# Pathfinder 2's Critical Hits & Failures! Plus Save-or-Suck and Damage On A Miss!



## Lylandra (Mar 31, 2018)

I'm pretty intrigued, but I think it will take a while to balance every critical effect out via playtesting. 


Morrus said:


> [*]The target's intellect is permanently reduced below that of an animal, and it treats its Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom modifiers as –5. It loses all class abilities that require mental faculties, including all spellcasting. If the target is a PC, she becomes an NPC under the GM's control.




This, for example, should never happen due to one critical failure. This is worse than dying. This is just "LOL, seems like you lost your PC!"


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

I am interested in the crit by 10, and  the degrees of success.  It sounds like a good design, but I know from experience that it will be too fussy for my group.  We just don't have whatever it takes to track degrees of things.  That is why we go rid of ongoing conditions in 4e


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## Stacie GmrGrl (Mar 31, 2018)

All these rules for Crit Success being 10+ the TN and Crit Failure being 10- the TN comes off as a very convoluted form of how PbtA games do their variable success thresholds. 

I like the idea, but this is something all players at the table will need to keep track of so the DM doesn't lose their mind trying to remember all the possible critical variables.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Stacie GmrGrl said:


> All these rules for Crit Success being 10+ the TN and Crit Failure being 10- the TN comes off as a very convoluted form of how PbtA games do their variable success thresholds.
> 
> I like the idea, but this is something all players at the table will need to keep track of so the DM doesn't lose their mind trying to remember all the possible critical variables.



Agreed


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## Koloth (Mar 31, 2018)

So now all classes have the potential for evasion, they just have to roll high enough? 
 Wonder when the feat comes out that allows Improved Critical Successes on saves?  And one that allows a reroll on a crit fail?   

Will the mage have an chance to get a critical success on her fireball spell and get double damage?


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## DaveMage (Mar 31, 2018)

Too many variables/too much to keep track of for my taste.


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## kenmarable (Mar 31, 2018)

Koloth said:


> Will the mage have an chance to get a critical success on her fireball spell and get double damage?




More likely, their targets could critically fail their save and take double damage (since its likely still a saving throw spell rather than a roll to hit spell).

But thinking about that, I realized this really ups the heroic nature of PCs. When an evil wizard start launching off fireballs or a dragon attacks a city, high level PCs might be able to shrug it off with minimal effect but low level common folk don’t stand a chance. Same thing the other way with a high level PC obliterating a dragon’s kobold minions but still having a challenging battle against the dragon itself. A basilisk gaze might be terrifying to common folk but mid-level PCs might weigh the odds and give it a try. It’s a nice way to maintain the fear and dread these things earn among communities while still allowing PCs to stand a chance (and still keep it challenging rather than easily sliding to either deadly or easy cake walk with very little in between).

I really like the idea of this but want to try it out in game to make sure it doesn’t get too fidgety to track. That’s one reason I prefer 5e over PF1 is that I’m not keen on too much in-play complexity. But if the benefits are nice, especially for save-or-suck stuff, I might even try adding it to my games.


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## Tranquilis (Mar 31, 2018)

DaveMage said:


> Too many variables/too much to keep track of for my taste.




It’s like trying to distill Shakespeare into a math formula.  Most - if not all of this - should be handled narratively.  Good grief.


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

I don’t see why the +/- 10 increases bookkeeping. Dm goes “make a will save”, player goes “8”, DM goes “you critically fail”. It’s not hard or difficult to track. What could be difficult to track is that it does increase complexity on spells. Similar to this the ranks of skill proficiency adding different things you can do similarly increase complexity. They just need to make sure it’s written clearly. Some spells in PF1 already have critical fails with saying if you fail by X this happens. Codifying it isn’t a bad idea. As a plus this could make blaster casters actually viable.

I disagree with the narrative comment. A common issue with spells in this game (and other d20 ones) are the binary nature of many spells. You pass the check and nothing happens, you fail it and you’re taken out of the fight. This leads to unfun gameplay in both directions. You don’t want to sit on your butt for thirty minutes but you also don’t want your once a day big spell to do nothing. Degrees of failures/success really fixes this issue. It’s not like you can narratively fix the issues that feeblemind destroys someone when it hits and does nothing when it misses.


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## Erdric Dragin (Mar 31, 2018)

This edition is getting worse by the article.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> I don’t see why the +/- 10 increases bookkeeping. Dm goes “make a will save”, player goes “8”, DM goes “you critically fail”. It’s not hard or difficult to track. What could be difficult to track is that it does increase complexity on spells. Similar to this the ranks of skill proficiency adding different things you can do similarly increase complexity. They just need to make sure it’s written clearly. Some spells in PF1 already have critical fails with saying if you fail by X this happens. Codifying it isn’t a bad idea. As a plus this could make blaster casters actually viable.
> 
> I disagree with the narrative comment. A common issue with spells in this game (and other d20 ones) are the binary nature of many spells. You pass the check and nothing happens, you fail it and you’re taken out of the fight. This leads to unfun gameplay in both directions. You don’t want to sit on your butt for thirty minutes but you also don’t want your once a day big spell to do nothing. Degrees of failures/success really fixes this issue. It’s not like you can narratively fix the issues that feeblemind destroys someone when it hits and does nothing when it misses.




I really like it from a game design standpoint.  It checks a ton of boxes.  I just know for me and my group it doesn't add up to more fun, but more frustration instead.


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## Markn (Mar 31, 2018)

The complaining is getting worse by the article.

Particularly by those who misunderstand the rules.


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

dave2008 said:


> I really like it from a game design standpoint.  It checks a ton of boxes.  I just know for me and my group it doesn't add up to more fun, but more frustration instead.




What I’m not understanding is your comment that this increases tracking. I assume when you do saves/skills/attacks you check the roll vs the DC. I’m not sure why throwing in the +/- 10 increases tracking. It increases complexity for sure, since many binary spells are now 3 or 4 options. Same things for skills. But I’m not seeing an increase in tracking costs.


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## Charlaquin (Mar 31, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> What I’m not understanding is your comment that this increases tracking. I assume when you do saves/skills/attacks you check the roll vs the DC. I’m not sure why throwing in the +/- 10 increases tracking. It increases complexity for sure, since many binary spells are now 3 or 4 options. Same things for skills. But I’m not seeing an increase in tracking costs.




Especially since you could easily write the target thresholds right there in the stat block next to AC if you really need to.


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## Rygar (Mar 31, 2018)

Article title is extremely misleading.  It's not "Damage on a miss", it's a skill that can be used that has 4 states...

Critical Success - Double Damage?
Success - Normal Damage
Failure (Which is a glancing blow here) - Minimum Damage
Critical Failure (Which is a miss here) - No Damage

That's different that Damage on a Miss, DOAM means you always do damage, this mechanic means you usually do damage but can still completely miss, the skill just reduces the probability that you'll completely miss.


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## Morrus (Mar 31, 2018)

Rygar said:


> Article title is extremely misleading.  It's not "Damage on a miss",




It's a joke. 

The joke's even explained in the first paragraph.


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## Markn (Mar 31, 2018)

A bit off topic but for those who didn’t see the Friday Paizo stream it was mentioned that the Monday blog will be about goblin ancestry which should give us more insight to how ancestry will work in PF2. 

On topic, I think many of the concerns raised in the thread will prove to not be an issue.  I think once everyone gets to give it a test run it will flow simpler than it reads. I may be wrong, but that is what the play test is for!


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## Charlaquin (Mar 31, 2018)

Markn said:


> A bit off topic but for those who didn’t see the Friday Paizo stream it was mentioned that the Monday blog will be about goblin ancestry which should give us more insight to how ancestry will work in PF2.



Oh, awesome! Ancestry seems to be a pretty big piece of the puzzle we’ve been missing, so that will be cool to get a look at. Plus goblins are cool.



Markn said:


> On topic, I think many of the concerns raised in the thread will prove to not be an issue.  I think once everyone gets to give it a test run it will flow simpler than it reads. I may be wrong, but that is what the play test is for!



I agree.


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## Kaodi (Mar 31, 2018)

Only Resonance and the Rogue class so far have given me some pause. Most of the stuff I hear coming out of PF2 is really interesting.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> What I’m not understanding is your comment that this increases tracking. I assume when you do saves/skills/attacks you check the roll vs the DC. I’m not sure why throwing in the +/- 10 increases tracking. It increases complexity for sure, since many binary spells are now 3 or 4 options. Same things for skills. But I’m not seeing an increase in tracking costs.




Not in the sense you are thinking (I think   It is not tracking so much as, having more stuff to keep track of.  I'm sure once you get used to it, it is no big deal.  But, I know my group has no interest in doing that.  With this system you have to "track":  DC, DC +10, DC -10, the effect of a hit, the effect of a miss, the effect of a critical hit, the effect of a critical miss, effect of a save, the effective of a failure, the effect of a critical save, and the effect of a critical failure, and sometimes more


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Markn said:


> The complaining is getting worse by the article.
> 
> Particularly by those who misunderstand the rules.




It is possible to understand the rules and complain.  For instance I understand the rule and I like the rule.  However, I don't like that it is part of the game.  My group wouldn't use it if we played PF2.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Markn said:


> On topic, I think many of the concerns raised in the thread will prove to not be an issue.  I think once everyone gets to give it a test run it will flow simpler than it reads. I may be wrong, but that is what the play test is for!




That is probably true, but there are groups who will not take the time to get to like it.  We tried something like this and it lasted half a session before we dropped it.


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

That will likely be a difficult rule to house rule out. You could easily house rule out level based modifiers to skills for example. But critical hit/fail are going to be everywhere. Sure you can ignore those options on spells, but that will leave save and suck in an odd spot. Dominate for example in the new PF will on crit fail be completely dominated, that is actually worse than PF1 where command changes give new saves. Fail will be dominate with a save each round, which is weaker than PF1. So how do you house rule not having crits/fumbles? You’re going to have a gimped spell if you ignore the crit blocks, and open up a whole world of issues if you have to house rule each and every spell.

Also crits/fumbles are going to be heavily based into feat choices. You will have options that come up when an enemy crit fails, damage is based around high accuracy giving good chances of double damage. Things like Sneak Attack just do double damage on crits now. Basically I think if you try to house rule this rule out you’ll also be house ruling out a significant chunk of feats and being forced to make house rules on all spells. At that point you should honestly just play PF1 with unchained action rules, it’s gojng to work a lot better for you and give you less headaches.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> That will likely be a difficult rule to house rule out. You could easily house rule out level based modifiers to skills for example. But critical hit/fail are going to be everywhere.




Yes, for my group it is one of those issues that is probably a barrier to us playing PF2.  It is to baked into the system.


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

Yeah it is a more complex system than just the old binary pass/fail. If you want that I’m sure 5e and other games are fine to play. This will really affect a lot of things and give a lot more depth to characters and combat so I’ll enjoy that.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> Yeah it is a more complex system than just the old binary pass/fail. If you want that I’m sure 5e and other games are fine to play. This will really affect a lot of things and give a lot more depth to characters and combat so I’ll enjoy that.




We play 5e now and I just narrate what happens on a "critical" success or failure.  Basically, if a roll succeeds or fails by 5 or more I just describe something special happening.  It was to much of a bother when we tried to make it a house rule and integrate it tightly (and make them responsible).  My players prefer if I just make it up.


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## Lanefan (Mar 31, 2018)

dave2008 said:


> That is probably true, but there are groups who will not take the time to get to like it.  We tried something like this and it lasted half a session before we dropped it.



The minor but persistent headache from the DM side for this +10/-10 system (or anything like it) is that currently on a really good or bad roll it's immediately obvious to all whether you succeeded or failed.  But now those really good or bad rolls will have to be more carefully checked to see if they hit the out-by-10 mark, which slows things down - not much, admittedly, but enough to be noticeable.

I've also tried something like this in the past, and like yours it didn't last very long. 

But the idea is good.  Easier at the table to just make it happen on any nat 20 or nat 1, as that doesn't take any extra time or look-up.

As for following in 4e and 5e's poorly-directed footsteps with the further wussification of save-or-suck, count me as unimpressed.  But, easy enough to ignore these rules...


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## Markn (Mar 31, 2018)

dave2008 said:


> It is possible to understand the rules and complain.  For instance I understand the rule and I like the rule.  However, I don't like that it is part of the game.  My group wouldn't use it if we played PF2.




I agree this is possible and I certainly understand every group has its unique dynamic. Heck, even my group can be quick to pass judgement.  I think a DM also has to be a moderator in addition to all the other things they need to be. Sort of, “guys let’s give this a chance before we pass judgement” sort of thing. I don’t know how many times I’ve read a rule or a module even, thinking one thing only to have the experience be vastly different during play - sometimes better, sometimes worse. 

FWIW, I think your response to this article has been reasonable, although IMO, you are putting up a bit of a barrier in anticipating your groups response. Having said that, I respect your thought and contribution to the thread as opposed to the simple thread crapping that some provide.


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## dave2008 (Mar 31, 2018)

Markn said:


> ..., although IMO, you are putting up a bit of a barrier in anticipating your groups response.




This is true.  We did try something similar as I mentioned in another response.  But as part of PF2 it probably works better than tacked on to another system.  

To be clear, I am primarily looking at PF2 for things I can bring over to my 5e game.  PF1 or PF2 are, in general, too complex in general for where my group is playing at the moment.  However, I love the exploration of ideas in the build up to PF2 (just like I did for DnD Next / 5e).  My only regret is that they seem really far down the road already and there is less experimentation going on then there was with Next/5e.  Regardless, lost of good ideas and discussion.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 31, 2018)

Lanefan said:


> The minor but persistent headache from the DM side for this +10/-10 system (or anything like it) is that currently on a really good or bad roll it's immediately obvious to all whether you succeeded or failed.  But now those really good or bad rolls will have to be more carefully checked to see if they hit the out-by-10 mark, which slows things down - not much, admittedly, but enough to be noticeable.



Honestly, it's one of the few saving graces in Pathfinder's modifier-heavy system. Some actions end of up having a lot of different modifiers to them, but normally you can stop counting them as soon as you know that you succeeded. If you had to figure out the _actual_ numeric result of every d20 check, rather than just pass/fail, then that would take up a _lot_ more time.

Of course, PF2 _could_ address that by _vastly_ reining in the modifiers, but there's been no indication that they intend to do so; and there's no way that they could pass off an Advantage/Disadvantage system in this climate.


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## Markn (Mar 31, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Of course, PF2 _could_ address that by _vastly_ reining in the modifiers, but there's been no indication that they intend to do so; and there's no way that they could pass off an Advantage/Disadvantage system in this climate.




Actually there has been some indication of reigning in modifiers if you read the comments at end of their blogs. The designers provide quite a bit of additional tidbits this way. 

For example, they have mentioned that no bonuses of the same type stack.  There were a few bits about the max prof differences at certain levels, and lastly with the new crit system it stands to reason that modifiers can’t get out of control otherwise the crit system breaks down. 

So I think there has been lots of evidence to suggest this.


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## pming (Mar 31, 2018)

Hiya!

As I said in another thread...I probably won't be playing PF2. But who doesn't like to comment? 

I think in play all these mods and such would be a bit of a PITA...but after four or five good sessions it would probably become second nature. A lot of complicated games are like this; it just takes time for your brain to 'get' how it works and remember the core modifiers/rolls/whatever. I use _Powers & Perils_ (an old Avalon Hill RPG) as an example; when I introduce P&P to someone for the first time, after about 15 minutes into creating their PC they get the "Eye-Glaze of a Thousand Pages". This predicament persists for a few sessions, slowly, bit by bit the haze starts to lift until....BING! A light bulb goes off over their head. Then they "get it" and understand how the whole system works. I'm thinking that Pathfinder 2e will likely be similar.

I'm disappointed that the rules thus far seem to be HEAVILY favouring the PC's. This is bad, imho, because a player only has ONE PC to deal with. If the DM has to run, say, 5 NPC's with the same amount of info a PC has...forget about it! Paizo better come up with some cool, simplified method for a DM running monsters and NPC's or nobody is going to want to DM. And if there are no DM's, there will be no Players. Hence my long standing belief that catoring to the Players rather than the DM is almost always a bad move...and one reason why I think 5e is doing so well. 

If I was to introduce some sort of "Crit/Fumble" to skills and whatnot, I'd add in a rule based on another dice roll made at the same time. Then divide the game into "Standard" and "Dramatic" scenes (Like how the _Masterbook_ RPG does). Roll 2d20's; one is designated as your Primary die, the other your 'Dramatic' die. The Crit/Fum would be based on weather each d20 succeeded or not and what type of scene was happening. (e.g., both succeed in Standard...Crit // both succeed in Dramatic...Normal success // both succeed in Dramatic, and are the same number...Crit ....that sort of thing). This would take all the number crunching out of the equation as all the player/GM has to see is the lowest dice roll.

Anyway...I'm waiting to see if Paizo dishes out some really unique and innovative (or at least good!) stuff for a PF2 GM.

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

They have said they’re doing a monster/npc character creation more similar to what they did in Starfinder. That should get rid of one of the worst issues of PF in customizing encounters and prepping sessions taking too long. Similarly they are removing a lot of complexity from combat which should help streamline things. The new action system is easier to keep track of then the old and a lot of the worst rules of PF1 are already confirmed to be quite reduced. For example how you run an Animal Companion and how you do combat maneuvers are both vastly simplified. Spells not scaling should also lower things down. They have added one big complexity with four degrees instead of two, but I’m guessing that it’s a unified system across everything will help that become second nature pretty quickly.

On the matter of buffs I agree that is an issue that needs work. We’ve seen two minor examples of progress on this, one being the new power attack and second being no more flat footed AC and just having it decrease AC by two. I do hope they do something to have the every party member getting haste/bless/prayer/bard song around all the time, but they’ve not stated any specifics yet, just hints.


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## Ancalagon (Mar 31, 2018)

I just realized something.

The +/- 10 thing means that a character can critically succeed, or critically fail, but never ever both. 

Let's say Jane the archer and Bob the incompetent are attacking an orc with AC 14.

Jane fires an arrow and has a +6 To hit. She may roll a critical hit  (if she rolls 18 or higher), but she can't critically fail, even a 1 isn't missing by 10.

Bob then tries to bash the orc, and only has +1 to hit. He can't critically succeed, but could critically fail...

Also think what if Jane had that feat, she would always do damage....


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## Arakasius (Mar 31, 2018)

Yeah but it sounds like that attack is giving up something like power attack. I could see it being used for iterative attacks on high attack characters to try to eek some more damage out when that attack is far less likely to crit. So far we’ve seen mostly exclusive attacks (power attack, certain strike, intimidating strike all seem exclusive) and not anything in line of PF1 weapon focus, weapon specialization or such. I imagine there would be options to go for more attack orientated builds, but we’ve not seen them yet.


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## Grimstaff (Apr 1, 2018)

DaveMage said:


> Too many variables/too much to keep track of for my taste.




Yeah, I was cautiously hopeful that PF2 would do something about those loooong combats, but between this and a previous article talking about adding more AoO situations I don't see it happening. 

I'm kind of curious how open to changes this play test will be. Is there an amount of feedback during the play test period that would result in stuff like this being removed for the "final" version, or are all these situationals pretty hard baked into the chassis?


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## CubicsRube (Apr 1, 2018)

There were 2 main things that killed PF1 for me, and i suspect many others. Situational modifiers, and  inus stacking.

It sounds like some of the intention around situational modifiers is to base it around the crit success / crit failure mechanic. If they integrate this well it could flow quite smoothly and still retain complexity. Time will tell how well this gets integrated.

The other i havent seen is how many bonus types there are. If I'm playing and before i swing my sword, i have to add on feat buffs, magic item buffs, blessong or enchantment buffs... you've already lost me.

Some of the crit success/failure options sound interesting but there's already some derp moments creeping in. At the same time of saying they want to address thd "fail your save you're out of the fight" options, they've listed a spell that can PERMANENTLY reduxe you're intelligence if you crit fail? How did that even pass the gate to make it in the playtest? It's things like these coming out that are already making me look the other way before they playtest has even come out.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 1, 2018)

Markn said:


> For example, they have mentioned that no bonuses of the same type stack.  There were a few bits about the max prof differences at certain levels, and lastly with the new crit system it stands to reason that modifiers can’t get out of control otherwise the crit system breaks down.



That's not really comforting. By saying that bonuses of the same type don't stack, they're actually saying that there are a lot of bonuses of different types which need to be tracked because they stack with each other, which is the exact same type of fiddly math that PF1 already has.

Noting that the crit rules will cause the system to fail catastrophically if modifiers get out of hand is also not comforting, since PF1 also failed catastrophically when spell save DCs got out of hand. (GURPS suffers a similar problem, with called shots; it's hard to avoid whenever there are rewards for optimization, and enough decision points to optimize significantly.) Simply being aware of a problem is not the same thing as taking sufficient precaution to keep that problem in check, and every indication is currently that optimized characters will be scoring critical successes more often than not.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I just realized something.
> 
> The +/- 10 thing means that a character can critically succeed, or critically fail, but never ever both.
> 
> ...




Yeah, I had been assuming because of this very fact that natural 20 would always be a crit even if it wouldn’t be a hit, and natural 1 always a fumble even if it wouldn’t be a miss. But learning now that both results won’t always be a possibility, and that in fact they are mutually exclusive possibilities, has some subtle but important implications. For example, that save-or-become-a-vegetable effect people are worried about (which I presume is an Intellect Devourer) can only be fumbled by characters with a save bonus less than [save DC -10]. So if you wamt to use Intellect Devourers (or whatever enemy has that ability) against the PCs but don’t want to risk the players losing their character to one fumbled save, all you have to do is hold off on using it until the PC with the lowest Will save has a high enough bonus. Similarly, PCs who are at risk of fumbling a save or die effect by a small enough margin can potentially chase enough situational bonuses to their save to get themselves away from that danger zone. I kind of like that.

Also, we know that “Reflex DC” is a thing and it’s calculated by simply adding 10 to your Reflex Save Mod. So, assuming Will DC and Fortitude DC will also exist, as a player you’ll always know that you can’t fumble saves with a DC lower than your own DC for that save (short of situational penalties).


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## Markn (Apr 1, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> That's not really comforting. By saying that bonuses of the same type don't stack, they're actually saying that there are a lot of bonuses of different types which need to be tracked because they stack with each other, which is the exact same type of fiddly math that PF1 already has.
> 
> Noting that the crit rules will cause the system to fail catastrophically if modifiers get out of hand is also not comforting, since PF1 also failed catastrophically when spell save DCs got out of hand. (GURPS suffers a similar problem, with called shots; it's hard to avoid whenever there are rewards for optimization, and enough decision points to optimize significantly.) Simply being aware of a problem is not the same thing as taking sufficient precaution to keep that problem in check, and every indication is currently that optimized characters will be scoring critical successes more often than not.




I see you have preconceived notions on this.  I disagree, so let’s agree to disagree and move on.


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## mellored (Apr 1, 2018)

I like the +/- 10 for criticals.  Makes it less binary.  And 10 is an easy number to calculate.

But i still don't like the instant kill, or double damage.  It's too swingy.

Instead, I go with something closer to say... dominate 0/1/2/3 actions (could be fun watching someone fight against themselves), and 0/min/normal/max damage.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Yeah, I had been assuming because of this very fact that natural 20 would always be a crit even if it wouldn’t be a hit, and natural 1 always a fumble even if it wouldn’t be a miss. But learning now that both results won’t always be a possibility, and that in fact they are mutually exclusive possibilities, has some subtle but important implications. For example, that save-or-become-a-vegetable effect people are worried about (which I presume is an Intellect Devourer) can only be fumbled by characters with a save bonus less than [save DC -10]. So if you wamt to use Intellect Devourers (or whatever enemy has that ability) against the PCs but don’t want to risk the players losing their character to one fumbled save, all you have to do is hold off on using it until the PC with the lowest Will save has a high enough bonus. Similarly, PCs who are at risk of fumbling a save or die effect by a small enough margin can potentially chase enough situational bonuses to their save to get themselves away from that danger zone. I kind of like that.
> 
> Also, we know that “Reflex DC” is a thing and it’s calculated by simply adding 10 to your Reflex Save Mod. So, assuming Will DC and Fortitude DC will also exist, as a player you’ll always know that you can’t fumble saves with a DC lower than your own DC for that save (short of situational penalties).




An intriguing observation - you are right that it could have big effects on the game, beyond Bob being unable to crit, or Jane always doing damage if she has that feat (vs that 14 AC orc).

Do we know if save DC is based on caster level (like 5e) or spell level (like 3.X/PF1) - that could have a huge impact on the use of low level spells.  A level 13 cleric using hold person in 5e is quite valid.  In 3.X... not so much.... now imagine with the +10/-10 rule.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Do we know if save DC is based on caster level (like 5e) or spell level (like 3.X/PF1) - that could have a huge impact on the use of low level spells.  A level 13 cleric using hold person in 5e is quite valid.  In 3.X... not so much.... now imagine with the +10/-10 rule.




We don’t, but I think I recall mention of them saying they were doing something to keep low-level spells more relevant at higher levels.


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## Arakasius (Apr 1, 2018)

They said in one of the threads a couple weeks ago that all spells DC scale to the caster level.


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## snickersnax (Apr 1, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Of course, PF2 _could_ address that by _vastly_ reining in the modifiers, but there's been no indication that they intend to do so; and there's no way that they could pass off an Advantage/Disadvantage system in this climate.






Saelorn said:


> That's not really comforting. By saying that bonuses of the same type don't stack, they're actually saying that there are a lot of bonuses of different types which need to be tracked because they stack with each other, which is the exact same type of fiddly math that PF1 already has.




The actual teaser quote about the rules is:

"Less types of bonuses and things that stack. No types that stack and others that don't. The types don't stack. (Bonner)"


I think your presumption about how these rules will work may not be justified based on what they have said so far...


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## snickersnax (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I just realized something.
> 
> The +/- 10 thing means that a character can critically succeed, or critically fail, but never ever both.




I think you should qualify that and say never both with a single roll.  Because of the 3 action rule with successive attacks taking greater penalties, the first attack that a character makes might only be able to miss, hit, or critically succeed.  But the third attack that the same character makes in the same round may only be able to critically fail, miss, or hit.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 1, 2018)

Wait a minute. I don’t think it’s true that crit and fumble are never both possible on the same roll. One of the devs confirmed that a natural 20 is a critical success even if the result is not 10 greater than the target number as long as the result would still be a hit, and likewise a natural 1 is a fumble as long as the result would have been a miss.

So keeping that in mind, let’s use an easy example. DC 10, no modifiers. 10+10=20, so 20 is the target number for a crit. 10-10=0, so it’s impossible to roll a fumble by missing the DC by 10+. However, a natural 1 is always a fumble _if_ the result would have been a miss, and a natural 1 would be a miss on the roll in question. So this clearly demonstrates that it _is_ possible for both crit and fumble to be valid results on the same roll. The only time crit or fumble stops being a possibility is when you would still hit on a natural 1 or still miss on a natural 20. In which case, the natural 1 is treated as a regular miss, or the natural 20 is treated as a regular hit.


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## Wrathamon (Apr 1, 2018)

3.5 and pathfinder are about lots of math and complexity ... so makes sense that pf2 would also go this route


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## Grimkrieg (Apr 1, 2018)

We have been doing critical hits similar to this way for years. I know my group is not the only one who does so, even in my limited circle. I like the way Paizo has thought it out, so far, and look forward to seeing more.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 1, 2018)

snickersnax said:


> The actual teaser quote about the rules is:
> 
> "Less types of bonuses and things that stack. No types that stack and others that don't. The types don't stack. (Bonner)"



Ah, well, that's different then. That's virtually opposite of what I was responding to.

Glad to hear it. This is good information.


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## CubicsRube (Apr 1, 2018)

I've been mostly negative about pf2 on these forims although there are things i like.

I simply wanted to mention that i llike the new crit rules. It makes a lot of sense that the better trained you are and the more advantages going your way, the less likely you should be of critically failing. Crit failures are for beginners man!

I'm not sure about nat 1s and nat 20s also being auto failures/successes, but i understand why theyre in there. And theyre easy enough tohouse rule out.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 2, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Wait a minute. I don’t think it’s true that crit and fumble are never both possible on the same roll. One of the devs confirmed that a natural 20 is a critical success even if the result is not 10 greater than the target number as long as the result would still be a hit, and likewise a natural 1 is a fumble as long as the result would have been a miss.




... that's not what is said in the OP:



> "If your nat 20 isn't a critical success, it is still a success, and if your nat 1 isn't a critical failure, it is still a failure. (Seifter)




That's the opposite in fact...


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## Charlaquin (Apr 2, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> ... that's not what is said in the OP:
> 
> That's the opposite in fact...



But we have to take Seifter's comment in context of the article it was made on, which said:



> If your check result meets or exceeds the target DC, congratulations! You succeeded, and you might have critically succeeded. Otherwise, you failed. If you exceeded the target DC by 10 or more, or if you rolled a natural 20 and met or exceeded the target DC, then you critically succeeded. If your result was 10 or more lower than the target DC, or if you rolled a natural 1 and didn't meet the target DC, then you critically failed.




Assuming both quotes are accurate gives us the following rules for determining the outcome of an action:

1. If the result of the roll meets or exceeds the target number, then the action is a success.
2. If the action is a success and the result of the roll exceeds the target number by 10, then the action is a critical success.
3. If the roll is a success and the number shown on the die is a natural 20, then the action is a critical success.
4. If the number shown on the die is a natural 20 and the action is not a critical success, then the action is a success.

In light of rules 1 and 3, the only way that the number shown on the die can be a natural 20 and not be a critical success is if a natural 20 would not be enough to exceed the target number.

What all this results in is that a natural 20 is a critical success even if it does not exceed the target number by 10 or more, and a success even if it does not meet or exceed the target number at all.


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## Caliburn101 (Apr 2, 2018)

"It's not "damage on a miss!" -- "It's not a miss. It's a failure on the attack roll, but it's still a glancing blow..."

This is hilarious - calling something 'not a miss' when it is a miss is like the Emperor's new clothes...

_Certain Strike_ has been written using the same sort of illogical and counterintuitive thinking that WotC had to abandon with their playtest when they proposed an ability for casters where a cantrip did damage on a miss - it created massive backlash due to how ridiculous it was...

... can you imagine the arguments on how this plays in interaction with abilities that trigger on a missed attack, or a hit or damage for that matter?

Ridiculous guff.


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## delericho (Apr 2, 2018)

There are few quicker ways to ensure I hate a game than to introduce a critical failure system. If I hadn't already decided against PF2, this by itself would be a deal-breaker.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 3, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Especially since you could easily write the target thresholds right there in the stat block next to AC if you really need to.




I _do_ think it would make the system better if each character/monster had one DC that was used for all their attacks. So instead of Burning Hands being DC 14, Flaming Sphere DC 15, and Fireball DC 16, just make them all DC 16, like how 5e does it. If someone is extra good at one type of attack, maybe give them a small boost. So a fire mage might have DC 18 for fire spells, DC 16 for other spells.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 3, 2018)

Mostly, I just want a good narrative way for the gaze of a medusa to _always_ turn you to stone (with no Fort save), but that is still balanced and has some counter-play when you've got a whole party.

Like, if at any point on your turn you have line of sight to her and you didn't previously state you were closing your eyes, make a Reflex save to let you look away. If you fail, you're transfixed with terror for a round and are stunned, and if you maintain line of sight to her until the start of your next turn, you turn to stone. 

But if you're transfixed, an ally could shove you away, or move the medusa, or kill her, or put a bag over your head, or create magical darkness.


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## Arakasius (Apr 3, 2018)

They have said that PCs spells DC will scale with their level to keep lower level spells relevant, so I can see monsters getting the same treatment too.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Apr 4, 2018)

The more I read the more I know its not for me.  

I'd get rid of crits all together.  They just make things stupidly swingy IME.  I know everyone loves rolling a 20..then doing another calculation, but too often I found fights ended up being about who got the luckiest rolls for crits than anything else.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 4, 2018)

Flexor the Mighty! said:


> The more I read the more I know its not for me.
> 
> I'd get rid of crits all together.  They just make things stupidly swingy IME.  I know everyone loves rolling a 20..then doing another calculation, but too often I found fights ended up being about who got the luckiest rolls for crits than anything else.



Under normal circumstances, I hate crits. They favor the monsters (who make more attack rolls than the PCs and therefore have a statistically higher chance to roll them more often) and add almost nothing to the game. Critical failures attempt to balance this out, since monsters also have a statistically higher chance of suffering them more, but they feel bad for the players to roll, and often they don’t actually balance out the advantage critical hits give, because the effects GMs put on them are often worse for PCs than they are for NPCs (such as if you attach lingering injuries to criticals.)

But I like what Paizo is doing with degrees of success, because despite their name, they fill a different design space than critical hits and fumbles innother d20 games. First of all, they’re achieved by beating or failing to beat a target number instead of by randomly getting the best or worst number on the die, which means they’re controllable. Instead of a 5% chance of an extra special or extra bad thing happening on every d20 roll in an otherwise binary task resolution system, it’s adjusting the task resolution system to make it not binary. And that means they can design around a four-degrees-of-success system, such as by tying damage multipliers to AoE spells depending on the result of the save. Or including Reactions that trigger on certain degrees of success being achieved. There’s a lot of design space opened up by having multiple degrees of success, and by tying those degrees to target numbers, making the odds of achieving them a thing that players can influence with their modifiers, it avoids the pitfalls of crits and fumbles being so swingy.

I hate crits and fumbles, but that’s really not what PF2’s degrees of success are. They’re a way to fix the issues of crits and fumbles, while keeping the names for tradition’s sake.


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## Lylandra (Apr 4, 2018)

Mh, thinking about the new critical miss mechanic, I do see lower level ranged or melee attackers not using a "full attack" because they fear a crit failure on their last (-10) attack roll. Now this isn't a problem when these types get attack actions that are more powerful but use multiple actions, but it would be one if "I attack" is all they do at lower levels.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 4, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> Mh, thinking about the new critical miss mechanic, I do see lower level ranged or melee attackers not using a "full attack" because they fear a crit failure on their last (-10) attack roll. Now this isn't a problem when these types get attack actions that are more powerful but use multiple actions, but it would be one if "I attack" is all they do at lower levels.



Well remember, critical fails on attack rolls don’t do anything _per se_. There are some monster Reactions that trigger on an opponent critically missing, but they’re probably not super common.


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## Lost Soul (Apr 5, 2018)

Damage on a miss for martials...the TRUE Participation trophy award.  Is Rich Baker secretly imbedded in the Pathfinder 2 design team?


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## Charlaquin (Apr 5, 2018)

Lost Soul said:


> Damage on a miss for martials...the TRUE Participation trophy award.  Is Rich Baker secretly imbedded in the Pathfinder 2 design team?




If you prefer, think of it as a reverse Power Attack. You get +10 to hit, but if you do hit you only deal minimum damage, and if you crit you deal normal damage; in order to do double damage, you need to beat the target’s AC by 20. That’s functionally identical to how this Sure Strike maneuver works.


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## CleverNickName (Apr 5, 2018)

Eh... I'm less jazzed about this news.  I don't care much for multiple layers of success or failures...critical hits alone were swingy enough, adding more layers of it and expanding it to save throws seems like it would add even more swing (to say nothing of being a pain to track). 

And I have always loathed the idea of damage on a miss; renaming it to "damage on an almost miss" doesn't improve my disposition.

I'm still curious about the new edition and I'm looking forward to seeing what makes it into the final product,  but this is the first time I've frowned at a PF2 update.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 5, 2018)

CleverNickName said:


> Eh... I'm less jazzed about this news.  I don't care much for multiple layers of success or failures...critical hits alone were swingy enough, adding more layers of it and expanding it to save throws seems like it would add even more swing (to say nothing of being a pain to track).



I understand preferring binary success/failure, but if swingyness is your objection, tying critical successes and failures to target numbers instead of the number on the die will make it less swingy. In PF1, your odds of a critical hit are always somewhere between 5% and 15% depending on your weapon choice (higher with Feats), no matter your attack bonus or your opponent’s AC. Nice PF2, they will be 25% lower than your odds of a hit, which means your odds get better the higher your attack mod or the lower your target’s AC. That’s the opposite of swingy, it’s far more controllable and predictable.



CleverNickName said:


> And I have always loathed the idea of damage on a miss; renaming it to "damage on an almost miss" doesn't improve my disposition.



It’s neither. It’s a special maneuver that makes it easier to hit at the cost of dealing less damage. It’s very much the reverse of PF1 Power Attack. It just accomplishes that by piggybacking on the existing degrees of success system instead of kludging it in with a +10 to hit Mod and adjusting the results of your success thresholds.And as far as we know it’s only one Fighter Feat, so worst case scenario you can just ban that one Feat if it bothers you that much.


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## CleverNickName (Apr 5, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I understand preferring binary success/failure, but...



I'm sure there are plenty of ways to work the math, modify the rules, and omit certain things to get the game to feel the way I like.  And I probably will -- I've been houseruling Pathfinder for years.   This is just the first thing we've heard that I didn't like, that's all.  I'll probably ignore as much of it as I can during the playtest if possible.


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## Aldarc (Apr 5, 2018)

CleverNickName said:


> I'll probably ignore as much of it as I can during the playtest if possible.



You should probably play with it so that you can provide constructive feedback on what you find displeasurable about it.


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## Nightfalcon (Apr 5, 2018)

The first thing to turn me off for D&D 4e was fighters doing damage on a miss.  I'll see (and playtest by the book) but I see this "it's a failure, not a miss" quizling not making the grade for my table


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## Charlaquin (Apr 5, 2018)

Nightfalcon said:


> The first thing to turn me off for D&D 4e was fighters doing damage on a miss.  I'll see (and playtest by the book) but I see this "it's a failure, not a miss" quizling not making the grade for my table




How is it any different than an attack with +10 to hit that deals less damage if it does hit?


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## CleverNickName (Apr 5, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> You should probably play with it so that you can provide constructive feedback on what you find displeasurable about it.



FWIW, "the game works/doesn't work without this rule" is also constructive feedback.


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## Nightfalcon (Apr 5, 2018)

Because it opens up the possibility of "He winds up, swings and... it's a miss."  Not that I want to go too far with the baseball analogy but I don't care how focused you are, how much power you put into it, there is always the chance the batter will miss.  making it so you can't miss is cheesy.  "I'm Perfect Peter and I can't miss and I have a +5 vorpal holy avenger and I killed Elric and I stole Smaugs treasure and I mastered the one ring, etc, etc."  If you're gaurenteed a hit why bother rolling?  It's the chance of failute that gives us the trhilled of success.


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## Nightfalcon (Apr 5, 2018)

CleverNickName said:


> FWIW, "the game works/doesn't work without this rule" is also constructive feedback.




I said I'd playtest by the book and that "I'd see" meaning that I would give it a try.  It's just that I am dubious of this.


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## Retreater (Apr 5, 2018)

I don't understand when one of the major design goals of PF 2nd Edition is to streamline and unclutter the game, that all these previews seem to add further complications to the game that seems to be counter-intuitive to that goal. For example, instead of learning one spell effect, you have to learn three (standard effect, critical success effect, and critical failure effect). Instead of keeping up with action economy, it varies depending on which spell you're casting (some take 1 action, some 2, some 3). 
I don't mind some complexity in the game. However, in this case it just seems so fiddly. It reminds me of looking at THAC0 charts.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 5, 2018)

Nightfalcon said:


> Because it opens up the possibility of "He winds up, swings and... it's a miss."  Not that I want to go too far with the baseball analogy but I don't care how focused you are, how much power you put into it, there is always the chance the batter will miss.  making it so you can't miss is cheesy.  "I'm Perfect Peter and I can't miss and I have a +5 vorpal holy avenger and I killed Elric and I stole Smaugs treasure and I mastered the one ring, etc, etc."  If you're gaurenteed a hit why bother rolling?  It's the chance of failute that gives us the trhilled of success.



Y... You do understand that it’s still possible to miss and do no damage with Sure Strike, right? You just have to miss by 10 or more. It is _literally_ no different than a +10 to the Attack roll at the cost of doing minimum damage on a hit (and normal damage on a hit by 10 or more over the target number).


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## Charlaquin (Apr 5, 2018)

Retreater said:


> I don't understand when one of the major design goals of PF 2nd Edition is to streamline and unclutter the game, that all these previews seem to add further complications to the game that seems to be counter-intuitive to that goal. For example, instead of learning one spell effect, you have to learn three (standard effect, critical success effect, and critical failure effect). Instead of keeping up with action economy, it varies depending on which spell you're casting (some take 1 action, some 2, some 3).
> I don't mind some complexity in the game. However, in this case it just seems so fiddly. It reminds me of looking at THAC0 charts.




Their goal isn’t necessarily to bring down the overall complexity of Pathfinder. It’s to adjust the dismal depth-to-complexity ratio of PF1. It will still be a complex game, it’s just that the complexity is going to be put to better use.


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## Nightfalcon (Apr 6, 2018)

*We'll see.*



Charlaquin said:


> Y... You do understand that it’s still possible to miss and do no damage with Sure Strike, right? You just have to miss by 10 or more. It is _literally_ no different than a +10 to the Attack roll at the cost of doing minimum damage on a hit (and normal damage on a hit by 10 or more over the target number).




As I said, I'll playtest as written and see how it works and how it feels.  I'm open to the possibility that it will work well, my players will love it and we'll keep it but, to me, it's saying that anything but a critical failure is a hit and I have a native dislike for that.  I suspect that this will diminish the dramatic moment of the critical miss and that would be a pity.  For me, this is ore of a storytelling issue, not one of mechanics.     

As they haven't published the rules yet and it is all out of context, I'll wait until I can play test it.

Thanks for the feedback.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Y... You do understand that it’s still possible to miss and do no damage with Sure Strike, right? You just have to miss by 10 or more. It is _literally_ no different than a +10 to the Attack roll at the cost of doing minimum damage on a hit (and normal damage on a hit by 10 or more over the target number).



It's not always possible to miss by 10 or more, though. You're still only rolling a d20, so if you would otherwise hit on 10 or better, the absolute worst you can fail by is a margin of nine.

And if I understood the rules of 1 and 20 correctly, a 1 isn't a critical failure if the margin of failure is less than 10; it's just an automatic failure, in case the roll of 1 would otherwise have been some sort of success.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's not always possible to miss by 10 or more, though. You're still only rolling a d20, so if you would otherwise hit on 10 or better, the absolute worst you can fail by is a margin of nine.
> 
> And if I understood the rules of 1 and 20 correctly, a 1 isn't a critical failure if the margin of failure is less than 10; it's just an automatic failure, in case the roll of 1 would otherwise have been some sort of success.




You didn’t understand the rules of 1 and 20 correctly.



> your check result meets or exceeds the target DC, congratulations! You succeeded, and you might have critically succeeded. Otherwise, you failed. If you exceeded the target DC by 10 or more, or if you rolled a natural 20 and met or exceeded the target DC, then you critically succeeded. If your result was 10 or more lower than the target DC, *or if you rolled a natural 1 and didn't meet the target DC*, then you critically failed.



As I proved earlier in the thread using if/then rules describing what was said in the blog and in Siefter’s comment, a natural 20 is an automatic hit if the total is below the target number, and an automatic critical hit if the total does meet or exceed the target number. A natural 1 is an automatic failure if the total meets or exceeds the target number, and an automatic critical failure if the total is less than the target number.

 Again, this Sure Strike Maneuver is _literally functionally identical_ to an attack with a +10 bonus that deals less damage on a success or critical success. If you would not have a problem with a mechanic that worked that way, then your only objection is to the word “miss,” or to be more precise, the word “failure.”


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Nightfalcon said:


> As I said, I'll playtest as written and see how it works and how it feels.  I'm open to the possibility that it will work well, my players will love it and we'll keep it but, to me, it's saying that anything but a critical failure is a hit and I have a native dislike for that.



It’s a hit on anything but a natural 1 or a miss by 10 or more. Which is the same as saying it’s an attack made at a +10 bonus.



Nightfalcon said:


> I suspect that this will diminish the dramatic moment of the critical miss and that would be a pity.  For me, this is ore of a storytelling issue, not one of mechanics.



I’m not understanding what the storytelling issue is with an attack that is more likely (but not guaranteed) to hit but less likely to do as much damage. It’s exactly the same logic as Power Attack in reverse.



Nightfalcon said:


> As they haven't published the rules yet and it is all out of context, I'll wait until I can play test it.
> 
> Thanks for the feedback.



Fair enough. Good luck with it!


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> As I proved earlier in the thread using if/then rules describing what was said in the blog and in Siefter’s comment, a natural 20 is an automatic hit if the total is below the target number, and an automatic critical hit if the total does meet or exceed the target number. A natural 1 is an automatic failure if the total meets or exceeds the target number, and an automatic critical failure if the total is less than the target number.



I wouldn't go so far as to say whether you've proven anything yet. I don't know that we have enough information to prove anything conclusively at this point. Besides, your quote mentions a DC rather than an AC, which implies that it's for skill checks and not necessarily for attack rolls.

Even assuming that the rules for an attack are the same as for a skill check, though, the text you quoted leaves open the possibility of rolling a natural 1 and still hitting the target AC. If you have +20 to hit, and your target has an AC of 20, then it's impossible to fail even if you roll a 1.



Charlaquin said:


> Again, this Sure Strike Maneuver is literally functionally identical to an attack with a +10 bonus that deals less damage on a success or critical success. If you would not have a problem with a mechanic that worked that way, then your only objection is to the word “miss,” or to be more precise, the word “failure.”



My objection is more to the idea of degrees of success that are separated by 10-point increments when you're rolling a d20. It doesn't interact well with the rules of 1 and 20, from a statistical perspective.

I'm actually fine with the concept of dealing damage on a failed attack roll, personally, because I'm familiar with the concept of chip damage in a fighting game. I am equally aware that there is a very vocal crowd of players who think that chip damage is an extraordinarily cheap tactic, and I can imagine them being upset when they are defeated in such a manner. Automatic damage has a long history of being abused by bad DMs.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> I wouldn't go so far as to say whether you've proven anything yet. I don't know that we have enough information to prove anything conclusively at this point. Besides, your quote mentions a DC rather than an AC, which implies that it's for skill checks and not necessarily for attack rolls.



I have proven that, assuming the _two_ quotes we have on the matter are accurate and that attack rolls and ability checks play by the same rules (both very reasonable assumptions in my opinion, but I’ll grant its _possible_ one or both May turn out to be wrong), the only logical interpretation is that a natural 1/20 is a critical failure/success if the roll total would be a normal failure/success, and a normal failure/success otherwise.



Saelorn said:


> IEven assuming that the rules for an attack are the same as for a skill check, though, the text you quoted leaves open the possibility of rolling a natural 1 and still hitting the target AC. If you have +20 to hit, and your target has an AC of 20, then it's impossible to fail even if you roll a 1.



And this was then further clarified by Siefter’s comment on the article.



> If your nat 20 isn't a critical success, it is still a success, and if your nat 1 isn't a critical failure, it is still a failure.



Given that a natural 20 is a critical success if it meets or exceeds the target number, the only way a natural 20 could not be a critical success is if it did not meet or exceed the target number. In which case, assuming both quotes are accurate, it would be treated as a success. The reverse holds true for natural 1s.

This does mean that it is possible, if your attack bonus is equal to or greater than the target’s AC, for it to be impossible to miss with Sure Strike. But frankly, who’s going to use Sure Strike at that point? You hit on a natural 2-9, crit on 10+, and only miss on a natural 1. Whatever opportunity cost that 5% chance of doing minimum damage instead of no damage comes at, it ain’t worth it.



Saelorn said:


> My objection is more to the idea of degrees of success that are separated by 10-point increments when you're rolling a d20. It doesn't interact well with the rules of 1 and 20, from a statistical perspective.



Ok. I disagree, but that’s a much more reasonable concern than “damage on a failure that isn’t narrated as a miss is bad even when a miss is still possible.”



Saelorn said:


> I'm actually fine with the concept of dealing damage on a failed attack roll, personally, because I'm familiar with the concept of chip damage in a fighting game. I am equally aware that there is a very vocal crowd of players who think that chip damage is an extraordinarily cheap tactic, and I can imagine them being upset when they are defeated in such a manner. Automatic damage has a long history of being abused by bad DMs.



This isn’t automatic damage, and it’s a PC ability, so I think these objections to it are poorly founded.


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## Lanefan (Apr 6, 2018)

Flexor the Mighty! said:


> I'd get rid of crits all together.  They just make things stupidly swingy IME.  I know everyone loves rolling a 20..then doing another calculation, but too often I found fights ended up being about who got the luckiest rolls for crits than anything else.



I'd far rather see swingy and unpredictable and exciting than dull and predictable and boring. 

Give me criticals!  Give me fumbles!  Let me laugh and cheer (or groan and cry)!


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> This isn’t automatic damage, and it’s a PC ability, so I think these objections to it are poorly founded.



There's no such thing as a "PC ability"; this is an ability for _fighters_. The most central of all core principles of Pathfinder is that that the rules are the same for everybody.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> There's no such thing as a "PC ability"; this is an ability for _fighters_. The most central of all core principles of Pathfinder is that that the rules are the same for everybody.



You say that like it's a good thing?

Having monsters use simpler rules than PCs is essential to being able to create them quickly.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> There's no such thing as a "PC ability"; this is an ability for _fighters_. The most central of all core principles of Pathfinder is that that the rules are the same for everybody.




We don’t know that is the case in PF2. In fact, what they’ve said so far about monster design seems to indicate that NPCs will in fact use different rules than PCs.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Apr 6, 2018)

Lanefan said:


> I'd far rather see swingy and unpredictable and exciting than dull and predictable and boring.
> 
> Give me criticals!  Give me fumbles!  Let me laugh and cheer (or groan and cry)!




that's cool.  I'd rather a system based around smart play than lucky rolls, and in my 5e campaigns lucky rolls dominated due to the doubling of all damage dice.  A lot of fights revolved around if the rogue got a sneak attack crit or the paladin got a smite crit.  Though i'm OK I suppose with a crit system that is just max damage on a 20. Which is how I will do it in my upcoming S&W game if I have them at all.  Just not a fan of the 5e style.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> We don’t know that is the case in PF2. In fact, what they’ve said so far about monster design seems to indicate that NPCs will in fact use different rules than PCs.



They said they wouldn't violate their core principles, and that was _the_ core principle which allowed PF1 to succeed where 4E failed. If they drop that, then they have no selling point, aside from brand loyalty.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> You say that like it's a good thing?
> 
> Having monsters use simpler rules than PCs is essential to being able to create them quickly.



Just because monsters use the same rules as PCs, it doesn't necessarily follow that monsters are complex or take a long time to make.

Having NPCs use PC classes actually _reduces_ the amount of time required to design one, because as the GM, you should already have all of the character creation stuff memorized. Off the top of my head, I can create a level 11 orc fighter in about a minute, because it uses the same rules as a PC; the only thing I might need to look up are the modifiers for being an orc. Creating a dragon or hydra would take a lot more work, though, because none of the PC rules translate over.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> They said they wouldn't violate their core principles, and that was _the_ core principle which allowed PF1 to succeed where 4E failed. If they drop that, then they have no selling point, aside from brand loyalty.




I don’t agree with you that NPCs using the same rules as PCs was ever one of their core principles. It was _a feature_ of Pathfinder, which many of their fans liked and many merely tolerated. I would say that their core principles had more to do with rich, detailed mechanics with a high degree of granularity and an emphasis on tons of player options. At any rate, the way that they have been talking about monster design and monster abilities throughout the previews so far leads me to believe that they don’t consider NPCs using the same rules as PCs to be one of the principles they’re not going to change. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly confident in that speculation given the evidence so far.


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## Arakasius (Apr 6, 2018)

Considering they already broke from that in Starfinder, I doubt they're going to have monsters follow the same rules. They have said though that you can make enemies as NPCs using player creation rules. That is fine and there isn't any issue with that. But they also want a way to make them quicker with most of the same result to cut down prep time.


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## The Crimson Binome (Apr 6, 2018)

Arakasius said:


> Considering they already broke from that in Starfinder, I doubt they're going to have monsters follow the same rules. They have said though that you can make enemies as NPCs using player creation rules. That is fine and there isn't any issue with that. But they also want a way to make them quicker with most of the same result to cut down prep time.



If they have a quicker way of getting to the same result, then that's fine, but if they have the same result then that means they still have Certain Strike.

PCs and NPCs can either be close enough that a problem for one is still a problem for the other, or they're far enough apart that they're no longer consistent. If the only reason that some NPC fighters can't cheese you down with Certain Strike is _because_ they're NPCs, then that fails the test of internal consistency.


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## Arakasius (Apr 6, 2018)

Well I would guess that monsters created using the monster creation rules would have access to powerful abilities it wouldn't make sense to give to medium sized humanoid players. Whether that means they can or can't take fighter class feats I don't know.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> If they have a quicker way of getting to the same result, then that's fine, but if they have the same result then that means they still have Certain Strike.
> 
> PCs an NPCs can either be close enough that a problem for one is still a problem for the other, or they're far enough apart that they're no longer consistent. If the only reason that some NPC fighters can't cheese you down with Certain Strike is _because_ they're NPCs, then that fails the test of internal consistency.



I see. When I said “It’s a PC ability,” what I meant was “It’s an ability tied to a Class designed for PCs, which NPCs are therefore not likely to have access to” not “An Ability NPCs aren’t allowed to have or use.” The reason an NPC can’t “cheese you” with certain strike (though I still don’t agree that the ability is particularly cheesy) is because Sudden Strike is a Fighter Feat and NPCs will not typically be Fighters. Not to say that you couldn’t make an NPC with the Fighter Class if you wanted to, but that’s clearly not the way they plan on designing monsters by default.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 6, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I don’t agree with you that NPCs using the same rules as PCs was ever one of their core principles. It was _a feature_ of Pathfinder, which many of their fans liked and many merely tolerated. I would say that their core principles had more to do with rich, detailed mechanics with a high degree of granularity and an emphasis on tons of player options. At any rate, the way that they have been talking about monster design and monster abilities throughout the previews so far leads me to believe that they don’t consider NPCs using the same rules as PCs to be one of the principles they’re not going to change. I could be wrong, but I’m fairly confident in that speculation given the evidence so far.




I don't know why anyone would complain about "monsters using different rules", for 2 reasons:
1: PF has always leaned towards making _anything_ playable.
2: 4E's monster-building rules is _still_ one of the most liked elements of the game, even among people who _don't like 4E_.  

Look I just went through and built a bunch of PF1 NPCs from the ground up, picked a race, picked a class, applied a template and pretended a gave a doop about adding feats.  It wasn't terribly hard, but it's not something I find particularly enjoyable.  4E's monster-building rules gave guidelines on the _end_ result, on how you want your monster to perform, on the type of effects and abilities it should have and didn't give two bits on if it had the right feats or class to do it, because it was an NPC.  It's an incredibly more enjoyable process, much more creative and I dare say, far more FUN than the PF1 way of building a monster.  (and faster too)


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## Arakasius (Apr 7, 2018)

Starfinders approach sounds pretty similar to what you described shidaku. Creating a system to allow quicker creation of monsters/enemies is not a bad thing.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 7, 2018)

shidaku said:


> I don't know why anyone would complain about "monsters using different rules", for 2 reasons:
> 1: PF has always leaned towards making _anything_ playable.
> 2: 4E's monster-building rules is _still_ one of the most liked elements of the game, even among people who _don't like 4E_.
> 
> Look I just went through and built a bunch of PF1 NPCs from the ground up, picked a race, picked a class, applied a template and pretended a gave a doop about adding feats.  It wasn't terribly hard, but it's not something I find particularly enjoyable.  4E's monster-building rules gave guidelines on the _end_ result, on how you want your monster to perform, on the type of effects and abilities it should have and didn't give two bits on if it had the right feats or class to do it, because it was an NPC.  It's an incredibly more enjoyable process, much more creative and I dare say, far more FUN than the PF1 way of building a monster.  (and faster too)




I'm not sure why you quoted me here, but I agree with what you are saying.


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## Lost Soul (Apr 7, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> If you prefer, think of it as a reverse Power Attack. You get +10 to hit, but if you do hit you only deal minimum damage, and if you crit you deal normal damage; in order to do double damage, you need to beat the target’s AC by 20. That’s functionally identical to how this Sure Strike maneuver works.




I understand your point Charlaquin but I dislike Damage on a miss attack (DOMA) for a few reasons

1) The reason I like playing martials is a risk vs reward. I enjoy rolling the dice and hoping for a hit or a crit. I loathe misses and fumbles but I NEED them in the game otherwise there is no risk. The risk of a miss and the reward of a hit is the key to making these characters fun for me.

1a) If you create too much of a change in scaling attack rolls by either making them too easy or to difficult and the thrill of rolling the dice is lost. Its one of my big complaints about
    5E. The monsters are WAY to easy to hit and if you can hit most things of a 5 or better a big part of the thrill of being a martial is lost for me. Hand to hand combat should be
    visceral and exciting. There should be some dread at rolling the dice because in real life fighting brings real risks no matter how good you are at it. Dice combat should be the same

2) It seems like very poor game design. What I mean is that either monster ACs are too good or they have too many hit points that attacks that miss really slow down the battles to a
    crawl. I really don't want to go back to hour long combat like 4E just for fighting a group of kobolds or goblins

3) The monsters have nothing similar. If DOMA existed for big "TOUGH GUY" monsters like ogres, giants, dragons, certain types of fiends such as Balors, Mariliths, Pit Fiends & 
    Malebranche then I would be more willing to entertain DOMA for PC's. If a giant can't DOMA then neither should a PC.


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## Sunseeker (Apr 7, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I'm not sure why you quoted me here, but I agree with what you are saying.




Mostly to bounce the reply off.  I find it helps me track where a discussion is going.


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## Charlaquin (Apr 7, 2018)

Lost Soul said:


> 1) The reason I like playing martials is a risk vs reward. I enjoy rolling the dice and hoping for a hit or a crit. I loathe misses and fumbles but I NEED them in the game otherwise there is no risk. The risk of a miss and the reward of a hit is the key to making these characters fun for me.



I mean, I get that, but you could just... Not take the Feat. I’m sure there are plenty of others worth taking instead.



Lost Soul said:


> 1a) If you create too much of a change in scaling attack rolls by either making them too easy or to difficult and the thrill of rolling the dice is lost. Its one of my big complaints about 5E. The monsters are WAY to easy to hit and if you can hit most things of a 5 or better a big part of the thrill of being a martial is lost for me. Hand to hand combat should be visceral and exciting. There should be some dread at rolling the dice because in real life fighting brings real risks no matter how good you are at it. Dice combat should be the same
> 
> 2) It seems like very poor game design. What I mean is that either monster ACs are too good or they have too many hit points that attacks that miss really slow down the battles to a crawl. I really don't want to go back to hour long combat like 4E just for fighting a group of kobolds or goblins



This seems like a lot of worry over one Feat. I don’t even think it’s all that good, but even if it is, this one Feat isn’t going to completely warp the whole game’s combat math.



Lost Soul said:


> 3) The monsters have nothing similar. If DOMA existed for big "TOUGH GUY" monsters like ogres, giants, dragons, certain types of fiends such as Balors, Mariliths, Pit Fiends & Malebranche then I would be more willing to entertain DOMA for PC's. If a giant can't DOMA then neither should a PC.



I don’t really see how that’s any different than, say, a Rogue being able to Sneak Attack and a Ranger not being able to. It’s a Fighter Feat, if you want an NPC to have it, give them some Fighter levels.


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## Lost Soul (Apr 7, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> I mean, I get that, but you could just... Not take the Feat. I’m sure there are plenty of others worth taking instead.
> 
> 
> This seems like a lot of worry over one Feat. I don’t even think it’s all that good, but even if it is, this one Feat isn’t going to completely warp the whole game’s combat math.
> ...




It depends on the cost of the feat. If it cost 3 actions I would be fine with it. If its a single action or even a 2 cost action I am definitely against it.  Also the feat is not like a class ability comparable to sneak attacks. Sneak attack is a core feature of rogues and not an optional feat that they can select. (Although I wish it were. Rogues being damage dealers is one of the 3E inventions I never wish had happened.) Nothing about being a fighter indicates they MUST hit for damage on every single attack. Its really rather lame IMHO


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## Charlaquin (Apr 7, 2018)

Lost Soul said:


> It depends on the cost of the feat. If it cost 3 actions I would be fine with it. If its a single action or even a 2 cost action I am definitely against it.



Let’s assume it costs 2 Actions, since 1 would make it objectively better than a standard attack. At two actions you are giving up either 2 regular attacks or 1 Power Attack for a chance at a small amount of damage if you miss by less than 10. That is, _at best_, a 50% chance of minimum damage. Assuming a 2 handed weapon and 18 Strength that’s, what, 6 damage? And if you hit, you just spent an extra Action for an attack that did nothing special.

Now, a move like this will have its uses - primarily when your chance of hitting is very low, or when a minimum damage hit is enough to kill your opponent. But it’s far from game-warping. Depending on what other Feats are available I doubt it will even be a particularly strong choice.



Lost Soul said:


> Also the feat is not like a class ability comparable to sneak attacks. Sneak attack is a core feature of rogues and not an optional feat that they can select. (Although I wish it were. Rogues being damage dealers is one of the 3E inventions I never wish had happened.)



Sure. I only used SA as my example because I’m not familiar enough with PF1 to know any Class-specific Feats off the top of my head. My point being, it’s a Fighter Feat. You need to be a Fighter to get it. So, if you want an ogre or whatever to have it, give that ogre some fighter levels.



Lost Soul said:


> Nothing about being a fighter indicates they MUST hit for damage on every single attack. Its really rather lame IMHO



Nothing about the existence of this Feat indicates that a Fighter MUST hit for damage on every single attack either. It’s one Feat that Fighters can easily not take, that makes them more likely to hit for damage when they use it and still leaves the possibility of a non-damaging miss, except in extreme edge cases in which it would be a terrible maneuver to use anyway.


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## Lost Soul (Apr 10, 2018)

Charlaquin said:


> Let’s assume it costs 2 Actions, since 1 would make it objectively better than a standard attack. At two actions you are giving up either 2 regular attacks or 1 Power Attack for a chance at a small amount of damage if you miss by less than 10. That is, _at best_, a 50% chance of minimum damage. Assuming a 2 handed weapon and 18 Strength that’s, what, 6 damage? And if you hit, you just spent an extra Action for an attack that did nothing special.
> 
> Now, a move like this will have its uses - primarily when your chance of hitting is very low, or when a minimum damage hit is enough to kill your opponent. But it’s far from game-warping. Depending on what other Feats are available I doubt it will even be a particularly strong choice.
> 
> ...




My other complaint is based upon damage. If a fighter follows 3E/PF1/4E damage scaling the feat is OP. By this I mean a high level fighter can roll 1D8+25 damage based upon various modifiers.  From the way magic weapons work it would be 5D8+25 in PF2. In this instance the D8 is meaningless. I could auto hit for 30 damage on a high AC target and negate AC. How would you feel as a player if you heavily invested in a high AC tank to be auto hit for 30 damage per round, maybe even 60 if certain spells or abilities like haste grant you an additional action? Since this is a feat and not a spell there is no limit to the amount of times you can apply this effect and it even negates mook characters since you can just fell them by auto hits


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## Charlaquin (Apr 10, 2018)

Lost Soul said:


> My other complaint is based upon damage. If a fighter follows 3E/PF1/4E damage scaling the feat is OP. By this I mean a high level fighter can roll 1D8+25 damage based upon various modifiers.  From the way magic weapons work it would be 5D8+25 in PF2. In this instance the D8 is meaningless. I could auto hit for 30 damage on a high AC target and negate AC. How would you feel as a player if you heavily invested in a high AC tank to be auto hit for 30 damage per round, maybe even 60 if certain spells or abilities like haste grant you an additional action? Since this is a feat and not a spell there is no limit to the amount of times you can apply this effect and it even negates mook characters since you can just fell them by auto hits




It doesn’t really matter how I would feel about my AC build getting auto-hit for 30+ damage per round because that’s not what Sure Strike does! You still deal no damage on a critical failure, which still happens on anything more than 9 below the target number. That means Sure Strike can never increase your chance of hitting more than a +10 bonus to hit would do. Let’s take the controversial “damage on a miss” phrase out of the equation. How would you feel about a Feat that let you spend two Actions to make an attack with +10 to hit that did no damage on a miss, minimum damage on a hit, normal damage on a critical hit, and critical damage only if you beat the target’s AC by 20+? Because again, that’s functionally identical to what Sure Strike does.


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