Pathfinder 2E PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

[dave2008]

Yes, but you are telling me that I "don't get it", implying that I somehow don't understand. I do understand it. That we have different values of it doesn't mean one of lacks understanding.

Look... I'm going to chalk this up to poor wording, but saying "you don't understand" is very different than saying "you have a preference".



I mean, by RAW, Feats aren't required either. It might be much duller, but the math and such works out just as well.

At the end, ASIs are a fairly valid choice depending what kind of character you are building. For spellcasters it's generally more worthwhile because it has much more of an impact on what you can do and how effective you are. For non-spellcasters, it depends on what class you are. Monks and Barbarians can use an extra ASI to improve their stats because they can potentially be pretty MAD: Barbarians can really benefit from every physical stat, while raising a Monk's AC can definitely help them be less squishy. Compared to what you might chose as a Feat, they can vary.



Sure? But again, by RAW Feats don't even need to be included. My whole point is that ASIs versus Feats carries an opportunity cost. If you don't think so, that's fine, but don't tell me I "don't understand".

Indeed that fault lies with my explanation or lack thereof.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, yeah, this. It feels like everything must be tied to your main stat or forget it. First level seems cool, but many of your skills become forgotten quickly as the chance of them being useful reduces without you being able to do anything about it. Top that off with only being able to bump your proficiency so often, your skill feat options shrink along with the skill effectiveness. Felt like every level just kept funneling all abilities into a smaller and smaller list of useful things. I dont like hyper specialization, I prefer versatile characters. PF2 felt downright claustrophobic.

Like I said, I must be comparing to different D&D versions than you guys. My skills have felt useful, even ones I wasn't hammering hell out of, well out of the range anything but the top skills did in 3e.

 

[Retreater]

Like I said, I must be comparing to different D&D versions than you guys. My skills have felt useful, even ones I wasn't hammering hell out of, well out of the range anything but the top skills did in 3e.

For me, I think it's the absurdly high DCs for both level appropriate tasks, saves against monsters abilities, etc, that make checks hard to pull off, even if you're trained and have good ability scores. So many times we've seen failed diplomacy checks to intimidate, failed acrobatic checks to tumble through, and critically failed saving throws where it's more probable to get a critical fail than even a moderate success.
It's like the DCs are out of whack.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For me, I think it's the absurdly high DCs for both level appropriate tasks, saves against monsters abilities, etc, that make checks hard to pull off, even if you're trained and have good ability scores. So many times we've seen failed diplomacy checks to intimidate, failed acrobatic checks to tumble through, and critically failed saving throws where it's more probable to get a critical fail than even a moderate success.
It's like the DCs are out of whack.

I'm not saying they can't be hard, but at least they seem to stay within the possible longer.

I mean, take my Champion for example. He has just basic trained Acrobatics and a 12 Dex. He's 14th level. That gives him a +17 Acrobatics. The expected DC for a 14th level target is 32. That's only a one in five chance for a serious DC for his level, but I promise you the amount you'd have been able to throw at the equivalent in 3e would have made any serious check pretty much impossible four or five levels earlier, if not sooner. And he can make rolls that would be typical for lower level problems relatively reliably, which, again, wouldn't have been true in 3e.

 

[payn]

For me, I think it's the absurdly high DCs for both level appropriate tasks, saves against monsters abilities, etc, that make checks hard to pull off, even if you're trained and have good ability scores. So many times we've seen failed diplomacy checks to intimidate, failed acrobatic checks to tumble through, and critically failed saving throws where it's more probable to get a critical fail than even a moderate success.
It's like the DCs are out of whack.

Yeah, it felt like characters had one thing they had a reasonable chance of doing, everything else was a shot in hell.

 

[kenada]

Yeah, I think so. I would also be better about designing adventures than I would've been before running Age of Ashes and Abomination Vaults.

Here are a couple things I learned, that aren't really taught by the CRB (esp. if you're accustomed to 3.x/PF/5e design).
1) Severe encounters are really severe. Even with good play, you can lose a character. Deadly encounters are TPK territory, easily.
2) Attrition encounters don't work, because mundane healing is so easy to come by and limitless (not true in any D&D adjacent game - even 4e). PF2 is better suited to a handful of big encounters a day - but even, then, see Point #1.

On the other hand, if you were doing your own stuff and found that out, you could say, “whoops, that didn’t work,” and just not do it anymore. You might have to tweak whatever content you had produced for future sessions, but it’d be less work than having to adapt an entire AP.

 

[darjr]

Wait the feat "skilled" gives you proficiency in THREE skills. And there is "Expertise" as a higher level of ability. Which Prodigy gives you and a tool/or skill/or language. Plus it's only 10 work weeks to gain a tool proficiency, which many are fantastic, no ASI required.
And Skill Expert gives you expertise and a stat bonus and a proficiency.

It's not one ASI per skill. And if you think skills are completely blah, try having a grappler in your group. Or a party of them.... gah! That was WILD!!!!

I realize your mileage may vary, and some mods don't explicitly state consequences for failed skill checks, but there should be, it's implied in the examples, though I think it should have been plainly stated.

 

[payn]

On the other hand, if you were doing your own stuff and found that out, you could say, “whoops, that didn’t work,” and just not do it anymore. You might have to tweak whatever content you had produced for future sessions, but it’d be less work than having to adapt an entire AP.

It's early in the PF2 cycle, so maybe the APs are wildly inaccurate when it comes to encounter balance. Though, my PF1 extensive AP experience indicates that it was not that often an encounter needed to be adapted, usually you could trust Paizo adventure modules.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's early in the PF2 cycle, so maybe the APs are wildly inaccurate when it comes to encounter balance. Though, my PF1 extensive AP experience indicates that it was not that often an encounter needed to be adapted, usually you could trust Paizo adventure modules.

At least the first two distinctly had some issues (ask people about the barguest in Age of Ashes).

 

[kenada]

That’s my understanding too.

I guess I don’t see how one couldn’t have learned the described lessons from a homebrew game, or that doing so would be worse somehow. It seems like it ought to be easier to mitigate any problems identified for one’s group when there’s not a bunch of existing material that may need adapting.