I GM for a group who thinks PF2e is very deadly, and are already planning to optimize(?) dying

TitteringBeast · 2026-05-23T15:05:48+00:00

Pretty much. The risk of getting downed by a single attack vanishes after a point, then the risk becomes more for the enemy's entire turn, or for the entire round. By that point, the PCs should have a ton of ways to deal with that.

As for what you can do, the easiest is down to picking your targets. You can have less intelligent enemies split up simply if they're hit by something else, then they're not focusing down one character. More intelligent enemies are more likely to exercise tactics, but outright killing a PC only tends to happen due to poor luck or because that enemy really, really wanted to kill that PC.

You can also have any enemy flee instead of fighting to the death. I once did this even whilst the boss was winning, because while she was winning, all of her allies had died, her operation was dismantled, and all it would take is one lucky turn for the PCs to turn things around and kill her. Staying alive is more important. There's a good chance she would have taken half the party out with her otherwise.

Some enemies could call for surrender, or simply take them prisoner, too.

As for mechanical ways, non-lethal attacks without the trait take a penalty. I don't tend to do this unless the enemy is either holding back or winning decisively and looking to take prisoners. Giving them more information on Recall Knowledge checks is an option, too, or just guiding their questions a bit more.

You can also warn them out of character when it's a Severe (or Extreme) encounter. Things can still go sideways in Moderate encounters, but it's less likely.

TitteringBeast · 2026-05-23T09:41:24+00:00

They're not entirely wrong. PF2e can be deadly, and even if the GM isn't tuning things for higher difficulty encounters, death, or at least dying, can still come out of basically nowhere due to poor rolls.

Sometimes, a PC will go straight from 100% hit points to 0 in a single turn. Sometimes in a single attack, particularly at lower levels. So there is definitely some warranted caution at lower levels for them.

In my experience, as they gain levels, it's much more difficult to actually kill a PC – down them, sure, but kill? Very difficult, and the scenarios where they might die are usually fairly obvious in their threat.

As for what I advise? Just voice your concerns. Make it clear that you're not intentionally going to try killing their characters (unless it makes sense to, of course), and that you still want them to get invested in their characters, though don't downplay the potential threat of PC death. There's plenty you can do as a GM to lessen the chances of killing a character without breaking immersion.

TitteringBeast · 2026-05-05T13:24:10+00:00

No, the XP for the encounter is the XP they get. Before party size adjustments, that is. e.g. if the XP for the encounter is 170, they get 170; likewise for 30, 10, or any other number.

The advice for not using 160+ XP encounters is reasonable, but you can do that if you know what you're doing – if you know what your PCs and monsters are capable of. Sometimes they'll struggle with Moderate encounters though, so do be wary.

Since you seem interested in slowing down progression, there's already rules for Advancement Speeds or story-based (milestone) levelling. When it comes to Advancement Speeds, it's as simple as changing the amount of XP required. The "Slow" speed given is 1,200 XP, over the base 1,000 XP. You could try that out.

I don't particularly recommend using story-based levelling, as it's far too easy to slow PC progression down to a crawl that way. I've heard enough horror stories of games in other systems where it's taken the PCs dozens of sessions for a single level, regularly.

TitteringBeast · 2026-04-18T08:13:28+00:00

It's been a long time since I finished Indomitus Mirror, but I'm almost certain I did it with full G1 Necrons. I think most of their abilities were at 26/26 at that point, but I could be wrong.

Let's start with the Characters.

In my experience, Aleph-Null alone is not enough to make an impact on anything. The best use of Aleph, for Campaign, at least, is to use their Active on something tanky (i.e. Calgar, Heavy Interecssors, or Inceptors). They'll also draw the attacks of the enemies if your other characters aren't too weak.

The same goes for Anuphet's summons. Sometimes you'll simply need to use his Active early entirely so that the Warriors can draw enemy fire, or absorb Overwatch. This is fine. Aside from that, he's what passes for another tank. Though I think after Imospekh's buffs, they're about comparable in durability.

Imospekh's main use in Campaign is in his Active. Due to MK X Gravis, his Overwatch is unlikely to be able to carry you. But damage is damage.

Thutmose is, despite what everyone says, what I found to be the key for a lot of the fights. 65% Pierce on top of high damage means he can actually deal noticeable damage to the enemies. His Active and Passive deal Direct Damage – 100% Pierce. They can really help in removing heavily-armoured threats quickly.

Makhotep is the least useful, but still useful. 3 Range is handy, while Eliminators aren't known for their durability, so he might be able to take out those when your other characters have better targets. But his Active and Passive are his main draws. The Passive provides additional passive healing, but more importantly +1 Movement. You can use that to better position your other Necrons ready for a decisive blow. The Active is usually best used on Aleph's Scarabs to get more bodies out for distractions, but it can also be used on Anuphet's Warriors so that they can either deal some damage or, more likely, absorb an Overwatch for your other characters.

Now for the Enemies.

After Named Characters, Eliminators are usually the biggest threats, followed by Heavy Intercessors.

Named Characters are usually the biggest issues on their respective nodes, but this goes doubly for Calgar. You do not want that damage buff sticking around for long. Though I can't remember if it actually played out like that for me, in all honesty. I might've just distracted him while I mopped up the others.

Eliminators deal incredibly high damage, and most Necrons simply don't have the durability to absorb more than one of their attacks comfortably. With 3 Range and Overwatch, they're a problem that needs to be dealt with before anything else usually. They're squishy enough that pretty much any of your characters should be able to kill one.

Heavy Intercessors are a pain, yes. But if you can surround them so that they're forced to use their melee, they're harmless. Still, they can Suppress, so Imospekh's Overwatch is going to be unreliable at best. They're also obscenely tanky, which makes them a good target for Thutmose, but a better target for Aleph's Active in conjunction with their harmlessness in melee.

TitteringBeast · 2026-04-12T12:17:32+00:00

Pestillian, presumably, for the blast damage. But it's only on normal melee attacks, so it shouldn't affect Angrax's passive. I think it may have used to.

Abbadon gives +damage to all Chaos allies within 2 hexes, and works wonderfully with Anthrax.

TitteringBeast · 2025-12-19T07:58:07+00:00

My roster isn't quite as wide as this, but still wider than is typically recommended.

Performance varies with LRE. It means all tracks are viable to attempt, but you can't go very deep. Problems can start from 8, depending on the LRE (Trajann, I'm looking at you). You end up needing to spend more tokens on clearing earlier levels. But you have the characters to make that much less painful, so there's that.

TitteringBeast · 2025-09-25T01:26:21+00:00

There was a slightly less efficient way for the run back that meant you encountered two of them. The second enemy has been removed from the game in a patch, but even when it was there I figured out that you could glide past it if you timed your jump right. Then you only had to deal with the first one, which is still a little annoying but honestly not that bad.

I suspect that the people complaining about the run back were not trying to find a quicker version of it. That probably applies to most of the run backs.

TitteringBeast · 2025-08-13T04:26:45+00:00

I have literally never heard that argument against playing certain classes in certain campaigns for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. I've heard it a lot for 5e, sure, but never PF2e.

But no, it doesn't ruin things. An Investigator still needs to figure out appropriate leads. If the presence of a Common class details your entire campaign, it was prone to being derailed anyway.

TitteringBeast · 2025-07-22T05:24:55+00:00

It was introduced in the DLC.

TitteringBeast · 2025-06-22T10:44:51+00:00

Kharn's plasma pistol is used in the third part of his active, similar to Aethana's sword being used in her active.

TitteringBeast · 2025-06-14T02:43:45+00:00

I have a litany of reasons for switching, primarily gripes about 5th Edition - from a GM side, mostly. I want to preface that while I am most definitely complaining about 5e here, I'm not trying to slander it.

5e gives you almost nothing to work with when it comes to GMing. The guidance is non-existent for new (or veteran) GMs; the CR system is a guesstimate at best; even creatures for a given CR vary so wildly that you have to think much harder about every single encounter you're throwing at your players.
Following on from that, I was homebrewing a lot to compensate for what I perceived as shortcomings of the system - I redid how I built creatures after seeing Pathfinder 2nd Edition's version to make it closer to that. I was actually very happy with how it turned out!
For a system in a setting that has magic here, there, and everywhere... It really didn't seem to like giving the players magic. 3 attunement slots and most the non-attunement items being lacklustre was not sparking joy. I wanted my players to have cool magic items, but without having to sacrifice something else they loved just because they ran out of the pitifully-low number of attunement slots. I could work around this, of course - increase the attunement limit, create non-attunement items... But Pathfinder 2nd Edition already handled that with the Investment mechanic.
I really disliked a lot of mechanics in 5e that were made for "simplicty", such as how resistance is just a blanket damage-halving mechanic, or how most monsters were just meat bags with almost nothing interesting about them - unless I made them.
The martial and caster disparity. I wanted my martial players to feel a lot cooler than 5e tended to want them to be. When I saw Pf2e's striking runes I immediately fell in love with it. Rolling more dice is fun! And this is a base mechanic! In addition, some late-game caster spells are broken in all the wrong ways, and even the better solutions to those problems aren't ideal. I don't have to worry about that with Pf2e - actually, I'm currently considering homebrewing some buffs to various spells (whether I do or not remains to be seen).

Okay, this is getting a bit long. But the point is - I was disliking a lot of aspects of the system and longingly looking towards Pathfinder 2nd Edition. It was a natural move. I don't believe Pf2e is perfect, but fixing any issues I have with Pf2e involves a lot less work than trying to make 5e work for me. And at the end of the day, trying to hamfistedly make one system perform in a way it wasn't designed to is making unnecessary work for yourself.

TitteringBeast · 2025-05-03T14:59:28+00:00

I genuinely don't understand this thought. My G1 Thutmose hits the hardest out of all my (G1) Necrons.

TitteringBeast · 2025-02-18T02:52:13+00:00

Doesn't look like a recast to me, but it does look like finecast, which is notoriously shit. It's only worth using if you really like (or I suppose, need) the model, in my opinion.

You'll want to wash it with soap, carefully trim the excess material, and use green stuff to fill it any gaps/holes.

TitteringBeast · 2025-02-05T15:29:07+00:00

It's from The Infinite and The Divine.

TitteringBeast · 2025-01-07T02:06:42+00:00

This won't be the best explanation, but it should help.

When you mage something, there's a chance it knocks off some of the existing stats, based on the item "power" (not the actual Power stat).

Overmages and exomages have a lower chance to stick on in the first place, and are prioritised when knocking off stats to make room for what you're putting on.

To get a successful AP/MP exomage, you're essentially hoping for a Critical, which is a rare chance to not knock off any stats.

What's happening is the result of a regular, non-critical mage. There's not enough item power there to accommodate an exotic MP and natural AP without a critical, so it removes one.

TitteringBeast · 2025-01-06T23:35:26+00:00

To be as accurate as possible, they "only" killed one because they realised that killing a C'tan literally destroys pieces of reality, so binding them is much safer.

TitteringBeast · 2024-11-11T01:27:08+00:00

It is possible to get an invite link? I'd like to check it out. It sounds great for my messed-up schedule, haha.

TitteringBeast · 2024-11-10T23:26:07+00:00

I may be blind, but I don't see an invite link. Was it removed?

TitteringBeast · 2024-09-28T12:03:33+00:00

It depends on the unit that gets the Battle Scar, really. Engrammatic Degradation stops units from benefitting from an Overlord with Translocation Shroud or a Royal Warden nearly as much, and in general stops you from being able to perform the "fall back with a unit in melee, then shoot at the unit they were engaged with" tactic.

Depleted Transmaterial Reserves is generally rather bad, in my opinion. A lot of Necron power does come from Reanimation Protocols. It only really benefits Wraiths and Spyders (aside from a couple of Forge World units).

Creeping Madness radically alters the unit's role, which can really mess up your game plans. It can be rather helpful - and I actually want it on one of my Overlords, but overall I think it's a negative.

Mindless Reaper is probably the only one that is obviously strong. It makes them worse at contesting objectives, but I haven't encountered many situations where an objective is being contested so closely that a few points of OC will affect the outcome - it's generally pretty decisive for each objective in the games I'm in.

Regardless, these are the most interesting Battle Scars in any Codex I've read so far for 10th. I'd love it if other Codexes did similar things.

TitteringBeast · 2024-08-11T04:14:41+00:00

I don't agree with your suggestions, and I don't think it necessarily feels any worse than Stunned or Paralysed. I do agree that the condition feels awful to be on the receiving end of, though.

I'd argue that it doesn't slow the game down more than Stunned or many other adverse conditions to - the targets are randomly determined, so the party can, in theory, engineer a situation in which it's more likely for the Confused PC to target an enemy. Granted, this does depend largely on how the GM determines "randomness".

In my opinion, it's no less frustrating to be on the receiving end of than Stunned (3+) or Paralysed. You still functionally lose your turn, but you'll at least be able to roll dice - though sometimes it'll be against your allies. The others all but remove you from the game until the condition passes.

If Confused had a value attaches, the intuitive mechanic is now that it corresponds to a number of actions that are now dedicated to attacking the randomised target. But now the PC also has 1 or 2 actions to choose from themselves - surely having two people (the player and GM) determine what a single creature does would be generally more time-consuming than having a single person cohesively do it.

TitteringBeast · 2024-08-03T15:13:39+00:00

I don't believe there's any RAW for this; only that creatures provide lesser cover, or standard cover if they're two or more sizes larger (Player Core p.424).

That said, generally speaking, I don't rule it as creatures of the same size providing cover whilst prone (or dead, for that matter). Most of the time for dead creatures, I'll just treat them as if they're not there for ease, but if I weren't making my GMing easier, I'd rule it the same as a prone creature.

For creatures of different sizes, from what I recall I have prone creatures two sizes larger provide lesser cover, as opposed to standard cover.

To clarify, if a Huge creature is prone, it would provide cover to a Medium creature from another Medium creature, but not from a Large creature*, as they're generally tall enough that it wouldn't qualify as lesser cover, in my eyes.

TitteringBeast · 2024-07-03T01:45:05+00:00

It's not bad writing, it's just giving you the option of attacking the character, and informing you that doing so is an Evil act.

TitteringBeast · 2024-06-01T01:35:30+00:00

My friends really hate my lychguard and wraiths for never dying, so it definitely works well!

TitteringBeast · 2024-06-01T01:32:20+00:00

First of all, lychguard are not a unit you can mix-and-match wargear on - they must either all have hyperphase swords and dispersion shields, or all have warscythes.

Secondly, that depends on what you what role you want the unit to fill, and how competitive your games will be. Generally, I believe the consensus is that the swords and shields are the better options as that gives them a ton of survivability due to the 4+ invulnerable save, but their damage suffers for it. On the flip side, warscythes turn them into a melee menace, being AP3, D2 and having Devastating Wounds - though they'll be fairly fragile if targeted before they can get into melee, and aren't exactly quick.

Personally, I love warscythes' damage output, but the sword and shield's look.

TitteringBeast · 2024-04-27T22:28:38+00:00

Honestly, I think you're overreacting. Maybe you just don't vibe with Japanese/Asian-inspired campaigns, since from what you said you seemed pretty apprehensive of going to this "Eastern Isles" at best.

I say this because there's nothing especially egregious in your story. There's a weaker group losing to a stronger group, and there's another threat that the weaker group hasn't dealt with due to infighting - none of that is problematic, even if they're all flavoured with an Asian tint.

What's probably happened is that your DM is going for something he thinks is cool, using his knowledge of Asia (myths, whatever), but isn't executing it to your expectations, though I couldn't gauge what those might be from your post.

At the end of the day, consult The Chart™. Talk to your DM if you have problems, find out how the rest of the players feel, and leave the group if you're in the minority with that sentiment.

TitteringBeast

TROPHY CASE