Monsters & Backgrounds: New Pathfinder 2 Updates!

Over the weekend, Paizo posted two new Pathfinder 2nd Edition blogs. The first looks at backgrounds, with three examples (Blacksmith, Street Urchin, Pathfinder Hopeful); and the second looks at monsters and the way they are built in the new edition of the game.

• Monsters! The Bestiary has over 250 monsters.
• New signature abilities to differentiate things like bear owls and tigers. Tiger now has wrestle, bear owls can now gnaw on you and let out a screech. Pack animals do extra damage in groups, and predators get sneak attack etc.
• DR and energy resistance are now combines into a single resistance which which soaks a certain amount of damage, and weakness now increases damage by a set amount.
• Level 0 skeleton -- 14 AC, 6 HP, resistance 5 slashing/piercing.
• Level 0 zombie -- 11 AC, 20 HP, weakness 5 slashing.
• Monster abilities streamlined, removing redundant or niche stuff that doesn't get used and focusing on iconic abilities. Barbed Devil uses Warden of Erebus to create glyphs of warding.
• Multiattack -- Marileth's six blades fouled assault on one target does lots of damage, or six creatures for less damage, or attack piece and parry for a big AC bonus.
• Backgrounds -- two ability boosts, skill feat, lore skill proficiency.
• Examples are Blacksmith, Street Urchin, Pathfinder Hopeful.
• Playtest book has 19 backgrounds, playtest adventure has 6 more.
• Adventures can have backgrounds tailored to them.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Wasn't that how it was done in 3.5e / PFe1? CR = lvl

From what I recall, in 3.x, an encounter with CR equal to the party level was supposed to use up about a quarter of your resources. A party of four level 10 characters could expect to win four CR 10 encounters per day before they ran out of steam.

 

[dave2008]

From what I recall, in 3.x, an encounter with CR equal to the party level was supposed to use up about a quarter of your resources. A party of four level 10 characters could expect to win four CR 10 encounters per day before they ran out of steam.

OK, I skipped 3e/PF so I wasn't sure. I was just guessing from comments I had heard about NPC monster CR relating to PC levels (i.e. if you made a 20th level NPC wizard it was supposed to be CR 20 - or a least I thought).

That basically adds up to what you said 4x10 lvl for PCs = 40 and 4 x 10 CR monsters (encounters) = 40 as well. The only question I would have is: what does "win" mean?

 

[Shasarak]

If a ‘level 10’ monster and a ‘level 10’ hero fight, is there roughly a 50-50 chance of either winning?

Personally I would hope not. If it was then the 'hero' would have a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of winning two fights in a row, a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of winning three fights in a row and a 1 in 16 (6.25%) chance of winning four fights in a row.

That would be incredibly deadly.

 

[Yaarel]

Personally I would hope not. If it was then the 'hero' would have a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of winning two fights in a row, a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of winning three fights in a row and a 1 in 16 (6.25%) chance of winning four fights in a row.

That would be incredibly deadly.

A 50% survival rate is, of course, highly lethal. But sometimes it is appropriate, maybe a climactic battle.

Normally, the DM would send lower level threats to challenge the team. The beauty is, the DM has a clearer measure for how to calibrate an encounter. It is easier to dial the amount of the challenge.

 

[Kaodi]

Today is the day. I wants that juicy info!

 

[mellored]

Personally I would hope not. If it was then the 'hero' would have a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of winning two fights in a row, a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance of winning three fights in a row and a 1 in 16 (6.25%) chance of winning four fights in a row.

That would be incredibly deadly.

So don't do fight a bunch of people equal to your level.
Fight creatures lower than your level, or have your full group fight a single creature of your level.

But yea... there's no way to say where the balance point is right now.

Though personally, I like the idea of monster level equally matching character level. It makes NPC's with a class easy to match up.