This is very useful info, thanks.Heavy Fall of Plaguestone spoilers below
Ran Fall of Plaguestone last Friday for my regular TTRPG group and this was our first time playing PF2. Here are my thoughts as a GM...
1: Crits are deadly. We had a TPK in the first fight. The 2nd level wolf that attacks Bort's merchant caravan got two crits. each one dropped a fully healthy character. With its +11 to attack against 1st level characters it crits on a 17-20 as most of the PCs had an 18 AC. On average its crit damage will be 19 damage.
I fear what the 3rd bear they will encounter in part 1 when they are still 1st level will do to them. Looking at higher level monsters vs estimate of bonuses that PCs will have, I don't see this problem going away.
Solution: There were some bad player tactics due to not knowing the rules and I had Bort and his crew save the party by finishing off the wolf but players can't counteract lucky dice rolls.
I'm going to ignore the errata with Hero Points and let the players use it while dying to bring them to 1 HP so they can move around and act. We had it where it stabilized them at 0 but for all intents and purposes they were still out of the fight and not very heroic.
2: Crafting is too expensive. Its already apparent that apart from allowing the party to have access to things they cannot buy, crafting sucks because its too expensive. The formula cost is rough especially if you just want to craft a single item. One of my players running a Rogue wanted to make their own poisons and it seemed too cost prohibitive.
Solutions: I have several plans
Any player that wants to be a crafter and gets a crafting feat, can get their monetary treasure in crafting part with a 50% bonus. e.g. party of 4, 3 PCs get 100 gold, 1 Rogue with alchemy to make poisons will get 150 gold worth of non descript "ingredients" that cannot be sold for money but can go towards any crafting. 50% seems like it will help but not make is so the rogue is using a poison every battle, every attack and causing balance issues.
Formulas will be given out as quest rewards and social interaction skill challenge type mini games.
Factions will offer free formulas. I haven't delved into factions in PF2 but presuming they are like factions in 5ed, PCs can join a faction and spend time earning favor and ranks for rewards. This seems like a good format for a crafting guild that will give free formulas to its members in good standing.
3: I love the detailed mechanics. 5ed DMing for me was a chore. Players would say they want to try something. Then I had to do all the figuring out of the mechanics. what skill is most applicable. what is the DC for this, how successful are they, and what kind of precedence is being set for all future uses of this action a player is wanting to try. Since there was little meat behind the 5ed rules its on the DM and if they don't allow the player to do it they are being a mean jerk.
In PF2 though there is usually an action that is close to what the players are wanting to do enough so that there is a basis to form rule decisions off of.
4: PF2 has a lot more decisions in the game. e.g. get something now or get more available options to future decisions. I'm seeing a common reoccurring pattern in the rules. Shield usage is a common example. spend 1 action to defend yourself. You may or may not be attacked so potentially your 1 action is wasted. But it gives AC bonus and the option to block some damage.
Magic Staves are similar. you can spend a spell slot during your daily preparation to gain spontaneous casting of the staff's spell list vs locking in your spell slot if you are a wizard. But you may not need that staff of divination or staff of fire during that day you spend your spell slot on.
My players had a few complaints about some of the changes (primarily about shield AC not always being on) but after explaining the above on opportunity cost it went over better.
5: PF2 combat seems to work better as a tactical miniature battle simulator than a theatre of the mind. With its level of mechanics (especially traits) and the 3 action economy, combat felt more like a video game than regular TTRPG combat. For better or for worse is a matter of what you want in your game.
6: PF2 also feels like a collectible card game with the trait system, so I embraced it and created cards for my players. I used magic set editor and loaded up Tintagel's 5ed card template. I edited the text file format to load up the various action point icons of PF2.
Green Border = at will type actions, spells, and affects that have unlimited use.
Orange Border = focus abilities or other things that recharge during the day.
Red Border = abilities recharge only during daily preparations like spells.
Purple Border = consumable magic items.
Blue Border = permanent magic items.
My players loved this and it was a big hit. It allows me to pass out magic items for them to hold, use, and trade also. It also solved a problem I knew we were going to have. Between normal actions, skill actions, class unlocked actions, spells, feats, ancestories…. we were going to be overwhelmed with what the PCs could do, and where to find it. in the core rulebook and heaven forbid when other books are published. The character sheets have these all over the place on different pages we were going to want 1 place to quickly look and pick what the PCs were doing.
Now the players can have their character deck. Far easier to change a load out if you retrain a feat, or buy and sell magic items then to be erasing and rewriting on your character sheet.
7: Secret rolls are awesome. Players no longer have to pretend to play with in character knowledge separate from their player knowledge of how to act. This will help with immersion. They failed a nature check while checking the caustic wolf but didn't know they failed. We forgot for me to roll a Medicine check on Bort when he was eating his turnip porridge and they rolled a "1" so automatically knew what I told them as " you think its an allergic reaction" was a lie. Missed a great RP opportunity with this one as I should have rolled it but we are all learning this system. As a GM I like it because since its secret, it will support the story I am trying to tell vs having the players fight against it with player vs character knowledge.
Pathfinder 2 GM Experience
This is very useful info, thanks.
Yeah, Thanks for the posts people! I sincerely appreciate your thoughts.
As an aside, like to point out that "secret rolls" are not new. GURPS has had them for decades. Many other games too. I noticed that Paizo pulled in some cool tricks from other games and it's super cool of them. They also call out some works in the books - also super cool. One of the few industries you can reach out and get enthusiast permission from "competitors" to use your cool tricks.
As an aside, like to point out that "secret rolls" are not new. GURPS has had them for decades. Many other games too. I noticed that Paizo pulled in some cool tricks from other games and it's super cool of them. They also call out some works in the books - also super cool. One of the few industries you can reach out and get enthusiast permission from "competitors" to use your cool tricks.
Yeah, I definitely find running someone else's material is almost always more work. Not so much when it's bare bones (eg Stonehell Dungeon), but running Paizo APs takes an enormous amount of work even when I'm not engaging with those crazy 3e/PF NPC stat blocks. There are advantages to using published material; I think riffing off others' work does tend to give a better play experience in some ways than stuff I made myself. And it's good not having to feel inspired before each session. But that's very different from 'less work'.
One issue I find is that publisher-designers often seem to think that GMs in home games are or should be creating material that looks similar to published material. That would of course be very arduous. But that's just completely unnecessary.
We played our first session of Plaguestone last week, 2nd tonight*! We were told an ogre had kidnapped a local sage/academic, so my Lastwall Survivor Fighter PC insisted on rounding up a bunch of peasants with torches and pitchforks to poke at it before we'd take it on. It critted another PC and KO'd him in one hit, but my heroic peasants managed to take it down.
Then we had the scabby wolves and their acid-spitting leader; we were pretty lucky on the rolls and I dropped three of them while the others took down the leader & a couple more. Bort and co annoyingly did nothing even after one of the drovers had been melted by the acid breath.
Overall I found the system swingy and exciting, the combat was definitely tense and fun. The 3-action economy worked well vs the target ACs, I could generally hit on 1st attack, & on 2nd if I got lucky. My 20' move rate/action in heavy armour felt annoyingly slow, but did give time for tactical positioning as I led my peasant horde vs the ogre. Really no worse than 5e's move 30'+dash 30', but it felt like the 3-action economy promised a more heroic feel than it delivered. Still I think the 3-action system is definitely superior to 5e's split-move, move is not an action approach.
*GM cancelled just after I posted.
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Kel Ardan
Explorer
Ran my 2nd game of Hellknight Hill last night and it went a lot smoother than the first session and we are getting used to secret rolls. Everyone got into the exploring rules more and followed the story much better, and decided to skip the front door of the keep and try to find another way in. The 2 major encounters they faced really had them thinking about different ways to use the 3 actions and the reaction and it was fun to watch. They also found that level 2 creatures when your level 1 can be terrifying and you better plan tactics or you will go down when two of the four were down to 2 and 3 hit points and the cleric was dropped (thank god they all decided to be trained in medicine which is pretty great especially when you heal so little with over night sleep). At this point they had to retreat to their campground away from the keep to try to get rest (we will see what happens
Overall a fun session (only had about 2.5 hours to play and they did a lot of investigation in the town before heading to the main adventure) but my players are definitely having a lot of fun.
Overall a fun session (only had about 2.5 hours to play and they did a lot of investigation in the town before heading to the main adventure) but my players are definitely having a lot of fun.
Our next session is Saturday. I’ll post an update after it, but I expect to really get into the swing of exploration.
Pathfinder 1e had them too, but they weren’t systematized like they are in PF2. I have had players (in PF1) be very surprised when I used them as written, because they expected always to roll their checks. It’s like what Paizo did with rarity. Almost every GM tweaks things a bit, but having rarity like it is in PF2 gives GMs a structure to communicate that to players and helps set expectations (e.g., some things are special, only acquired by adventuring, etc).
CapnZapp
Legend
Featuring humanoid NPCs with class levels is definitely extremely work-intense and prep-heavy in PF2.
Not only is building the NPC time-consuming, you need to give it combat tactics too.
That is, any character with class feats must be given at least one, preferably two or three*, "attack routines" where you have to ensure you follow all rules for sequencing attacks - only one flourish, a press attack can't be the first in the round (since it requires a MAP), and so on...
Basically, you need to master that class as if you were playing it yourself...
Getting a comprehensive selection of NPCs-as-monsters will be a godsend, and I'm despairing those weren't included in the base Bestiary.
*) Presumably you selected a class because you want that to be apparent through the NPCs actions/abilities. There's very little design space for a "base" character that merely strikes three times on its turn. In PF2 that doesn't come across as simple; it comes across as... bad (uninspired, lazy)
Not only is building the NPC time-consuming, you need to give it combat tactics too.
That is, any character with class feats must be given at least one, preferably two or three*, "attack routines" where you have to ensure you follow all rules for sequencing attacks - only one flourish, a press attack can't be the first in the round (since it requires a MAP), and so on...
Basically, you need to master that class as if you were playing it yourself...
Getting a comprehensive selection of NPCs-as-monsters will be a godsend, and I'm despairing those weren't included in the base Bestiary.
*) Presumably you selected a class because you want that to be apparent through the NPCs actions/abilities. There's very little design space for a "base" character that merely strikes three times on its turn. In PF2 that doesn't come across as simple; it comes across as... bad (uninspired, lazy)
dave2008
Legend
I didn't play PF1 (or 3e), but I have used secret roles since D&D/AD&D. Where they not a think in PF1? I feel like this is how I've always played the game.
I don't recall guidance about them in PF1, but I wouldn't have looked for it. As you say, the technique has been around forever. A new DM would likely appreciate secret roles being included in the rules, but veteran DMs already knew the option was there for them.
There are other similar and more extensive approaches at providing an immersive experience, like the DM being the only one to see the player's character sheets. Most groups prefer faster play than what those afford and many players like to see the underlying system.
I only played PF1 when it first launched but went back to 3.5.
I'm sure Paizo wasn't the first to invent the idea of a secret roll. I'm also sure I encountered them at some point but for whatever reason they didn't resonate with me as they do now.
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