Pathfinder 2E Play report (Extinction Curse spoilers)

[Celtavian]

That's interesting. So basically the only constraint on how much the adventurers can do in a day is literally how much time it takes. That's actually kind of cool. At some point you need to sleep, I guess, before becoming exhausted.

I was wondering if this would bother me as we have a good medic able to get the party back to max hit points in about an hour as Capp stated with no magic. But when we ran into a lich. Wrecked the party. The in combat healing doesn't keep up with the damage output of the monsters at higher level. So you tend to stop adventuring when the cleric can no longer keep the party alive during a fight. So I was bothered less by the out of combat medicine work. Hit points are more about getting minor wounds cleaned up, resting, getting over shock, and the like than pure raw damage. The hits are so big in PF2 that you can go from fine to dead in two hits, sometimes an entire party can go from fine to near dead in one bad round of saves from a high level AoE spell.

I much prefer medicine for out of combat healing than the PF1 wands of cure light wounds and the like. It does the same thing at the end of it all, but having a very well trained medic working on everyone seems cooler than buying a bunch of cheap, throwaway wands.

The bottlenecks I have found to the adventuring day are:
1. In combat healing.
2. Caster slots for support and attack magic.

Once you run out of those or run low, you are a bad battle away from dead.

 

[CapnZapp]

That said, I still would have liked a D&D game that separated the warrior ability to soak damage from the warrior ability to deal damage.

That is, properly support the tank and damage-dealer roles.

If you can be taken from rosy to dying in just two hits, regardless of your build options, the game really don't support the tank concept. And that is just a missed opportunity if you ask me. Party composition just become so much more interesting if the concept of having a tank, and ways to make monsters attack that tank, is a viable option.

PF2 does not have anything that comes even close to the 5E Barbarian's ability to take half damage, which at least would make you take 4 hits instead of 2.

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Plus, the fact a combat healer is all but mandatory in PF2 is not uncontroversial. In fact, many people love 5E precisely because it made in-combat healing entirely optional.

 

[CapnZapp]

test

 

[Celtavian]

That said, I still would have liked a D&D game that separated the warrior ability to soak damage from the warrior ability to deal damage.

That is, properly support the tank and damage-dealer roles.

If you can be taken from rosy to dying in just two hits, regardless of your build options, the game really don't support the tank concept. And that is just a missed opportunity if you ask me. Party composition just become so much more interesting if the concept of having a tank, and ways to make monsters attack that tank, is a viable option.

PF2 does not have anything that comes even close to the 5E Barbarian's ability to take half damage, which at least would make you take 4 hits instead of 2.

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Plus, the fact a combat healer is all but mandatory in PF2 is not uncontroversial. In fact, many people love 5E precisely because it made in-combat healing entirely optional.

Hmm. We didn't find that to be the case in 5E. Life without a cleric was tough in 5E, especially when AoE damage factored in. Are there a bunch of people running without combat healers in 5E? I only play with my group and we found having a combat healer necessary. I think the only version of D&D we didn't need a combat healer was 4E.

The champion appears to be the main class capable of tanking. No one has tried to build a tank fighter, but the champion can take more punishment than anyone. The champion is nearly always the last person standing in any battle besides perhaps the invisible cleric. The champion has proven to be a very effective tank. I thought that Champion's Reaction was pretty weak, but it isn't. It's surprisingly effective.

No one has built a monk yet either. I get the feeling you might be able to build a tank monk looking at the mechanics. Excellent saves. Really excellent defenses. Moderate damage. You can build towards some defensive moves like grappling to limit movement on the battlefield.

PF2 is new enough and not enough is clearly spelled out where you might be able to do some odd things to have certain classes in roles that are different than previous iterations of the game. I will have to test in time. So far the only class I know for sure is hard as hell to beat down is the Champion.

On paper barbarians look tough to beat down too, but they have a lower AC countered by more hit points. Low AC in this game is not great for you. They do seem to have a lot of attacks and feats that allow you to do more AoE physical damage than a lot of other classes. So they may be the more pure martial damage dealer than a tank. Sort of like a rogue in the martial damage department, but in a big, smash everything front of you kind of way.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I am currently playing a battlemaster fighter in 5e. There's "soft tanking" going on. If opponents hit someone other than me, when I'm in reach, I get to hit them as a reaction. Last battle we fought a smart opponent with a reach weapon. He could hit someone else and prevent me from counterattacking.

 

[dave2008]

Hmm. We didn't find that to be the case in 5E. Life without a cleric was tough in 5E, especially when AoE damage factored in.

Neither of my 5e groups had/has a cleric or paladin. One did have a druid. I don't know if it is "tough," but it encourages a less cavalier style of play.

 

[Celtavian]

Maybe I am used to ruthless DMing. Even in 5E no healing was not going to work. We heard people running 5E with no healers, but were surprised. In general, I play monsters to kill the party. That means leveraging every ability whether mobility, lair actions, or legendary actions to take the party out while limiting the party's ability to attack. If a creature has flying, it is moving around taking cover, keeping it's distance, and blasting one character over and over again until they are dead unless he does AoE damage to spread around.

I do play with another DM who plays a lot softer than I do. We got away with far less healing at times, though even with him we had a few nasty fights in 5E that hammered us pretty good, mostly with a flight of dragons lighting us up with breath weapons. Then again that was our first campaign. After we learned all the ways to maximize our power in 5E, we cake-walked in future campaigns he DMed. And Archery is sick in 5E with Sharpshooter.

 

[CapnZapp]

Maybe I am used to ruthless DMing.

Maybe you're using your own adventures/encounters?

I'm talking about the profound difference between running, say Out of the Abyss in 5E as written, and running Extinction Curse in PF2 as written.

In the first case, our random heroes need no Cleric, and are seldom seriously threatened.

In the second case, only GM intervention prevented a TPK in the very first encounter (Ringmaster's Wagon), and the presence of a combat healer (= the fact the two-action Heal spell gets +8 per spell level, to be precise) has saved the bacon of pretty much every hero at least once (and they're only level 7 still).

In the first case, I had to basically throw out the listed encounters once the heroes progressed to the second half of the module (after the audience with King Bruenor) since they were laughable compared to the fully decked out party.

In the second case, I have given up all pretense of following the official guidelines (where a party of five should face 20% extra monsters), and they sometimes need to take a full hour's downtime between every encounter (levels 1, 3, and 6 has been particularly rough. Levels 2 and 5 were surprisingly easy)

This has little to do with my GM or DM style. It has everything to do with running published modules.

(When I started GMing Pathfinder 2, I made my own encounters. They felt dangerous and challenging, much more so than 5E, but not actively harrowing since I could not even fathom the difficulty Paizo has selected for their adventure! Just saying that any GM worth their salt can make PF2 play somewhat like how they ran 5E as the DM)

 

[Celtavian]

Maybe you're using your own adventures/encounters?

I'm talking about the profound difference between running, say Out of the Abyss in 5E as written, and running Extinction Curse in PF2 as written.

In the first case, our random heroes need no Cleric, and are seldom seriously threatened.

In the second case, only GM intervention prevented a TPK in the very first encounter (Ringmaster's Wagon), and the presence of a combat healer (= the fact the two-action Heal spell gets +8 per spell level, to be precise) has saved the bacon of pretty much every hero at least once (and they're only level 7 still).

In the first case, I had to basically throw out the listed encounters once the heroes progressed to the second half of the module (after the audience with King Bruenor) since they were laughable compared to the fully decked out party.

In the second case, I have given up all pretense of following the official guidelines (where a party of five should face 20% extra monsters), and they sometimes need to take a full hour's downtime between every encounter (levels 1, 3, and 6 has been particularly rough. Levels 2 and 5 were surprisingly easy)

This has little to do with my GM or DM style. It has everything to do with running published modules.

(When I started GMing Pathfinder 2, I made my own encounters. They felt dangerous and challenging, much more so than 5E, but not actively harrowing since I could not even fathom the difficulty Paizo has selected for their adventure! Just saying that any GM worth their salt can make PF2 play somewhat like how they ran 5E as the DM)

I did run Out of the Abyss. I quit running it because it became too easy and bored me. It started off ok, then ended up a complete sham. Sharpshooter archer and paladin smiting ended the creatures quickly, even the demon lords. It was sad. I think I was doubling Demon Lord hit points at a minimum for a six person party. I don't know how you make a module with Demon Lords and make them so weak and boring that a party can easily beat them with very basic tactics. It was very disappointing.

I'm about to start Extinction Curse. I can see some tough battles in it.

I mostly run published modules I modify. I don't have the time I once I had for adventure creation.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, well, my point @Celtavian was that I would differentiate my critique if I were you. Some of your points relate to the systems, others to the adventure. Conflating the two does noone any favors

Especially when you say you find 5E easy/boring as a response to Dave stating he has no problems challenging his players.

You might be both right. Yes, most (all?) adventures become child's play IMO at higher levels (when the players spend time minmaxing all the toys given to them, that 5E doesn't give to the monsters). No, I'm still easily capable of TPK:ing even the most blinged out party, regardless of edition, options, or variants.

At the same time, yes, I've found PF2 fiendishly difficult at times. But that relates to official adventures. If I created that encounter myself, I have only myself to blame.

I could obviously run a campaign where heroes never face monsters of their own level, let alone higher levels. That experience I'm sure would feel much more like default 5E. (Not identical, mind you. Just "more like")

Cheerio

tl;dr: I guess 5E adventures take an easy system and make it easier, while PF2 scenarios takes a hard system and make it harder. So if PF2 comes across as more challenging, whose "fault" is that?