NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="payn" data-source="post: 8714804" data-attributes="member: 90374">The bounded stat generation method and +1 per level creates a very tight math binding and every +1 is YUGE. If you are level enough above your opponent, you reliably score critical hits, while your opponent has very remote ability to do so. Now something on level is going to be much more fair, and tactics will grant advantages, but you have little ability to punch above your weight (like you can in many previous editions) because the offense and defense is so critically bound. The AP writers learned this lesson and have reduced the frequency of any encounter +3 level of the party (TPK city). The bonus of this, of course, is a very narrow gap in PC ability amongst each other. A lot of what folks have come to know as system mastery relies on tactical play and learning to use abilities (the rub is that those abilities are funneled into smaller and smaller choices as your challenges increase, which is ironic because that's kind of how feats were funneled). Higher level enemies have strong defenses against spells and maneuvers, so tactics are the PCs only option to win(survive) the fight. Fans like this because solo fights are actually interesting instead of a pummel fest over in a round or two. The system math again determines success or failure based on tight level banding. So, if a monster has a some tricksey ability, I know exactly the chances it has of landing on the PCs based on the APL (also fun note having mixed levels of PCs is a recipe for disaster in PF2). Indeed you can add terrain and traps to spice up encounters, but you do so at the peril of TPK based solely on level. a +3 APL fight is already likely to wipe a party based just on basic attacks/defense and abilities. If you stay within the reasonable challenge band, you can kick the fight up a level by using traps and terrain for a more tactical experience. This is based on actual play experience. I am fortunate to have played on a VTT that revealed perhaps more of the math than it should have. I knew by second round that my spells/abilities had somewhere of about 10-20% chance of landing, and the enemies attacks had a 60% chance of hitting (and 20% chance of critting) which is a pretty alarming difference in an APL+3 fight. In past editions, I could use terrain, elemental weapons, surprise, etc.. to my advantage. In PF2 that works wonderfully, if you are facing an APL 0/+1 CR encounter. You kick it up a level or two and now you are relying on pure character abilities to get burdensome riders applied to the enemy to slow down their attacks and movement while you paper cut the enemy to death. Some see that as awesome tactical combat, for me its a painfully slow process in which most of my abilities have been sidelined and thus not fun. Obvious solution for me is to stick to APL+2 or lower encounters. PF2 is a fine system and I appreciate its design. I just happen to prefer a strategy driven experience over a tactical one. Its really a matter of preference.</blockquote>

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