[PF2] Big rules update incoming

Arakasius

First Post
Some details spoiled here. This should appease some of the people who claimed that no rules updates were coming. I like the clarification on shields, the proficiency for untrained and especially the changes on death/healing. Resonance just being a cap on Christmas tree similar to attunement in 5e is also welcome. Mundane healing will on its own fix the clw issue.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs42aa4?Twitch-921-Preview-of-Rules-Update-13

Summary here for those who don’t want to link.

Rogues: instead of just Finesse Striker, you can choose one of three different paths (finesse, brute,


Ranger: double slice is dropped for 2 feats: one makes you better with two weapon fighting, one makes you better with ranged (fire twice, if both hit add together)


Proficiency: untrained is now (lvl - 4). Also, skill DCs are adjusted, and lowered overall. Net result: as you get better and better you get more and more certain of success. Every skill DC in Doomsday Dawn updated to reflect


Death and dying: getting much more deadly. New condition, “wounded,” you acquire when you are healed back up from 0 hp. Next time you drop to 0, your wounded value is added on to your dying value. And since you die at dying 4 ... this can mean insta-death if you’re doing too much up-and-down.


Mundane Healing: Medicine gets a new function: Treat Wounds. This removes Wounded and also heals damage. Cures (healer’s lvl) * (your con mod) hp. Makes out-of-combat mundane healing very possible, making magical healing more for in-combat, mundane healing for out-of-combat.


Shields: no multiple dents. One dent and then the rest of the damage goes to you.


Identifying magic items: doesn’t take as long. I wasn’t clear on how long it will take in new rules, but works with someone else using Medicine to heal everyone.


ALL 12 MULTICLASS ARCHETYPES. Goal: you can do this class thing, but you can’t just be a better Barbarian than the Barbarian herself. The 4 we have are rebalanced. Biggest change to Fighter, which a *lot* of folks had been grabbing for armor proficiency. Now it will just step up your armor prof to the next level. (If you want more armor proficiency from archetype, try Paladin ... if you meet those restrictions.) They will keep a close eye on this. This is a separate pdf to put all multiclass together, easier to reference.
The Monday blog will have more details.


### RESONANCE ###
*Not* for Monday’s update (1.3), but for future: Working on the update to Resonance. They’ve been meeting every week to talk about it, waiting on data. They’ve been seeing problems in the data. They rethought from “what did we want this to do?” They arrived at a different strategy. It was trying to do too much in one system.

Resonance shifting to just a system to manage permanent magic items, replace slot system. “The moment we tried to tie it to consumable usage and things like that, that’s when we started to have problems. Because those two things were competing with one another in a way that was unsatisfactory.” So resonance will just fix the slot system, which was a big problem. Worn items resonate with each other and don’t work together if you wear too many.


But something else to manage how you use magic items. “But we don’t want that system to be one that cuts you off from magic.” That wasn’t fun. Looking at ways for characters to focus on magic. Stuff about some default baseline and then, if you focus on things, getting more above-and-beyond benefits. (This is kind of unclear to me.) “I want to stress ... that we’re still in the design phase” on this.


 

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mellored

Legend
The big changes as I can tell...

Wound for dropping, adding to dying.

Shields = absorb X damage, take 1 dent, you take the rest.

Short rest = 10 minutes.
-Medicine can give HP and 1 wounds.
-repair 1 dent.
-identify 1 magic item.

Next update 1.4 (work in progress)
Resonance = permanent item slots. You can wear X magic items.
Consumable and X/day active items are weak, but always useable.
Focus (new) = X/day boost a consumable or active item (3x healing from a potion).
 
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Arakasius

First Post
Yeah I like the focus idea. Don’t penalize people or take away their ability to use potions, instead give a big buff for using them. I’d guess this would scale better with higher level effects.

I also like that Jason said for treat wounds that it’s 10 minutes for the group, not ten minutes for one person. I wonder if there will be a person cap on that.
 

Shasarak

Banned
Banned
I am glad that they are changing the magic slot system, now my character will be able to wear as many magic boots as he wants!
 

zztong

Explorer
Death and dying: getting much more deadly. New condition, “wounded,” you acquire when you are healed back up from 0 hp. Next time you drop to 0, your wounded value is added on to your dying value. And since you die at dying 4 ... this can mean insta-death if you’re doing too much up-and-down.

I think this might have changed our last playtest fight with the Manticore into a TPK. At the least, folks would have been dipping into Hero Points, but I'm not sure it would have mattered. I think the Ranger would have been toast in round 3 even spending his Hero Point.

The DM would have had to start pulling the Manticore's punches to keep the game on track. If the Manticore would have targeted the Cleric at the beginning it would have been a complete slaughter from the start.
 

Arakasius

First Post
But mundane healing between fights likely means you go into that fight with more health as well. Still that is a pretty tough fight with a level 6 monster against a level 4 party. In my home game we had a level 11 party versus a level 13 monster but the far greater hps at that level made it not as deadly. Although I think the biggest thing with that fight being hard isn't the stats of the monster but the fact that flying monsters at level 4 are pretty hard to deal with since most of the party would have limited ranged options.
 

zztong

Explorer
We had rested prior to the fight. Full HP, full spells, etc. If we hadn't been, the Cleric couldn't have healed for as long as he did and some of the offense would have been missing too. This group rests a lot because the newer players tend to spend their powers/assets quickly. We had been through some gnoll fights prior, so they rested.

The ranged part of the encounter was a draw. The Manticore had slowed/immobilized a couple of folks and done minor damage. We had hit it some. Neither side was having much of an effect. It was when the Manticore ran out of ammo and landed that things went bad. That's when the Ranger became a burlap sack full of hay.

The creature could crit our high AC folks 25% of the time and our low AC folks 40% of the time. The DM targeted the high AC folks and still managed 1-2 crits a round. As a 6th level critter it was throwing multiple dice damage, plus the crits. As a 4th level party, we were throwing single die damage back at it. After the fight, talking to the DM, he realized after the first round of the Manticore being on the ground that he had to pull punches.

Our heavy hitter would have been the Ranger, but he spent the melee picking up gear and standing back up. The Cleric was a solid lock on heals. The Druid supplemented heals and did damage. The Druid was the heavy hitter. My Monk/Wizard (multiclass -- trying to playtest multiclassing) was able to hit about 35% of the time and didn't do a lot of damage. (I think maybe 16 points total, including a hit from a Ray of Frost in the ranged battle.) The rest of the party was absent that week. We played what we had.

I don't mind the encounter. Being over-matched is okay. We could have attempted to flee and probably would have lost two characters. The math is just an obvious loss for us. That's encounter design, not the game system. Once the game system quits changing they'll have an easier time with encounter design. Its a period of testing, which is cool. Even without the playtest, the DM wouldn't be helpless. The game would have gone on.

This fight hints to me that perhaps there's a "shelf effect" around 5th level. In PF1, folks would be getting into +1 weapons, but probably not kicker dice for another couple of levels once characters got more significant wealth. PF1 critter damage might be scaling up more linearly. In PF2, 4th level characters do not have a magic weapon option, other than the spell. I don't know there is a "shelf effect", I've not looked at it. I have only one observation.
 

Arakasius

First Post
Well I think a big shelf thing at 5th level is that is when you get your first stat increases. So since that means everyone would get likely 1 more AC from dex at that level and thus would catch up more than just their level progression.

Looking at the level 4 characters I pregenerated for when my group made the conversion the Paladin/Fighter had a 20 AC at 4th level. This is with no magic items. But he also was not wearing a shield being a 2h paladin. But yeah with no shield/buffs he's able to be crit on a 15. Shield would bump that up to a 17, buffs up to slightly higher. (probably just 18) Tbh it seems the encounter is just a bit overtuned with regards to level disparity. A similar +2 level encounter was much less threatening at 11th level because of far greater access to abilities/spells to make up for stats being worse as well as much larged health pools for a boss to burn through. I think I would have had to do a +3 level boss to get a similar experience to the manticore.
 

zztong

Explorer
20 AC is what the Ranger was. The Ranger was Bow/Two-Weapon. The Manticore landed at least one Crit every round, sometimes two.

The Monk/Wizard had a 21 AC with the Shield Cantrip up (most of the time), 20 AC otherwise. The Monk/Wizard had no STR bonus, so was just hitting for 1d6. The Manticore AC was high and Monk/Wizard never landed a Flurry.

I believe it was your observation that your group likes the Crit system. I'd say for spells, we're okay with the spell Crits so far. I've got my eye on the melee crits.
 

Arakasius

First Post
You must have had really bad luck with rolls. So yeah first hit the Manticore can crit on 15-20 (or 16 on the monk) but second hit he has to hit a natural 20 to crit either. Same for the third of he takes one. So you had multiple rounds where the DM rolled a 15+ on first roll and then a 20? Well if so that’s tough luck and you’d have been annihilated in 1e too.

As for crits yeah they enjoy it. I do think it’s more the casters than the martials, but I think that’s more being used to high static bonuses. Still our Paladin was pretty happy when he crit with power attack for over 100 damage.

link to the update is here:

http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sg9r?Sending-Your-Heroes-to-the-Mirrored-Moon

For the medicine check it’s medium DC for your level and if you critically fail they’re bolstered against your use of it. (So having a backup is good). For level 11 that’s DC 25. Our feral Druid has a 17 medicine so that just means don’t roll a 7. I’m not sure if he’s taken many feats or items to increase that though. Given that he’s feral I’m guessing not.
 
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