Pathfinder 2E Wish me luck: starting a Pathfinder 2 game via Foundry

[SteveC]

Just wanted to update as we finally were able to get together and have a session. Things went so well, and people had a good time.

Here are some things I learned:

First, oh is Foundry a breath of fresh air. I have run a game using Fantasy Grounds and play in a weekly game with Roll20. I am just amazed at how well Foundry runs, especially with the Beginner's Box module from Paizo. We had the usual "how do I do that?" VTT learning curve, but people were just amazed that the Bard's Inspire Courage could be dragged and dropped, or the Raise Shield was a click away from being activated. I can't recommend the combo of Foundry and the official modules enough.

Now about the game: we went into how the three action rule works, and it was a big hit. I had given the group a handout with all of the actions available to them in advance, and talked about "third action problems". That went quite well.

Everyone in the group felt useful and liked what their character could do. People acknowledged how the fighter was really good at what they did. We had a "oh, this is done right moment."

My group is spell caster light, but the bard was immediately voted as the most useful character.

I think I have a convert group on my hands, but we'll have a full session next week.

 

[Eric V]

Just wanted to update as we finally were able to get together and have a session. Things went so well, and people had a good time.

Here are some things I learned:

First, oh is Foundry a breath of fresh air. I have run a game using Fantasy Grounds and play in a weekly game with Roll20. I am just amazed at how well Foundry runs, especially with the Beginner's Box module from Paizo. We had the usual "how do I do that?" VTT learning curve, but people were just amazed that the Bard's Inspire Courage could be dragged and dropped, or the Raise Shield was a click away from being activated. I can't recommend the combo of Foundry and the official modules enough.

Now about the game: we went into how the three action rule works, and it was a big hit. I had given the group a handout with all of the actions available to them in advance, and talked about "third action problems". That went quite well.

Everyone in the group felt useful and liked what their character could do. People acknowledged how the fighter was really good at what they did. We had a "oh, this is done right moment."

My group is spell caster light, but the bard was immediately voted as the most useful character.

I think I have a convert group on my hands, but we'll have a full session next week.

Glad to hear it went well!

If any players drop out and you need another...

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

The only thing I can see is that you're not high on magics for dealing with opponents groups. There's only one spellcaster, and PF2e bardic magic doesn't have much in longer ranged area spells, being from the Occult list. That may make some encounters rougher than they otherwise would be.

That said, you have three one-on-one specialists that will likely work out really well with some encounters, at least after they start coming into their own and people learn how to start using them (swashers and rogues actually require a little experience before you learn how to use them effectively; other than learning the particulars of their specifics (sword-and-board, two-weapon, two-hander, archer) fighters are more straightforward.).

For a low level game I don't think this is a problem. I feel traditional full spellcasters like Wizard are a bit weak in PF2e at lower levels anyway. Maybe up until level 5 or 7 when they hold their own and at higher levels they can be more powerful than martials (although not to the extent of Pf1e and 5e).

Don't have the Starter or AV -- do they have a lot of large encounters with Level - X monsters?

 

[Thomas Shey]

For a low level game I don't think this is a problem. I feel traditional full spellcasters like Wizard are a bit weak in PF2e at lower levels anyway. Maybe up until level 5 or 7 when they hold their own and at higher levels they can be more powerful than martials (although not to the extent of Pf1e and 5e).

Its an argument. Because PF2e doesn't break at higher levels, I tend to think in terms of campaigns that go on to at least middle levels.

Don't have the Starter or AV -- do they have a lot of large encounters with Level - X monsters?

Afraid I'm no help, since I'm in the same bucket.

 

[SteveC]

Just a note to people who are considering trying Pathfinder2: Foundry VTT is currently having a 20% off sale. This is a one-time purchase (not a subscription) and has made running this game a breeze for me. Not getting paid or compensated in any way for this, just thought people might like to know about the deal.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'll also note someone I know recently was very complimentary about the Foundry PF2e support; said all evidence he has is that its better than than the 5e support.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Its an argument. Because PF2e doesn't break at higher levels, I tend to think in terms of campaigns that go on to at least middle levels.

I would even argue that the sweet spot of pf2e is actually levels 5-15 rather than the traditional 1-10 which is pretty refeshing. (while being perfectly playable at 1-5 and 6-20 as well).

 

[Retreater]

I'll also note someone I know recently was very complimentary about the Foundry PF2e support; said all evidence he has is that its better than than the 5e support.

In my opinion - as a middle-aged, not especially technically proficient grognard - the Foundry support of PF2 is the best VTT implementation of any RPG system.

 

[SteveC]

I'll also note someone I know recently was very complimentary about the Foundry PF2e support; said all evidence he has is that its better than than the 5e support.

I have the 5E module but have not used it myself. What I know is that if you have a DnDBeyond account (and I don't) there is a module to import your content from there into Foundry. I have a friend who has done this and been very pleased. We're discussing using Foundry for a 5E game next year, and I will talk about it when that happens, for good or ill.

 

[Lea R]

For the first time in over two years, I'll be running a game for my group, and we're going to try Pathfinder 2. The last game I ran was Curse of Strahd in 5E so this will be a different experience.
We are going to the the Beginners Box to learn the system (and how Foundry works) and then move into Abomination Vaults.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or advice in general are greatly appreciated. I will try and update this with what happened to maybe give you some help if you're in the same situation.

Some people have used Trouble in Otari as side quests during AV. Thought I would share that.

 

[SteveC]

I thought I'd update as we are done with everything but the last boss fight, which I'm doing for my group as just a fun time, since it might be a TPK otherwise.

I really like Foundry, but the one thing I would really love is for someone to look at applying all of the different actions consistently in the interface. It took us a while to get Panache working properly, for instance. But with that said: Pathfinder is complicated and Foundry really works better than I could ever have imagined.

The group really saw how variability in monster types made combat much more challenging in some cases. They were wrecking the combats, and then they ran into the Kobold Trapmaster, who got traps in play, and wrecked the poor rogue! They said they were feeling that it was an "easy" system until then.

I'm really liking how the different elements of the Pathfinder system work together. Coming from running 5E last, it's a much heavier system, but I also felt comfortable winging it when I wanted to. It was nice that there were mechanics in place when I needed them.

We will likely be moving on to Abomination Vaults, and I also have the Foundry module for that, so I expect a similar result.

I am going to be starting to play a 5E game in the near future on Roll20 and the combination of the Pathfinder system and Foundry support are going to make that really rough to do.

I'd suggest trying Foundry, picking up the Beginners Box set from Paizo, and going from there. If you're the sort of person who wants more heft than what 5E brings to the table, I don't think you'll go wrong.

 

[SteveC]

I am going to need extra luck! I'm running a second group through the Beginner's Box, and it includes a couple of players who are extremely game system challenged. Fortunately this will be the second time through the BB, and I'm just giving them the Iconic pregens to run. I need both coffee and booze to make this work, I think.

 

[SteveC]

I wanted to write about my experience with running the game for five players, including one who I would call "rpg challenged". I was really surprised, since I'm playing 5E with this same group (Dragon Heist).

The thing was that the player who has the most trouble was able to pick up PF2 almost immediately. Part of this is because we are running in Foundry for PF2 and Roll20 for D&D, but he genuinely just figured out things. The thing that really helped was the three action system. It wasn't "how much can I move and attack?" It was "you can do three things."

The group as a whole had a good time, and we are going to do Abomination Vault as soon as we finish up with Dragon Heist.

I wanted to just let people know who are on the fence for PF2 due to complexity that it really wasn't an issue, in fact it ran better. It was not what I was expecting, so you might get the same results if you try.

 

[Staffan]

Here's what "bad character" design can look like in Pathfinder 2:

• As a cleric, you don't have Medicine to do First Aid checks outside of combat (where most healing takes place). You skimp on Charisma so you don't get as many "free" Heal spells.

I noted this and thought I'd necro it: the cleric does not have to be responsible for out-of-combat healing. It might even be better if the rogue is, because the rogue has the skill increases and skill feats to spare (so you can have both Expert Medicine, Continual Recovery, and Ward Medic by level 3), and generally has a decent Wisdom anyway because of Perception.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For what its worth, my own feeling is that in practice (and this is an important caveat, because it may not seem so on paper) PF2e is significantly less complex in play than D&D3e or PF1e, and somewhat less complex in character generation and advancement (because things are siloed). As I've noted, the core book can be deceptive in this regard because its easy to forget that large chunks of it are simply irrelevant to playing any given character.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I noted this and thought I'd necro it: the cleric does not have to be responsible for out-of-combat healing. It might even be better if the rogue is, because the rogue has the skill increases and skill feats to spare (so you can have both Expert Medicine, Continual Recovery, and Ward Medic by level 3), and generally has a decent Wisdom anyway because of Perception.

I believe in our Age of Ashes hyrbrids game, it was the Witch/Investigator hybrid who did that duty (rather than what might have seemed the more traditional choice, the Oracle/Sorcerer). My Champion/Bard was the backup (though pretty early on this turned out to be superfluous in practice).

 

[SteveC]

This second group is using pregens, and one of the players took Kyra (the cleric for those of you not in the know). We went over spells and Medicine, and the group just jumped into "Kyra spends the 10 minutes the group is searching or refocusing doing Medicine". It worked really well. The group really liked that most of the time they are at full power (Ezren, the wizard, still has to deal with daily powers).

The Medicine part of the game was something they really liked. When they create characters, they all are planning on having this healing part of the party build. When I told them about Battle Medicine, and that there are a whole host of healing feats, that went over quite well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, it does one of the best jobs of breaking the "cleric-as-healbot" pattern of anything I've seen; you just have to be okay with how the game is much less about resource management than is historical with D&D-oids.

 

[Staffan]

Honestly, it does one of the best jobs of breaking the "cleric-as-healbot" pattern of anything I've seen; you just have to be okay with how the game is much less about resource management than is historical with D&D-oids.

If you're actually playing out the healing mini-game, it can be pretty tedious, particularly at levels where hit points have gotten away from the medic's ability to actually succeed at Medicine rolls. If/when I run PF2 again, I'll do one of two things (or possibly both):

• Do away with the Treat Injury check. If you're trained, you can spend 10 minutes to heal 2d8 points, no check needed. If you're an Expert, that goes up to 2d8+10, and so on (this would only apply to Treat Injury, not things like Battle Medicine).
• Use the optional Stamina rules from the GMG. Basically, this splits hit points for PCs (and NPCs/creatures for whom you bother) into two pools: Stamina and Hit points (half the fixed class-based hp goes into each pool; Stamina gets the Con bonus and Hit points gets the ancestral 1st level kicker). Hit points work just the way they normally do, except you don't lose them until you're out of Stamina. Stamina can be fully recovered by taking a 10 minute rest and spending a Resolve point, of which you have a number per day equal to your primary stat bonus (so usually 4 for levels 1-9). This makes it easier to heal between fights, but reduces the amount of in-fight healing you can do (because healing spells heal hit points, not stamina).

 

[SteveC]

Finished up the BB with my second group of players. I was worried about the boss at the end of the adventure but it was an incredible beat down. What happened:

The group split up to have two stealthy characters sneak up at the dragon. The stealthy halfling thief does amazing at gets into place. The decently stealthy swashbuckler ... does not and kicks off the combat with the rest of the party at the entrance.

The dragon breathes on the swashbuckler, horribly injuring him! I'm thinking "uh-oh."

Then the swashbuckler gets up to the dragon and ... trips it. Critical success. Now, the thief moves into position and rips the dragon a new one.

Then the bard goes and does an inspire courage and says "oh crap! We were going to use magic weapon. Here you go fighter."

Then the fighter spends all three actions moving right next to the dragon.

So the dragon takes it's next action, and stands up. First attack of opportunity of the game. Another big hit! And then it rips into everyone with their triple attack. The fighter and thief are at single digit hit points.

And then the swashbucker trips again, and ... does it once again.

The bard helped out with a TKP for a little damage but then the thief went ... sneak attack!

And then the fighter rolled a 20, doing 48 damage.

Ouch. There was a dead dragon.