Pathfinder 2E My Biggest Concern for Pathfinder 2e

[FrogReaver]

My biggest concern is that only at level enemies are going to be fun to fight against.

Let me elaborate. A +4 bonus to AC nearly halves the damage you take. A +4 bonus to attack nearly doubles the damage you deal. 4 more levels linearly increases hp as well. There's also the issue of the potential for more damage per from magical weapons.

In short, your power increases by a factor of somewhere between times 4 and times 10 every 4 levels. Likewise that means someone 4 levels lower than you is only about 25% to 10% of your power.

If monsters follow this same pattern based on their level and I believe that they will based on my preliminary browsing of monsters, then it's going to be nearly impossible to fight enemies very far outside your level range.

This also could greatly affect sandbox play...

Will enemies even 4 levels higher than you be fun to fight? Will you miss to often? Will the crit to often? Thoughts?

 

[Ancalagon]

Are these numerical calculations the same as in the previous editions?

 

[FrogReaver]

Are these numerical calculations the same as in the previous editions?

No idea. I didn’t play the previous edition

 

[Ancalagon]

No idea. I didn’t play the previous edition

Did you play 3e, 3.5 e? Because that would be a somewhat valid comparison.

 

[Parmandur]

My biggest concern is that only at level enemies are going to be fun to fight against.

Let me elaborate. A +4 bonus to AC nearly halves the damage you take. A +4 bonus to attack nearly doubles the damage you deal. 4 more levels linearly increases hp as well. There's also the issue of the potential for more damage per from magical weapons.

In short, your power increases by a factor of somewhere between times 4 and times 10 every 4 levels. Likewise that means someone 4 levels lower than you is only about 25% to 10% of your power.

If monsters follow this same pattern based on their level and I believe that they will based on my preliminary browsing of monsters, then it's going to be nearly impossible to fight enemies very far outside your level range.

This also could greatly affect sandbox play...

Will enemies even 4 levels higher than you be fun to fight? Will you miss to often? Will the crit to often? Thoughts?

My understanding is that the intention is to make +-9 Levels doable, though 9 Levels above is doable but crazy dangerous.

Unsure about the practice.

 

[Campbell]

My biggest concern right now is debuff stacking. Buff stacking is fairly constrained, but there are a number of potent debuffs that when stacked on top of each other could neuter more threatening encounters. A spell like Ray of Enfeeblement is just as good at 15th level as 1st level and can be cast from a 1st level spell slot.

 

[CapnZapp]

then it's going to be nearly impossible to fight enemies very far outside your level range.

I believe this is fully intentional, something the devs go into with open eyes.

Look at the guidelines regarding encounter building. You'll notice the level range is your level plus minus 4.

So a monster four levels higher than you is indeed regarded as the most difficult thing you could take on. Even four against one, it might take one of you down. If it has adds, the encounter immediately becomes ultra-lethal and you should probably flee.

Everything indicates this is by design, with the devs being completely aware.

 

[CapnZapp]

Did you play 3e, 3.5 e? Because that would be a somewhat valid comparison.

PF2 is a totally different beast from 3E/PF.

 

[CapnZapp]

My understanding is that the intention is to make +-9 Levels doable, though 9 Levels above is doable but crazy dangerous.

Unsure about the practice.

My understanding, on the other hand, is that level+4 is the maximum they even offer guidelines on.

 

[kenada]

My biggest concern is that only at level enemies are going to be fun to fight against.

Let me elaborate. A +4 bonus to AC nearly halves the damage you take. A +4 bonus to attack nearly doubles the damage you deal. 4 more levels linearly increases hp as well. There's also the issue of the potential for more damage per from magical weapons.

In short, your power increases by a factor of somewhere between times 4 and times 10 every 4 levels. Likewise that means someone 4 levels lower than you is only about 25% to 10% of your power.

If monsters follow this same pattern based on their level and I believe that they will based on my preliminary browsing of monsters, then it's going to be nearly impossible to fight enemies very far outside your level range.

This also could greatly affect sandbox play...

Will enemies even 4 levels higher than you be fun to fight? Will you miss to often? Will the crit to often? Thoughts?

I’m trying to understand the scenario where PCs would be expected to fight and win against much higher level enemies. In PF1, one might do that because optimized parties could be way stronger than the system’s expectations. PF2 is designed not to have that problem, though it’s new, and we don’t know yet whether people will find ways to do that again. Since you said you didn’t play PF1, I’m curious what scenarios you have in mind.

For me and my sandbox, that level difference matters was one of the things that appealed to me when deciding to convert from 5e to PF2. It was less that I wanted higher level foes to be untouchable and more that I wanted my PCs to be able to come back to a (formerly) dangerous enemy and be able to defeat it.

From what I understand, the Gamemastery Guide will have information on flattening out the math. People on the Paizo forums have reported that they removed +level during the playtest without any issues, so most of what’s needed is new guidelines on encounter building (since the ones in the “Game Mastering” chapter of the CRB assume the difficulty current scaling).