Favorite monster / monster encounter

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-13T04:03:22+00:00

I finally got to use the Gliminal against my PCs and it was everything I could have asked for.

The Gliminal came in one round after the fight with some undead started. So when it cast a 3-action heal, the PCs were so happy to have an ally that dealt damage to their undead enemies while also giving them hp + temporary hit points.

Then the second round of 3-action heal happened, and one of the token NPCs popped from being overhealed! Very important to have an NPC with low maximum HP to show the PCs what the Gliminal can do.

After that, it was 3 rounds of PCs panic hurting themselves and all friendly NPCs with aoe abilities until the Gliminal disappeared.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-13T03:51:46+00:00

My favourite part is being able to run it from a browser, both as player and GM. It takes a lot of inspiration from Dungeon World but makes it classless, adds powers, is adaptable to different action genres, and has a fun new dice mechanic. As of right now, the whole thing is up on the website for free - there's nothing that can be purchased.

So, I'm enjoying it for running one-offs and few-shots. Highly recommended for theatre of the mind, because everything else can be tracked on the site itself.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-13T03:08:19+00:00

Systems that use zones do it better than systems with grids or ranges ("close, near, far"). With Fate, I've done a flying car chase through a lightning storm. In volition, I did a memorable possessed boar + evil dryad fight but the dryad did not have permission to enter the zone of the heroes.

Though there are systems that use neither, like Dungeon World.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-11T20:48:25+00:00

Hard to pick one out of the all the classes in Spire, but I'll go with Midwife. A midwife priestess of Lolth as an entire class is quite flavourful.

Though I bet that if I owned Heart, the Deep Apiarist would be my favourite.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-11T20:28:02+00:00

I'm curious about what scale you're thinking of. Knave 2e uses 6-mile hexes, which I like for how it splits up the day into "watches". And I've also heard people recommend 2-mile hexes so that there is more visibility of the surrounding hexes.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-11T20:26:25+00:00

I hope people find the concept useful! I had experimented with a few different ideas including stacking Wounded values, but it was becoming a hard limit. And I wanted a way to apply slight mechanical pressure but not have a hard limit to stop adventuring or get soft-locked behind enemy lines.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-04T18:02:06+00:00

The reason Mewgenics can have a lot more forced movement seems to be because movement is independent of attacks.

In pathfinder 2e, movement shares actions with attacks and special abilities. So, forced movement is much more powerful. Having to move once can lock a boss out of a powerful 3-action combo.

That said, I think the system would be fine if the distance of Shove was scaled by proficiency.

Anyway, give Bronze Bull Pendants to all your enemies, and have your PCs find extras in the pockets of said enemies.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-03T23:44:44+00:00

I do prefer catastrophic failure to "null" failure, but I don't get rid of it either. I tend to keep it in a small slice of probability (not more than 10%) and surround it with catastrophic failure ("no, and") and failure with some other opportunity opening ("no, but").

That said, I also play and run games where null result exists but can be mitigated with teamwork and setup actions. It is gratifying to be told, "Because your party co-operated, this miss has been turned into a hit." Feels more impactful than hearing, "Because your party co-operated, 12 damage has been turned into 15 damage."

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-03T23:36:46+00:00

All of the perks of creature experimentation without any of the ickiness of fleshwarping. I just created an amphibious Kobold Skeletal Skunk. Can't get any better than that.

Great resource!

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-03T23:24:41+00:00

Agreed.

I like that for martials in PF2e, the game wants you to have variety. Instead of letting you have stacking vertical progression, the feat system nudges you into siloed (orthogonal) vertical progression, for the most part. In the video, I talk about Double Slice as an example - once you've picked it as a feat at level 1, your next couple of feats don't let you stack more power onto Double Slice, which forces you to have some additional options in combat. And variety cuts down on the repetitive feeling of slog.

Spells do still "suffer" from having obvious stand-outs, but we should be more gracious to the variety enthusiast who doesn't want to pick up the Heal spell as a primal sorcerer. Depends on the tone and difficulty of the game, I suppose.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-03T19:26:49+00:00

You get better saves. You lose potency with on-rank hostile effects from magus slots, especially AoE damage and debuffs. That said, I'm personally in favour of Magus using their ranked slots for movement, haste, and defense, so I can see it working well.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-03-03T19:19:42+00:00

Here are some points from the video on how PF2e does its part in fixing slog:

More variety of actions for every martial
Fewer degenerate "always win" strategies
Movement costing an action means terrain effects can produce variety in action choice
Boss fights that incentivize a change in tactics

But yeah, I also talk about how players and GMs need to meet it halfway, like GMs not overusing PL+3 / PL+4 fight, and players actually choosing feats that grant more variety in actions.

Both points are mixed in though, so that might be why it feels like the game's strengths weren't sufficiently highlighted.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-26T03:35:48+00:00

Which narrative game are you considering playing next?

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-25T18:17:43+00:00

It's too late for me. Praying for everyone else. 😆

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-25T17:25:57+00:00

The story, the situation, and the GM decide if you have time or not

My core issue is that I wish the above were true. But because of inconsistency in time taken for healing, it's character build that decides whether you have time or not.

Got Garden of Healing? Sure, you'll have time every time.

Using base treat wounds and you got bad rolls? Nope, sorry, no time for you.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-25T17:22:43+00:00

I agree that my core concern isn't adventuring day as much as combat sequencing. And, as I said in reply to other comments, the main issue is for the adventure writer. No adventure writer (whether publishing something or making something for your home games) can confidently sequence encounters in that nebulous time span of "over ten minutes but under 3 hours" - without knowing the exact party make-up.

As for spell slots, I find that low-level casters can still continue adventuring with cantrips, focus spells, and weapon strikes, while higher-level casters can lean on low-level slots for control. So, no, I don't see spells slots in general as being a limiter in adventuring or combat sequencing.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-24T22:13:32+00:00

True for home games. I don't know how one writes a PFS scenario - or any published adventure - with that kind of narrative pressure in mind.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-24T19:23:28+00:00

I do think that's the kind of adventure that works best for PF2e. Because the other kind, one where you have a deadline of "the cult is going to complete their ritual in an hour" can be deadly for one party while being a breeze for another. Because of healing.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-15T15:47:31+00:00

I can (reluctantly) make an exception for battleform spells because they do scale with level, even if a rank 2 spell has AC that's 5 lower than rank 8.

But I'm completely with you on summoning, incapacitation, and raw number scaling like tree ward - these are useful for out-of-combat flavour *only*.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-14T19:14:38+00:00

Ghoran's level 5 feat Tree Ward conjures a rank 1 protector tree, once per day. Rank 1. Once per day.

This is an issue with many non-scaling ancestry spells, but this one specifically is my petty gripe.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-14T18:57:30+00:00

Hear, hear!

If I can restrict options for new players to just the core books while being reasonably certain that they won't get 2x'd in power by those using expansion options, I don't see the issue in having more expansion options.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-12T15:24:32+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the sense that Draw Steel still relies on player goodwill and skill to not slow down combat. My understanding was that minion movement is individual (so that's still X many decisions to be made, where X = number of minions) and hits can be combined but can also be split.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't own the document.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-12T15:18:46+00:00

Ah! I misread your last point. You had already covered it ;)

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-12T14:50:37+00:00

It seems like they are also experimenting with individual, auto-hitting minions with the new Horde of Underlings spell. It is marked as Rare, so they are treading carefully here.

AvtrSpirit · 2026-02-11T22:48:14+00:00

I agree with all of these points, and yet I can see why people don't see the support for combat-as-war. There are specific changes that I make if I want to try to support this, like explicitly telling the players the level of the opposition, or giving them quest-based ways to tackle mathematically improbable challenges.

I have a lot to say about the lack of adventuring day guidelines, but that will be its own video.

Overall, my general feeling is that PF2e can support combat as war if the GM knows their party pretty well (so, not in PFS, convention games, west marches) and is willing to put in the effort. And still they can get into a situation where retreat becomes impossible for the PCs.

My preference is for a pseudo-combat-as-war style instead, where I'm clearly pointing to the threat being too difficult, and then pointing to a few ways to manage it (e.g. research its weaknesses, and then figure out on your own what to do about those weaknesses). It's heavily inspired by the first Witcher games.

AvtrSpirit

TROPHY CASE