Hey now, you haven’t TPK’d us yet!
So there’s like um… maybe a new map. And maybe new encounters.
Maybe.
To be honest I kinda expect a new map each week 
I know… its an updated map with a new Cemetery on it!!!
Mith
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If a hangman tree farts in the forest but nobody is there to encounter it, does it make a noise?
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Ryukan, the better question would be what campaign setting is the new map in? 
I have to say that at the end of last week, I found that my thoughts were tending toward PE2 and FG being rigged against the player. The opponents may be same or close level, but somehow their damage roles and effects are so much more powerful then a player at that level can put out. I am finding myself inclined to not keep playing PE2 and FG because I perceive this inherent bias against players in the system.
I like playing with the group, but at a certain point its not fun anymore…
Just to keep in mind.
We’re around 60-70% through the first module. By jumping ahead to level 5 y’all won’t be dinging anymore in this module. Normally the party would be about half-way to level 4. You’d hit level 5 at the very end of the adventure.
You wouldn’t/won’t hit level 6 until the beginning of chapter 2 in the second module.
So:
- have your character ready to ding level 5 for next week
- wealth-by-level for level 5 characters is 270 gp; you can keep what your character has now or go shopping
- now’s the perfect chance to swap characters if you so choose
Post here or send me some PMs if you want the server up before Thursday. As long as it’s not Saturday night, I’m pretty flexible.
After further reflection, I’m not sure where I really stand on the skipping of 4th level and going straight to 5th instead.
I feel like the only reason we’re potentially dinging to 5th level is b/c we’re terrible and we need a handicap so we don’t get killed. A big part of the fun of the game to me is reaching a new level with the knowledge that my character did some amazing things to get there. It doesn’t feel like we’ve really earned advancement to 5th level. As much as I hate dying/losing, victory means little without the potential sting of defeat.
On the other hand, if the remaining content of the module really does require us to be at 5th level for balance reasons, then I can respect that.
Either way though, I will be happy with whatever our GM and group want to do. At the end of the day I am just happy to play on Thursday nights. 
I’m ambivalent either way. For me I’ve already sorta done the level 3 to 4 to 5 in a couple other campaigns. And since Mostly Tank is about the same for Champion and Fighter mainly I don’t mind the bump. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be anyway to mitigate the PF2 Dice effects other than trying to pad players HP to offset a one shot kill thing like we have had the last couple weeks.
Mith
This is the major reason. I want y’all to have enough hitpoints where it’s unlikely for me to one-shot anyone. 3rd level spells, striking runes, and ability boosts are just icing on the cake.
Keep discussing/reflecting. I don’t really have a horse in this race. I have to scale the encounters anyway, it doesn’t really matter what levels I’m doing it for.
Obviously y’all need to come to a consensus before Thursday.
The wonderful thing about that player wealth calculation on the character sheet in FG PF2 means I can waaaay easier eyeball what loot I’m supposed to be dropping in the adventure. I can see who’s behind and manually correct the course.
I was about to express my complete disgust with wealth by level, but looking it over it seems like wealth by level doesn’t screw you over like it does in Starfinder. 270gp doesn’t sound like a lot, but I think I could actually buy armor, sorry RE-buy my armor, with a armor potency rune as well as ditch the halberd and by a ne one handed weapon with a striking rune to go with and still have a bit left over for all the filler gear.
As far as leveling up to 5, I am fine with this, but I would also be fine with continuing on at the current lvl and seeing how it goes. I am of two minds on this and I can’t seem to decide one way or the other. I have played enough low level characters and slogged through the low level stuff that I don’t mind going up to 5, especially if it means avoiding near total TPK with every encounter. We did kinda play it poorly in this last encounter (myself included). Speaking only for myself, I should not have left myself out in the open like that to be ganged up on by all the trash adds (they didn’t really seem like trash that’s for sure). I had 4 or 5 adds “eyeballing” me. I should have retreated more into the hallway and herded y’all down the hall to stay away from the ranged attacks. But I was trying to take out the adds after everyone was focusing on the boss.
@Rando last night I remember you mentioning that we should have been taking down the adds first and that is true but can’t forget the part about the tanking occupying the boss which, well, is damn near impossible in Pathfinder unless the DM or the random target rolls for the keep focus on the tank. Otherwise the tank is chasing the boss around while the boss wails on weaker characters and it all goes to shit anyhow. I dunno if you were fudging rolls last night or anything, but it did seem like we had another “Hail Mary” encounter where we pulled our asses from the jaws of defeat somehow. maybe because you weren’t critting like the dice were loaded. Seriously the algorithm or whatever is used for Fantasy Grounds dice rolls is freaking janky. I know it’s just random, but the dice rolls were seriously not in proportion at all that Thursday last week. I don’t think any of us rolled any crits that night compared to your 6 crits or something. In contrast this week the party had 2 or 3 crit rolls and the enemies had a couple I think. Frankly, I feel like the random factor was killing us more last Thursday than our tactics. Our tactics didn’t help things, but it still would have been a waaaaay different outcome had the npc’s not been rolling crits what felt like every other attack. That makes the FG dice rolling feel very glithcy/janky/unbalanced.
I’ll go along with whatever the group decides to do lvl up to 5 or keep going from where we left off. Maybe we at least get lvl 4 to split the difference. I can’t help but feel like we’re hacking the game or something lol.
I’m gonna keep playing this Magus until he gets better or gets killed for good. Going back to one hand weapons and Slide Casting synthesis because I used the Sustaining Steel about fuq all times and it was worthless as well as completely screwing up the rhythm of the Magus and the Striking Spell thing. I could hardly ever do it with the Sustaining Steel .
With lvl 5 wealth at least I can buy upgraded stuff.
Also I gotta admit that some of my negativity towards PF right now is somewhat the result of my overall attitude resulting from my shit year so far. As I mentioned this Thursday, PF 2e feels like the Dark Souls of ttrpg’s.
If the only reason we are going to level 5 is to “pad” hit points then it’s pointless because we will be in the same situation when we catch back up to level appropriate content. Are we just going to jump to level 8 when we get to level 6 content? It’s not like the damage doesn’t scale with levels or anything. Didn’t care for the idea last night and the reasoning today isn’t changing that opinion. We should learn to play tactically or this will just be a nagging problem all the way to 20. Then we will die because we will be back on even level content. Granted we were funneled into a kill zone, but there were a few things we could have done that would have made our life easier. Simply moving into the hall would have given us a brief respite and we might could have thinned the herd a bit easier. Hindsight is 20/20, but we won’t learn to play any better if we keep getting get out of jail free cards.
Well like Rando said this is a group decision. So far we have one definite no, One no but willing to do it if everyone else wants it, My being ambivalent on either option, And one Sure lets do it. That leaves two more to voice an opinion.
I do feel it does have to be a full group agreement to go that route which we don’t have at this point.
The option to let us use hero points to have the GM reroll rolls might be an alternative but I imagine you can only use your own hero point versus rolls against you. And honestly no one is really ever going to use their hero points for this, since we also use them for stabilization if we get put down or rerolling our own attacks. There just is not enough hero points to go around for the possibilities per person. Where we each have one at the start and 3 to distribute during the game. And then any extra disappear at after we end at 11ish.
And so this isn’t much mitigation against DM die rolls streaks that go against us. We will just end up with more people reaching wounded 4 and “dying” and then either hoping to be resurrected or bringing in a new character to join the group. Which pretty much amounts to jumping a new character multiple levels to be even with the current party level.
And then the equipment lagging is the other part of the problem. It happens in both the Pathfinder 2E and Starfinder groups I am in. Rasinar made it through this encounter fairly well, but he was pretty much equipped as level 3. So he had Full Plate, Steel Shield, Weapon with +1 potency Rune on it. He fared better because I took the lesson I learned from playing Malinar and choose differently when I equipped him and choose his feats.
Those of us with shields should really be using them to absorb damage that is coming it. That is a design pillar of PE2 and would increase our survivability, but it requires extra bookkeeping and bringing extra equipment (ie shields) with us in case we can’t repair the shields or we fail the crafting roll to repair it. Which is extra cost we have to put out as well as deal with the additional bulk of the extra shields. That’s the main reason I avoid it. Even though I am a STR based character, the additional Bulk will eventually become detrimental. And Moradin help those who don’t have a high strength to deal with extra bulk.
Mith
Perhaps a few scrolls of mending might suffice for shield repair if no one has access to the spell.
“Moradin helps those who help themselves!” - a capricious elf
Just FYI, Vanimórien is trained in crafting and I believe Maedhros is expert and the repair action only takes 10 minutes and can be repeated so we can absolutely take care of that between combats!
Unless of course, a certain dwarf is too proud to ask his elven friends for help 
PS - I think I am going to take a more defensive spell list for the time being:
- Mage Armor, Grease, Magic Missile
- False Life, Burning Hands
Don’t be singling me out. I’m not the only one in the party with a shield that doesn’t do it.
And I have to check but I think you need to take the quick Repair feat under crafting to be able to repair in 10 minutes. Malinar had it, but Rasinar doesn’t I think.
Mith
OK, Just checked. The 10 minute repair is just the crafting skill itself. Quick Repair lets you drop that down to 1 minute for trained. Master is 3 actions, Legendary is 1 action.
Going to see if I can figure out a way to do the book keeping on it within FGU. And then figure out how it works. Might have to get Rando to rule on whether Mend Cantrip can be used to repair them or not. The actual action, does a DC check versus Some value Rando sets (usually the DC of the crafting of said item) And then has Critical Success, Success, failure (Nothing happens) and critical failure options.
Mith
The younger ancestry of humans are known for their folly so we don’t expect as much from them.
Dwarves on the other hand…
PS - I’m just kidding of course @Mithinar 
PPS - Off topic but I got news yesterday at work that the entire tech org of the company will be embracing a management fad that I endured at my previous employer. I won’t bore y’all with the details but it’s just one of those things that needlessly complicates what’s already been a difficult year for everyone.
This hobby is kind of my lifeline (well not the only one but definitely an important one) to sanity so I really appreciate all of you for putting up with my poor tactics and voice acting and otherwise dorky behavior.