But dinosaur! 
Iām planning to focus my skill increases on Performance (surprising nobody), Thievery (unless we get someone who wants to do rogue-y things), Stealth (ditto), and maybe some Deception. Looking at maybe a bit of Rogue multiclass for Skill Mastery at 8, which lets me bump an Expert skill to Master and a Trained one to Expert as well as getting a skill feat.
Keep in mind, weāre using Fantasy Grounds Unity, so make sure you get that downloaded (and updated before we start).
And do we want to go ahead and try the Variant Rule from the GMG about Proficiency Without Level (pg 198)? If we do, they also recommend we do Automatic Bonus Progression (pg 196). That would have a very 5E feel to game. Instead of finding a +1 striking returning starknife (like you did in Hellknight Hill), youād just find a returning starknife.
By adopting those variants, itās going to:
- make lower level creatures more dangerous
- maker higher level creatures less dangerous
- flatten combat; lesser chance of both crit hits and failures
- nerf(?) spells; lesser chance of getting crit saves in both directions
- make magic treasure less āimportantā (and thus less fun?)
- make crafting less necessary
Thoughts?
I know dinosaur! but Iām already doing a lot of dinosaur! in my Tomb of Annihilation game.
Well, you already know my opinion of removing level, but I already agreed to try it for this if people want to.
I think the change in enemy XP value under the without-level rules gives a pretty good idea of what it will do: The range of suggested levels to use goes from +/- 4 to +/-7; if you omit the top and bottom of the range as very rare to actually use, itās basically doubled the range of enemies. Thatās good if you want a wider cast of enemies available without any homebrewing, but bad if you like the feeling of āoutgrowingā enemies. You can see the ranges below, original on the left, sans-level on the right:
Two significant things jump out at me:
- As the book mentions just past that table, much higher level creatures may be more viable enemies by the numbers, but youāll have to be really careful with spellcasting enemies (both actual casters and creatures with innate spells) and some special abilities. A 5th level party might supposedly be able to handle an 11th level creature by the number, but how will a party that just got access to Fireball, Heroism, and Haste fare against an enemy that can cast 6th-level spells like Chain Lightning, Dominate, Repulsion, and Wall of Force?
- As I talked about regarding our last +3 fight (4th-level party against a 7th-level enemy), enemy stats increase based on the optimal path a PCās opposing stat charts, factoring in gaining runes and proficiency increases as soon as they are available. In our case, he had boosts from the +1 armor potency runes, Expert martial weapon proficiency, and Expert magical proficiency, and the combined boost made him extremely deadly. I wonder how itāll be for a creature that might be 6 levels higher rather than just 3.
As for the Automatic Bonus Progression, I have mixed thoughts. I actually like part of it: Just baking the Potency, Striking, and Resilience runesā effects into the characters I like. Those runes end up being largely just just math fixers anyway and can honestly be a little annoying to worry about. Removing numerical bonuses from all magic items entirely, though, Iām less enthusiastic about. Itās also unclear whether Speed is a āstatisticā (not the first time the systemās lack of defining that word has been a problem), which might make items like the Boots of Bounding worthless. Probably some other things like that as well.
I donāt have strong feelings either way regarding the proficiency without level, Iāll support whatever @Cortillaen, @Mithinar, and @Ryukan want to go with.
I actually donāt quite understand why the optional rule would nerf spells. Iād originally kind of liked the idea of this rule when I was considering making another spellcaster since, it would seem to make mooks more dangerous and therefore AoEs more important, but since Iām now planning on going barbarian, Iām a bit more indifferent to it.
Also for what itās worth, Iām still kind of on the fence regarding Rogue. This really does seem like a fantastic adventure for a rogue character but the only problem is they get so many skills that they kind of end up duplicating a lot of what other characters are already contributing.
The barbarian by contrast seems like a one trick pony, but my goodness, what a trick!
Just sayinā. 
Iāll cover that stuff unless someone wants to do a Rogue. I might not bother raising Stealth, though. You know how hard it can be to get much benefit from when you have the party around.
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Hey Folks, Iām working through the application process (used to be a member about 10 years ago, FGII at that point I believe) and had a lot of fun with the VTT group back then but life/family got a bit busy, but the bug has bit again. Would the group be open to another adventurer? Iām normally used to playing a healer/spell-caster, but Iād be open to whichever role the group wants/needs. let me know, thanks!
Iām sure we will welcome you back in styleā¦ and bloodā¦ lots and lots ā¦ Of ā¦ Bloodā¦ and Loot. Loot of Course. hmmm maybe I should have led with Loot.
Mith
You could lead with āWe almost TPKād last sessionā instead. 
@Quixote
Welcome! I was hoping we could get a fifth. Now Rando has to do more math for encounters. 
As for the party, it sounds like weāve got a Dwarf Champion and Elf Barbarian for the front line, a Halfling Druid for blasting and some heals, and by Elf Bard for debuffs and some sneaky stuff. So you can make pretty much whatever sounds fun to you and be good. If you want to do a healer, a Cleric will probably be even more handy in this adventure than usual since there will probably be a lot of undead (Searing Light and Holy Cascade are terrific against undead), and Iām sure Ryu and I will be happy to have someone who gets Heal spells without needing to slot them. You could also do a Sorcerer and pick whichever spell list you like for it. If you need any help, opinions, or advice on the system, feel free to ask anything at all. Everyone here can tell you I love talking mechanics.
One thing to note is that this is a relatively short (lv6-8, I think) adventure weāre doing to maybe try out some variant stuff Rando is interested in. There might be another short, high-level adventure after that, and then weāre looking to start a longer campaign once the APG releases in the summer (though I wonder if that will get delayed). So if you want to try something weird that youāre not sure youād want to stick with for a longer game, this is a great chance.
Some resources I have found most useful:
- You can find all of the rules and mechanical content (from all released books now; they updated at last!) on Archives of Nethys: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx
- For quick reference (looking up items, spells, traits, etc), I also love EasyTool: https://pf2.easytool.es/index.php
- It also has a tree view that is perfect for looking through items by level: https://pf2.easytool.es/tree/
- PathBuilder 2 (if you have an Android device or an emulator like BlueStacks) is exceptional for building and tracking characters: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.redrazors.pathbuilder2e&hl=en_US
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Sounds like theyāve said yes! Who am I to argue with the partyās desire to give me more hitpoint bags to pop? I mean umā¦ welcome!
And yeah, letās go ahead and try those two optional rules from the GMG. So make sure you take into account those rules for the fiddly/math bits on your character sheets.
What if we plan for session 0 on April 2nd? We actually wonāt start the adventure until the 9th, but we can get characters entered, questions answered, etc.
Using all of it or just removing potency, striking, and resilience runes?
Ewww Blood!?!? wait, did you say loot? How much loot? 
@Cortillaen - A short game will work out nicely and is exactly what I was hoping for. I dont mind testing out new ideas, I love the creative aspect of the games. I might take you up on the mechanics, Iām pretty rusty and still reading up on the 5E changes. Iāll start reading up on the PF background.
@Rando - Thanks, looking forward to it! I should have my cleric robes back from the cleaners by the 2nd.
Just to be clear, this is a Pathfinder 2nd Edition game.
yup, gotcha.
Just removing those. We still want like flaming and returning weapons and stuff.
I meant the things like the +1 Medicine bonus on the Gloves of Healing and such. ABP as written takes all of those out as well and gives āSkill Potencyā and āPerception Potencyā instead.
Random aside: I just realized the sans-level variant makes summons much more potent.