Pathfinder 2E Gamemastery Guide: What are your thoughts?

[pcrotteau]

The biggest benefit (for me) is that you can adjust a projected build and see where the numbers lie, and make changes accordingly.

Follow that feet tree, see where that choice ends up.

 

[Philip Benz]

I have used Pathbuilder on my PC with an emulator (Bluestacks) and it works great. I've used it to create NPCs, mostly fighters and sorcerers, but it works OK for anything I need for the current campaign. Just export to pdf and then email it to myself.

Since this thread started out with comments about the Gamemastery Guide, I should say I haven't had time to read it all yet, but it looks very cool indeed. Intelligent items are always very cool. The NPC profiles are highly useful, even if they bear little relationship with the NPCs you can develop following the PC-creation rules. Looks like the general feeling is that you create NPC like creating monsters, and give them one or two signature powers from the class they are most associated with, and call it a day.

I'm mildly disappointed with the level of abstraction chosen for the vehicle rules, as if one set of vehicle rules could cover everything from a chariot to a warship. But at least it gives a framework for 3pp to jump into the breach and provide more specific rules, say, for sailing ships, as I intend to do.

Our last PF2 game was a great time for all, except most of the players haven't yet grasped how they should spend their hero points, or how they should react when one of their own goes down to enemy fire. One PC died, mostly because the other PCs were too busy fighting the enemy to spare a Battle Medicine action, and the PC in question had already spent all his hero points on die rolls to heal other PCs. A sad day, to be sure, and a lack of teamwork. But them's the breaks, as they say.

 

[CapnZapp]

I haven't had a chance to play, so I didn't investigate the app further. I believe there was a workaround I could use on my computer. You sing the praises of the app so much I will likely give it a try on my PC and see how it goes.

I should add that as the GM I have limited experience myself. I've basically thrown together a quick Bard and a quick Barbarian just to see the ballpark of its values (since I didn't have the GMG NPCs).

My singing is 92% based on what my players are saying.

 

[CapnZapp]

Looks like the general feeling is that you create NPC like creating monsters, and give them one or two signature powers from the class they are most associated with, and call it a day.

Just like 5th Edition, in fact. And I love it! ❤

(I am a DM who quit 3rd edition specifically because I created a NPC in hours that died in seconds one time too many. So you could say that my capacity for sympathy to those complaining that NPCs are "cheating" is... let's just say "limited")

 

[RangerWickett]

I had the same response in 4e. People often said the only way to make a character in 4e was to use the character builder. No players in my group used the character build, ever. I (DM) used it a couple times to make NPCs, but it definitely was not required.

However, I do get that once you use an app, with all of that functionality, it may be hard to go back.

I have no idea how you'd play any non-Essentials 4e without using the character builder to print all the fiddly text of your powers. And PF2 felt a lot like Paizo's 4e.

 

[RangerWickett]

I hope some of the stuff in the GMG makes PF2 more palatable to my players. We tried the playtest, but they were pretty negative on a lot of the design changes. I was mostly neutral about the core mechanics, but I'm still disappointed about how f---ing stingy they are with giving PCs fun abilities. Stuff that used to be front-loaded into, say, monk or paladin or druid now takes many more levels to get, and you've got to commit your class feats to those things.

I'd have much preferred if they gave all the other classes more stuff from the get-go. But that's probably not going to be covered in the GMG.

 

[dave2008]

I have no idea how you'd play any non-Essentials 4e without using the character builder to print all the fiddly text of your powers. And PF2 felt a lot like Paizo's 4e.

Old school. They either wrote them down or I photocopied from the book. At one point I made custom power cards and they kept them in sleeves (like a folder of MtC cards except to D&D powers).

 

[kenada]

Is it me, or is the math a bit funky in the creature creation rules? I hadn’t noticed it at first, but I have now that I’m trying to create versions of the tables tables without level to proficiency. There are a few spots where the numbers look a little weird.

The pattern appears to be lerp from 1st to 21st level (increments of 5%, essentially) with level −1 being special-cased (increment of 2.5%). That’s what I’m going to be using for my proficiency without level tables, but I wonder if anyone else has done more analysis than I have this evening.

For example, extreme Strike attack bonus follows a pretty consistent pattern except for at level 11 where it is one higher (math suggests 26 but table has 27). Unfortunately, I can’t actually find any examples of creatures with extreme attacks. The highest I can find is +25.

AC and spell attack/DC are also a little weird. Level −1 and level 0 both seem too high compared to level 1. This becomes particularly evident when you subtract level (for proficiency without level), and you end up with level 1 creatures having lower AC than level 0 ones.

 

[CapnZapp]

I hope some of the stuff in the GMG makes PF2 more palatable to my players. We tried the playtest, but they were pretty negative on a lot of the design changes. I was mostly neutral about the core mechanics, but I'm still disappointed about how f---ing stingy they are with giving PCs fun abilities. Stuff that used to be front-loaded into, say, monk or paladin or druid now takes many more levels to get, and you've got to commit your class feats to those things.

I'd have much preferred if they gave all the other classes more stuff from the get-go. But that's probably not going to be covered in the GMG.

Pathfinder 2 is a balanced game, meaning frontloading is much less of a thing, since that's just another name for "you get the better abilities up front".

Case in point: racial traits, or as they're called; ancestral feats.

Yep, you don't get all the Stonecunning and Giantslayer or Dwarven Weaponry or Grudgeholder when you create your Dwarf character in this game - you gain one such thing; the others you get as you level up.

The GMG certainly doesn't change that (unless you count its take on gestalt characters, which is explicitly an overpowered variant)

 

[CapnZapp]

I believe the GMG was a missed opportunity to provide variants for several subsystems. A couple of examples in no particular order

• hero points that doesn't involve the GM and yet provides real narrative power
• a crafting alternative with reliable benefits regardless of adventure particulars
• shield rules that doesn't rely on unintuitive "blocking after the fact"
• a healing variant with no dice rolling and no wild variation in recovery times - in effect removing the obnoxious minigame that steals attention and brain power between encounters without denying Medicine feats their upgrades
• a more sophisticated solution for those feeling the Incapacitation rule is crude and blunt

Also, advice on encounter pacing. Pathfinder 2 is a game with very detailed instructions on everything from building encounters to a certain level of difficulty to exactly how much loot to give out (and much more). Yet the game curiously offers no advice at all on how many encounters to expect a party to be able to take back to back, how many 10 minute breaks would be reasonable, the number of encounters per adventuring day and so on... The game is completely silent on this issue, despite it having a potentially bigger impact on how difficult an encounter is perceived to be than any other subsystem!