Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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Ghostse said:
Pathfinder's action system has the same sort of issues 4e's does - which is while it works great mathematically, it feels rather unsatisfying in play.
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I never had that problem. PF2 has other issues but 3 actions isn't one of them. I had far more woes with PF1 and to a lesser degree 5e with trying to remember the tangled mess of full action, action, quick action, bonus action, free action, move action, reaction, and swift action.

I actually ended up having the entire table try to explain that system to an experienced player who couldn't wrap his head around 3 generic actions because he was so locked in to broken action system of old DnD.

Being able to upcast with additional actions has been fun too.
 
Judge Dredd said:
I never had that problem. PF2 has other issues but 3 actions isn't one of them. I had far more woes with PF1 and to a lesser degree 5e with trying to remember the tangled mess of full action, action, quick action, bonus action, free action, move action, reaction, and swift action.

I actually ended up having the entire table try to explain that system to an experienced player who couldn't wrap his head around 3 generic actions because he was so locked in to broken action system of old DnD.

Being able to upcast with additional actions has been fun too.
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While I have admittedly done my fair share of shilling for PF2 in the thread, after continuous play and reaching level 11 with a character on a Pozzo AP I've had the honeymoon period wear off somewhat.

I agree that 3 action system is a much better feel once you get into it. On the DM's side it allows a lot of ways to give monsters interesting abilities without the asspulls -from a player's perspective- that are legendary actions or resistances and lair actions. From a player perspective it usually allows a lot of flexibility - but not as much as one would hope.

Playing a caster I've run into the issue that a good majority of the spells in the list are all two actions. This sounds fine on the surface but whether unconsciously or through my personal spell choices I'm ultimately still playing the 3-5e action system. Two actions to cast and one action left to either move or metamagic. Which is just D&D's action then move with no bonus action. Shoot a crossbow one round and reload the next if I had one. If I have a summon or sustain spell up then just two actions since the summon sustain eats my third action to give my summon two actions so a net total of 4 actions split between us.

I've seen some discussions about 'the third action problem' on all classes since without an agile weapon it's never truly worth it to eat the -10 (-8 agile) on the multi attack penalty with a third attack action. You're far better off with a demoralize or some other utility action that isn't an attack. If only more one action debilitating spells existed to fill that gap. I suppose this is where Raise Shield, Shield (spell) and True Strike come in.

My caster still feels very useful through handing out buffs and being able to use under-leveled but targeted for weaknesses summons. He also does insane damage whenever he actually rolls for it since True Strike exists and always manages to fuck shit up with high rolls on versus AC spells.

Despite the attempt at removing save or suck spell resolutions it still feels as though most monsters have a higher than 50% chance to pass saves at party level on their weakest save score. I could also just be particularly unlucky. It feels more often than not that targeting weaknesses for saves is much more of a gamble than its actually worth when the effects already feel neutered. Much better to buff a party member or try for direct damage unless there's a truly great situation for debuffing. Fear at the level it targets up to 5 creatures is a great candidate for making this a common situation.

If there's one thing in PF2's favor though it's definitely the perceived lethality. My group has regularly had combats that felt like they could go either way at every moment beside the last round. The entire party have narrowly avoided multiple potential deaths and combat regularly feels like a struggle for survival in a good way. Despite being a very strong party we still regularly run into encounters that are do or die. I doubt any of us are truly optimized and we're likely missing some must-have items but in spite of that we still manage to scrape by.

It's a fun system. I do enjoy what it does, but I've been considering the possibility that what I actually want is 3.5/PF1 long term. Thankfully I'm blessed with friends that are willing to try other systems so long as at least one person knows what's happening and two of us have prior 3.5 experience. So it's not been ruled out yet.
 
Sometimes I really enjoy getting a hot garbage stat. It's not every day you get to play an 18 charisma/4 intelligence Bard of the College of Eloquence.
 
If anyone is curious about what audiences Hasbro/WOTC wants, look like here it is. These are the white faggots that spend half a video on forbidden lands Bitching about how racist Indiana Jones and Dungeons and Dragons playable races are.
 
Judge Dredd said:
I never had that problem. PF2 has other issues but 3 actions isn't one of them. I had far more woes with PF1 and to a lesser degree 5e with trying to remember the tangled mess of full action, action, quick action, bonus action, free action, move action, reaction, and swift action.
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My problem with the 3 Action system has never been that it's somehow less efficient or streamlined than the action economy of 3.PF, it's just that everything suddenly became an action when it had no reason to be for "balance". Holding your shield in a way to defend yourself? Takes an action. Saying "Hey guys, there's an invisible thing over there." out loud to your party? Action. Having a spell that you cast continue to exist? Action every fucking turn. It's sacrificing any sense of the rules representing a fantastical combat scenario by turning everything into a really lame board game so the Organized Play chimps (I was one for a few years) can lap up the slop without rules disagreements or overpowered builds.

Ghostse said:
For pathfinder/3.x/4/5, I always go with static HP/averages and point buys. There is too much that goes into building character in those systems to waste everyone's time with getting fucked by random chance. (Or just as often "Um yup totally I rolled over 16 six times in a row when I was building this. Definitely. And look, so did everyone else") The most I've done for random chance on stats for those systems in past.... decade and half or so is have players roll on a point buy array chart to give them the scores they will assign to their stats.
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Yeah, my groups and I have done only point-buy for years, it makes people put more thought into their characters instead of just making dumb meme shit because they expect it to die or isn't the spread they wanted. The only minor regret I have is that there's a class or two in Pathfinder (Skald comes to mind) that are so incredibly MAD, they are impossible to use well with point-buy but would be awesome if you manage to roll some kind of Ubermensh with ridiculously good stats.
 
Tom Bombodildo said:
My problem with the 3 Action system has never been that it's somehow less efficient or streamlined than the action economy of 3.PF, it's just that everything suddenly became an action when it had no reason to be for "balance". Holding your shield in a way to defend yourself? Takes an action. Saying "Hey guys, there's an invisible thing over there." out loud to your party? Action. Having a spell that you cast continue to exist? Action every fucking turn. It's sacrificing any sense of the rules representing a fantastical combat scenario by turning everything into a really lame board game so the Organized Play chimps (I was one for a few years) can lap up the slop without rules disagreements or overpowered builds.
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One of the things 5e tried to do right was the 'Bonus action'. Gay as it is, it is nice to have a chit that lets players do a a small something without sacrificing thier action economy, but also works a limiter to keep things from spiraling into an infinite turn. Or so that powerful actions don't need to eat the whole turn by default without allowing them to get strung together.

Where they fucked up was they made the bonus too fucking powerful for some classes and made classes that CAN'T usefully consume a BA on the reg feel gimped. It also made casters more of spellqueens than they already are. "Can't inspect, i'm too busy focusing on spell maintenance! Fighter, you do it"
 
You have more experience than me, so I'll take your word for it. I wonder if Paizo knows things get to be a problem at level 11 given most official adventures finish there.

titty skeleton said:
Two actions to cast and one action left to either move or metamagic. Which is just D&D's action then move with no bonus action.
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This is a good thing. It's exactly the same outcome, but without the tangled mess of what is and isn't an action.

titty skeleton said:
I've seen some discussions about 'the third action problem' on all classes since without an agile weapon it's never truly worth it to eat the -10 (-8 agile) on the multi attack penalty with a third attack action. You're far better off with a demoralize or some other utility action that isn't an attack.
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Tom Bombodildo said:
it's just that everything suddenly became an action when it had no reason to be for "balance". Holding your shield in a way to defend yourself? Takes an action. Saying "Hey guys, there's an invisible thing over there." out loud to your party? Action. Having a spell that you cast continue to exist? Action every fucking turn. It's sacrificing any sense of the rules representing a fantastical combat scenario by turning everything into a really lame board game
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One of the problems of PF2 is how overly mechanical everything is. This has some benefits in providing hard and fast rules for everything, but it means finding that rule can be a pain, as can dealing with edge cases. I ran into this when a player wanted to shove a character in a grab. It seems it's the subject of disagreement online.

That said, the "third action problem" is a good thing. It allows for those fantasy scenarios of a desperate fight that gets dirty. eg. Going for a kick or trip at -8 instead of just spamming attack and taking the -10. Having a shield be an action makes it part of the game instead of just some equip-and-forget passive AC buff. Maybe they overdo it a bit, but so far it's a good thing because your character isn't on autopilot.

titty skeleton said:
I doubt any of us are truly optimized and we're likely missing some must-have items but in spite of that we still manage to scrape by.
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One thing I'm liking about PathFinder 2 isn't really the games credit, but having optimized builds being less well known is a good thing. The rogue went for a duel wield build because it sounded fun, and there was no objection about it being meta or not-meta. There was also no demand for this or that house rule or custom class.
 
Judge Dredd said:
A question came up at the table leather armour, and I was told leather armour and studded leather armour were never a thing in real life. I looked it up on google and got no results. So I asked the HEMA guy and he said leather armour and studded leather armour were never a thing in real life. The closest you got is gambesons. I struggle to believe this is the case, so I thought I'd ask the council of Kiwis.
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In general, the closest thing there was to "leather armor." Would be a brigandine. The Romans also supposedly wore a leather shirt under their armor the name of which escapes me. The problem with that is we have no actual archeological examples of them since leather doesn't hold up very well. It's mentioned somewhere. I'll see if I can dig it up.
 
Ghostse said:
Where they fucked up was they made the bonus too fucking powerful for some classes and made classes that CAN'T usefully consume a BA on the reg feel gimped. It also made casters more of spellqueens than they already are. "Can't inspect, i'm too busy focusing on spell maintenance! Fighter, you do it"
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"Sustain minor" is a 4e thing. Few if any concentration spells in 5e require using an action to sustain them.

Judge Dredd said:
So I asked the HEMA guy and he said leather armour and studded leather armour were never a thing in real life.
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There absolutely was "leather armor" in real life. There have been all kinds of non-metal armors all over the world. Leather cuirasses from China survive today in museums. You can search online yourself and find plenty of examples.

"Studded leather" is, judging by illustrations, almost certainly a mistake on the part of Gary Gygax. Brigandine armor often had plates on the inside of the coat, with the studs used to fix them to the fabric or leather appearing on the outside. Gygax pretty obviously didn't realize the studs provided no protection themselves.
 
The Ugly One said:
"Studded leather" is, judging by illustrations, almost certainly a mistake on the part of Gary Gygax. Brigandine armor often had plates on the inside of the coat, with the studs used to fix them to the fabric or leather appearing on the outside. Gygax pretty obviously didn't realize the studs provided no protection themselves.
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Cuir boulli (or boiled leather) wasn't specifically an armor but a treated form of leather you could, for instance, decorate with plates or spikes if you felt like it. It was used in some kinds of light armor but often as something like boots or a jacket. I don't think full body leather armor as a single unit was really a thing. It was often used as decoration for furniture or other items.
 
The Ugly One said:
"Sustain minor" is a 4e thing. Few if any concentration spells in 5e require using an action to sustain them.
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4e's minor also has a lot of the same issues, and I'll never admit it in public but I prefer the way a 5e bonus action sits as an optional chit that generally gets used up as part of doing something else vs. 4e's independent action. (but again, they fuck up the bonus action in actual system implementation. But concept in the 50,000 foot view I really like)


I remember there being some sort of thing with casters usually having their bonus action consumed with casting, sort of like martials usually burning it for attacks, but I'll also believe I'm confused as I try to keep 5e in my head as little as possible.

AnOminous said:
Cuir boulli (or boiled leather) wasn't specifically an armor but a treated form of leather you could, for instance, decorate with plates or spikes if you felt like it. It was used in some kinds of light armor but often as something like boots or a jacket. I don't think full body leather armor as a single unit was really a thing. It was often used as decoration for furniture or other items.
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IIRC the boiled & waxed leather was mostly used for chest protection and gauntlets. Because while its true that leather is pretty labor intensive its got nothing on refining & smithing metal.
 
Ghostse said:
I remember there being some sort of thing with casters usually having their bonus action consumed with casting, sort of like martials usually burning it for attacks, but I'll also believe I'm confused as I try to keep 5e in my head as little as possible.
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In original AD&D, spells would generally have VSM components, that is, verbal, somatic, and material. Like you'd have to chant the spell (V), perform physical motions (S) and maybe have specific physical materials (M) to cast it. So it would in fact take up your entire turn to cast a spell.

I'd usually waive the "M" component unless it was something really rare or weird. I'd assume your Jack Vance-method of memorizing spells would include actually having the material components, too. I wouldn't make characters go out and jab some toads to get eyeballs or whatever.
 
derpherp2 said:
Aren't literal animals like 2 INT, with 3 INT being the requirement for "sentient" feats like martial art styles or diplomacy?
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thatsthejoke.jpg
 
Brain Problems said:
Your perspective on this is interesting but I'm curious if the D&D player is normally very creative in his natural environment or whether he's just as dull/uninspired there too. That said, if the dude isn't into the setting and can't be bothered to get into it I can see that type of response. Glad it worked out after though.

I had an inverse experience of playing Cyberpunk with a bunch tabletop enthusiasts + the GF of one dude who, as far as I can tell, had never played anything like this before in her life. She could not wrap her head around "do anything you want" insofar as it's a pretend world with rules, just be creative and think of stuff. She froze like a deer in headlights when a combat encounter started and basically did the "I uhhh shoot again!" thing you're describing.

To be honest, I find the cyberpunk setting more limiting than the medieval fantasy one for some reason, maybe just because I'm used to the latter versus the former.
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This is like 90% of women I’ve ever played TTRPG’s with. The concept of roleplaying seems alien to them.
 
derpherp2 said:
I was going to make a joke about casting a spell that makes you stupider but I forgot what it was.
Oh wait feeblemind
You win this round 4 INT/18 CHA bard.

Now kiss me. You (almost) animal.
Wait why the fuck is feeblemind effecting Charisma in 5E. wtf.
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5e is just all kinds of a mess when you start really examining how certain abilities and spells can interact with each other.
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Ghostse said:
I remember there being some sort of thing with casters usually having their bonus action consumed with casting, sort of like martials usually burning it for attacks, but I'll also believe I'm confused as I try to keep 5e in my head as little as possible.
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There are a couple sustain spells where you use a bonus action to have the effect do something. Cleric's bonus action is often busy with Spiritual Weapon. Warlock's bonus action is usually making Hex hop to a new target.

derpherp2 said:
Now kiss me. You (almost) animal.
Wait why the fuck is feeblemind effecting Charisma in 5E. wtf.
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Stops you from trying to argue a retard who can't even understand language is still somehow capable of masterful feats of diplomacy and deception using only his drool and banging a pot on the floor.
 
The Ugly One said:
Stops you from trying to argue a retard who can't even understand language is still somehow capable of masterful feats of diplomacy and deception using only his drool and banging a pot on the floor.
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Best part is that wisdom isn't affected so monks still get their five finger death punches and AC bonus
 
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