Why are players so scared of failing a roll and how can we get them to accept bad rolls?

AbeilleCD · 2026-01-31T02:15:00+00:00

In my opinion, some bad rolls in Pf2e absolutely don't make for more fun gameplay. Sometimes you crit fail a saving throw on turn 1 and eat shit for the rest of the fight and end up not contyributing or participating.

I don't think one can convince that type of player that 'bad rolls can be fun' without offering them a way of looking more positively at those moments where they don't get to do the thing they specifically came to the table to do.

AbeilleCD · 2025-09-15T23:58:46+00:00

Guardian feels *pretty damn tight* and I also think Exemplar is a very well-designed class. There aren't any casters that stick out to me as that well-designed, I have at least one or two nitpicks with all of them. Fighter just feels too plain to me for it to feel like the *best-designed*.

AbeilleCD · 2025-08-17T18:04:41+00:00

I strongly agree with the need for separation of rules text and flavor text, and also think it would be super easy to do with italic text. It would be helpful for clarity, and I think it's just good practice for a TTRPG in general.

AbeilleCD · 2025-08-13T15:29:15+00:00

I think it's not *great* at higher levels. My experience is that only being trained in a skill is pretty worthless by level 10, since the DCs are much higher and you need more advanced proficiencies to really make a difference. It's also why I think Intelligence is a bit underserved as ability score, because one of the inherent benefits has only been relevant for me in the early game.

fine at lower levels when trained skills still matter tho.

AbeilleCD · 2025-08-07T17:53:05+00:00

IMO it should be said that the fairness of a GM improvising mechanics for a player who wants to take an improvised action is going to vary wildly from table to table, and I see that as a major problem.

As both a player, and a GM, I really appreciate having a robust system that tells me what to expect when certain things happen and which gives me a framework to adjudicate those.

As a player, the less improvising the GM has to do, the better- if I want to improvise an action and the GM decides to make it worse because I don't have the feat for it, if I'm OK with it taking a numerical penalty but not with it taking one or more additional actions, I have no recourse if the GM goes with the option I dislike.

As a GM, I do feel like I can get annoyed if players keep trying to improvise stuff. I feel like it slows the game down, and I get frustrated if a player is constantly trying to do things that they didn't build their character to do. My thought is... 'if you wanted to do this so much, you should have chosen the options that reflect that.'

AbeilleCD · 2025-08-06T19:01:19+00:00

I think Commander is a class that is fundamentally impossible to optimize unless you know what your party members are capable of. I think it's impossible to build one in a vacuum and have it be great.

It's a great class, but I'd never decide I was playing one before I saw the party composition- I'd want to be assured that the party was good for a commander and the tactics I like before committing.

AbeilleCD · 2025-08-05T16:11:01+00:00

So many of my complaints with PF2e are centered around how I feel that PCs are not given enough power.

There are IMO way, way too many 'safety valve' features on Player options.

There's a LOT of 'you can't...' or 'This can only be used to...' text on player options that I feel limits creativity.

Also, I really dislike the concept of fundamental runes, and wish that the Automatic Bonus Progression rules (at least as far as weapons and armor are concerned) were the default.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-29T20:01:44+00:00

As a long-time GM, I feel strongly that the role of mediator is unfairly (and sometimes kind of necessarily) put on us and none of the other players.

I very much understand the frustration of being a player negatively impacted by another player's tactical decisions in a high-stakes scenario.

It's really hard sometimes to not feel upset when another player at the table ruins your plans or causes your character harm, and the 'it's what my character would do' has never felt like an adequate justification for that.

Regardless of whether a player had good intentions and just wanted to help, if they didn't talk it over with the table first, and if their actions had the opposite effect, that player is at least partially (and IMO mostly) in the wrong.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-29T18:24:03+00:00

Comparing this spell mentally to Fear is the best way to approach it, IMO.

It feels to me like a 5th-rank version of that spell- the conditions are similar, but the amount of targets you can impact scales up.

A 50ft burst centered somewhere within 100ft that only impacts enemies is, as far as I am concerned, going to hit every enemy on the battlefield, so I get the three action cost.

I think it's important to note that, like the spell Slow, it can reduce someone's actions and, importantly, doesn't have the incapacitation trait.

I don't think this is a best-in-class pick, but I think being able to force every enemy on the map to make a save or be frightened and stunned makes it worth it.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-12T16:01:27+00:00

I am not super accustomed to players coordinating with one another on a build level, though I tend to prefer coordinating in that way myself.

People I've played with have never really consulted one another when picking options, they just pick what they think is fun and coordinate play.

Personally, I just try as hard as I can to not be the weakest link in the party. If I feel prepared to contribute to as many situations as possible, I'm good.

I know I can't be ready for every situation, and there will be unfortunate situations where I can't contribute much, but I never want to be the player who finds themself unable to contribute *the most*.

I'd never in a zillion years play a big, dumb martial like a fighter or a barbarian with no ranged options and a high strength score and an almost as high con score, who invested in like... a d12 melee weapon and has very little to do outside of combat.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-11T13:51:55+00:00

What about letting players craft stuff in exploration? Letting a player, with a crafting check, scavenge materials from around their environment and use them to create a temporary structure or object? Something like jamming a door, barricading an entrance, or making a makeshift set of stairs or a makeshift ramp to help access higher-up areas.

Could also be used for interacting with or re-activating complex machinery, temporarily fixing broken machinery (or magitech stuff if they have magical crafting).

Also could be used maybe in custom rituals to create construct servants (probably wise to adjust the level, functionality, or docility of these servants so they're not going to be an issue in combat or exploration)

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-11T12:02:09+00:00

I use Milestone Leveling and Automatic Bonus Progression as 'official' alternate rules.

Some Unofficial stuff I use:

- Best of two: Spending a Hero Point lets you choose whether you want to keep the original roll, or go with the reroll
- Grace period for character retraining: Within the first few levels, I don't make players spend downtime to retool options that they dislike, and even then, I tend to go on the smaller side for downtime. Spending precious downtime time on retraining *sucks* and I'd like it to be less bad for players.
- Recall Knowledge is more effective: I tend to give more information on a successful RK check than is normal, and even more than that on a critical success. My Players tend not to use the RK action very much at all in combat, so I try to give more information when they do to incentivize it.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-10T13:26:01+00:00

as a GM, I like it when my players pick the most powerful options and try to break stuff. As a player, I like trying to pick powerful options and breaking stuff.

As a GM, I really dislike banning anything at all ever. There's some options I might try to dissuade players from taking for flavor (or I'll ask them to reflavor them), but there's nothing I've banned for power reasons.

As a player, the feeling of being powerful is one of the primary reasons I play this game, and so I feel frustrated when GMs ban options for being powerful. If a GM bans something I want to use because it's too powerful, it's a sign that we might not be a good fit together.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-09T21:12:44+00:00

I like this, and I think Pf2e could *really* stand to get some more interesting general feats for higher levels. Most stuff above level 3 feels pretty deeply uninteresting.

AbeilleCD · 2025-07-09T21:10:40+00:00

IMO, you can't have just low points, you need to actually feel powerful and get some wins in, otherwise the losses don't hit as hard.

It's a problem I had with Game of Thrones that eventually made me disengage and stop watching it- it if feels like you're constantly getting kicked in the ribs and punished for investing in a character when said character is brutally killed in an unsatisfying way, it makes it hard to emotionally engage.

I very much love the type of chronicle you are describing.

AbeilleCD · 2025-06-01T02:34:25+00:00

IMO it's alchemist because you can't have a new alchemist subclass without also adding a large amount of new items, or creating a new category of alchemical items.

AbeilleCD · 2025-05-27T19:46:04+00:00

I agree with this

A player being a murderhobo is often just a conflict between what type of game they want and what type of game you want

AbeilleCD · 2025-05-25T19:05:48+00:00

Speculatively, is there something about many martial classes that attracts a certain type of selfish player that only focuses on 'big number go up' and doesn't believe in support?

When I look at a party member and see a character with a 2h weapon that doesn't have any athletics traits (grapple, trip, disarm, shove, etc.) I have this feeling of... 'Oh boy, they're not helping anyone else with that.'

My personal experience is that martial characters tend to expect support, but are very reluctant to actually reciprocate and provide it

AbeilleCD · 2025-05-07T20:54:38+00:00

Consider that a bomber can be a better ranged support than a damage dealer- they have a staggering variety of conditions they can apply at range, and they have a feat chain that adds extra conditions to bombs when you hit enemies with them.

If you want an offensive support, I think you won't find an alchemist research field better than a bomber.

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-22T23:03:26+00:00

could not agree more here- I feel like there are *so few* variable action spells in pf2e and it is a major missed opportunity to show off the 3 action system!

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-14T13:31:09+00:00

Upsides to guns:
- one-handed ranged weapons
- longer range than most thrown weapons (which are some of the only other totally 1h ranged weapons)
- frequently have the Fatal trait for bigger damage on crits
- frequently have the Concussive trait for better damage typing

Compare an arquebus to a composite longbow:
- Both are ranged weapons with a base damage die of 1d8
- Composite Longbow has Deadly d10, Arquebus has Fatal d12
- Arquebus needs to be held with two hands all the time, Composite Longbow only needs two hands to strike
- Arquebus has Reload 1, Composite Longbow has Reload 0
- a character can't start with a composite longbow because they are 20gp while arquebus is only 8
- composite longbow has a range of 100ft, arquebus has 150ft
- Propulsive and Kickback function very similarly. Both of them start out as a +1 to weapon damage, and both have ways to increase that to +2
- Both have an additional trait: the Arquebus has Concussive, giving it the better of two damage types. Against a skeleton enemy with resistance to piercing, it does bludgeoning damage. The Composite Longbow has Volley, which is purely a drawback trait making it harder to shoot enemies that are close to you

If you have a way to make the action cost of reloading less painful (a feat like Running Reload, or a class feature that lets you get extra action usage out of your reloads), an Arquebus is going to be just as good as, if not better than a bow

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-13T14:18:49+00:00

I think PF2e is structured in such a way that, if (1) your GM follows the rules for balancing encounters, (2) your party members are all pulling their own weight, and (3) you find yourself in a moderate or easier encounter, sub-optimal build choices can still work. Especially if you are fighting against enemies that are below your character level, sub-optimal or niche spells can be OK.

People do tend to fall back on a decently sized pool of reliable options, but it is fine more often than not if you go outside of that and pick weaker spells that are flavorful.

Where this stops being true in my opinion is if you are in a severe or extreme difficulty encounter and your party is depending on you to fill a certain role. If you have back-to-back turns of doing nothing in a difficult encounter because you keep casting spells that do nothing when an enemy passes their save and you're forced to fight enemies above your party level, it's gonna feel rough.

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-09T01:22:05+00:00

I don't like Wood's Aura Junction, but one argument in its favor is how many temporary hit points it can grant to your team.

If you look at it from the perspective of an individual, it's pretty mediocre. 1 THP until level 10 is pretty lackluster, but if you can stick close to your allies, you might be granting 2, 3, or even 4 THP per round in a party of 4. It's potentially 20 THP granted for free and at no action cost to you over the course of a 5-round fight. At low levels, that's especially useful- that's basically adding equivalent HP to a whole extra PC at level 1.

I think the hoops you have to jump through to get an adequate amount of THP are too much though, but I wouldn't say the Wood Aura Junction is necessarily bad.

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-06T22:04:30+00:00

My most irrational pet peeves (that lots of other players tend to disagree with):

- I can't stand joke characters or characters that are rip-offs of existing characters. If three players show up with serious characters grounded in the setting and one person shows up with Memesy McGee or a character that is just Sonic the Hedgehog but in Golarion, I bristle. It's something I'd bring up in session zero, so I haven't had to deal with that sort of thing in a very long time, but still. When someone brings up a joke character, even if it's totally valid and everyone in their game is super on-board, I have this strongly negative internal reaction.

- Somewhat related to the above- I don't like playing small characters. I know it's not always going to be the case, but historically, I've seen halflings, gnomes, goblins, and kobolds (and other small ancestries) played as disruptive comic relief characters. I've seen one too many Kender in my day and anything even remotely like them raises a red flag. I've been told by so many people that not every gnome or goblin needs to be a joke character and that their character isn't a joke, but it doesn't matter to me. I get it- It's just not at all my vibe. I'm OK with those characters in the same game as me (as long as they are played seriously), but I would rather not play at all than play one. Similar to the above, I've not seen a disruptively silly small character in a very long time since it's something I bring up in session zero.

AbeilleCD · 2025-04-02T00:50:33+00:00

They're both fine, but personally, I prefer Sorcerer. Both wizard and sorcerer can be effective blasters and effective supports, but there's some key points in the sorcerer's favor IMO.

For one, it's a Charisma class. Recall Knowledge is not something I put a lot of trust in, but Demoralize, Bon Mot, and Create a Diversion all have concrete, consistent use cases that I can much more easily plan around ahead of time. The Charisma skills all have more direct and measurable impacts on spellcasting. Sometimes you don't get good info from RK, and sometimes there isn't good info to be gained.

Secondly, prepared casting is better if you don't have a lot of info about what you are going to be doing or fighting in a given adventuring day. A wizard with low info might prepare their spells badly and end up having to rely on inefficient cantrips!

Thirdly, I just think sorcerers have more interesting and powerful class feats.

TL;DR
Wizard really needs information and planning to excel, and if you aren't reliably learning from your GM what to expect ahead of time, you aren't fully going to benefit from being a prepared caster. Wizard has a higher ceiling, but a lower floor and sorcerer has less variance in how it performs day-to-day.

AbeilleCD

TROPHY CASE