u/DnDPhD

I find I spend a lot of time poring over monster stat blocks in the weeks, days, and hours before a session -- trying to remember what abilities, spells, reactions, auras etc. they have, and considering "best practices" for how a particular monster will act in the situation. Usually I find this useful, but that doesn't change the fact that when I'm actually running the session, I will forget a lot of what I had planned, or (more often than not) PC actions or even simple initiative order will derail any plans. To be clear, I'm fine with this...but it makes me wonder if I should even bother doing all that due diligence in the first place. Perhaps it's better to just have a general once-over of a monster to remember the gist of what they can do, and save the actual consideration for the heat of combat.

Anyhow, I'm curious how other GMs approach this basic element of prep: do you read everything thoroughly, multiple times? Do you generally just "wing it" when session comes, looking over the stat blocks between the monsters' turns? Some other variation? I'm always interested in knowing what prep looks like for others!

Edit: For the record, I play/run in person, though have my laptop open with AoN tabs for all the monsters, and a notepad for tracking everything else. I plan on using a virtual encounter tracker for my monsters soon, but I've been semi-analog since I started running.

Since I mostly run APs, I've run quite a few influence encounters using the Influence Subsystem, and I think they mostly go well. I really enjoy running social encounters, and I try to make them fairly organic...but one of my players has pointed out that when they know it's an influence encounter, it takes them right out of the immersion. When asking what specifically bothered her about them, she said:

>I'd rather "you want more info, so you decided to go to a tavern, when you enter, what do you do" then whatever I/we come up with (whether we talk, fight, or flirt), roll for it. Feels like a lot of agency, improv, ect. is taken away when it's changed to "you now have to go to the tavern in order to convince the bartender to give you the info, now take turns rolling what I tell you to and see if you succeed"

I don't disagree with her at all, though sometimes it's hard for me to make the system completely invisible, and I also think that other players can benefit from getting a sense of what is going on mechanically.

I'll be starting an AP soon that is extremely Influence subsystem heavy for the first chapter or so (and those influences impact much of the AP overall), so I would love any tips from GMs on how to run the Influence subsystem in such a way that PCs can know that they're making headway with NPCs and can "discover" and "influence" effectively while not feeling like the social encounter comes down to a number of mechanical thresholds.

So, I like to buy a lot of sets of identical dice for when I run. Four or five sets that look alike is kind of my go-to these days, even though I have fifty or more unique sets I've accumulated over the years. Anyhow, one of the FLGS I play at has a bunch of large trays of individual dice for sale. Last time I bought some I realized...

I have never used percentile dice in Pathfinder 2e.

Seriously. I've been playing this system constantly for well over three years at this point, sometimes (like now) in four campaigns at once as either a player or GM. But not once have I ever had reason to use a percentile die! And of course, even if I did have a reason, there's always the two-d10 workaround.

Honestly, has anyone ever used one in PF2e? This post is mostly tongue-in-cheek (hence the humor tag that some folks will surely overlook), but there's a grain of legitimate curiosity here...

A quick question for the GMs out there. If your enemies know that the PCs are coming, do you ever justify having those enemies pre-buff? Even simple pre-buffs like "I'm going to raise my shield before they enter" or "I'm going to ready an action for when the door opens" etc. are things I haven't done a lot with yet, but in theory they make sense to me. Naturally having some magical pre-buffs is another option, but at what point does it start to feel like you (as GM) are putting your finger on the scale a little too much?

The title question is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, in light of various posts and comments on this sub. Every player is different, so it follows that everyone has different reasons for why they play and what they want to get out of the experience, but I'm starting to wonder if (on this sub, at least) there are just as many players who want to live out a power fantasy of always being a clear winner in any encounter as players who want to feel challenged, and like it is absolutely possible that their character could die in a given encounter. There's an obvious middle ground here where one wants to feel challenged sometimes and like they're the baddest mofo on the block at others.

But for the sake of discussion, what's your preference? If it helps, you can consider a general scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "I want to be a badass who walks over all encounters" and 10 being "I never want to feel like I'm going to clearly 'win' a given encounter."

So, I've seen a few users lately mention how it would be nice to read more accounts of actual moments in in-session play, and since I'm in a lot of games right now (two as a player, two as a GM), I'm going to start doing just that. Spoilers for the penultimate chapter of Triumph of the Tusk (level 10) are in spoiler tags below...

A few weeks ago, in my Triumph of the Tusk game, >!the party had spent a few sessions successfully infiltrating Wyvernsting in advance of a major siege. Part of this infiltration included performing a ritual to make a nearby Thunderbird friendly to the PCs' cause (though the PCs had no idea what role it would play). Once the siege began,!< the PCs were tasked with facing a Rancorous Priesthood troop. >!Because the PCs had achieved the highest threshold of "infiltration points,"!< the troop was "weak," but I had been looking very forward to running it because I've never run a troop of magic-users before. I was imagining a round where they could do a single-action Wild Swing on the PCs, following up with a two-action Cry of Destruction, which would deal 6d12 if the Wild Swing hit anyone. Well...that never happened.

As it turned out, I rolled hot garbage on initiative for the Rancorous Priesthood, and all of the PCs rolled higher. Additionally, unbeknownst to the players, a Thunderbird was also involved in the first round. Specifically, the AP states:

>>!If the PCs allied with the thunderbird, the immense creature swoops overhead and briefly joins the encounter; its Perception modifier for initiative is +22. On its turn, the creature swoops about 25 feet over the troop and uses its Lightning Blast ability. This is an area effect dealing 6d6 electricity damage and 6d6 sonic damage (DC 30 basic Reflex save). The thunderbird flies away on the following turn, playing no further role in the encounter.!<

Well, Mr. Thunderbird (with the unpronounceable name) also joined initiative before the Rancorous Priesthood...and you can surely see where I am going with this. The Druid and Animist in the party both got successful fireballs from afar on the troop, dealing additional damage due to the AoE weakness. I believe the Ranger also managed to do some ranged damage as well...but then it was the thunderbird's turn. The skies darken. The air feels charged with electricity. Enormous wings beat overhead...and the thunderbird does his Lightning Blast. I roll the reflex save for the Rancorous Priesthood...and get a Nat-1. A grand total of 24d6 sonic and electricity damage, plus their AoE weakness. I went ahead and rolled ALL of the damage, and I distinctly remember that it amounted to 102 points. After taking two fireballs and a ranged strike, they were toast before they even had an opportunity to act. I'm sure that at some tables this might feel a little disappointing to players because it wasn't them landing the impressive killing blow, but it was such a hilariously overpowering moment that we all found it hilarious...and I still haven't had the change to use troop spellcasting!

So, I've been GMing for awhile at this point, and I've had the opportunity to run some super fun monsters. Vorpal and Conspirator Dragons are among my favorite, and I've also loved Witchfires, Shock Zombies, and the prospect of running a Rancorous Priesthood that got obliterated with a 24d6 blast from a Thunderbird before they even had their turn in initiative...(long story). But I think the most fun single-turn activities I've run so far come from basic level 5 Necromancers.

The combination of Undead, Arise! (one action) and Wave of Death (two actions) has led to a lot of creativity. A smart necromancer can summon two different 1 HP undead creatures, strategically place them in squares that can maximize damage to a party, and simply...blow them up for 4d12 void damage. There's something hilarious about raising a couple of skeletons that are basically just bombs. I've used Undead, Attack! to good effect as well, but it's oddly satisfying to just take a single turn to place a couple of void-nukes and go "kablooey." I was able to do this a couple of times yesterday, and even though my party mopped the floor with the encounter overall, seeing the concern in their eyes as they took (in one case) 37 points of damage just from an exploding skeleton was worth it.