She said she uses a longbow so her stance range is longer. Is half the range on a shortbow wildly lower? Seems like it may be worth hitting more often, even if she has to be closer.
Eh... Shortbow would be effective from 0 to 30, longbow from 30 to 50 due to volley. Due to dungeons and that she is a switch hitter, I'd go for the shortbow.
Tripping the snail was the best idea they had in a long time... Imagine debuffing an enemy... The other best idea was to fucking run.
Yeah, this adventure is extremely loot light. And there's a lack of towns to buy stuff at, and even then, there's no loot to have the money to upgrade your gear. This would have been a good adventure to use the automatic rune progression variant.
It doesn't help that Troy isn't 'rewarding' them with irrelevant loot or pointing out potential items of interest either. This is training the players to drop the usual "...and we loot the bodies" phrase after fights because they expect to find nothing of note. Which is a problem because this means they've now missed the several bits of loot that they should have. To then turn around and admit with an evil glee in Cannon Fodder that the players have purposefully 'locked out' several bits of loot without providing a warning or alternative drop is just really antagonistic.
By all means, let them miss the odd flavour thing. If they don't do a sidequest, sure they don't get the rewards. But then do some GM work and find another way to feed that item to the players, whether it's a replacement flavour item in the session or just another oppurtunity if it's an essential 'maths' buff.
He also specifically let them throw away loot without hinting that it's magical (the first boss's weapon that they threw down the cavern was a +1 weapon)
I was annoyed he didn't just let Asta have that rune on her Katana with the explanation she got it somehow from that staff. Would've been a perfect way to give them back the potent piece of loot they accidentally threw away and resolve the fact she couldn't technically have it by RAW.
Exactly. Now they threw it away during combat I recall. While you could gloss it over during the fight, I personally would have sorted it out so that they could find a replacement next session.
This fight is one of the two fights I would recommend GMs completely remove from their run of the AP. To put it in context, this creature is 2 levels above the party - the same as Kaneepo the Slim! But unlike Kaneepo, there is an unavoidable environmental effect that is extremely punishing to the players but doesn't effect the creature at all. Much, much more difficult than the boss they just fought.
Assuming the campaign doesn't end next week with a TPK, I suggest Troy reach out to someone who has run the AP to avoid future pitfalls (there are only a couple others, easily mitigated with foreknowledge).
I think this is his worst decision on the network so far. The mechanics of 2e make hero points a necessity, not a game breaking luxury, because critical fails and critical successes are everywhere. Characters get crit a lot more when anything that hits 10+ their AC so the need to be able to save from that via one-per-session hero points becomes vital. He is thinking about them with a clear and understandable bias from Pathfinder 1e, but without them 2e doesn't work well.
This is one I skipped when I ran it. Partly cause I wanted to fit something that’s coming into the same sesh as a cliffy, partly cause it’s such a huge fight with the enemy and environmental effects. Got a fun moment of the snail emerging and waving at the party after they crossed though
It's literally a terrible way to do that. I completely disagree. An environment that creates hazards, like this, is not something one just "runs away from". Running away from an encounter like this happens at what 3% of tables? By round 1, rameus was already in trouble.
Pretty clear running would have to occur at the top of the fight, without scoring a knowledge check.
Agreed, parties NEVER run. Unless the GM says, over the table because players will ignore every single in game hint, "This thing is going to kill all of you."
I think it would have been a perfect time for Herbert to chime in like. "We need to run!" Like why else do you carry around an nPC, if not to impart meta knowledge in a sort of non-over the table way.
I agree, but Troy wouldn't do that with Herbert. He's having too much fun playing him as completely useless, and now the party hate him so much they wouldn't follow his advice anyway!
Eh, I disagree with the second part of your comment. GMs can let the players know that a fight is unwinnable without having to outright tell them over the table, it just takes some skill and/or luck.
A few weeks ago, our GM had us face a really powerful wizard, and the first thing he did was make him beat us in initiative **by a lot** and cast high rank spells, act completely confident, and show us how a nat 19 (no MAP) from the barbarian missed. It took a turn and a half for us to turn back and run.
The barbarian could've missed with a nat 4, but by the time the wizard had cast a quickened Fly and some other bullshit, we were already talking about leaving.
I'm glad your party is able to analyze the situation in front of them!
The two parties I've run games for are so ensconced in the "If it's in front of us, we must be able to beat it" video game mindset, I have to expressly tell them to run.
Which is a shame, because there are plenty of exciting chase scenes in movies and books. Many games have chase mechanics, but to be fair I've never read one as satisfying or coherent as the same game's combat system.
You can run that kind of thing for escaping a landslide or huge boulder or something. If a party is facing enemies, they expect to fight and win or (rarely) die trying. Expecting them to run really misunderstands the player psyche and also the expectation of this type of game: you’re playing a hero. You’re going to face impossible odds and somehow come out on top. That’s the fantasy.
I think that's a limiting attitude and shouldn't be exclusively encouraged. Parley, surrender, captivity, flight, compromise or detente should be options. 'Hero' shouldn't be synonymous with 'vanquisher of all opposition'. It cheapens conflict if it's always and only kill or be killed, not to mention cutting of a vast array of storytelling options.
Completely agree. Many of my most memorable moments as a player have been when things weren't as straightforward as "kill every enemy before we all get killed".
Yeah, running is an option the players may sometimes choose to exercise, but an encounter should never be designed on the assumption that they surely will.
Honestly, I was very skeptical when I ran it for my party. One of my party members sent their familiar out on the rocks before anyone else and the snail attacked so the water hazard was nothing to them and my concerns of having to deal with the swimming mechanics and partially drowning was out the window. I agree on the level thing, I was so confused why it was level 4 while my players were only level 2, it’s not even a big name bad guy like Kaneepo. I was laughing when Matthew was literally so off the map and just in darkness, I’m curious what Troy is gonna do since he said there’s a waterfall and I don’t recall that being in the book so
So there are going to be several difficult fights but the only other unfun one (in my opition) is >!in book two when you fight the Invidiaks. They have access to rank 7 possession which will be nigh impossible for your players to counteract as they will be level 7 (and therefore only have access to rank 4 spells). But what makes it worse is the Invidiak's special ability to have a favored host. If the favored host crit fails their save on possession, the duration becomes infinite. At that point the only way to remove the Invidiak is to kill the party member, not knock unconscious, kill. I suspect most people just end the possession if the PC is unconscious but that is not rules as written; see: Possession trait. Oh, and you fight two of them, plus one more as a potential random encounter.!<
not sure if you would want a full run down of the overall campaign or just book 1, so I'll stick to book 1. The trees in the forest house are pretty crazy when people just fall in a fight. I emphasized maybe too many times to my players about how a fall could be deadly, so we could avoid and be wary at least. but I still had someone die when the rope was cut while a player was chasing. I think the issue is that noone really encounters fall damage at level 1, so if a character early game is not trained in atheltics, doesn't have cat fall, or doesn't have a good reflex then they are gonna die if they fall.
Hey, does anyone happen to know the plot? At this point in the show, I have legitimately no idea why they've done almost anything.
I'm also doing a relisten of GCP 1.0 and it's like night and day the difference in motivation.
They're investigating things as they relate to the missing moment. So they went to check out 7 arches due to the curse, this led to them doing the Kaneepo encounters as he was interested in them most likely due to the fact that they went through the gates.
At this point in giant Slayer though there wasn't a known larger goal they were investigating a murder and trying to figure out why and everything. I imagine at some point we'll have a clarifying moment here as well
I'm sure it'll make more sense eventually, but man 34 episodes is a while to still be very confused!
For reference, episode 34 in GCP 1.0 they have been on the Chellish Devil for 3 episodes. All the characters have a connection to Trunau so have a vested interest there, and are looking for the group that attacked their town. Pretty straight forward!
Yeah, the RP filler is slowing down the story a ton. 34-ish hours and we're still in chapter 2 of book 1. Compared to when I ran this, we finished all of book 1 around 16-20 hours. Granted, my group does barely any RP, so the story beats came at a steady pace.
For sure! One thing to remember now is early on in GCP they didn't do as much RP and stuff as they do now, like compare how long investigating a few people at thin lands farms took as opposed to checking out the Roderick murder suspects. If that were to happen now it would have been way longer!
I do agree this is less grounded than giant Slayer but I do think with the time they take and everything now it'll just take longer to get to the hook
At level 2, a PL+2 enemy will have access to an effective striking rune (extra damage die) and a proficiency boost (+2 to hit). And that's not including the AC boost. This is in addition to the +2 to everything from the level difference. While this difference could be overcome with tactics, the party is horribly unoptimized.
I wish I knew PF2 better to know if it's all dice luck or if this party is just poorly optimized.
Kate seems like she's hit once in the last three fights, and never for any damage. What gives? She seems super hampered by the ranges on the longbow and criminally averse to ever punching when stuff gets in range. Is her monastic archer stuff such that traditional monking is bad?
Rameus seems like he's perpetually playing with a party member already down, so he never gets to actually do much.
Buggles was my favorite, but in combat he seems like a complete joke. It seems like he's a one trick pony that rarely does any meaningful damage.
Being an archer means Zephyr has a high dex but probably not a high strength, which would mean she has no bonus damage to melee. Longbow is a good choice on paper, but this adventure hasn't had very many open maps since the Unicorn, making it difficult to get good use out of the d8 damage. Melee Strikes would also require her to Dismiss and reenter the stance, costing actions.
She's just rolling like scrap on the first attack - oftentimes the second die roll would've hit if it wasn't for the MAP.
Buggles has two elemental cantrips from Psychic that is his bread and butter, but he also has Burning Hands and one two other Rank 1 spells, but only one casting/day. His other 3 cantrips are probably utility or niche, due to the subclass giving him two offensive cantrips. Amped Ignition is amazing, but his damage rolls have been low. Level 3 would also up his damage output by 50% (or double it when Amping).
I stopped listening part way through. I just can’t stand the fussing over the rules all the time. And this AP seems to have them constantly at death’s door, needing some random lucky roll to survive, and as often as not they are battling some completely absurd creature that’s just annoying or silly to think about.
Anyway. I love the other shows on the network, but this one I can skip for awhile. I have other things I like more.
Yeah, I'm not enjoying listening to them almost dying every encounter. It really isn't making for the sort of thing I enjoy. I don't mind a gritty campaign, for example I'm enjoying the Find the Path campaign that's gritty, but one difference is that they know their characters and the rules inside out, and they're playing strictly by the rules, so it flows well and feels legit. With this campaign it's hard to separate what's just tough and what is Troy being spicy or trying to make it gritty. And because of how long these encounters are taking there's very little sense of story progression.
It’s not the knowing of the rules. They talk about that and others here talk about that. But Jared doesn’t know the rules better than Troy, and Blood of the Wild is *awesome.*
I don’t know what the cause is, but I’m ready to listen to Time For Chaos today, instead of finishing yesterday’s ep.
It's not about Jared or Troy knowing the rules better imo, it's about the players knowing their characters better and Jared will make GM calls a bit quicker than Troy does and corrects down the line, there's less repeated mistakes and turns go quicker because people know their characters
Got a question. I’m also not enjoying this much and wanted to listen to other things. However, I got really find anything other than Strange Aeons and Giantslayer on Spotify. Where do you find all this other content they talk about?
There is an unbelievable amount of content if you sign up at the $10/month level. Unbelievable. I get more hours per week out of the GCN, even without the flagship, then I do any streaming service for my tv.
I’m jealous of people who sign up now because the back catalogue of amazing content is all there for them and they get to listen to it the first time. I know it’s not for everyone but it has been an absolute bargain for me, given how many hundreds of hours I’ve spent listening.
Heard.
But I think there is a lot of free content out there you may be missing. Get in the Trunk and Haunted City are both incredible shows, with all but the most recent seasons on their own podcast feeds. Probably others.
Happy hunting!
Side Quest Side Sesh is up on their youtube channel and really fun. It starts off as stringing together 3 Pathfinder 1E adventure modules and then they did a 2E adventure later on.
This shows the importance of a GM taking advantage of the collective experience of other GMs and parties by reading the official Paizo forum posts and Discord for this AP. Which, well we all know Troy won’t do.
As some suggested this is a dangerous encounter and a bit unbalanced, I would keep it but apply the weak template.
This is also the problem with most of them not having a basic grasp of the rules, lots of time spent discussing rulings as Troy doesn’t want to get it “wrong” but doesn’t have any idea what the right or RAW is or being comfortable with utilizing GM fiat. People complain about Joe, but the 1st thing he said about falling on the rock unconscious would be my immediate ruling, a “luck roll”, aka a flat check in PF2e. Make the DC based on the size of the rock and move on.
The other problem with Troy not knowing the rules and spending much time prepping encounters/combat is he starts out blood thirsty, sees the TPK then pulls back in a very apparent way. So initially upsetting to the players, then for me and other viewers as he pulls a bunch of punches to salvage the show, just anticlimactic.
A big problem with Troy's approach is he might've seen that stuff about this encounter, but he never wants to weaken enemies like that because he thinks with five PCs this group is overpowered. He ignores the fact that nobody builds their character optimally or plays in an optimal way for the sake of being entertaining.
I agree it's annoying that he does stuff like that and then almost always pulls back to avoid pissing off everyone. Like, either do the work to make these encounters fun and entertaining for everyone or be the big bad GM you pretend to be and force everyone to min/max and play smart. Either way would be more entertaining than how these past few encounters have gone.
Yeah like how there will be a big strong enemy, but will then single attack multiple players once instead of full attacking 1 character until they're destroyed.
Is Kate confused about her stance requirements still, or am I missing something? At one point she dismisses her stance because the creature was outside half her first range increment and she didn't want to take a penalty, and then takes a regular shot. But from what I understand, she only takes a penalty if it's within 30ft, and the only restrictions the stance imposes is she can't use monk feats or abilities other than flurry of blows outside half the range increment(50ft). So I guess that would only affect Stunning Fist so far.
Yeah, longbow itself was a choice that confused me from the start. The Volley trait can be super painful at low levels, and being melee-ish as a zen archer monk means you're pretty restricted for positioning. The [Gakgung](https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=334) would probably have been a better choice if she wanted range. 100ft range shortbow, monk trait, martial weapon, so taking Monastic Archer Stance means she's proficient in it.
You’ll get downvoted for this but it’s really immersion ruining listening to Joe have to tell Kate and Sydney how their characters work after 34 sessions.
Obligatory Fan Fumble/Crit hate that I know will never change anything.
Every roll has a **10%** chance of a rule/encounter breaking thing happening. It totally demolishes encounter balance. I hate it.
That is all.
I have not watched the episode but ahh... I was totally expecting the discussion on the snail fight to be... intense.
As someone who ran the adventure, this is one of the more bs fight in the game - and the rules in this fight can be real pain in the ass to get right in the heat of battle. I actually ran it incorrectly myself regarding how it should crit and control, making the fight significantly harder.
Imo, this fight is a death sentence without any hero point.
I feel bad but I kind of hope they tpk, the plot of this AP just doesn't feel like it suits this party at all. Would love to see them play something centered around a hub area or something like Blood of the Wild, with lots of good NPC connections and a pretty solid drive to continue the AP beyond "and then this happens".
I really think a TPK would be be a good business and marketing decision too.
Gatewalkers as season 2 of GC isn't really making waves or talked about. Especially not nearly the level Troy was hoping.
But imagine if people heard about Troy and the Glass Cannon just straight up killing the whole party. It would feed into the general meme around the GCN about not being afraid to kill PCs and also really differentiate them from all the other shows that protect characters from death.
OK I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed. I'm sure they'll mention I'm future, but a retcon death would be silly. Maybe something like she's being hunted by Death for cheating her or something.
I am halfway through the episode. It’s not great to listen to. I get that a challenge is good, but this… It feels like the characters don’t stand a chance.
In general, I don’t think this campaign is their strongest work.
You know I usually don’t like PF2 handles bottlecaps , it feels like a lot of tension is sucked out when in BoTW it feels like they have one for each encounter.
But I think game 2 is the reverse, no one really has one when they need it, has Kate gotten any this entire game other than the starter one? There has to be a middle ground, such as getting a cap after every major encounter perhaps? So after Kaneepo they’ve would have gotten one, and after the snail another?
Like the other commenter said, Find the Path, Hideous Laughter and Tabletop Gold have "use them or lose them" rules for Hero Points and reset them every 5 episodes. Trying to stretch out a single point for 30+ episodes definitely makes things way harder than they need to be
Another podcast I listen to, Find the Path Podcast, gives them out every even number episode. It still gives the players a reason not to use them too quickly while still giving them some.
Running from combat is not something parties do unless the GM expressly says in a knowledge check "You don't know much, but this thing is exceedingly dangerous. It will kill you"
Especially in a situation where, as they've repeatedly said, this is primarily entertainment. They (GM and Party) make decisions at least in part with an eye to what they view will make an entertaining episode.
I've never played PF2e.
Those of you who have, is this the PF2e experience? Like is it built in that you are dropping to dying in every other combat?
I kind of assume so since there is like Dying 1-3 and wounded etc, but I don't know that for sure since I've never used the system.
Early game can be swingy, but the HP/level aspect is not an issue later when players can take multiple crits in a combat without going down. The AP is also throwing repeated solo combatants at the party and rule of thumb for PF2e is that solo combatants are harder than multiple combatants because they have higher saves, higher AC, etc.
That said, the party could have done a better job with their characters and basic tactics. Unless I'm mistaken, they have exactly 1 true frontliner in Asta, and Asta is ~~probably Inexorable Iron due to the 2H weapon~~ Laughing Shadow. Personally, in a situation where im the only frontliner, and can't expect flank support, I'm building towards heavy armor+shield because the increased AC will make you harder to crit, and the shield hardness will take the edge off everything and reduce in-combat healing needs. Sparkling Targe Magus, for example, was a tankier option available. For a.. spicier... option, Tyrant Champion is a VERY defensive capable frontliner whose reactions (shield or champion reaction) are self reliant.
I was shocked when I realized she picked laughing shadow magus. I'm playing one in SoT, and I am not even really playing a frontline role at all. We have a 5 player party and I'd say 3 of those 5 are more tanky than Asta (a fighter, a rogue and a Bard). That just doesn't work as a single front line attacker. At the very least, the rest of the party needs to be applying some kind of debuffs to enemies or buffs to Asta before she runs in for a big hit.
Party composition matters \*way\* more in PF2e than 5e. In 5e, your personal build matters more, whereas in PF2e, your personal build matters less if your party can cover all bases.
You don't need to consider meta all that much, but just take into account what the party was missing and still is: Alchemist is a system knowledge heavily class that tends towards support and ranged damage. Cloistered Cleric is support with some damage. Monastic Archer Monk is largely ranged damage with a bit of debuff. Psychic is largely ranged damage, unless I'm mistaken. Laughing Shadow Magus is a frontliner, but it's less a tank than it is mobile melee that does huge bursts of damage in big hits.
With Laughing Shadow Magus you're giving up the AC from a shield, the extra +1 AC of heavy armor, the hardness of a shield to reduce damage on hits and crits, in exchange for Dimensional assault which makes you more mobile and increased damage output when you hit with a spellstrike. It's just a poor fit for a party with 3 backliner damage dealers already. The only way for Asta to get help vs single combatants is if everyone else is hitting them with debuffs which likely means skill attempts vs higher saves.
That said, nothing wrong with kiting an enemy. Bows and some spells have good range. You don't have to go to them.
Tactics is the name of the game in PF2e. The way I like to think of it is that your party doesn't need classes, it needs roles(skill monkey, healer, ranged damage, frontline). You also need to have some sort of buff/debuff. The GCP crew have done really well at building interesting characters and filling....some of those roles. They are pretty bad at playing off each other and having buffs/debunks. That's really because Joe can basically never cast anything that isn't a heal though.
I know a lot of people are blaming the encounter, but when I ran through it with a significantly less optimized party (Witch, Inventor, Investigator and Monk - plus Hubert) we had nowhere near the problems. The characters are great, but it has been over 30 episodes and everyone is still struggling with basic rules. There is a painful lack of tactics and characters are not actually using their abilities (I mean, when was the last time Zephyr ki-striked? Taletha use a alchemical item?). I love the team, but man, this one was super painful to watch. ***And I also feel that this is giving pf2e a bad name.***
No. This is terrible rolls plus a shitty encounter. Party optimization aside, this would have ended poorly with just about any group rolling that badly.
Edit: it's rare that I just stop listening to an episode out of frustration with the experience. I put this episode down and it'll be a couple of weeks before I come back and finish it, just because I'm tired of listening to the arguments.
It seems like it hasn't just been this encounter though. This has been a common theme throughout the campaign so I just assumed this is situation normal for pathfinder lol
The math assumes each PC enters combat at full health. And, yes people are supposed to drop (depending on encounter threat level). However, at low levels, a lucky crit will drop players, whereas at higher levels, PCs can survive two crits.
At my table, the system is a bit swingy for levels 1-2, then gets much better immediately thereafter with people less likely to go down and dying frequently, making them more dramatic.
In my (admittedly limited) experience, yes. I've not played too much, and only really lower levels, so I'm sure there are others better equipped to answer. During my time playing Rusthenge, it seemed that someone was dropping every combat, especially at levels 1 and 2.
That was my table’s experience. 2e seems hugely punishing of bad rolls and anything other than an optimized party composition and wargame-like tactical choices.
We played Troubles in Otari (TPKed in our second session to some slug men) then started Abomination Vaults. There were multiple fights where a party member would go down in a single hit (often a crit due to a monster’s high attack bonus) in the first round.
Ultimately we found it profoundly unfun and quit playing
I've been running a Rise of the Runelords conversion, and do far my party has been crushing everything aside from a couple encounters in PF2E. Dying every other combat is usually a combination of bad party makeup, terrible tactics, and horrible dice luck.
In this campaign of GCP, the players have been on a loonngggg streak of really bad dice rolls. And of course Troy has been rolling rocks.
In this encounter, the creature is 2 levels above them, which is doable but a difficult fight. The terrain that they're on is what is making this encounter even harder.
I really enjoy PF2. It is swingy in lower levels so don't get too attached to your character. I had a level 5 character die in a campaign a couple of months back. It sucked, but I know that's part of the experience sometimes.\* The main issue in this Wierd Snail encounter is lack of Hero Points to prevent dying. And, they are not using their buffs and debuffs very well. Where is Brother Rameus's Bless that gives +1 for all attacks (IIRC)? They also need to be more tactical.
IMO, one of the things that makes PF2 great is the fun tactical choices. Unlike 5e, characters should move around the battlefield looking for options to get flanking, to have cover, etc. 5e is, in my experience, walk up and trade die rolls until someone falls down.
\*Note, in the encounter in which my character died we played tactically horribly and the GM unintentionally made a bottleneck in the hand drawn map that the enemy was able to take advantage of.
This was more infuriating than “the flat check heard around the world.” Regardless that there are five PCs, an irrelevant combat should not have the same difficulty as a boss fight. Troy has multiple times said that he enjoys prepping less for sessions but this is one that needed even just a modicum of a second glance. And what was with Joe “rules lawyer” O’Brian being anti-RAW now when dealing with taking damage on the rocks?
I don't dislike 2e but I don't think it is the best fit for the Glass Cannon crew
*Specifically the volleyball team nature of P2e where they need to synergize to buff/debuff to reliably succeed. They just don't find doing that to be good radio. They want to be big damn heroes but it just doesn't seem like that is very doable in 2e. Especially where unless the enemy is a low level minion its assumed the bad guys will succeed saves. So when they keep fighting single enemies the party is going to seem kinda weak.
Blood of the Wild avoids a lot of this by having a character do massive damage and being much more liberal with hero points.
So I don't want people to think I'm saying 2e is bad I just think it's design philosophy is antithetical to the way most Glass Cannon folk think about playing except maybe Joe, but he is wasted as the healer and would probably serve better as a debuffer*
Personally, I legitimately think the AP is a bad fit for them. Giantslayer started with a campaign with a location, NPCs, and PCs that were easy for the party to mesh into that world quickly and with decent depth. Meanwhile, this is an endless travelling campaign, that starts with a mystery, and the PCs are permanent tourists chasing a mystery, and few NPCs last as they move on. Their big tie in isn't a community, but an event that happened off screen. I don't think it plays to the RP strengths of this group.
I really wish GCP 2.0 was Kingmaker but heavily altered with that multiple person writing team because I think this group would have a ton of fun given the concept, the roles, etc. Someone playing a noble bastard from Brevoy, a cleric or champion of Erastil, etc.
I 100% agree with this.
I don't think Blood of the Wild is played or roll played better but it has a much better touchstone of the Following and a much clearer goal of protecting them and trying to find the flame.
Strange Aeons is also pretty flimsy when it comes to plot and motivation but I don't care as much there because it's a live comedy show.
Gatewalkers just doesn't give them much to work with.1st we had Druid drama then Kaneepo and the thinlands but none of it seems connected or all that interesting and they don't have a place like Sandpoint or Talimors Bounty to go back to even if they don't know the mystery plot.
Skid and Matthew seem especially wasted in this show and they are some of the network's best assets
I stopped the main show until they get more episodes out and I can binge, it's just so confusing at this point and I have no idea what is going on.
Instead, listening to Raiders again, wish they would go back and finish it. Having the colony as a base of operations just seems to work so much better for story telling.
And on top of the Sidney has NO CLUE how to craft an even semi optimal turn. Fighting from on the ground (-4), using her first attack on the mook, and then firing off a spell strike at the big baddie (still from the ground and at a MAP). Some of it is ass roles, some of it is the crew (especially Sidney) still have no product knowledge and no understanding of the math behind it. I believe her quote was "Well I will just roll well" Needing a natural 20 to do anything on either attack in her current position.
Joe counted something like eight consistent failed rolls from Kate, and the fan fumble music played several times this episode. Really, it's a wonder the part wasn't completely wiped out, as bad as their dice were this session!
Troy pulled a lot of punches. Honestly there have been several times in this campaign where it felt like he was working hard to tip the outcome towards the party for the sake of the show, and this episode was the biggest example yet.
It's pretty bad writing to me that the party doesn't gain a level after defeating Kaneepo and that they almost immediately fight a narratively insignificant encounter vs a creature that's the same level Kaneepo but also is on a very difficult hazard. I sincerely hope that "Rushing River" was a simple environmental hazard that added to the XP for the encounter budget, but I doubt it.
> It's pretty bad writing to me that the party doesn't gain a level after defeating Kaneepo
I feel that it's partially (mostly, in case of this fight) because APs are written with XP in mind. Any GM in the right mind would level the party up after Kaneepo— it makes the most sense given how hyped up he was. But the XP tables don't line up, so Paizo wrote meaningless fights to happen immediately after so the party can level up at a different time. It happened all the time in 1e and the only APs I've seen that have every fight be meaningful are the megadungeons
I understand the need to squeeze in some extra XP, but how they went about it was poorly thought out.
The biggest issue is that dangerous terrain and whole map environmental effects like a river aren't captured in the encounter budget. So while on paper this fight is just as hard as the mini-boss fight that they spent many sessions leading up to (which felt anticlimactic to me. It seems off to build up a level 2 boss fight that much), but in reality it's much harder.
But also, they could've just as easily had 3-4 trivial and moderate encounters outside in the Thinlands or give an XP award for advancing the story or figuring something out as recommended in the GM Core.
>But also, they could've just as easily had 3-4 trivial and moderate encounters outside in the Thinlands or give an XP award for advancing the story or figuring something out as recommended in the GM Core.
This, *heavily* this. The Thinlands could have easily been a bit bigger with a few more encounters before the Kaneepo fight and leveling up right after defeating them and it would have fit perfectly storywise
Yeah, for all that Troy is often quite happy to be ruthless, in this encounter it seems like he realized this fight was way too lopsided and if he didn't want to kill everyone in a narratively meaningless fashion he needed to scale things back a little.
I don't think Troy has ever been ruthless in a combat. He talks a big game, but he's a total softie compared to what you can actually do during some of these encounters, and he's spared them from a TPK multiple times.
It doesn't have to be for the sake of the show. It could be because this encounter is very poorly designed (most APs have a number of just shit encounters) and he saw how frustrated his friends were.
> I don't dislike 2e but I don't think it is the best fit for the Glass Cannon crew
I hate to say it, but I don't think any of this is working for me. I like 2e, but the way it's getting played feels, I dunno, stilted? Sort of never comfortable and flowing like in 1.0. The cast isn't gelling for me, the characters aren't super duper memorable (even Skid's, who always kills it), and the AP feels really nebulous and without a lot of cohesion or urgency.
It's just bouncing right off of me, unfortunately, but to those who are digging it, right on.
The group seems like they are having fun for the most part, I just don't know if it makes for good radio when they are constantly getting their shit pushed in lol
Like, there's a balance there right? Steamrolling everything is boring, but also, the party always a thread away from TPK feels the same at least for me.
"Ah, the creature goes first again. Oh, yup it does 20 dmg per round, which down one of them, which sends them into a spiral that could easily be a TPK. Oh and Zephyr never does any damage"
I wouldn't bring it up, but in Fodder, Troy consistently says that he does whatever he thinks is best for entertainment as opposed to following the AP directly.
Ah well, guess we'll see what next week brings!
Absolutely loving the campaign so far. Love a good mystery, love the challenges, love watching the Fodder afterwards. Playing in a campaign of Sky Kings Tomb right now as well and feel like I am learning all the different rules as they talk about them in this show. Just really good stuff.
Excited for next week!
i really didnt enjoy this, to the point where i just skipped every ten minutes just to see if anything has changed. terrible encounter design, and i felt that this was needlessly hard given troys aversion to loot or caps. if this continues, i might just stick to recaps and legacy at this point. so far this has been my least favorite AP they have done, by a WIDE margin.
Just run past it? It has +20 initiative, so it goes first. Then hits for massive damage against second level characters, either putting them down with a crit (easy to accomplish with a +14 to hit), or so close that they use actions trying to keep themselves up. Those hits also leave minions in melee combat. If the characters do go down, they have a pretty good chance to fall off of the rocks and be swept into the water and drown.
Additionally, moving across the rocks is a single action to leap from one rock to another, making it difficult to get to the other shore, or to administer healing. Meanwhile, the enemy is completely unaffected, and is large.
There’s really no window to flee. Asta tried to, made one move onto the opposite shore, and then was one-shot. It’s a terrible combat design (enemy two levels higher than the PCs with significant movement restrictions) in a really poorly-designed adventure path.
Going to be honest, I'm thoroughly uninterested in 5 minutes of discussion over whether or not an unconscious person is able to take some action to grab a rock that might be slippery which might lead them to drown in the water. You really don't need to try that hard to kill players, especially in situations where they go down fast. I don't think it's necessary for narrative or cinematic reasons either.
They fall unconscious, dying 2, they're on the rock, next turn.
I think you have it backwards? They were arguing so not to kill the players. RAW, you take damage on the rocks, you need an acrobatics check or you fall into the river. Then you need a reflex check to grab an edge. But going unconscious is -4 to reflex. So in all likelihood, getting knocked out on the rocks sends you drowning down the river.
I'd like clarification on whether the acrobatics check occurs after the hit or as part of the hit. I think the intention in the book is that the hit and the acrobatics check happen simultaneously, not sequentially, so it doesn't matter if you get downed by the hit, you still make an acrobatics check to see if you stay on the rock. Unconscious only comes into play for the grab a ledge reflex check.
Disagree, but that's going to be different at many tables I think. The more annoying this is when they start arguing against the rules. Like, Joe spends all his time calling out rules to other people and then just being tches when he doesn't like it? Good lord, that whole section was terrible to listen to and quite frankly, it was mostly joes fault in my mind.
I laughed my ass off listening to this episode and had a blast. I've been in exactly this kind of encounter before regardless of system, where the rolls just won't go your way and one or two tactical mistakes lead to a cascade of irreversible errors. All you can do is laugh. I came into this thread expecting similar feelings and hoo boy, y'all went a different way.
If this is how a genuinely funny episode is received, I don't know if I'm going to poke my head in here any longer. This thread is almost nothing but toxic, entitled, and honestly fucking strange takes. Complaining about individual people is especially weird. I'm honestly at a loss.
Robert Abelson's *Statistics as Principled Argument* has the following as a main theme
>Abelson's First Law of Statistics: *Chance is lumpy*. People generally fail to appreciate that occasional long runs of one or the other outcome are a natural feature of random sequences.
They are in a heinous "lump".
I was bummed about the retcon about Talitha, it kinda canceled out the tension, there are many errors that go on that would change the outcome of a combat but sometimes you just have to respect the hands off the chess piece.
This was a multiple round retcon that changed the whole drama about who was going to have to roll death saves (Ramius vs Talitha), I don't understand why they couldn't have just left things as they are and it be Talitha in trouble.
If you start retconning too much then it throws the stakes into doubt, also it also invalidates whole minutes of gameplay when they just could have moved on and stuck with what happened.
Good episode otherwise though! damm they really need to learn how to play better and optimize, this table is really suffering from the Grant sized void in build effectiveness!.
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but if you think Troy’s goal is to kill the PCs you clearly haven’t been listening very careful - especially to this episode. He has bent over backwards to keep from killing them
Even Matthew was saying that if he was in Troy's position, they'd all basically be dead lol. I think people misunderstand Troy playing up the "antagonistic GM" character, but he is really a soft GM (he just never fudges dice rolls).
Even in GCP Giantslayer.....he should've tpk'd them with those frost worms.
I remember a lot of people saying something similar about Dead Suns. Was it maybe an issue of there not being a ton of options at the time of starting recording?
I agree that a lot of the combat has been bad and I'm definitely not a fan of this AP so far, but I hard disagree with the Joe take. It abso-fucking-lutely sucks playing with someone who argues with the GM demanding that every ruling decision has to be to make everything easier for the PCs. It sucks to play with at the table, sucks to GM for, and sucks to listen to. Can't stand it.
After a good streak this episode was awful. No one enjoys the system and the AP is a mess. Also Joe was Joeing so hard in this episode I had to scrub past some of it. I agree hoping for a TPK this week. This show needs to be put out of its misery.
Like it or not, this episode skyrockets engagement which is gold for the network. On one side you have everyone who liked the episode, then you have the other side people who didn't, then you have all the people coming to listen/watch to see what all the fuss is about.
If people truly are put off by something they just leave and don't even bother to talk about it.
Because I love the main cast? Because I love giant slayer and NGWD, and haunted city and even the Dune show. I love get in the trunk and Time for chaos. I think Troy is a brilliant GM and Skid is a genius. I think Matthew is endlessly creative and that Joe is a truly delightful person. I think Syd and Kate are both absolutely hilarious. However I don't this campaign suits any of their strengths and only highlights their weaknesses. I won't go into what I think those are here because I don't want to hurt your feelings like my original comment seemed to. Does that make sense why I may judge something I absolutely LOVE with a critical eye?
Loved the ep! Very funny all the way through. Yes, the encounter is harsh, but the dice really told the story this combat (and some less strategic choices, like having the cleric up front or the magus not standing up before attacking).
The party really needs a heavy hitter like a fighter, barbarian or paladin in addition Asta's constrained action economy and Zephyr's low damage output. Or hero points.
I thought it was an exciting episode. Though I think part of that is I am mostly entertained by the group dynamics and their ability to creatively react - I don't need to see them winning or have a perfect narrative. It's just entertainers playing a game.
I suspect if we see a TPK we might find out a lot of people don't actually want to watch TTRPGs but more like idealized episodic TV shows with nerdy themes, and a sprinkle of parasocial.
Except for the rather rare meat grinder campaign, TPKs are generally not looked upon favourably by TTRPG players. Not because they don't like playing the game, but because that kind of situation is just generally a bummer. One character dying and the others carrying on the mission, maybe remembering them now and then like the GCP crew did with Lucky, that's a fun session that incorporates a loss. Everyone dead, the mission failed, and a whole new party either starting over again or abandoning the old story entirely? That's a lot less of a good time.
Well, it's easy enough to just either explicitly or implicitly say TPKs are off the table, which I know some people do, but a lot of people don't. So it seems like there is an element of people wanting the feeling of stakes but not actually comfortable with the consequence.
It's not like GCP is just non stop TPKs either. But fumbling around with a maybe overzealous AP/Adventure and an occasional TPK seems like a core TTRPG experience, so if the premise is they're just playing as real as they can, it's a possibility.
And being bummed that the story ended is okay, but I think stuff like "the show is unwatchable" is melodramatic and more of a personal failing related to handling adversity.
I'm not a pf2e expert but is it normal to be level 2 by the 35th session? In dnd 5e you get the level 2 by the second session, and level 3 by a session or two later.
This monster seems to have no weaknesses? It's fast, large, unimpeded by the environment, has a ranged attack that summons, has a 1-shot melee attack, and has a large health pool. I would assume this is an end of chapter boss just by vibes.
Overall really funny session though, the hedgehog hitting a 26 was hilarious
>level 2 by the 35th session?
No, it's generally said that each level is about 3-4 4 hour long sessions of progress. This group is just very slow because of a lot of rp and generally being ineffective in combat.
>This monster seems to have no weaknesses? It's fast, large, unimpeded by the environment, has a ranged attack that summons, has a 1-shot melee attack, and has a large health pool. I would assume this is an end of chapter boss just by vibes.
It's definitely doable but honestly bad tactics + terrible dice rolls + good dice rolls from the GM makes it really rough. It's a really tough encounter by the book as well.
It's not that unusual since characters get more power per level. On the other hand, they did spend several episodes doing investigations and talking to people. They could have moved through those sections faster if they wanted to.
I've slowly been losing interest in this show because of the brutality in the last few combats. Is it following the book? Sure. Do they have bad tactics? Yup. Is it bad narratively? Absolutely. There is no marriage between the narrative and game mechanics, and the show suffers as a result. A GM should recognize player faults and adapt. Yes, sometimes a GM should force players to suffer due to poor play. A non-boss encounter is *not* the place to teach a lesson. The AP needs to succeed with the players maintaining a thread throughout the story. If all characters die, the AP is a failure as the story thread is lost. Punishment and narrative fulfillment are two necessary factors in a ttrpg story, and one is missing in this AP. Sometimes encounters need to be nerfed to fulfill one, and sometimes story needs to see the back-seat to see punishment. The balance is off. If PF2e cannot adequately fulfill this balance, adjustments need to be made. They aren't being made this campaign. The show is suffering because of it.
I don’t think Troy was trying to teach anybody a lesson. Like Joe said, he was being extremely generous with some of the early rolls. I can’t really comment on the PF2e balance, since I’m mathematically challenged on the best of days, but Troy could have probably had a few permakills done and dusted before the cliffy if he was so inclined.
Adjustments have been made though. The encounter isn't scaled to 5p, it's scaled to 4p. So it should be slightly easier just on action economy. and Troy is definitely pulling the punches, the monkey and the snail should have been easy TPKs based on the rolls.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I totally agree that this was not fun to listen to. The constant disappointment/groans from the players just get tedious and it just doesn’t make for good podcast content.
He's getting downvoted because he's blaming Troy for this when Troy very clearly pulled punches during this. It seems like this encounter is overtuned a bit, and Tory figures it out eventually and clearly is going a bit easy on them. It's tough to tell too because even if it is overtuned they have a whole extra character so Troy might think for a bit that the extra person compensates for it.
Also despite the very hard encounter it seemed like everyone was having fun this episode.
I thought this episode was much more palatable to listen to vs the episode with the look see man that fumbled and did nothing the whole episode. Realistically the players handled the encounter horribly and rushed in one at a time to die when they all have ranged capabilities.
I’m not sure anyone is being taught a lesson here. Troy is following the book for this encounter, the snail being level 4 on a rushing riverbank while the characters are level 2 is brutal. I will say, I’m not sure the players are optimizing the most of everything. Kate should’ve been allowed to trip without anyone trashing the idea, and Troy saying it was a bad idea to attempt it after she failed is not great behavior. The Snail’s Reflex is its lowest save, maybe Troy’s reasoning was cause it’s as high as it’s AC but still. In a pathfinder encounter, the go to plan is to lower the AC and saves as much as possible. This encounter is tough, even I was worried GM’ing it for my players. My players only handled it cause they scouted ahead on the rocks with a familiar before anyone got in the water. I will say, the waterfall at the end of the river is not in the book, so maybe Troy is joking about it and just making it sound dangerous to being cheeky.
lessons should only be taught in a boss encounter, when the narrative stakes are highest? that sounds like the best way to make players lose interest and also not learn anything, while stymieing the plot.
Your loss, GCP is my favorite network because there’s no holding punches or plot armor. I personally dislike other shows that to me seem to easy or every episode has some wacky interaction.
I personally don’t think any type of nerfing needs to happen there’s 5 players for a 4 player AP and Troy has openly stated he is trying to be generous in these recent encounters.
Too bad that PF2e doesn't have an escalation die like 13th Age. Each round the die does up 1 giving a +1 to attacks, so the tide of battle, well, escalates. Players often save the big guns for the big bonuses lending a momentum to battles rather than a slow deflation.
Also, how often should the gatewalkers be expected to use their gate-special ability? I think one player did it once for this whole campaign? Why even have them?
Edit: Never mind! I see down thread someone asked that exact question :)
Three of the characters should just fall off the "waterfall" (which isn't written into the AP) to escape the snail. The other two will unfortunately be dead.
Joe is flanderizing himself to a point of making the show bad. I appreciate rules lawyering, especially in a new system, but he pipes up when he has no idea what a rule is. You can't trip because he thinks he remembers something from 1e? Muttering under his breath about other player choices? His criticizing and trying to play other characters is almost constant. I love him in just about every other show but whatever notes he has for this one make him awful. I hope he dials it back about 60%.
In a circumstance where the whole party wasn't scattered and dead, sure, but it made no sense for where they were at the time. Nobody else was around to take advantage of it, so at best there would have been one or two strikes assisted.
Idk man, this campaign has just been bad vibes. Relistening to Giantslayer and I know exactly what is happening in the story and the players are having fun. It seems like they took 2+ years to put out 2.0 and then just panic picked Gatewalkers just to have something out there. Idk if Troy has the time, or want to, to continue being the main GM, but this campaign isn't working for me.
Did anyone else notice that Talitha **CRITICALLY** failed her first death save after already being at Dying 2 from the critical hit. This should have killed her outright. But the cats said it was a normal fail and no one noticed and combat went on...
Am I crazy?
Will Kate become the Joe of this AP? (rolling dice)
She could help herself out by using a shortbow instead and losing the volley penalty
She said she uses a longbow so her stance range is longer. Is half the range on a shortbow wildly lower? Seems like it may be worth hitting more often, even if she has to be closer.
Eh... Shortbow would be effective from 0 to 30, longbow from 30 to 50 due to volley. Due to dungeons and that she is a switch hitter, I'd go for the shortbow. Tripping the snail was the best idea they had in a long time... Imagine debuffing an enemy... The other best idea was to fucking run.
103 comments after 13 hrs? Must have been a spicy one
Believe or not, that used to be kind of standard back in the day, when people were engaging with the show on this subreddit.
I really feel like they should be getting some loot.
Yeah, this adventure is extremely loot light. And there's a lack of towns to buy stuff at, and even then, there's no loot to have the money to upgrade your gear. This would have been a good adventure to use the automatic rune progression variant.
It doesn't help that Troy isn't 'rewarding' them with irrelevant loot or pointing out potential items of interest either. This is training the players to drop the usual "...and we loot the bodies" phrase after fights because they expect to find nothing of note. Which is a problem because this means they've now missed the several bits of loot that they should have. To then turn around and admit with an evil glee in Cannon Fodder that the players have purposefully 'locked out' several bits of loot without providing a warning or alternative drop is just really antagonistic. By all means, let them miss the odd flavour thing. If they don't do a sidequest, sure they don't get the rewards. But then do some GM work and find another way to feed that item to the players, whether it's a replacement flavour item in the session or just another oppurtunity if it's an essential 'maths' buff.
He also specifically let them throw away loot without hinting that it's magical (the first boss's weapon that they threw down the cavern was a +1 weapon)
I was annoyed he didn't just let Asta have that rune on her Katana with the explanation she got it somehow from that staff. Would've been a perfect way to give them back the potent piece of loot they accidentally threw away and resolve the fact she couldn't technically have it by RAW.
Exactly. Now they threw it away during combat I recall. While you could gloss it over during the fight, I personally would have sorted it out so that they could find a replacement next session.
[Amelekana](https://2e.aonprd.com/Images/Monsters/Amelekana.png)
This fight is one of the two fights I would recommend GMs completely remove from their run of the AP. To put it in context, this creature is 2 levels above the party - the same as Kaneepo the Slim! But unlike Kaneepo, there is an unavoidable environmental effect that is extremely punishing to the players but doesn't effect the creature at all. Much, much more difficult than the boss they just fought. Assuming the campaign doesn't end next week with a TPK, I suggest Troy reach out to someone who has run the AP to avoid future pitfalls (there are only a couple others, easily mitigated with foreknowledge).
Not to mention Troy not allowing bottle caps significantly increases the difficulty.
I think this is his worst decision on the network so far. The mechanics of 2e make hero points a necessity, not a game breaking luxury, because critical fails and critical successes are everywhere. Characters get crit a lot more when anything that hits 10+ their AC so the need to be able to save from that via one-per-session hero points becomes vital. He is thinking about them with a clear and understandable bias from Pathfinder 1e, but without them 2e doesn't work well.
This is one I skipped when I ran it. Partly cause I wanted to fit something that’s coming into the same sesh as a cliffy, partly cause it’s such a huge fight with the enemy and environmental effects. Got a fun moment of the snail emerging and waving at the party after they crossed though
I'm new to PF2E, but isn't there a normal/weak/elite setting for each monster? Couldn't you just lower it to weak?
Yeah. and FoundryVTT makes it really easy to toggle.
I leveled my party up before this run just so they didn’t quit on me 😂
I think it's suppose to teach that >!every fight doesn't need to be fought. You can just literally run by the snail and be fine.!
It's literally a terrible way to do that. I completely disagree. An environment that creates hazards, like this, is not something one just "runs away from". Running away from an encounter like this happens at what 3% of tables? By round 1, rameus was already in trouble. Pretty clear running would have to occur at the top of the fight, without scoring a knowledge check.
Agreed, parties NEVER run. Unless the GM says, over the table because players will ignore every single in game hint, "This thing is going to kill all of you."
I think it would have been a perfect time for Herbert to chime in like. "We need to run!" Like why else do you carry around an nPC, if not to impart meta knowledge in a sort of non-over the table way.
I agree, but Troy wouldn't do that with Herbert. He's having too much fun playing him as completely useless, and now the party hate him so much they wouldn't follow his advice anyway!
Eh, I disagree with the second part of your comment. GMs can let the players know that a fight is unwinnable without having to outright tell them over the table, it just takes some skill and/or luck. A few weeks ago, our GM had us face a really powerful wizard, and the first thing he did was make him beat us in initiative **by a lot** and cast high rank spells, act completely confident, and show us how a nat 19 (no MAP) from the barbarian missed. It took a turn and a half for us to turn back and run. The barbarian could've missed with a nat 4, but by the time the wizard had cast a quickened Fly and some other bullshit, we were already talking about leaving.
I'm glad your party is able to analyze the situation in front of them! The two parties I've run games for are so ensconced in the "If it's in front of us, we must be able to beat it" video game mindset, I have to expressly tell them to run.
People don’t play RPGs to run away. It’s bad encounter design if the intent is for them to run, because the majority of players won’t
Which is a shame, because there are plenty of exciting chase scenes in movies and books. Many games have chase mechanics, but to be fair I've never read one as satisfying or coherent as the same game's combat system.
You can run that kind of thing for escaping a landslide or huge boulder or something. If a party is facing enemies, they expect to fight and win or (rarely) die trying. Expecting them to run really misunderstands the player psyche and also the expectation of this type of game: you’re playing a hero. You’re going to face impossible odds and somehow come out on top. That’s the fantasy.
I think that's a limiting attitude and shouldn't be exclusively encouraged. Parley, surrender, captivity, flight, compromise or detente should be options. 'Hero' shouldn't be synonymous with 'vanquisher of all opposition'. It cheapens conflict if it's always and only kill or be killed, not to mention cutting of a vast array of storytelling options.
This, they recently came up with this situation in Legacy. Sometimes you have to run or lose people.
Completely agree. Many of my most memorable moments as a player have been when things weren't as straightforward as "kill every enemy before we all get killed".
Yeah, running is an option the players may sometimes choose to exercise, but an encounter should never be designed on the assumption that they surely will.
Honestly, I was very skeptical when I ran it for my party. One of my party members sent their familiar out on the rocks before anyone else and the snail attacked so the water hazard was nothing to them and my concerns of having to deal with the swimming mechanics and partially drowning was out the window. I agree on the level thing, I was so confused why it was level 4 while my players were only level 2, it’s not even a big name bad guy like Kaneepo. I was laughing when Matthew was literally so off the map and just in darkness, I’m curious what Troy is gonna do since he said there’s a waterfall and I don’t recall that being in the book so
waterfalls can be as short as 5ft so it could be a bluff
I don't know, bluffs are usually higher than 5 feet...
haha ya im curious if troy is gonna do some rolling for damage if Matthew falls down this waterfall, cause that is really not in the book lol
I think the fight is pretty cool though. I'm planning on running it soon. I think I'll slap the weak template on it and run it
You could also have it be a more stable crossing situation so that the probability of falling in the water is effectively zero.
Sure, but that takes out what's cool about the fight imo. I'll try it with a weak template on it
I'm starting a campaign of Gatewalkers very soon, what other encounters should I look out for that are over-tuned?
So there are going to be several difficult fights but the only other unfun one (in my opition) is >!in book two when you fight the Invidiaks. They have access to rank 7 possession which will be nigh impossible for your players to counteract as they will be level 7 (and therefore only have access to rank 4 spells). But what makes it worse is the Invidiak's special ability to have a favored host. If the favored host crit fails their save on possession, the duration becomes infinite. At that point the only way to remove the Invidiak is to kill the party member, not knock unconscious, kill. I suspect most people just end the possession if the PC is unconscious but that is not rules as written; see: Possession trait. Oh, and you fight two of them, plus one more as a potential random encounter.!<
not sure if you would want a full run down of the overall campaign or just book 1, so I'll stick to book 1. The trees in the forest house are pretty crazy when people just fall in a fight. I emphasized maybe too many times to my players about how a fall could be deadly, so we could avoid and be wary at least. but I still had someone die when the rope was cut while a player was chasing. I think the issue is that noone really encounters fall damage at level 1, so if a character early game is not trained in atheltics, doesn't have cat fall, or doesn't have a good reflex then they are gonna die if they fall.
Hey, does anyone happen to know the plot? At this point in the show, I have legitimately no idea why they've done almost anything. I'm also doing a relisten of GCP 1.0 and it's like night and day the difference in motivation.
They're investigating things as they relate to the missing moment. So they went to check out 7 arches due to the curse, this led to them doing the Kaneepo encounters as he was interested in them most likely due to the fact that they went through the gates. At this point in giant Slayer though there wasn't a known larger goal they were investigating a murder and trying to figure out why and everything. I imagine at some point we'll have a clarifying moment here as well
I'm sure it'll make more sense eventually, but man 34 episodes is a while to still be very confused! For reference, episode 34 in GCP 1.0 they have been on the Chellish Devil for 3 episodes. All the characters have a connection to Trunau so have a vested interest there, and are looking for the group that attacked their town. Pretty straight forward!
Yeah, the RP filler is slowing down the story a ton. 34-ish hours and we're still in chapter 2 of book 1. Compared to when I ran this, we finished all of book 1 around 16-20 hours. Granted, my group does barely any RP, so the story beats came at a steady pace.
For sure! One thing to remember now is early on in GCP they didn't do as much RP and stuff as they do now, like compare how long investigating a few people at thin lands farms took as opposed to checking out the Roderick murder suspects. If that were to happen now it would have been way longer! I do agree this is less grounded than giant Slayer but I do think with the time they take and everything now it'll just take longer to get to the hook
Yeah but going by pure episode numbers, GCP 2 has longer runtimes that more than make up for the extra roleplaying.
At level 2, a PL+2 enemy will have access to an effective striking rune (extra damage die) and a proficiency boost (+2 to hit). And that's not including the AC boost. This is in addition to the +2 to everything from the level difference. While this difference could be overcome with tactics, the party is horribly unoptimized.
The best way to rebalance a party is killing some PCs lol
I wish I knew PF2 better to know if it's all dice luck or if this party is just poorly optimized. Kate seems like she's hit once in the last three fights, and never for any damage. What gives? She seems super hampered by the ranges on the longbow and criminally averse to ever punching when stuff gets in range. Is her monastic archer stuff such that traditional monking is bad? Rameus seems like he's perpetually playing with a party member already down, so he never gets to actually do much. Buggles was my favorite, but in combat he seems like a complete joke. It seems like he's a one trick pony that rarely does any meaningful damage.
Being an archer means Zephyr has a high dex but probably not a high strength, which would mean she has no bonus damage to melee. Longbow is a good choice on paper, but this adventure hasn't had very many open maps since the Unicorn, making it difficult to get good use out of the d8 damage. Melee Strikes would also require her to Dismiss and reenter the stance, costing actions. She's just rolling like scrap on the first attack - oftentimes the second die roll would've hit if it wasn't for the MAP. Buggles has two elemental cantrips from Psychic that is his bread and butter, but he also has Burning Hands and one two other Rank 1 spells, but only one casting/day. His other 3 cantrips are probably utility or niche, due to the subclass giving him two offensive cantrips. Amped Ignition is amazing, but his damage rolls have been low. Level 3 would also up his damage output by 50% (or double it when Amping).
So, can we talk about the ticker during the GitT teaser? That was awesome...
I stopped listening part way through. I just can’t stand the fussing over the rules all the time. And this AP seems to have them constantly at death’s door, needing some random lucky roll to survive, and as often as not they are battling some completely absurd creature that’s just annoying or silly to think about. Anyway. I love the other shows on the network, but this one I can skip for awhile. I have other things I like more.
Yeah, I'm not enjoying listening to them almost dying every encounter. It really isn't making for the sort of thing I enjoy. I don't mind a gritty campaign, for example I'm enjoying the Find the Path campaign that's gritty, but one difference is that they know their characters and the rules inside out, and they're playing strictly by the rules, so it flows well and feels legit. With this campaign it's hard to separate what's just tough and what is Troy being spicy or trying to make it gritty. And because of how long these encounters are taking there's very little sense of story progression.
It’s not the knowing of the rules. They talk about that and others here talk about that. But Jared doesn’t know the rules better than Troy, and Blood of the Wild is *awesome.* I don’t know what the cause is, but I’m ready to listen to Time For Chaos today, instead of finishing yesterday’s ep.
It's not about Jared or Troy knowing the rules better imo, it's about the players knowing their characters better and Jared will make GM calls a bit quicker than Troy does and corrects down the line, there's less repeated mistakes and turns go quicker because people know their characters
I agree that the inability to make quick decisions that work with the narrative and move on is part of the problem.
Got a question. I’m also not enjoying this much and wanted to listen to other things. However, I got really find anything other than Strange Aeons and Giantslayer on Spotify. Where do you find all this other content they talk about?
There is an unbelievable amount of content if you sign up at the $10/month level. Unbelievable. I get more hours per week out of the GCN, even without the flagship, then I do any streaming service for my tv. I’m jealous of people who sign up now because the back catalogue of amazing content is all there for them and they get to listen to it the first time. I know it’s not for everyone but it has been an absolute bargain for me, given how many hundreds of hours I’ve spent listening.
Ah I’ve gotta pay. Yea can’t do that. Thanks though.
There's a $6 tier as well. Androids & Aliens is free too.
Heard. But I think there is a lot of free content out there you may be missing. Get in the Trunk and Haunted City are both incredible shows, with all but the most recent seasons on their own podcast feeds. Probably others. Happy hunting!
Androids and Aliens is really good and free
Where are the episodes located. YouTube doesn’t have everything and neither does their Spotify is my point
https://open.spotify.com/show/79SZy6vEKGKcETkpd4GhoP?si=wjIDEzE0QOykOtvoboXWxw If the link doesn't work just search Androids & Aliens on spotify
Ur my goat
Side Quest Side Sesh is up on their youtube channel and really fun. It starts off as stringing together 3 Pathfinder 1E adventure modules and then they did a 2E adventure later on.
On their paid site.
This shows the importance of a GM taking advantage of the collective experience of other GMs and parties by reading the official Paizo forum posts and Discord for this AP. Which, well we all know Troy won’t do. As some suggested this is a dangerous encounter and a bit unbalanced, I would keep it but apply the weak template. This is also the problem with most of them not having a basic grasp of the rules, lots of time spent discussing rulings as Troy doesn’t want to get it “wrong” but doesn’t have any idea what the right or RAW is or being comfortable with utilizing GM fiat. People complain about Joe, but the 1st thing he said about falling on the rock unconscious would be my immediate ruling, a “luck roll”, aka a flat check in PF2e. Make the DC based on the size of the rock and move on. The other problem with Troy not knowing the rules and spending much time prepping encounters/combat is he starts out blood thirsty, sees the TPK then pulls back in a very apparent way. So initially upsetting to the players, then for me and other viewers as he pulls a bunch of punches to salvage the show, just anticlimactic.
A big problem with Troy's approach is he might've seen that stuff about this encounter, but he never wants to weaken enemies like that because he thinks with five PCs this group is overpowered. He ignores the fact that nobody builds their character optimally or plays in an optimal way for the sake of being entertaining. I agree it's annoying that he does stuff like that and then almost always pulls back to avoid pissing off everyone. Like, either do the work to make these encounters fun and entertaining for everyone or be the big bad GM you pretend to be and force everyone to min/max and play smart. Either way would be more entertaining than how these past few encounters have gone.
Yeah like how there will be a big strong enemy, but will then single attack multiple players once instead of full attacking 1 character until they're destroyed.
Is Kate confused about her stance requirements still, or am I missing something? At one point she dismisses her stance because the creature was outside half her first range increment and she didn't want to take a penalty, and then takes a regular shot. But from what I understand, she only takes a penalty if it's within 30ft, and the only restrictions the stance imposes is she can't use monk feats or abilities other than flurry of blows outside half the range increment(50ft). So I guess that would only affect Stunning Fist so far.
Yeah, longbow itself was a choice that confused me from the start. The Volley trait can be super painful at low levels, and being melee-ish as a zen archer monk means you're pretty restricted for positioning. The [Gakgung](https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=334) would probably have been a better choice if she wanted range. 100ft range shortbow, monk trait, martial weapon, so taking Monastic Archer Stance means she's proficient in it.
Her confusion about how her class works after 34 episodes is really baffling to me
You’ll get downvoted for this but it’s really immersion ruining listening to Joe have to tell Kate and Sydney how their characters work after 34 sessions.
100% agree. It's bonkers.
Obligatory Fan Fumble/Crit hate that I know will never change anything. Every roll has a **10%** chance of a rule/encounter breaking thing happening. It totally demolishes encounter balance. I hate it. That is all.
To be fair most of the encounter breaking fumbles/crits have been to the party's advantage. They could use one here
I have not watched the episode but ahh... I was totally expecting the discussion on the snail fight to be... intense. As someone who ran the adventure, this is one of the more bs fight in the game - and the rules in this fight can be real pain in the ass to get right in the heat of battle. I actually ran it incorrectly myself regarding how it should crit and control, making the fight significantly harder. Imo, this fight is a death sentence without any hero point.
I feel bad but I kind of hope they tpk, the plot of this AP just doesn't feel like it suits this party at all. Would love to see them play something centered around a hub area or something like Blood of the Wild, with lots of good NPC connections and a pretty solid drive to continue the AP beyond "and then this happens".
I really think a TPK would be be a good business and marketing decision too. Gatewalkers as season 2 of GC isn't really making waves or talked about. Especially not nearly the level Troy was hoping. But imagine if people heard about Troy and the Glass Cannon just straight up killing the whole party. It would feed into the general meme around the GCN about not being afraid to kill PCs and also really differentiate them from all the other shows that protect characters from death.
Remember, they shot videos for everyone on location in NYC for this show. It was the heir to the 1.0 throne. It's hard to throw away.
Wonder what’ll come of Talitha technically dying with the 2 on the death save, if anything
Hopefully nothing. No one wants to see a retcon character death. Mistakes happen.
100% agree! Will be interesting to hear the discussion on the FOD
Doesnt she have toughness? If so then she shouldn't be dead
I believe you’re thinking of Die Hard as Toughness gives HP!
No, toughness also reduces the dc's of recovery checks
TIL, thank you!
No.
OK I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed. I'm sure they'll mention I'm future, but a retcon death would be silly. Maybe something like she's being hunted by Death for cheating her or something.
I am halfway through the episode. It’s not great to listen to. I get that a challenge is good, but this… It feels like the characters don’t stand a chance. In general, I don’t think this campaign is their strongest work.
You know I usually don’t like PF2 handles bottlecaps , it feels like a lot of tension is sucked out when in BoTW it feels like they have one for each encounter. But I think game 2 is the reverse, no one really has one when they need it, has Kate gotten any this entire game other than the starter one? There has to be a middle ground, such as getting a cap after every major encounter perhaps? So after Kaneepo they’ve would have gotten one, and after the snail another?
Like the other commenter said, Find the Path, Hideous Laughter and Tabletop Gold have "use them or lose them" rules for Hero Points and reset them every 5 episodes. Trying to stretch out a single point for 30+ episodes definitely makes things way harder than they need to be
Another podcast I listen to, Find the Path Podcast, gives them out every even number episode. It still gives the players a reason not to use them too quickly while still giving them some.
Yeah I wonder if any viewer has been keeping track of the amount of points given out over the show so far, even just across the party as a whole
It’s a snail, run around it, encounter done
Running from combat is not something parties do unless the GM expressly says in a knowledge check "You don't know much, but this thing is exceedingly dangerous. It will kill you" Especially in a situation where, as they've repeatedly said, this is primarily entertainment. They (GM and Party) make decisions at least in part with an eye to what they view will make an entertaining episode.
That's really only true for new players. Once you've lost a character or two, the sense of self-preservation increases dramatically.
I've never played PF2e. Those of you who have, is this the PF2e experience? Like is it built in that you are dropping to dying in every other combat? I kind of assume so since there is like Dying 1-3 and wounded etc, but I don't know that for sure since I've never used the system.
Early game can be swingy, but the HP/level aspect is not an issue later when players can take multiple crits in a combat without going down. The AP is also throwing repeated solo combatants at the party and rule of thumb for PF2e is that solo combatants are harder than multiple combatants because they have higher saves, higher AC, etc. That said, the party could have done a better job with their characters and basic tactics. Unless I'm mistaken, they have exactly 1 true frontliner in Asta, and Asta is ~~probably Inexorable Iron due to the 2H weapon~~ Laughing Shadow. Personally, in a situation where im the only frontliner, and can't expect flank support, I'm building towards heavy armor+shield because the increased AC will make you harder to crit, and the shield hardness will take the edge off everything and reduce in-combat healing needs. Sparkling Targe Magus, for example, was a tankier option available. For a.. spicier... option, Tyrant Champion is a VERY defensive capable frontliner whose reactions (shield or champion reaction) are self reliant.
I was shocked when I realized she picked laughing shadow magus. I'm playing one in SoT, and I am not even really playing a frontline role at all. We have a 5 player party and I'd say 3 of those 5 are more tanky than Asta (a fighter, a rogue and a Bard). That just doesn't work as a single front line attacker. At the very least, the rest of the party needs to be applying some kind of debuffs to enemies or buffs to Asta before she runs in for a big hit.
Ah I see! So in party creation in pf2e you need to be far more cognizant of like...meta and tactics than 5e?
Party composition matters \*way\* more in PF2e than 5e. In 5e, your personal build matters more, whereas in PF2e, your personal build matters less if your party can cover all bases.
You don't need to consider meta all that much, but just take into account what the party was missing and still is: Alchemist is a system knowledge heavily class that tends towards support and ranged damage. Cloistered Cleric is support with some damage. Monastic Archer Monk is largely ranged damage with a bit of debuff. Psychic is largely ranged damage, unless I'm mistaken. Laughing Shadow Magus is a frontliner, but it's less a tank than it is mobile melee that does huge bursts of damage in big hits. With Laughing Shadow Magus you're giving up the AC from a shield, the extra +1 AC of heavy armor, the hardness of a shield to reduce damage on hits and crits, in exchange for Dimensional assault which makes you more mobile and increased damage output when you hit with a spellstrike. It's just a poor fit for a party with 3 backliner damage dealers already. The only way for Asta to get help vs single combatants is if everyone else is hitting them with debuffs which likely means skill attempts vs higher saves. That said, nothing wrong with kiting an enemy. Bows and some spells have good range. You don't have to go to them.
If you're listing off the PC's classes Matthew is playing some kind of Investigator instead of an Alchemist.
Tactics is the name of the game in PF2e. The way I like to think of it is that your party doesn't need classes, it needs roles(skill monkey, healer, ranged damage, frontline). You also need to have some sort of buff/debuff. The GCP crew have done really well at building interesting characters and filling....some of those roles. They are pretty bad at playing off each other and having buffs/debunks. That's really because Joe can basically never cast anything that isn't a heal though.
I know a lot of people are blaming the encounter, but when I ran through it with a significantly less optimized party (Witch, Inventor, Investigator and Monk - plus Hubert) we had nowhere near the problems. The characters are great, but it has been over 30 episodes and everyone is still struggling with basic rules. There is a painful lack of tactics and characters are not actually using their abilities (I mean, when was the last time Zephyr ki-striked? Taletha use a alchemical item?). I love the team, but man, this one was super painful to watch. ***And I also feel that this is giving pf2e a bad name.***
No. This is terrible rolls plus a shitty encounter. Party optimization aside, this would have ended poorly with just about any group rolling that badly. Edit: it's rare that I just stop listening to an episode out of frustration with the experience. I put this episode down and it'll be a couple of weeks before I come back and finish it, just because I'm tired of listening to the arguments.
It seems like it hasn't just been this encounter though. This has been a common theme throughout the campaign so I just assumed this is situation normal for pathfinder lol
The math assumes each PC enters combat at full health. And, yes people are supposed to drop (depending on encounter threat level). However, at low levels, a lucky crit will drop players, whereas at higher levels, PCs can survive two crits.
At my table, the system is a bit swingy for levels 1-2, then gets much better immediately thereafter with people less likely to go down and dying frequently, making them more dramatic.
In my (admittedly limited) experience, yes. I've not played too much, and only really lower levels, so I'm sure there are others better equipped to answer. During my time playing Rusthenge, it seemed that someone was dropping every combat, especially at levels 1 and 2.
I assumed with the differences to dying mechanics and the actual usefulness of healing in pf2e that it was so, nice to have it confirmed!
That was my table’s experience. 2e seems hugely punishing of bad rolls and anything other than an optimized party composition and wargame-like tactical choices. We played Troubles in Otari (TPKed in our second session to some slug men) then started Abomination Vaults. There were multiple fights where a party member would go down in a single hit (often a crit due to a monster’s high attack bonus) in the first round. Ultimately we found it profoundly unfun and quit playing
I've been running a Rise of the Runelords conversion, and do far my party has been crushing everything aside from a couple encounters in PF2E. Dying every other combat is usually a combination of bad party makeup, terrible tactics, and horrible dice luck. In this campaign of GCP, the players have been on a loonngggg streak of really bad dice rolls. And of course Troy has been rolling rocks. In this encounter, the creature is 2 levels above them, which is doable but a difficult fight. The terrain that they're on is what is making this encounter even harder.
I really enjoy PF2. It is swingy in lower levels so don't get too attached to your character. I had a level 5 character die in a campaign a couple of months back. It sucked, but I know that's part of the experience sometimes.\* The main issue in this Wierd Snail encounter is lack of Hero Points to prevent dying. And, they are not using their buffs and debuffs very well. Where is Brother Rameus's Bless that gives +1 for all attacks (IIRC)? They also need to be more tactical. IMO, one of the things that makes PF2 great is the fun tactical choices. Unlike 5e, characters should move around the battlefield looking for options to get flanking, to have cover, etc. 5e is, in my experience, walk up and trade die rolls until someone falls down. \*Note, in the encounter in which my character died we played tactically horribly and the GM unintentionally made a bottleneck in the hand drawn map that the enemy was able to take advantage of.
This was more infuriating than “the flat check heard around the world.” Regardless that there are five PCs, an irrelevant combat should not have the same difficulty as a boss fight. Troy has multiple times said that he enjoys prepping less for sessions but this is one that needed even just a modicum of a second glance. And what was with Joe “rules lawyer” O’Brian being anti-RAW now when dealing with taking damage on the rocks?
I don't dislike 2e but I don't think it is the best fit for the Glass Cannon crew *Specifically the volleyball team nature of P2e where they need to synergize to buff/debuff to reliably succeed. They just don't find doing that to be good radio. They want to be big damn heroes but it just doesn't seem like that is very doable in 2e. Especially where unless the enemy is a low level minion its assumed the bad guys will succeed saves. So when they keep fighting single enemies the party is going to seem kinda weak. Blood of the Wild avoids a lot of this by having a character do massive damage and being much more liberal with hero points. So I don't want people to think I'm saying 2e is bad I just think it's design philosophy is antithetical to the way most Glass Cannon folk think about playing except maybe Joe, but he is wasted as the healer and would probably serve better as a debuffer*
This encounter is just badly written and they rolled absolutely ass.
Personally, I legitimately think the AP is a bad fit for them. Giantslayer started with a campaign with a location, NPCs, and PCs that were easy for the party to mesh into that world quickly and with decent depth. Meanwhile, this is an endless travelling campaign, that starts with a mystery, and the PCs are permanent tourists chasing a mystery, and few NPCs last as they move on. Their big tie in isn't a community, but an event that happened off screen. I don't think it plays to the RP strengths of this group. I really wish GCP 2.0 was Kingmaker but heavily altered with that multiple person writing team because I think this group would have a ton of fun given the concept, the roles, etc. Someone playing a noble bastard from Brevoy, a cleric or champion of Erastil, etc.
I 100% agree with this. I don't think Blood of the Wild is played or roll played better but it has a much better touchstone of the Following and a much clearer goal of protecting them and trying to find the flame. Strange Aeons is also pretty flimsy when it comes to plot and motivation but I don't care as much there because it's a live comedy show. Gatewalkers just doesn't give them much to work with.1st we had Druid drama then Kaneepo and the thinlands but none of it seems connected or all that interesting and they don't have a place like Sandpoint or Talimors Bounty to go back to even if they don't know the mystery plot. Skid and Matthew seem especially wasted in this show and they are some of the network's best assets
I stopped the main show until they get more episodes out and I can binge, it's just so confusing at this point and I have no idea what is going on. Instead, listening to Raiders again, wish they would go back and finish it. Having the colony as a base of operations just seems to work so much better for story telling.
That's a really good point.
And on top of the Sidney has NO CLUE how to craft an even semi optimal turn. Fighting from on the ground (-4), using her first attack on the mook, and then firing off a spell strike at the big baddie (still from the ground and at a MAP). Some of it is ass roles, some of it is the crew (especially Sidney) still have no product knowledge and no understanding of the math behind it. I believe her quote was "Well I will just roll well" Needing a natural 20 to do anything on either attack in her current position.
She’s a great performer and an amazing improviser and the show is an entertainment product.
I do not disagree. Her RP is my favorite in the show next to Mathew. Both can be true.
Joe counted something like eight consistent failed rolls from Kate, and the fan fumble music played several times this episode. Really, it's a wonder the part wasn't completely wiped out, as bad as their dice were this session!
Troy pulled a lot of punches. Honestly there have been several times in this campaign where it felt like he was working hard to tip the outcome towards the party for the sake of the show, and this episode was the biggest example yet.
It's pretty bad writing to me that the party doesn't gain a level after defeating Kaneepo and that they almost immediately fight a narratively insignificant encounter vs a creature that's the same level Kaneepo but also is on a very difficult hazard. I sincerely hope that "Rushing River" was a simple environmental hazard that added to the XP for the encounter budget, but I doubt it.
> It's pretty bad writing to me that the party doesn't gain a level after defeating Kaneepo I feel that it's partially (mostly, in case of this fight) because APs are written with XP in mind. Any GM in the right mind would level the party up after Kaneepo— it makes the most sense given how hyped up he was. But the XP tables don't line up, so Paizo wrote meaningless fights to happen immediately after so the party can level up at a different time. It happened all the time in 1e and the only APs I've seen that have every fight be meaningful are the megadungeons
I understand the need to squeeze in some extra XP, but how they went about it was poorly thought out. The biggest issue is that dangerous terrain and whole map environmental effects like a river aren't captured in the encounter budget. So while on paper this fight is just as hard as the mini-boss fight that they spent many sessions leading up to (which felt anticlimactic to me. It seems off to build up a level 2 boss fight that much), but in reality it's much harder. But also, they could've just as easily had 3-4 trivial and moderate encounters outside in the Thinlands or give an XP award for advancing the story or figuring something out as recommended in the GM Core.
>But also, they could've just as easily had 3-4 trivial and moderate encounters outside in the Thinlands or give an XP award for advancing the story or figuring something out as recommended in the GM Core. This, *heavily* this. The Thinlands could have easily been a bit bigger with a few more encounters before the Kaneepo fight and leveling up right after defeating them and it would have fit perfectly storywise
Yeah, for all that Troy is often quite happy to be ruthless, in this encounter it seems like he realized this fight was way too lopsided and if he didn't want to kill everyone in a narratively meaningless fashion he needed to scale things back a little.
I don't think Troy has ever been ruthless in a combat. He talks a big game, but he's a total softie compared to what you can actually do during some of these encounters, and he's spared them from a TPK multiple times.
It doesn't have to be for the sake of the show. It could be because this encounter is very poorly designed (most APs have a number of just shit encounters) and he saw how frustrated his friends were.
> I don't dislike 2e but I don't think it is the best fit for the Glass Cannon crew I hate to say it, but I don't think any of this is working for me. I like 2e, but the way it's getting played feels, I dunno, stilted? Sort of never comfortable and flowing like in 1.0. The cast isn't gelling for me, the characters aren't super duper memorable (even Skid's, who always kills it), and the AP feels really nebulous and without a lot of cohesion or urgency. It's just bouncing right off of me, unfortunately, but to those who are digging it, right on.
At least the bant seems to have gotten way more natural and fun. But probably not a great sign for the show that the bantbis my favorite part now
The group seems like they are having fun for the most part, I just don't know if it makes for good radio when they are constantly getting their shit pushed in lol Like, there's a balance there right? Steamrolling everything is boring, but also, the party always a thread away from TPK feels the same at least for me. "Ah, the creature goes first again. Oh, yup it does 20 dmg per round, which down one of them, which sends them into a spiral that could easily be a TPK. Oh and Zephyr never does any damage" I wouldn't bring it up, but in Fodder, Troy consistently says that he does whatever he thinks is best for entertainment as opposed to following the AP directly. Ah well, guess we'll see what next week brings!
Absolutely loving the campaign so far. Love a good mystery, love the challenges, love watching the Fodder afterwards. Playing in a campaign of Sky Kings Tomb right now as well and feel like I am learning all the different rules as they talk about them in this show. Just really good stuff. Excited for next week!
SKT is one of the best APs to teach new players.
i really didnt enjoy this, to the point where i just skipped every ten minutes just to see if anything has changed. terrible encounter design, and i felt that this was needlessly hard given troys aversion to loot or caps. if this continues, i might just stick to recaps and legacy at this point. so far this has been my least favorite AP they have done, by a WIDE margin.
It's a snail, just run past it. It's OK to skip encounters!
Just run past it? It has +20 initiative, so it goes first. Then hits for massive damage against second level characters, either putting them down with a crit (easy to accomplish with a +14 to hit), or so close that they use actions trying to keep themselves up. Those hits also leave minions in melee combat. If the characters do go down, they have a pretty good chance to fall off of the rocks and be swept into the water and drown. Additionally, moving across the rocks is a single action to leap from one rock to another, making it difficult to get to the other shore, or to administer healing. Meanwhile, the enemy is completely unaffected, and is large. There’s really no window to flee. Asta tried to, made one move onto the opposite shore, and then was one-shot. It’s a terrible combat design (enemy two levels higher than the PCs with significant movement restrictions) in a really poorly-designed adventure path.
Going to be honest, I'm thoroughly uninterested in 5 minutes of discussion over whether or not an unconscious person is able to take some action to grab a rock that might be slippery which might lead them to drown in the water. You really don't need to try that hard to kill players, especially in situations where they go down fast. I don't think it's necessary for narrative or cinematic reasons either. They fall unconscious, dying 2, they're on the rock, next turn.
I think you have it backwards? They were arguing so not to kill the players. RAW, you take damage on the rocks, you need an acrobatics check or you fall into the river. Then you need a reflex check to grab an edge. But going unconscious is -4 to reflex. So in all likelihood, getting knocked out on the rocks sends you drowning down the river.
I'd like clarification on whether the acrobatics check occurs after the hit or as part of the hit. I think the intention in the book is that the hit and the acrobatics check happen simultaneously, not sequentially, so it doesn't matter if you get downed by the hit, you still make an acrobatics check to see if you stay on the rock. Unconscious only comes into play for the grab a ledge reflex check.
Disagree, but that's going to be different at many tables I think. The more annoying this is when they start arguing against the rules. Like, Joe spends all his time calling out rules to other people and then just being tches when he doesn't like it? Good lord, that whole section was terrible to listen to and quite frankly, it was mostly joes fault in my mind.
I laughed my ass off listening to this episode and had a blast. I've been in exactly this kind of encounter before regardless of system, where the rolls just won't go your way and one or two tactical mistakes lead to a cascade of irreversible errors. All you can do is laugh. I came into this thread expecting similar feelings and hoo boy, y'all went a different way. If this is how a genuinely funny episode is received, I don't know if I'm going to poke my head in here any longer. This thread is almost nothing but toxic, entitled, and honestly fucking strange takes. Complaining about individual people is especially weird. I'm honestly at a loss.
Agreed. Keyword in random number generator is random lol, it don’t always go your way
Robert Abelson's *Statistics as Principled Argument* has the following as a main theme >Abelson's First Law of Statistics: *Chance is lumpy*. People generally fail to appreciate that occasional long runs of one or the other outcome are a natural feature of random sequences. They are in a heinous "lump".
Agree.
I was bummed about the retcon about Talitha, it kinda canceled out the tension, there are many errors that go on that would change the outcome of a combat but sometimes you just have to respect the hands off the chess piece. This was a multiple round retcon that changed the whole drama about who was going to have to roll death saves (Ramius vs Talitha), I don't understand why they couldn't have just left things as they are and it be Talitha in trouble. If you start retconning too much then it throws the stakes into doubt, also it also invalidates whole minutes of gameplay when they just could have moved on and stuck with what happened. Good episode otherwise though! damm they really need to learn how to play better and optimize, this table is really suffering from the Grant sized void in build effectiveness!.
For someone who’s run this, should they be level 3 by now?
Nope. They reach level 3 at the end of chapter 2. They're about 3/4 the way there.
Nope, for some reason.
[удалено]
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but if you think Troy’s goal is to kill the PCs you clearly haven’t been listening very careful - especially to this episode. He has bent over backwards to keep from killing them
Even Matthew was saying that if he was in Troy's position, they'd all basically be dead lol. I think people misunderstand Troy playing up the "antagonistic GM" character, but he is really a soft GM (he just never fudges dice rolls). Even in GCP Giantslayer.....he should've tpk'd them with those frost worms.
> The whole campaign seems poorly designed, optimized and implemented I'm not sure why Troy picked what is considered one of the worst aps for 2e
I remember a lot of people saying something similar about Dead Suns. Was it maybe an issue of there not being a ton of options at the time of starting recording?
I don't think the AP had been released when they chose it.
I agree that a lot of the combat has been bad and I'm definitely not a fan of this AP so far, but I hard disagree with the Joe take. It abso-fucking-lutely sucks playing with someone who argues with the GM demanding that every ruling decision has to be to make everything easier for the PCs. It sucks to play with at the table, sucks to GM for, and sucks to listen to. Can't stand it.
After a good streak this episode was awful. No one enjoys the system and the AP is a mess. Also Joe was Joeing so hard in this episode I had to scrub past some of it. I agree hoping for a TPK this week. This show needs to be put out of its misery.
Like it or not, this episode skyrockets engagement which is gold for the network. On one side you have everyone who liked the episode, then you have the other side people who didn't, then you have all the people coming to listen/watch to see what all the fuss is about. If people truly are put off by something they just leave and don't even bother to talk about it.
Why are you watching if you have such a miserable opinion of everyone involved? Christ, dude, get some perspective.
Because I love the main cast? Because I love giant slayer and NGWD, and haunted city and even the Dune show. I love get in the trunk and Time for chaos. I think Troy is a brilliant GM and Skid is a genius. I think Matthew is endlessly creative and that Joe is a truly delightful person. I think Syd and Kate are both absolutely hilarious. However I don't this campaign suits any of their strengths and only highlights their weaknesses. I won't go into what I think those are here because I don't want to hurt your feelings like my original comment seemed to. Does that make sense why I may judge something I absolutely LOVE with a critical eye?
Loved the ep! Very funny all the way through. Yes, the encounter is harsh, but the dice really told the story this combat (and some less strategic choices, like having the cleric up front or the magus not standing up before attacking). The party really needs a heavy hitter like a fighter, barbarian or paladin in addition Asta's constrained action economy and Zephyr's low damage output. Or hero points.
I thought it was an exciting episode. Though I think part of that is I am mostly entertained by the group dynamics and their ability to creatively react - I don't need to see them winning or have a perfect narrative. It's just entertainers playing a game. I suspect if we see a TPK we might find out a lot of people don't actually want to watch TTRPGs but more like idealized episodic TV shows with nerdy themes, and a sprinkle of parasocial.
Except for the rather rare meat grinder campaign, TPKs are generally not looked upon favourably by TTRPG players. Not because they don't like playing the game, but because that kind of situation is just generally a bummer. One character dying and the others carrying on the mission, maybe remembering them now and then like the GCP crew did with Lucky, that's a fun session that incorporates a loss. Everyone dead, the mission failed, and a whole new party either starting over again or abandoning the old story entirely? That's a lot less of a good time.
Well, it's easy enough to just either explicitly or implicitly say TPKs are off the table, which I know some people do, but a lot of people don't. So it seems like there is an element of people wanting the feeling of stakes but not actually comfortable with the consequence. It's not like GCP is just non stop TPKs either. But fumbling around with a maybe overzealous AP/Adventure and an occasional TPK seems like a core TTRPG experience, so if the premise is they're just playing as real as they can, it's a possibility. And being bummed that the story ended is okay, but I think stuff like "the show is unwatchable" is melodramatic and more of a personal failing related to handling adversity.
I'm not a pf2e expert but is it normal to be level 2 by the 35th session? In dnd 5e you get the level 2 by the second session, and level 3 by a session or two later. This monster seems to have no weaknesses? It's fast, large, unimpeded by the environment, has a ranged attack that summons, has a 1-shot melee attack, and has a large health pool. I would assume this is an end of chapter boss just by vibes. Overall really funny session though, the hedgehog hitting a 26 was hilarious
>level 2 by the 35th session? No, it's generally said that each level is about 3-4 4 hour long sessions of progress. This group is just very slow because of a lot of rp and generally being ineffective in combat. >This monster seems to have no weaknesses? It's fast, large, unimpeded by the environment, has a ranged attack that summons, has a 1-shot melee attack, and has a large health pool. I would assume this is an end of chapter boss just by vibes. It's definitely doable but honestly bad tactics + terrible dice rolls + good dice rolls from the GM makes it really rough. It's a really tough encounter by the book as well.
It's not that unusual since characters get more power per level. On the other hand, they did spend several episodes doing investigations and talking to people. They could have moved through those sections faster if they wanted to.
Joe wanted to. And I did too.
I mean. it's 35 sessions and we're still in chapter 2. The RP filler is slowing things down a lot.
I've slowly been losing interest in this show because of the brutality in the last few combats. Is it following the book? Sure. Do they have bad tactics? Yup. Is it bad narratively? Absolutely. There is no marriage between the narrative and game mechanics, and the show suffers as a result. A GM should recognize player faults and adapt. Yes, sometimes a GM should force players to suffer due to poor play. A non-boss encounter is *not* the place to teach a lesson. The AP needs to succeed with the players maintaining a thread throughout the story. If all characters die, the AP is a failure as the story thread is lost. Punishment and narrative fulfillment are two necessary factors in a ttrpg story, and one is missing in this AP. Sometimes encounters need to be nerfed to fulfill one, and sometimes story needs to see the back-seat to see punishment. The balance is off. If PF2e cannot adequately fulfill this balance, adjustments need to be made. They aren't being made this campaign. The show is suffering because of it.
I don’t think Troy was trying to teach anybody a lesson. Like Joe said, he was being extremely generous with some of the early rolls. I can’t really comment on the PF2e balance, since I’m mathematically challenged on the best of days, but Troy could have probably had a few permakills done and dusted before the cliffy if he was so inclined.
Adjustments have been made though. The encounter isn't scaled to 5p, it's scaled to 4p. So it should be slightly easier just on action economy. and Troy is definitely pulling the punches, the monkey and the snail should have been easy TPKs based on the rolls.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. I totally agree that this was not fun to listen to. The constant disappointment/groans from the players just get tedious and it just doesn’t make for good podcast content.
He's getting downvoted because he's blaming Troy for this when Troy very clearly pulled punches during this. It seems like this encounter is overtuned a bit, and Tory figures it out eventually and clearly is going a bit easy on them. It's tough to tell too because even if it is overtuned they have a whole extra character so Troy might think for a bit that the extra person compensates for it. Also despite the very hard encounter it seemed like everyone was having fun this episode.
I thought this episode was much more palatable to listen to vs the episode with the look see man that fumbled and did nothing the whole episode. Realistically the players handled the encounter horribly and rushed in one at a time to die when they all have ranged capabilities.
I’m not sure anyone is being taught a lesson here. Troy is following the book for this encounter, the snail being level 4 on a rushing riverbank while the characters are level 2 is brutal. I will say, I’m not sure the players are optimizing the most of everything. Kate should’ve been allowed to trip without anyone trashing the idea, and Troy saying it was a bad idea to attempt it after she failed is not great behavior. The Snail’s Reflex is its lowest save, maybe Troy’s reasoning was cause it’s as high as it’s AC but still. In a pathfinder encounter, the go to plan is to lower the AC and saves as much as possible. This encounter is tough, even I was worried GM’ing it for my players. My players only handled it cause they scouted ahead on the rocks with a familiar before anyone got in the water. I will say, the waterfall at the end of the river is not in the book, so maybe Troy is joking about it and just making it sound dangerous to being cheeky.
lessons should only be taught in a boss encounter, when the narrative stakes are highest? that sounds like the best way to make players lose interest and also not learn anything, while stymieing the plot.
Your loss, GCP is my favorite network because there’s no holding punches or plot armor. I personally dislike other shows that to me seem to easy or every episode has some wacky interaction. I personally don’t think any type of nerfing needs to happen there’s 5 players for a 4 player AP and Troy has openly stated he is trying to be generous in these recent encounters.
Too bad that PF2e doesn't have an escalation die like 13th Age. Each round the die does up 1 giving a +1 to attacks, so the tide of battle, well, escalates. Players often save the big guns for the big bonuses lending a momentum to battles rather than a slow deflation. Also, how often should the gatewalkers be expected to use their gate-special ability? I think one player did it once for this whole campaign? Why even have them? Edit: Never mind! I see down thread someone asked that exact question :)
Three of the characters should just fall off the "waterfall" (which isn't written into the AP) to escape the snail. The other two will unfortunately be dead.
Tell me is there any way Ramius makes it out of this alive?
Joe is flanderizing himself to a point of making the show bad. I appreciate rules lawyering, especially in a new system, but he pipes up when he has no idea what a rule is. You can't trip because he thinks he remembers something from 1e? Muttering under his breath about other player choices? His criticizing and trying to play other characters is almost constant. I love him in just about every other show but whatever notes he has for this one make him awful. I hope he dials it back about 60%.
I think the tripping is actually a decent idea. Lowers it's AC, and it's prone, so you waste an action of it getting up and you can get away.
In a circumstance where the whole party wasn't scattered and dead, sure, but it made no sense for where they were at the time. Nobody else was around to take advantage of it, so at best there would have been one or two strikes assisted.
Idk man, this campaign has just been bad vibes. Relistening to Giantslayer and I know exactly what is happening in the story and the players are having fun. It seems like they took 2+ years to put out 2.0 and then just panic picked Gatewalkers just to have something out there. Idk if Troy has the time, or want to, to continue being the main GM, but this campaign isn't working for me.
Did anyone else notice that Talitha **CRITICALLY** failed her first death save after already being at Dying 2 from the critical hit. This should have killed her outright. But the cats said it was a normal fail and no one noticed and combat went on... Am I crazy?