Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2E or Pathfinder 1E?

[CapnZapp]

If that's the case, then it should be entirely possible to have a game with a great variety of character options, which doesn't also result in wild power imbalances. The only remaining question is why we haven't seen it yet.

Because that's bloody difficult to pull off, especially given how different players put wildly different values on any given option?

At least if you want to offer true choice and variety, as opposed to a mush of interchangeable options.

 

[Staffan]

At this point, I think the playtest is over, right?

Not only is the playtest over, but the books have been sent to the printer.

 

[Voadam]

GURPS

No, no, he said where all options are reasonably balanced.

It is really easy to make a high point GURPS character with no combat skills or attributes. "I'm a successful high status merchant with trade allies and connections, hey where did all my points go?"

 

[Ancalagon]

If that's the case, then it should be entirely possible to have a game with a great variety of character options, which doesn't also result in wild power imbalances. The only remaining question is why we haven't seen it yet.

I've been thinking about it, and I have a partial answer.

I think we can agree that a system where someone with good system mastery can make a character that is a little more powerful than a character made without focused intent (an "organically grown" one) BUT only a little - ie enough to make the careful character builder feel rewarded, but not enough that the game is dis-balanced. This would be a good place to be right?

Let's say that for warriors (rogues, monks, fighters, etc), a difference of 5 dpr (damage per round - and I'm just making up a number here, I'm not saying that it's the right number!) is about as much as you would want to see.

Let's say that each "best" choice increases your DPR by 0.5 dmg.

If you have a game with oh, 12 choices in your character design, you will have 6 more DPR than the "organic" character *IF* the organic characters makes only bad choices! (DPR wise). I think we're good.

But what if the game has 40-50 choices? Now suddenly, due to the cumulative effects of all these decisions, the optimized character is much, much better.

And that's why it's hard to do - if you have a rich, complex character design process, if choices are meaningful, and if there are a lot of them, the possible gap gets very wide.

 

[Voadam]

Beowulf did some pretty epic swimming, IIRC. Whenever a non-magical character does something that's far beyond the capacity of normal people, that pushes them into epic territory. A more traditional example for D&D would be the DC 45 mechanical lock, which requires a legendary burglar to pick.

Magic can complicate matters. Magic needs to be very powerful, before anyone starts to notice that it's far beyond the capacity of normal wizards. And it's hard to tell when you should be impressed, if someone does something that's physically impossible but magically trivial.
At low levels, you get to experience the sandbox when high-level characters trounce you due to their superior capabilities. You probably want to give them a wide berth.

You'll need to find an area without those sorts of people, anyway, if you want to do anything impressive. There's no point in trying to be a level 1 hero in a city where level 14 heroes can solve all of your problems in a few minutes. That's the old Superman + Green Arrow teamup problem.
Unless the GM is taking very firm control over where the party goes and who the party interacts with, the point of scaling DCs is that you only rarely encounter challenges of your exact level. That aforementioned DC 45 lock is amazing because it can keep out anyone with a skill check bonus smaller than 25 and that includes the overwhelming majority of individuals who might come against it. It would be significantly less impressive if everyone within a hundred miles of it was level 20, and the average thief (from the subset of those who actually come across it) was capable of bypassing it after a few tries.

Scaling DCs become superfluous when you've contrived all encounters to only take place against challenges of an equal level. In that case alone, the specific numbers are meaningless, and you could accomplish the same thing with Bounded Accuracy. That's kind of a degenerate case, though; it doesn't describe a believable world.

I see it 180 degrees from how you do.

Having DCs/CRs tied to general party level is how 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder 1e generally work for most adventures and in the guidelines of the DMG for crafting challenging encounters. You see the DC 45 master lock at high levels (or at 3rd with a knock spell or mid levels when you get an adamantine knife). Most combats are within a level appropriate range that varies in their toughness.

Bounded accuracy makes sandboxes work much better IMO, you can have mixed level parties with less powerful characters making significant contributions much more easily in a bounded accuracy system and the low level monsters can be used in higher level play with better effects.

Variable toughness random encounters are much more viable as interesting encounters in a bounded accuracy system. Lower level monsters can challenge tougher PCs and running into a higher level monster is less of an auto TPK than it would be in nonbounded accuracy (though I've TPK'd an 8th level party with a single vampire in 5e and it wasn't even close).

A monster with a +10 attack bonus against a tank knight with an AC of 30 is fairly irrelevant and poor game play at the table IMO. I found these "need a 20 to hit" combats uninteresting to run in 3e/PF and not that uncommon. A +3 attack bonus against a bounded accuracy tank AC of 19 is still a fight and the tank still feels like a tank next to the AC 14 nontanks.

I think we are looking for different things out of sandbox play and the difference in levels though.

 

[Green Onceler]

I found these "need a 20 to hit" combats uninteresting to run in 3e/PF and not that uncommon. .

Really? I've played a lot of Pathfinder and I don't think that's ever come up as an actual encounter. Why would your GM even bother running something like that let alone make them a common occurrence?

I guess if your level 20 fighter randomly decides to attack the local melon farmer it might pop up, but I cannot imagine a GM purposefully bringing such an encounter to her session.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not only is the playtest over, but the books have been sent to the printer.

??

 

[CapnZapp]

I've been thinking about it, and I have a partial answer.

I think we can agree that a system where someone with good system mastery can make a character that is a little more powerful than a character made without focused intent (an "organically grown" one) BUT only a little - ie enough to make the careful character builder feel rewarded, but not enough that the game is dis-balanced. This would be a good place to be right?

Let's say that for warriors (rogues, monks, fighters, etc), a difference of 5 dpr (damage per round - and I'm just making up a number here, I'm not saying that it's the right number!) is about as much as you would want to see.

Let's say that each "best" choice increases your DPR by 0.5 dmg.

If you have a game with oh, 12 choices in your character design, you will have 6 more DPR than the "organic" character *IF* the organic characters makes only bad choices! (DPR wise). I think we're good.

But what if the game has 40-50 choices? Now suddenly, due to the cumulative effects of all these decisions, the optimized character is much, much better.

And that's why it's hard to do - if you have a rich, complex character design process, if choices are meaningful, and if there are a lot of them, the possible gap gets very wide.

What good (=balanced) design absolutely must do is design for the extremes.

Calculate the absolutely optimized character build for each criteria (attack bonus, number of attacks, damage per attack... in short, DPR) and then ask your dev team "is this what we want?"

Specifically
* "is the gap big enough to satisfy system mastery players?"
* "is the gap narrow enough to avoid getting a bad reputation for our system being too-hard, too geeky?"

When you don't design for the extremes, you're flailing about in the dark. That is why your system fails, why it gets "wild power imbalances".

The problem is, far too many players are too "casual" to realize a system is horribly borked before it's too late (i.e. the publisher has already cashed in). Unfortunately history shows a poor correlation between balance and sales.

Partly because it's so easy to dazzle too many players that don't care enough about balance, partly because of systems like 4E which went (far) too far and made everything so damned balanced all the fun was sucked out of choosing between charbuild options.

It all boils down to the simple fact that most players either don't care about balance because they're fluffy or they say they care about balance but secretly hope to "break" the system and create Pun-Pun the Kobold (which is to say, they don't really want the system to be balanced, only balanced enough that you require real system-mastery to... well, master it).

Add to this the little fact that balancing a system requires a designer that's actually good. That you give enough time to do a decent job. Which costs money.

 

[CapnZapp]

Compare to World of Warcraft.

Their have a massive advantage over D&D in terms of budget, but (even) more importantly number of data points (exact details of each player's charbuild, and how well that charbuild performs in actual play).

Even so, there's always at least one outrage in terms of "my Druid sucks" or "Rogues are overpowered".

---

Still, doesn't excuse just giving up. WotC made far too little an effort with 5E - there are enough grating niggles that it is a real shame we have to live with for the foreseeable future.

Not just smaller things that legitimately took players some time to find (the Crossbow Expert feat is actively making the game worse).

No major things, like "let's skip feat balancing, we'll simply say it's optional and just shrug at anyone pointing out obvious mistakes. Think of the design hours we'll save!"

 

[Zardnaar]

If that's the case, then it should be entirely possible to have a game with a great variety of character options, which doesn't also result in wild power imbalances. The only remaining question is why we haven't seen it yet.

1. Because Pathfinder seems to be doubling down on the bad parts of 3.X.
2. WoTC has gone in 2 different directions since 3.X.

My personal D&D I have been working on for years has kind of morphed from a fixed 3.X to a advanced B/X type game with bits of 3E-5E stapled on it. The classes kinda resemble 5E ones, but have gritty amounts of healing (damag is also lower), retians some OSR bit but uses microfeats and has different rates of xp for the classes. It kind of so you can fit any class in really and make it as powerful as you want, it just might have a really crappy xp table a'la B/X Elf or 1E UA Barbarian. Some things to balance out magic.

1. All saves (fort/ref/will) scale a'la OSR/4E games.
2. I use the old 3.5 D&DM SR,11,16 for SR and its a d20 roll to beat. SR 16 is 75% MR in AD&D and its unaffected by caster level (spell penetration feat grants +2 to the D20 roll).

A Drow would have SR 11, one over level 11 would be SR 16. A mindflayer is SR 16 although I might make it a special at 19.

There is no archetypes but you can build your own I suppose.