Pathfinder 2E Gamemastery Guide: What are your thoughts?

[dave2008]

TLDR: This is a good $15 value as a PDF that offers rules for GMs to create their own things (monsters, magic items, NPCs, hazards etc) today that will probably have more detailed dedicated books published in the future for those with more money than time.

Section 1 Gamemastery Basics. Your standard advice for new GMs in how to run a game that comes in every games GM type book. Great for new GMs less so for most.

Section 2 Tools. All the rules for creating the things in your game. Creatures and Hazards was already released for free but still very useful. All the item rules I was particularly happy with as there isnt much in the core rule book. Intelligent items, cursed items, relics, item quirks and building your own items.

Section 3 Subsystems. Personally I liked this the best. It offers rules and ideas for creating mini games. d20 games have always had problems making skills both interesting and useful beyond a single die roll while having combat being a series of choices that you have to adapt to. Skills were always added on as an "oh yeah we need a way to climb and pick locks and I guess if people want to talk to NPCs for some reason..."
For subsystems think the chase sequence in Fall of Plaguestone.

Section 4 Variant Rules Alternate Character creation and advancement Rules. Less useful if you have played other d20 games that have point buy. Stamina rules is interesting but I fear just adds complexity for no net gain.

Section 5 NPC Gallery. i was let down with this section. The rest of the book has a lot of creation rules but here we have 43 pages of NPCs. They don't fully follow the NPC creation rules in section 2 where NPCs = toned down character classes. Here they fill jobs and have 1 applicable feat/action.
e.g. a Judge is Creature -1 for combat but Creature 6 in the court room. They arent a bard or wizard but have high society, intimidation, and sense motive skills. Their unique action is a make an impression of diplomacy vs Will DC of 4 targets... which makes free will of player actions a bit awkward.
Still, if you start with the given NPC and then tweak their levels to what you need you will have what you need.

What was missing? Rules on rarity! One of the most often asked and confusing aspects of the rules has no clarity. When is uncommon feats and spells available to the players?
Uncommon are available if the PC makes enough effort
Rare is only available if the GM allows it.
Wow thanks guys! Yeah I get its up to me as the GM. But why are some things uncommon and others are common from a rule based system? Katanas in a Western European style setting ok. But spells that dont have a cultural flavor and especially the common vs uncommon archetypes are annoyingly vague.

Overall I enjoyed the book and it slightly exceeded my expectations. Not worth $50 because I'd only be using it during some prep work vs the Core book and Beastiary I use every week extensively during game time.

Thank you for the report, that was very helpful!

 

[pcrotteau]

Know Direction Podcast has a page by page discussion of the book on youtube with Mark Seifter.

 

[CapnZapp]

I am on the fence about the Gamemastery Guide. Initially it was a must buy for me, but now, not so much. Now that it is out I was wondering what people thought. Anyone willing to share? I am personally interested in:

1. NPC stat blocks: how many and how are they?
2. Variant Rules: what is covered. Is there an armor as DR option?
3. New subsystems: what is included and how does it work.
4. Are there mass combat or mob rules.
5. Stronghold rules?
6. Retainer rules?
7. How are the adventure/ campaign, encounter building rules / guidelines?

Really, anything is helpful - thank you!

Chapter 1. Advice on how to use the rules and be a gamesmaster. I'm guessing it never hurts to read it once even if you're a veteran GM to see if Paizo intends PF2 to run differently in some regard.

Chapter 2. Building Monsters. As we have already discussed, not terribly inspiring. Basically a load of tables telling you what you have gleaned out of the Bestiary already. No "setting bible" for how to construct Golarion monsters.

Chapter 3. Subsystems
This entire chapter is just bloat. Fiddly complicated subsystems that makes me think of the excesses of Pathfinder 1...

Chapter 4. Variants. There are no truly groundbreaking variants here, such as how to allow a character more choice in fundamental proficiencies (attack, defense, saves).

Chapter 5. NPC Gallery. Ready-made NPCs are super valuable to any DM making his own adventures (unless you never visit civilization I guess)

 

[CapnZapp]

Here's my rant on Paizo's book organization:
a. The WotC triple book organisation is superior to the Paizo dual book organization
b. Releasing the GMG as a day one core book would have enabled moving treasure to this book.
c. A lot of GMG stuff is not terribly necessary and could have been kept for an expansion supplement
d. NPCs should have been available on day one (and in the Bestiary, not the GMG). Art objects and gem stones should have been available on day one (in the GMG).
e. Monster creation guidelines could have been kept for the expansion supplement, especially if that would have ment truly useful insight into Paizo's internal monster design

 

[CapnZapp]

As an additional question of my own - are there any useful guidelines for quickly creating NPCs without having to create a new character?

a) there are general advice on which numbers are appropriate for a monster of a certain level
b) you can create a NPC using the player character rules, but that's the exception not the rule. All published NPCs are just monsters that just happen to resemble humanoids sometimes with class features

If you ask me, the truly useful thing of the book is the 84 ready-made NPCs

 

[CapnZapp]

Also, you are confirming there are rules for creating fast NPC characters, or is that just the monster creation rules?

No special advice for NPCs.

NPCs are monsters now. You use the exact same tables for a Manticore or a Black Pudding as for a Poacher or a Dockhand.

 

[CapnZapp]

What was missing? Rules on rarity! One of the most often asked and confusing aspects of the rules has no clarity. When is uncommon feats and spells available to the players?
Uncommon are available if the PC makes enough effort
Rare is only available if the GM allows it.
Wow thanks guys! Yeah I get its up to me as the GM. But why are some things uncommon and others are common from a rule based system? Katanas in a Western European style setting ok. But spells that dont have a cultural flavor and especially the common vs uncommon archetypes are annoyingly vague.

The whole point is to put the decision in the hands of the individual gamesmaster.

Do not expect rules that let a player point to a book and demand access to a given feature.

 

[CapnZapp]

Stamina rules is interesting but I fear just adds complexity for no net gain.

Agreed.

The introduction to the concept of Stamina Points was very generic and completely failed to acknowledge how Pathfinder 2 already by the default plays much like older games with Stamina Points! (Meaning that any group where even a single party member invest in Medicine and its feats will heal up incurred damage in a matter of minutes or hours, not days).

Plus the implementation came across as needlessly cluttery to me. Why not simply say

• half your hit points are now stamina points
• damage depletes stamina before hit points
• healing increases hit points before stamina
• you regain all lost stamina in 10 minutes

Do take a look at the official rules (GMG page 200). You will find the above does everything in four lines that Paizo needs two pages for, no cluttery resolve points or special actions or detailed calculations needed!

And yes, if you think "this basically means you can skip Medicine if you only take it to heal up between encounters" you're entirely correct - that shows you how redundant Stamina really is in Pathfinder 2!

 

[CapnZapp]

There is not an armor as DR option. The following variants are in the book:

• Ability Score Variants (gradual ability boosts, point buy, alternative scores)

Behind this line hides one of the few variants that piqued my interest (as one having seen similar efforts in too many editions already)...

Basically, you can play PF2 using a different set of six ability scores:

• Agility
• Brawn*
• Dexterity
• Charisma
• Wisdom
• Intelligence

Apart from a small number of gameplay tweaks, the following is all there's to it:
Agility represents footwork, and applies to Armor Class, Reflex saves, Acrobatics checks, and Stealth checks
Brawn* represents Strength and Constitution and is used for everything from damage rolls to Fortitude saves
Dexterity represents manual dexterity and applies to ranged weapon and unarmed attack rolls, attack and damage rolls with finesse attacks (if better than Brawn), and Thievery checks
Charisma is used for Will saves
Wisdom is otherwise unchanged
Intelligence remains unchanged
*) The GMG fails to make up a cool new name that avoids confusion with the old names so I did it for them

The section completely fails to discuss the impact of this variant, though. It's just dropped into the reader's lap.

The text does claim that the RAW abilities are created unequal and this rearrangement makes them much more equal. And for rollplayers and murderhobos that may be. But for anyone involving NPCs and society in their campaigns Charisma is definitely not a dump stat already before this change.

This variant does switch up the old wisdom "let Constitution always be your third best stat". Finesse fighters and spellcasters will likely find that the cost of getting bonus hit points per level has increased now that they need to increase the former Strength stat!

I am not sure Rogues in particular were in need of a nerf, which having both Dexterity and Agility functionally amounts to. On the other hand, it makes Rogue's Thief Racket the default everybody gains, enabling the Rogue player to just gain Thievery and take a different Racket, so there's that...

 

[CapnZapp]

I haven't seen any discussion on whether any of this will be implemented in the Pathbuilder 2 app.

(My players are so dependent on the app it's hard to even give them custom treasure if it can't be entered into the app... )

But it does say something about how absolutely superb and vital this app is for players and gamesmasters alike!