example, you might not want to slash an ooze, you can't bludgeon your way out of a creature's stomach if you got swallowed, and you might have trouble trying to smash a lock/chest open by piercing it. And while undead are the most common low-level foes with DR, there are others like plants or constructs that you'might run into before too long.

Morty

2019-12-10, 02:09 PM

Well, gunslingers specifically actually do both piercing AND blugeoning with their weapons. The pathfinder feat clustered shots also helps overcoming DR in that it makes all of your attacks for each round only get affected by DR once, and the aformentioned alchemist's fire does 2d6 damage per flask that hits, over 2 rounds, and thus likely actually does about on par what a 1d12 musket would do, it's just slightly more expensive. Without clustered shots though, powering through DR may not be an option if it's DR 10 and you only have, say, a rifle that does 1d10.

If gunslingers can deal bludgeoning damage, then this is only going to become relevant if they encounter an enemy that specifically needs slashing damage. Thus reinforcing the notion that it's either going to be irrelevant or just annoy the gunslinger (or archer) until they encounter something else.

That was the hypothetical "your", not you specifically. I'm saying, if you play at high end optimization where things like DR become basically irrelevant due to the proportionate damage, then yeah, it's basically irrelevant.

As characters become more powerful and deal more damage, specific DR types become less important, yes. I'm not sure how this supports your case, exactly.

I dunno about half baked, but I'll tell you what, you take a sword and try to use it to chop at wood, and then take a club and try to beat the wood, and then take a shiv, and try to stab the wood. Then tell me which you think will chop the wood first. I'd say the sword would, pretty much every time. Yes, you're right, the way a sword and an axe function is decently different, but the fact is, chopping at a tree, regardless of what kind of too you're using, is vastly more effective than blugeoning or stabbing it.

Except you're still not going to chop through wood with a sword, especially when the wood is moving and trying to kill you. At the end of the day, fighting a literal living tree with melee weapons has nothing do with realism, but we accept that this game is not realistic.

And while a club or a shiv may not be effective, I would rather have a huge sledgehammer or log spear against a treant than a slender scimitar - even though damage types would have them as less effective. I've seen wood split under sufficient piercing force. You can make a case for powerful and heavy attacks being better against such an enemy than quick and precise ones... which is something worthwhile for a combat and weapons system to portray. Damage types, not so much.

If you want a game where punching a tree is just as effective as chopping it, sure, go ahead and eliminate those damage types, but not everyone wants a game where everything is so homogenised that what kind of weapon you're using becomes irrelevant.

I am arguing specifically against the three damage types for mundane weapons. Don't extrapolate it to mean something I never said. I do prefer weapons to be varied, damage types just don't accomplish this at all. They're just one of the ways in which edition after edition of D&D conceals the fact that weapons are mostly interchangeable within a given size category.

But I mean, next thing you know, you're gonna be advocating for dealing fire damage to fire elementals, or poisoning undead.

See above. Where did I mention anything about non-physical damage types?

Serafina

2019-12-10, 03:01 PM

If you want a weapon system where you have a meaningful interaction with damage reduction, you could do something like this:
Heavy weapons get to make a combined attack (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/clustered-shots-combat/) where the damage of two attacks is counted together to overcome DR, while Light weapons can't do that but get some other form of bonus.

Generally, my preferred way of doing a Weapon System would be to combine it with the three-action system, and assume that every Attack Action is Special.
The idea would be to give every weapon several tags that indicate what actions it can be used with, and thus enable you to do multiple things. Carrying the right weapon for the right situation would actually become a thing outside of specific damage reductions, and it would demonstrate how weapons are used as martial instruments at the same time.

To demonstrate, let's take the most ubiquitous of weapons, the Spear.
It's classic, most dangerous propery is obviously that it has reach. Thus, we give it the Reach (1D8 P) tag. This tag does multiple things - it means you can make a normal attack at greater range, but it also gives us a Readied Action where we can hold enemies at bay (=make an attack against them, and move away if we hit with it). The tag also conveniently gives us the damage the weapon does, as well as the damage type (Piercing).
Spears can also be used to sweep someones leg, so we include the Trip (1D6 B) tag. This does less damage (and I was tempted to make this 1D4), but it gives you a two-action action to attack and trip an enemy at the same time, as well as access to bludgeoning damage.

Now imagine constructing a Polearm with an added hammerhead or blades instead, like a pollaxe or guandao.
All you'd have to do is add an additional tag to represent each of those abilities. A Hammerhead could be represented with a two-action Sunder-attack (doing both bludgeoning damage and sundering armor), while the blades could be used to disarm.
Now, the nature of polearms shows quite well that sometimes, you either need unique tags or a way to combine tags - after all, both our sunder and our disarm woudl be done at range, no? But that's a solvable problem.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-10, 03:25 PM

I'm inclined to agree with the tags idea. That coupled with a more interesting bestiary where creatures have different resistances to different types of damage or maybe suffer different effects when hit by certain types of damage would lead to some very interesting gameplay.

PoeticallyPsyco

2019-12-11, 01:21 AM

Sir Chuckles

2019-12-11, 05:48 AM

In P1 this is simply a feat: Weapon Versatility (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/weapon-versatility-combat/). You need Weapon Focus with the weapon in question, but that allows you to keep the same damage amount, weapon properties, and use your other feats with that weapon as well e.g. Weapon Specialization.
Yech, I don't like it. Not only does such a feat become a tax were one to make a world where damage type matters more, it has prereqs and costs a Swift action. Just let people do the thing, don't make it frustrating.

There are use cases for multiple damage types other than DR though. For example, you might not want to slash an ooze, you can't bludgeon your way out of a creature's stomach if you got swallowed, and you might have trouble trying to smash a lock/chest open by piercing it. And while undead are the most common low-level foes with DR, there are others like plants or constructs that you'might run into before too long.

When you do 1d12+7 damage, DR 5/Piercing is surmountable. When you do 4d8+37 with rider effects and +10 fire damage you can outright ignore it. If you can't smash a lock with a knife, do it with a rock. Please do not start a but-what-if argument about the availability of rocks.

I think 5e and maybe PF2 could do well to take advantage of it, but the ship has sailed very thoroughly for 3.5e and PF1. Even in the examples you're giving, they don't exactly come up every campaign. Hell, 5e doesn't even have dedicated Swallow rules like that.

I'm all for granularity and support a system for it, but I dunno if 3.5e is that system. The semi-recent The Witcher RPG has an armor-based resistance method, including being able to add upgrades and reinforcements to armor to give it additional Resistances (half damage) as well as armor-as-DR natively. It even has Serafina's Heavy attack idea baked right in. All characters can use two Fast attacks a turn but can choose to instead make a single Heavy attack that does double damage with a small to-hit penalty. It's specifically for opening enemy tin cans. A completely average man only has a 50/50 shot of damaging an enemy wearing the lowest-quality light armor when attacking with a dagger (1d6 vs. DR 3), give that moldy gambeson steel reinforcement, granting resistance to Piercing and +4 DR, and even a Heavy attack can't hurt the target. Even the Spear's 3d6 is reduced to near-nothing, as Resistance is applied first.

Serafina

2019-12-11, 06:32 AM

Yep, that's pretty much the system I would have gone for: a combination of 5E-style flat resistance (halve the damage, applies first), and 3.5 damage reduction, except this time it's mostly universal (so your better magical armor just substracts 10 from all incoming damage).

As a quick math example, let's assume you're not too strong (+2 Strength) and a one-handed weapon does 1D8 damage. The armor you're swinging at gives DR 5, what happens if it has resistance to your weapon, what happens with various versions of a heavy attack?

1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with no resistance gives us 0 to 5 damage
1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with no resistance and a heavy attack that doubles damage gives us 1 to 15 damage
1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with resistance gives us 0 damage in all cases
1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with resistance and a heavy attack that doubles damage gives us 0 to 5 damage
1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with no resistance and a heavy attack that allows ignoring resistance gives us 0 to 5 damage
1D8+2 vs. DR 5 with resistance and a heavy attack that allows ignoring resistance gives us 0 to 5 damage

Obviously, those values can be adjusted by lowering DR, or actually giving our chump here better strength. But the best heavy attack model seems to be "heavy attacks allow ignoring resistance", since it's least swingy. If you want heavy attacks to be interesting, weapon tags and feats add riders to heavy attacks, such as sundering, trip, stun, or the like. At the same time, that shouldn't be overdone since resistance should matter, and players should consider switching to a different weapon to actually get through though armor, or rock-like carapace, or stuff like that.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-11, 06:47 AM

Psyren

2019-12-11, 12:02 PM

Yech, I don't like it. Not only does such a feat become a tax were one to make a world where damage type matters more, it has prereqs and costs a Swift action. Just let people do the thing, don't make it frustrating.

Well first of all, it's only a swift action from levels 1-4 then it becomes a free action, so I don't think the action is an issue in most campaigns.

Second, while there are several taxes I'm happy to remove, this isn't one of them. Learning how to not just use a sword in an unintuitive way, but keep all your other bonuses and magical properties while doing so, feels like a special technique to me and therefore worthy of a feat. I might expand its application to all weapons in a weapon group instead of just one however. (Fighters can do this more or less for free via Advanced Weapon Training anyway.)

When you do 1d12+7 damage, DR 5/Piercing is surmountable. When you do 4d8+37 with rider effects and +10 fire damage you can outright ignore it. If you can't smash a lock with a knife, do it with a rock. Please do not start a but-what-if argument about the availability of rocks.

Sure, rocks are quite available, but so are steel and even adamantine locks (for rich folks, who usually have the locks you want to bypass the most). DR isn't actually the problem here - Hardness is, plus object resistances that apply before hardness is even factored in.

I think 5e and maybe PF2 could do well to take advantage of it, but the ship has sailed very thoroughly for 3.5e and PF1. Even in the examples you're giving, they don't exactly come up every campaign. Hell, 5e doesn't even have dedicated Swallow rules like that.

5e does have swallow rules actually, they're found in the indiividual statblocks of creatures that can use the ability like Giant Frogs or Krakens. I find them lacking because they boil down to "deal X damage, force creature to vomit" rather than the far more metal option of cutting your way out. But I digress.

Yes, you can certainly reduce or eliminate the use cases I mentioned by changing the rules to remove granularity, I'm not denying that. For me though, that granularity and intuition is what makes 3e and PF appealing. It makes inherent sense to me that a slashing weapon is more useful if you're swallowed than a bludgeoning one, and it makes sense that chopping up slimes results in more slimes. None of these are required for a game to function, but I find it adds valuable texture and am glad that 3.P has them.

Morty

2019-12-11, 03:18 PM

This actually sounds quite a bit like 4E's martial exploits, only tied more to the specific weapon than to the martial class you're in. I think 4E also does a good job of representing the granularity of fighting styles, with 1 'default' attack (melee/ranged basic attack) and 2-3 special maneuvers (your at-will attack powers).

Anyone wanting to homebrew a more granular weapon system could do a lot worse than nicking powers and weapon feats from 4E.

Yeah, despite dropping the three types as far as I remember, 4E gets closest to actually making weapons distinct. Weapon-specific powers are limited to fighters, but everyone can take the feats.

Kane0

2019-12-11, 05:54 PM

Sure, rocks are quite available, but so are steel and even adamantine locks (for rich folks, who usually have the locks you want to bypass the most). DR isn't actually the problem here - Hardness is, plus object resistances that apply before hardness is even factored in.

While we're at it, why have these be separate? Hardness can just be DR, no need for both.

Well first of all, it's only a swift action from levels 1-4 then it becomes a free action, so I don't think the action is an issue in most campaigns.

Second, while there are several taxes I'm happy to remove, this isn't one of them. Learning how to not just use a sword in an unintuitive way, but keep all your other bonuses and magical properties while doing so, feels like a special technique to me and therefore worthy of a feat. I might expand its application to all weapons in a weapon group instead of just one however. (Fighters can do this more or less for free via Advanced Weapon Training anyway.)

I'd be very happy to get rid of the 'master of the longsword, can't use a katana' problem. I can understand gating all the super-special things you can do with some kinds of weapons and not all weapons, but at some point you're splitting hairs and putting an opportunity cost like a feat cost on that kind of thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Crake

2019-12-11, 11:07 PM

Even in the examples you're giving, they don't exactly come up every campaign.

Let's consider this then:

Remove S/B/P
- Will have no impact on the majority of circumstances
- When the time arises, have no rules to handle requiring specific kinds of weapons to do specific things

Keep S/B/P
- Will have no impact on the majority of circumstances
- When the time arises, have rules in place to handle requiring specific kinds of weapons to do specific things

So.... What's the argument for removing S/B/P again? That it, what, simplifies the game? It doesn't, because keeping it or removing it will both have no impact on standard gameplay, but removing it creates a hole in the ruleset, while keeping it does not.

Psyren

2019-12-12, 01:11 AM

While we're at it, why have these be separate? Hardness can just be DR, no need for both.

Well, the biggest difference is that hardness applies to energy damage while DR doesn't. With that said, consolidating down to something like "Hardness 15/adamantine or fire" probably wouldn't be a big deal.

I'd be very happy to get rid of the 'master of the longsword, can't use a katana' problem. I can understand gating all the super-special things you can do with some kinds of weapons and not all weapons, but at some point you're splitting hairs and putting an opportunity cost like a feat cost on that kind of thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

PF got rid of this for the Fighter, but it's certainly something that could be extended to other martial classes.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-12, 04:27 AM

So.... What's the argument for removing S/B/P again?

That there are too many damage types.

Crake

2019-12-12, 04:37 AM

That there are too many damage types.

Three is too many for you?

Firechanter

2019-12-12, 07:05 AM

Ad hoc I count 10, and there probably are more obscure ones.

stack

2019-12-12, 08:11 AM

Damage types that I am aware of: acid, bludgeoning, chaotic, cold, electricity, evil, fire, good, lawful, mental, negative, piercing, poison, positive, slashing, sonic

That makes sixteen. I don't think I missed any.

Edit:
Force, which makes 17.

Breakdown:
Energy Types: Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Force, Negative, Positive, Sonic
Physical: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing
Alignment: Chaotic, Evil, Good, Lawful
Misc: Mental, Poison

Personally, I like having mental and poison as damage types, as they cover things that don't fit well in other areas. Alignment damages only affect opposite alignments, so are useful in cutting down on specific text ("this attack does an additional 1d6 damage against creatures with the Good trait" becomes "+1d6 evil").

My list is for PF2, which is the topic of the thread.

NigelWalmsley

2019-12-12, 08:20 AM

If we mean "anything you can have a resistance or DR against", there's also silver, cold iron, adamantine, and a bunch of more obscure or setting-specific ones. You can also have things that care about the various combinations of adjectives, as well as Vile damage that can't be healed. Flamestrike also has "divine power" damage, but I'm not sure if that ever got any kind of rules interaction to differentiate it from just "damage".

Zombimode

2019-12-12, 08:45 AM

stack

2019-12-12, 08:50 AM

Of the ones I listed, the only one I would personally like to see cut is force. Force never made any sense to me. What is force? It a magical force. What kind of force? FORCE! Its bludgeoning, but MAGIC!

exelsisxax

2019-12-12, 11:37 AM

Still I have yet to see an argument for reducing the number of damage types. "There are too many" is not a convincing point since damage type is irrelevant until it isnt. And when it is relevant it is advantages if you have enough damage types to model the usual fantasy tropes. Just having "Elemental" damage instead of the usual 4 elements or DnDs fire/electricity/cold/acid/sonic would not be enough.

Because alignment damage and force damage are nonsensical concepts that were originally ad-hoc anyway, so removing them can simplify a lot of statblocks without losing any depth at all.

Sir Chuckles

2019-12-12, 11:42 AM

Well first of all, it's only a swift action from levels 1-4 then it becomes a free action, so I don't think the action is an issue in most campaigns.

Second, while there are several taxes I'm happy to remove, this isn't one of them. Learning how to not just use a sword in an unintuitive way, but keep all your other bonuses and magical properties while doing so, feels like a special technique to me and therefore worthy of a feat. I might expand its application to all weapons in a weapon group instead of just one however. (Fighters can do this more or less for free via Advanced Weapon Training anyway.)
Except now you're delving into an awkward "Is it actually unintuitive?" space. Is it really unintuitive to do slashing damage with a shortsword? Or Piercing with a long or greatsword? Halberds do piercing or slashing, but many halberds had a hammer side. Something like the murder stroke with a longsword is something that I'd assume to be apart of basic proficiency, as that is completely normal in swordfighting.

I'd make it a feat to remove the damage penalty from my proposed houserule, not a feat to stab someone with a sword. Especially not if I'm going to make damage reduction more important in the game.

Yes, you can certainly reduce or eliminate the use cases I mentioned by changing the rules to remove granularity, I'm not denying that. For me though, that granularity and intuition is what makes 3e and PF appealing. It makes inherent sense to me that a slashing weapon is more useful if you're swallowed than a bludgeoning one, and it makes sense that chopping up slimes results in more slimes. None of these are required for a game to function, but I find it adds valuable texture and am glad that 3.P has them.

I don't think anyone here is arguing to remove granularity. I think we're, at least I am, saying that the granularity is largely either purposeless or comes up far less often than you tout. I'm not denying that the texture is there, I'm denying the notion that slimes and zombies are gonna be constants in any given campaign. Especially when not all oozes even have the Split ability to begin with. The texture is the anomaly, not the norm.

Crake

2019-12-12, 11:48 AM

Alignment: Chaotic, Evil, Good, Lawful

Can you actually give me examples of alignment damage? Most of the aligned spells I can think of simply do untyped damage that scales differently based on the alignment of the target, and most of the resistances are based on the source of the damage, rather than the damage themself. A holy sword, for example, doesn't do holy damage, it merely does an extra 2d6 slashing damage is against evil creatures, and allows it to bypass DR/good. Likewise, an angel wielding a mace doesn't do holy damage with the mace, but it still bypasses DR/good. In either case though, that extra 2d6 damage would not bypass DR/bludgeoning due to it's alignment nature.

As a side note, not all alignment based spells only affect exclusively the opposite alignment. Holy smite, order's wrath, unholy blight and chaos hammer all deal half damage to neutral creatures for example.

zlefin

2019-12-12, 12:36 PM

Crake

2019-12-12, 12:54 PM

On the question of the necessity of damage types, this classic quote seems relevant:
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

if damage types don't add much to the game, it can be better to remove them simply to avoid clutter. I feel like I should have a way to further elaborate the point, but it's not coming to me (which makes me wonder if that's an instance of the quote itself, it already says all I needed to say succinctly)

I dunno, I think damage types add plenty to the game in the form of facilitating interactions between various abilities. Fire elementals are immune to fire damage, demons are immune to electricity, piercing or slashing damage causes an ooze to split etc.

You could try and get away with removing them and just leaving it up to the DM and players to determine the interactions. For example, you could just say "Fire elementals are immune to attacks based on heat", but without defined descriptors, that becomes open to ambiguity. Is a lightning bolt considered a heat-based attack? Lightning sure does create a lot of heat after all. What about earth elementals? Are they immune to lightning because they're grounded? Or does the heat of the electricity still hurt them? Undead are immune to poisons, if you remove poison damage, how will you determine if an undead is immune to a particular attack? Etc etc.

So I think it's evident that there's value in keeping damage types, the question is what is improved by removing them? As outlined previously "simplifying the game" is not a valid reason when the damage types don't actually impact the game until an interaction is met, so having more damage types doesn't complicate the game in and of themselves, the complications arise from the abilities that interact with the damage types, which presumably would still exist should the damage types be removed (fire elementals would remain immune to fire), but those interactions would become more ambiguous and thus more complicated, so there's an argument to be had that removing damage types from the game would actually make it MORE complicated by making interactions not immediately apparent.

stack

2019-12-12, 01:06 PM

Can you actually give me examples of alignment damage? Most of the aligned spells I can think of simply do untyped damage that scales differently based on the alignment of the target, and most of the resistances are based on the source of the damage, rather than the damage themself. A holy sword, for example, doesn't do holy damage, it merely does an extra 2d6 slashing damage is against evil creatures, and allows it to bypass DR/good. Likewise, an angel wielding a mace doesn't do holy damage with the mace, but it still bypasses DR/good. In either case though, that extra 2d6 damage would not bypass DR/bludgeoning due to it's alignment nature.

As a side note, not all alignment based spells only affect exclusively the opposite alignment. Holy smite, order's wrath, unholy blight and chaos hammer all deal half damage to neutral creatures for example.

As noted in my post (in an edit within a couple minutes of posting it), I was listing PF2 damage types. There, alignment damage shows up starting with a divine cantrip (divine lance (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=84)) and appears in other spells and on many aligned creatures (aeons, celestials, fiends; what would be alignment-associated outsiders in PF1; PF2 does not have outsider as a creature type)

As in 5e, in PF2 all damage is typed. No untyped damage to my knowledge.

Psyren

2019-12-12, 01:24 PM

I'd make it a feat to remove the damage penalty from my proposed houserule, not a feat to stab someone with a sword. Especially not if I'm going to make damage reduction more important in the game.

I'd be fine with that - much like you can natively do nonlethal with any weapon but need a feat to remove the penalty. But I can see the other side too - where you might not need a special technique to bludgeon someone with your sword pommel, but arguing that you get to keep your flaming bonus with it isn't kosher either.

I don't think anyone here is arguing to remove granularity. I think we're, at least I am, saying that the granularity is largely either purposeless or comes up far less often than you tout. I'm not denying that the texture is there, I'm denying the notion that slimes and zombies are gonna be constants in any given campaign. Especially when not all oozes even have the Split ability to begin with. The texture is the anomaly, not the norm.

I don't think texture has to be common/routine in order to be appealing or worthwhile. Sure, splitting oozes might not be the most common foe, but when your fighter goes up against them and encounters the for the first time, I guarantee it will be a memorable fight for him, and that's ultimately the GM's goal - like any good game designer, their job entails crafting engaging and memorable experiences, whether the players continue to gush about it or curse their name from the depths months later.

Morty

2019-12-12, 01:27 PM

I don't think anyone here is arguing to remove granularity. I think we're, at least I am, saying that the granularity is largely either purposeless or comes up far less often than you tout. I'm not denying that the texture is there, I'm denying the notion that slimes and zombies are gonna be constants in any given campaign. Especially when not all oozes even have the Split ability to begin with. The texture is the anomaly, not the norm.

Yeah, this. Arguments about removing granularity or simplifying things are disingenuous. The three physical damage types (I don't know why some people keep bringing up the elemental ones) are simply a poor way of differentiating and detailing weapons. They come up rarely and don't provide an interesting tactical layer when they do - the player will switch weapons or just grit their teeth and deal with it. The former becomes harder on higher levels as magic weapons become a necessity. They're an illusion of realism at best.

Zombimode

2019-12-12, 01:53 PM

On the question of the necessity of damage types, this classic quote seems relevant:
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

I'm very well aware of this quote but it is nothing more then an assertion. What is missing is an explanation for why such an reductionist approach will result in a better game.

And just by looking at successful games out there we can safe deem this approach as not generally applicable for all games.

Take Magic: The Gathering for instance. It is massively successful and it is so for decades now (we are in year 26?). It is one of the most engaging games ever made, able to hold a players interesst for many, many/I] years. Few games can achieve that.
There are about 18000-20000 unique cards, dozens of key word abilities (and each set adds more), hundreds of creatures types, 8 different cards types and many more subtypes.
It is a reductionists [I]nightmare. A reductionist would probably cut like 80% of the game. Do you really need both Fading and Vanishing? Do you really need 10+ +1/+1 counter abilities? Do you really need both Artifacts and Enchantments? And yes, in many cases the subtle differences don't matter - until they do. And removing any of these aspects would do nothing to improve the game (because the instances where the differences don't matter won't change) but would probably result in a less rich game.

Psyren

2019-12-12, 02:34 PM

They come up rarely and don't provide an interesting tactical layer when they do - the player will switch weapons or just grit their teeth and deal with it. The former becomes harder on higher levels as magic weapons become a necessity. They're an illusion of realism at best.

I honestly don't know why you think "grit their teeth and deal with it" doesn't present interesting scenarios of its own. If you're swallowed by something in 3.5/P1 and your only light weapon is bludgeoning for example, "dealing with it" means the rest of the party either having to finish the fight without you, find a way to get you out, or you finding another way out - maybe you roll Escape Artist, or grow claws or something. All of these do have different tactical considerations, and that's just one example.

Elves

2019-12-12, 02:39 PM

Minimalist and maximalist games really are different categories. For most of history the focus has been on minimalist, efficient games like chess where there are a few rules that lead to a lot of combinations. In the modern industrialized world it's much easier than in the past to have a bloated, sprawling game like Magic or D&D. The rules for these games have a lot of coloration and ornamentation, and that's important to what they are. For D&D it's because the fantasy of what's being described is ultimately more important than the rules. For Magic it's because there's a fetishistic element to the game components, unlike in a traditional game like checkers where the pieces are just pieces and are always the same.

So the same criteria of rules elegance/minimalism don't really apply. Making each individual mechanic as concise as it can be is still important, but that's often different from reducing the number of mechanics, which maximalist games have less tolerance for.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-12, 05:07 PM

Take Magic: The Gathering for instance. It is massively successful and it is so for decades now (we are in year 26?). It is one of the most engaging games ever made, able to hold a players interesst for many, [I]many/I] years. Few games can achieve that.
But in the context of every set (core, or any of the expansion trilogies) MtG is very much reductionist.

So it is a good analogy, but in the exact opposite direction than you think.

Seerow

2019-12-12, 11:03 PM

I find it mostly interesting that the three physical damage types are considered too boring to be worth bothering with, but for some reason all of the other magic based damage types are worthwhile.

Do we need to differentiate fire damage vs electric damage? Or even more glaringly, what is the difference between Positive and Good damage? But really, why not just have a catch-all Magic Damage? I mean really how many creatures actually have resistance to a specific element, and who is going to grit their teeth and hit with that element anyway rather than switching to something different but possibly less effective? Bo-ring!

Kurald Galain

2019-12-13, 03:05 AM

I find it mostly interesting that the three physical damage types are considered too boring to be worth bothering with, but for some reason all of the other magic based damage types are worthwhile.
They're really not. If you look back a couple of pages, you'll find the discussion started about removing about half of those.

For instance,

One game I've seen does it with just four (blunt, sharp, energy, psychic). I'd consider either combining acid+fire+cold+elec+sonic to just "energy"; or combine negative+cold, positive+lightning, acid+fire, and crushing+sonic.

Psyren

2019-12-13, 11:02 AM

Kurald Galain

2019-12-13, 11:42 AM

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-13, 12:02 PM

You should have at least as many element damage types as you have elemental and dragon subtypes. If you only have [energy], then a fire elemental or red dragon resisting that [energy] even if it is cold is going to be pretty immersion-breaking.

With that said, I don't see the big deal with having lots of element types though. Pokemon has 18 and even children can grasp that game easily, and that includes some that are unintuitively close to one another like Ice and Water, Ground and Rock, Normal and Fighting or Dark and Ghost. D&D's damage types are much less complex from where I'm sitting.

The true complexity difference between element types and bonus types is that calculations involving the former generally involve 2 at a time (attacker vs defender), while the latter has no practical limit due to stacking.

Thing is, Pokemon is a virtual game. If you look at the card game, they reduced the types by a lot. In a tabletop game it's harder to keep all that in mind. Not only that but there's also the issue of the type relations not being necessarily obvious. In Pokemon, every Water type has the same resistances and weaknesses but in D&D what a monster resists varies a lot from monster to monster.

Note that I'm not defending elimination of damage types (I actually think the different damage types should be way more relevant than they are) but I don't really think Pokemon is a good point of comparison. Type effectiveness is key in Pokemon, so much that learning it is the most basic thing if you have any intent of getting anywhere. Not only that but most creatures can deal different types of damage. In PF, however, damage types can mostly be ignored since they come up only ever so rarely and most characters can't deal special damage types without magic items.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-13, 12:28 PM

Elves

2019-12-13, 12:38 PM

...and that strikes me as a waste of design space. Having fewer conditions would be better for the game.

In that case, spells and effects will be homogenized, so you'll have to cut down on the amount of game content. The point of my post above is that what in traditional game design would be called bloat is, in D&D-type RPGs, an essential condition of the game.

From my POV, energy damage types are a simple and intuitive thing that there's no reason to remove, though making a new "magic damage" type to standardize untyped spell damage would make sense and is often done elsewhere. And once you have the system in place, it doesn't really add complexity to add more types. I think in real gameplay it comes down to making sure each type is distinct because there's confusion potential in similar types -- ice damage vs water damage or shadow damage vs dark damage or w/e.

Crake

2019-12-13, 12:41 PM

Something else that comes to mind... conditions. P2 has rather a lot of them (https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx).
For instance, let's look at fatigue. It does something specific, different from other conditions. However, getting fatigued is actually pretty rare; and mechanically, fatigue doesn't do a whole lot.

This means that (1) if your character is fatigued, you end up doing the exact same thing as if you weren't fatigued; (2) players needn't bother remembering what the condition actually does; and (3) if there is a spell that counters or removes this condition, then that spell isn't worth learning or preparing.

...and that strikes me as a waste of design space. Having fewer conditions would be better for the game.

Damage types at least don't require you to remember anything, but it's still the case that an item/spell/feat that gives resistance to one particular damage type probably isn't worth remembering.

I think the issue with this is that, not only did they make a huge number of conditions, they shoehorned everything into using those conditions. So now, something like ray of enfeeblement won't give you a 1d6 strength penalty, which is immediately obvious what it does, now you instead need to look in the conditions section and see what the "weaken 2" condition does, or whatever the system decides to assign it with. 5e did this as well, and it really annoyed me for the same reasons.

3.5 technically had the same issue as well, it had a fair few conditions of it's own, and sure, sometimes they could be a pain to know exactly what rolls dazzled, shaken and sickened applied to, but most spells and effects didn't shoehorn themselves into using those conditions, and just laid out exactly what they did where you could read them right away, without having to go look up something else to actually resolve the effect.

In that case, spells and effects will be homogenized, so you'll have to cut down on the amount of game content. The point of my post above is that what in traditional game design would be called bloat is, in D&D-type RPGs, an essential condition of the game.

From my POV, energy damage types are a simple and intuitive thing that there's no reason to remove, though making a new "magic damage" type to standardize untyped spell damage would make sense and is often done elsewhere. And once you have the system in place, it doesn't really add complexity to add more types. I think in real gameplay it comes down to making sure each type is distinct because there's confusion potential in similar types -- ice damage vs water damage or shadow damage vs dark damage or w/e.

Spells and effects would only be homogenized if they were forced into using the listed conditions with no capability of simply having their own rules text.

stack

2019-12-13, 12:58 PM

PF2 making a number of the conditions numerical (enfeebled 3, frightened 2, etc.) is an improvement in my view; it makes different severity of penalty easy to apply and stack/reduce.

Crake

2019-12-13, 01:00 PM

PF2 making a number of the conditions numerical (enfeebled 3, frightened 2, etc.) is an improvement in my view; it makes different severity of penalty easy to apply and stack/reduce.

That's certainly one place where I have to give pf2e credit, I'll admit that.

Psyren

2019-12-13, 01:54 PM

Thing is, Pokemon is a virtual game. If you look at the card game, they reduced the types by a lot.

There are the same number in the card game as PF has (11 types, 9 + Dragon and Colorless aka normal) so this reinforces my point that the current number is fine.

The reasoning is not "but damaging types are haaaard", but that they would be more relevant if there were fewer of them, just like how a ranger's favored enemy would be more relevant if there were fewer categories for that.

But there are already fewer damage categories than FE and bonuses have. As above, I think the number of damage types is fine.

Pathfinder has the following:

Physical
Bludgeoning
Piercing
Slashing

Energy
Acid
Cold
Electricity
Fire
Force
Sonic
Positive
Negative

That's a much smaller list, and I honestly wouldn't remove any of them (except maybe Force, see below). Maybe I would rename P/N to Radiant/Necrotic like 5e does, but that's it.

For Force, I would rather it be one of the physical types, but count as both magical and ghost touch. A magic missile does its damage by slamming into you while a blade barrier slices you up, being protected against those damage types should matter.

From my POV, energy damage types are a simple and intuitive thing that there's no reason to remove, though making a new "magic damage" type to standardize untyped spell damage would make sense and is often done elsewhere. And once you have the system in place, it doesn't really add complexity to add more types. I think in real gameplay it comes down to making sure each type is distinct because there's confusion potential in similar types -- ice damage vs water damage or shadow damage vs dark damage or w/e.

This, it's simple and intuitive. 10-11 types is fine.

PairO'Dice Lost

2019-12-13, 01:56 PM

The reasoning is not "but damaging types are haaaard", but that they would be more relevant if there were fewer of them, just like how a ranger's favored enemy would be more relevant if there were fewer categories for that.

Damage types are the opposite of Favored Enemy in this respect, actually. Rangers having fewer FE types is a good thing because you only get a small fixed number of them (generally 1 or 2, since high-level rangers rarely see play) and FE is supposed to be a significant contribution to the ranger's skills and damage, so you want each FE type to apply as broadly as possible. Any time a ranger says "Welp, it's a fire elemental but I'm specialized against water elementals, guess my Favored Enemy is useless again," that's a failure state for FE.

Meanwhile, damage types being fairly narrow is a good thing because the flavor concern is that you don't want people burning fire elementals or shocking lightning quasielementals (if e.g. "hot stuff" is one damage type encompassing fire, lightning, acid, etc.) or fire elementals and red dragons resisting ice spells (if e.g. "energy" is a single type covering both fire and cold) and the mechanical concern is that you want to incentivize switching up damage types to get around DR/resistances/immunities so that people don't just rely on the same handful of spells all the time and enemies can all be defeated with the same tactics. Any time a pyromaniac sorcerer says "Yeah, we're facing salamanders, but my trusty ol' fireball should deal with them just fine, no need to pull out the lightning bolts," that's a failure state for damage types.

Something else that comes to mind... conditions. P2 has rather a lot of them (https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx).
For instance, let's look at fatigue. It does something specific, different from other conditions. However, getting fatigued is actually pretty rare; and mechanically, fatigue doesn't do a whole lot.

This means that (1) if your character is fatigued, you end up doing the exact same thing as if you weren't fatigued; (2) players needn't bother remembering what the condition actually does; and (3) if there is a spell that counters or removes this condition, then that spell isn't worth learning or preparing.

If conditions represent something important flavor-wise but aren't impactful mechanically, that's a reason to tweak the conditions until they matter, not to ditch them and lose granularity.

Or increase their prevalence and/or stackability. For instance, Shaken in 3e doesn't do much, it's just some minor penalties that suck to have but you don't much care about, but (A) it's easy to get Shaken in lots of ways, from Intimidate to spells to fear auras and so forth, and (B) it stacks into Frightened/Panicked/Cowering which you very much do care about.

There are lots of ways to do that (numerical stacking like PF2's conditions or 5e's exhaustion levels, condition trees like 3e's Fatigue/Exhaustion or fear track, etc.) so there's no "this is how it should be done;" rather, the number, severity, variety, and stackability of conditions should be tailored for the effect you want.

...and that strikes me as a waste of design space. Having fewer conditions would be better for the game.

A "condition" is essentially taking a general kind of effect common across multiple abilities and standardizing it. In that respect, having lots of conditions that you can familiarize yourself with over time is much better than having lots of abilities that do very similar but subtly different things that you have to read carefully or look up each time. If you know something imposes the Nauseated condition, you can look up the definition of Nauseated every time, just like you could if "Nauseating Breath" was a specific ability with its own mechanics, but if Nauseated is standard condition then the next time you see it you know what it does, as opposed to a situation in which Nauseating Breath, Nauseating Aura, and Nauseating Gaze all did different things to represent nausea.

Think of it in terms of monster abilities. Flavor-wise a bear and a kraken are nothing alike, but they use the same Low-Light Vision and Improved Grab abilities instead of having their own versions of those abilities. And if I tell you "This tentacle monster has Improved Grab, Constrict, a petrifying gaze, a 30-foot cone of acid breath weapon, and Frightful Presence," then without seeing a full stat block you know (A) that that is probably one ugly sonofagun and (B) exactly what all of those abilities do because they're all standard and could easily run that out of a Monster Manual at a moment's notice if you're familiar with monster abilities in general, whereas if you had to examine in detail how this particular tentacle monster's grab-and-crush-you and turn-you-to-stone-with-a-look and scare-you-when-it-attacks abilities worked you couldn't easily e.g. drop it in as a random encounter and might be tripped up with slight differences between it and similar monsters.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-13, 06:26 PM

There are the same number in the card game as PF has (11 types, 9 + Dragon and Colorless aka normal) so this reinforces my point that the current number is fine.

But those 11 types are essential to the game. Most of the mechanics fundamentally revolve around them so it's fine to have a large number since it's so intrinsic to the game. Different damages types are not so intrinsic to PF which, I'd argue, they should be if they are to be really relevant.

Psyren

2019-12-13, 06:38 PM

But those 11 types are essential to the game. Most of the mechanics fundamentally revolve around them so it's fine to have a large number since it's so intrinsic to the game. Different damages types are not so intrinsic to PF which, I'd argue, they should be if they are to be really relevant.

I'm not clear what you mean by "intrinsic" or "essential." Lots of things in the game could be described as nonessential when you get right down to it. You could abstract every damage type to energy and physical, every source of AC to "defense", all six stats down to two ("mental" and "physical") etc. Just because you can go without a level of granularity doesn't mean doing so is interesting or desirable.

And as mentioned (and compared to the pokemon CCG, which again children don't have a problem intuitively grasping), 11 damage types is reasonable, and I even lowered it to 10 by eliminating Force.

Alexvrahr

2019-12-13, 07:21 PM

Re the number of conditions, I think PF1 has the excuse that they matter. For the most part PF2 conditions are a 1-2 point penalty to some things, or perhaps a 20% miss chance for 1 round, occasionally a cost of 1 of your 3 actions in 1 round (slowed, or standing up).

From a PF2 fan that I occasionally talk to the 1-action cost can matter because many enemies have 3-action abilities which they can't use if you deny them an action one way or another. The others still seem forgettable to me.

Asmotherion

2019-12-13, 07:44 PM

pf2 is to pf what 4e was to 3.5; an entirely diferent game that shares the same name and core concept of medieval fantasy.

Morty

2019-12-13, 08:06 PM

pf2 is to pf what 4e was to 3.5; an entirely diferent game that shares the same name and core concept of medieval fantasy.

Yes, I'm not sure what the designers were thinking when they rewrote the class list, abandoned the concept of levels and replaced feats with point-buy talents.

upho

2019-12-13, 08:42 PM

I knew I could trust you guys to turn yet another thread about PF2 into various less PF2 specific and IMO more interesting game design discussions. On top of that, it seems several posters have rather eloquently expressed the very same primary concerns with PF2 I've mentioned several times in previous threads on the subject, so I don't feel any need to repeat myself (that is: phantom build choices, high complexity with little depth, inflexible tight class boxing, action system ruined by restrictions preventing meaningful tactical choices or any combos the slightest unique, great concepts poorly implemented etc).

Thank you! :smallsmile:

Yeah, this. Arguments about removing granularity or simplifying things are disingenuous. The three physical damage types (I don't know why some people keep bringing up the elemental ones) are simply a poor way of differentiating and detailing weapons. They come up rarely and don't provide an interesting tactical layer when they do - the player will switch weapons or just grit their teeth and deal with it. The former becomes harder on higher levels as magic weapons become a necessity. They're an illusion of realism at best.So much this. Outside of low level PCs switching to/from ranged, melee or splash/similar, I honestly don't remember having seen a PC actually benefit from switching manufactured weapons mid-combat more than a few handful of times in 3.5/PF1 or later editions. And I've more rarely seen situations which made it a sound tactical choice for one or more PCs to do so specifically in order to change physical damage types.

Likewise, I've yet to see a build above 5th level in 3.5 or PF1 who gets anywhere close to reasonable value out of investments made for the specific purpose of improving weapon switches and maintaining prowess and magic abilities with more than one weapon (or one set of weapons wielded together). Not even for the PF fighter is it actually worth the investments to do so IME, despite the fighter having access to tons of related options and far more room for them than any other class has.

To me, this simply screams not only that a large majority of the related PC options are garbage, but more importantly that physical damage types don't have even remotely enough impact to make the related options less garbage. And also that these damage types sorely lack default tactical circumvention/mitigation possibilities to make them interesting challenges, instead of their current rather annoying nature as build dependent and rarely relevant things which are in practice virtually unaffected by actions).

So, if physical damage types don't have enough impact to make related investments worthwhile, they don't offer interesting default tactical methods for the most affected PCs to circumvent them and they aren't even much affected by any actions period, the only reason for them to exist is the little bit of verisimilitude their mechanics add to make a fantasy world feel more real. I personally find that isn't a reason anywhere near strong enough to also compensate for the negative crap they currently come with. Off the top of my head, I believe one could take one of the following three different general approaches to address the issue:
1. Keep them as verisimilitude enhancing rare special combat circumstances Reduce current mechanical impact by at least 50% (say DR halved and limited to max 10, immunity replaced by say DR 20 which is reduced to 10 by a magic weapon, and only 50% chance of other effects like ooze splits), and remove the related build options in all categories besides weapons/spells.

2. Change them into meaningful tactical parameters Give at least say 40% of opponents some related property/quality dependent on the type(s) of physical damage of attacks targeting or hitting. Add a say 10 or more different ways for any attacker to change damage types on the fly, each coming with specific (not build-dependent) requirements and drawbacks, most of them preferably being bab dependent and requiring some degree of teamwork for optimal functionality.

3. Remove them.

I honestly don't know why you think "grit their teeth and deal with it" doesn't present interesting scenarios of its own. If you're swallowed by something in 3.5/P1 and your only light weapon is bludgeoning for example, "dealing with it" means the rest of the party either having to finish the fight without you, find a way to get you out, or you finding another way out - maybe you roll Escape Artist, or grow claws or something. All of these do have different tactical considerations, and that's just one example.First, this isn't a typical example, but something very far from the typical "your attack seem to have little effect on the zombie/skeleton/golem/ooze"-scenario.

Second, considering the extremely low AC the poor tummy of most monsters have (10 + half NA bonus) and the few points of P/S damage needed (10% of total hp), unless perhaps if you happen to be a frail old pointy-hatter who barely knows which end of a dagger goes into the enemy, you'd very rarely be unable to cut yourself out (and if you're not already wielding a suitable weapon you can simply draw your dagger, sickle or in worst case your everyday utility knife, either one will most likely do the job before you die). Or is it actually a common thing that PCs don't manage to cut themselves out in your games? And if so, is that because any PC-gobbling baddies in your games are always of a CR way above guidelines, because your typical party consists largely of unusually yummy frail old pointy-hatters, or something else?

Third, in the far more common "your attack seem to have little effect on the zombie/skeleton/golem/ooze"-scenario, typically no actions or tactics available to the party can change the fact that your weapon's damage type is being resisted. And especially the PCs who rely the most on weapons in combat are also those who have the greatest need to concentrate their investments on one specific weapon (or TWF set), and who have the least access to worthwhile options which allows for mitigating/bypassing the issue effectively enough. In a typical game, at least for this purpose options like Versatile Weapon, stuff making swapping weapons on the fly easier or the many fighter exclusive "use feat(s) with any weapon in group" feats and AWTs are frankly crap for any build (besides perhaps a few with martial flexibility), since you don't benefit from them nearly enough for them to be worth the costs.

Ask yourself for example how often you've seen a PF1 fighter make use of the following commonly found Special feat benefit in order to wield a weapon other than their primary one(s) more effectively: "In addition to the chosen weapon, a character with the weapon training (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/#Weapon_Training_Ex) class feature can use [feat name] with any weapon from any fighter (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter) weapon group that he has selected with weapon training (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/#Weapon_Training_Ex)." At least for the purpose of more easily being able to bypass resistance to a physical damage type, these special lines are IME far from being worth even the space they occupied in the publications including them.

PF2 has pretty much the same basic issues with physical damage types AFAICT.

I find it mostly interesting that the three physical damage types are considered too boring to be worth bothering with, but for some reason all of the other magic based damage types are worthwhile.

Do we need to differentiate fire damage vs electric damage? Or even more glaringly, what is the difference between Positive and Good damage? But really, why not just have a catch-all Magic Damage? I mean really how many creatures actually have resistance to a specific element, and who is going to grit their teeth and hit with that element anyway rather than switching to something different but possibly less effective? Bo-ring!While I agree several of these are indeed just poor design bloat and so rarely occurring they'd never be worth any related resistance mitigation options or similar, at least the four elemental energy types and sonic have very commonly found related stuff with a very noticeable mechanical impact, on top of many interesting worthwhile related options. For example, loads of enemies have meaningfully high resistance or immunity to one or more of these energy types, and there are many options and tactics which allow the PCs most affected by these resistances to mitigate or bypass them, or to otherwise gain unique benefits tied to a specific energy type (such as many metamagic feats and rods, several magic items, many sorcerer bloodline benefits, and even a few great martial ones in PoW, such as Variable Wind and Elemental Focus).

IOW, at least these more common damage types do have all the good mechanical aspects which the physical damage types lack, as I mentioned in my comment above to Morty's post. Not to mention the fact that these damage types also come with some truly iconic flavor very well integrated into both the fluff and crunch of likely thousands of game elements (creatures, planes, spells, classes, feats, magic weapons, etc, etc), on top of playing very significant roles in most settings, so the fluff aspects alone are likely enough of a reason to keep these as separate types.

PF2 making a number of the conditions numerical (enfeebled 3, frightened 2, etc.) is an improvement in my view; it makes different severity of penalty easy to apply and stack/reduce.Yeah, I agree. Definitely preferable to the similar individually named conditions which were actually denoting degrees of severity of one condition (fear, sickened, nauseated etc).

I do however think they're too many in both PF1 and PF2, and believe the effects of many of the rarer ones would've been better presented in each ability/element including them, ditching the scaling (beyond perhaps in some simple generic from affecting all such rare unnamed conditions).

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-13, 08:55 PM

I'm not clear what you mean by "intrinsic" or "essential." Lots of things in the game could be described as nonessential when you get right down to it. You could abstract every damage type to energy and physical, every source of AC to "defense", all six stats down to two ("mental" and "physical") etc. Just because you can go without a level of granularity doesn't mean doing so is interesting or desirable.

And as mentioned (and compared to the pokemon CCG, which again children don't have a problem intuitively grasping), 11 damage types is reasonable, and I even lowered it to 10 by eliminating Force.

Every aspect of Pokemon is built around type effectiveness. It's the central mechanic for the whole franchise, encoded on every creature and every attack. To play pokemon is to basically play a very complex game of rock, papers and scissors. Thus, having eleven or eighteen types is not such a problem since its such a pervasive mechanic, one that is used in every single round of every single game. Every player is meant to have access to multiple elemental types in order for him to adequately play the game and deal with its challenges. The capacity of having this is given both within an specific creature in the video games and in the team composition in the game and TCG. Half of the game in Pokemon is making sure you have adequate coverage and isn't lacking in some important elemental damage.

It's as far from PF as it gets. PF scarcely incentivises this kind of consideration, instead often rewarding specialisation in a narrow category of weapons or elements, which, in other words, means specialisation in a narrow category of damage types. The game doesn't offer many tools for dealing special damage and a lot of that comes from the fact that not that many monster have weaknesses you have to exploit. The elemental damage system in PF is not intrinsic as in the game does not think of it as a core mechanic, unlike saving throws and armor class. Every monster has AC, saves, HP and so on but not all monster (really, just the minority) have damage weaknesses or resistances.

If every creature had some form of weakness and the difference between resistance and weakness was severe, then the game would have to bake in some way for every class to have access to different types of damage. This would change the way classes are thought and characters are built in a very deep way.

PairO'Dice Lost

2019-12-13, 10:21 PM

Likewise, I've yet to see a build above 5th level in 3.5 or PF1 who gets anywhere close to reasonable value out of investments made for the specific purpose of improving weapon switches and maintaining prowess and magic abilities with more than one weapon (or one set of weapons wielded together). Not even for the PF fighter is it actually worth the investments to do so IME, despite the fighter having access to tons of related options and far more room for them than any other class has.

[...]

While I agree several of these are indeed just poor design bloat and so rarely occurring they'd never be worth any related resistance mitigation options or similar, at least the four elemental energy types and sonic have very commonly found related stuff with a very noticeable mechanical impact, on top of many interesting worthwhile related options. For example, loads of enemies have meaningfully high resistance or immunity to one or more of these energy types, and there are many options and tactics which allow the PCs most affected by these resistances to mitigate or bypass them, or to otherwise gain unique benefits tied to a specific energy type (such as many metamagic feats and rods, several magic items, many sorcerer bloodline benefits, and even a few great martial ones in PoW, such as Variable Wind and Elemental Focus).

So basically the issue is not that bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are redundant/boring/etc. in and of themselves, but rather that fighters suck. :smallamused:

Seriously, "the fighter's schtick is over-specializing into one weapon type" and "fighters need magic weapons at mid/high levels and they're so expensive that you can't afford backup weapons" have been recognized problems for martial types for years; if swapping your axe for a spear when facing something with DR 20/piercing is infeasible because (A) all your fighter feats are devoted to axes and you're at -5 attack and -10 damage with a spear and (B) your axe is a +3 wounding holy greataxe of speed and your spear is a plain ol' pointy wooden stick you just forgot to take out of your bag of holding a few levels ago, it's not the slashing and piercing damage types that are at fault.

Similarly, in and of themselves the standard trio of cold, fire, and electricity damage are mechanic-less and boring as heck, and your basic blasting spells are just "Xd6 [type] damage in [area] within [range]" for all of those damage types and others besides. It's the fact that fire spells tend to come with set-targets-on-fire riders while cold spells come with slowing/freezing-in-place riders and electricity spells come with entanglement/stunning riders that makes choosing blasting spells interesting for non-specialists. It's the fact that electricity is resisted less commonly than cold is resisted less commonly than fire, but there are more fire-related metamagics/buffs than there are cold-related metamagics/buffs than there are electricity-related metamagics/buffs that makes deciding to specialize in a given energy type an interesting choice. It's the fact that demons are immune to electricity while devils are immune to fire and you can face fiends at all levels (or even have a whole campaign built around them) and anyone can figure that out with a good enough Knowledge check that makes the X-damage-type-vs.-Y-creature-type calculus interesting.

Late 3e made some vague stabs to ameliorate some of these issues and give some option parity--introducing augment crystals to make backup weapons a teensy bit more feasible, putting some high-level fighter feats in PHB2 that only worked with one of the three weapon damage types, and so on--but it was far too little, far too late; I have no idea where PF stands on that front since I haven't touched PF material in years, but I imagine it's not much better.

So if the problems are that fighters don't bother with backup weapons past a certain level, they don't have anything interesting that keys off weapon damage types, monster DR isn't high or common enough to really matter, and similar, fix those things, don't just tweak some damage types and call it good without actually addressing the underlying issues.

Kurald Galain

2019-12-14, 01:05 AM

If every creature had some form of weakness and the difference between resistance and weakness was severe, then the game would have to bake in some way for every class to have access to different types of damage. This would change the way classes are thought and characters are built in a very deep way.
Personally I would prefer that, yes.

2. Change them into meaningful tactical parameters Give at least say 40% of opponents some related property/quality dependent on the type(s) of physical damage of attacks targeting or hitting. Add a say 10 or more different ways for any attacker to change damage types on the fly, each coming with specific (not build-dependent) requirements and drawbacks, most of them preferably being bab dependent and requiring some degree of teamwork for optimal functionality.

And that, too.

Boci

2019-12-14, 04:26 AM

Yes, I'm not sure what the designers were thinking when they rewrote the class list, abandoned the concept of levels and replaced feats with point-buy talents.

Not sure how that's relevant to a comparison to the change of 4e, which largely had the same classes as 3.5, and kept the concept of levels and didn't have point-buy feats...

Psyren

2019-12-14, 10:11 AM

It's as far from PF as it gets.

I disagree utterly, elements and damage types are an RPG staple and have been for decades. TTRPGs like D&D and Shadowrun are not "far from PF" by any stretch of the imagination, and though you've dismissed CRPGs, they aren't either - even putting Pokemon aside we see elemental types and resistances pop up in Final Fantasy, Diablo, Elder Scrolls and many other foundational examples, not to mention the ones that actually derived from D&D like NWN, Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. These are basic concepts, and Pokemon is not unique by including them, it just happens to be more 1:1 combat focused than all the others, but that has no impact on the utility of elements.

If every creature had some form of weakness and the difference between resistance and weakness was severe, then the game would have to bake in some way for every class to have access to different types of damage. This would change the way classes are thought and characters are built in a very deep way.

Every class DOES have access to different types of damage! Different weapons, different spells, weapons that can do multiple types, magic items, non-spell techniques etc. Pathfinder has added a bevy even before you get to third-party - casterless crafting, styles, alchemy, feats, features, on and on and on.

ThatMoonGuy

2019-12-14, 03:17 PM

I disagree utterly, elements and damage types are an RPG staple and have been for decades. TTRPGs like D&D and Shadowrun are not "far from PF" by any stretch of the imagination, and though you've dismissed CRPGs, they aren't either - even putting Pokemon aside we see elemental types and resistances pop up in Final Fantasy, Diablo, Elder Scrolls and many other foundational examples, not to mention the ones that actually derived from D&D like NWN, Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. These are basic concepts, and Pokemon is not unique by including them, it just happens to be more 1:1 combat focused than all the others, but that has no impact on the utility of elements.

Every class DOES have access to different types of damage! Different weapons, different spells, weapons that can do multiple types, magic items, non-spell techniques etc. Pathfinder has added a bevy even before you get to third-party - casterless crafting, styles, alchemy, feats, features, on and on and on.

Having elemental damage and using elemental damage as your core mechanic isn't exactly the same thing, though. And while every class does get access to different damage types (mainly via items) the fact that this goes against the ideal of specialisation that the game goes for makes that argument rather strange, as far as my experience (and that of many other people if this forum is to be believed in) is concerned.

Morty

2019-12-14, 05:07 PM

So much this. Outside of low level PCs switching to/from ranged, melee or splash/similar, I honestly don't remember having seen a PC actually benefit from switching manufactured weapons mid-combat more than a few handful of times in 3.5/PF1 or later editions. And I've more rarely seen situations which made it a sound tactical choice for one or more PCs to do so specifically in order to change physical damage types.

Likewise, I've yet to see a build above 5th level in 3.5 or PF1 who gets anywhere close to reasonable value out of investments made for the specific purpose of improving weapon switches and maintaining prowess and magic abilities with more than one weapon (or one set of weapons wielded together). Not even for the PF fighter is it actually worth the investments to do so IME, despite the fighter having access to tons of related options and far more room for them than any other class has.

To me, this simply screams not only that a large majority of the related PC options are garbage, but more importantly that physical damage types don't have even remotely enough impact to make the related options less garbage. And also that these damage types sorely lack default tactical circumvention/mitigation possibilities to make them interesting challenges, instead of their current rather annoying nature as build dependent and rarely relevant things which are in practice virtually unaffected by actions).

So, if physical damage types don't have enough impact to make related investments worthwhile, they don't offer interesting default tactical methods for the most affected PCs to circumvent them and they aren't even much affected by any actions period, the only reason for them to exist is the little bit of verisimilitude their mechanics add to make a fantasy world feel more real. I personally find that isn't a reason anywhere near strong enough to also compensate for the negative crap they currently come with. Off the top of my head, I believe one could take one of the following three different general approaches to address the issue:
1. Keep them as verisimilitude enhancing rare special combat circumstances Reduce current mechanical impact by at least 50% (say DR halved and limited to max 10, immunity replaced by say DR 20 which is reduced to 10 by a magic weapon, and only 50% chance of other effects like ooze splits), and remove the related build options in all categories besides weapons/spells.

2. Change them into meaningful tactical parameters Give at least say 40% of opponents some related property/quality dependent on the type(s) of physical damage of attacks targeting or hitting. Add a say 10 or more different ways for any attacker to change damage types on the fly, each coming with specific (not build-dependent) requirements and drawbacks, most of them preferably being bab dependent and requiring some degree of teamwork for optimal functionality.

3. Remove them.

So basically the issue is not that bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are redundant/boring/etc. in and of themselves, but rather that fighters suck. :smallamused:

Seriously, "the fighter's schtick is over-specializing into one weapon type" and "fighters need magic weapons at mid/high levels and they're so expensive that you can't afford backup weapons" have been recognized problems for martial types for years; if swapping your axe for a spear when facing something with DR 20/piercing is infeasible because (A) all your fighter feats are devoted to axes and you're at -5 attack and -10 damage with a spear and (B) your axe is a +3 wounding holy greataxe of speed and your spear is a plain ol' pointy wooden stick you just forgot to take out of your bag of holding a few levels ago, it's not the slashing and piercing damage types that are at fault.

Similarly, in and of themselves the standard trio of cold, fire, and electricity damage are mechanic-less and boring as heck, and your basic blasting spells are just "Xd6 [type] damage in [area] within [range]" for all of those damage types and others besides. It's the fact that fire spells tend to come with set-targets-on-fire riders while cold spells come with slowing/freezing-in-place riders and electricity spells come with entanglement/stunning riders that makes choosing blasting spells interesting for non-specialists. It's the fact that electricity is resisted less commonly than cold is resisted less commonly than fire, but there are more fire-related metamagics/buffs than there are cold-related metamagics/buffs than there are electricity-related metamagics/buffs that makes deciding to specialize in a given energy type an interesting choice. It's the fact that demons are immune to electricity while devils are immune to fire and you can face fiends at all levels (or even have a whole campaign built around them) and anyone can figure that out with a good enough Knowledge check that makes the X-damage-type-vs.-Y-creature-type calculus interesting.

Late 3e made some vague stabs to ameliorate some of these issues and give some option parity--introducing augment crystals to make backup weapons a teensy bit more feasible, putting some high-level fighter feats in PHB2 that only worked with one of the three weapon damage types, and so on--but it was far too little, far too late; I have no idea where PF stands on that front since I haven't touched PF material in years, but I imagine it's not much better.

So if the problems are that fighters don't bother with backup weapons past a certain level, they don't have anything interesting that keys off weapon damage types, monster DR isn't high or common enough to really matter, and similar, fix those things, don't just tweak some damage types and call it good without actually addressing the underlying issues.

I can broadly agree that they need to be made relevant or cut down on. As they have existed in D&D for a while now, there's no point to them - so they need to change or die. I don't have strong opinions or ideas about how to go about the former, though.

I'm still generally sceptical towards the three physical damage types. I feel like such types, keywords or whatever else should come from weapons and martial abilities, so it all flows together. Make it a matter of more than just what you're holding in your hands at the moment.

Psyren

2019-12-14, 05:47 PM

Having elemental damage and using elemental damage as your core mechanic isn't exactly the same thing, though. And while every class does get access to different damage types (mainly via items) the fact that this goes against the ideal of specialisation that the game goes for makes that argument rather strange, as far as my experience (and that of many other people if this forum is to be believed in) is concerned.

I don't see how it goes against specialization at all. Specialization in D&D terms usually means things like a type of weapon, or a school of magic, not a type of damage. You can specialize in weapons or schools that are capable of multiple types of damage. Having multiple damage types doesn't get in the way of that.

And as far as many people agreeing with you, even 5e as simplified as it is kept multiple damage types, including all three of the physical ones, and it's swelled the hobby with more new players than ever.

upho

2019-12-14, 10:58 PM

So basically the issue is not that bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage are redundant/boring/etc. in and of themselves, but rather that fighters suck. :smallamused:Yes and no. The B/P/S damage types are redundant/boring/etc. in and of themselves because they don't have nearly enough meaningful mechanical interactions with the rest of the game, and because their existence is basically only randomly mechanically detrimental to the PCs the most affected by them - not even PF1 fighters have effective and cost-efficient means to counter them.

Note also that while the PF1 fighter doesn't have as great potential as the strongest 1PP martial classes in the game, it most certainly doesn't suck. Nor is the PF1 fighter actually unable to make reasonably cost-efficient use out of more than one weapon or weapon set (see for example the Warrior Spirit AWT (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/Fighter/#Advanced_Weapon_Training)), but - again - it certainly isn't capable of doing so mid-combat for the purpose of dealing with resistance to the physical damage types.

Seriously, "the fighter's schtick is over-specializing into one weapon type" and "fighters need magic weapons at mid/high levels and they're so expensive that you can't afford backup weapons" have been recognized problems for martial types for years;Yes, but you're missing/ignoring that the very reasons for why this is an issue to begin with has little to do with physical damage types, and very much to do with the fighter's dependence on ranged, melee and several different magic weapon abilities etc. And the very fact that this has little do to with the physical damage types does indeed point to the problem with those damage types not having nearly enough meaningful impact and mechanical options tied to them.

Or to put in other words: if "weapon over-specializing" had instead been a major issue first and foremost because it prevented martials from effectively dealing with physical damage resistances, I probably would've found the physical damage types far less problematic. Unfortunately, the existing "weapon over-specializing" issue also further emphasizes the current status of these damage types as nothing more than random annoying "screw you"-effects. And I do indeed also find it less difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief in a game world where these damage types don't exist than I do in the current game world, where not even the game's greatest possible fantasy superheroes whose primary powers are expressed in the form these damage types are able to actually meaningfully interact with them or avoid being screwed by them.

Similarly, in and of themselves the standard trio of cold, fire, and electricity damage are mechanic-less and boring as heck, and your basic blasting spells are just "Xd6 [type] damage in [area] within [range]" for all of those damage types and others besides. It's the fact that fire spells tend to come with set-targets-on-fire riders while cold spells come with slowing/freezing-in-place riders and electricity spells come with entanglement/stunning riders that makes choosing blasting spells interesting for non-specialists. It's the fact that electricity is resisted less commonly than cold is resisted less commonly than fire, but there are more fire-related metamagics/buffs than there are cold-related metamagics/buffs than there are electricity-related metamagics/buffs that makes deciding to specialize in a given energy type an interesting choice. It's the fact that demons are immune to electricity while devils are immune to fire and you can face fiends at all levels (or even have a whole campaign built around them) and anyone can figure that out with a good enough Knowledge check that makes the X-damage-type-vs.-Y-creature-type calculus interesting.Exactly. It's these kinds of related meaningful mechanics and options the physical damage types desperately need.

Late 3e made some vague stabs to ameliorate some of these issues and give some option parity--introducing augment crystals to make backup weapons a teensy bit more feasible, putting some high-level fighter feats in PHB2 that only worked with one of the three weapon damage types, and so on--but it was far too little, far too late; I have no idea where PF stands on that front since I haven't touched PF material in years, but I imagine it's not much better.It's just about as bad in PF1, even though for example backup weapons are more feasible for fighters.

So if the problems are that fighters don't bother with backup weapons past a certain level, they don't have anything interesting that keys off weapon damage types, monster DR isn't high or common enough to really matter, and similar, fix those things, don't just tweak some damage types and call it good without actually addressing the underlying issues.It's just that at least in 3.5 and PF1, addressing the underlying issues is a rather massive undertaking in comparison to simply further reduce the impact of these damage types or remove them. But yeah, both tweaking the current damage types and adding viable interesting ways to interact with them would be preferable also IMO, although I'd prefer to make that a part of a greater weapons and martial combat overhaul, as several other closely related elements are in at least as much need of improvement IMO.

I can broadly agree that they need to be made relevant or cut down on. As they have existed in D&D for a while now, there's no point to them - so they need to change or die. I don't have strong opinions or ideas about how to go about the former, though.Precisely.

I'm still generally sceptical towards the three physical damage types. I feel like such types, keywords or whatever else should come from weapons and martial abilities, so it all flows together. Make it a matter of more than just what you're holding in your hands at the moment.I fully agree, although I do believe there are ways to meaningfully integrate the B/P/S damage types into such a subsystem, increasing its verisimilitude without necessarily making it needlessly complex or slow down play.

Dienekes

2019-12-14, 11:01 PM

A bit late to the topic that interested me. But it seems everyone is still on about damage types.

Intended use of the weapon or not, using the pommel of the sword is most definitely a more unweildy use of the weapon, and the improvised weapon penalties represent that unwieldyness. As for a spear, it would depend on what kind of spear you're talking about, but generally speaking, they don't carry the same weight, and may be very flexible, to the point where striking someone with it may not even impart any significant force through their armor, hence, again, a penalty to hit.

For weapons that do have multiple styles of use, the choice is there in the damage type, it will say for example "slashing or piercing", or ones that do multiple, like a morning star, say "bludgeoning and piercing". If you feel like certain weapons should have more options, it's not difficult to add, though you'll find that, for example, a longsword is actually quite difficult to strike with a thrust accurately, as it's not weighted and balanced for that kind of attack, which... again, would be represented by a penalty to hit. Thrusting weapons will tend to have their weight closer to the hand, while chopping weapons will have their weight further along the blade to take advantage of inertia, hence why longswords are slashing and shortswords are piercing.

Eh, this is painful.

First things first, what Pathfinder calls a longsword isn't a longsword. An actual longsword is used in two hands, the second hand near the pommel acts as a counterweight and is really easy to thrust with. As in thrusting is considered one of the fundamental uses for the weapon.

What the thing Pathfinder calls a longsword is actually an arming sword, at least according to the picture. But the thing is, arming swords were generally balanced closer to the hilt than the gladius, because of added weight of a crossguard and pommel. And the gladius is most definitely what was meant with the term shortsword.

If we wanted a realistic martial fighting system which is something D&D has historically been awful at, then each weapon would have various attack types based on their uses. Just about all swords* would have a cut damage and a thrust damage that are relatively close in terms of damage probably favoring one or the other slightly. With mass weapons such as maces and axes favoring swinging the weapon, and spears favoring thrusting.

If we're discussing damage types. The cutting of the tree example is pretty strange, since I'm pretty sure if you take a sword and try to cut down a tree you will ruin the blade probably doing less damage than you would if you just bashed at it with a polehammer. Part of this is because there are really four damage types, because there are two types of cuts. A slash where the point is to glide the long edge of a blade across the target, or hewing the target down with the shorter edge of an axe. Of course there is some wiggle room here, with bigger swords able to hew as well as slash. If we're going for realism here. But, again, I don't really think D&D is the place to do that.

Despite all this, personally I'm actually for streamlining D&D down to just physical. Because it has always been contradictory and half-assed how they've applied damage types anyway. Sure, it's hard to stab through a tree. But you know what else is hard? Trying to cut through armor with a blade. But I never see the guy in full-plate getting huge DR against basically everything, with noticeably less against bludgeoning. But we don't have that in D&D because we accept that armor is abstracted into AC that effects everything equally. Does it make sense that the same plate of armor is equally as effective against the halfling trying to cut you with a dagger as it is against the giant smashing you with a club bigger than you are? No. But we accept it anyway.

Because to me it's always been pretty clear that D&D only has ever made a token effort when it comes to modelling martial combat. And if they're only going to do a poor job at it, why dress it up with all these trappings to make it seem more complex than it actually is? Most enemies your damage type won't matter even though it should matter in every single fight, realistically. And when it does matter, you deal with it by either splitting up your gold, or you're ignoring it because you only have the one +5 shank of demon exploding and you'll outpace the DR if you use it rather than switching to the club you picked up at level 1 and never used.

The alternative would be to actually take time and effort into making martial fighting varied, complex, and interesting. And while I'd like that a lot. D&D hasn't really ever done that, preferring to focus on the easier to model magic, or the occasional special move your class or feat gives you that should really be available to everyone who is suitably proficient with the weapon.

*With some weird exceptions like Executioners swords that don't have a point, or Estocs and late era sideswords which don't have an edge. But yeah, the general great thing about swords is that even those focused on either striking or thrusting can do the other fairly well, much better than the more specialized other weapon groups.

PairO'Dice Lost

2019-12-15, 01:01 AM

Yes, but you're missing/ignoring that the very reasons for why this is an issue to begin with has little to do with physical damage types, and very much to do with the fighter's dependence on ranged, melee and several different magic weapon abilities etc. And the very fact that this has little do to with the physical damage types does indeed point to the problem with those damage types not having nearly enough meaningful impact and mechanical options tied to them.

Or to put in other words: if "weapon over-specializing" had instead been a major issue first and foremost because it prevented martials from effectively dealing with physical damage resistances, I probably would've found the physical damage types far less problematic. Unfortunately, the existing "weapon over-specializing" issue also further emphasizes the current status of these damage types as nothing more than random annoying "screw you"-effects. And I do indeed also find it less difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief in a game world where these damage types don't exist than I do in the current game world, where not even the game's greatest possible fantasy superheroes whose primary powers are expressed in the form these damage types are able to actually meaningfully interact with them or avoid being screwed by them.

This...doesn't really make sense. Damage reduction is no more a "random annoying screw-you effect" for fighters than energy resistance is for casters--or no less of one, either way--and fighters' "primary powers" (feats and class features, I presume you mean) have vanishingly little to do with damage types, and when they do indirectly relate to damage types (by enhancing a specific type of weapon which comes with a specific damage type or types) it's often in the form of increasing the fighter's damage with that weapon, thereby reducing the impact of DR and such.

And to bring it back to the original point I was responding to, "meaningful impact and mechanical options" and being able to "meaningfully interact with" damage types have nothing whatsoever to do with the specific damage types themselves. If you condensed all the weapon damage types into a single Physical type and all the elemental and energy damage types into a single Energy type, nothing changes with respect to casters having options and fighters not. If you kept all the elemental and energy types as-is and for some reason broadened the physical types into, I dunno, Abrading, Lacerating, Puncturing, Avulsing, Contusing, and Incising to get all "medically accurate" about things, nothing changes with respect to casters having options and fighters not. The only thing that addresses a lack of martial options is making more martial options.

What about condensing the damage types do you think would make fighters any better at dealing with DR, given that DR would also change to "DR X/physical" or whatever and fighters then wouldn't have an option to switch to a backup weapon of a different type 'cause there would be no different types? "Well," you might say, "after condensing the damage types I'd then come up with other things to distinguish weapons better," but you can do exactly the same thing with the existing three types and that change is the one that actually needs to get made to do anything about the situation.

It's just that at least in 3.5 and PF1, addressing the underlying issues is a rather massive undertaking in comparison to simply further reduce the impact of these damage types or remove them. But yeah, both tweaking the current damage types and adding viable interesting ways to interact with them would be preferable also IMO, although I'd prefer to make that a part of a greater weapons and martial combat overhaul, as several other closely related elements are in at least as much need of improvement IMO.

Yes, it's hard to address a bunch of interlocking underlying issues, but doing that actually would address the underlying issues. The comparison to "simply reducing the impact" of damage types is a false one because literally the only time when damage types-qua-damage types matter is with damage reduction, and as I noted above if you're going to consolidate damage types you'd need to consolidate DR types as well. Every single other change you could make wouldn't be to damage types, but to certain feats/class features/items/monsters/etc. that are somehow related to damage types, and in the majority of cases consolidating damage types would make things worse for the fighter (e.g. you can't avoid splitting oozes because you can't grab a bludgeoning weapon).

Despite all this, personally I'm actually for streamlining D&D down to just physical. Because it has always been contradictory and half-assed how they've applied damage types anyway. Sure, it's hard to stab through a tree. But you know what else is hard? Trying to cut through armor with a blade. But I never see the guy in full-plate getting huge DR against basically everything, with noticeably less against bludgeoning. But we don't have that in D&D because we accept that armor is abstracted into AC that effects everything equally. Does it make sense that the same plate of armor is equally as effective against the halfling trying to cut you with a dagger as it is against the giant smashing you with a club bigger than you are? No. But we accept it anyway.

Given the premise "it would be more realistic to give plate armor DR X/bludgeoning, but D&D doesn't do that," why do you then jump straight to "...so we should ditch bludgeoning damage" instead of ending up at "...so we should give plate armor DR X/bludgeoning"? I mean, the armor-as-DR variant shows up in every edition's UA and is tried by practically every D&D group during their "make ALL the things realistic!" phase, people have complained for years that their plate-armor-wearing fighter should be much more resilient to hordes of goblins or commoners than they are, and so forth, and this whole conversation has been in large part about how the fighter doesn't get Nice Things related to damage types, so why not add something to armor that players would easily accept and that might actually be a boost to martial types instead of removing a mechanic for no benefit?

The last campaign I ran had a bunch of weapon- and armor-related houserules to fit a more pseudohistorical and rarer-magic setting than the default rules assume, and one of those rules was to give all natural and manufactured armor DR of some variety--not in place of AC bonus, like Armor-as-DR, but in addition to it, and we're talking non-trivial amounts like a 1st-level fighter in plate having DR 9 to 12 before picking up any kind of armor-augmenting feats or features. Martial types were much more tanky against hordes of enemies, choosing the right weapons against certain monsters became much more impactful, and the game didn't break in half.

Even if you don't want to change the basic equipment and combat rules for whatever reason, you could make a "Realistic Armor Mastery" feat to give fighters and only fighters that kind of benefit. So why not make those kinds of changes instead of throwing up your hands and declaring that all weapons are the same?

Crake

2019-12-15, 01:17 AM

But I never see the guy in full-plate getting huge DR against basically everything, with noticeably less against bludgeoning.

Well, firstly, full plate is padded, and fitted to the body, so any bludgeoning impact would be not only cushioned, but spread over a vastly larger impact area, meaning bludgeoning wouldn't do any significantly larger amount of damage to a full-plate wearer.

If anything, the DR should be piercing, as armor-piercing arrows, and spears were some of the best methods of penetrating through full plate.

As an aside though, there are actually optional rules in place for using armor as DR, have a gander through unearthed arcana.

Boci

2019-12-15, 04:52 AM

upho

2019-12-15, 06:56 AM

Well, firstly, full plate is padded, and fitted to the body, so any bludgeoning impact would be not only cushioned, but spread over a vastly larger impact area, meaning bludgeoning wouldn't do any significantly larger amount of damage to a full-plate wearer.While your physics might seem sound and correct, in reality you also have to take the vulnerability of a human body into account, which makes what you're saying here almost the opposite of the truth. Which can also be seen in the fact that a majority of the heavier melee weapons designed to be effective against plate are bludgeoning, since they don't need to penetrate or even do any noticeable damage to the armor in order to incapacitate or even kill the person inside it with a good solid hit.

This is coincidentally also why for example morningstars, maces, warhammers, pollaxes, lucerne hammers and similar heavy primarily late medieval bludgeoning weapons typically have the business end shaped into sharp spikes. In contrast to the apparent popular beliefs of many people, including the D&D designers and their surprisingly poorly researched "bludgeoning and piercing" rules for many of these weapons, these spikes aren't designed to penetrate the armor (which they probably only very rarely would be able to do, and then not deeply enough to cause meaningful damage), but for "gripping" the armor and ensure as much of the impact energy as possible is delivered into the armor and wearer, instead of the blow glancing off the armor's hard round surface.

The fact that heavier bludgeoning weapons can be far more effective than other melee weapons against full plate is also reflected in the historical records, and the making of practically all of the surviving examples of these kinds of bludgeoning weapons from medieval Europe coincide with the "peak plate" period of the age's final 80 years or so. During likely thousands of years before this period, cutting and especially stabbing weapons had been at least as effective against even the heaviest types of armor of their day, and therefore also far more commonly used.

If anything, the DR should be piercing, as armor-piercing arrows, and spears were some of the best methods of penetrating through full plate.Plate-piercing arrows? :smallamused:
No Crake, spears and especially arrows couldn't pierce full plate, not even when fired at close range from the heaviest war bows of the time judging from the most accurate modern tests.

NigelWalmsley

2019-12-15, 08:10 AM

So maybe this was discussed earlier, but for the people who feel B/S/P don't do enough to deserve a place in the game in their current form, what do you think about special materials? Cold iron and silver don't do anything except overcome damage reduction, and whilst adamantium has some utility as an object basher, its still another kind of effective damage type. Should special materials be cut, or are they relevant enough to stay?

Special materials are fine, but the list needs to be short, and to not go up when new splatbooks and settings are introduced. DR/Byeshk should never have existed. Pick ~4 things that you think make sense as weaknesses (e.g. Silver for Werewolves), and declare that everything that has a weakness has one of those weaknesses. I would probably even give a couple in-core examples of different materials that overcame the same DR, just to make sure no one wrote anything new into existence.

Dienekes

2019-12-15, 08:38 AM

Given the premise "it would be more realistic to give plate armor DR X/bludgeoning, but D&D doesn't do that," why do you then jump straight to "...so we should ditch bludgeoning damage" instead of ending up at "...so we should give plate armor DR X/bludgeoning"? I mean, the armor-as-DR variant shows up in every edition's UA and is tried by practically every D&D group during their "make ALL the things realistic!" phase, people have complained for years that their plate-armor-wearing fighter should be much more resilient to hordes of goblins or commoners than they are, and so forth, and this whole conversation has been in large part about how the fighter doesn't get Nice Things related to damage types, so why not add something to armor that players would easily accept and that might actually be a boost to martial types instead of removing a mechanic for no benefit?

The last campaign I ran had a bunch of weapon- and armor-related houserules to fit a more pseudohistorical and rarer-magic setting than the default rules assume, and one of those rules was to give all natural and manufactured armor DR of some variety--not in place of AC bonus, like Armor-as-DR, but in addition to it, and we're talking non-trivial amounts like a 1st-level fighter in plate having DR 9 to 12 before picking up any kind of armor-augmenting feats or features. Martial types were much more tanky against hordes of enemies, choosing the right weapons against certain monsters became much more impactful, and the game didn't break in half.

Even if you don't want to change the basic equipment and combat rules for whatever reason, you could make a "Realistic Armor Mastery" feat to give fighters and only fighters that kind of benefit. So why not make those kinds of changes instead of throwing up your hands and declaring that all weapons are the same?

My premise is more “D&D has never been realistic, it does not understand on a fundamental level how weapons and armor interact and spends the majority of its page count describing spells and monsters that wouldn’t fight realistically anyway, and heroes that can swim through lava and make the Greek heroes blush. In such a game aiming for realism in martial combat seems a fools errand.”

If we wanted to make a realistic version of the game. Armor would give really weird DR that to many people would just feel wrong. Plate armor for example would have armor: Slashing: Haha... no. Hewing: a bit less than slashing. Piercing: same as hewing except if your opponent takes some kind of Aim action in which case use the DR of mail instead. Bludgeoning: half of Slashing. Fire: Decent. Electric: you’re grounded. You’re completely immune to electric damage. But if you’re wearing half-plate or armor that doesn’t reach your feet you instead take double electrical damage. Cold: you’re very well insulated really good cold damage resistance. Psychic: 0. And so on for every damage type. And you’d do this with every armor. Which isn’t exactly hard math but it’s time consuming, and by mid level your characters are going to blow through these numbers anyway.

Then we’d get into to hit. And your skill at arms would directly effect how difficult you are to hit along with the weapon you’re using. I don’t really care how mobile you think your Rogue is. You have a dagger I have a great sword, my arm and blade will go faster than your body and even if you Parry me there’s a fairly decent chance my attack will just blow through it.

And a bunch of other weird things like calculating how much air you have within your helmet, armor shape durability, and more. And all of this will become pretty much irrelevant anyway the first time your players face a Giant or a Dragon anyway.

So why put in all this effort, when other games like Riddle of Steel or Burning Wheel already do it better? To bring us back to Pathfinder and D&D. A few pages back, someone was asking whether swimming or climbing at the same speed you normally move is Legendary. In the real world, someone who can climb straight up 60ish feet in 6 seconds while wearing full plate and their entire life in their backpack is the greatest climber in the history of the world. If I saw someone do that I would be in awe. In D&D people are claiming they want that to be what a level 1 to 4 character can do. And that’s kind of how I see realistic weaponry in D&D. Sure it’s pretty cool... for about 4 levels. Then the game expects you to start batting and moving in ways that don’t make sense. So why don’t we lean into it and accept that weapons and armor have pretty much always been character dressing and instead focus on making your warrior that can fall from orbit, climb Everest in a day, and use lava as a hot tub fight like someone who can do all of that? Play into D&Ds strengths rather than try to make it something it hasn’t even been trying to do since 1e. And even then didn’t do a particularly good job of it.

Well, firstly, full plate is padded, and fitted to the body, so any bludgeoning impact would be not only cushioned, but spread over a vastly larger impact area, meaning bludgeoning wouldn't do any significantly larger amount of damage to a full-plate wearer.

If anything, the DR should be piercing, as armor-piercing arrows, and spears were some of the best methods of penetrating through full plate.

As an aside though, there are actually optional rules in place for using armor as DR, have a gander through unearthed arcana.

That is old research based on bodkins getting the nickname armorpiercer in some writing. Actual testing does not show them as particularly effective against plate. Fantastic against mail though. This combines with a few additional points we’ve learned about medieval archery, essentially how they didn’t really loose arrows in arching volleys instead preferring more accurate straight shots even in melee. And how plate armor uses mail for joints and weak points and you get how those points combine.

On the other side of things one spear is not a good counter to armor either. Now one spear with the full weight and might of a charging horse behind it? That can do it. Or 8 to 16 rows of spears all of which outrange your armored opponent and that can do it to. That is what really seems to be the goal with spear or bow. One isn’t enough. Throw hundreds of piercing attacks at them until one finds a gap. And it’s no surprise that over the course of the medieval and early modern period the development in plate armor mainly focused on making those gaps as small as possible.

Meanwhile in armored dueling, spears got replaced by the poleaxe (a weapon that has an anti-armor hammer head, not just an axe) in England and Italy. The Holy Roman Empire had a weird and complicated list of dueling types that ranged from shield only to two-handed threshal flails. And France had duels where the combatants were expected to start on horseback with lance and should that not be decisive the combatants would fight with poleaxe, sword, and dagger.

Because though you are right, plate is padded and will absorb and divert some of the force, bludgeoning attacks can bash in and weaken the integrity of the armor. Not in a one hit kill kind of way, but at least more effectively than one man can do with a bow or spear.

Of course with combined arms you could theoretically model the potential for bludgeoning weapons to break up the armor in such a way that hitting the gaps with a piercing weapon becomes easier. But again I don’t think D&D is really the system for that.