I actually love how nitpicky these are, really shows that Pathfinder is an incredibly well written system. You really have to dig deep into the wording to find flaws like this. Any system has flaws, but pf2e's flaws are so much more reasonable than any other system I've come across.
My "favorite" dumb rule is that parrying provokes attacks of opportunity. In the first printing, activating the Parry trait on a weapon to get +1 AC is an Interact action. Interact has the Manipulate trait, and Manipulate actions provoke. So because you are defending yourself, your opponent (if trained) gets to take a free swing. Fortunately this got fixed in the second printing.
*Extremely* dumb when you consider that the whole point of a parry is to guide a strike away without leaving yourself open. Even more so when done by very skilled combatants.
For things that allow a Stride action, I've always ruled that because it says you can "move up to your Speed", this includes other types of movement, such as flying, when a character has a non-land Speed. More specific actions, such as the Fly action are thus iterations of the Stride action and therefore qualify. I admit this interpretation is somewhat liberal, but it seems to make the most sense. As for having to command animal companions to keep them aloft, the minion trait says "if given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to ESCAPE OBVIOUS HARM. If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don’t act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please." I believe this can be interpreted as keeping themselves in flight, since falling to their death seems like 'obvious harm'.
Aid is definitely true. DC 20 is harder at level 1 than any actual DC at that level, which trains players not to help. Later it becomes trivial. With an inspire competence Bard it gets silly because they rapidly critically succeed on aid every time and give out a +3 or +4. Scale it up (with an easy or very easy DC of same level as the check itself as aiding is easier than doing the task) and you'll promote teamwork at every level without trivializing it.
Re: Crit Spec: I think I would probably make it a Fortitude saving throw with Hammers (as I imagine it being similar to shoving) and keep it at Reflex for Flails. Then the weapons have a slightly different niche, too.
I like the idea, but it does make the hammer less effective against "tougher" high-Fortitude creatures. Doesn't seem like it would have the effect you're looking for in play. Theme-wise, personally I like the "this troll is hard to shove, easy to knock over" mechanic to run consistently through the game.
The reflex save is for tripping and it already exist. Getting bludgeon is something else entirely. Here I would put both with Fortitude Save since when you do hit with a bludgeoning weapon you don't shove (hence no reflex) but induce some sort of concussion (head or body). The (critical) hit is so strong that the Fortitude save represents staying "conscious"/"not getting the air knocked out of your lungs" for that fraction of second you might miss that would otherwise sends you to the floor (like in boxing/MMA). So agile opponents will get smacked more often by a critical bludgeon and tough opponent would be more resilient, which represent what would happened in reality.
For Aid, I never require any roll from the aiding person. They are already expending 2 actions and 1 reaction to perform one task. I just give them that +1 bonus and +2 if the aiding person uses 2 actions of prepare aid. It reduces rolling and makes it more viable at low levels where its actually needed Encounter xp I give exactly as you suggested and been doing so since I started. I only needed to look at the charts and as veteran GM I know higher level solo monsters are way tougher than one might think
Thanks so much for mentioning the aid action!! I was under the impression that it was set to a DC of 20 possibly to help make the rules easier to remember, rather than intentionally hard for new characters. Also, the bird wouldn't perilously fall out of the sky, even when it doesn't have its own action yet when un-commanded from feats, because of this line from the minion trait: "If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to *escape obvious harm*."
Thanks for mentioning that quote! I think it saves that part of the problem. I've also seen it come into play when the master is knocked out (I usually let the animal companion defend itself or the master, but with 2 actions only)
"Aid needs to be more powerful at higher levels because it is competing against more-powerful high-level abilities for that action+reaction." I've seen this argument several times here and on Reddit. But I have yet to be convinced what high-level abilities truly make the guaranteed +4 circumstance bonus from Aid necessary to make it desirable. I've only seen 1 put forward: Rogue's Opportune Backstab... which is in danger of never triggering, if the ally doesn't hit without the +4 assistance. Even if high-level abilities comparable to a high-level near-guaranteed +4 to an ally were found, the implementation of assuming a near-guaranteed crit success is crude and has no precedent in PF2e. So I think this argument both (1) underestimates "the power of +4" in PF2e and the importance of foregoing your own action to set up an ally's attack which the situation calls for (you're not all isolated individuals in PF2e, and sometimes you REALLY want X attack to land) and (2) at the low levels underestimates the power of alternate actions that don't require feats, such as Demoralize, Raise Shield, which I think many would agree are almost always better than setting up an Aid at low levels.
Yes. If it was just +1 or +2 for crit, it would have been a smaller sized "problem", but the fact that allows up to +4 (extremely powerful) means that, in my opinion as well, the DC should really be adjusted accordingly to level.
It is not only the shield. Parry, the shield spell and every other ability that give circonstance ac gives this. This also help also to gives other action related to the raise shield.
@@TheAchilles26 It's funny how shields drop off as a result of this. Legit, just using a 1 handed weapon with an open second hand is almost always better past like, level 5. Which is a funny mix of hilarious and depressing.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 it's just depressing. Shields were painfully suboptimal in PF1, but instead of buffing them to fix that, one little buff was mixed with a nasty action economy nerf
I agree with all these ideas. My idea for Disarm was basically: when you get a basic success, the -2 penalty stays until they spend an action to reassert their grip, rather than automatically recovering at the start of their next turn. Like wish prone, it's basically at worst a "spend an action to try and eat up an opponent's action" kinda ordeal. In either case, I'd probably wanna come up with another benefit for Swashbuckler's one trait, however. It's worth remembering as well that NPCs can use all these actions players can, so all ideas go both ways. I think they made it so hard to use because of this, but considering players usually have more action economy than monsters, making disarm eat up actions winds up compensating for the typically higher modifiers monsters have for the same check.
I’m not one who would have complained about the music, but since you asked - yes, it was probably a bit distracting. Maybe loud? Maybe just the choice of a driving beat? I’m not sure. Loved your content, though.
When making the Disarming Flair feat the core way Disarm works, make sure to include the part where Gymnast Swashbucklers gain Panache on a disarm. No reason to take that option away from them, especially when it helps fulfill the classic fencing swashbuckler trope.
If disarming flair was intended to be a differentiator for Swashbucklers then Disarming flair should be adjusted also to fill that role again after giving its default away to all.
@@sylverlokkshinbreaker6090 Agreed. My personal choice here, although it might be unbalancing, would be for Disarming Flair to allow for Acrobatics to be used instead (while still giving panache to a Gymnast, even if they use Acrobatics for it). This gives swashbuckler access to a uniquely good Disarm action among Dexterity-based combatants, and helps them not fall behind on this one thing they're thematically supposed to be good at compared to a Strength Fighter attempting the same action.
When I clicked the video I thought I was going to get some cringe takes where people discard the rules without considering the ramifications. This was well thought out, and I appreciate the video.
The first character I built was a human with the Helpful feature. Brought it to a PFS game (level 1) and tried to Aid someone. Immediately everyone including the GM said, "No, don't!" And that's when I was like, "ah, so I effed up on character creation."
I really don't get why people are so obsessed with following rules strictly in TTRPGs, where is often even stated in the rules that you should often bend them or just make a a call yourself on the spot. If i was your GM, seeing you even invested feats into that, i would have promoted the use of Aid, not hampered it. Maybe try to show this video to your GM 👍
Be mindful that PFS GMs are required to run RAW. (The language of Aid, while giving freedom, requires some justification for departing from DC 20, so I'm sympathetic.)
You mentioned the subreddit being mad at you about the crit specialization one. I have found that the subreddit is... not very good at critically examining PF2e. It seems like any suggestion that the rules might not be perfect is a fast way to land you in hot water. And granted, I mostly run the game RAW as well because the rules DO work as written in like 95%+ of cases. I recently asked on there about Recall Knowledge (which you responded to, which was really cool!) and I got people saying all kinds of weird stuff. Like that RK on it's own in combat was equivalent to a +2-+5 bonus, or that actually you should need two actions (one to Identify and one to get further info on the topic) to get any kind of mechanical info. I think next time I am gonna question the rules I might go to the forums instead.
I've found that this is the case with PF2e players in general for some reason. Whenever i meantion that i run a custom system that uses the best of PF2e and D&D 5e, the prevailing sentiment is usually "why would you change anything, that's stupid, can we ban this Heretic?" Meanwhile, the D&D side tends to be really chill, and incorporates some of my house rules. I wish i was exagerating, it's happened almost every single time...
@@zamba136 To be fair, if your house rules are shit, the pathfinder people are more likely to realize they're bad. DnD players are a lot less discerning when it comes to game balance, obviously. Not saying your rules are shit, just pointing out possible reasons why the two populations might be reacting differently.
@@JD-wu5pf i think it has more to do with D&D communitees having to homebrew vague rules. They are used to fudging a rule or 2 vor fun. But also, PF2e communitees seem to have a certain zealotry about their RAW rules. They complain about a system being broken like crafting, or a character concept being impossible like a non-magus Gish PC, right up until someone like me house-rules to fix it. Then i get crucified not because of my houserule, but because i dared to change the rules at all. Which is funny, because when you strip all the bullshit away, they are very similar games with very similar balancing math. Once you know the conversion ratios, they basically become interchangable. My homebrew is a full system melding between the 2. Taking some of the simplicity of 5e and the choices of PF2e.
@@zamba136 you are wrong. Dndnext for instance is a hub full of entitled fucks that downvote you to oblivion and insult you for daring to have a different opinion on anything. That community is extremely toxic and they revel in it because of confirmation bias.
I'm new to Pathfinder (jumping off the sinking D&D ship) but in my D&D games, I have a thing called a Mythic XP Bonus, which is pretty much what Ruleslawer suggested, of rewarding more xp for battles the party struggle with. The flavour reason is that, through a combination of unexpected threat level and poor luck, the party find themselves at a disadvantage against their opponent(s), making their ultimate victory against them all the more heroic in the eyes of the people! (Xp in my settings is sort of the quantified concept of renown and heroic praise/confidence the party has earned from the people, which is a magical, empowering force in and of itself. The more faith people have in your abilities, the more you can do.)
Another great video. Here are my comments for the algorithm: 1) Aid Checks. I actually don't have a problem with this. As characters gain experience exploring and fighting, they become better at things and working together as a team. Helping someone climb a rope and you don't really know them should be a little more difficult than after the team has explored together. 2) Solo Monsters. It's odd because I've had the exact opposite experience. Solo monsters seem weaker against players in my games due to action economy. But multiple enemies have given my players more of a challenge. 3) hammers and flails. I actually never noticed this. I have to agree with your assessment. 4) disarm. I totally agree and run my games in the way that you suggest. 5) stride. I've always ruled that if you have a Speed (such as a Fly Speed or Swim Speed) this movement can count as a Stride. I've actually never thought about the flying animal companion having to maintain flight.
I also see the opposite effect with solo monster. I find any time my players go against a solo monster, 9 time out of 10, they seem to beat the with ease. The very odd time they have trouble, is when i roll really good, or they roll really bad. Like today, i had a monster get two nat 20's, almost one shotting two party members. Then they beat the creature, only for it to explode, taking out the two, and another party member rolls a nat 1 on the reflex save and goes down as well. But the only reason for the near deaths was bad rolls.
I think Aid DCs would make more sense as a scale depending on how well the characters know each other, have similar training... etc. That still accounts for them getting better as they get more leveled, but I think it makes sense if certain low level characters (e.g. villagers from the same community, rank and file soldiers trained to work as units) have a lower DC than 20 in those circumstances. So, using the low level soldier example, aiding another member of the same military would have a lower DC than the soldier trying to aid a farmer repairing a cart.
First want to say love the content! A little modification I have made to your disarm rule. I have homeruled that the -2 to attacks (and +2 to other attempts to disarm) last until the end of the enemies next turn. It makes it less powerful that Disarming Flair but still more useful than the current RAW. I also like the fact that this makes Disarming flair a useful feat to take and not make that particular selection totally useless.
What i did for Aid is it the DC of whatever it is they are trying to Aid on (hit an AC or whatever) +5. I also make it only a reaction instead, as long as they still are within 5ft to be able to Aid. Finally, if you are at least master in whatever action you are doing (so a master in stealth if you said stealth) you provide a +2 on a success and +3 on a critical success. This buffs it meaningfully, but still costs your one and only reaction. If out of combat you can Aid as an "action" and this removes the increase to Aid DC as you are taking the time to Aid them properly, not react in an instant to assist.
Excellent video. You’re arguments are always so well founded. Must be all that lawyer training. I’m actually ok with disarm being week. As a player who loves martial characters, I’m glad it is hardly ever used. I did fight an Omox once that disarmed me and absorbed my weapon. I had to disarm him to get it back. It made the fight extremely difficult. Unarmed characters don’t have to deal with that unless you think you can disarm handwraps of mighty blows.
My only interaction with Disarm so far was from my Gymnast Swashbuckler /Acrobat. It seemed strong, but only because one of the abilities said "until the end of my character's next turn" which meant that i could keep pressure on the enemy and eventually knock the weapon free. I never even thought about it being weak, it was one of the abilities i started with. But i guess you are right, lol
I felt a big problem with 1st Edition was how badly the GM's adversaries were handicapped by specialized attacks that disarm and trip. It looks as if they fucked up with regard to the flail and hammmer critical hit. Frankly, I really like how Disarm has much lesser functionality. Characters that specialize in trip and disarm tend to be game-breaking to Paizo's adventure design.
I think that was more of a failure on the AP designers' part to account than the mechanic being game-breaking to APs, though I do agree in 1e it was pretty nutty - but that was also a system where practically everyone and their mother could abuse AoO and ruin the *one* action the enemy had that turn, thus ruining their whole turn. I think the problem comes less with Disarm's nerfed effect and more that it has the exact same checks as knocking prone but knocking prone does *way* more, arguably to a larger subset of enemies too.
Disarm is also completely worthless against enemies that use natural attacks. So while it may shine in published APs, home games very quickly and easily make the disarm build feel irrelevant. You dominate ONE fight against bandits and suddenly everything is bites and claws and slams.
1) agreed! 2) agreed, however, the difficulty of facing a solo boss is not uniform when you take into account groups w/ more than 4 players. In those cases the encounter is easier because the boss has too few actions with respect to the players, so maybe no adjustment is needed in those cases. 3) agreed (I did not know that)! 4) super agreed, I would go further, as even the critical success result is not that powerful in my opinion. 5) agreed, wow I didn't even think about that. I would say Stride = Fly for the purposes of haste, commanding a companion, etc. Thanks!
2) I would say (my Rules Interpretation, but i think its sound) that the reduced action economy is already taken into account by the "Adjusting for different party sizes" rule . If you take a look at the encounter budget table, you would see that a moderate threat for 5 players is worth 80 + 20 XP = 100 XP, so the single party level +2 monster in this case falls between a Low and a Moderate encounter, therefore the sistem considers it easier. If you want a purely Moderate encounter for the party, you would need to add a PL -2 or 2 PL -4 mooks to the fight. Similarly, a single party level +3 monster, that would be a severe encounter for 4 players, falls in the moderate threshold for a 6 PCs party (that would be 80 + 20 + 20 =120 XP with the party sizes adjustments). I love how even in these little things the game demonstrates how tight it is-
Please help me with this problem: music and sound levels! I've gotten compliments AND complaints here. And the rule of the internet is that it's the unhappy people who speak most often, so please answer this question: Music too loud? Y or N Music choice? Good, Neutral, or Evil Feel free to elaborate as well :) And did nobody get my homage in the first 5 seconds?
Music volume is fine, and neutral on music choice. I think a large part of the reason why some people may dislike it, is because I think a lot of other videos use that music, sometimes for memes/humor, so it can get repetitive or seem out of place to folks who have heard it in a different context. That being said, I think you should continue to use what you like!
flails have always been quite powerful in Pathfinder. Back in 1e, the big issue was you could easily disarm someone using a great flail with greater disarm feat and have an extremely good chance at disarming an enemy each and every turn. now the issue is knocking someone prone.
Hmm...for Haste, the way I'd fix it would be a 5th level heighten that lets it give one of any movement bonus rather than just Stride (so basically what you suggested), then an 9th level version that does the same thing but for up to five targets. That would give heighten effects on levels 5, 7, and 9, meaning more choices for prepared casters to make and it becoming a candidate for Signature Spell for spontaneous casters. (Right now, spontaneous casters would either just stick it on a wand or learn it at spell level 7 and trade out the level 3 version for something else.)
Not sure if this video is from before a relevant errata, but the minion trait states that if you don't use an action to command the minion, the minion can still take actions, but only to defend itself or escape obvious harm. The Fly action certainly qualifies, as not taking it results in falling. The Mature Animal Companion feat seems to expand the capabilities of a companion lacking commands by allowing the creature to Strike or Stride even when not in self-defense. The companion presumably has not forgotten how to Fly.
Picking up Pathfinder 2e after a long hiatus from the Pathfinder world, and love this video. There have always been these little quirks that bugged me, and the changes you suggest sound solid. One small nitpick: At 9:30'ish you have text saying that the AOO can knock the target prone again. I suggest giving that a closer look, as that has been a misconception since 3.0. As you are interrupting the action, the target isn't standing yet, so can't be knocked prone again. You cannot "prone-lock" a target through AOOs. You can ready an action to trip them once they have stood up, but that is a ready action, not a reaction. Of course, I say this knowing my understanding is dated to previous versions, but I suspect the interpretation is similar. Either way, good times.
In PF1 AoOs interrupt the trigger, but in general in PF2 reactions occur *after* the trigger. From CRB p. 17: "You get only one reaction per encounter round, and you can use it only when its specific trigger is fulfilled. Often, the trigger is another creature’s action."
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Disagree. It is still an interruption. Maybe you are talking about the "fulfilled" part, but it only means the trigger's conditions must be met and not that the triggering condition must be RESOLVED. To be clear, for exemple, you have the Reactive Shield reaction that allows you to up your AC for the triggering attack. If you assume that the reaction will apply after the resolving of the triggering attack, then reactions will be (mostly) rendered useless, like the Reactive Shield. So no: if the target is standing up, its still not up when you resolve your AOO, and therefore cant be knocked prone again.
It's nice to see how remastered actually adressed some of this. Aid is now DC15 instead of 20 - not ideal, but it's a start. Hammer and flail Crit Spec got a save. And Disarm success now lasts until the creature spends an action to adjust grip.
The Rules Lawyer is aware of these changes and has made a video about them. I think he liked all the changes, except Aid, which still doesn't feel balanced. Yes, it's now easier for lower levels, sure, but now for higher level characters, aid is an auto crit, so it still doesn't feel balanced.
I home rule that a hasted action granted by the quickened condition that allows you to stride allows you instead to move using any type of movement you have speed with but that it does not allow you to make tactical movements like stepping, standing, or jumping. There's also an Archetype feat called Ackhowledge Fan that I had to heavily nerf as it is very VERY strong for what it does. I added the incapacitation trait and added text to the failure effect that allows the target to be immune for 1 minute. If it's still too problematic I'm planning on making it two actions instead of 1. For those who don't know it's basically a 1 action Paralyze spell (SL 3) with no resource or frequency limits. If target succeeds the save they are stunned 1 and immune for a while. Failure is stunned 2, Crit failure is paralyzed.... For 1 action and because it's a single action you can ready it to completely interrupt a target's turn, at least once, even if they succeed (but not critically)
Thinking of giving this a trial run for Disarm / Disarming Flare: Critical Success: You knock the item out of the target's grasp. It falls to the ground 1d4-1 squares from the target's space in a random direction. Success: You weaken your target's grasp on the item. They must spend an action to regrip the item before they can use it again Critical Failure: You become vulnerable to the target and they receive a +2 Circumstance bonus to attacks against you until the start of your next turn. Disarming Flare (Swashbuckler) On Disarm Success, the target is also Stunned 1.
Turns out I already use your house rules. Stride for me has always been simply a move action based on available movement types. I've never tied it to just ground movement.
It is a deliberate choice, however. I don't think it's intended to Sudden Charge in flight, for example. So I tend to stick to RAW except where it really sucks lol. (Like what I mention here)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I don't really see why not though. Being able to fly is not free. It's accounted for in the balance somewhere. If you are a bird (or can turn into one, as a druid for instance) why wouldn't you be able to charge? Birds like raptors charge all the time. Peregrine falcons, for instance, are quite famous for it. There was a whole suite of feats dedicated to doing exactly that in PF1e. Those don't appear to exist in PF2e so this seems to be an arbitrary limitation.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG You actually CAN sudden charge in flight. Sudden Charge and many feats like it have a line at the end that says "You can use Sudden Charge while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type."
I think disarm should work as written for 2 handed weapons, and should extend until the end of the affected creature's turn for 1 handed weapons and shields on success.
One good homebrew rule for Aid, as I understand it, is as follows: To determine the success of Aid, roll a d20, add the relevant ability modifier, and subtract the target level from a difficulty class (DC) of 20. With this rule, a high-level character can Aid another high-level character, but the outcome is uncertain. A low-level character can only successfully Aid a high-level character on a natural roll of 20 (i.e., rolling a 20 on the d20). On the other hand, a high-level character can easily Aid a low-level character. This rule serves as a balancing mechanism and adds a dramatic context to the game.
In a system that I was trying to build, I wanted bludgeoning weapons to behaving differently when making a critical attack. I was aiming to have them damage armor. In pathfinder there is a concept of damaging items, but only if you hit them directly, and it gives you a negative modifier to try to do so. However, this negative modifier is smaller than 10 and flat-footed gives a temporary AC debuff. I would think bludgeoning weapons would reduce armor or movement. Slashing would cause additional to unarmored areas, and piercing damage would cause a bleeding (DOT) effect.
Excellent video. I noticed the "Haste doesn't let you Fly or Swim" dilemma too when my players hit levels where they could fly and just allowed it. They're now 18 level, about to become 19, and nothing broken or game-breaking has happened in the AP. As you said, cool moments sometimes came out of those extra actions.
A good table for aid is: Helping an untrained character: 10 Trained: 15 Expert: 20 Master: 30 Legendary: 40 And you can only aid someone with the same or lower training. Makes sense and balances out over stacking.
Totally agree with points 1,3,4 and 5. Some of these i've already house ruled for my games. And think i'll start using the rest. Everyone says solo monster of 2 to 3 levels are harder then advertised, but my players never seem to have issues with them. Maybe i just have bad luck rolling with my monsters, or my players are super lucky. XD
I think flying and raising shield should be a concentration action, where you make a save check each round, if you succeed a specific DC you don’t need to use an action to keep flying or keep the shield raised. If you fail you have to use an action to keep the action going
As someone who just started GMing for this system recently, Aid has thus far only been attempted in relation to treating wounds. The problem being, both characters in that interaction suck at the skills being used and are rolling low. I will definitely make that Aid check easier for them next time it comes up.
The disarm is still a good option because you can get the weapon out of the opponents (friend of foe) hands, then another player can magic that weapon away. This is just one option for disarm as you can also use it versus non-weapons. In my games it has been used many times with great creative success. Looking at Min-max combat however, yes it is weak.
I actually agree with every point you make. My first reaction to the Hammer/Flail change was a hard no, but that's because I've come to enjoy abusing it myself, so that definitely corroborates with the need of tuning it down. I think Flails and Hammers crit specs are taken into account when considering weapon balancing, as in, the only 2H Reach Hammers/Flails have a d8 dice, but Paizo definitely screwed the pot on the Flickmace. Regarding Disarm, my only reticence in modifying it is that I think the system as a whole expects the action to be quite weak, and I consider the ability to interact to remove the penalty somewhat of a nerf. The way I see it, Disarm as it is, is meant to be used outside of a player's turn, either by readying it or having a special action like Disarming Block. IMO, a character with Disarming Block becomes worse if they also have Disarming Flair, since they alread spent their reaction to block.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG There's a lot of shenanigans that can be done with ready and I love it! I've kinda had to make house-rules to fix a few interactions that arise from this though. The worst offender is readying Flurry of Blows in combination with Stunning Fist. As far as I'm aware, PF2E doesn't handle being stunned during your turn very well, I house-rule that if you become stunned during your turn, the condition is resolved as if your turn just started. This fixes the problem of readying FoB, opponent closes in, gets stunned, loses their whole turn. This also fixes readying Power Word Stun at later levels. While situational, I absolutely love to ready both Disarm and Trip! The latter one is specially good if you outrange your opponent, because it means that if they close the distance, they have to spend two extra actions to get into striking range, which is basically a wasted turn. Readying a step back is most of the time a waste of actions, but it can be hilarious, depending on the GMs ruling about how readying interact with the "being attacked" trigger, you can effectively waste an enemy's attack (if they would think that you could disrupt a strike by readying a step back) and make them consider using another action to close the gap. If you do that against an enemy that had to spend an action to stride in, they have no actions left to strike. Sorry about the wall of text! I just love the implications of readying in 2e.
In the Remaster, the Disarm rule has been reworked. Old: "You weaken your target's grasp on the item. Until the start of that creature's turn, attempts to Disarm the target of that item gain a +2 circumstance bonus, and the target takes a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks with the item or other checks requiring a firm grasp on the item." New: "You weaken your target's grasp on the item. Further attempts to Disarm the target of that item gain a +2 circumstance bonus, and the target takes a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks with the item or other checks requiring a firm grasp on the item. *The creature can end the effect by Interacting to change its grip on the item; otherwise, it lasts as long as the creature holds the item.*"
huh, this shows that I straight up didn't read the rules for Stride close enough, because I've always just thought of it as a "move action" type deal that is just movement, but they wanted all the main actions to start with S for some reason (step, stride, strike). Will continue to happily ignore that rule, lol
4:26 But Paizo ISN'T ignoring their own rule, that's a particularly easy check so the "gm" decided to low the Aid DC to the same as the actual check. Something that low I might even just let them auto-succeed, unless the party was being chased by enemies. Why make players role something so low(even at low levels) if they have time to prep and take all precautions, it's just going to take more time than it would normally when rolling.
Totally agree with you on #1. The way I always play Aid as well as checks where the party is "willing" (say you're going to shove an ally who wants to be pushed out of the way) is that you lower the DC by 10, or effectively use the result that's 1 better than what they would have gotten.
@@Zephz43 sorry, the aid attempt gets one degree of success better than what they would have gotten had they tried the actual attempt and gives bonuses to the actual attempt accordingly.
1. Yes, RAW Aid is mostly broken. I generally use the same DC as the actual check, though depending on how Aid is described, I might use level DCs or even auto succeed (ie automatic +1, but nothing more). 2. I use milestone. 3. I don't mind how strong hammers are, but I consider it a free action auto success Trip, so you can't trigger anything else and the same restrictions as regular Trip apply. As a side note, I do the same for Improved Knockdown for monsters. 4. Instead of giving everyone Disarming Flair, I just extend the effects of Disarm to the end of the target's turn, instead of the beginning, also adding the possibility to spend an action to remove the effects. That makes successes actually useful, while still keeping Disarming Flair as a feat. Of course it's not as crucial for Swashbucklers who want to disarm, but it's still useful especially when alone, because you can give yourself a disarming bonus, whereas without the feat you couldn't. 5. Great point, nothing to add.
@11:29 Yeah, general players. Players of Pathfinder, the "Wait, I think I have a bonus for that." system do not. That's half the fun of the system, 1e or 2e. It's putting together a cool set of features and mechanics that make your character concept a reality (I'm making a dwarf rogue, her last name is "Sky-Dancer" by the end of her career, if things go right, she'll be able to do just that, without magic. It's a hell of a system.) In other systems, I'm more likely to just go, "Oh that's cool." In Pathfinder 2e, I hadn't looked at hammers, but I sure as hell am now. It's too easy to get destroyed not to take advantage of the benefits.
I also think if you use a free hand to disarm rather than a weapon with the DIsarm trait, and you get that crit, you should have the option to have that object in hand rather than having it fall in the target's space. As partial balance to this, I'd say if you do you have the same weakened grip as the target of a non-crit Disarm Success (+2 to attempts to Disarm you of the object, -2 to your attacks with it if it's a weapon, lasts until the end of the disarmed opponent's next turn or until you spend an Interact action to regrip). Does this make monks really good at grabbing the evil archmage's macguffin out of his hands and running away? Yes! And it should!
Question about the Hammer & Flail thing. What about Weapon Groups that absolutely suck like Darts & Knives? 1d6+Potency Bleed is a joke compared to enemy HP. Club's Weapon Spec is actually pretty terrible once enemies have Reach and you don't. I actually dislike weapons with a Save DC because Martials have significantly worse DCs then casters and it's already hard for them to get monsters to consistently fail their saves, because monsters have really high saves. My fix for "Stride" not including other movement types. My house rule is it always works. If you can Stride you can use alt movement.
Among rules to ignore, our table has spent exactly 0 consideration in adjudicating movement speeds during the Exploration phase. It's just so much extra keeping tabs when you already have four party members who each want to do something different while moving through a dungeon space, and in terms of timekeeping, who cares if you're moving at 150ft per minute or 75ft per minute? We just exercise intuition about time passage, and of course Exploration abilities tend to take 10 minutes or an hour to do. If something is especially time-sensitive, then it's not exploration, it's an encounter. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but I've never sensed the game would be enhanced by keeping track of this feet/minute movement.
Please set me right if I'm wrong here, I looked into PF2e a couple years back when trying to decide between that and 5e - I've been playing TTRPGs for over a decade but somehow missed out on these two titans of the industry. The thing that put me off PF2e was the chapter on Actions (non-combat actions that is) I remember a huge chapter that was just an enormous list of actions that players could take, with pre-determined outcomes based on what they rolled. The "lift yourself up a ledge" action would have set consequences based on whether you rolled x amount above or below the target number for example - again, this is from memory. I hated this when I first read it and it's the reason I went to 5e. I remember thinking "what exactly is the point of the DM if every action the players can take are laid out on these pages, with pre-determined outcomes? I'm not being a referee at this point, I'm just regurgitating what the book is saying should happen." So my questions are: Is my understanding/memory of this chapter correct? And if so, is this a chapter I could completely ignore and handle skills in more of a 5e way by flying by the seat of my pants and going off my personal judgement and intuition? I'm considering giving PF2e another go, but if my understanding of the way actions works is correct, and it's fundamentally game-breaking to change them, then it's not for me.
Your understanding seems really warped to me. The book says, multiple times, to only require a roll if there's doubt about the outcome of an action. The rules presented in that chapter don't strike me as a box to trap players in, they strike me as a *tool* to adjudicate what might happen if a player takes certain actions, a set of explicit permissions to do certain actions, a set of examples of actions you might be able to do, a set of ideas for actions to take. In no way does it imply to me that these are the *only* actions you can take. 5e very much just kind of shrugs a lot and implies "idk, figure it out". This has pros and cons. PF2e tries to think of most/a lot of a things a player might do or want to do and describe rules about how to do that. It also cares more about math. This philosophy of math and robust rules also has pros and cons.
@@johnmickey5017 tbh I only found 1 nice path fans a few days ago. The wierd thing is on Reddit the community is really nice. In what world a reddit community is healthier then the open one
Tbh if you like simple games you mybe shouldnt go path. Path is simple. You mybe want to check something like lfg. It's a system that's in the middle ground between osr and 5e and it's really well written and easy to hack .
for Aid, depending on the action, there's a whole table of standard DC's for a particular level, so would that not be the DC one would use for something like Aiding a distraction or a Trip? Assuming you do that, then it would only get a little bit stronger as your proficiency level increases, given you crit. so obviously you want it to be more likely to crit as you level higher (because you have better things to do with your reaction and action than a +1), but still make it accessible to lower levels. a small adjustment to the standard DC table (ie., just increase the DC by 1 each level, only accounting for ability score increases at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20).
As the Rules Lawyer stands proud, he suddenly unleshes his domain Malevolent GM core, the player responds with a simple domain and says "Are you the rules lawyer because you follow the rules or do you follow the rules because you are the rules lawyer".
So interesting that single monsters feel more difficult than multiple monsters that add up to the same xp. It makes sense with pf2e's scaling but it's the exact opposite of 5e.
yes that's an interesting part of pathfinder to really have interesting boss fight as they got ride of most effect that would make a creature loose a full turn or be too vulnerable to the action economy
I guess that designers thought that low-level parties have members who don’t know each other well enough to know how to help party members well enough, many characters lacking experience about working with different people. But designers should tell if that’s reason so gms can tell new players to make characters so that they have close relationships with each other, making team-work easier and Aid difficulty lower.
Also animal companions will just quietly sit there as a kolbold slowly beats them to death with a stick, if their master gets knocked out. The animal also cannot to run and get help if the master falls down a well, because Lassie was just too damn OP and needed heavy nerfs
My table hates Disarm for all the reasons you've suggested. It feels like a waste of a turn if you don't critical succeed, because the effects immediately end once the target's turn begins. I'm going to be suggesting this video to my GM.
I just bought Pathfinder (mainly to support the "good guys"). I've been playing D&D for 30+ years. As a DM, I've always looked for ways to simplify the game. I've even gutted 5e, as simplified as it already is. This is why I've been reluctant to switch over to Pathfinder. It seems like it would be taking a step backwards, from a streamlined perspective (5e to 3e). In the instance of this Aid check, it is far more complex then it needs to be. If a player wants to aid another, just burn the aiding players action, give the other player an automatic +2 to their dice roll, and call it a day. Burning their precious action is worth an automatic +2, (no check should be required). I'm certain I'll bring PF to our table; maybe after our current campaign wraps up. Admittedly, it does look fresh and fun, and I do miss elements of 3e sometimes. I just fear that I'd have a boat load of work stripping down and streamlining it to be palatable.
Uhm to be honest It really seems like they have a lot of remnants of old versions of pathfinder 2e in the current rulebook, both for the DC in aid and the EXP thing seems like it doesn't take into account the newer beasteries either, honestly, I agree about the Flail and Hammer weapon group too, they made Fatal trait and some Crit Effects like Flail and Hammer seems waaay too strong, well at least that my take on it.
I agree with the fact that people do care about minor (or not so minor) details when it comes to things like the Crit Spec. It might not cross their thoughts when making a character and picking a favorite weapon type but when everyone is playing and you see someone consistently have a better outcome simply because they chose a different weapon type than you, it can feel quite bad. The idea of making it a reflex save in this case is pretty good, definitively something worth putting into the game for balance sake.
Great video! I've always disliked the dc 20 aid - I think your solution is a great one and what I've finally found myself defaulting to recently - it definitely feels better and more in line with the rest of the system. Love the idea of a heightened haste - curious about people's ideas of what level that should be
I've had a change of heart on this after talking with one of my players and realized the intent of aid is that "aiding" is a task that would require expert proficiency. It's not something that's easy at low levels, but with experience it becomes easier to do. So the DC is set for actually aiding, not the specific thing you're helping do. Therefore, the only adjustments should be on whether its hard (+2) or easy (+2) to aid in that moment. It's a nuanced difference, but makes a huge difference in game.
Human fighters can get +13 to aid, +14 if affected by bless or similar and +15 if having magic weapon. All this at lvl 1. About minions: "If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm." *Not flying* seems like obvious harm to me . I agree that animal companions should be able to use their primary movement as a free action if mature.
Could aid DC equal to the Suggested DC According to level? Because I had an encounter where a boss offered the Party a chance to change his mind. With a Will save of 11 (DC21) none of the players could even aid or improve the enemies mood towards the party more then 1 step it was something like a 10% chance for each 4 players; there was no way for them to make the check once let alone twice as suggested by the module.
So everyone had a +2 bonus against its Will save? Hard to understand the situation you're describing. Setting up a situation where 4 characters need to succeed at a 10% check sounds like it's a setup for failure, regardless of Aid.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG no, I knew i wasn't explaining this very well, the Enemy was well hidden and was feeling cocky. He knew that an NPC that tried to explain the situation to him would want him brought back in a friendlier state by the party. So I gave my players a chance to "Make an impression" and improve his attitude in general. The Diplomacy check is made against the BBG's Will save (i.e. a DC of 21). None of my players prioritized Charisma or Diplomacy so it was very improbable for them to make the aid check, let alone changing the BBG'S attitude toward the party. idk, would it have been better to fudged the numbers and decreased the DC? I was wondering if setting the aid check according to DCs by level could be more effective...Then again maybe not...
Stride just says "You move up to your Speed." with a move trait that says "An action with this trait involves moving from one space to another.". Why is it limited to land movement only? am I missing something?
Hey there! Great video, and can't say I disagree with any of your points as a player/GM/game design dabbler. As a fencer (foil, hema, and kendo) of over 20 years, there's a ludonarrative element of disarm I can advocate for. Disarming someone is actually REALLY hard. I think I've only managed to do so about twice by initiating a disarm offensively. Defensively it's much easier, parrying, using the opponent's momentum, and executing the disarm as a defense. It's probably no surprise that fencer swashbuckler is my favorite class, and I use disarm the same way. Either with an Opportune Riposte to disrupt their turn entirely, either making MAP that much worse for them, or disrupting their whole turn by requiring they pick their weapon back up. Alternatively, I use the Ready action to disarm them if I don't have Riposte on other characters. It comes as a worthy surprise to players and GMs alike. Especially because if, as a swashbuckler, I use a finisher, I can use my next two actions to Ready said disarm. I hope you find this useful! 😊
Swashbuckler getting Disarming Flair + Derring Do makes it really great too, since your Disarm lasts longer, generates panache, and if you already have panache, you get to roll twice, making crit-fishing a little more reasonable. Combine it with a parry-based build, eventually take Parry & Riposte for Opportune Ripostes on failures, etc. Lot of options for a fun build there!
I'm not a big fan of Aid being tied to a skill, even the skill being used. Imagine that the Rogue is Disabling the Trap. The Cleric might be on lookout, the Wizard is hiding for fear of taking lethal Hard Work damage, and the barbarian is helping the Rogue. How? "Hold this. Put your finger there. Wipe my brow." There might be specific Aid checks like "lift this 2 inches, i need to get my hand under it." That uses strength. But the Barbarian doesn't need the Disable Device skill, he isn't the cook in the kitchen, he's juststirring the pot. For that reason, i heavily edit the Aid system to make co-operation fun. Sometimes i let them use the Rogue's bonus if they are just an extra pair of hands being given thourough instructions, sometimes there is no roll if they are just holding something
As my group is soon to try this rule set, I'll consider these. Aid ) So, this is kind of like the 'help' action in a certain other system... one character assisting another, but the game mechanics are handled differently. So... have to spend an action and reaction to give a +1. Are there no other options for providing a +1 or better? I often find that I don't care about doing something that only gets me +1. Yes, in theory +8 is better than +7 on a roll... but 1HP has mattered more often to me than coming up one short on a skill check. Basically, I'll only use Aid when I don't have another option to assist... and probably never in combat (where the action + reaction cost matters). I understand the logic, but it feels a bit much to spend action, reaction, and make a check... to at best give +1 but also maybe get unlucky and instead give -1. XP ) With XP only coming from combat, it discourages have social encounters or other activities... as the only way to level up is fight. Now, that can be mitigated by rewarding XP for 'social combat'... but that means you have to 'win'... even if your character is wrong. Really, it's hard to make a good XP system. Even a system that skips XP and rewards for completing 'major quests' can be trouble... since it may take a long time to complete one task and almost none for another task... so either level timing is a roller coaster, or some events don't get level rewards for being 'too soon'. Critical Special Effect ) Why is this a thing? I guess it is a power scale thing... get stronger, feel stronger. Oh... that description, it sounds very powerful. I can see why it would be a problem... and having played the Kingmaker game, I know how brutal being knocked prone can be. RIP my party. Disarm ) I'll keep in mind to not use that. I'm pretty sure in real life it is also a waste of time... it is difficult to achieve and faster to just defeat the opponent directly. I guess they needed to describe the mechanic to show that it shouldn't generally be tried. Stride ) Wait... it is restricted to the ground? Well, normally that isn't an issue... it would only be situations involving swimming or flying. The offered solution seems reasonable... though I haven't yet actually played the system, so don't know if that still feels restrictive to me.
Take in account that in Pathfinder, a +1 is both a +1 to hit and a +1 to crit (in combat, or a +1 to succeed and +1 to critically succeed with skills, etc). Be carefull with increasing the bonuses, it gets out of hand quickly. Suppose you increase Aid to +2 or so. In a fight where your fighter is hitting the enemies with, say, a 10, if you move to a flanking position and then Aid him in combat, he would be hitting on 6+, and thus crits on a 16+.
I don't see disarm as being as bad as people say it is, and I believe that it fits into the overall design of the system. First of all, as another commenter has stated, disarming people is realistically difficult. Secondly, any consecutive attempts by other players are going to be easier by a whole 10%, which is rather high. Finally, it is going to be really difficult to properly balance disarming someone because of just how strong actually disarming someone is.
I think the intention of aid isn't to make it harder for low level characters, but to make it so that if you're aiding, you have to be good at the thing too. If you're helping me with computer repair, I'd hope you didn't suck at it.
Hello Rule Lawyer I've played A LOT of PF2e and i'm agree with you for some Rules The DC 20 for Aid is strange for me, i prefer set a Normal Level-Dc rather than the typical 20 The Hammer Crit Spec is Sooo strong, it's ridiculous. In one of my campaign, every martial just switch to hammer when they have seen his efficacity and my mobs juste keep getting prone. Special mention for flying combat For the Disarm Action, i prefer to say that the creature have -2 to attack until she take an action to grasp again their weapon I'm Agree with you too for the Stride action. I prefer to consider that we are talking about the current speed and not only the land one
If you want to do 3 action activity, have a ranger, druid, etc with animal companion 🐎. They can move you, in their turns two times, at cost of 1 action. In that way the game is more co-op that just casting Haste. Still the bird part is just ridiculous xD
I actually disagree with the specific change you made to Disarm. I'd make clearing the penalty eat an Action instead of automatically processing at the start of anyone's turn. I'd then make Disarming Flair either the ability to use DEX with Finesse weapons for disarm attempts, or a +2 to your disarms
"If you tinker with one thing you might unintentionally effect the whole system PF2E is really well put together but everything is so interconnected compared to other rules systems even 5E that make it hard to homebrew for, and people love to homebrew. when systems are open for easy homebrew your games become so fun, if a homebrew screws up the system... then thats no fun, its why I advocate for the simpler systems.
For aid actions I just have my players make a DC 11 or higher flat-check for a +2 bonus, but they have to be atleast trained in the skill they are aiding. No crit fail, or crit success.
Fun story about Disarming that happened in a PF1e game I was running. This was meant to be a horror game where I put the players up against classic slasher flick tropes. The players were being hunted by a Texas Chainsaw/ Vorhees inspired ogre wielding a Numerian Chainsaw. The ogre had the kineticist player in his sight and was about to charge. She, a smol human child, suddenly stops running, turns around, stares the ogre straight in the eyes, and rips the chainsaw out of his hand with Telekinetic Maneuver. He double moves to retrieve his item, she launches the chainsaw with her Aether Blast (choosing to deal the chainsaw damage because it was higher than her blast damage at the time) and wouldn't you know, she rolls a natural 20. Damage was more that enough to bring the creature below zero and she specifically described how she kept her telekinetic hand on the deadman switch, sawing the monster's head off over the next round. She took that chainsaw all the way to level 17 in that campaign. Of course, the fuel cells ran out quickly, but by then her aether blast was dealing the damage and the chainsaw was acting as a projectile to focus it on and that's how Equestria was made!
I have a question, I'm very new to Pathfinder and I like combat that's dangerous and fast paced, I think it's really interesting, but what do you think would happen if I halved the health of all of the monsters and the players. Is that a bad idea? I know it will make weaknesses and resistances even more impactful, but are there other negative unforeseen consequences that I wouldn't know?
I think the Stride action is the one I'm most prone to house ruling. Disarm is a tricky one, because its one that quickly can get too powerful if changed but is arse as it is. The rest I can honestly take or leave changing.
I will attempt a counter-argument on Aid if I may: What the set DC of 20 may be intended to reflect is that general experience, even when only trained in a skill, is enough to to provide assistance for someone that has a very high overall level. In other words, when your team is new and low-level, they might know a skill well enough but they may not be experienced enough as an adventurer to know how best to use their skill to assist another. It's more likely you might interfere with what they're doing, or provide no help at all - and for a table that roleplays well this provides drama. But as you become more experienced, you start to understand how to help others just as you learn how better to strike, coerce, climb, etc. Keep in mind all along if you're not proficient at all, you don't get to add your level - you're still no help if you don't know the fundamentals. The effect of this is played out something like this: Low-level - you go to aid an ally climbing a knotted rope, you roll a 2 and the question becomes how well do you know assisting another in a way that's beneficial and turns out you don't, you crit fail and the players are free to roleplay the aided PC attempting to kick you off of him saying "get off me - I know what I'm doing!"; Mid-level - you've adventured for some time, and you've learned to cooperate to survive. Same PCs now face a jagged rock wall, you roll a 2 to aid; it's not a crit fail though because now you know at least how not to get in the way, and the aided PC can chime in "I got this - just don't grab my leg this time!". High-level - you have lived and died by your allies; you know the value and importance of teamwork, getting other's backs, or at least the urgency of responding immediately without hesitating and to be precise enough to extract valuable advantage with each action; you're fighting a monster with some fierce defenses this time, and you aid and roll a 2 - you don't crit fail, you don't fail, you minimum succeed because even though you didn't execute at your best, you have enough skill to at least pose enough threat to require some attention with more than needing to fully flank. Higher level, more highly efficient at making yourself useful and less likely to get in the way and maybe even skilled enough to always be of some use. Now on the mechanic side, I see some intent in number as is. At low levels, your range is -1 to +1; at mid levels, it's more weighted to 0 to +2/+3, and at the highest levels it's almost always +1 to +4. This emulates the DC scaling that we see in the DC by level chart - the formula 14 + level of challenge (additional +1 per 3 levels); compare to a range from -1 to +4, and if you specialize with feats you can get circumstance bonus higher at certain intervals, take a nice bonus to your own checks to aid or more commonly get critical aids which further modifies the success. If you use DC same as level challenge (equal to the beginner box example), the usefulness of these feats greatly diminish at high levels as you're not replacing the risk of interfering with certainty and usefulness based on overall experience. Well, those are my thoughts anyway; hope this was insightful, and if you disagree I think that's fair and all but don't knock it until you've played enough to see the benefit of the progression rules as intended. Yes it's harder at low levels, but that's when we should be roleplaying trying to help but just getting in the way - that shouldn't happen when you're level 15. I should also think with GM discretion you should only hold that to situations where you deem aid is just inherently easier (let me hold that rope steady for you - hey that's simple DC 10), or more difficult on grounds that the challenge is one both parties are inexperienced with (unsure how you can help here...), or the aided party is using a technique which the person aiding has no experience with like special abilities (using a Skill feat that requires a check for ex). Good with the rest though keep it up :) For Hammer/Flail it may be easier to just say if you crit you get a free Trip attempt with the same MAP as the attack but doesn't contribute to MAP (I like this scaling with the MAP as an additional balance - prone is a nasty debuff, but no MAP may be preferable; worth negotiating with a player if you have to nerf). Disarm I think you nailed it, and Fly =/= Stride I definitely agree is an oversight.
I actually love how nitpicky these are, really shows that Pathfinder is an incredibly well written system. You really have to dig deep into the wording to find flaws like this. Any system has flaws, but pf2e's flaws are so much more reasonable than any other system I've come across.
My "favorite" dumb rule is that parrying provokes attacks of opportunity.
In the first printing, activating the Parry trait on a weapon to get +1 AC is an Interact action. Interact has the Manipulate trait, and Manipulate actions provoke. So because you are defending yourself, your opponent (if trained) gets to take a free swing. Fortunately this got fixed in the second printing.
*Extremely* dumb when you consider that the whole point of a parry is to guide a strike away without leaving yourself open. Even more so when done by very skilled combatants.
They have errata it.
Only if the opponent had attack of opportunity, which not all do.
So it's not a rule??
@@DarthenosC9 It's not a rule anymore. It used to be a rule.
For things that allow a Stride action, I've always ruled that because it says you can "move up to your Speed", this includes other types of movement, such as flying, when a character has a non-land Speed. More specific actions, such as the Fly action are thus iterations of the Stride action and therefore qualify. I admit this interpretation is somewhat liberal, but it seems to make the most sense.
As for having to command animal companions to keep them aloft, the minion trait says "if given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to ESCAPE OBVIOUS HARM. If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don’t act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please." I believe this can be interpreted as keeping themselves in flight, since falling to their death seems like 'obvious harm'.
Aid is definitely true. DC 20 is harder at level 1 than any actual DC at that level, which trains players not to help. Later it becomes trivial. With an inspire competence Bard it gets silly because they rapidly critically succeed on aid every time and give out a +3 or +4. Scale it up (with an easy or very easy DC of same level as the check itself as aiding is easier than doing the task) and you'll promote teamwork at every level without trivializing it.
Re: Crit Spec: I think I would probably make it a Fortitude saving throw with Hammers (as I imagine it being similar to shoving) and keep it at Reflex for Flails. Then the weapons have a slightly different niche, too.
I like the idea, but it does make the hammer less effective against "tougher" high-Fortitude creatures. Doesn't seem like it would have the effect you're looking for in play. Theme-wise, personally I like the "this troll is hard to shove, easy to knock over" mechanic to run consistently through the game.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I agree, reflex is established as the trip save. Also being fortitude steps on the toes of the stun weapon crit specialization.
The reflex save is for tripping and it already exist. Getting bludgeon is something else entirely.
Here I would put both with Fortitude Save since when you do hit with a bludgeoning weapon you don't shove (hence no reflex) but induce some sort of concussion (head or body). The (critical) hit is so strong that the Fortitude save represents staying "conscious"/"not getting the air knocked out of your lungs" for that fraction of second you might miss that would otherwise sends you to the floor (like in boxing/MMA). So agile opponents will get smacked more often by a critical bludgeon and tough opponent would be more resilient, which represent what would happened in reality.
You won lol. Though I do like the diversity in weapons.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Ha, I was just thinking about this comment the other day but to lazy to look up where I put it :D
For your consideration: Flail: Reflex vs. Prone. Hammer: Fortitude vs. Prone.
I like the sounds of that. Thematic difference.
Aha!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG did the remake canonicize my guess?
For Aid, I never require any roll from the aiding person. They are already expending 2 actions and 1 reaction to perform one task. I just give them that +1 bonus and +2 if the aiding person uses 2 actions of prepare aid.
It reduces rolling and makes it more viable at low levels where its actually needed
Encounter xp I give exactly as you suggested and been doing so since I started. I only needed to look at the charts and as veteran GM I know higher level solo monsters are way tougher than one might think
Thanks so much for mentioning the aid action!! I was under the impression that it was set to a DC of 20 possibly to help make the rules easier to remember, rather than intentionally hard for new characters.
Also, the bird wouldn't perilously fall out of the sky, even when it doesn't have its own action yet when un-commanded from feats, because of this line from the minion trait:
"If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to *escape obvious harm*."
Thanks for mentioning that quote! I think it saves that part of the problem. I've also seen it come into play when the master is knocked out (I usually let the animal companion defend itself or the master, but with 2 actions only)
"Aid needs to be more powerful at higher levels because it is competing against more-powerful high-level abilities for that action+reaction."
I've seen this argument several times here and on Reddit. But I have yet to be convinced what high-level abilities truly make the guaranteed +4 circumstance bonus from Aid necessary to make it desirable. I've only seen 1 put forward: Rogue's Opportune Backstab... which is in danger of never triggering, if the ally doesn't hit without the +4 assistance. Even if high-level abilities comparable to a high-level near-guaranteed +4 to an ally were found, the implementation of assuming a near-guaranteed crit success is crude and has no precedent in PF2e.
So I think this argument both (1) underestimates "the power of +4" in PF2e and the importance of foregoing your own action to set up an ally's attack which the situation calls for (you're not all isolated individuals in PF2e, and sometimes you REALLY want X attack to land) and (2) at the low levels underestimates the power of alternate actions that don't require feats, such as Demoralize, Raise Shield, which I think many would agree are almost always better than setting up an Aid at low levels.
Yes. If it was just +1 or +2 for crit, it would have been a smaller sized "problem", but the fact that allows up to +4 (extremely powerful) means that, in my opinion as well, the DC should really be adjusted accordingly to level.
The fact that getting a shield's AC bonus costs an action is frankly the single dumbest rule in PF2.
It is not only the shield. Parry, the shield spell and every other ability that give circonstance ac gives this.
This also help also to gives other action related to the raise shield.
@@TheAchilles26
It's funny how shields drop off as a result of this.
Legit, just using a 1 handed weapon with an open second hand is almost always better past like, level 5.
Which is a funny mix of hilarious and depressing.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 it's just depressing. Shields were painfully suboptimal in PF1, but instead of buffing them to fix that, one little buff was mixed with a nasty action economy nerf
I agree with all these ideas.
My idea for Disarm was basically: when you get a basic success, the -2 penalty stays until they spend an action to reassert their grip, rather than automatically recovering at the start of their next turn. Like wish prone, it's basically at worst a "spend an action to try and eat up an opponent's action" kinda ordeal. In either case, I'd probably wanna come up with another benefit for Swashbuckler's one trait, however.
It's worth remembering as well that NPCs can use all these actions players can, so all ideas go both ways. I think they made it so hard to use because of this, but considering players usually have more action economy than monsters, making disarm eat up actions winds up compensating for the typically higher modifiers monsters have for the same check.
I like guns
I’m not one who would have complained about the music, but since you asked - yes, it was probably a bit distracting. Maybe loud? Maybe just the choice of a driving beat? I’m not sure. Loved your content, though.
When making the Disarming Flair feat the core way Disarm works, make sure to include the part where Gymnast Swashbucklers gain Panache on a disarm.
No reason to take that option away from them, especially when it helps fulfill the classic fencing swashbuckler trope.
If disarming flair was intended to be a differentiator for Swashbucklers then Disarming flair should be adjusted also to fill that role again after giving its default away to all.
@@sylverlokkshinbreaker6090 Agreed. My personal choice here, although it might be unbalancing, would be for Disarming Flair to allow for Acrobatics to be used instead (while still giving panache to a Gymnast, even if they use Acrobatics for it). This gives swashbuckler access to a uniquely good Disarm action among Dexterity-based combatants, and helps them not fall behind on this one thing they're thematically supposed to be good at compared to a Strength Fighter attempting the same action.
When I clicked the video I thought I was going to get some cringe takes where people discard the rules without considering the ramifications.
This was well thought out, and I appreciate the video.
The first character I built was a human with the Helpful feature. Brought it to a PFS game (level 1) and tried to Aid someone. Immediately everyone including the GM said, "No, don't!" And that's when I was like, "ah, so I effed up on character creation."
I'm unhappy with them. You did not mess up on character creation.
I really don't get why people are so obsessed with following rules strictly in TTRPGs, where is often even stated in the rules that you should often bend them or just make a a call yourself on the spot. If i was your GM, seeing you even invested feats into that, i would have promoted the use of Aid, not hampered it. Maybe try to show this video to your GM 👍
Be mindful that PFS GMs are required to run RAW. (The language of Aid, while giving freedom, requires some justification for departing from DC 20, so I'm sympathetic.)
@@adminanonymous1521 His mistake was playing PFS.
You mentioned the subreddit being mad at you about the crit specialization one. I have found that the subreddit is... not very good at critically examining PF2e. It seems like any suggestion that the rules might not be perfect is a fast way to land you in hot water. And granted, I mostly run the game RAW as well because the rules DO work as written in like 95%+ of cases.
I recently asked on there about Recall Knowledge (which you responded to, which was really cool!) and I got people saying all kinds of weird stuff. Like that RK on it's own in combat was equivalent to a +2-+5 bonus, or that actually you should need two actions (one to Identify and one to get further info on the topic) to get any kind of mechanical info. I think next time I am gonna question the rules I might go to the forums instead.
I've found that this is the case with PF2e players in general for some reason.
Whenever i meantion that i run a custom system that uses the best of PF2e and D&D 5e, the prevailing sentiment is usually "why would you change anything, that's stupid, can we ban this Heretic?"
Meanwhile, the D&D side tends to be really chill, and incorporates some of my house rules.
I wish i was exagerating, it's happened almost every single time...
@@zamba136 To be fair, if your house rules are shit, the pathfinder people are more likely to realize they're bad. DnD players are a lot less discerning when it comes to game balance, obviously.
Not saying your rules are shit, just pointing out possible reasons why the two populations might be reacting differently.
@@JD-wu5pf i think it has more to do with D&D communitees having to homebrew vague rules. They are used to fudging a rule or 2 vor fun.
But also, PF2e communitees seem to have a certain zealotry about their RAW rules. They complain about a system being broken like crafting, or a character concept being impossible like a non-magus Gish PC, right up until someone like me house-rules to fix it. Then i get crucified not because of my houserule, but because i dared to change the rules at all.
Which is funny, because when you strip all the bullshit away, they are very similar games with very similar balancing math. Once you know the conversion ratios, they basically become interchangable. My homebrew is a full system melding between the 2. Taking some of the simplicity of 5e and the choices of PF2e.
@@zamba136 you are wrong. Dndnext for instance is a hub full of entitled fucks that downvote you to oblivion and insult you for daring to have a different opinion on anything. That community is extremely toxic and they revel in it because of confirmation bias.
I'm new to Pathfinder (jumping off the sinking D&D ship) but in my D&D games, I have a thing called a Mythic XP Bonus, which is pretty much what Ruleslawer suggested, of rewarding more xp for battles the party struggle with. The flavour reason is that, through a combination of unexpected threat level and poor luck, the party find themselves at a disadvantage against their opponent(s), making their ultimate victory against them all the more heroic in the eyes of the people! (Xp in my settings is sort of the quantified concept of renown and heroic praise/confidence the party has earned from the people, which is a magical, empowering force in and of itself. The more faith people have in your abilities, the more you can do.)
Another great video. Here are my comments for the algorithm:
1) Aid Checks. I actually don't have a problem with this. As characters gain experience exploring and fighting, they become better at things and working together as a team. Helping someone climb a rope and you don't really know them should be a little more difficult than after the team has explored together.
2) Solo Monsters. It's odd because I've had the exact opposite experience. Solo monsters seem weaker against players in my games due to action economy. But multiple enemies have given my players more of a challenge.
3) hammers and flails. I actually never noticed this. I have to agree with your assessment.
4) disarm. I totally agree and run my games in the way that you suggest.
5) stride. I've always ruled that if you have a Speed (such as a Fly Speed or Swim Speed) this movement can count as a Stride. I've actually never thought about the flying animal companion having to maintain flight.
I also see the opposite effect with solo monster. I find any time my players go against a solo monster, 9 time out of 10, they seem to beat the with ease. The very odd time they have trouble, is when i roll really good, or they roll really bad. Like today, i had a monster get two nat 20's, almost one shotting two party members. Then they beat the creature, only for it to explode, taking out the two, and another party member rolls a nat 1 on the reflex save and goes down as well. But the only reason for the near deaths was bad rolls.
I think Aid DCs would make more sense as a scale depending on how well the characters know each other, have similar training... etc. That still accounts for them getting better as they get more leveled, but I think it makes sense if certain low level characters (e.g. villagers from the same community, rank and file soldiers trained to work as units) have a lower DC than 20 in those circumstances. So, using the low level soldier example, aiding another member of the same military would have a lower DC than the soldier trying to aid a farmer repairing a cart.
First want to say love the content!
A little modification I have made to your disarm rule. I have homeruled that the -2 to attacks (and +2 to other attempts to disarm) last until the end of the enemies next turn. It makes it less powerful that Disarming Flair but still more useful than the current RAW.
I also like the fact that this makes Disarming flair a useful feat to take and not make that particular selection totally useless.
Absolutely love the "disarm" house rule. It's much more how you'd expect the disarm action to function.
What i did for Aid is it the DC of whatever it is they are trying to Aid on (hit an AC or whatever) +5. I also make it only a reaction instead, as long as they still are within 5ft to be able to Aid. Finally, if you are at least master in whatever action you are doing (so a master in stealth if you said stealth) you provide a +2 on a success and +3 on a critical success. This buffs it meaningfully, but still costs your one and only reaction. If out of combat you can Aid as an "action" and this removes the increase to Aid DC as you are taking the time to Aid them properly, not react in an instant to assist.
Excellent video. You’re arguments are always so well founded. Must be all that lawyer training. I’m actually ok with disarm being week. As a player who loves martial characters, I’m glad it is hardly ever used. I did fight an Omox once that disarmed me and absorbed my weapon. I had to disarm him to get it back. It made the fight extremely difficult. Unarmed characters don’t have to deal with that unless you think you can disarm handwraps of mighty blows.
My only interaction with Disarm so far was from my Gymnast Swashbuckler /Acrobat. It seemed strong, but only because one of the abilities said "until the end of my character's next turn" which meant that i could keep pressure on the enemy and eventually knock the weapon free.
I never even thought about it being weak, it was one of the abilities i started with. But i guess you are right, lol
I felt a big problem with 1st Edition was how badly the GM's adversaries were handicapped by specialized attacks that disarm and trip. It looks as if they fucked up with regard to the flail and hammmer critical hit. Frankly, I really like how Disarm has much lesser functionality. Characters that specialize in trip and disarm tend to be game-breaking to Paizo's adventure design.
I think that was more of a failure on the AP designers' part to account than the mechanic being game-breaking to APs, though I do agree in 1e it was pretty nutty - but that was also a system where practically everyone and their mother could abuse AoO and ruin the *one* action the enemy had that turn, thus ruining their whole turn.
I think the problem comes less with Disarm's nerfed effect and more that it has the exact same checks as knocking prone but knocking prone does *way* more, arguably to a larger subset of enemies too.
Disarm is also completely worthless against enemies that use natural attacks. So while it may shine in published APs, home games very quickly and easily make the disarm build feel irrelevant. You dominate ONE fight against bandits and suddenly everything is bites and claws and slams.
1) agreed!
2) agreed, however, the difficulty of facing a solo boss is not uniform when you take into account groups w/ more than 4 players. In those cases the encounter is easier because the boss has too few actions with respect to the players, so maybe no adjustment is needed in those cases.
3) agreed (I did not know that)!
4) super agreed, I would go further, as even the critical success result is not that powerful in my opinion.
5) agreed, wow I didn't even think about that. I would say Stride = Fly for the purposes of haste, commanding a companion, etc.
Thanks!
2) I would say (my Rules Interpretation, but i think its sound) that the reduced action economy is already taken into account by the "Adjusting for different party sizes" rule . If you take a look at the encounter budget table, you would see that a moderate threat for 5 players is worth 80 + 20 XP = 100 XP, so the single party level +2 monster in this case falls between a Low and a Moderate encounter, therefore the sistem considers it easier. If you want a purely Moderate encounter for the party, you would need to add a PL -2 or 2 PL -4 mooks to the fight. Similarly, a single party level +3 monster, that would be a severe encounter for 4 players, falls in the moderate threshold for a 6 PCs party (that would be 80 + 20 + 20 =120 XP with the party sizes adjustments).
I love how even in these little things the game demonstrates how tight it is-
Please help me with this problem: music and sound levels!
I've gotten compliments AND complaints here. And the rule of the internet is that it's the unhappy people who speak most often, so please answer this question:
Music too loud? Y or N
Music choice? Good, Neutral, or Evil
Feel free to elaborate as well :)
And did nobody get my homage in the first 5 seconds?
good music (and volume is not an issue)! could you add music source/credit to the description?
Music Too Loud: yes, just a bit too loud at first.
Music Choice: Good :)
@@shemetz It is that awesome trove of art called RUclips Audio Library!
Gonna add them now
I think the music is too loud throughout, but not interfering with clarity of speech. Neutral on music choice.
Music volume is fine, and neutral on music choice.
I think a large part of the reason why some people may dislike it, is because I think a lot of other videos use that music, sometimes for memes/humor, so it can get repetitive or seem out of place to folks who have heard it in a different context.
That being said, I think you should continue to use what you like!
Nice video. Thanks!
The music was distracting, though.
Yeah I solicited feedback and have toned down the music since this vid
flails have always been quite powerful in Pathfinder. Back in 1e, the big issue was you could easily disarm someone using a great flail with greater disarm feat and have an extremely good chance at disarming an enemy each and every turn. now the issue is knocking someone prone.
Hmm...for Haste, the way I'd fix it would be a 5th level heighten that lets it give one of any movement bonus rather than just Stride (so basically what you suggested), then an 9th level version that does the same thing but for up to five targets. That would give heighten effects on levels 5, 7, and 9, meaning more choices for prepared casters to make and it becoming a candidate for Signature Spell for spontaneous casters. (Right now, spontaneous casters would either just stick it on a wand or learn it at spell level 7 and trade out the level 3 version for something else.)
Not sure if this video is from before a relevant errata, but the minion trait states that if you don't use an action to command the minion, the minion can still take actions, but only to defend itself or escape obvious harm. The Fly action certainly qualifies, as not taking it results in falling. The Mature Animal Companion feat seems to expand the capabilities of a companion lacking commands by allowing the creature to Strike or Stride even when not in self-defense. The companion presumably has not forgotten how to Fly.
Picking up Pathfinder 2e after a long hiatus from the Pathfinder world, and love this video. There have always been these little quirks that bugged me, and the changes you suggest sound solid. One small nitpick: At 9:30'ish you have text saying that the AOO can knock the target prone again. I suggest giving that a closer look, as that has been a misconception since 3.0. As you are interrupting the action, the target isn't standing yet, so can't be knocked prone again. You cannot "prone-lock" a target through AOOs. You can ready an action to trip them once they have stood up, but that is a ready action, not a reaction. Of course, I say this knowing my understanding is dated to previous versions, but I suspect the interpretation is similar. Either way, good times.
In PF1 AoOs interrupt the trigger, but in general in PF2 reactions occur *after* the trigger. From CRB p. 17: "You get only one reaction per encounter round, and you can use it only when its specific trigger is fulfilled. Often, the trigger is another creature’s action."
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Disagree. It is still an interruption. Maybe you are talking about the "fulfilled" part, but it only means the trigger's conditions must be met and not that the triggering condition must be RESOLVED. To be clear, for exemple, you have the Reactive Shield reaction that allows you to up your AC for the triggering attack. If you assume that the reaction will apply after the resolving of the triggering attack, then reactions will be (mostly) rendered useless, like the Reactive Shield. So no: if the target is standing up, its still not up when you resolve your AOO, and therefore cant be knocked prone again.
It's nice to see how remastered actually adressed some of this.
Aid is now DC15 instead of 20 - not ideal, but it's a start.
Hammer and flail Crit Spec got a save.
And Disarm success now lasts until the creature spends an action to adjust grip.
The Rules Lawyer is aware of these changes and has made a video about them. I think he liked all the changes, except Aid, which still doesn't feel balanced. Yes, it's now easier for lower levels, sure, but now for higher level characters, aid is an auto crit, so it still doesn't feel balanced.
I home rule that a hasted action granted by the quickened condition that allows you to stride allows you instead to move using any type of movement you have speed with but that it does not allow you to make tactical movements like stepping, standing, or jumping.
There's also an Archetype feat called Ackhowledge Fan that I had to heavily nerf as it is very VERY strong for what it does. I added the incapacitation trait and added text to the failure effect that allows the target to be immune for 1 minute. If it's still too problematic I'm planning on making it two actions instead of 1.
For those who don't know it's basically a 1 action Paralyze spell (SL 3) with no resource or frequency limits. If target succeeds the save they are stunned 1 and immune for a while. Failure is stunned 2, Crit failure is paralyzed.... For 1 action and because it's a single action you can ready it to completely interrupt a target's turn, at least once, even if they succeed (but not critically)
Thinking of giving this a trial run for Disarm / Disarming Flare:
Critical Success: You knock the item out of the target's grasp. It falls to the ground 1d4-1 squares from the target's space in a random direction.
Success: You weaken your target's grasp on the item. They must spend an action to regrip the item before they can use it again
Critical Failure: You become vulnerable to the target and they receive a +2 Circumstance bonus to attacks against you until the start of your next turn.
Disarming Flare (Swashbuckler)
On Disarm Success, the target is also Stunned 1.
Turns out I already use your house rules. Stride for me has always been simply a move action based on available movement types. I've never tied it to just ground movement.
It is a deliberate choice, however. I don't think it's intended to Sudden Charge in flight, for example. So I tend to stick to RAW except where it really sucks lol. (Like what I mention here)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I don't really see why not though. Being able to fly is not free. It's accounted for in the balance somewhere. If you are a bird (or can turn into one, as a druid for instance) why wouldn't you be able to charge? Birds like raptors charge all the time. Peregrine falcons, for instance, are quite famous for it. There was a whole suite of feats dedicated to doing exactly that in PF1e. Those don't appear to exist in PF2e so this seems to be an arbitrary limitation.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG You actually CAN sudden charge in flight. Sudden Charge and many feats like it have a line at the end that says "You can use Sudden Charge while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type."
I think disarm should work as written for 2 handed weapons, and should extend until the end of the affected creature's turn for 1 handed weapons and shields on success.
One good homebrew rule for Aid, as I understand it, is as follows:
To determine the success of Aid, roll a d20, add the relevant ability modifier, and subtract the target level from a difficulty class (DC) of 20.
With this rule, a high-level character can Aid another high-level character, but the outcome is uncertain. A low-level character can only successfully Aid a high-level character on a natural roll of 20 (i.e., rolling a 20 on the d20). On the other hand, a high-level character can easily Aid a low-level character.
This rule serves as a balancing mechanism and adds a dramatic context to the game.
In a system that I was trying to build, I wanted bludgeoning weapons to behaving differently when making a critical attack. I was aiming to have them damage armor. In pathfinder there is a concept of damaging items, but only if you hit them directly, and it gives you a negative modifier to try to do so. However, this negative modifier is smaller than 10 and flat-footed gives a temporary AC debuff. I would think bludgeoning weapons would reduce armor or movement. Slashing would cause additional to unarmored areas, and piercing damage would cause a bleeding (DOT) effect.
Excellent video. I noticed the "Haste doesn't let you Fly or Swim" dilemma too when my players hit levels where they could fly and just allowed it. They're now 18 level, about to become 19, and nothing broken or game-breaking has happened in the AP. As you said, cool moments sometimes came out of those extra actions.
A good table for aid is:
Helping an untrained character: 10
Trained: 15
Expert: 20
Master: 30
Legendary: 40
And you can only aid someone with the same or lower training.
Makes sense and balances out over stacking.
Totally agree with points 1,3,4 and 5. Some of these i've already house ruled for my games. And think i'll start using the rest.
Everyone says solo monster of 2 to 3 levels are harder then advertised, but my players never seem to have issues with them. Maybe i just have bad luck rolling with my monsters, or my players are super lucky. XD
Still, he didn't say to always give more XP, he said to read the room and provide XP based on the actual challenge, not the expected challenge.
I think flying and raising shield should be a concentration action, where you make a save check each round, if you succeed a specific DC you don’t need to use an action to keep flying or keep the shield raised. If you fail you have to use an action to keep the action going
As someone who just started GMing for this system recently, Aid has thus far only been attempted in relation to treating wounds. The problem being, both characters in that interaction suck at the skills being used and are rolling low. I will definitely make that Aid check easier for them next time it comes up.
The disarm is still a good option because you can get the weapon out of the opponents (friend of foe) hands, then another player can magic that weapon away. This is just one option for disarm as you can also use it versus non-weapons. In my games it has been used many times with great creative success. Looking at Min-max combat however, yes it is weak.
I actually agree with every point you make. My first reaction to the Hammer/Flail change was a hard no, but that's because I've come to enjoy abusing it myself, so that definitely corroborates with the need of tuning it down. I think Flails and Hammers crit specs are taken into account when considering weapon balancing, as in, the only 2H Reach Hammers/Flails have a d8 dice, but Paizo definitely screwed the pot on the Flickmace.
Regarding Disarm, my only reticence in modifying it is that I think the system as a whole expects the action to be quite weak, and I consider the ability to interact to remove the penalty somewhat of a nerf. The way I see it, Disarm as it is, is meant to be used outside of a player's turn, either by readying it or having a special action like Disarming Block. IMO, a character with Disarming Block becomes worse if they also have Disarming Flair, since they alread spent their reaction to block.
(Disarming during the enemy's turn? Hmm now that's an idea!)
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG There's a lot of shenanigans that can be done with ready and I love it! I've kinda had to make house-rules to fix a few interactions that arise from this though.
The worst offender is readying Flurry of Blows in combination with Stunning Fist. As far as I'm aware, PF2E doesn't handle being stunned during your turn very well, I house-rule that if you become stunned during your turn, the condition is resolved as if your turn just started. This fixes the problem of readying FoB, opponent closes in, gets stunned, loses their whole turn. This also fixes readying Power Word Stun at later levels.
While situational, I absolutely love to ready both Disarm and Trip! The latter one is specially good if you outrange your opponent, because it means that if they close the distance, they have to spend two extra actions to get into striking range, which is basically a wasted turn.
Readying a step back is most of the time a waste of actions, but it can be hilarious, depending on the GMs ruling about how readying interact with the "being attacked" trigger, you can effectively waste an enemy's attack (if they would think that you could disrupt a strike by readying a step back) and make them consider using another action to close the gap. If you do that against an enemy that had to spend an action to stride in, they have no actions left to strike.
Sorry about the wall of text! I just love the implications of readying in 2e.
i like using the Standard DC for aid. The same one they use for downtime money earning.
its funny coming back to this video and seeing 3/5 things fixed
Can't wait for PF3.
Then we'll be happy.
(Honestly a PF2.5 would be awesome)
Every game system has its oversights and disagreeable rules.
It's about ten sentences in a 670 page rulebook.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG and they're all fairly easily overlooked
In the Remaster, the Disarm rule has been reworked.
Old: "You weaken your target's grasp on the item. Until the start of that creature's turn, attempts to Disarm the target of that item gain a +2 circumstance bonus, and the target takes a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks with the item or other checks requiring a firm grasp on the item."
New: "You weaken your target's grasp on the item. Further attempts to Disarm the target of that item gain a +2 circumstance bonus, and the target takes a -2 circumstance penalty to attacks with the item or other checks requiring a firm grasp on the item. *The creature can end the effect by Interacting to change its grip on the item; otherwise, it lasts as long as the creature holds the item.*"
6:10 I think what that means is a party level +2 creature can serve as a severe threat boss if accompanied by 40 XP worth of minions.
huh, this shows that I straight up didn't read the rules for Stride close enough, because I've always just thought of it as a "move action" type deal that is just movement, but they wanted all the main actions to start with S for some reason (step, stride, strike). Will continue to happily ignore that rule, lol
4:26 But Paizo ISN'T ignoring their own rule, that's a particularly easy check so the "gm" decided to low the Aid DC to the same as the actual check. Something that low I might even just let them auto-succeed, unless the party was being chased by enemies. Why make players role something so low(even at low levels) if they have time to prep and take all precautions, it's just going to take more time than it would normally when rolling.
Imagine having a pet bird deciding to unalive itself the moment you stop shouting at it to flap its wings.
I’d love to know your takes on most of these in the remaster. ❤
Totally agree with you on #1. The way I always play Aid as well as checks where the party is "willing" (say you're going to shove an ally who wants to be pushed out of the way) is that you lower the DC by 10, or effectively use the result that's 1 better than what they would have gotten.
Improving a degree of success on aid is absolutely bonkers. Why would a Martial do anything besides aiding another martial's strike as a 3rd action?
@@Zephz43 sorry, the aid attempt gets one degree of success better than what they would have gotten had they tried the actual attempt and gives bonuses to the actual attempt accordingly.
@@Zephz43 or the dc of the aid attempt is 10 lower than the actual attempt.
@@ericrobinson2611 Ohhh got it now, sorry for the misunderstanding. I usually use the same DC that's being contested.
I've read about a GM lowering the main DC by 5 and it going well for them. I might try that out.
1. Yes, RAW Aid is mostly broken. I generally use the same DC as the actual check, though depending on how Aid is described, I might use level DCs or even auto succeed (ie automatic +1, but nothing more).
2. I use milestone.
3. I don't mind how strong hammers are, but I consider it a free action auto success Trip, so you can't trigger anything else and the same restrictions as regular Trip apply. As a side note, I do the same for Improved Knockdown for monsters.
4. Instead of giving everyone Disarming Flair, I just extend the effects of Disarm to the end of the target's turn, instead of the beginning, also adding the possibility to spend an action to remove the effects. That makes successes actually useful, while still keeping Disarming Flair as a feat. Of course it's not as crucial for Swashbucklers who want to disarm, but it's still useful especially when alone, because you can give yourself a disarming bonus, whereas without the feat you couldn't.
5. Great point, nothing to add.
Love this video Rules Lawyer you rule, I mean I like your ruling!
@11:29 Yeah, general players. Players of Pathfinder, the "Wait, I think I have a bonus for that." system do not. That's half the fun of the system, 1e or 2e. It's putting together a cool set of features and mechanics that make your character concept a reality (I'm making a dwarf rogue, her last name is "Sky-Dancer" by the end of her career, if things go right, she'll be able to do just that, without magic. It's a hell of a system.) In other systems, I'm more likely to just go, "Oh that's cool." In Pathfinder 2e, I hadn't looked at hammers, but I sure as hell am now. It's too easy to get destroyed not to take advantage of the benefits.
I also think if you use a free hand to disarm rather than a weapon with the DIsarm trait, and you get that crit, you should have the option to have that object in hand rather than having it fall in the target's space. As partial balance to this, I'd say if you do you have the same weakened grip as the target of a non-crit Disarm Success (+2 to attempts to Disarm you of the object, -2 to your attacks with it if it's a weapon, lasts until the end of the disarmed opponent's next turn or until you spend an Interact action to regrip).
Does this make monks really good at grabbing the evil archmage's macguffin out of his hands and running away? Yes! And it should!
Question about the Hammer & Flail thing. What about Weapon Groups that absolutely suck like Darts & Knives? 1d6+Potency Bleed is a joke compared to enemy HP.
Club's Weapon Spec is actually pretty terrible once enemies have Reach and you don't.
I actually dislike weapons with a Save DC because Martials have significantly worse DCs then casters and it's already hard for them to get monsters to consistently fail their saves, because monsters have really high saves.
My fix for "Stride" not including other movement types. My house rule is it always works. If you can Stride you can use alt movement.
Among rules to ignore, our table has spent exactly 0 consideration in adjudicating movement speeds during the Exploration phase. It's just so much extra keeping tabs when you already have four party members who each want to do something different while moving through a dungeon space, and in terms of timekeeping, who cares if you're moving at 150ft per minute or 75ft per minute? We just exercise intuition about time passage, and of course Exploration abilities tend to take 10 minutes or an hour to do. If something is especially time-sensitive, then it's not exploration, it's an encounter. Maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but I've never sensed the game would be enhanced by keeping track of this feet/minute movement.
Please set me right if I'm wrong here, I looked into PF2e a couple years back when trying to decide between that and 5e - I've been playing TTRPGs for over a decade but somehow missed out on these two titans of the industry.
The thing that put me off PF2e was the chapter on Actions (non-combat actions that is) I remember a huge chapter that was just an enormous list of actions that players could take, with pre-determined outcomes based on what they rolled. The "lift yourself up a ledge" action would have set consequences based on whether you rolled x amount above or below the target number for example - again, this is from memory.
I hated this when I first read it and it's the reason I went to 5e. I remember thinking "what exactly is the point of the DM if every action the players can take are laid out on these pages, with pre-determined outcomes? I'm not being a referee at this point, I'm just regurgitating what the book is saying should happen."
So my questions are: Is my understanding/memory of this chapter correct? And if so, is this a chapter I could completely ignore and handle skills in more of a 5e way by flying by the seat of my pants and going off my personal judgement and intuition?
I'm considering giving PF2e another go, but if my understanding of the way actions works is correct, and it's fundamentally game-breaking to change them, then it's not for me.
I sincerely doubt that you have played a game, at all, ever.
Yeah, this response is par for the course with PF’s community from everything I’ve seen. They continue to sell themselves and the system nicely!
Your understanding seems really warped to me. The book says, multiple times, to only require a roll if there's doubt about the outcome of an action. The rules presented in that chapter don't strike me as a box to trap players in, they strike me as a *tool* to adjudicate what might happen if a player takes certain actions, a set of explicit permissions to do certain actions, a set of examples of actions you might be able to do, a set of ideas for actions to take. In no way does it imply to me that these are the *only* actions you can take.
5e very much just kind of shrugs a lot and implies "idk, figure it out". This has pros and cons. PF2e tries to think of most/a lot of a things a player might do or want to do and describe rules about how to do that. It also cares more about math. This philosophy of math and robust rules also has pros and cons.
@@johnmickey5017 tbh I only found 1 nice path fans a few days ago. The wierd thing is on Reddit the community is really nice. In what world a reddit community is healthier then the open one
Tbh if you like simple games you mybe shouldnt go path. Path is simple. You mybe want to check something like lfg. It's a system that's in the middle ground between osr and 5e and it's really well written and easy to hack .
It's fine to give disarming Flair as a core rule, but what you do with Disarming Flair? A +2 circunstancial bonus to Disarm action?
for Aid, depending on the action, there's a whole table of standard DC's for a particular level, so would that not be the DC one would use for something like Aiding a distraction or a Trip? Assuming you do that, then it would only get a little bit stronger as your proficiency level increases, given you crit. so obviously you want it to be more likely to crit as you level higher (because you have better things to do with your reaction and action than a +1), but still make it accessible to lower levels. a small adjustment to the standard DC table (ie., just increase the DC by 1 each level, only accounting for ability score increases at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20).
I don't ever make the Haste idea a heighten effect. I think if you are Quickened with effects like Haste it should be Okay to Fly or even Crawl.
Ugh my gm does that first one quite a bit, even though he's usually so good about helping dodge pitfalls in the system like you do here!
As the Rules Lawyer stands proud, he suddenly unleshes his domain Malevolent GM core, the player responds with a simple domain and says "Are you the rules lawyer because you follow the rules or do you follow the rules because you are the rules lawyer".
So interesting that single monsters feel more difficult than multiple monsters that add up to the same xp. It makes sense with pf2e's scaling but it's the exact opposite of 5e.
yes that's an interesting part of pathfinder to really have interesting boss fight as they got ride of most effect that would make a creature loose a full turn or be too vulnerable to the action economy
This has been killing me: Is the music from the intro part of the video from Final Fantasy IX?
I guess that designers thought that low-level parties have members who don’t know each other well enough to know how to help party members well enough, many characters lacking experience about working with different people. But designers should tell if that’s reason so gms can tell new players to make characters so that they have close relationships with each other, making team-work easier and Aid difficulty lower.
Also animal companions will just quietly sit there as a kolbold slowly beats them to death with a stick, if their master gets knocked out. The animal also cannot to run and get help if the master falls down a well, because Lassie was just too damn OP and needed heavy nerfs
Thanks to the level system, a solo monster is a considerably more dangerous threat than 4 monsters of 'equal challenge's.
My table hates Disarm for all the reasons you've suggested. It feels like a waste of a turn if you don't critical succeed, because the effects immediately end once the target's turn begins. I'm going to be suggesting this video to my GM.
I just bought Pathfinder (mainly to support the "good guys"). I've been playing D&D for 30+ years. As a DM, I've always looked for ways to simplify the game. I've even gutted 5e, as simplified as it already is. This is why I've been reluctant to switch over to Pathfinder. It seems like it would be taking a step backwards, from a streamlined perspective (5e to 3e). In the instance of this Aid check, it is far more complex then it needs to be. If a player wants to aid another, just burn the aiding players action, give the other player an automatic +2 to their dice roll, and call it a day. Burning their precious action is worth an automatic +2, (no check should be required).
I'm certain I'll bring PF to our table; maybe after our current campaign wraps up. Admittedly, it does look fresh and fun, and I do miss elements of 3e sometimes. I just fear that I'd have a boat load of work stripping down and streamlining it to be palatable.
Uhm to be honest It really seems like they have a lot of remnants of old versions of pathfinder 2e in the current rulebook, both for the DC in aid and the EXP thing seems like it doesn't take into account the newer beasteries either, honestly, I agree about the Flail and Hammer weapon group too, they made Fatal trait and some Crit Effects like Flail and Hammer seems waaay too strong, well at least that my take on it.
I agree with the fact that people do care about minor (or not so minor) details when it comes to things like the Crit Spec.
It might not cross their thoughts when making a character and picking a favorite weapon type but when everyone is playing and you see someone consistently have a better outcome simply because they chose a different weapon type than you, it can feel quite bad.
The idea of making it a reflex save in this case is pretty good, definitively something worth putting into the game for balance sake.
I really like, what three of these problems was fixed in Remaster
Great video! I've always disliked the dc 20 aid - I think your solution is a great one and what I've finally found myself defaulting to recently - it definitely feels better and more in line with the rest of the system.
Love the idea of a heightened haste - curious about people's ideas of what level that should be
I've had a change of heart on this after talking with one of my players and realized the intent of aid is that "aiding" is a task that would require expert proficiency. It's not something that's easy at low levels, but with experience it becomes easier to do. So the DC is set for actually aiding, not the specific thing you're helping do. Therefore, the only adjustments should be on whether its hard (+2) or easy (+2) to aid in that moment. It's a nuanced difference, but makes a huge difference in game.
Human fighters can get +13 to aid, +14 if affected by bless or similar and +15 if having magic weapon. All this at lvl 1.
About minions: "If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm."
*Not flying* seems like obvious harm to me . I agree that animal companions should be able to use their primary movement as a free action if mature.
I agree with this and put it in the vid description
Could aid DC equal to the Suggested DC According to level? Because I had an encounter where a boss offered the Party a chance to change his mind. With a Will save of 11 (DC21) none of the players could even aid or improve the enemies mood towards the party more then 1 step it was something like a 10% chance for each 4 players; there was no way for them to make the check once let alone twice as suggested by the module.
So everyone had a +2 bonus against its Will save? Hard to understand the situation you're describing. Setting up a situation where 4 characters need to succeed at a 10% check sounds like it's a setup for failure, regardless of Aid.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG no, I knew i wasn't explaining this very well, the Enemy was well hidden and was feeling cocky. He knew that an NPC that tried to explain the situation to him would want him brought back in a friendlier state by the party. So I gave my players a chance to "Make an impression" and improve his attitude in general. The Diplomacy check is made against the BBG's Will save (i.e. a DC of 21). None of my players prioritized Charisma or Diplomacy so it was very improbable for them to make the aid check, let alone changing the BBG'S attitude toward the party. idk, would it have been better to fudged the numbers and decreased the DC? I was wondering if setting the aid check according to DCs by level could be more effective...Then again maybe not...
I hadn't realized how terrible shove and prone was (coming from 5e) it is basically requiring them to waste an action ...
1 - DC IMO should be 10 + (2x required profeciency) as standard, so if something requires legendary, it will be DC 26
Stride just says "You move up to your Speed." with a move trait that says "An action with this trait involves moving from one space to another.". Why is it limited to land movement only? am I missing something?
Here's a citation: 2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=397
"Whenever a rule mentions your Speed without specifying a type, it’s referring to your land Speed."
Hey there! Great video, and can't say I disagree with any of your points as a player/GM/game design dabbler.
As a fencer (foil, hema, and kendo) of over 20 years, there's a ludonarrative element of disarm I can advocate for. Disarming someone is actually REALLY hard. I think I've only managed to do so about twice by initiating a disarm offensively. Defensively it's much easier, parrying, using the opponent's momentum, and executing the disarm as a defense. It's probably no surprise that fencer swashbuckler is my favorite class, and I use disarm the same way. Either with an Opportune Riposte to disrupt their turn entirely, either making MAP that much worse for them, or disrupting their whole turn by requiring they pick their weapon back up. Alternatively, I use the Ready action to disarm them if I don't have Riposte on other characters. It comes as a worthy surprise to players and GMs alike. Especially because if, as a swashbuckler, I use a finisher, I can use my next two actions to Ready said disarm. I hope you find this useful! 😊
Swashbuckler getting Disarming Flair + Derring Do makes it really great too, since your Disarm lasts longer, generates panache, and if you already have panache, you get to roll twice, making crit-fishing a little more reasonable.
Combine it with a parry-based build, eventually take Parry & Riposte for Opportune Ripostes on failures, etc. Lot of options for a fun build there!
I'm not a big fan of Aid being tied to a skill, even the skill being used.
Imagine that the Rogue is Disabling the Trap. The Cleric might be on lookout, the Wizard is hiding for fear of taking lethal Hard Work damage, and the barbarian is helping the Rogue.
How? "Hold this. Put your finger there. Wipe my brow." There might be specific Aid checks like "lift this 2 inches, i need to get my hand under it." That uses strength.
But the Barbarian doesn't need the Disable Device skill, he isn't the cook in the kitchen, he's juststirring the pot. For that reason, i heavily edit the Aid system to make co-operation fun.
Sometimes i let them use the Rogue's bonus if they are just an extra pair of hands being given thourough instructions, sometimes there is no roll if they are just holding something
100% agree.
Hasbro just got sneakier, not better.
As my group is soon to try this rule set, I'll consider these.
Aid ) So, this is kind of like the 'help' action in a certain other system... one character assisting another, but the game mechanics are handled differently. So... have to spend an action and reaction to give a +1. Are there no other options for providing a +1 or better? I often find that I don't care about doing something that only gets me +1. Yes, in theory +8 is better than +7 on a roll... but 1HP has mattered more often to me than coming up one short on a skill check.
Basically, I'll only use Aid when I don't have another option to assist... and probably never in combat (where the action + reaction cost matters). I understand the logic, but it feels a bit much to spend action, reaction, and make a check... to at best give +1 but also maybe get unlucky and instead give -1.
XP ) With XP only coming from combat, it discourages have social encounters or other activities... as the only way to level up is fight. Now, that can be mitigated by rewarding XP for 'social combat'... but that means you have to 'win'... even if your character is wrong.
Really, it's hard to make a good XP system. Even a system that skips XP and rewards for completing 'major quests' can be trouble... since it may take a long time to complete one task and almost none for another task... so either level timing is a roller coaster, or some events don't get level rewards for being 'too soon'.
Critical Special Effect ) Why is this a thing? I guess it is a power scale thing... get stronger, feel stronger. Oh... that description, it sounds very powerful. I can see why it would be a problem... and having played the Kingmaker game, I know how brutal being knocked prone can be. RIP my party.
Disarm ) I'll keep in mind to not use that. I'm pretty sure in real life it is also a waste of time... it is difficult to achieve and faster to just defeat the opponent directly. I guess they needed to describe the mechanic to show that it shouldn't generally be tried.
Stride ) Wait... it is restricted to the ground? Well, normally that isn't an issue... it would only be situations involving swimming or flying. The offered solution seems reasonable... though I haven't yet actually played the system, so don't know if that still feels restrictive to me.
Take in account that in Pathfinder, a +1 is both a +1 to hit and a +1 to crit (in combat, or a +1 to succeed and +1 to critically succeed with skills, etc). Be carefull with increasing the bonuses, it gets out of hand quickly. Suppose you increase Aid to +2 or so. In a fight where your fighter is hitting the enemies with, say, a 10, if you move to a flanking position and then Aid him in combat, he would be hitting on 6+, and thus crits on a 16+.
I don't see disarm as being as bad as people say it is, and I believe that it fits into the overall design of the system. First of all, as another commenter has stated, disarming people is realistically difficult. Secondly, any consecutive attempts by other players are going to be easier by a whole 10%, which is rather high. Finally, it is going to be really difficult to properly balance disarming someone because of just how strong actually disarming someone is.
Realistically it's hard to cast a spell. Yet to see anyone do it
Woah the quality of your videos and confidence while speaking have vastly improved. I haven't watched in awhile but I'm really glad I did.
I think the intention of aid isn't to make it harder for low level characters, but to make it so that if you're aiding, you have to be good at the thing too. If you're helping me with computer repair, I'd hope you didn't suck at it.
Hello Rule Lawyer
I've played A LOT of PF2e and i'm agree with you for some Rules
The DC 20 for Aid is strange for me, i prefer set a Normal Level-Dc rather than the typical 20
The Hammer Crit Spec is Sooo strong, it's ridiculous. In one of my campaign, every martial just switch to hammer when they have seen his efficacity and my mobs juste keep getting prone. Special mention for flying combat
For the Disarm Action, i prefer to say that the creature have -2 to attack until she take an action to grasp again their weapon
I'm Agree with you too for the Stride action. I prefer to consider that we are talking about the current speed and not only the land one
If you want to do 3 action activity, have a ranger, druid, etc with animal companion 🐎. They can move you, in their turns two times, at cost of 1 action. In that way the game is more co-op that just casting Haste. Still the bird part is just ridiculous xD
for disarm I just make it go until the end of the target's next turn instead of start
I feel like the polearm critical needs a buff.
Haste should give you an extra action (spendable on anything) and also increase your movement speed by 30feet
I actually disagree with the specific change you made to Disarm. I'd make clearing the penalty eat an Action instead of automatically processing at the start of anyone's turn.
I'd then make Disarming Flair either the ability to use DEX with Finesse weapons for disarm attempts, or a +2 to your disarms
"If you tinker with one thing you might unintentionally effect the whole system PF2E is really well put together but everything is so interconnected compared to other rules systems even 5E that make it hard to homebrew for, and people love to homebrew. when systems are open for easy homebrew your games become so fun, if a homebrew screws up the system... then thats no fun, its why I advocate for the simpler systems.
For aid actions I just have my players make a DC 11 or higher flat-check for a +2 bonus, but they have to be atleast trained in the skill they are aiding. No crit fail, or crit success.
Fun story about Disarming that happened in a PF1e game I was running. This was meant to be a horror game where I put the players up against classic slasher flick tropes. The players were being hunted by a Texas Chainsaw/ Vorhees inspired ogre wielding a Numerian Chainsaw. The ogre had the kineticist player in his sight and was about to charge. She, a smol human child, suddenly stops running, turns around, stares the ogre straight in the eyes, and rips the chainsaw out of his hand with Telekinetic Maneuver. He double moves to retrieve his item, she launches the chainsaw with her Aether Blast (choosing to deal the chainsaw damage because it was higher than her blast damage at the time) and wouldn't you know, she rolls a natural 20. Damage was more that enough to bring the creature below zero and she specifically described how she kept her telekinetic hand on the deadman switch, sawing the monster's head off over the next round. She took that chainsaw all the way to level 17 in that campaign. Of course, the fuel cells ran out quickly, but by then her aether blast was dealing the damage and the chainsaw was acting as a projectile to focus it on and that's how Equestria was made!
I have a question, I'm very new to Pathfinder and I like combat that's dangerous and fast paced, I think it's really interesting, but what do you think would happen if I halved the health of all of the monsters and the players. Is that a bad idea? I know it will make weaknesses and resistances even more impactful, but are there other negative unforeseen consequences that I wouldn't know?
I think the Stride action is the one I'm most prone to house ruling. Disarm is a tricky one, because its one that quickly can get too powerful if changed but is arse as it is. The rest I can honestly take or leave changing.
I will attempt a counter-argument on Aid if I may: What the set DC of 20 may be intended to reflect is that general experience, even when only trained in a skill, is enough to to provide assistance for someone that has a very high overall level. In other words, when your team is new and low-level, they might know a skill well enough but they may not be experienced enough as an adventurer to know how best to use their skill to assist another. It's more likely you might interfere with what they're doing, or provide no help at all - and for a table that roleplays well this provides drama. But as you become more experienced, you start to understand how to help others just as you learn how better to strike, coerce, climb, etc. Keep in mind all along if you're not proficient at all, you don't get to add your level - you're still no help if you don't know the fundamentals. The effect of this is played out something like this: Low-level - you go to aid an ally climbing a knotted rope, you roll a 2 and the question becomes how well do you know assisting another in a way that's beneficial and turns out you don't, you crit fail and the players are free to roleplay the aided PC attempting to kick you off of him saying "get off me - I know what I'm doing!"; Mid-level - you've adventured for some time, and you've learned to cooperate to survive. Same PCs now face a jagged rock wall, you roll a 2 to aid; it's not a crit fail though because now you know at least how not to get in the way, and the aided PC can chime in "I got this - just don't grab my leg this time!". High-level - you have lived and died by your allies; you know the value and importance of teamwork, getting other's backs, or at least the urgency of responding immediately without hesitating and to be precise enough to extract valuable advantage with each action; you're fighting a monster with some fierce defenses this time, and you aid and roll a 2 - you don't crit fail, you don't fail, you minimum succeed because even though you didn't execute at your best, you have enough skill to at least pose enough threat to require some attention with more than needing to fully flank. Higher level, more highly efficient at making yourself useful and less likely to get in the way and maybe even skilled enough to always be of some use. Now on the mechanic side, I see some intent in number as is. At low levels, your range is -1 to +1; at mid levels, it's more weighted to 0 to +2/+3, and at the highest levels it's almost always +1 to +4. This emulates the DC scaling that we see in the DC by level chart - the formula 14 + level of challenge (additional +1 per 3 levels); compare to a range from -1 to +4, and if you specialize with feats you can get circumstance bonus higher at certain intervals, take a nice bonus to your own checks to aid or more commonly get critical aids which further modifies the success. If you use DC same as level challenge (equal to the beginner box example), the usefulness of these feats greatly diminish at high levels as you're not replacing the risk of interfering with certainty and usefulness based on overall experience. Well, those are my thoughts anyway; hope this was insightful, and if you disagree I think that's fair and all but don't knock it until you've played enough to see the benefit of the progression rules as intended. Yes it's harder at low levels, but that's when we should be roleplaying trying to help but just getting in the way - that shouldn't happen when you're level 15. I should also think with GM discretion you should only hold that to situations where you deem aid is just inherently easier (let me hold that rope steady for you - hey that's simple DC 10), or more difficult on grounds that the challenge is one both parties are inexperienced with (unsure how you can help here...), or the aided party is using a technique which the person aiding has no experience with like special abilities (using a Skill feat that requires a check for ex).
Good with the rest though keep it up :) For Hammer/Flail it may be easier to just say if you crit you get a free Trip attempt with the same MAP as the attack but doesn't contribute to MAP (I like this scaling with the MAP as an additional balance - prone is a nasty debuff, but no MAP may be preferable; worth negotiating with a player if you have to nerf). Disarm I think you nailed it, and Fly =/= Stride I definitely agree is an oversight.