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Eh. I'm actually in the camp that role playing is entirely separate from stats and min/maxing. You can role play a min/maxed, 'flawed' or normal character just fine. (I actually find people who ham it up and go on and about flaws and 'tragic backstories' fairly intolerable at the table). It's fairly system independent thing to me- role playing is really up to the people at the table, not the system.

But I do think this system is overturned when it comes to numbers. You're severely punished for diversifying, and to be even moderately effective at the overturned monsters (and DCsfor skill checks) you absolutely must chase the highest numbers, have the best gear (and weapons absolutely must be upgraded first due to the damage multipliers) and dumpster dive for any other possible bonuses just to maintain a ~55% success rate.

It's overkill, especially for mundane skills. How often do they think people fail at their jobs, day to day? I suspect most work places would outright fire people who failed at 5-10% of their tasks every day, let alone 40-50% that their math generates.

 Lance845 wrote:
You know what has struck me as a really bizzare mechanic recently? Why the feth do you have 1 number for your attribute and 1 number for your attribute modifier.

Having a 16 in dex never matters. It's the +3 that does everything. So why don't you just have a 3 in dex instead?

It's like THACO. You do all this math in reverse to get to what should just be a linear simple equation. So why the feth do you calculate out your attributes, to then calculate a modifier to then apply the modifier to everything mechanically? Shouldn't it just get simplified to having a attribute that just does the stuff?

That is the core of the True20 system - one of the better offshoots of the D20 system.

Also done away with is Hit Points - damage is more about Risk Management than Resource Management. A blow can ktake you out of combat, and the more damage you have accumulated the more likely it is that you will be taken out.

It formed the core for Mutants & Masterminds as well.

The Auld Grump

 Lance845 wrote:
Those updates dont actually answer the issues and in some ways make them even worse.

Look at the dc by difficulty/level chart. Thats insanity.

A lock should be as difficult as a lock is to pick. It shouldnt get a higher dc because you raised a level. What kind of bs is it that the world levels up with the player but only to that specific player? if im level 3 and your level 5 and we both try to pick the same lock the dc for you is ACTUALLY higher.

Theres that super gamey bs.

That is dumb. I've always thought that the world should remain the same regardless of party's character level. There should be stuff the low level players just run away from unless they're terminally stupid or suicidal. Or a band of gnolls might attack a 12th level party and get creamed - how do gnolls know they're mid-high level characters?

It's up to the GM to steer players towards appropriate challenges, but the majority of any world is going to be low level stuff, because gaining levels generally requires doing dangerous stuff and there's no Raise Dead mechanics until medium levels.

That said, this is the sort of thing World of Warcraft and other MMOs are doing these days to keep content relevant, but they have the benefit of a computer program to do the on-the-fly scaling. It's a bad idea for a pen and paper RPG.

It's funny given how Pathfinder was predicated on NOT re-inventing the wheel from D&D3.0/3.5. Now they're trying to substantially diverge in several ways (Perception not being a skill is my least favorite) rather than maintain backwards compatibility.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Voss wrote:
Surprisingly this question came up in one of the recent surveys they did, so it is something that occurred to them. The survey question wasn't phrased very well (a problem that dogs a lot of their surveys, as it garbles what little data they're getting), but was basically 'keep it for clarity, keep it for legacy, don't keep it and don't care.'


---

At the moment the answer is partly a legacy thing, a sacred cow that they keep around so old fans don't leave. The other seems to be part of the way they want progression to happen. Once you hit 18/+4 in a stat, it doesn't increase by 2/+1, but by 1/+0.5 (but you don't use the fraction).

So effectively your primary stat only advances at 10th and 20th level (because to keep up with the system math, you absolutely must start at 18 to keep up with monsters ACs and DCs), and you don't bother raising any other stats that high- just spread advances out to raise everything else to 18 as much as possible, especially Dex, Wis and Con (Str, Int and Cha are effectively dump stats, unless your class uses them)

Everything you just said is a game design issue. Min Maxing for role playing is counter to role playing (see the gamey bit I said at the end of the last page/top of this one). .5 increases that do nothing are pointless. Just say the limit a stat can increase to is 5.

Roll a d4 6 times to get your attributes and then apply racial modifiers. Or roll 2 or 3d4 and take the highest 6 times. You could get a 0 stat because of a racial penalty (except i think those are gone in PF2) but negatives are gone, because they only ever went into dump stats anyway who gives a gak?)

Functionally it does the same thing but gives players a hard cap so they need to spread their stat gains around and all those stat gains actually do something.

LoL! I might just try that with my next set of characters. Now how would we round out the probabilities to match 4d6 dropping the lowest....

You don't and who cares? 4d6 dropping the lowest gives a lot of +2 and +3s with maybe a +4 and probably a -1 or 0 or a +1 or such.

The 0s and negatives don't matter, because like I said they all end up in dump stats anyway. Even the +1s end up in secondary or little used attributes. The only thing that actually matters with the way people use attributes in dnd style games is where do they put their +4 and +3s and in a pinch their +2s.

So taking a dice roller and trying this out I will make 6 sets of attributes with a few methods.

Rolling 3d4 and taking the highest.

Set 1:

2/2/1 = 2
4/3/2 = 4
2/2/1 = 2
3/2/3 = 3
1/2/1 = 2
1/1/4 = 4

Set 2:

4/4/1 = 4
3/2/1 = 3
1/1/3 = 3
4/2/2 = 4
2/1/2 = 2
1/1/2 = 2

Rolling 2d4 and taking the highest.

Set 3:

3/2 = 3
3/2 = 3
4/3 = 4
1/1 = 1
2/1 = 2
3/2 = 3

Set 4:

3/1 = 3
2/3 = 3
4/1 = 4
2/4 = 4
2/3 = 3
1/1 = 1

Rolling 1d4

Set 5:

2
1
1
4
4
3

Set 6:

2
4
1
3
3
3

Rolling 1d4 looks the most like the 4d6 drop the lowest. 3d4 and 2d4 make it very difficult to end up with a 1 in anything. But any of them function fine enough.

Lets try 2 more sets for funsies.

3d4, add them together, divide by 3, round up.

Set 7:

(3+3+2)/3 = 3
(1+1+2)/3 = 2
(2+3+4)/3 = 3
(1+1+1)/3 = 1
(3+4+2)/3 = 3
(1+1+2)/3 = 2

Set 8:

(2+4+3)/3 = 3
(1+3+3)/3 = 3
(3+4+3)/3 = 4
(3+3+1)/3 = 3
(2+2+1)/3 = 2
(4+4+3)/3 = 4



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
Eh. I'm actually in the camp that role playing is entirely separate from stats and min/maxing. You can role play a min/maxed, 'flawed' or normal character just fine. (I actually find people who ham it up and go on and about flaws and 'tragic backstories' fairly intolerable at the table). It's fairly system independent thing to me- role playing is really up to the people at the table, not the system.

But I do think this system is overturned when it comes to numbers. You're severely punished for diversifying, and to be even moderately effective at the overturned monsters (and DCsfor skill checks) you absolutely must chase the highest numbers, have the best gear (and weapons absolutely must be upgraded first due to the damage multipliers) and dumpster dive for any other possible bonuses just to maintain a ~55% success rate.

It's overkill, especially for mundane skills. How often do they think people fail at their jobs, day to day? I suspect most work places would outright fire people who failed at 5-10% of their tasks every day, let alone 40-50% that their math generates.

Of course everyone at the table is welcome to just play their character however they see fit. But the mechanics of the game should work WITH that not be an entirely separate entity. The average human attribute in dnd is 10 (+0). When do you EVER feel like thats true in dnd?

 John Prins wrote:

It's funny given how Pathfinder was predicated on NOT re-inventing the wheel from D&D3.0/3.5. Now they're trying to substantially diverge in several ways (Perception not being a skill is my least favorite) rather than maintain backwards compatibility.

I agree when Pathfinder came out many of us called it D&D 3.75. When WotC released the version three of the game, they got a lot of things right, but many of the people that I played with still loved second edition and didn't want to put the money into buying a whole
new set of books. As I told them, the version you like isn't going away, its just no longer supported. No one is going to break in your house to remove it. But if you ran a session with the third edition to a bunch of second edition players, they quickly noticed how
smooth and clean the game was. That's what you want in a new edition is improvement of the previous version.

Now do we get this feeling with PF 2.0??, Maybe some people do...but I don't .. I am getting a lot of "what the heck is that??" I realize this is the "beta test" but it doesn't get my "plan to purchase" confidence up.

Of course everyone at the table is welcome to just play their character however they see fit. But the mechanics of the game should work WITH that not be an entirely separate entity. The average human attribute in dnd is 10 (+0). When do you EVER feel like thats true in DnD?

Always, actually. I've never gotten the impression that the human normal is higher than 10. But I certainly assume that adventurers, as people who specialize in constant violence, are going to be above the norm in the stats their particular speciality requires. Or dead.

Now granted, in PF2 that's a little threatened, given the way characters are built, but that's largely because of the sheer number of increases that happen every five levels. But I expect even in pf2 most starting stat lines will be 18/14/14/12/10/10 or 18/16/12/12/10/10, and the two 10s likely won't change much until 10th or even 15th level. And the way most campaigns run, 15th is likely pretty rare.

The standard build for PF1 'Heroic' NPCs has been 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 - with two +2 and one -2 added to specific stats for most races - but the humans and half humans getting a single floating +2, with no negative.

NPC classes get stats that are considerably lower.

The PC classes are the folks that go beyond the norm, and are above average - 'basic' NPCs get 13,12,11, 10, 9, 8.

The Auld Grump

Yeah, i get that its SUPPOSED to be that way. But when are you interacting with the norms? Never. Never in any way where your attributes and their attributes matter. By lvl 5 the world stops being populated by them. By level 10 the world stops being populated with heroic 1rst level equivalent people. By level 15 the world is all legendary people.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah, i get that its SUPPOSED to be that way. But when are you interacting with the norms? Never. Never in any way where your attributes and their attributes matter. By lvl 5 the world stops being populated by them. By level 10 the world stops being populated with heroic 1rst level equivalent people. By level 15 the world is all legendary people.

In my games? The party interacts with norms all the time, rather than never.

Bar brawl while the party is in port?
Norms.

The merchant trying to swindle the dumb barbarian?
Norm.

The guy the party sends out with a message, and gets beaten up by a gang while on his way?
Both he and the gang - norms.

The friendly witch that sells the discount healing potions?
Norm.

The watch patrol will be norms, the watch captain probably won't be - unless he was an appointee, in which case he might be a norm aristocrat.

*EDIT* That was all just last Saturday, in my Spelljammer/Pathfinder game...

Norms are 80% of the population.

And, yeah - most of the population is people that are worse than the PCs.

The Auld Grump - heck, read Frog God's city settings... Norms rule the world!

 Lance845 wrote:
Yeah, i get that its SUPPOSED to be that way. But when are you interacting with the norms? Never. Never in any way where your attributes and their attributes matter. By lvl 5 the world stops being populated by them. By level 10 the world stops being populated with heroic 1rst level equivalent people. By level 15 the world is all legendary people.

I've never played that way. I've never played with a GM who ran the game that way. I've honestly never even heard this assertion before.

Normal people remain normal all the way up, regardless of what level the PCs are. It doesn't matter which edition.


The only time I can think of anything like this is in MMOs, where quest givers, shopkeepers and the like pick up the zone level so opposing players can't come in and easily gank them to grief players on the other side.
Doesn't apply to tabletop RPGs at all.

Usually the standard (and this is actually IN several DMGs) is this:
based on size, a settlement has X% of NPCs of various levels, and the percentage gets smaller for higher levels (usually much, much smaller).
So in a city of a 10000, you'd have (to pick numbers out of the air)
100 1st level city guards
20 2nd level city guards
10 3rd level city guards
2 5th level lieutenants
and a 7th level captain.

And that doesn't change. Yes, it does mean that eventually the PCs can totally conquer a city (though there might be a couple higher level adventurers retired or in government that might object), but that's totally OK and comes with its own consequences/reactions.

In order for what the players are doing to have any risk and thus any danger/excitement in a level/class based game the npcs the players interact with have to have SOME kind of a chance of doing something.

That means they get levels too. That means they are not norms.

A normal human in dnd has roughly 6-8 hp. A single arrow is a serious threat to them staying concious. A greatsword/axe/hammer can kill them in a single blow. A single fireball from a caster at level 10 can kill them by the half dozens.

Its not fun or interesting to have the players interact with npcs with that kind of a power gap.

If the npcs are gaining levels with the players, even if they are npc classes that dont get as much, then they are not norms anymore.

The very moment that guy can take 6 times the damage of a normal human hes somewhere along the above average path the pcs are on. When your lvl 15 and the farmer has 10 hit dice hes better then you were for 1/3rd of your above average career.


This growth doesnt happen because of what the dmg tells you or whatever. It happens because if you want the players to keep being challenged then you need the people around them to be a challenge.

I'm not sure what RPG you're playing where the only interaction you've got with normal people is killing them.

A farmer never needs 10 hit dice for any reason.


---
And honestly, the weird conceit with the CR system in 3rd edition (which followed into Pathfinder) where the assumption is all enemies have to be level-relevant and you only fight 3-4 at the time is probably the weirdest and most frustrating mutation the game experienced. It's the closest thing I can think of to what you're described, but it doesn't mean that everyone is leveled, or even that most are. Just that challenging _fights_ should be constructed a certain way (in 3rd edition/PF1).


Most of the really good fights in older editions that I remember were the party against enemies that outnumbered them (but were individually weaker). The dogpile on the wizard (or dragon) approach that third adopted as its base assumption was really boring, as was the 'rocket tag' approach to fast fights (though that was a consistent problem at higher level in early editions as well).

Though the padded sumo of bloated HP that 4e championed managed to be even more dull. PF2 seems intent on replicating that, with max HP every level and monsters getting into 100+ hp before level 10, and several hundreds in the late teens. In addition, the 'tight math' means lower level creatures can NEVER be relevant. That's pretty nuts, and wasn't the case before.

As an aside, 5e's problem is the opposite direction. Unlike PF2, its approach to tight math is that a group of 100 orcs will almost always kill the party, and the solution to any monster rampaging across the countryside isn't adventurers, it's getting a company of archers together and putting it down like a dog.

In both PF2 and 5e, statistical averages, when applied, can completely kill the game because of how the math is constructed, even though they turn in opposite directions. Both groups of designers focused on getting the math 'right' without understanding the implications that they were creating. And just assumed that everyone would play without thinking about it, which never actually happens.

The CR system allows you to combine bunches of lower level monsters into an appropriate challenge for higher level characters. Additionally, I've played few campaigns where XP wasn't handed out for achieving overarching goals (story and/or personal), solving mysteries or intrigues that didn't involve direct combat. Many of these can involve a lot of 'normal' people.

For example, the local king could send 200 2nd level Warriors (led by a 4th level Fighter) out to arrest a band of 9th level adventurers. Their challenge isn't to kill the soldiers, which they could probably do, but to escape without committing mass murder.

Also, depending on how characters have spent their Skill Points (Pathfinder 1.0, not 2.0), a 3rd level 'normal' expert Merchant could easily bargain the pants off a 10th level adventurer.

Not to mention, the RAW actually includes encounters above the Average Party Level and below. (Heck, 3.5 had percentages for encounters above and below - it debuted in an adventure for 3.0.)

In Saturday's game, the Vigilante and the Urban Ranger split from the party, to track down the gang that had ambushed their messenger (and grabbed the decoy message but missed the hidden real message) - the two of them could, and did, take on the entire gang.

And took them alive - after all - the gang beat the messenger, but didn't kill him.

Voss wrote:
A farmer never needs 10 hit dice for any reason.

A 10th level farmer is outstanding in his field. (Hey, I'm a dad - I'm allowed jokes like that.)

The Auld Grump

Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

And hurts more when the NPC wins....



The Auld Grump

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

https://taking10.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-final-thoughts-on-pathfinder-2nd.html?fbclid=IwAR1-XGTyBlHXpNnqbxLUMLLnwpVEX6s7wDpniTOI8HtwEeLj4LlTq6FhXew


..yyeesshh..


well we stuck with AD & D 2nd edition -- with a fair few house rules for years -- never played 3rd edition and more than happy to miss out on 4th.

We still play the WOTC d20 star wars & the old Mayfair games DC Heroes system.

My current P'finder campaign had it's 61st session of this campaign on Sunday .. think we'll stick with this edition.

 Lance845 wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

These aren't objective statements of truth, they're personal preferences. Skyrim particularly is annoying because everything levels up with you and become more and more of a slog to fight the exact same stuff, but with a bigger HP bar.
Some underdog games can be fun, other times its just really annoying. In D&D, it can easily mean death and TPKs on a regular basis, as the sheer randomness doesn't allow for pulled punches without the DM blatantly cheating. Certainly nothing I find fun or even vaguely rewarding.

The first bit is fundamentally ignoring the resolution mechanic. d20 rolls put a limiter on how far the numbers can go. Lower level creatures can remain a threat depending on the system- excessively so in 5e (where at first level, almost any character has about a 30% chance of hitting a pit fiend), less so in 3e, and almost nil in PF2, thanks to critical failures and +level to rolls. But in most editions, at 5th level 20-24 orcs are far more threatening than 2 or 3 ogres, despite being comparable encounters under a CR system and the ogres being more 'level appropriate.'

 reds8n wrote:
https://taking10.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-final-thoughts-on-pathfinder-2nd.html?fbclid=IwAR1-XGTyBlHXpNnqbxLUMLLnwpVEX6s7wDpniTOI8HtwEeLj4LlTq6FhXew


..yyeesshh..

Most of that is pretty fair. The only caveat I have is siloing the feats into class, ancestry and general (and skill) makes sense in principle (having separate lists of abilities of different power levels)... but they shouldn't all be named 'feats.' Class feats, general talents, ancestry traits would have cleared up a lot of the problems and confusion and made it clear they're different things trying to accomplish different goals. Dwarven poison resistance, medium armor training and leap smash attacks aren't the same kind of thing, and should be separate (something the old system didn't do very well was separate good feats from trash feats, especially as books and larger and larger feat piles accrued).

Unfortunately, ancestry (racial) feats are a dumpster fire, skill feats are a joke, and you'll probably run out of worthwhile general feats to take by 9th level.

----
They've also put up for a proposal for... changing the new resonance system that almost no one liked (it got a ~20% approval in surveys). Basically instead of a level+cha pool to use magic items, its 'you can wear 10 magic items, the end, full stop.' But given the Wealth by Level system and needing to constantly upgrade weapons and armor, you'll probably never have 10 spare magic items laying around per character, so... whatever. Obscure corner-case land is saved, I guess.

Instead they've introduced a focus system which is just 1+cha mod, which is a pool for both class powers (replacing spell points, which... never affected spells, but never mind), and 'supercharging' consumable items. Which makes for a very, very small pool that doesn't expand like spell points did. Which means if you have a class that has (good) powers, you never, ever want to 'supercharge' items, and if you don't have such a class... go to town. It so very obviously leads to extremes (always/never/or save for healing emergencies) that I don't know why they bashed it together out of the remnants of their failed resonance system and threw class powers in with it.

 Lance845 wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

I pretty much disagree with your entire statement.

Sometimes having the odds in your favor is fun - not as a steady diet, but to let the players see how far that they have come.

And it is so much fun when the PCs are overwhelmed at each turn, and the GM decides 'it doesn't count as an adventure unless a PC dies!' (This is heavy, heavy sarcasm, in case you missed it. I had a GM like that, and pull him out as a horrible example when I get the chance.)

To repeat the most important matter - not every conflict is combat, not every encounter is about conflict.

Really, it sounds like you bought into the idiocy that led to D&D 4e.


Don't bother to talk to the guards at the gate! It's not fun!

Don't traipse through the faerie gates! D&D is a game about COMBAT!

(Both examples from WotC's own literature.)

There is a reason why 4e failed, both as a game and as a business plan.

Limiting the game to a single style of play was a big part of that poor decision making.

Some people do like talking to the guards at the gate, or do want to traipse through the faerie gate.

Take a look at Pathfinder Adventure Paths - there are plenty of examples of NPCs with NPC classes, and even *gasp!* a mix of PC and NPC classes.

And nearly every one of those NPCs use the standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 arrays.

Some of the encounters are easy - as the PCs slaughter their way through mooks.

Some encounters are hard - and unless the PCs are clever, can end with a well fed monster and dead PCs.

A lot of the encounters average out to the standard CR for the adventure - one above or below, but averaging properly.

And one of my favorite Adventure Paths does allow the PCs to traipse through a faerie gate and interact with the little people.

In my own game, over the past month, there was an encounter where, if the PCs stood their ground they would have been slaughtered.

There was an encounter where two of the characters split off from the rest of the party, and could handle the battle on their lonesome.

There have been times when the PCs outwitted the NPCs and times when the NPCs outwitted the PCs.

There was an lingering encounter with a CR1 that could have killed the entire party, if given enough time. (Putrefy Food & Drink is a 0 level spell. And they were on a long voyage, little by little their food and water was being destroyed by what is technically a minor haunt.)

They had to accept a gift that effectively exiled them from their nation for a year - refusing the gift would have counted as les majesty against a bloodthirsty queen.

The Dreamer's in his Chamber,
The King is on his Throne.
The Queen is in the abattoir,
And dances all alone....

The Auld Grump

 Lance845 wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

Difficulty's in the hands of the GM. Hackmaster tried to de-magic their game when they went Basic, to the point where you only got hit dice every other level and even a +5 sword was just really well built. It wasn't fun, it was just more lethal.


Look at the Curse of Strahd, or Tucker's Kobolds.

https://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf

Curse of Strahd is this on a grander scale- take a vampire, make him The Vampire and give him his own pocket dimension and a license to screw with players. High level players have so much more to lose- attack their town or castle, turn their peasantry against them, maybe even craft some magicked up NPC doom squads composed of their fallen, or not so fallen opponents Shadows of Mordor style. Encounter after encounter will eventually get boring- making the Pcs believe that they are active, powerful participants in a living breathing world is not ever going to be. And unlike the game's AI, you never have to run out of quests.

A good system at its best supports great storytelling. If it can just get out of the way and let the game happen, that's good enough. If you spend more time fighting the system than the story... that's a game system to leave behind.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

I pretty much disagree with your entire statement.

Sometimes having the odds in your favor is fun - not as a steady diet, but to let the players see how far that they have come.

And it is so much fun when the PCs are overwhelmed at each turn, and the GM decides 'it doesn't count as an adventure unless a PC dies!' (This is heavy, heavy sarcasm, in case you missed it. I had a GM like that, and pull him out as a horrible example when I get the chance.)

To repeat the most important matter - not every conflict is combat, not every encounter is about conflict.

Really, it sounds like you bought into the idiocy that led to D&D 4e.


Don't bother to talk to the guards at the gate! It's not fun!

Don't traipse through the faerie gates! D&D is a game about COMBAT!

(Both examples from WotC's own literature.)

There is a reason why 4e failed, both as a game and as a business plan.

Limiting the game to a single style of play was a big part of that poor decision making.

Some people do like talking to the guards at the gate, or do want to traipse through the faerie gate.

Take a look at Pathfinder Adventure Paths - there are plenty of examples of NPCs with NPC classes, and even *gasp!* a mix of PC and NPC classes.

And nearly every one of those NPCs use the standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 arrays.

Some of the encounters are easy - as the PCs slaughter their way through mooks.

Some encounters are hard - and unless the PCs are clever, can end with a well fed monster and dead PCs.

A lot of the encounters average out to the standard CR for the adventure - one above or below, but averaging properly.

And one of my favorite Adventure Paths does allow the PCs to traipse through a faerie gate and interact with the little people.

In my own game, over the past month, there was an encounter where, if the PCs stood their ground they would have been slaughtered.

There was an encounter where two of the characters split off from the rest of the party, and could handle the battle on their lonesome.

There have been times when the PCs outwitted the NPCs and times when the NPCs outwitted the PCs.

There was an lingering encounter with a CR1 that could have killed the entire party, if given enough time. (Putrefy Food & Drink is a 0 level spell. And they were on a long voyage, little by little their food and water was being destroyed by what is technically a minor haunt.)

They had to accept a gift that effectively exiled them from their nation for a year - refusing the gift would have counted as les majesty against a bloodthirsty queen.

The Dreamer's in his Chamber,
The King is on his Throne.
The Queen is in the abattoir,
And dances all alone....

The Auld Grump

Difficult doesnt mean murderous with no chance and challenge does not mean combat.

Lets try not putting words in my mouth everybody.

I never said the players should be pitted against unfair challenges. I said they should be challenged. The pit falls of lvl class systems is the players ultimately outgrow challenges. They simply stop being human at some point. And that means the games challenges need to grow with them. Sometimes that means bigger threats. Larger dragons. New types of giant etc etc... Some times it means more of a weaker thing. But thats not good. Lets take the 200 orks. The orks win not because its a good tough fight, but because of action economy. 200 chances to hit will out do 5. Some times its preconstructing a scenerio specificly to feth with them (tuckers kobolds - an amusing read, but not something that entertained the party. It made them miserable).

A human fighting an ork should always be a human fighting an ork. An exceedly skilled human fighting a moderately skilled ork should be exactly that. But levels dont emulate that. Levels, and hit dice, literally take a person who could take a couple sword swings and makes them capable of taking dozens.

Saying the game should stay challenging does not mean i am saying the players should be placed in situations they cannot win. The GM should ALWAYS make the scenerio something the players are capable of dealing with. But CAPABLE should still pose a risk. Be it loosing out on a deal in some rp. Getting manipulated. Or a fight.

D20 litterally grows players to a point where they fight and kill godzilla (the tarask) and gods and can level to a point where either of these battles are laughable. Thats a problem.

And some times it's fun to let players feel just how powerful they are by letting them blow through an underpowered encounter of multiple level 1's.

 Lance845 wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Having norms (Even in a combat situation) lets the PC's feel powerful. It's not fun if all you do is run on a treadmill.

Feeling powerful because the numbers are inherently in your favor is not fun. Go play any video game on god mode. Its fun, briefly, to smash everything and anything. But ultimately its boring because there is no risk and no consequence.

A game where you are the underdog, where you are in fact less powerful, and the battle is uphill, is incredibly rewarding and super fun for everyone when they win despite their reletive humanity.

Games like darksould are good specifically for this reason. While games like skyrim reach a tipping point where you become so powerful that nothing is a threat and all the sense of achievement from those early difficult fights are drained from the game play experience.

I pretty much disagree with your entire statement.

Sometimes having the odds in your favor is fun - not as a steady diet, but to let the players see how far that they have come.

And it is so much fun when the PCs are overwhelmed at each turn, and the GM decides 'it doesn't count as an adventure unless a PC dies!' (This is heavy, heavy sarcasm, in case you missed it. I had a GM like that, and pull him out as a horrible example when I get the chance.)

To repeat the most important matter - not every conflict is combat, not every encounter is about conflict.

Really, it sounds like you bought into the idiocy that led to D&D 4e.


Don't bother to talk to the guards at the gate! It's not fun!

Don't traipse through the faerie gates! D&D is a game about COMBAT!

(Both examples from WotC's own literature.)

There is a reason why 4e failed, both as a game and as a business plan.

Limiting the game to a single style of play was a big part of that poor decision making.

Some people do like talking to the guards at the gate, or do want to traipse through the faerie gate.

Take a look at Pathfinder Adventure Paths - there are plenty of examples of NPCs with NPC classes, and even *gasp!* a mix of PC and NPC classes.

And nearly every one of those NPCs use the standard 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 arrays.

Some of the encounters are easy - as the PCs slaughter their way through mooks.

Some encounters are hard - and unless the PCs are clever, can end with a well fed monster and dead PCs.

A lot of the encounters average out to the standard CR for the adventure - one above or below, but averaging properly.

And one of my favorite Adventure Paths does allow the PCs to traipse through a faerie gate and interact with the little people.

In my own game, over the past month, there was an encounter where, if the PCs stood their ground they would have been slaughtered.

There was an encounter where two of the characters split off from the rest of the party, and could handle the battle on their lonesome.

There have been times when the PCs outwitted the NPCs and times when the NPCs outwitted the PCs.

There was an lingering encounter with a CR1 that could have killed the entire party, if given enough time. (Putrefy Food & Drink is a 0 level spell. And they were on a long voyage, little by little their food and water was being destroyed by what is technically a minor haunt.)

They had to accept a gift that effectively exiled them from their nation for a year - refusing the gift would have counted as les majesty against a bloodthirsty queen.

The Dreamer's in his Chamber,
The King is on his Throne.
The Queen is in the abattoir,
And dances all alone....

The Auld Grump

Difficult doesnt mean murderous with no chance and challenge does not mean combat.

Lets try not putting words in my mouth everybody.

I never said the players should be pitted against unfair challenges. I said they should be challenged. The pit falls of lvl class systems is the players ultimately outgrow challenges. They simply stop being human at some point. And that means the games challenges need to grow with them. Sometimes that means bigger threats. Larger dragons. New types of giant etc etc... Some times it means more of a weaker thing. But thats not good. Lets take the 200 orks. The orks win not because its a good tough fight, but because of action economy. 200 chances to hit will out do 5. Some times its preconstructing a scenerio specificly to feth with them (tuckers kobolds - an amusing read, but not something that entertained the party. It made them miserable).

A human fighting an ork should always be a human fighting an ork. An exceedly skilled human fighting a moderately skilled ork should be exactly that. But levels dont emulate that. Levels, and hit dice, literally take a person who could take a couple sword swings and makes them capable of taking dozens.

Saying the game should stay challenging does not mean i am saying the players should be placed in situations they cannot win. The GM should ALWAYS make the scenerio something the players are capable of dealing with. But CAPABLE should still pose a risk. Be it loosing out on a deal in some rp. Getting manipulated. Or a fight.

D20 litterally grows players to a point where they fight and kill godzilla (the tarask) and gods and can level to a point where either of these battles are laughable. Thats a problem.

If that was not the case, then I seriously suggest that you re read your own danged post - I really did not need to add words to your mouth. I merely paraphrased what you, yourself, said.

You stated that no one used standard stats - when most people, including publishers, do.

Which, in simple terms, means that you are just plain good old fashioned wrong.

And - this important - your statements are only true IN YOUR OPINION.

You are stating your opinions as facts - and they are demonstrably not facts.

People DO use NPC stats and classes. The world is filled with people that are not a substantial challenge for the PCs, as well as creatures that can eat those same PCs for dinner, and still have room for Jell-O.

Having a 20th level party does not mean that you need 20th level janitors to clean up the mess after a 20th level kegger.

People DO have encounters that are easy for a competent character to beat, as well as encounters that are impossible to beat without the luck of the very gods.

In particular - levels in Pathfinder end at 20 - and most games never go that far.

A 20th level character, all by his lonesome, is nothing but a snack for the Tarasque. (A snaque?)

The Tarasque is generally a plot device, not an encounter - it showing up means that the PCs failed.

Certainly that is the case in Pathfinder.

If the characters are fighting a god, the god wins. Most gods do not even have stats in Pathfinder, and when they do, it comes with a healthy dose of Mythic abilities.

Your description of D&D pretty much nails you down to first and second edition D&D - where these encounters were possible, in the hands of an inept GM.

In forty years of D&D, I have never used the Tarasque as anything other than a plot device.

The characters in my game have never battled gods.

I have taken down high level characters with goblins - 1d6 of damage at a time.

I have had a party executed for murdering an innocent orc during a peace treaty, and had the mommy orc telling the young orcs that daddy wouldn't be coming home.

Your statements are just plain not true for a decent GM - and never have been.

Hit Points do not represent the blows that hit - Gary Gygax based his combat on the old Errol Flynn movies - where there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, dodges, parries, and ripostes - until the hero lands the one fatal blow that ends the battle.

Everything else is the above mentioned to-ing and fro-ing.

With that conceit, the only blow that does physical damage is the final one.

If you do find these a problem... then the problem most likely lies with you. Either run the game it is supposed to be run, or find another game - it is entirely possible that D20/Pathfinder is just not the game for you - so stick with Runequest or any other non level based system.

Even in Runequest, as the character becomes better with his shield, combat takes longer and longer, as most blows fail to land.

Most often, when you find yourself the only person holding your opinion - it means that you are wrong.

I am pretty sure that is the case for your argument.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Difficult doesnt mean murderous with no chance and challenge does not mean combat.

Lets try not putting words in my mouth everybody.

I never said the players should be pitted against unfair challenges. I said they should be challenged. The pit falls of lvl class systems is the players ultimately outgrow challenges. They simply stop being human at some point. And that means the games challenges need to grow with them. Sometimes that means bigger threats. Larger dragons. New types of giant etc etc... Some times it means more of a weaker thing. But thats not good. Lets take the 200 orks. The orks win not because its a good tough fight, but because of action economy. 200 chances to hit will out do 5. Some times its preconstructing a scenerio specificly to feth with them (tuckers kobolds - an amusing read, but not something that entertained the party. It made them miserable).

A human fighting an ork should always be a human fighting an ork. An exceedly skilled human fighting a moderately skilled ork should be exactly that. But levels dont emulate that. Levels, and hit dice, literally take a person who could take a couple sword swings and makes them capable of taking dozens.

Saying the game should stay challenging does not mean i am saying the players should be placed in situations they cannot win. The GM should ALWAYS make the scenerio something the players are capable of dealing with. But CAPABLE should still pose a risk. Be it loosing out on a deal in some rp. Getting manipulated. Or a fight.

D20 litterally grows players to a point where they fight and kill godzilla (the tarask) and gods and can level to a point where either of these battles are laughable. Thats a problem.

If that was not the case, then I seriously suggest that you re read your own danged post - I really did not need to add words to your mouth. I merely paraphrased what you, yourself, said.

Quote me. Find me saying even ONCE that what the players should be doing is facing certain death at every turn. Please. By all means. Find me saying "combat all the time" always instead of "challenge". Find me saying "unfairly pitted against insurmountable odds" instead of "facing a challenge". Il wait.

You stated that no one used standard stats - when most people, including publishers, do.

Which, in simple terms, means that you are just plain good old fashioned wrong.

And - this important - your statements are only true IN YOUR OPINION.

You are stating your opinions as facts - and they are demonstrably not facts.

Hey, by all means, if you guys often use lower leveled or unleveled NPCs in mid to high level games then sure. Go nuts. It's never been my experience. Because in all the games I have played in all the years I have played nobody has ever thought the interesting bits about spiderman or batman was when they beat up 2 or 3 regular people robbing a bank instead of facing something that was actually a test for them. We all know the best bits in any story is when the heroes completely trounce a bunch of mooks.

And yeah, unless it's a evil campaign, it's totally great for good characters to show off their might by beating the gak out of hordes of things that stand no chance against them. Both totally in character, and absolutely the part everyone will be telling stories about latter. Not the dragon that nearly got them. The couple of goblins they laughed about while they smacked them down.

People DO use NPC stats and classes. The world is filled with people that are not a substantial challenge for the PCs, as well as creatures that can eat those same PCs for dinner, and still have room for Jell-O.

Having a 20th level party does not mean that you need 20th level janitors to clean up the mess after a 20th level kegger.

People DO have encounters that are easy for a competent character to beat, as well as encounters that are impossible to beat without the luck of the very gods.

In particular - levels in Pathfinder end at 20 - and most games never go that far.

A 20th level character, all by his lonesome, is nothing but a snack for the Tarasque. (A snaque?)

The Tarasque is generally a plot device, not an encounter - it showing up means that the PCs failed.

Certainly that is the case in Pathfinder.

Maybe PF changed the Tarasque to better represent the thing it was meant to be. But D20 doesn't do that as a rule. That is an exception that I will be looking into. 3rd and 3.5 that is not the case. It's generally a CR 18 encounter that can be soloed by a properly built wizard let alone a whole party.

If the characters are fighting a god, the god wins. Most gods do not even have stats in Pathfinder, and when they do, it comes with a healthy dose of Mythic abilities.

Your description of D&D pretty much nails you down to first and second edition D&D - where these encounters were possible, in the hands of an inept GM.

In forty years of D&D, I have never used the Tarasque as anything other than a plot device.

The characters in my game have never battled gods.

Good. But thats you. Thats not the books that have been released. And no. I have only fleeting experience with ADnD. Mostly with 3rd, 3.5, PF and barely any 4th. And I have run the starting adventure for 5th with some people who wanted to try it out and bought it themselves.

Deities and Demigods and the epic level handbook makes it very clear that in d20 gods are meant to be fought. A Good DM can house rule away that into never giving gods stats and just making them insurmountable. But by the books released for d20, the gods are a CR fight like anything else. I agree that it's a mistake to give them a stat block. I agree that it should never be that way. But it doesn't change the fact that the rules exist.

I have taken down high level characters with goblins - 1d6 of damage at a time.

I have had a party executed for murdering an innocent orc during a peace treaty, and had the mommy orc telling the young orcs that daddy wouldn't be coming home.

Your statements are just plain not true for a decent GM - and never have been.

Hit Points do not represent the blows that hit - Gary Gygax based his combat on the old Errol Flynn movies - where there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, dodges, parries, and ripostes - until the hero lands the one fatal blow that ends the battle.

Everything else is the above mentioned to-ing and fro-ing.

Ive seen this explanation before. It's bull gak. If thats true how to magic missiles which always hit do their to-ing and fro-ing? How about burn damage? Acid? Poison? What about cold damage with secondary effects? Bleeds?

I get it was the original concept behind it from 50 years ago, but hey, maybe a mechanic designed for a game system 5 DECADES old is due for some updates.

With that conceit, the only blow that does physical damage is the final one.

If you do find these a problem... then the problem most likely lies with you. Either run the game it is supposed to be run, or find another game - it is entirely possible that D20/Pathfinder is just not the game for you - so stick with Runequest or any other non level based system.

Even in Runequest, as the character becomes better with his shield, combat takes longer and longer, as most blows fail to land.

Most often, when you find yourself the only person holding your opinion - it means that you are wrong.

I am pretty sure that is the case for your argument.

The Auld Grump

Just because I have a preference for one system doesn't mean I am not interested in exploring the mechanics pros and cons of other systems. I am here because I downloaded and read through the docs like most others here. And I am watching with continued disappointment in the mechanics like pretty much everyone else here. I never played runequest and it doesn't sound like one I would want to play. I like the actions in the game to be quick and fluid and decisive.

Look up the word 'paraphrase' in the dictionary - you may be enlightened.

Better yet - read your own danged post again. Take a look at the things that you state as absolute fact, and then tried to defend as absolute fact when others told you that, no, really, the game does not work that way.

Every single example in your original statement was about balanced conflict and combat - and not one iota for anything else.

Consider your entire post quoted, and read it again.

Again - there is a reason why people reading your post draw the conclusions that they do.

And continue to do so.

If you want people to draw other conclusions then you need to change the message to the reflect the conclusion you want drawn - instead the message that you are sending is... pretty easy to read in the manner it has been read, leading to the conclusions that have been drawn.

The way it reads is that you are complaining that opening doors hurts your head, and other people are asking why you are using your head as a battering ram.

To which you reply that it's the only way to open doors....

Alternately, you can get a lot more mileage by adding the terms 'in my opinion' and 'in my experience'.

While experimenting with other systems is fine, complaining that those other systems are not the systems that you like is not so fine.

Especially when you make it clear that you really don't know what you are talking about.

You are arguing from a position of ignorance, and then defending your ignorance.

This does not win arguments.

I, on the other hand, do experiment with systems, there are systems that I like better than Pathfinder. I have no problems with either level based systems or non level based systems.

I have problems with bad math - which abounds in PF2.

I have problems with lazy math - which abounds in a lot of GMs and games.

I have a preference for KISS solutions, not tacking a new system on to solve problems that most people do not have. (Resonance being the operative case in point.)

In any event, I will not be replying to you again in this thread.

Your arguments are just not worth the time spent arguing.

The Auld Grump

I am not responsible for the meaning you decide to dig out of what you think i meant. I am responsible for the words i actually wrote.

Read the words i wrote.

If you want to argue based on your incredibly inaccurate and disingenuous "paraphrase" then you are not even having the same conversation. I have no reason to defend a position i never took from a person who refuses to read what i actually wrote.

His appraisal of the words you wrote is correct.

But my appraisal was much longer winded....

I just found it odd that he was complaining about a method that, as far as I know, nobody actually uses.

I am chalking it up to Internet Expert, and moving on.

***

On the Paizo forums, it looks like the game designers have at least noticed the negative response, but I don't know if there is much of anything that they can do about it, other than to scrap and restart - an expensive proposition in regards to time.

Honestly... I think Paizo is earning this flop, and deserves to let it happen.

WotC learned from the debacle of 4e - and produced a strong system in its wake. (I don't play 5e - but, in part, that is because I already have several strong Pathfinder groups.)

Hopefully, Paizo can learn from this.

Because I see no way of steering the Titanic away from the iceberg.

All we can do is hope that Paizo has enough lifeboats not to go down with the ship.

The Auld Grump

Its sad to see 4th ed DnD so panned on message boards. Most well thought out and balanced DnD edition by miles. 5th edition is pitiful.

For Piazo games, Starfinder is poorly designed and balanced. Is Pathfinder 2.0 along the same mode (having launched near to each other)?