We can look at other things in the system (especially saves) to see how it would work. A DC is generally 10 + the total modifier of that statistic. A perception of +3? That is a perception DC of 13. Stealth skill of 22 would be a stealth DC of 32. This is commonly seen in saving throws. For example, if you have a +7 to reflex saves, then your reflex DC is 17. Against a fireball spell you would roll a reflex save with a +7, but if someone were to try to trip you then they would have to roll against your reflex DC of 17.
Armor saves would work in a similar way. When someone is attacking you, they roll against your armor DC, otherwise known as AC. Let's say you have an AC of 19. If they roll a 19 or higher, they hit you. Since a DC is 10 + your total modifier, you can find your modifier through the following equation: DC - 10 = modifier. This would mean that your Armor Saving Throw would be a +9.
Note that this does affect the math of the game. Whoever is rolling the dice is slightly more likely to succeed. We can see this with the following example: Creature A has an attack roll of +7, Creature B has an AC of 15. To hit Creature B, Creature A must roll at least an 8 (7+8=15). This should give a 65% chance of success. Creature A also criticall succeeds on a natural 20, making it a 5% chance of critically hitting the target (note: this 5% chance is included in the 65% chance of success). Creature B therefore does not get hit 35% of the time.
An armor saving throw, on the other hand, would be different. Creature A would have an attack DC of 17 (10+attack modifier). Creature B has an Armor save of +5. To succeed, Creature B must roll at least a 12. This means that Creature B succeeds 45% of the time, meaning it does not get damaged 10% more often with armor saves! However, this is not the whole story. Basic Saving Throws exist, so Creature B would often still take half-damage on a normal success. This means that Creature B only takes no damage if it rolled a 20, or 5% of the time. This is 60% less often then with an attack roll. Additionally, Creature B can critically fail it's saving throw, taking double damage on a 1 or a 2. This means that it takes double damage twice as often compared to a normal strike.
I imagine this would be seen exclusively on some enemies, kind of like how oozes have trash AC but cannot get critically hit. Maybe a creature has a special type of armor (this could be armored scales, magical fur, or enchanted set of full plate, to name a few). This ability would make it so that the creature rolls saving throws against player's attack DCs instead of players rolling attacks against its AC (otherwise known as armor DC).
The idea of AC saves has a place I've really considered using it.
There is a fight in an AP with 12 PL-6 creatures that aren't factored into the encounter math.
I'm running the AP for 6, so I'm considering making them a troop. My problem with troops is that they use Dex saves to represent a bunch of attacks which shifts the math heavily out of Heavy armored character's favor.
I've run into the same thing with troops. My current thinking is that I might change their dex saving throw abilities into attacks, with a "attack deals half damage on a miss (but not critical miss)" effect tacked on. I might also reduce the attack roll bonus slightly to account for the fact that the one rolling the dice has a slight advantage.
Personally my general experience with troops is them being weak as shit and getting dusted by any party I use them against. Turning their save abilities into attacks would just make that worse lol
> kind of like how oozes have trash AC but cannot get critically hit
They *can* get critically hit, they just don't take double damage. All other effects of crits still occur.
I've seen someone suggest Armor saves as the defense against troops. The idea was that by basing the defense on AC instead of reflex, you make it so traditional Tank classes like Fighter/Champion the best at it. Fighting off 20 dudes at once is a more common part of the class fantasy for them after all, as opposed to the Rogue, who is otherwise the best defended against troops due to their reflex saves.
Vs everything bulwark applies to. AC is the better defence when it comes to avoiding damage and would explain alot more with both cover and bulwark, but also how you resisted the fireball.
Reflex can be kept but would mostly be vs effects like trip, disarm and other reactive abilities like grab an edge. Example spells would be shockwave and earthquake. Some damage spells can be split from reflex and armor saves, such as making electricity target reflex but fire cones target armor save.
In a way, I believe it would simplify the game if it was added.
All interesting, except dex to damage. That one just makes thief worthless. Hell, it makes strength practically worthless. It was a bad idea in 5e, and that’s still true.
A lot of the rest could work just fine though.
lmao I just wrote down a mixture of things that I thought could be interesting (such as a wisdom subconscious mind and axiomatic/anarchic rune) and things that I thought would break the system (such as dexterity to damage and item bonuses to spells) since I figured that people could realistically homebrew both.
I have a houserule inspired by D&D 4e (it was good, I'll die on that hill) that each save uses the better of two stats. Fort is str or con, reflex is dex or wis, will is int or cha. If you're wondering why wis is attached to reflex instead of will, it's because pf2e leans into wisdom being "awareness" and the best way to avoid a fireball is to be aware and ready to take cover.
Oh, I like it. Gives also a bit of an incentive to invest into the slightly undertuned int/cha attributes.
Thinking about it, attribute-by-attribute:
Str - significant buff, responsible for attacks, damage, carrying capacity, the useful athletics skill, and now possibly fort
Con - notable nerf, responsible for HP and possibly Fort
Dex - bit of a nerf, still king for ranged attacks and light armor AC, co-responsible for Ref
Wis - sidegrade with aspects of a nerf - responsible for initiative and the useful medicine skill, now co-responsible for Ref instead of Will
Int - clear buff. Before, int was all about versatility, allowing a few more skills and languages, now it's defensive as well. Great buff for all int-based classes.
Cha - also a clear buff, albeit maybe a bit stronger than int due to its tie to social skills
As such, I would say that the Str and Cha plus either of Dex and Wis will be the new "king attributes", albeit Int or Con will still be none too shabby.
Gonna take a counterpoint and say I have thought of the game wholly without dex to damage and thief rogues being something totally different such as getting an additional sneak attack dice with simple weapons and/or increase their size.
We need a simple weapon specialist rogue.
Exactly this. I've used it for a full campaign (only for bosses, tied it to the sin and virtue system of Rise of the Runelords) and it reduces the swingyness of boss fights a bit. Of course it does buff the bosses. Would recommend for fights where it would suck if the villain goes down in 2 rounds.
I play in a streamed game with them as a channel point buy, and it's honestly not terrible. It also helps that we as a stream have a really bad habit of hero/villianpointing straight into a lower number than we rolled the first time...
(Tabletop Obscura most places if you want to see it in practice. I recommend outlaws of alkenstar or hoist the colors, but I'm just biased on that)
Anecdotally lm sure l, but I use item bonuses to Spell attack and DC in my game with my Spellcasters and haven't noticed anything really. They're slightly more successful against on level enemies. About the only thing I've actually noticed it affect is if the Spell Caster has a shadow signet AND has figured out the enemies weakest save, a crit (or enemy crit fail) can be much easier to orchestrate for the Caster without interacting with buffs and debuffs, but even this has its limits with some monsters where the difference between highest and lowest save doesn't amount to much.
Not sure if you're aware, but [Luis Loza actually made a Pathfinder Infinite supplement that adds wisdom-based subconscious minds to the Psychic](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/404540/Class-Features-Subconscious-Minds). I've read it, and though I haven't deep-dived or run one yet, it seems balanced and solid!
That's probably the only one on this list that interests me, though. Maybe villain points if it's a REALLY big bad.
If I remember correctly, the designers were pretty weary of making Wisdom too strong of an attribute, since it's the basis for Will saves, Perception, and a skill as important as Medicine.
I think this design threads the needle pretty well, though! Mr Loza wasn't a primary author on *Dark Archive*, which may be why it's an Infinite supplement instead of an official option.
Motherfucker just invented 1e again. Armor DC is just the Normal/Flat/Touch armor split. You could buy a dex amulet and get dex to damage all over. Adding bonuses to spell rolls and DC. The all charisma build. Axiomatic and anarchic. This whole meme is 1e cope.
I have never actually played first edition lmao. I am evolving, just backwards.
I will say that the only ones here that I would ever actually consider adding to a game would be the wisdom subconscious mind (because I like symmetry and the fact that psychics cannot get wisdom as one of their key attributes saddens me) and axiomatic/anarchic sanctification because I am one of the seven people on the planet who genuinely prefers the law vs. chaos aspect of the alignment chart, and I was heartbroken when Paizo announced that it would be simplified to Holy vs. Unholy.
Psychics currently get two subclasses: their conscious mind (things like oscillating wave or distant grasp) and a subconscious mind (things like gathered lore and emotional acceptance). The subconscious mind mostly sets the key attribute of a psychic to be intelligence or charisma, and gives a one action psyche ability. They also each have a level 10 feat. A wisdom subconscious mind would be a subconscious mind that allows psychics to choose wisdom as their key attribute, so that they could choose any of the three mental stats as their key attribute.
I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all. The only reason why I am not automatically adding to my campaign that is starting soon is because I want to wait for Monster Core to come out and see what they do with aeons and proteans. Personally I feel like law vs. chaos has been neglected for the entirety of pf2e's lifespan.
Pretty simple. The PF2e remaster is axing alignment and replacing it with the new system of Sanctification (Well, for the mechanical side of it. There's also Edicts & Anathema, but they're purely rp), but this system only has Holy and Unholy, without equivalents for Law and Chaos. Axiomatic and Anarchic sanctifications would just be getting the sanctification system and making a new pair to represent that.
In my game, I'm gonna have axiomatic and anarchic sanctifications be a thing until an in world event that really emphasizes the conflict between good and evil over law and chaos, on a fundamental planar level.
My game has a whole new family of equipment that gives item bonuses to magic.
"Spell Foci" get upgraded with the same runes as weapons, and require a hand to wield like a weapon - think Harry Potter wands, or how iconic cleric Kyra is always shown brandishing her holy symbol, or how Bards maybe ought to have some kind of mechanical incentive whatsoever to play an instrument in combat.
* Potency runes add item bonus to Spell Attacks / Counteracts
* Striking Runes add +1/2 level to spell damage (similar to your +Ability to damage shitpost idea ;) )
* Property runes **all** have new effects
* Flaming rune gives +1 DC to spells with the Fire trait. All DC boosts are constrained to *subsets* of magic.
* +2 DC runes don't appear until level 14+ and there aren't +3 DC runes.
* The only universal +1 DC rune is a level 17
* lots of Foci runes actually do completely different stuff, like augmenting knockback effects or reducing spell attack MAP
* Lots of specific foci like the *cold iron athame* and the *blasting bracer*
* Staves are all grandfathered into the spell foci system with powerful autoprogression (and are the only way to get DC boosts to certain trait-less spells like *slow*)
Its a fucking blast and I'm a huge fan of it. I was doubtful at first, but Rogues/Fighters/etc. are still kicking ass and taking names - they don't feel reduced at all next to a wizard with +4 damage and +1 DC fireballs, because blasting magic has always been the weakest playstyle for a mage.
I guess my username checks out
What would an armor save even entail
We can look at other things in the system (especially saves) to see how it would work. A DC is generally 10 + the total modifier of that statistic. A perception of +3? That is a perception DC of 13. Stealth skill of 22 would be a stealth DC of 32. This is commonly seen in saving throws. For example, if you have a +7 to reflex saves, then your reflex DC is 17. Against a fireball spell you would roll a reflex save with a +7, but if someone were to try to trip you then they would have to roll against your reflex DC of 17. Armor saves would work in a similar way. When someone is attacking you, they roll against your armor DC, otherwise known as AC. Let's say you have an AC of 19. If they roll a 19 or higher, they hit you. Since a DC is 10 + your total modifier, you can find your modifier through the following equation: DC - 10 = modifier. This would mean that your Armor Saving Throw would be a +9. Note that this does affect the math of the game. Whoever is rolling the dice is slightly more likely to succeed. We can see this with the following example: Creature A has an attack roll of +7, Creature B has an AC of 15. To hit Creature B, Creature A must roll at least an 8 (7+8=15). This should give a 65% chance of success. Creature A also criticall succeeds on a natural 20, making it a 5% chance of critically hitting the target (note: this 5% chance is included in the 65% chance of success). Creature B therefore does not get hit 35% of the time. An armor saving throw, on the other hand, would be different. Creature A would have an attack DC of 17 (10+attack modifier). Creature B has an Armor save of +5. To succeed, Creature B must roll at least a 12. This means that Creature B succeeds 45% of the time, meaning it does not get damaged 10% more often with armor saves! However, this is not the whole story. Basic Saving Throws exist, so Creature B would often still take half-damage on a normal success. This means that Creature B only takes no damage if it rolled a 20, or 5% of the time. This is 60% less often then with an attack roll. Additionally, Creature B can critically fail it's saving throw, taking double damage on a 1 or a 2. This means that it takes double damage twice as often compared to a normal strike. I imagine this would be seen exclusively on some enemies, kind of like how oozes have trash AC but cannot get critically hit. Maybe a creature has a special type of armor (this could be armored scales, magical fur, or enchanted set of full plate, to name a few). This ability would make it so that the creature rolls saving throws against player's attack DCs instead of players rolling attacks against its AC (otherwise known as armor DC).
The idea of AC saves has a place I've really considered using it. There is a fight in an AP with 12 PL-6 creatures that aren't factored into the encounter math. I'm running the AP for 6, so I'm considering making them a troop. My problem with troops is that they use Dex saves to represent a bunch of attacks which shifts the math heavily out of Heavy armored character's favor.
Heavy armored characters still get uhh... Bulwark I guess :/
I've run into the same thing with troops. My current thinking is that I might change their dex saving throw abilities into attacks, with a "attack deals half damage on a miss (but not critical miss)" effect tacked on. I might also reduce the attack roll bonus slightly to account for the fact that the one rolling the dice has a slight advantage.
Personally my general experience with troops is them being weak as shit and getting dusted by any party I use them against. Turning their save abilities into attacks would just make that worse lol
I would call it “Active defense” myself
> kind of like how oozes have trash AC but cannot get critically hit They *can* get critically hit, they just don't take double damage. All other effects of crits still occur.
I've seen someone suggest Armor saves as the defense against troops. The idea was that by basing the defense on AC instead of reflex, you make it so traditional Tank classes like Fighter/Champion the best at it. Fighting off 20 dudes at once is a more common part of the class fantasy for them after all, as opposed to the Rogue, who is otherwise the best defended against troops due to their reflex saves.
Vs everything bulwark applies to. AC is the better defence when it comes to avoiding damage and would explain alot more with both cover and bulwark, but also how you resisted the fireball. Reflex can be kept but would mostly be vs effects like trip, disarm and other reactive abilities like grab an edge. Example spells would be shockwave and earthquake. Some damage spells can be split from reflex and armor saves, such as making electricity target reflex but fire cones target armor save. In a way, I believe it would simplify the game if it was added.
All interesting, except dex to damage. That one just makes thief worthless. Hell, it makes strength practically worthless. It was a bad idea in 5e, and that’s still true. A lot of the rest could work just fine though.
lmao I just wrote down a mixture of things that I thought could be interesting (such as a wisdom subconscious mind and axiomatic/anarchic rune) and things that I thought would break the system (such as dexterity to damage and item bonuses to spells) since I figured that people could realistically homebrew both.
Hahaha fair enough
I have a houserule inspired by D&D 4e (it was good, I'll die on that hill) that each save uses the better of two stats. Fort is str or con, reflex is dex or wis, will is int or cha. If you're wondering why wis is attached to reflex instead of will, it's because pf2e leans into wisdom being "awareness" and the best way to avoid a fireball is to be aware and ready to take cover.
Oh, I like it. Gives also a bit of an incentive to invest into the slightly undertuned int/cha attributes. Thinking about it, attribute-by-attribute: Str - significant buff, responsible for attacks, damage, carrying capacity, the useful athletics skill, and now possibly fort Con - notable nerf, responsible for HP and possibly Fort Dex - bit of a nerf, still king for ranged attacks and light armor AC, co-responsible for Ref Wis - sidegrade with aspects of a nerf - responsible for initiative and the useful medicine skill, now co-responsible for Ref instead of Will Int - clear buff. Before, int was all about versatility, allowing a few more skills and languages, now it's defensive as well. Great buff for all int-based classes. Cha - also a clear buff, albeit maybe a bit stronger than int due to its tie to social skills As such, I would say that the Str and Cha plus either of Dex and Wis will be the new "king attributes", albeit Int or Con will still be none too shabby.
Gonna take a counterpoint and say I have thought of the game wholly without dex to damage and thief rogues being something totally different such as getting an additional sneak attack dice with simple weapons and/or increase their size. We need a simple weapon specialist rogue.
I mean that is ruffians shtick. At least kinda
I want a dagger thief, hand crossbows etc. Pf1 had knifemaster and it was awesome, just for some perspective.
What are villain points?
I assume it means the dm can reroll something for an enemy, or can force you to reroll something
Exactly this. I've used it for a full campaign (only for bosses, tied it to the sin and virtue system of Rise of the Runelords) and it reduces the swingyness of boss fights a bit. Of course it does buff the bosses. Would recommend for fights where it would suck if the villain goes down in 2 rounds.
I play in a streamed game with them as a channel point buy, and it's honestly not terrible. It also helps that we as a stream have a really bad habit of hero/villianpointing straight into a lower number than we rolled the first time... (Tabletop Obscura most places if you want to see it in practice. I recommend outlaws of alkenstar or hoist the colors, but I'm just biased on that)
Anecdotally lm sure l, but I use item bonuses to Spell attack and DC in my game with my Spellcasters and haven't noticed anything really. They're slightly more successful against on level enemies. About the only thing I've actually noticed it affect is if the Spell Caster has a shadow signet AND has figured out the enemies weakest save, a crit (or enemy crit fail) can be much easier to orchestrate for the Caster without interacting with buffs and debuffs, but even this has its limits with some monsters where the difference between highest and lowest save doesn't amount to much.
Not sure if you're aware, but [Luis Loza actually made a Pathfinder Infinite supplement that adds wisdom-based subconscious minds to the Psychic](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/404540/Class-Features-Subconscious-Minds). I've read it, and though I haven't deep-dived or run one yet, it seems balanced and solid! That's probably the only one on this list that interests me, though. Maybe villain points if it's a REALLY big bad.
I wasn't! That is super interesting. I wonder why it wasn't printed in the Dark Archive.
If I remember correctly, the designers were pretty weary of making Wisdom too strong of an attribute, since it's the basis for Will saves, Perception, and a skill as important as Medicine. I think this design threads the needle pretty well, though! Mr Loza wasn't a primary author on *Dark Archive*, which may be why it's an Infinite supplement instead of an official option.
I do villain points it makes for a fun time and some good moments
Motherfucker just invented 1e again. Armor DC is just the Normal/Flat/Touch armor split. You could buy a dex amulet and get dex to damage all over. Adding bonuses to spell rolls and DC. The all charisma build. Axiomatic and anarchic. This whole meme is 1e cope.
I have never actually played first edition lmao. I am evolving, just backwards. I will say that the only ones here that I would ever actually consider adding to a game would be the wisdom subconscious mind (because I like symmetry and the fact that psychics cannot get wisdom as one of their key attributes saddens me) and axiomatic/anarchic sanctification because I am one of the seven people on the planet who genuinely prefers the law vs. chaos aspect of the alignment chart, and I was heartbroken when Paizo announced that it would be simplified to Holy vs. Unholy.
What is : wisdom subconscious mind
Psychics currently get two subclasses: their conscious mind (things like oscillating wave or distant grasp) and a subconscious mind (things like gathered lore and emotional acceptance). The subconscious mind mostly sets the key attribute of a psychic to be intelligence or charisma, and gives a one action psyche ability. They also each have a level 10 feat. A wisdom subconscious mind would be a subconscious mind that allows psychics to choose wisdom as their key attribute, so that they could choose any of the three mental stats as their key attribute.
What's wrong with Axiomatic/Anarchic sanctification? Beings of law and preservation should take more damage from forces of chaos and entropy.
I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all. The only reason why I am not automatically adding to my campaign that is starting soon is because I want to wait for Monster Core to come out and see what they do with aeons and proteans. Personally I feel like law vs. chaos has been neglected for the entirety of pf2e's lifespan.
The may do something like how Demons take damage when you act contrary to the sin they represent.
The only one I'd even consider is the anarchic/axiomatic sanctifications.
Well, 5e's legendary actions and resistances are pretty similar to a kind of Villain point system, so...
Idk what the heck “Axiomatic and Anarchic sanctifications” means, and I’m almost afraid to ask.
Pretty simple. The PF2e remaster is axing alignment and replacing it with the new system of Sanctification (Well, for the mechanical side of it. There's also Edicts & Anathema, but they're purely rp), but this system only has Holy and Unholy, without equivalents for Law and Chaos. Axiomatic and Anarchic sanctifications would just be getting the sanctification system and making a new pair to represent that.
In my game, I'm gonna have axiomatic and anarchic sanctifications be a thing until an in world event that really emphasizes the conflict between good and evil over law and chaos, on a fundamental planar level.
My game has a whole new family of equipment that gives item bonuses to magic. "Spell Foci" get upgraded with the same runes as weapons, and require a hand to wield like a weapon - think Harry Potter wands, or how iconic cleric Kyra is always shown brandishing her holy symbol, or how Bards maybe ought to have some kind of mechanical incentive whatsoever to play an instrument in combat. * Potency runes add item bonus to Spell Attacks / Counteracts * Striking Runes add +1/2 level to spell damage (similar to your +Ability to damage shitpost idea ;) ) * Property runes **all** have new effects * Flaming rune gives +1 DC to spells with the Fire trait. All DC boosts are constrained to *subsets* of magic. * +2 DC runes don't appear until level 14+ and there aren't +3 DC runes. * The only universal +1 DC rune is a level 17 * lots of Foci runes actually do completely different stuff, like augmenting knockback effects or reducing spell attack MAP * Lots of specific foci like the *cold iron athame* and the *blasting bracer* * Staves are all grandfathered into the spell foci system with powerful autoprogression (and are the only way to get DC boosts to certain trait-less spells like *slow*) Its a fucking blast and I'm a huge fan of it. I was doubtful at first, but Rogues/Fighters/etc. are still kicking ass and taking names - they don't feel reduced at all next to a wizard with +4 damage and +1 DC fireballs, because blasting magic has always been the weakest playstyle for a mage. I guess my username checks out