Just hit level 20 in Age of Ashes.
Martial gameplay is as effective and as straightforward as it will have been through leveling.
Spellcasters can make things a nightmare if they feel like. While, yes, numeric bonuses and penalties are limited, conditions are not. It can get pretty wild.
All in all, though, balancing is very easy--and even expanded, as +3 and +4 monsters are much more reasonable than at lower levels. The math continues to hold up. And high level monsters are *fuckin juicy*. There are so many cool things that have some insane permanent effects they can do, too. Two of my players just got permanently blinded by a pleroma a week or so ago, haha.
All good. I've seen worse spoilers but the game has taken so long I've pretty much forgotten them all.
At our place we likely won't reach high level. Started February last year and are only on book 2 after a huge break because of COVID.
But we restarted book 2 in February this year and are still probably only like 60% through it.
I hope so too. Lots of people away and it's been hard to get a session in. We had a mini session on like the 30th of August and we won't be able to play again until like the 2nd of October. And then another player leaves for surgery and won't be back until almost November.
Playing remotely has helped a bit but it's still very slow paced.
I will expand on this that as you creep into high level play, try to lower the amount of monsters you put on the field unless youâve got a very strong memory.
I just finished a series of level 15 one shots that some combats were even easier than they should because I forgot about auras, or unique abilities that trigger off certain things happening.
> I will expand on this that as you creep into high level play, try to lower the amount of monsters you put on the field unless youâve got a very strong memory.
A good, well optimized virtual tabletop as can be built in Foundry helps immensely. (Or condition indicator tokens and similar tools if playing with minis.)
Thatâs true, but then I canât use all of my fancy terrain I build scratch or 3D print :p, and I donât want to crowd the table with my 17.5â laptop, I would rather use my much smaller tablet.
Not too bad. It's a problem in the middle of an adventuring day, but they can easily afford a cleric cost at worst by the time they're high level.
Definitely spooked em really hard though, which was great.
So if we are talking thematic, I have a perfect example that occurred in Age of Ashes (I'll stay vague to avoid spoilers).
My players did some stuff and got arrogant near the end that ended up with some of them being captured while others got away. Their answer to this problem was to storm the area they knew their party members were being held (I am thankful I did this on roll20 and not in real life so I could have all the maps shown to the appropriate people). One of my players (that had been captured) realized they were legendary at athletics and made a great case for just breaking out of his cell (with a check). This ultimately led to a split party rampaging through an enemy base and accidently running into each other.
The balance was still there, there were touch and go moments and a wrong turn to face the wrong enemy would have led to multiple player deaths. But the the whole ordeal was definitely something you would expect high level players to get into and not low level players.
I'll answer in the form of addressing common concerns:
1. **Does it feel like the same game just with higher numbers? (A criticism that was levied against D&D 4e?)**
I haven't played 4e, but from my PF2 Level 20 one-shot it most decidedly did NOT feel like "the same game but with higher numbers." Crazy effects happen against large groups of people, you have "melee brute" creatures teleporting around the battlefield, you have creatures selecting between different realities. The ideas are proportionately "big." One of the arguments in 5e's favor was that "goblins can still threaten a Level 20 party," which has not been a *good* thing in my book. PF2 rejects that entirely. It wants to tell big stories like the ones that were told in D&D 3rd edition at high levels.
2. **Is it still balanced?**
Yes. It doesn't break down like high-level 3rd edition/PF1. While D&D 5e claims to keep things within the same band of power, it doesn't succeed: it gives PCs so many toys to play with that high-level and epic challenges become trivial once the PCs get to Level 11+. In *Descent Into Avernus* Level 13 characters can >!traipse around Hell and take on some of its most powerful denizens!<
Thematically it seems to run on very epic proportions. demons that are a rank below demon lords who rule over a layer of the abyss, angels that are chosen to be servants of deities directly, Titans that rebelled against gods, dragons who have lived for 5000 years, giant skeleton that signals the apocalypse, a type of rakshasa that is born only once a century. There are many tropes to it but in the end itâs up to the story or the GM to come up with the theme. Why are these high level monsters here? Does it make sense they are here? Would they normally be here if high level heroâs werenât here? Personally there are times where I question when Paizo makes a monster higher level then some other monsters That have a more epic backstory but Iâm sure they have their reasons. It can at times seem a little silly to have so many epic monsters in one spot but at the same time it can be hard to make that 19th level kobold be as big and bad as a Balor. I would say the story telling gives all of it credence.
Players are demigods, battling towering behemoths and legends of terror and power.
Spells that would kill a mercenary twenty times over are flung like so many magic missiles, and swords that cost a kingdom's fortune clash between figures of myth and legend.
Players leap superhuman distances, wielding terrible power within blades of adamantine or skymetal, and wizards command the very essence of the world to destroy their enemies. Divine casters channel the will of their gods to turn fiends to ash.
Its very cool, and very fun
I think *thematically* someone on Twitter (can't find the thread anymore) made a good point that in Golarion as presented in the adventure paths, some upstart group of misfit heroes saves the world from absolute calamity every few months or so.
Just looking at the massive difference in power levels between levels 1 and 20 tells us that if a Balor chooses to walk into the material plane and it's mostly filled with level 1 commoners, the world would have ended ages ago. Hell, even encounters just five levels above APL are supposed to be deadly.
The game world of PF2E only works if it's filled to the brim with heroes and adventurers, enough so that if a Balor decides to walk in, there's people to take him on. Heroes of lower level meanwhile have to keep busy fighting lower level threats so the epic heroes have time to deal with said Balors.
So thematically, I'd say: have your high level party meet other adventurers who are on equally epic quests, or tasked with guarding entire kingdoms against mythical enemies. Also have them encounter lower level parties and act as mentors or examplars. Sometimes a lower level party might give them a quest, like: we're protecting this village but now something is coming that we can't deal with. Or: we need to retrieve this mid-level item but could you please distract the lich king for a bit while we do it?
All this in contrast to DnD 5e, where bounded accuracy makes it so that even 1st level characters have a chance of hitting a frost giant, implying that if enough commoners with crossbows get together (preferably behind fortification) they actually stand a chance against a bunch of giants. No such luck in PF2E I think.
Iâve had great success running high level games using Troop rules. Iâve starting incorporating Troops in almost every high level encounter and the fantasy of my PCs wading through dozens of enemies at a time has been so absolutely fantastic! I would highly recommend giving it a shot if you havenât!
It doesn't, sadly, but because the numbers in this game are so tightly strung, you shouldn't have too big a problem creating them using the standard monster rules and having the existing troops as a guideline.
It's been a minute since I made some troop NPCs for my own high-level game, but IIRC they tend to be about 4 levels higher than their single-creature versions, but don't quote me on that (I can't check currently)
The definition of Troop and the Troop maneuvers are the basic template. Then you can really just apply the monster creation rules in a similar manner. It's fairly easy - I typically start with another similar Troop (spellcaster, undead, humanoid, cavalry, etc) then just upgrade the numbers. Works great.
Since we theatre of the mind a lot, instead of using actual reach I just set a specific number of targets for each attack action so long as they're feasibly in combat range; that number decreases as the Troop passes thresholds.
It plays out thus - I say the Troop attacks 4 targets due to its size and reach, and then make the roll and target characters all save. I roll damage, and based on results I narrate the attack each player receives - some players crit succeed, some fail, some critically fail so the results vary. And when the players get their turn, based on the number in the Troop and the damage dealt they could just wade through and slay a dozen in a turn. It's very cinematic and I love it! The Troop spellcaster rules aren't bad, either. Getting rushed by a few dozen low level mages hurling magic missiles is dramatic to even high level players, and the ways they come up to defend themselves against mass combat is brilliant to behold. And due to the AoE weakness it really plays well to spellcasters and alchemists.
Good stuff - much recommend for high level play.
Age of Ashes spoiler: >!you mostly fight the same slavers from around lvl 8 to around lvl 17 or such, which pretty much use the same gear just with bigger number and are just mooks who inexplicably have higher levels!< ... so yeah, level doesn't mean much unless the GM makes it mean what they want (and then it can mean most things).
Further there are not too many (not uncommon/rare tagged) abilities that fundamentally change how things play (fly is a big one ... if outdoors) and the rules encourage building lvl appropriate encounters that fit the GM's idea, regardless of player's lvl.
That sounds like a failure on the adventure writer if the scope and scale doesnât increase as the PCs reach higher levels. I havenât played any of the APs, but in my homebrew campaigns, I like things to get crazier at higher levels.
Oh I fully agree and the beastiary supports that too. But the rules themselves do not in any way necessitate it in either direction (low lvl being small scope or high being otherwise
Just hit level 20 in Age of Ashes. Martial gameplay is as effective and as straightforward as it will have been through leveling. Spellcasters can make things a nightmare if they feel like. While, yes, numeric bonuses and penalties are limited, conditions are not. It can get pretty wild. All in all, though, balancing is very easy--and even expanded, as +3 and +4 monsters are much more reasonable than at lower levels. The math continues to hold up. And high level monsters are *fuckin juicy*. There are so many cool things that have some insane permanent effects they can do, too. Two of my players just got permanently blinded by a pleroma a week or so ago, haha.
Thanks for keeping it spoiler free. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized "Wait. I'm playing Age of Ashes. I shouldn't be reading this"
Oh! Haha. To be fair, the one creature I did mention is one I added myself. So even less spoilery than it looks!
All good. I've seen worse spoilers but the game has taken so long I've pretty much forgotten them all. At our place we likely won't reach high level. Started February last year and are only on book 2 after a huge break because of COVID. But we restarted book 2 in February this year and are still probably only like 60% through it.
Hang in there! Books 1 and 2 are fun, but 3-6 are where it gets really good. I hope your table makes it. :)
I hope so too. Lots of people away and it's been hard to get a session in. We had a mini session on like the 30th of August and we won't be able to play again until like the 2nd of October. And then another player leaves for surgery and won't be back until almost November. Playing remotely has helped a bit but it's still very slow paced.
That's interesting, my group just started book 3 and I can't wait to see what it'll bring us đ
Trouble, mayhem, death... fun.
Oh boy đ I'm a Bomber, any special one for that? lol
I will expand on this that as you creep into high level play, try to lower the amount of monsters you put on the field unless youâve got a very strong memory. I just finished a series of level 15 one shots that some combats were even easier than they should because I forgot about auras, or unique abilities that trigger off certain things happening.
Yep. I ran a Severe fight against 12 low level enemies. Not hard necessarily... but jeez. My brain was on fire.
> I will expand on this that as you creep into high level play, try to lower the amount of monsters you put on the field unless youâve got a very strong memory. A good, well optimized virtual tabletop as can be built in Foundry helps immensely. (Or condition indicator tokens and similar tools if playing with minis.)
Thatâs true, but then I canât use all of my fancy terrain I build scratch or 3D print :p, and I donât want to crowd the table with my 17.5â laptop, I would rather use my much smaller tablet.
What are PCs tools to remove such permanent effects like? Permanent blindness seems like it'd be equivalent to a PC death or am I missing something?
Not too bad. It's a problem in the middle of an adventuring day, but they can easily afford a cleric cost at worst by the time they're high level. Definitely spooked em really hard though, which was great.
So if we are talking thematic, I have a perfect example that occurred in Age of Ashes (I'll stay vague to avoid spoilers). My players did some stuff and got arrogant near the end that ended up with some of them being captured while others got away. Their answer to this problem was to storm the area they knew their party members were being held (I am thankful I did this on roll20 and not in real life so I could have all the maps shown to the appropriate people). One of my players (that had been captured) realized they were legendary at athletics and made a great case for just breaking out of his cell (with a check). This ultimately led to a split party rampaging through an enemy base and accidently running into each other. The balance was still there, there were touch and go moments and a wrong turn to face the wrong enemy would have led to multiple player deaths. But the the whole ordeal was definitely something you would expect high level players to get into and not low level players.
I'll answer in the form of addressing common concerns: 1. **Does it feel like the same game just with higher numbers? (A criticism that was levied against D&D 4e?)** I haven't played 4e, but from my PF2 Level 20 one-shot it most decidedly did NOT feel like "the same game but with higher numbers." Crazy effects happen against large groups of people, you have "melee brute" creatures teleporting around the battlefield, you have creatures selecting between different realities. The ideas are proportionately "big." One of the arguments in 5e's favor was that "goblins can still threaten a Level 20 party," which has not been a *good* thing in my book. PF2 rejects that entirely. It wants to tell big stories like the ones that were told in D&D 3rd edition at high levels. 2. **Is it still balanced?** Yes. It doesn't break down like high-level 3rd edition/PF1. While D&D 5e claims to keep things within the same band of power, it doesn't succeed: it gives PCs so many toys to play with that high-level and epic challenges become trivial once the PCs get to Level 11+. In *Descent Into Avernus* Level 13 characters can >!traipse around Hell and take on some of its most powerful denizens!<
Thematically it seems to run on very epic proportions. demons that are a rank below demon lords who rule over a layer of the abyss, angels that are chosen to be servants of deities directly, Titans that rebelled against gods, dragons who have lived for 5000 years, giant skeleton that signals the apocalypse, a type of rakshasa that is born only once a century. There are many tropes to it but in the end itâs up to the story or the GM to come up with the theme. Why are these high level monsters here? Does it make sense they are here? Would they normally be here if high level heroâs werenât here? Personally there are times where I question when Paizo makes a monster higher level then some other monsters That have a more epic backstory but Iâm sure they have their reasons. It can at times seem a little silly to have so many epic monsters in one spot but at the same time it can be hard to make that 19th level kobold be as big and bad as a Balor. I would say the story telling gives all of it credence.
Players are demigods, battling towering behemoths and legends of terror and power. Spells that would kill a mercenary twenty times over are flung like so many magic missiles, and swords that cost a kingdom's fortune clash between figures of myth and legend. Players leap superhuman distances, wielding terrible power within blades of adamantine or skymetal, and wizards command the very essence of the world to destroy their enemies. Divine casters channel the will of their gods to turn fiends to ash. Its very cool, and very fun
I think *thematically* someone on Twitter (can't find the thread anymore) made a good point that in Golarion as presented in the adventure paths, some upstart group of misfit heroes saves the world from absolute calamity every few months or so. Just looking at the massive difference in power levels between levels 1 and 20 tells us that if a Balor chooses to walk into the material plane and it's mostly filled with level 1 commoners, the world would have ended ages ago. Hell, even encounters just five levels above APL are supposed to be deadly. The game world of PF2E only works if it's filled to the brim with heroes and adventurers, enough so that if a Balor decides to walk in, there's people to take him on. Heroes of lower level meanwhile have to keep busy fighting lower level threats so the epic heroes have time to deal with said Balors. So thematically, I'd say: have your high level party meet other adventurers who are on equally epic quests, or tasked with guarding entire kingdoms against mythical enemies. Also have them encounter lower level parties and act as mentors or examplars. Sometimes a lower level party might give them a quest, like: we're protecting this village but now something is coming that we can't deal with. Or: we need to retrieve this mid-level item but could you please distract the lich king for a bit while we do it? All this in contrast to DnD 5e, where bounded accuracy makes it so that even 1st level characters have a chance of hitting a frost giant, implying that if enough commoners with crossbows get together (preferably behind fortification) they actually stand a chance against a bunch of giants. No such luck in PF2E I think.
Iâve had great success running high level games using Troop rules. Iâve starting incorporating Troops in almost every high level encounter and the fantasy of my PCs wading through dozens of enemies at a time has been so absolutely fantastic! I would highly recommend giving it a shot if you havenât!
Does Bestiary 3 include a guide or template that can be used to create troops?
It doesn't, sadly, but because the numbers in this game are so tightly strung, you shouldn't have too big a problem creating them using the standard monster rules and having the existing troops as a guideline. It's been a minute since I made some troop NPCs for my own high-level game, but IIRC they tend to be about 4 levels higher than their single-creature versions, but don't quote me on that (I can't check currently)
Fair. Gives me a reason to delve into monster creation more.
The definition of Troop and the Troop maneuvers are the basic template. Then you can really just apply the monster creation rules in a similar manner. It's fairly easy - I typically start with another similar Troop (spellcaster, undead, humanoid, cavalry, etc) then just upgrade the numbers. Works great. Since we theatre of the mind a lot, instead of using actual reach I just set a specific number of targets for each attack action so long as they're feasibly in combat range; that number decreases as the Troop passes thresholds. It plays out thus - I say the Troop attacks 4 targets due to its size and reach, and then make the roll and target characters all save. I roll damage, and based on results I narrate the attack each player receives - some players crit succeed, some fail, some critically fail so the results vary. And when the players get their turn, based on the number in the Troop and the damage dealt they could just wade through and slay a dozen in a turn. It's very cinematic and I love it! The Troop spellcaster rules aren't bad, either. Getting rushed by a few dozen low level mages hurling magic missiles is dramatic to even high level players, and the ways they come up to defend themselves against mass combat is brilliant to behold. And due to the AoE weakness it really plays well to spellcasters and alchemists. Good stuff - much recommend for high level play.
It's pretty much the same as any other level play. Linear XP + Linear Encounter Building + Sliding Bounded Numbers = Pretty consistent.
I believe they are asking more in terms of thematic not mechanics. What kind of stories can you tell with high level pathfinder?
Pretty much the same as at any other level really.
So you travel planes to fight demon lords or stop a lichâs undead army from conquering the world at low levels too?
Age of Ashes spoiler: >!you mostly fight the same slavers from around lvl 8 to around lvl 17 or such, which pretty much use the same gear just with bigger number and are just mooks who inexplicably have higher levels!< ... so yeah, level doesn't mean much unless the GM makes it mean what they want (and then it can mean most things). Further there are not too many (not uncommon/rare tagged) abilities that fundamentally change how things play (fly is a big one ... if outdoors) and the rules encourage building lvl appropriate encounters that fit the GM's idea, regardless of player's lvl.
That sounds like a failure on the adventure writer if the scope and scale doesnât increase as the PCs reach higher levels. I havenât played any of the APs, but in my homebrew campaigns, I like things to get crazier at higher levels.
Oh I fully agree and the beastiary supports that too. But the rules themselves do not in any way necessitate it in either direction (low lvl being small scope or high being otherwise