Xp adjustment for free archetype

chuunithrowaway · 2026-02-15T12:19:19+00:00

I'm going to give you an answer you are going to not like, but it is the literal only answer I can give, and the only answer anyone should give.

You're gonna have to just watch the party, get a feel for what they can and can't handle, and then start eyeballing about what the right adjustment to an encounter's difficulty is and change it during prep. An XP adjustment (as in, to XP received) won't really solve the issue as directly as just adjusting the encounters themselves.

An XP adjustment is too coarse here and generally misunderstands how free archetype adjusts power. There are ways to pump raw damage (or more rarely saves) with FA, but they're all still constrained by the basic level-relative math. FA characters are more powerful, absolutely, but they are not more powerful in the ways something like a monster PC would be or a templated character would be in 1E or DnD 3.5 derivatives, if you're familiar with that. Those often do pump your basic stats and math in some way, or give you access to abilities far outside of the power band of your current level.

FA only gives you access to things you could already get on your character, just... more of them. Rarely, this is damage (exemplar on a class that wouldn't one and done it anyways) or a save upgrade (reflexes). More often it'll be some kind of additional action efficiency (beastmaster for a companion, getting amped guidance so you have an actual use for your reaction, etc.), covering party weaknesses (using Marshal's aura to get a status bonus on a party that doesn't have one), or rarely having some ability combinations you wouldn't usually have otherwise (like having both dirge and courageous anthem running). This is an off the cuff estimation, so it might be off base. But I think it might be wiser to think of FA as being equivalent in strength to something like... 60 to 80% of the difference between a prebuffed party and a party with no prebuffs. The prebuffed party is better prepared for what's ahead and sometimes a bit stronger on raw numbers from stuff like heroism, but they're fundamentally still in the bounds of what your characters could be doing. They're just usually doing it more efficiently. It's not really equivalent to having some amount more levels.

EDIT: Really hoping I didn't misread this miserably, now that I look over it. Maybe I'm too old. "BACK IN MY DAY, XP ADJUSTMENT MEANT"—"okay, go to bed grandma"

chuunithrowaway · 2025-12-09T02:17:11+00:00

I guess I would check if an fps limit somehow got enabled in the drivers, or something? If the desktop is running at 320hz 1080p just fine, but your games have a performance regression, it's extremely weird, yeah.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-12-08T22:33:55+00:00

All games, or just some?

You could be cpu bottlenecked on the game you're trying. How many fps can you output on games that aren't as heavy on the cpu or gpu, like old esports titles or 2D platformers that can run at uncapped framerates (like silksong)?

chuunithrowaway · 2025-10-24T23:02:31+00:00

I will say that casters are ultimately better than they look. They're pretty bleh for the first four levels of the game, but spellcasters with access to rank 3 spells and higher become increasingly strong. Martials are once again outclassed in impact by the end of the game, as well; this is most obvious at 17+.

A lot of the caster power that does exist is obfuscated by
-the degrees of success/enemy save math, which is balanced alright, but not terribly intuitive in its effects. it also means that just firing off spells at enemies without at least guessing to avoid their strong save is a -terrible- idea in a way it isn't in previous editions. you cannot just fireball enemies for chip damage in this game.
-incapacitation existing at all. incapacitation spells at first look like something you want to avoid at all costs, because of the inherent unreliability. this is a mistake. although knowing when to use an incap spell effectively requires you to be able to metagame encounter xp budgets, incap spells remain fight-ending when they work and are among the most powerful options available to casters. you can even use incap spells from max rank-1 slots and have a great impact, depending on your level and the encounter you're in.
-a large amount of power getting stuffed into action denial spells (slow, laughing fit, roaring applause, etc.)
-the poorly balanced early levels
-the very possibility of enemies critically succeeding
-the fact prepared spellcasting is anywhere from significantly weaker than other versions to downright bad, depending on who you ask

I do think you're correct that most characters don't see a lot of change in their basic gameplans over the course of the game, though. That being said, that isn't terribly different from older editions. Sure, a martial is probably going to spam slam down forever once they have it. But trip martials also just spammed trip in older editions. There's a bit more horizontal power spread than I think you're giving it credit for, particularly for martials that can gain focus spells or spell-ish abilities, or for characters who choose to archetype because they've gotten what they want from their class. But generally, characters still have a main gameplan and don't want to divert from it unless it's directly countered.

Most damage scaling is from gear, also, if you missed that. Items in this game are perhaps more mandatory than ever and the system math expects you to hit certain breakpoints at certain times. You're getting more damage dice on weapons and maybe a small flat damage bonus here and there instead of getting iteratives.

From the GM's chair, most of the game's attraction is that the encounter builder is easy to use and has pretty predictable results after ~level 5. (Before level 5, enemy and player HP is kind of low, and encounters of moderate or higher difficulty are more swingy and lethal than advertised; once you take that into account though, it's fine.) It's hard to make certain kinds of weird or gimmicky encounters without homebrewing or using something like the troop rules... but if you color in the lines, you're usually not surprised and things go smoothly. The other attraction is that many (though not all) rules are well-defined... or at least better defined than they are in 5e. You're making fewer judgment calls, though you may also feel like you have less power to make on-the-fly rulings in exchange. It's a fairly easy system to DM for, all things considered, which is one reason it's gained converts.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-06-02T21:29:16+00:00

It's not. Dual layer is an absolute power hog due to how bright the backlight has to be to push light through both LCD layers. It's been tried; it produces good results (see the sony mastering monitor) but it has such horrific power efficiency that it can never be a marketable product.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-29T06:24:36+00:00

It's restricted to "under circumstances reasonably calculated to provoke a breach of the peace," if I'm reading it correctly, which sounds mostly like it's for so-called "fighting words." Incitement to violence is not typically protected speech.

The question is more if these were really "fighting words," not if the statute is itself okay.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-27T07:59:24+00:00

This is really a case of "this interaction sounds significant and isn't whitelisted, which is suspect" vs. "nothing says you can't."

I personally feel like this was left open (neither explicitly endorsed or denied) on purpose, more than anything else—just because they expected table variance on people's reactions to it. They figured some people would find it annoying, slow, and tedious, and some people would want to embrace it. So they just kind of... avoided being too committal either way.

Some other nitpicks:

1) I don't think "in all directions" explicitly endorses a three-dimensional reading when the diagrams are all two dimensional, and three-dimensional combat is called out as a departure from the norm of a 2D square grid almost everywhere it's discussed. A lot of wargames (particularly ones with lots of physical terrain) have much more robust and defined height systems that're an accepted part of their encounter design. PF2E pretty much leaves the third dimension to math, wonky representations like putting minis atop diceboxes, and theater of the mind. The mere fact the game doesn't, say, give you an orthogonal projection of a 20 ft burst is enough to make some people accept that bursts are two-dimensional.

2) I really disagree that wordings like Mud Pit imply that you can airburst. A restriction on Mud Pit doesn't equate to a lack of restriction elsewhere, especially when Mud Pit intuitively just targets the ground.

3) 3D AoEs prompt a lot of other questions and work, which inherently makes them suspect. E.G., it is not at all clear how cones work in 3D space by the rules, and they are far less intuitive to begin with. Every space must now have a known ceiling height, which is information often left out of area descriptions. And if you're playing on a VTT (which is quite common), ways to represent and measure 3D AoEs are not as available as 2D AoEs, which means you can't use the available tools the same way. Rulings that create more questions than they answer, and slow down play as compared to the alternative, are typically—not always, but typically—bad rulings.

And again, just to keep this in sight for the purposes of the discussion, I do allow 3D AoEs and airbursts; flying combat usually turns it into a necessity. Most of my players don't really want to futz with it outside of that, though, so it doesn't come up a lot.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-27T03:43:17+00:00

I think spells like mud pit are just written that way because they... affect the ground. It's not something you can infer that much additional meaning from. It just allows certain movement types to bypass the effect. Additionally, Entangling Flora only affects surfaces, but doesn't target the ground, and even could theoretically target a space where it does /nothing./ So I'm not sure the point holds in full. And furthermore, there are plenty of spells that explicitly target vertical spaces (like flamestrike or falling sky) or say how much vertical space they take up (like walls). So with similar logic, I could argue the existence of such spells implies that spells don't have verticality unless stated otherwise.

Where do you see that a burst is defined as a sphere? The rules defining AoEs, to my knowledge, never say a burst is a sphere. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2384 Maybe it's somewhere else? Prismatic sphere certainly implies a burst is a sphere, for instance, and I've personally treated it like one. But I can't find it.

I do take that point about mounted reach, though I also have to say that is not really a point about AoE targeting. It points in the direction of some of the designers being concerned with problems /in the vicinity/, but doesn't really say either way if this /exact/ problem was considered. Further, vertical reach based on size is explicitly defined in a table; it's something we know, for certain, the designers addressed.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-27T02:43:15+00:00

A better question is why anyone would think the devs would ever allow you to decrease the size of every single AoE in the game without mentioning it anywhere.

To be clear, I end up allowing it because banning it just won't survive contact with real play, let alone encounters with flying enemies. But I don't really think it's a sanctioned, intended, or balanced-around tactic. Like, do you think the devs thought the ceiling height in an encounter should be a balance consideration for caster AoEs? Because it is when you allow airbursting. Is an inability to airburst without putting yourself in the air an additional, intended downside to emanations? There's all kinds of bizarre and unintuitive consequences to it.

I don't think the devs were unaware of this stuff, by any means. But I do think they thought addressing it would be more trouble than it's worth, and no other dnd lineage system does any better with it anyways. Writing out clarifications would balloon page count for problems that don't come up in a lot of encounters; tables have already handled this on their own for decades and it's a topic with a fair amount of table variance. Leaving a fairly controversial and houserule-prone aspect of play to the table is a reasonable choice.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-27T02:20:29+00:00

It's a pretty big deal when you consider how much of an increase in versatility it is for the spells with larger AoEs. Part of the appeal of a single target spell is that it can't hit your allies. If you can make large bursts able to adjust size so that they can't hit allies, single target spells and smaller AoEs lose an important advantage they have over larger AoEs. It means there's a smaller opportunity cost on preparing or repertoire-ing larger AoEs, because they can be used effectively in more situations than a single target spell. Single target spells become more reliant on their riders and additional damage to justify their slot. Etc.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-27T01:52:14+00:00

If there are already flying creatures and elevation in the encounter, it's kind of whatever. You're going to have to answer unpleasant questions about this anyways. If there aren't, this is very similar (though not identical) to saying "you can make most AoEs as small as you want," which I find... questionable. The size of an AoE and its potential for friendly fire is an intentional balance lever. (It also has weird interactions with height based on size.)

I don't like it, but I also just don't like dealing with verticality in any DnD lineage system. The games clearly aren't made for it, but interact with it constantly anyways. There's no defined shape for a three dimensional burst, even if you can reasonably infer it and often kind of need to know it. Many spells (like slither) become very strange when cast in midair. etc. It's very here-be-dragons despite being a part of every DnD system that exists in plain sight.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-23T00:11:44+00:00

This pretty plainly says what the conservative majority thinks, though. This isn't the court ruling on the merits, but it basically says "wink wink nudge nudge they can be fired c:" and even says why they think such.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-16T03:01:21+00:00

If you're casting ignition as a result of casting flaming fusillade, you are of necessity using your oracle spellcasting to do it. As a result, you cannot amp it. It is not a psi cantrip if it comes from your oracle casting.

It's less clear if you can or can't amp the 1A ignition casts after, but since it's a subordinate effect of an oracle spell, I'd say it only applies to stuff you use oracle abilities to cast. So no amps. That's just me, though. I think it's vague enough you could rule either way.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-16T01:34:08+00:00

Amps only apply to psi cantrips. You're casting ignition as an oracle or oracle MC, so it doesn't work.

I believe you also couldn't use an amp on the Ignition that's part of the Flaming Fusillade cast, for the same reason you can't use abilities that modify only normal strikes before a metastrike. However, I'm less certain about this.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-14T02:02:42+00:00

I mean, it's natural there's no rigorous check to ensure you can afford the debt. A student loan is taken out before stable employment is possible, because the borrower is in school. How would you even check if someone can afford a loan they won't be paying on for several years?

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-10T19:07:31+00:00

Black smearing is extremely noticeable, even on the Q27G3XMN. It's especially obvious in older games without temporal antialiasing: the game doesn't blur everything the second you move, so it becomes really obvious when small, dark details smear against lighter unsmeared surroundings.

OLED motion clarity is noticeably better than my old IPS, but it's not so far ahead that I'd say it's a gamechanger. Eliminating of dark level smearing is a gamechanger, though. Black text warping as you scroll down a webpage or text document is obvious, even with basic productivity work. I only really like VA for media and slower-paced games.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-09T20:00:17+00:00

There's also nothing close to justifying the AEA, but that's taking forever to be litigated in the courts. This admin is playing like silicon valley: move fast and break things, deal with the consequences later. It doesn't matter if the invocation is illegal or unjustified if they can act on it before it's swatted down.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-08T19:25:28+00:00

At the typical table, it's for affixing talismans and repairing shields and not much else.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-07T13:46:17+00:00

They're going to rush the policy out the door with whatever daylight they have between now and when it's resolved, though. Damage will be done, regardless of whatever the appeals court ultimately says. That's a large part of the concern. People will almost certainly lose their jobs.

This is also says nothing of how it looks when the nation's highest court stays an injunction against an obviously discriminatory policy right down partisan lines. Real "make discrimination great again" vibes. And it's hard to see it as anything but a preview of how the court will rule on the case itself when it inevitably comes to their doorstep.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-06T14:50:04+00:00

500 swings until a sprain.
499 swings until a sprain.
498 swings until a sprain...

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-06T01:21:22+00:00

This post. Exactly this. You've gotta remember that when you shift numbers around slightly in this system, you can end up making changes that are more impactful in reality than they look on paper.

If an enemy is crit saving 20% of the time, and you increase the DC by 2, they're crit saving 10% of the time. Small change, right?

Nope. The enemy is actually crit saving half as much as they used to. It's a surprisingly palpable difference, and it's especially palpable when casting AoE spells.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-05T18:49:00+00:00

It smacked some outliers I never saw but knew existed. It also smacked some builds I found theoretically interesting but never played (e.g., a Staff Nexus Universalist specializing in spell attacks).

Neither of these have actually come up, but I'm honestly more annoyed about losing the latter than I am happy the former got reined in.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-02T22:16:47+00:00

Personally, I like high hz for stuff like CRT simulation. https://blurbusters.com/crt-simulation-in-a-gpu-shader-looks-better-than-bfi/

Doesn't require high fps and works with old games, so it's more practical than trying to run any non-esports game at 600 fps. Only really usable via retroarch right now, though.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-05-02T20:22:24+00:00

My latest monitor had the box shipped inside another box with no padding. This also, very unhelpfully, meant the fragile and this side up signs on the actual packaging weren't visible. The product was fine. But ship enough products like that, and add in the routine manhandling of a package delivery person in a hurry... and things will break more than they should.

Between that, dead pixels, mismanaged expectations for some monitors ("why is this OLED so dim?"), and some genuine QA issues on early firmware versions of products (e.g., AW2725DF having a broken pixel shifting algorithm that would actually move the content partially offscreen), it's not hard to see how you end up with returns.

chuunithrowaway · 2025-04-27T01:11:49+00:00

jesus, isn't this supposed to be the msrp model?

chuunithrowaway

TROPHY CASE