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[PF2] Game Session Experiences (Playtest or Homebrew)
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<blockquote data-quote="Arakasius" data-source="post: 7497739" data-attributes="member: 6944960"><p>On the matter of CLW organized play is a thing and I'm sure they got plenty of feedback over the years that the first thing players were supposed to buy was the CLW wand. Sure you or I can decide to ban it in our personal games (and I did already back when my campaign was PF1) but that doesn't mean they should ignore the issue for organized play.</p><p></p><p>As for the rest we had another session last night. Wrapped up the combat from the previous session with the 5 level 11 party members and an allied giant against a level 13 custom monster, a level 11 rogue and 4 elite greater shadows. Despite the 2 level difference between the boss and the party crits weren't too bad. (he could crit the paladin on a 17 or higher, and other people on lower than that) But even with crits the health at that level was enough to deal with 2d12+16 damage (so 4d12 + 32 on crits)</p><p></p><p>Anyway I knocked out two of the players but they were able to kill the boss without too much trouble. I was curious if the boss was just going to auto-crit through the lot of them but it turned out to be manageable, mostly because the players had healed up after the first fight and at level 11 they really do have a lot of health, even the casters. I'll break down some feedback I got from players, good and bad.</p><p></p><p>Good.</p><p>1. They like the crit system, especially the casters. They like getting to crit on something like a chain lightning. Or when the fighter/paladin did power attack on the boss and crit and hit him for close to 100 points of damage.</p><p>2. Casters felt their spells were more impactful, especially the divine sorcerer. That's probably just because heal is just so much more powerful than cure wounds used to be and that he got to use it offensively for massive damage. Also the feral druid who is now using wild shape is playing much more like a magus now than before when it was full martial. Now he'll claw someone and then chain lightning a group in the face. Druids do seem very strong right now.</p><p></p><p>Bad:</p><p>1. Druid Wild Forms are awkward. Their damage isn't better than using Wild Claws (especially since you keep your spellcasting that way) and their utility is really hurt by having one minute duration. I completely agree with no natural spell since that just meant druids stayed in wild form all the time and took the animal part away from being an animal, but they either need to let forms have a better combat impact or better utility impact. Currently they're weak in both.</p><p>2. Blade of Justice seems really poor. One action to get 3 damage at this level that only lasts til eot. I know there is a couple things that build off it, but they're not that great either. Retribution strike has been quite good (especially when paired with enlarge) but blade of justice is just not good. It just honestly needs to last until the target is dead.</p><p></p><p>Not bad or good, just new:</p><p>1. Action economy with pets. Druid has some awkward turns now and again because of needing to use 1 action to make the pet do stuff. I agree this is better than PF1 but it still does leave druid having some turns where he has to leave the wolf to not do anything since he wants to use 3 actions. Maybe some sort of better definition on default actions for an unhandled pet? Unsure anyway.</p><p>2. Related to what you said about building characters, the players like the class feats but feel the general/skill feats need more options to tailor the characters. Pretty much most of the characters have a schtick and just take most of the feats that apply to it.</p><p></p><p>Anyway I disagree with a few of your points like the complaints against dmg being moved from static bonuses to extra dice or the comments about how it not feeling like heroic fantasy. The only real issues I have with character creation right now is the issue about more of ancestry should be frontloaded and that the character generation system does lead to lots of similar looking stat arrays. Also max health per level also makes similar looking health scores. Similarly there are a few best general feats so there is more commonality there then I would like, but I expect that to be fixed by just having more content.</p><p></p><p>Which to me is probably a common theme with a lot of issues that I see people bring up with PF2. A lot of stuff feels wrong but actually in play work quite well. For example things like:</p><p></p><p>1. Range of skills between best and worst in party allows everyone to compete, despite only having a -2 to 3 difference from prof. (which shouldn't be a surprise, 5e proved that allowing everyone to roll is a good thing)</p><p>2. Range for AC/Saves also being fairly low. I think the gap between low AC and high AC in our party right now is 3 (31 to 28) but despite that the 28 is a lot more squishy.</p><p>3. Small buffs being the only thing prevalent but when combined with the large numbers listed above does make one think that they don't matter. But in this system getting a 1-2 buff to hit or to defenses is huge because of how it pushes the crit range. As compared to PF1 where it just moved things more into auto hit.</p><p></p><p>Anyway overall so far this has been pretty positive for the party. They really enjoy the new action economy (which really is the best thing going here) and they were able to remake their characters in PF2 from PF1. I don't see any reason to go back to doing PF1 since this is solving a lot of balancing issues I was having to deal with as we moved into high level play. Now I can make fair encounters for their level again and play like we used to at lower levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arakasius, post: 7497739, member: 6944960"] On the matter of CLW organized play is a thing and I'm sure they got plenty of feedback over the years that the first thing players were supposed to buy was the CLW wand. Sure you or I can decide to ban it in our personal games (and I did already back when my campaign was PF1) but that doesn't mean they should ignore the issue for organized play. As for the rest we had another session last night. Wrapped up the combat from the previous session with the 5 level 11 party members and an allied giant against a level 13 custom monster, a level 11 rogue and 4 elite greater shadows. Despite the 2 level difference between the boss and the party crits weren't too bad. (he could crit the paladin on a 17 or higher, and other people on lower than that) But even with crits the health at that level was enough to deal with 2d12+16 damage (so 4d12 + 32 on crits) Anyway I knocked out two of the players but they were able to kill the boss without too much trouble. I was curious if the boss was just going to auto-crit through the lot of them but it turned out to be manageable, mostly because the players had healed up after the first fight and at level 11 they really do have a lot of health, even the casters. I'll break down some feedback I got from players, good and bad. Good. 1. They like the crit system, especially the casters. They like getting to crit on something like a chain lightning. Or when the fighter/paladin did power attack on the boss and crit and hit him for close to 100 points of damage. 2. Casters felt their spells were more impactful, especially the divine sorcerer. That's probably just because heal is just so much more powerful than cure wounds used to be and that he got to use it offensively for massive damage. Also the feral druid who is now using wild shape is playing much more like a magus now than before when it was full martial. Now he'll claw someone and then chain lightning a group in the face. Druids do seem very strong right now. Bad: 1. Druid Wild Forms are awkward. Their damage isn't better than using Wild Claws (especially since you keep your spellcasting that way) and their utility is really hurt by having one minute duration. I completely agree with no natural spell since that just meant druids stayed in wild form all the time and took the animal part away from being an animal, but they either need to let forms have a better combat impact or better utility impact. Currently they're weak in both. 2. Blade of Justice seems really poor. One action to get 3 damage at this level that only lasts til eot. I know there is a couple things that build off it, but they're not that great either. Retribution strike has been quite good (especially when paired with enlarge) but blade of justice is just not good. It just honestly needs to last until the target is dead. Not bad or good, just new: 1. Action economy with pets. Druid has some awkward turns now and again because of needing to use 1 action to make the pet do stuff. I agree this is better than PF1 but it still does leave druid having some turns where he has to leave the wolf to not do anything since he wants to use 3 actions. Maybe some sort of better definition on default actions for an unhandled pet? Unsure anyway. 2. Related to what you said about building characters, the players like the class feats but feel the general/skill feats need more options to tailor the characters. Pretty much most of the characters have a schtick and just take most of the feats that apply to it. Anyway I disagree with a few of your points like the complaints against dmg being moved from static bonuses to extra dice or the comments about how it not feeling like heroic fantasy. The only real issues I have with character creation right now is the issue about more of ancestry should be frontloaded and that the character generation system does lead to lots of similar looking stat arrays. Also max health per level also makes similar looking health scores. Similarly there are a few best general feats so there is more commonality there then I would like, but I expect that to be fixed by just having more content. Which to me is probably a common theme with a lot of issues that I see people bring up with PF2. A lot of stuff feels wrong but actually in play work quite well. For example things like: 1. Range of skills between best and worst in party allows everyone to compete, despite only having a -2 to 3 difference from prof. (which shouldn't be a surprise, 5e proved that allowing everyone to roll is a good thing) 2. Range for AC/Saves also being fairly low. I think the gap between low AC and high AC in our party right now is 3 (31 to 28) but despite that the 28 is a lot more squishy. 3. Small buffs being the only thing prevalent but when combined with the large numbers listed above does make one think that they don't matter. But in this system getting a 1-2 buff to hit or to defenses is huge because of how it pushes the crit range. As compared to PF1 where it just moved things more into auto hit. Anyway overall so far this has been pretty positive for the party. They really enjoy the new action economy (which really is the best thing going here) and they were able to remake their characters in PF2 from PF1. I don't see any reason to go back to doing PF1 since this is solving a lot of balancing issues I was having to deal with as we moved into high level play. Now I can make fair encounters for their level again and play like we used to at lower levels. [/QUOTE]
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