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 Lance845 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Well, I like for example some special rules for a stronghold that give the players a bonus for having it.

Explain this. Besides the natural benefits to having a base of operations, especially if they have a steward that is at all competent, what exactly do you think players should get for owning property?

Example, my players were doing the 5e starter box adventure. I threw in some extra prisoners in a place in the adventure and one was a gnome merchant. One player tried to talk him into joining them and it ended up turning into a business arrangement. The gnome takes 80% of all their loot and sells their loot (I am giving them an extra 5-10% mark up on selling prices without them having to do the bargaining) while he gets them supplies for a little under market price. He managed to rent out a small building in the local town and he is hunting for leads for work so they get the quests they missed from the guide. Arguably, they have a "stronghold" because they are now all part owners in a heroes for hire style business that has a store front. But what they really gained was the gnome whos doing all the wheeling and dealing for them for a % of gross profits.

I didn't need extra rules for that. They roleplayed a conversation with a guy and came to a deal. The rest is just playing the NPC correctly.

Well the thing is that not all groups are as creative as that, nor are all GMs. At least when it comes to doing things like that on the fly. Its important for a game to give at least a framework for the players and GM to run with.

Instead of just giving generic mechanics which could be used to do stuff like that, it is helpful if they give some more specific mechanics and suggestions.

Like instead of just saying "Use a series of charisma and trade checks to run a business", they should give a couple small charts that go into a little more detail.


Regarding property, something as simple as suggested story hooks with some mechanics. If they have taken over a small fortification or castle, give some mechanics for some peasants to move in and set up a small village that owes the PCs fealty in exchange for their protection, giving them a small population of minions and some potential income. Or maybe instead they end up in a ownership dispute with the descendants of the original owners(who may or may not have a legitimate claim). Perhaps the strategic location gives them the opportunity to collect tolls from a nearby trade route, set up an Inn, etc... Give a handful of potential happenings with some mechanics to flesh them out.

I've found that the best systems give a good amount of crunch, which then gets the creative juices flowing, while also being freeform enough that that creativity can blossom. A system which simply gives a list of skills and checks and says "have fun" only works well with very experienced players and GMs who are ok with making stuff up on the fly.

For example. Crafting. Don't just have a series of crafting skills. Have a section dedicated to suggesting how crafting works, with specifics. Like "X, Y, and Z materials will give you these bonuses on a successful crafting check, but will modify the check by this amount. The tools used in the crafting also have X effect depending on quality." etc...

Specific rules can always be ignored or modified, but their existence is very helpful because they help give some order. They're like why coloring books aren't just blank pieces of paper. Its not mandatory you color in between the lines, but they are helpful.

I am not entirely sure you understand the consequences of some of what you are suggesting.

When you tell players using x y z materials give a b c benefits they stop behaving like people are start acting like players playing diablo style games hunting for specific loot.

Granted, some bits of that exist now. Silvered. Mithril. Oricharlcum. But their benefits are slim or specific. And the materials are rare.

But when you get down to things like copper vs iron vs steel etc etc...

It becomes too much. Too much to calculate. Too much to keep track of. It bogs down and slows down the game.


The things you just listed for what can happen with a stronghold are all things you can do. DMing isn't foillowing a guide because the players will never stay on the path thats been laid out. DMing is almost always a mass amount of free styling improve. Anyone who gives DMing a chance should go in with a set of basic tools at their disposal. A list of a dozen or so female and male names so they can make up NPCs when the players want to talk to people you didnt plan for. For that matter I make stats for every "class" as generic NPC templates. I put them on note cards. When they interact with a NPC I had to make up on the spot I grab the generic class card most appropriate and just use those stats. The players don't know that they have spoken to the same stats fighter like a dozen times by a dozen names. It makes the world feel populated and planned for when it's just me reacting to them because you CAN'T plan for the players.

If the NPC is going to stick around Il give them their own stats latter. That gnome was a generic commoner with a name I picked off a list. He now has his own note card with his own unique stats and skills because the players made him more important to their story. If they didn't initiate that conversation he would have been a name crossed off a list and never thought about again.


As for story arks. I plan to let them get real used to their business venture. I want them to lean on it and be happy with it. I am doing all I can to make them LOVE Merwin Lankark Sparrbow. And then after they have built up a name for themselves, and thus made some enemies, I cam going to have him get assassinated and their store front burned to the ground while they are off on some mission. It's gunna hurt. Learn from authors. Kill your darlings. It's going to challenge their characters and put them in a bad spot to see where they go and what they do with it.

I decided all that in the moment when they decided they were going to start this business. It was going to be good. They were going to love their new friend. He was going to die when it would hurt the most.

No book of rules can give you charts to plan those things because those things are done to met the specific situations the players create for themselves. The DM has to be a reactionary force most of the time. The best thing you can do is make use of the many DM resources by reading up on ideas and general rules for good stories.

Kill your darlings. Listen to the players and if something sounds cool good then do it and let them think it was your idea. They will have more fun and they will trust in your DMing thinking your world is really well fleshed out and a sandbox for them to act in instead of a narrow path they are rail roaded to being on.

I don't want a book telling me how to do every option in every situation. They cannot possibly cover every situation and they will make the stories predictable.

 skyth wrote:
The mechanics make the RP better. The problem of RP without mechanics is the player with a high charisma can dump his character's charisma and not have any real penalty.

Only if you assume people aren't playing to their stats. If you have a crappy number in a particular area, that should define how you play as much as your strong stats. If you've got -3 Intelligence, you should be acting like you're thick as 2 short planks. If you have dreadful charisma, that character should be tactless or shy or awkward. If you have low Dexterity, you're clumsy. So on and so forth.

As I see it, you shouldn't be playing your Intelligence -3 character character as Sherlock Holmes crossed with Pythagoras right up until you're called on to make an Investigation or Medicine check ect, you should be playing to that stat the whole time. Otherwise, it's incredibly inconsistent and makes absolutely no sense.

This is why the idea of a 'dump stat' bugs me. It's not just putting a low score in a stat then making sure you never use it for anything mechanical, it's choosing something your character is genuinely worse at and you should be playing up to that, otherwise what's the point? Of course, that doesn't necessarily mesh with the idea of optimising your character or how you play, but that's something I'm generally against anyway.

 skyth wrote:
The mechanics make the RP better. The problem of RP without mechanics is the player with a high charisma can dump his character's charisma and not have any real penalty.

That's an easy fix. Let the player ramble on, either making an increasingly bored or horrified face. Then give them a roll to make, and make it very clear that you've given them disadvantage because that does not sound like their character.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Well, I like for example some special rules for a stronghold that give the players a bonus for having it.

Explain this. Besides the natural benefits to having a base of operations, especially if they have a steward that is at all competent, what exactly do you think players should get for owning property?

Mostly I'd say the required rules for property involves prices and time to build them, but owning property does convey real world advantages, as well as drawbacks!

First, especially historically, land owners were given more rights and freedoms, as well as more respect. Often the right to vote or be heard was tied to owning land. So land ownership is basically a form of social rank.

Second, land ownership is a great basis for credit. You can't just pick up your piece of land and run away with it, so it's collateral for any loans or debts you may have incurred. Owning land means people trust you more with money! This is true even today.

Third, land ownership usually involves taxation, as the person protecting/servicing the area needs to get paid. The upside to taxes is usually the person you're paying taxes to generally has to at least pretend to listen to your complaints. No taxes means you're generally on your own for defending your property, but then you're functioning as nobility, more or less.

So land ownership means having a voice in society,, a good credit rating, and at least minimal access to nobility. These are largely intangibles but probably worth circumstance bonuses on some interactions.

OTOH, land can be worked for a profit, but this really depends on the time scales of a campaign. If you're playing level 1-20 in the span of 2 years, it's irrelevant.

Really saying that you could RP in 4th is fairly meaningless. You could RP in a game where the mechanics are to rock-paper-scissors for everything.

What's important is that the rules give the GM and the players a framework for how out of combat stuff works that is in-depth and detailed.

It gives the players fodder for things they would want to do and a base idea of how to accomplish it and it gives GM's consistency in how they handle it. (Which is the same with a high charisma player and a low charisma player )

Well, Lance, your post comes across as weirdly intense, almost agressive, but I think stuff like an extra use of a normally limited use power that recharges when they go back to their stronghold is a good example of a bonus I might consider giving. When I played as a necromancer I found it useful to have rules for the cost of secret doors and locks and traps so I could furnish the lair I took over on the second level of Rappan Athuk.

Just stuff to make staying in your stronghold feel fun and worthwhile.

 Paradigm wrote:

 skyth wrote:
The mechanics make the RP better. The problem of RP without mechanics is the player with a high charisma can dump his character's charisma and not have any real penalty.

Only if you assume people aren't playing to their stats. If you have a crappy number in a particular area, that should define how you play as much as your strong stats. If you've got -3 Intelligence, you should be acting like you're thick as 2 short planks. If you have dreadful charisma, that character should be tactless or shy or awkward. If you have low Dexterity, you're clumsy. So on and so forth.

As I see it, you shouldn't be playing your Intelligence -3 character character as Sherlock Holmes crossed with Pythagoras right up until you're called on to make an Investigation or Medicine check ect, you should be playing to that stat the whole time. Otherwise, it's incredibly inconsistent and makes absolutely no sense.

This is why the idea of a 'dump stat' bugs me. It's not just putting a low score in a stat then making sure you never use it for anything mechanical, it's choosing something your character is genuinely worse at and you should be playing up to that, otherwise what's the point? Of course, that doesn't necessarily mesh with the idea of optimising your character or how you play, but that's something I'm generally against anyway.

Honestly, dump stats are half the fun, if you play them up.

Low Dex? Keep making grand gestures, then apologizing to the person next to you as if you had knocked over their drink, or klonked them in the head.

High Int, High Cha, and Low Wis is a lot of fun.

Don't ignore the dump stat - play it up, and make it one of the things that people will remember about the character. 'Gods, remember when Bulgar picked his nose and then shook hands with the Prince?!'

It lets you be a true ham. 'Cause Captain Good At Everything is dead boring.

The Auld Grump

 Da Boss wrote:
Well, Lance, your post comes across as weirdly intense, almost agressive, but I think stuff like an extra use of a normally limited use power that recharges when they go back to their stronghold is a good example of a bonus I might consider giving.

I am just blunt. The written word has no inflection and I just don't sugar coat it. It's not meant to be anything but what exactly is written.

I think the extra use thing is the WORST kind of bonus. Again, why not just play a video game if you are going to have all the rules make it into one? As a pnp RPG the game should be helping the players inhabit the world as people. Could you imagine reading Lord of the Rings except once they got to Minas Tirith, Legolas gained the ability to shoot 2 arrows at once 1 more time a day because they were defending the keep/castle/city?

Nothing takes the players out of the world faster.

I mildly disagree. I think it is possible to do such abilities in a way that does not overly break immersion. 4e for example went too far, but Dungeons and Dragons is already very gamist with abilities that recharge after rests and so on so I don't find a different recharge condition to be too bad.

It is a game to me, and part of the game is immersion, but part of it is also fun mechanics and tactics. I think the comparison with LOTR is a poor one - LOTR is a novel, and that is a totally different kind of entertainment to a game.

I would definitely take your views into consideration if you were at my table though, since I get that immersion in a secondary world is the primary attraction for some players. If you were at my table I would probably not use those rules if I knew it was negatively impacting your enjoyment of the game, because the amount of extra fun I would get from having them would not be significant enough.

LotR is the entire foundation for the genre of game. The player party is the fellowship of the ring. The whole point was collaborative story telling. Getting everyone together and going on your own adventures. Thats the reason I chose LotR as my example.

That being said, like what you like and play how you want to play. But each medium of game has advantages and disadvantages that make them more or less suited to certain things. The advantage of the pnp rpg is the collaborative story telling and immersion. Its the thing no other media can do. You undercut it by turning it into a video game.

At which point video games are a better media for doing those things. Never winter nights is great for playing with some friends and getting super gamey bonuses for stuff. Its not strange at all that dnd translates so well to video games.

Hmm. I think it is more of a spectrum.
I think you are kinda wrong about the origins of the game though. I think it was just as, if not more inspired by pulp fantasy like conan and dying earth. And it started as an evolution from tactical wargaming, stomping around dungeons killing things and stealing their stuff.

The origins and inspirations for RPGs have nothing to do with Tolkien. It starts with something called -- and DA Boss will not be too appalled by this word -- free kriegsspiel. This, "LotR is the entire foundation for the genre of game. The player party is the fellowship of the ring. The whole point was collaborative story telling. Getting everyone together and going on your own adventures." is not even remotely accurate.

Gygax grafted the Tolkien-esque elements onto D&D to help sell the game, but Tolkien's legendarium was not the basis for the game, nor the genre. Fantasy RPGs drew on the same sources as Tolkien, Northern European folk-lore.

 Lance845 wrote:
LotR is the entire foundation for the genre of game. The player party is the fellowship of the ring. The whole point was collaborative story telling. Getting everyone together and going on your own adventures. Thats the reason I chose LotR as my example.

It was not. It was wargaming, no more, no less. Arneson and Gygax slapped some Tolkien bits on (and then slapped them back off when the Tolkien estate got roused), but the idea was condensing their wargames to a team of disposable men at arms (fighters) with more specialist wizard, cleric and rogue pieces.

Post wargaming origins it was tactical dungeon crawls [you were either in the dungeon or in town buying stuff for the next dungeon level]. As editions progressed, 1st edition was still largely dungeons until the Wilderness Survival Guide, and the most common module format was competitive tournament modules for gaming conventions. [Each group would be scored on time, goals accomplished and how far they got]. A lot of the early modules were published in the same format: Ghost Tower of Inverness, the entire Slave lords series, and so on.

Collaborative storytelling really didn't become a central conceit until 2nd edition and mid 80s, and really didn't take off until it started facing competition from other games and companies (like White Wolf, who held dungeon crawling in contempt, despite how many of their own players 'did it wrong' with the Vampions style of play (Vampire superheroes, name came from the Champions RPG).

Really, D&D is more like video games than the LotR novels.

Red Harvest: I was lucky enough to get to see a complete set of Kriegspiel in Potsdam Palace in Berlin. Super interesting, especially the custom table.

Remember boys and girls, the more you speak in absolutes, the greater the odds of being completely and utterly wrong.

Gygax was pretty clear, in his editorials, that he really did not like Tolkien's Middle Earth - even before the legal hassles with the Tolkien estate.

He cited much greater influence from the old Errol Flynn movies, and books such as Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser as well as Conan and Averoigne - pulp fantasy, not the carefully crafted world building of Tolkien.

Many of the people contributing to the early The Dragon Magazines were influenced by Middle Earth, but claiming Middle Earth as the sole creation font for D&D... is stretching the facts beyond their elastic limit.

The Auld Grump - heck, Gygax lifted an entire passage from Three Hearts and Three Lions when describing trolls... which were nothing like the stony trolls of Middle Earth,

I am very well aware of DNDs origins from Chain Mail as a wargame, original dnd as a pure dungeon crawl, and so forth. Lets look back at what I actually said.

 Lance845 wrote:
LotR is the entire foundation for the genre of game. The player party is the fellowship of the ring. The whole point was collaborative story telling. Getting everyone together and going on your own adventures. Thats the reason I chose LotR as my example.

Genre of the game. As in pnp RPG. Not DnD specifically.

This genre has grown as an iterative process over many games and many editions. Gygax is the father of DnD but the original DnD was NOT the genre I was talking about. You are talking about the game that had a "class" called "Elf".

Yes. DnD came from chainmail. Yes. Gygax looked to Howard and Lieber for inspiration in his worlds. But the GENRE of pnp ROLE PLAYING GAMES, was inspired by the Fellowship of the Ring. The thing we all sit around and play today is more then EVER about collaborative story telling. 4th edition is the closest thing that has come out in a VERY longtime to Gygax's original scope for DnD and people HATED it. The same people here now talking about how what I said was wrong are the same people only a page or 2 back were ripping into how insane wizards was for thinking all people wanted out of DnD was combat. But that's EXACTLY what Gygax's original creation of DnD was.

Again, read what I WROTE. I didn't say DnD because I wasn't talking about the original DnD. The original DnD is not representative of the genre of PnP RPGs. It was a foundation of mechanics that the genre was built upon. A untapped source of potential for something more. And that something MORE had a foundation that was fundamentally tied to LotRs.

Arguably, the idea of multiple storytellers goes back further. Anything is a DnD session, if you're brave enough.

These marvelous folks turned the Odyssey into a session.
https://imgur.com/gallery/AYRpV

I think the idea is endemic to humanity. We love telling stories about ourselves, and people we make up.

Lance485: Okay, then I guess I agree with you. I think the games that came after Dungeons and Dragons were much more influenced by storytelling and particularly novels.

I consider them to be a slightly different genre of game, and although they are fun, they do not scratch as many itches for me as Dungeons and Dragons does. Nowadays I prefer the mix of tactical game and story that Dungeons and Dragons provides.

The fantasy RPGgames that followed D&D were not even remotely Tolkien-esque. Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, Chivalry and Sorcery, The Fantasy Trip, etc. I know because I was there/then. And played them. Except Tunnels and Trolls. Anyway, "The Hobbit" would be a better comparison, given that the book is about a group of inexperienced adventurers who set out to find treasure. Perhaps a better argument to make would be to say that Tolkien's popularity, and he was quite popular in the '70's, led people to fantasy RPGs. Gygax included material in the game because of Tolkien's popularity. Nonetheless, Pulp fantasy/high fantasy of the 40' and 50's is the foundation for the genre, if you judge it by the games that compose the genre, and the settings that they present.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Remember boys and girls, the more you speak in absolutes, the greater the odds of being completely and utterly wrong.

Gygax was pretty clear, in his editorials, that he really did not like Tolkien's Middle Earth - even before the legal hassles with the Tolkien estate.

He cited much greater influence from the old Errol Flynn movies, and books such as Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser as well as Conan and Averoigne - pulp fantasy, not the carefully crafted world building of Tolkien.

Many of the people contributing to the early The Dragon Magazines were influenced by Middle Earth, but claiming Middle Earth as the sole creation font for D&D... is stretching the facts beyond their elastic limit.

In fairness, Lance did clarify himself. However, LoTR is a branch off of the same trunk from which fantasy RPGs have grown. The something more is something much deeper and older than LoTR. See things like the Kalevala, which was the inspiration ( one of them) for the LoTR, the Mahabharata, the Eddas, La Chanson de Roland, the Mabinogion ... and so many more. To continue the arboreal motif; I'd say that Lance has mistaken a tree for the forest.

The Auld Grump - heck, Gygax lifted an entire passage from Three Hearts and Three Lions when describing trolls... which were nothing like the stony trolls of Middle Earth,

And the entire magic spell system from Jack Vance. And the magic item Ioun Stones too, with Vance's permission. He was also a friend ( not too close, IIRC) of Fritz Leiber.

 Da Boss wrote:
Red Harvest: I was lucky enough to get to see a complete set of Kriegspiel in Potsdam Palace in Berlin. Super interesting, especially the custom table.

Was anyone dressed as a Prussian Officer? Monocles?

Ah, whatever happened to the PF2 playtest talk? There is a new rules update, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/paizo-images/image/download/PZO2100UE-1.5.zip

Still having trouble writing a coherent death/dying sub-system. Are the designers doing this to avoid any comparison to the 5e death saving throw sub-system?

I was less talking of tolkiens world and more his archtype of the fantasy group.

Yes, hobbit had inexperienced people. Yes, they all drew on so much folk lore and legend.

But, what other major fantasy source pre the rise of the rpg had the bow guy, the wandering wilderness guy, the gruff tanky warrior guy, the sneaky little guy/s and then a wizard to boot.

Most books centered on an individul not the party, with the party as set up as archetypes for classes, pre the concept of classes as anyone can possibly reference, lotr takes the cake.

Fafherd and the Grey mouser were basically big rogue and little rogue. The characters too similar and not enough characters to be seen as the adventuring party that is the foundation of the genre of game. Prototype rogues sure. But not the game.

Conan was almost exclusively solo in his adventures. Again, clearly a basis for what would be barbarians. But not the game.

Thats why lotr is that source. Not the story itself or the experience of the characters. But the band of adventurers each with their own niche traveling from local to local entering the dungeon, battling in the woods, stumbling on magic loot, and winning the day. Its the gilgamesh of adventuring parties from which the game with a thousand faces has sprung. (Thats a hero with a thousand faces for those that didnt get the reference.)

If lotr was written in a post dnd world it would have been a dragon lance novel with people clearly able to point out each characters class and abilities.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I realize now that when i said "fellowship of the ring" earlier people probably thought i meant the first book. My bad. I didnt mean the book itself, i meant the litteral fellowship. The band of adventurers.

 Red Harvest wrote:

Ah, whatever happened to the PF2 playtest talk? There is a new rules update, https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/paizo-images/image/download/PZO2100UE-1.5.zip

Still having trouble writing a coherent death/dying sub-system. Are the designers doing this to avoid any comparison to the 5e death saving throw sub-system?

Frankly I think they're just throwing garbage at the walls to see what sticks. Or at least what's popular on their surveys, which I find a horrible method of game design.
But yes, the death thing is just... weirdly convoluted. I find 'healing magic, shut up' to be a perfectly acceptable solution as it allows people to continue to play the game, and not be told 'go play xbox' for however long it takes the fight to finish after they go down (and possibly recover).


For the 1.5 update, Increasing damage numbers (for spells) is... a little baffling. They should have a good idea of how many rounds they want a combat to last, and any decent math person or program will take your average and extreme damage values vs PC and Monster hit points and give you solid numbers. And if its too long or too short based on what they're aiming for, THEY can change the numbers, since they make all of them up.

From the start of the Playtest it was really, painfully obvious that they'd increased hit point bloat, even beyond 3rd edition norms (where it first started to become a problem). Going from 1d6+ con mod to 1d12+con mod based on class to just 6, 8, 10 or 12 + con mod is a huge jump. (A level 10 fighter with a 14 con goes from an average of 75 hp to 120 hp, with no other factors, and PF2 has other factors)

So it was obvious that spell damage was going to be even worse (and spell blasting hasn't been a good choice since AD&D 2nd edition). So the fact that it took them months to work that out and they're still asking the community if its 'too hot, too cold or just right?' Baffling.

And lets take a look at a fairly straight forward spell. Implosion, 9th level, so you get access at 17th level.

The DC of the spell will be 10+2 (mastery)+ 6 (21 wisdom and an item that increases wisdom by +2, so effective +6 modifier) + 17 (level) = DC 35 Fortitude save

The spell does 100 damage. Half on successful save, none on a critical success, full damage on failure, double on a crit fail.

For purposes of easy mirror matches, the caster (a 17th level cleric) has a fortitude save of 17+1(expertise)+4 (can reasonably have an 18 constitution after character creation + 3 sets of 4 stat increases) = +22, so would save against his mirror copy's spell on a 13+, and critical fail on a 3 or less
At 17th level and 18 con, said cleric would have (8+4)*17 HP plus race (call it human, so +8), or 212 hp.

Even if he critically fails (15%), the spell won't kill him, and he takes less than half his HP (212-100) 45% percent of the time. The remaining 35% of the time he takes less than a quarter of his HP, and of course on a natural 20, he takes no damage (critical success is, as usual for PF2, nearly impossible, PCs can very rarely beat a DC by 10 points, the math simply doesn't allow it.
Edit: Woops. Left out the bonus to saves from magic armor. At 17th level, thats +4, so... +26, so no crit fail, succeeds on 9+, crit succeeds on a 19+. So 0% crit fail, 40% failure , 50% succeeds, 10% crit succeeds, which is better than I expected.
But I still don't know why this system is wasting time with crit fail/succeed. It eats a lot of time (and text) for little benefit.

For CR 17 creatures from the Bestiary, we have these options: Pride Demon (Mariliths), Ancient Green Dragon, Water Yai Oni, Wendigo.

Against Mariliths:
380 HP, Fortitude save is +28.
Saves on 7+, never crit fails, crit succeeds on a 17+
Even if it fails, (30%) chance, this 9th level spell deals barely more than a quarter of her hit points.

Against Ancient Green Dragons:
262 HP, +29 Fortitude save
Saves on 6+, never crit fails, crit succeeds on 16+
Does a lot more damage in terms of the creatures HP (38% rather than 26%), but it fails slightly less.

Water Yai Oni.
285 HP, +28 Fortitude.
not mathematically distinct enough to break down.

Wendigo
310 HP, +29 Fortiude
Same, though more HP.

No idea why the Marilith has a lot more HP than the others (100 more than the ancient dragon).


So this is one of your 2 per day 9th level spells at 17th level. And it... isn't a great option. Level appropriate creatures will probably soak it, usually for half damage (50)

By comparison, if you have your trusty +4 weapon (a given by WBL guidelines, and absolutely necessary by the game's math), you aren't using any spell resources, and still doing probably 5d8+4(magic)+4(strength) or around 30 damage per hit (5d8 averages to 22.5,+8=30.5). And you can make multiple attacks, though granted those take big multiple attack penalties.

Your total to hit is going to be +25 as a base, (17+4 magic +4 strength) assuming you don't scrounge for additional bonuses, and there are some.
ACs of these creatures are 39, 40 ,38 ,39, so you need a 14+ on average to do 30 damage, 19+ on your second attack.

Not great, but you're a primary spellcaster. (a fighter will have a bonus that's 2 higher from strength and 2 higher from mastery, and has more ways around multiple attack penalties)
And likely a d12 weapon (or better defensive options), so on average will do closer to 38-39 damage, in addition to hitting more often, though a third attack at the full multiple attack penalty is still a terrible option, effectively hitting only on a 20 or 19-20).

So as 9th level spells go, I'm really unimpressed, even taking account that the spell lets you try to blow up other creatures for the same damage on subsequent rounds. (For one, that assumes there are other creatures, which isn't necessarily (or even usually) true with this CR system. For two, unless they're much lower level, the numbers aren't going to be significantly less. For example, the CR16 mutilation demon (Glabrezu, I believe), has a +28 Fortitude, and 370 HP, a difference on 0 and -10 hp from the Marilith)

The numbers for creatures rather than PCs are also just 4-6 points better because reasons, and that really screws up the math and any expectation of what your spells can do. And chewing through hundreds of hit points on a single monster is still an absurdity, no matter how much they ratchet up the damage on spells or bind extra damage to having bigger pluses on magic weapons.

It just means you always MUST have the biggest plus you can afford (and the DM MUST make them available at the appropriate levels) or the system's math kills you.

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ugh... like a lot of magic discussions I've had with PF2, the better option seems to be 'find more buffs' and then punch things in the face.

Yeah, spell damage scales poorly. It does in 5e too. High level spells, those above 6th, have always been hit or miss. A complaint I've seen more than once on the Paizo forums is about the lack of understanding of the game's math on the part of the designers.

Too much obsession with baking in balance at all levels of play, rather than letting the DM/GM find a balance that appeal to the group. And this while retaining a system that really was designed for maybe 10 levels of play. Maybe 12.

The hit point bloat is appalling. It just leads to "fight harder, not smarter." Tedious.

@Lance: Greek Mythology. The Argonauts. For one. You can find many others if you look. Tolkien's specific band of heroes contains the same components as many other bands from myth and folklore. There is nothing unique about his fellowship, except maybe his treatment of elves as another sort of human.

Joseph Campbell was a bit of a trickster himself. Very slippery with his research, from what I have read.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Nonetheless, Pulp fantasy/high fantasy of the 40' and 50's is the foundation for the genre, if you judge it by the games that compose the genre, and the settings that they present.

You are both correct, and incorrect.

Tolkien's writings were THE foundation for modern classical Fantasy(magic, mythical races like elves/dwarves/etc, all in a pseudo medieval setting), which is where the stuff from the 40s and 50s came from. Which is where DnD came from as you mentioned.

So yeah, Tolkien's writings weren't responsible for DnD directly. However they were responsible for the genre as a whole existing in the first place, since he was the one who really brought a coherent mythology into the public perception that had previously only really existed in obscure medieval poetry and myths. Without him, we wouldn't have anything resembling the Sci-fi and Fantasy nerd-dom that exists today.

 Red Harvest wrote:

@Lance: Greek Mythology. The Argonauts.

Have you ever actually READ about the Argonauts?

1) it's the story of Jason. Everyone else is a background character, including Hercules. 2) Jason is the most inflated piece of gak in all of myth. He does exactly nothing for himself, takes all the glory, and then dies unceremoniously when a mast rots and falls on him. 3) Every Argonaut, and most Greek heroes for that matter, are basically carbon copies of each other. Since the story of Jason and the Argonauts is both not actually about the Argonauts and none of them fit any of the molds that composes the player party I have to disagree with your example.

Yes I suppose we should stay a little more OT.

Weird. My friends that play PF seem content enough with the new edition, but what I am reading from you guys seems like a frightful mess of poor design.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yes I suppose we should stay a little more OT.

Weird. My friends that play PF seem content enough with the new edition, but what I am reading from you guys seems like a frightful mess of poor design.

Well, there is something of a trick there. RPG design is really easy to tear down because it almost exclusively revolves around the game's math. Depending on playstyle, it isn't something that people necessarily notice at the table. A lot can be deliberately or accidentally obscured by a DM, especially if they tend to handwave, fudge or obscure numbers.

For this platest, it also depends on what they're playing, both class-wise and adventure-wise. If they're running through the playtest adventures, there are certain things that don't come up, and others that are quite emphasized. (There is, for an example in Adventure...2, I believe, that if run by the book, will utterly murder certain party compositions (particularly if the party is bad at ranged attacks), but other set ups will roll over it (especially if the DM has the manticore land and try to just melee the party).

It also depends on what level they're playing at. PF2 gives monsters pretty big stat bumps, but it's on a sliding scale based on level. If you're fighting goblins (well, except the goblin commando) and ogres, you aren't going to notice much that's off from a player's perspective. Maybe they save a bit more often, but random number generators can wander a tad. Past that, creatures start getting weird, and you really start feeling the math including +level and additional unidentified bonuses for monsters.


Another big thing is how you feel about all classes being on the same numeric bonuses and multiple attacks, and spells being reduced to minor penalties according to a big pile of conditions (there are unapologetically 30+ of them, and most are -X to two or three of attack, AC, checks, saves, etc., apparently assigned at random, and with entirely arbitrary ending conditions (which also feel random).

And a lot of things are feats, which are mostly traps or pure garbage.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Red Harvest wrote:
Nonetheless, Pulp fantasy/high fantasy of the 40' and 50's is the foundation for the genre, if you judge it by the games that compose the genre, and the settings that they present.

You are both correct, and incorrect.

Tolkien's writings were THE foundation for modern classical Fantasy(magic, mythical races like elves/dwarves/etc, all in a pseudo medieval setting), which is where the stuff from the 40s and 50s came from. Which is where DnD came from as you mentioned.

So yeah, Tolkien's writings weren't responsible for DnD directly. However they were responsible for the genre as a whole existing in the first place, since he was the one who really brought a coherent mythology into the public perception that had previously only really existed in obscure medieval poetry and myths. Without him, we wouldn't have anything resembling the Sci-fi and Fantasy nerd-dom that exists today.

Errr, no. LotR was published in the mid-fifties. I very much doubt the pulp writers in the forties were influenced by something pubished a decade later. Howard, Lovecraft and a bunch of others did similar worldbuilding decades earlier in pulp magazines.
I will grant you that a lot of stuff afterwards was influenced by his works (especially high fantasy, the subgenre Tolkien basically invented), but he was by no means the first or even only one to do worldbuilding.
D&D, as mentioned earlier, drew a lot of inspiration from other sources, most notably sword and sorcery.
And, quite frankly, sci-fi was, and is, doing pretty well on its own without Tolkien. If anything, Tolkien took fantasy out of its big brother's shadow and proved it could stand on its own as a literary genre (no mean feat!), but you're doing a great disservice to Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and a whole host of other people who actually popularised science fiction before Tolkien ever showed up.

Voss: Cheers. Sounds very much like the game has decided to double down on the stuff I do not like (fiddly floating bonus based rules, over complication, feat bloat) while moving away from what I found made it useful (mechanical compatibility with the huge library of 3.0 - 3.X stuff that is available.)

Even 5e sounds like it makes it easier to use that library of stuff.PFv2 seems to be making some of the same mistakes that were made in 4e. I actually think 4e is alright as a game, and a lot of the hate for it comes down to how it was marketed and it's aesthetics, along with some of the stuff Lance was talking about with immersion breaking mechanics. It suffered from HP bloat at high levels and the sense of a world that scales with you is not super fun, but it was a pretty fun game from levels 1-10 and did a good job of making monsters mechanically distinct and interesting. I liked the parts of that design philosophy they kept for 5e.

I've said it before. PF2 may be a perfectly good game. It is not Pathfinder though...