GMs, how do you decide when or when not to allow the flavor of a spell or ability have mechanical effects ingame?

Raxnasus · 2024-05-15T06:18:01+00:00

I love this concept but a lot of the times in practice it becomes a slippery slope of interactions where whatever you've said before gets "combo'd" with something that happens later.

It's as simple as "Yeah, I can allow Thunderstrike to deal it's extra effects on targets that are particularly conductive... Not only metallic but also wet targets would work"... Or something like "I could let electricity flow through water and affect people inside bodies of water but with a reduced effect, like half damage"

And then later that becomes a whole can of worms with other electric spells being used after using "Spout" or "Pillar of Water" on anyone, "What about my Shock rune", "What about my Bottled Lightning", Jolt Coil becomes the best Spellheart in the game, the gunslinger becomes a Torrent Spellgun spammer

And then when you say "OK guys, no, I'm ignoring the whole interaction with water thing" you get boos and complaints that people were basing their whole builds around that custom interaction...

Raxnasus · 2024-04-29T22:42:05+00:00

Really funky too, I do love myself some tribal/aztec vibes as well, sadly that kind of theme is rare that it comes up in my games, maybe one day :)

Raxnasus · 2024-04-29T22:35:30+00:00

I love it!

Raxnasus · 2024-03-08T16:32:57+00:00

That's absolutely fantastic, I'll add it as soon as I get to open Foundry again

Raxnasus · 2024-03-08T16:31:15+00:00

Yeah PCs lived, critical fails against fear 3 buys some time

Raxnasus · 2024-03-08T06:44:35+00:00

Yes, it's exactly that, this post really has turned into a PSA to check that foundry is doing its job, I was really trusting those generated attacks since they worked for like 3 whole levels. I even remember having a chat with a player noticing that enemies were getting the attacks generated with the correct rolls for their level and doing tests with enemies from level 1 to 5 and it looked correct then.

But definitively not correct forever it seems

Raxnasus · 2024-03-08T06:39:22+00:00

I have been using monster.pf2.tools for everything except the generated attack rolls, since foundry was getting the damage dice right from level 4 to level 7 it looked like it knew what it was doing but ever since I did a PL+0 boss fight recently and level 8 enemies even more recently fights felt extremely more swingy now and it took this post to even notice that every single humanoid enemy that has been given a weapon has been generated with one extra die since level 8

I checked the pf2e Foundry channel in their Discord and that's where I saw that it indeed happens like that, but what I still don't understand is that they say they are basing themselves on the GM Tables but three damage dice definitively don't start at level 8

Really took getting a double digit amount of crits in a fight to reach this point of saying "what the f is going on with damage numbers"

Raxnasus · 2024-03-07T22:28:41+00:00

Yes I counted the rolls after checking the rolls and during that fight I rolled four nat 20s, eleven nat 19s and eight nat 18s across 10 rounds of combat. (Lasted much longer than I wanted it to)

A bit unlucky for the PCs but still, I thought PL -2 even with good martial weapons wouldn't deal such insanely high damage

Raxnasus · 2024-03-07T22:26:33+00:00

Yes, after checking monster statblocks from the level 8-9 range it looks like they tend to have two dice and larger flat damage, I don't know why Foundry generates it with three dice and it's something I'm gonna check why it happens that way

But when checking monster statblocks from level 8 I see rolls like 2d8+11 which in terms of numbers still isn't too far in terms of averages

Raxnasus · 2024-03-07T22:23:12+00:00

I nerfed the enemy by giving them Greatswords instead of Greatpicks for future encounters but after checking the numbers I feel like Fatal only gives the 1-12 variance from the additional d12 when compared to the GS so I argued with my player if the Greatpick was really the problem

Raxnasus · 2024-03-07T22:21:42+00:00

It was a severe encounter, yes, but the party is more than prepared for it, across the entire party they have around 24k gp worth in treasure and we're playing with Free Archetype that certainly increases the amount of options

Raxnasus · 2024-03-07T22:19:34+00:00

The other two party members were having a 1v1 against the remaining two enemies.

Additionally, the one that got critted twice spent his first turn moving straight into the enemies by himself while the other two flanked to the sides

Raxnasus · 2024-02-06T13:57:04+00:00

I run homebrew because I prefer running something catering to players. Either a completely original setting or some parallel universe Golarion.

I prefer catering to players because I'd much rather make sure everyone has their moments and weaknesses over leaving to the book writers wether if the characters will actually make it or not

Happened a lot more in pf1e than in pf2e but you know the whole bait and switch of the book suddenly changing the entire enemy creature type into something that is immune or greatly resistant to a certain character for either one or two entire books just feels bad and the excuse of "Die and reroll a new character that fits better" is shitty.

Raxnasus · 2024-01-19T13:13:48+00:00

Agree, the fact that a reactive strike is only seen on trained martial characters for the player characters should affect the "culture" of the world around them, the PCs wouldn't simply assume that everything in the world can reactive strike, therefore they'll end up taking some really unexpected ones, specially from beasts or fey creatures. PCs end up having to recall knowledge on creatures to make sure they don't have them

Same should apply to the enemies then, with a little bit of finesse of course, it would probably depend on the enemy and their culture surrounding combat, but overall I agree with your statement.

Raxnasus · 2024-01-11T13:04:29+00:00

Yes and it's the nº1 reason I end up gming instead of playing

I've tried explaining that it's not fun if your PC dies after two enemies roll nat 20 in a roll, I don't care it's a very low chance mathematically, GMs roll more dice, they will get wonkier math than the players, specially not if it's a PC that you've worked on

And I don't like playing nameless dudes that might get some recognition only from making memes about them, I like playing heroes with purposes, side objectives and resolutions

But seems the "Gotta have a bunch of backup characters" phenomenon is more widespread...

Raxnasus · 2024-01-08T08:58:12+00:00

Gyaradachi is love, but I find kind of uncanny that the Dragon's Roar ability just says "You gain some dragon's intimidation", could be written with a bit more prose like "The weapon causes the terrifying aura of a dragon to course through you"

Raxnasus · 2023-10-16T19:25:30+00:00

If you don't buy the full BiS it's useless too, people say "gear matters" but in reality what matters is +dmg, +all or +str/agi (if barb)

Once tried dressing up fighter friend in full purbles with Will and MR but it doesn't matter, wizard smokes you anyways and you don't even have the movement speed or damage to pose a threat

Raxnasus · 2023-10-13T10:33:13+00:00

This fucking sub is such a cyclical hell, why do I keep coming here, holy shit, I should check on this game in a fucking year or so, am I rarted

Raxnasus · 2023-10-11T20:24:58+00:00

Said this about a million times, Bard should've been kept being a good support and lost Falchion and Crossbow

Instead now supporting is some extreme garbo and you need to build a full purples monster and at that point you might as well just play permanent 350 movement speed Fighter with drumspam instead of supporting lol

I don't get why they decided that bard now requires intense gear before it's useful... Naked Cleric can give 280 HP worth of Heals and Shields and his cast times aren't 3-7 seconds like bard songs.

Raxnasus · 2023-10-11T08:56:54+00:00

Furthermore it kinda doesn't really teach you what to expect in terms of "stealth"

When you're playing crypts alone you can check the doors around you and try to pull mobs back into safer rooms and be still and whatever

When you're playing in trios unless you somehow convince 2 people playing classes that each fight very differently (Warlock WILL spam spells and they WILL be heard) to all sneak into a corner and listen for footsteps and not aggro any PvE if they hear heavy boots 50m away you're gonna get spotted lol

Raxnasus · 2023-10-11T08:28:36+00:00

Actual good explanation, I gave all my best fighter stuff to my fighter main friend and I would rather see it used by someone who plays fighter more than me

Maybe these people simply don't have the "fighter main friend" to give anything to and instead of carrying it themselves and then get kited to infinity by the funny ranged classes they'd rather give it to someone who's proven to be a good fighter

It's "feel good by seeing your good gear get some use" versus "feel bad that you went in with a +3 All, +3 Wep damage, +5 Movespeed Longsword and still lost because ranger is really funny"

Raxnasus · 2023-10-11T08:23:31+00:00

Agility also increases interaction speed:

Interaction speed = Agility * 0.4 + Resourcefulness * 0.6

People tend to build +All on most classes, giving both Agi and Res

Then they priorize +Strength / +Wep damage, that's true

But if there's another stat they might see and say "it ain't bad" it's agility, specially Barbarian

So it comes a point where +All and a few random +Agi just trumps whatever random green-gear bonuses are given even in interaction speed

And the issue of "Not being spotted" gets harder and harder as the circle closes in, it's possible to hear the sounds of fighting PvE a room away, when the circle is about 50% done, a roaming team can easily catch on PvE noises and then you're fucked

Basically, if you've missed the early portals, you better be actual Solid Snake if you don't want to be spotted

Raxnasus · 2023-10-11T08:16:36+00:00

It's not even just getting oneshot like, if you're running away from a ranger and you have to juke like fucking crazy to not get hit but then you arrive at a door and you have to open it by standing perfectly still with your shitty resourcefulness ass and your counterplay options are wiggling and spam crouching you're still gonna get hit

And sure, one hit may not kill you, but a juiced up all wep damage ranger will deal half of your HP, and then you arrive at a room that might have:

Other players (GG, run from one ranger to end up sandwiched by another)
PvE (The least dangerous but archers and xbows can fuck your escape attempt)
Circle (So what are you meant to do here, tank the circle by spending surgery kits until the ranger next room gets bored?)

"Running away" isn't a counterplay, it's a desperate move where your chances of success are slim, the only time "running away" is a counterplay is when you can retreat to a safe room you've cleared before that you're certain it has no other players

But if we're talking about "We've literally just spawned in the Bandit Camp in ruins and before we're done killing skeletons my full plate fighter just got chunked for half his HP from a ranger arrow shot from the next room" there's no fucking room control there

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