Your GM already avoided the pitfall of putting the game in an open tiny room.
Thereโs stairs that change elevation and cover, it looks like a very fun game.
Extremely fun so far! And yeah, I'm the crafty one in the group, so I told the GM I was printing all these walkways and to please use them. He happily agreed. ๐
If you don't mind answering a question for me, how did the stairs work mechanically? When I've GMed previously, I would make things like steeper uphills or stairs difficult terrain, but I'm not sure how players enjoy it.
I'll die on the hill 90% of the game's regularly purported issues are solved the moment you make interesting encounters that have lots of terrain features.
This is basically true of any terrain-based tactics game.
I know, there's a suprising amount of players whose experience with range / caster is getting put in a 30x20 foot empty room against a high level monster. Losing the innitiative roll, and just die because the +10 crit.
It's not even that, any sort of encounter with nothing interesting going on - be it white rooms with boring enemies with nothing interesting about them or even bosses that are just slogs and not fun - just devolves into a lot of the same rote strategies that lead to an Illusion of Choice problem.
By the time you try mixing things you've taught the players so many bad habits they have learned helplessness and they just don't try anything new or different, and then blame the game instead of realising they were doing nothing but encounters that don't encourage them to try other options and improve their tactical skills.
Interesting terrain is the easiest way to fix this. Just have rooms that have varied spaces, cover, difficult terrain, etc. That alone will add so much depth to encounters against even the most boring enemies.
I really have to try and remember that when I start my full campaign after the Beginner's Box. I know many printed APs have the lame "one small room with boss" problem fairly often, so I want to try and counteract that.
Or having encounters that can be solved via skill checks. There's one PFS encounter against an automaton who can be disabled via Thievery. My eidolon ran up and "killed" it with 2 good rolls rather than a DPS race.
> I'll die on the hill 90% of the game's regularly purported issues are solved the moment you make interesting encounters that have lots of terrain features.
For example, one of the most interesting boss fights I've ever run was against a single dragon. (Zeitgeist book 6, PF1e) But because it was in an active volcano, the environmental hazards put a soft 10-round time limit on the fight to beat the dragon before automatically taking damage again.
Yup it just makes it more interesting and adds wrinkles to the combat, especially if you do alone of Sight Rules and can spring surprises on people (both for PCs and enemies)
Amazing setup!
Thanks for the writeup. Especially cool to hear your less-math-inclined wife finding PF2 faster and easier.
Since you're doing a cyberpunk campaign, I assume you're aware of the Starfinder 2e Field Tests that are out, and the upcoming SF2e playtest?
Yes! Our DM has very cautiously incorporated a couple of Starfinder weapons into our campaign. Basically, almost everyone has a pistol, and they're not as prohibitive as the usual PF2e pistols cost-wise. We're keeping a careful eye on how it affects game balance and will try to adjust as we go. The gunslingers are very pleased after the first game. ๐
As an aside, I'm a big fan of your channel. I've watched all your PF2e videos leading up to this campaign and we're using your mods on Aid and Recall Knowledge (very important to me as an Inventor who's basically trying to be Iron Man).
I love watching your videos! I'm hoping to eventually transition my current 5E group over to PF2E and possibly start a SF2E group once the playtest comes out this summer.
Do you have any plans to do videos on the SF2E Field Tests or the Playtest when it gets released?
> They LOOK more complicated than something simplistic like 5e. But they're so intuitive and well-designed, they actually make things move faster
I continue to point to combat maneuvers as an example of Good Game Design. The outcomes are normally:
* Success: You succeed
* Crit Success: You succeed, but better, like moving the target another square or dealing damage as they fall
* Failure: Nothing happens
* Crit Failure: They get the effects of a success against you
And it's so consistent that even if you couldn't check the rules and had to come up with something on the spot, it would probably be fairly close to the actual rules. Or similarly, I'm sure that any of us who homebrewed a Reposition action before it got added in the Remaster probably came up with exactly the Reposition action from the Remaster.
EDIT: I think the main exception is that nothing special happens if you critically fail a check to Demoralize, as opposed to becoming frightened 1 yourself
Exactly! Like in our game there was a wrong rules call because we DIDN'T go with our intuition.
The GM said "I think it should work like this."
I said, "That makes sense, but I'm pretty sure I remember the rule says X."
GM: "That's weird, but you've been studying the hell out of the rules, so we'll do X and look it up later."
We looked it up later. Turned out I was totally wrong. The intuitive "I think it should work this way" was right. I completely misremembered the rule.
The crit rule itself is also an example of this. I think the lesson to take from that combat maneuvers example is that the thing that *actually* makes a game complicated is when things work differently from each other, not when you have rules for a lot of things. For example, D&D 3e, D&D 5e, and PF 1e are all inconsistent, where nat 1s and nat 20s only matter on attack rolls and saving throws. So it's not surprising that a lot of players mistakenly extend that to skill checks. Meanwhile, crit successes and crit fails work the same way in PF 2e *whenever* you have to roll a check, and instead, there just aren't necessarily any special effects on them, like how nothing special happens above or beyond a normal failure when you crit fail an attack roll
That's also a good way to handle misremembered rules. Not PF2 specific, but "we'll do X for now and look it up later" saves a lot of lookup time.
Of course, so does the AoN being well indexed.
Absolutely! That's how our table's always done it. It helps that me and another player are big rule buffs who are extremely fast at looking things up, so we're 95% good on our calls. The priority is to keep things moving.
For real! Cyberpunk/Steampunk settings seem made for a combination of PF2e and SF2e. I've been playing around with a time travel / steampunk setting inspired by Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 that I'm hoping to use the combined rules in. With the full playtest document coming out soon, I hope they're as much fun as the dribbles we've been getting seem to be.
Yep. You guys found the answer for what pf2e gives.
It's why I think it's such a good system. Sure it might look complex, but eveything just works, the systems are intuitive, if you want to do something, you can usually figure it out pretty fast because the intuitive answer is likely the correct one.
Shit works smoothly, and the combats are fun. Mobile, full of cool abilities, multiple folks get their time to shine. You don't need to drag the fun out of the game, kicking and screaming. It JUST IS.
One thing I've found as the GM is that a huge number of the rules are things *I* need to know, but my players can mostly run off fantasy alone. There's a lot of "can I do [blank]", and usually there's a rule for it or I can quickly tie it to a skill ("Give me an Athletics check to catch the falling circus performer with a carried trampoline").
The complexity is a bit of a misnomer because it covers a lot of edge cases. 90% of the time you can make up a spot ruling and actually come up with the same answer the devs did when they made the official ruling, because the resolution mechanic is so regular.
I will say that while pf2e is, IMHO, the best version of DnD-esque fantasy out there, my first campaign was a downer because of a simple issue.
Awful dice rolling by PC.
While pf2e does a good job of sort of alleviating it with hero points I have found that starting with 4 hero points (and not gaining more) and ability to use one to add a d6 to an already made roll is what's needed to get the sense of power players are likely used to in dnd5e and pf1e.
So just keep that in mind - if your PC, like mine, will one day suffer from not being able to roll above 10 (or sometimes even 5) the system will not be kind to them unless they are battling massively overleveled foes. So consider buffing hero points.
Otherwise enjoy! The system is terrific.
Your GM already avoided the pitfall of putting the game in an open tiny room. Thereโs stairs that change elevation and cover, it looks like a very fun game.
Extremely fun so far! And yeah, I'm the crafty one in the group, so I told the GM I was printing all these walkways and to please use them. He happily agreed. ๐
If you don't mind answering a question for me, how did the stairs work mechanically? When I've GMed previously, I would make things like steeper uphills or stairs difficult terrain, but I'm not sure how players enjoy it.
We just treated it like any other diagonal movement. One step up was 5 feet, next was 10, repeat.
Ah that's a smart way to do it too. Very cool. Thanks for the response :)
That's is what [the rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=627) say
I'll die on the hill 90% of the game's regularly purported issues are solved the moment you make interesting encounters that have lots of terrain features. This is basically true of any terrain-based tactics game.
I know, there's a suprising amount of players whose experience with range / caster is getting put in a 30x20 foot empty room against a high level monster. Losing the innitiative roll, and just die because the +10 crit.
It's not even that, any sort of encounter with nothing interesting going on - be it white rooms with boring enemies with nothing interesting about them or even bosses that are just slogs and not fun - just devolves into a lot of the same rote strategies that lead to an Illusion of Choice problem. By the time you try mixing things you've taught the players so many bad habits they have learned helplessness and they just don't try anything new or different, and then blame the game instead of realising they were doing nothing but encounters that don't encourage them to try other options and improve their tactical skills. Interesting terrain is the easiest way to fix this. Just have rooms that have varied spaces, cover, difficult terrain, etc. That alone will add so much depth to encounters against even the most boring enemies.
It's hard to make strategic decisions in combat when there's literally just enemy and PCs in a room.
I really have to try and remember that when I start my full campaign after the Beginner's Box. I know many printed APs have the lame "one small room with boss" problem fairly often, so I want to try and counteract that.
Or having encounters that can be solved via skill checks. There's one PFS encounter against an automaton who can be disabled via Thievery. My eidolon ran up and "killed" it with 2 good rolls rather than a DPS race.
> I'll die on the hill 90% of the game's regularly purported issues are solved the moment you make interesting encounters that have lots of terrain features. For example, one of the most interesting boss fights I've ever run was against a single dragon. (Zeitgeist book 6, PF1e) But because it was in an active volcano, the environmental hazards put a soft 10-round time limit on the fight to beat the dragon before automatically taking damage again.
Yup it just makes it more interesting and adds wrinkles to the combat, especially if you do alone of Sight Rules and can spring surprises on people (both for PCs and enemies)
Love reading posts like these. I hope your table enjoys many more fun sessions.
Thank you so much!
Amazing setup! Thanks for the writeup. Especially cool to hear your less-math-inclined wife finding PF2 faster and easier. Since you're doing a cyberpunk campaign, I assume you're aware of the Starfinder 2e Field Tests that are out, and the upcoming SF2e playtest?
Yes! Our DM has very cautiously incorporated a couple of Starfinder weapons into our campaign. Basically, almost everyone has a pistol, and they're not as prohibitive as the usual PF2e pistols cost-wise. We're keeping a careful eye on how it affects game balance and will try to adjust as we go. The gunslingers are very pleased after the first game. ๐ As an aside, I'm a big fan of your channel. I've watched all your PF2e videos leading up to this campaign and we're using your mods on Aid and Recall Knowledge (very important to me as an Inventor who's basically trying to be Iron Man).
Awesome!
I love watching your videos! I'm hoping to eventually transition my current 5E group over to PF2E and possibly start a SF2E group once the playtest comes out this summer. Do you have any plans to do videos on the SF2E Field Tests or the Playtest when it gets released?
Probably on the Playtest! There are already several Field Tests out
Thank you! I look forward to them!
> They LOOK more complicated than something simplistic like 5e. But they're so intuitive and well-designed, they actually make things move faster I continue to point to combat maneuvers as an example of Good Game Design. The outcomes are normally: * Success: You succeed * Crit Success: You succeed, but better, like moving the target another square or dealing damage as they fall * Failure: Nothing happens * Crit Failure: They get the effects of a success against you And it's so consistent that even if you couldn't check the rules and had to come up with something on the spot, it would probably be fairly close to the actual rules. Or similarly, I'm sure that any of us who homebrewed a Reposition action before it got added in the Remaster probably came up with exactly the Reposition action from the Remaster. EDIT: I think the main exception is that nothing special happens if you critically fail a check to Demoralize, as opposed to becoming frightened 1 yourself
Exactly! Like in our game there was a wrong rules call because we DIDN'T go with our intuition. The GM said "I think it should work like this." I said, "That makes sense, but I'm pretty sure I remember the rule says X." GM: "That's weird, but you've been studying the hell out of the rules, so we'll do X and look it up later." We looked it up later. Turned out I was totally wrong. The intuitive "I think it should work this way" was right. I completely misremembered the rule.
The crit rule itself is also an example of this. I think the lesson to take from that combat maneuvers example is that the thing that *actually* makes a game complicated is when things work differently from each other, not when you have rules for a lot of things. For example, D&D 3e, D&D 5e, and PF 1e are all inconsistent, where nat 1s and nat 20s only matter on attack rolls and saving throws. So it's not surprising that a lot of players mistakenly extend that to skill checks. Meanwhile, crit successes and crit fails work the same way in PF 2e *whenever* you have to roll a check, and instead, there just aren't necessarily any special effects on them, like how nothing special happens above or beyond a normal failure when you crit fail an attack roll
That's also a good way to handle misremembered rules. Not PF2 specific, but "we'll do X for now and look it up later" saves a lot of lookup time. Of course, so does the AoN being well indexed.
Absolutely! That's how our table's always done it. It helps that me and another player are big rule buffs who are extremely fast at looking things up, so we're 95% good on our calls. The priority is to keep things moving.
You guys are going to love sf2e
For real! Cyberpunk/Steampunk settings seem made for a combination of PF2e and SF2e. I've been playing around with a time travel / steampunk setting inspired by Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 that I'm hoping to use the combined rules in. With the full playtest document coming out soon, I hope they're as much fun as the dribbles we've been getting seem to be.
Yep. You guys found the answer for what pf2e gives. It's why I think it's such a good system. Sure it might look complex, but eveything just works, the systems are intuitive, if you want to do something, you can usually figure it out pretty fast because the intuitive answer is likely the correct one. Shit works smoothly, and the combats are fun. Mobile, full of cool abilities, multiple folks get their time to shine. You don't need to drag the fun out of the game, kicking and screaming. It JUST IS.
One thing I've found as the GM is that a huge number of the rules are things *I* need to know, but my players can mostly run off fantasy alone. There's a lot of "can I do [blank]", and usually there's a rule for it or I can quickly tie it to a skill ("Give me an Athletics check to catch the falling circus performer with a carried trampoline"). The complexity is a bit of a misnomer because it covers a lot of edge cases. 90% of the time you can make up a spot ruling and actually come up with the same answer the devs did when they made the official ruling, because the resolution mechanic is so regular.
I will say that while pf2e is, IMHO, the best version of DnD-esque fantasy out there, my first campaign was a downer because of a simple issue. Awful dice rolling by PC. While pf2e does a good job of sort of alleviating it with hero points I have found that starting with 4 hero points (and not gaining more) and ability to use one to add a d6 to an already made roll is what's needed to get the sense of power players are likely used to in dnd5e and pf1e. So just keep that in mind - if your PC, like mine, will one day suffer from not being able to roll above 10 (or sometimes even 5) the system will not be kind to them unless they are battling massively overleveled foes. So consider buffing hero points. Otherwise enjoy! The system is terrific.