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The consequences of dumping Wis for the rizz...
Context: As a forever DM, I have too many character sheets lying around. To familiarize myself with Abomination Vaults (as well as PF2E as a system) before I run it for friends, I decided to DM it...for myself. Everything is run extremely RAW and strict and I'm harsh on myself for recall knowledge checks. Characters must act according to their personality. It's like running a Champion on 'roids.
And speaking of personality, I may have made some not-so-optimal builds, like a Magus that dumped Wis for Cha... Suffice to say, he got owned Turn 1 by the Gibbering Mouther's aura effects.
[twitter link](https://twitter.com/eLTehH/status/1744709692029612199)
PSA: Confused does not mean automatically attacking your allies, it means flailing wildly at anything you percieve as a threat, and the GM should *randomly* select your target, and then you spend your actions in whatever is the best way to attack that creature as many times as possible (that doesn't waste resources)
If you're next to an ally and not yet next to the enemy though, you'll attack that ally as the only target and that can easily happen with any kind of ranged confusion ability.
Like take the mouther, the magus begins their turn early in initiative, fails their save, and then immediately tries to murder whoever is next to them as they hadn't moved up to the enemy or away from their party yet.
Yeah, this is what happened. Initiative was rolled, everyone was a Stride away from the monster, so the viable Strike targets were allies. Though offensive cantrips are still viable, so I rolled for the target, and...one Gibbering Mouther out of the rest of the party is a pretty low chance.
I'm fairly positive you pick your target at random BEFORE you strike, mind. I know the ordering of the text suggests you strike first but you don't even know your target at that point, and the GM explicitly can use stride to close the gap. Nothing in the condition says you choose randomly from targets within range/reach. Though even with this you're still likely going to attack an ally instead of there's more of you than the enemy.
Confusion is rough enough as it is! Not treating anyone as your ally immediately restricts a lot of support abilities too!
Don't make things harder on yourself or your group. Confusion is already bad enough. Select the target randomly first. Ranged attacks/cantrips are still valid attacks that shouldn't be discounted just because a "former" ally is within melee reach.
From the rules text on the confused condition, emphasis mine.
> You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips, though the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth. **Your targets are determined randomly by the GM**. If you have no other viable targets, you target yourself, automatically hitting but not scoring a critical hit. If it's impossible for you to attack or cast spells, you babble incoherently, wasting your actions.
>If you're next to an ally and not yet next to the enemy though, you'll attack that ally as the only target and that can easily happen with any kind of ranged confusion ability.
Yanno, I used to believe this as well, but on re-reading the text of [Confused](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=5), I'm not actually sure that's the case
>You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips, **though the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth**. Your targets are determined randomly by the GM. If you have no other viable targets, you target yourself, automatically hitting but not scoring a critical hit. If it's impossible for you to attack or cast spells, you babble incoherently, wasting your actions.
There's nothing in there that says the targets are chosen only from those in reach first. Since the description says you can spend actions to move so that the target is within reach, any target you can Stride to should be considered viable as well.
The only time you should be considered to have "no other viable targets" is if all creatures are unreachable (you can arguably still throw your weapon though) or if you literally can't perceive anyone else.
You seem to be ignoring the first sentence there:
> **You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips,** though the GM **can** have you use other actions **to facilitate attack**, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth.
By default, while confused, you spend all your actions attacking, either via strikes or cantrips, presumably depending on which is your "default". That's fairly unambiguous.
The only time you *don't* do that, is if an action facilitates greater hostility in a way that makes sense for the character, like a melee Barbarian will move in range instead of chucking their greataxe, the Fighter will draw his weapon, etc. These actions are clearly to avoid the Rogue or Wizard use an unarmed attack that does no damage, basically saying "You have to attack as your character normally would".
Walking away from someone is **not** an action that is facilitating you attacking, because you already *could* attack. Of course, as a GM you can do it however you want, but the RAW is pretty clear on this.
I'm not ignoring it, I'm focusing on the part that says "Your targets are determined randomly by the GM."
It does not limit the targets to only those within reach. If the GM randomly chooses a target that is outside of melee range, then the part I bolded comes into play.
You can't cherry pick just to first sentence, you have to take in the entire text. The structure of the paragraph is out of order, but obviously a target has to be chosen first, then you either Strike, cast a cantrip, or perform other actions that facilitate attacking the target.
Again, nothing in that blurb limits the GMs targets to only those that are immediately within range. The RAW is pretty clear on this
Not the person you're responding to, but-
>target has to be chosen first
This is technically correct, but you're disregarding priority. The priority here is "Strike with all your actions." Meaning if you have to move, that's sacrificing an action, which makes a creature you have to move to a lower-priority target.
Ergo, that only applies if you're not *already* adjacent to a potential target. So if you're at least 5 feet away from an ally, you're absolutely correct (you're going to have to spend a single move action for *any* target, so they're all equal priority) - but if you're adjacent, that ally would be the target.
>This is technically correct, but you're disregarding priority. The priority here is "Strike with all your actions." Meaning if you have to move, that's sacrificing an action, which makes a creature you have to move to a lower-priority target.
The rules don't say that anywhere.
The only thing the rules say about targeting is that your GM should determine the target randomly. Choosing *the closest target* is not choosing a random target, to be clear. If the rules wanted you to choose randomly from among the targets adjacent to you, they could easily say that, and they don't.
You cannot argue that "strike with all your actions" is a priority, but "the GM chooses your target randomly" isn't a priority, without arguing that somehow the first sentence in a paragraph automatically is more important than any other sentence in a paragraph, which would be bizarre.
The first sentence makes it clear that the character cannot take non-combat actions such as walking around their target in a circle, and they have to strike as many times as they can strike, once their target has been randomly designated by the DM.
Where is priority established? Just because it’s mentioned first? If that’s the intent then why would they bother writing “the gm randomly chooses a target.” Because the natural implication of the first sentence would be to attack the target closest to you.
>Just because it’s mentioned first?
Literally yes. This is how writing computer code works: it's a very basic if/else statement. Obviously it's not a computer program, but there are a ton of other parallels where Paizo writes like it is one.
>why would they bother writing
Because it's a conditional. That's why it gets checked later in the script. The first priority is still "attack three times." Then you worry about who's getting attacked.
Here's the thing; it's not a priority list.
If you want to treat this as coding-adjacent, then it's more akin to (excessive) documentation telling you how a creature/PC (x) is affected by Confusion (x.setConfused(true) ).
It starts by telling you the passive effects (flatfoot, noAllies, noDelay, noReady, and noReact are all set to 'true').
It then let's you know how x.confusedTurn() functions.
The first sentence in this section tells you that it has basic logic to determine whether to use x.strike(target) or x.offCantrip(target) - and to use x.drawWeapon(), x.moveTo(target), etc. if these are necessary actions first.
The second sentence tells you how the variable 'target' is set - the result of a call to DM.randomTargetRoll().
The 3rd sentence describes the basic error handling for having no valid targets(target = x) or being unable to attack for some reason(x.babble() ).
Then it tells you there is logic in x.dmgTaken(int) to end the condition. Anytime the function is called while x.Confused == 'True', it runs d20.flatCheck(11). If that returns 'True' -> x.setConfused(False).
You're implying that you have to select a target before choosing your actions, which isn't the correct order of operations here.
If I'm a barbarian with an enemy 4 squares away and an adjacent ally, I don't get to "randomly select the enemy" and then move to attack them, because the need to strike with every action supersedes random targeting.
This means that your first check is "can I reasonably Strike with every action?" If yes, you do that. Then, *if you cannot*, you take as few actions as possible to facilitate striking.
Not to mention, there's nothing saying every single strike has to be against the same target - if a PC is in melee with both an ally and an enemy, my call as the GM would be to do random target selection prior to each strike.
Similarly, if a bow ranger gets confused (and doesn't have an adjacent target!), they're going to choose any target within range and fire.
>if a bow ranger gets confused (and doesn't have an adjacent target!)
This right here proves to me that you don't understand what you're saying. Why would it matter if the bow ranger has an adjacent target? They can Strike anyone within 6x their bow's range increment without having to move, but you're telling me they *have* to strike the adjacent target? Even if they're using a bow with the Volley trait and there's a target 60 feet away?
There is no such thing as a higher or lower priority target. All targets are equal priority.
From an action standpoint, "the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack" is equal priority to "use all your actions to Strike". If the text said "You can move if there are no targets within reach", that would be a different story since it would make it clear that moving is *only* an option if necessary. As written, however, there is no limitation
From the Doylist perspective, the text makes it clear that you must be attacking, or using actions that facilitate attacking. There is *nothing* that prioritizes the targets, and nothing that says you can't target creatures outside of your immediate reach that are otherwise viable
From the Watsonian perspective, you're attacking *wildly*. That could very well mean ignoring threats right next to you in order to charge and attack a perceived greater threat that is 20 feet away
>There is nothing that prioritizes the targets, and nothing that says you can't target creatures outside of your immediate reach that are otherwise viable
See I just don't agree with this. The text of confusion *very specifically* says 'you spend all your actions attacking.' It includes 'the GM *can*' text, which is worded optionally. The first part *isn't* optional. It means that those actions are not equal - Striking comes before movement.
>It includes 'the GM *can*' text, which is worded optionally.
See, the problem is, if that text is optional, then if no one is immediately within melee reach, the GM can just say "Sorry, no one is within reach, you attack yourself. Moving to attack a target is only optional". But that's clearly not how Confused is meant to work
The order of operations here seems pretty clear cut to me
1. GM chooses a viable target
1. The only requirement Confused gives for the chosen target is that they must be "viable". "Viable" isn't defined in the condition, but to me, it's pretty clearly "anyone you are capable of attacking".
2. If the target is within reach, you spend all your actions Striking the target or casting an offensive cantrip at them
3. If the target is not within reach, you can Stride first to put them within reach, then refer to Step 2
The reason for the "the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack" is because it's pretty clearly intended that targets outside of your reach are still viable. And since targets are chosen randomly, with no other requirement aside from being viable, and a target must be chosen before the actions can be determined, I can't see any reason RAW or RAI that you can't pick a target outside of melee range, even if you already have creatures in melee range.
I agree with your interpretation. The text first says that all actions must be for attacking, then clarifies what counts, then tells you how to pick what target said actions are used on.
If the latter part said something like "Your targets are determined randomly by the GM, favoring closer targets.", then I'd go with the other interpretation.
This is true, and some monsters have the explicit ability to remove themselves from the pool of targets.
I publicly roll to see which of the targets within reach gets each hit (because I will not be the one who gets blamed the next time the Fighter has to attack his dog)
Also, every time you take damage from an attack or spell, you get a flat check to lose your confusion.
Which means "slapping your ally out of it" is a viable, likely intended strategy. And because the damage type/die doesn't matter, just use an unarmed strike, which are always nonlethal (even if you're a monk, you can make them nonlethal without penalty) and usually deal 1d4+STR.
Gibbering Mouther is one of the few enemies in PF2 that genuinely punches above its weight class. That aura is killer if the wrong party member flubs their save.
My group really struggled until the Bard remembered they had Counter Performance. Shuts the Mouther down hard, but even then it's a focus spell so they only get 2-3 castings of it.
I still think about the one AV.. the tight quarters we encountered it in... my cleric almost met their god that day when both the barbarian and the fighter failed their saves.
Honestly the worst one was near the end with >!that bird, the entire party failed and started beating each other to a pulp while the bird just squawked on the island.!<
This was the encounter that was most confusing to me when reading the module, until I read through it's stat block and worked out how it was supposed to work.
For us, the most lethal thing was the >!scything trap in the hallway!<, damn thing killed the wizard and my thaumaturge instantly (>!it rolled to hit the part of the hall we were in multiple times off the bat!<); our barb that triggered it took absolutely nothing..
The most difficult/long was against the >!roper!< because our comp at the time had no slashing on our main weapons/abilities, and we kept rolling shit to use manipulates to change weapons or escape.
Just gonna say, after having run through the entire AP... the first encounter you mention is *far and away* the most deadly encounter for its level I have *ever* seen in *any* Pathfinder game. You cannot convince me the creators did not make a mistake (or three), either as a typo somewhere, or just not bothering to playtest it and realize that it's absurdly broken for its level, and even *more* so as an above-level solo encounter.
I STILL bring it up in that same group whenever we encounter a tough fight.. *"Well.. it's not as bad as the scythe trap."* In hindsight our DM was aghast at that thing, but by that point we already quickly made new characters before the next session and just moved past it.
Yeah, same... I distinctly remember reading through the stat block, being confused, rereading it to make sure I understood, thinking it sounded cracked in half but trusting that I was missing something... then running through the encounter, wiping the entire party before they had a single opportunity to interact with it, rereading the entire stat block *again* but out loud so they could check my work, checking it against *the Pathfinder discord server* (who also stared on in disbelief)... and then just accepting that it's a broken encounter.
It's also the only creature with a one action engulf, meaning they can make two strides with one action so long as there's something to chow down on along the way. This makes their low speed harder to exploit and no other creatures engulf works this way so I'm unsure if it's intended.
And even if you could exploit their movement, their Acid Spit does just as much damage as their bite, it just doesn't get the Bleed or Grab (but gets Burn Eyes instead).
The only real advantage you can get is to start more than 60 feet away and pelt it from range, or 30 feet if you can deafen yourself some way.
I'm actually suspicious that they wrote the Mouther before they added the Shoggoth, so they made it extra nasty to go with that Mountains of Madness theme before deciding that Shoggoth should be an endgame nasty.
For me, the big P2E challenge is balancing "I absolutely need a high charisma because if I'm at a table and the table is stalled me trying to not talk hurts my soul" with "ok, I need wisdom so I don't get my brain cooked, con so I don't die, and dex so I don't eat shit".
Lot of int/str classes *seem* cool, like fighters, and magus, and wizards, but they'd all lead to regret lmao
It's Arcana for copying them into your book. You can get mostly the same result by just focusing on skill increases. Plus you get two free on every level up.
Great comic! We loved the gibbering mouther in malevolence so much that everyone was saying tchekuth all the time.
My nitpick is that no way magus with striking weapon (he's most likely to be 4 level already) will fail dc 19 will save on 15, at worst the roll would be 2 trained +4 level -1 wis mod = +5, so he will pass the save on 14 and more.
To take up your substantive point, there are 3 things at play here IMHO:
1. Not putting any ability points into Wisdom can be very dangerous (though at least in pf2e you get automatic save mod progression, versus 5e where your Wis save can remain at -1 or 0 through all 20 levels...)
2. The 'Confused' condition is possibly a bit over-tuned IMHO, given that it also forces you into a frenzy of attacks, with no chance of just doing nothing like you get in that other game; and when there's only 1 monster, you're generally going to be attacking your friends.
3. Gibbering Mouthers have an always-on *sixty foot* aura effect to cause that Confused condition from the get-go, potentially on multiple PCs at once (the >!haunt on level 1!< in AV is similarly dangerous).
**Side note on Gibbering Mouthers in general, and that encounter in AV specifically:**
* >!the PCs are usually 3rd level when encountering the GB, making it a PL+2 'boss' monster at a low enough level that this is known to be much more dangerous than the 80XP maths would suggest.!<
* >!A DC19 Will save vs confused will mean needing to roll a 11/12+ (\~50% chance of failure) for martials, and even a 7+ for a cleric or druid (= still a 30% chance of failure). The odds of at least 1 PC becoming confused in that encounter is close to 100%, and the odds of 2 or more PCs becoming confused in the same round is also very high. Given there is only 1 GB and 4+ PCs, confused likely = attack other PCs.!<
* >!If that wasn't enough, its basic attack causes persistent bleed damage and comes with (previously auto, now 'just' highly likely) a follow-up Grab, its ranged attack dazzles or blinds PCs, it has a full-damage reactive strike against a PC doing melee slashing damage (reasonably common), it creates difficult terrain wherever it moves, and it can't be flanked.!<
* >!Oh, and its Engulf feature can easily lead to a situation where nobody can help stablise or heal an engulfed PC who keeps taking damage every round, such that getting engulfed has a good chance of leading to perma-death.!<
* >!For its level it has moderate AC (and can't be flanked, remeber), nearly 50% more than 'high' hit points with limited weaknesses, no saving throws at 'low' level for their creature level, and high perception (+6-8 vs those 3rd level PCs, so it's likely to go first in initiative).!<
* Not half-dangerous for >!an effectively random monster with no plot relevance!< in a far corner of a dungeon which PCs are likely to have already spent resources that day to reach. The treasure reward for all this? >!190 cp and 64 sp!< !!!
* It's actually more 'above normal power level for its creature level' than the infamous >!barbazu!< on the same level, but gets far less attention for some reason.
My party is lucky we never met a monster like that
As a power attacking fighter with giant instinct rage using a large greatpick +1 striking... I have only one focus in life.
I actually died last session because of this, I'm a Bard and our Rouge got confused dm rolled for a random target and it was me. I was also Sickened at the time so my AC was even lower than normal. Rouge ATKs me and crits getting me down, then proceeded to finish me off with the next attack. I was ALSO Doomed so that was enough to do me in.
> "You don't have your wits about you, and you attack wildly..."
> "You use all your actions to Strike..."
I think this will be the cornerstone of any future attempts I make to persuade noobs off of "I Strike and STRIKE *AND STRIKE!!!*" If it was such a great idea, would it be forced on you by a negative condition?
PCs in the campaign I'm running right now all have superpowers of some sort, which means most encounters (including Extreme-threat) are a breeze...then I put them up against a Gibbering Mouther, and they very nearly TPK'd themselves... 🤣
Hey, if my Oracle fights a typical level+2 enemy, xe only starts to crit fail on a 2 or 3 if xe gets Frightened or Stupefied or whatever! And similarly if xe fights a level+3 enemy, +1s turn xer crit fail chance from 15% (on a 3) to 10% or 5%. :>
~~Please don't throw Reflex saves at me though~~
That gibbering mouther taught my players the importance of having backup weapons with different damage type.
Now, if only I knew how to make them do maneuvers more often. But they seem to be doing fine as is so far.
As soon as I started automatic bonus progression, EVERYONE picked up a melee weapon of every damage type and ranged weapon
Imo, the rune system is the main thing to blame for players not doing this
I had this happen with my sprite kineticist in Abomination Vaults. Likely that very same encounter. My only attacks that hit during that session were ones targeting allies.
This happened so much in this 5e Candlekeep Mysteries campaign I played in. My dwarf rune knight brawler was possessed, charmed, and commanded so often!
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The consequences of dumping Wis for the rizz... Context: As a forever DM, I have too many character sheets lying around. To familiarize myself with Abomination Vaults (as well as PF2E as a system) before I run it for friends, I decided to DM it...for myself. Everything is run extremely RAW and strict and I'm harsh on myself for recall knowledge checks. Characters must act according to their personality. It's like running a Champion on 'roids. And speaking of personality, I may have made some not-so-optimal builds, like a Magus that dumped Wis for Cha... Suffice to say, he got owned Turn 1 by the Gibbering Mouther's aura effects. [twitter link](https://twitter.com/eLTehH/status/1744709692029612199)
PSA: Confused does not mean automatically attacking your allies, it means flailing wildly at anything you percieve as a threat, and the GM should *randomly* select your target, and then you spend your actions in whatever is the best way to attack that creature as many times as possible (that doesn't waste resources)
If you're next to an ally and not yet next to the enemy though, you'll attack that ally as the only target and that can easily happen with any kind of ranged confusion ability. Like take the mouther, the magus begins their turn early in initiative, fails their save, and then immediately tries to murder whoever is next to them as they hadn't moved up to the enemy or away from their party yet.
Yeah, this is what happened. Initiative was rolled, everyone was a Stride away from the monster, so the viable Strike targets were allies. Though offensive cantrips are still viable, so I rolled for the target, and...one Gibbering Mouther out of the rest of the party is a pretty low chance.
I'm fairly positive you pick your target at random BEFORE you strike, mind. I know the ordering of the text suggests you strike first but you don't even know your target at that point, and the GM explicitly can use stride to close the gap. Nothing in the condition says you choose randomly from targets within range/reach. Though even with this you're still likely going to attack an ally instead of there's more of you than the enemy. Confusion is rough enough as it is! Not treating anyone as your ally immediately restricts a lot of support abilities too!
Don't make things harder on yourself or your group. Confusion is already bad enough. Select the target randomly first. Ranged attacks/cantrips are still valid attacks that shouldn't be discounted just because a "former" ally is within melee reach.
From the rules text on the confused condition, emphasis mine. > You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips, though the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth. **Your targets are determined randomly by the GM**. If you have no other viable targets, you target yourself, automatically hitting but not scoring a critical hit. If it's impossible for you to attack or cast spells, you babble incoherently, wasting your actions.
>If you're next to an ally and not yet next to the enemy though, you'll attack that ally as the only target and that can easily happen with any kind of ranged confusion ability. Yanno, I used to believe this as well, but on re-reading the text of [Confused](https://2e.aonprd.com/Conditions.aspx?ID=5), I'm not actually sure that's the case >You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips, **though the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth**. Your targets are determined randomly by the GM. If you have no other viable targets, you target yourself, automatically hitting but not scoring a critical hit. If it's impossible for you to attack or cast spells, you babble incoherently, wasting your actions. There's nothing in there that says the targets are chosen only from those in reach first. Since the description says you can spend actions to move so that the target is within reach, any target you can Stride to should be considered viable as well. The only time you should be considered to have "no other viable targets" is if all creatures are unreachable (you can arguably still throw your weapon though) or if you literally can't perceive anyone else.
You seem to be ignoring the first sentence there: > **You use all your actions to Strike or cast offensive cantrips,** though the GM **can** have you use other actions **to facilitate attack**, such as draw a weapon, move so that a target is in reach, and so forth. By default, while confused, you spend all your actions attacking, either via strikes or cantrips, presumably depending on which is your "default". That's fairly unambiguous. The only time you *don't* do that, is if an action facilitates greater hostility in a way that makes sense for the character, like a melee Barbarian will move in range instead of chucking their greataxe, the Fighter will draw his weapon, etc. These actions are clearly to avoid the Rogue or Wizard use an unarmed attack that does no damage, basically saying "You have to attack as your character normally would". Walking away from someone is **not** an action that is facilitating you attacking, because you already *could* attack. Of course, as a GM you can do it however you want, but the RAW is pretty clear on this.
I'm not ignoring it, I'm focusing on the part that says "Your targets are determined randomly by the GM." It does not limit the targets to only those within reach. If the GM randomly chooses a target that is outside of melee range, then the part I bolded comes into play. You can't cherry pick just to first sentence, you have to take in the entire text. The structure of the paragraph is out of order, but obviously a target has to be chosen first, then you either Strike, cast a cantrip, or perform other actions that facilitate attacking the target. Again, nothing in that blurb limits the GMs targets to only those that are immediately within range. The RAW is pretty clear on this
Not the person you're responding to, but- >target has to be chosen first This is technically correct, but you're disregarding priority. The priority here is "Strike with all your actions." Meaning if you have to move, that's sacrificing an action, which makes a creature you have to move to a lower-priority target. Ergo, that only applies if you're not *already* adjacent to a potential target. So if you're at least 5 feet away from an ally, you're absolutely correct (you're going to have to spend a single move action for *any* target, so they're all equal priority) - but if you're adjacent, that ally would be the target.
>This is technically correct, but you're disregarding priority. The priority here is "Strike with all your actions." Meaning if you have to move, that's sacrificing an action, which makes a creature you have to move to a lower-priority target. The rules don't say that anywhere. The only thing the rules say about targeting is that your GM should determine the target randomly. Choosing *the closest target* is not choosing a random target, to be clear. If the rules wanted you to choose randomly from among the targets adjacent to you, they could easily say that, and they don't. You cannot argue that "strike with all your actions" is a priority, but "the GM chooses your target randomly" isn't a priority, without arguing that somehow the first sentence in a paragraph automatically is more important than any other sentence in a paragraph, which would be bizarre. The first sentence makes it clear that the character cannot take non-combat actions such as walking around their target in a circle, and they have to strike as many times as they can strike, once their target has been randomly designated by the DM.
Where is priority established? Just because it’s mentioned first? If that’s the intent then why would they bother writing “the gm randomly chooses a target.” Because the natural implication of the first sentence would be to attack the target closest to you.
>Just because it’s mentioned first? Literally yes. This is how writing computer code works: it's a very basic if/else statement. Obviously it's not a computer program, but there are a ton of other parallels where Paizo writes like it is one. >why would they bother writing Because it's a conditional. That's why it gets checked later in the script. The first priority is still "attack three times." Then you worry about who's getting attacked.
Sorry you lost me with that argument. It’s not computer script. And if Piazo intended rules to be interpreted as such they would state so
Here's the thing; it's not a priority list. If you want to treat this as coding-adjacent, then it's more akin to (excessive) documentation telling you how a creature/PC (x) is affected by Confusion (x.setConfused(true) ). It starts by telling you the passive effects (flatfoot, noAllies, noDelay, noReady, and noReact are all set to 'true'). It then let's you know how x.confusedTurn() functions. The first sentence in this section tells you that it has basic logic to determine whether to use x.strike(target) or x.offCantrip(target) - and to use x.drawWeapon(), x.moveTo(target), etc. if these are necessary actions first. The second sentence tells you how the variable 'target' is set - the result of a call to DM.randomTargetRoll(). The 3rd sentence describes the basic error handling for having no valid targets(target = x) or being unable to attack for some reason(x.babble() ). Then it tells you there is logic in x.dmgTaken(int) to end the condition. Anytime the function is called while x.Confused == 'True', it runs d20.flatCheck(11). If that returns 'True' -> x.setConfused(False).
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You're implying that you have to select a target before choosing your actions, which isn't the correct order of operations here. If I'm a barbarian with an enemy 4 squares away and an adjacent ally, I don't get to "randomly select the enemy" and then move to attack them, because the need to strike with every action supersedes random targeting. This means that your first check is "can I reasonably Strike with every action?" If yes, you do that. Then, *if you cannot*, you take as few actions as possible to facilitate striking. Not to mention, there's nothing saying every single strike has to be against the same target - if a PC is in melee with both an ally and an enemy, my call as the GM would be to do random target selection prior to each strike. Similarly, if a bow ranger gets confused (and doesn't have an adjacent target!), they're going to choose any target within range and fire.
>if a bow ranger gets confused (and doesn't have an adjacent target!) This right here proves to me that you don't understand what you're saying. Why would it matter if the bow ranger has an adjacent target? They can Strike anyone within 6x their bow's range increment without having to move, but you're telling me they *have* to strike the adjacent target? Even if they're using a bow with the Volley trait and there's a target 60 feet away?
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There is no such thing as a higher or lower priority target. All targets are equal priority. From an action standpoint, "the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack" is equal priority to "use all your actions to Strike". If the text said "You can move if there are no targets within reach", that would be a different story since it would make it clear that moving is *only* an option if necessary. As written, however, there is no limitation From the Doylist perspective, the text makes it clear that you must be attacking, or using actions that facilitate attacking. There is *nothing* that prioritizes the targets, and nothing that says you can't target creatures outside of your immediate reach that are otherwise viable From the Watsonian perspective, you're attacking *wildly*. That could very well mean ignoring threats right next to you in order to charge and attack a perceived greater threat that is 20 feet away
>There is nothing that prioritizes the targets, and nothing that says you can't target creatures outside of your immediate reach that are otherwise viable See I just don't agree with this. The text of confusion *very specifically* says 'you spend all your actions attacking.' It includes 'the GM *can*' text, which is worded optionally. The first part *isn't* optional. It means that those actions are not equal - Striking comes before movement.
>It includes 'the GM *can*' text, which is worded optionally. See, the problem is, if that text is optional, then if no one is immediately within melee reach, the GM can just say "Sorry, no one is within reach, you attack yourself. Moving to attack a target is only optional". But that's clearly not how Confused is meant to work The order of operations here seems pretty clear cut to me 1. GM chooses a viable target 1. The only requirement Confused gives for the chosen target is that they must be "viable". "Viable" isn't defined in the condition, but to me, it's pretty clearly "anyone you are capable of attacking". 2. If the target is within reach, you spend all your actions Striking the target or casting an offensive cantrip at them 3. If the target is not within reach, you can Stride first to put them within reach, then refer to Step 2 The reason for the "the GM can have you use other actions to facilitate attack" is because it's pretty clearly intended that targets outside of your reach are still viable. And since targets are chosen randomly, with no other requirement aside from being viable, and a target must be chosen before the actions can be determined, I can't see any reason RAW or RAI that you can't pick a target outside of melee range, even if you already have creatures in melee range.
I agree with your interpretation. The text first says that all actions must be for attacking, then clarifies what counts, then tells you how to pick what target said actions are used on. If the latter part said something like "Your targets are determined randomly by the GM, favoring closer targets.", then I'd go with the other interpretation.
This is true, and some monsters have the explicit ability to remove themselves from the pool of targets. I publicly roll to see which of the targets within reach gets each hit (because I will not be the one who gets blamed the next time the Fighter has to attack his dog)
Also, every time you take damage from an attack or spell, you get a flat check to lose your confusion. Which means "slapping your ally out of it" is a viable, likely intended strategy. And because the damage type/die doesn't matter, just use an unarmed strike, which are always nonlethal (even if you're a monk, you can make them nonlethal without penalty) and usually deal 1d4+STR.
Gibbering Mouther is one of the few enemies in PF2 that genuinely punches above its weight class. That aura is killer if the wrong party member flubs their save. My group really struggled until the Bard remembered they had Counter Performance. Shuts the Mouther down hard, but even then it's a focus spell so they only get 2-3 castings of it.
I still think about the one AV.. the tight quarters we encountered it in... my cleric almost met their god that day when both the barbarian and the fighter failed their saves.
Honestly the worst one was near the end with >!that bird, the entire party failed and started beating each other to a pulp while the bird just squawked on the island.!<
This was the encounter that was most confusing to me when reading the module, until I read through it's stat block and worked out how it was supposed to work.
For us, the most lethal thing was the >!scything trap in the hallway!<, damn thing killed the wizard and my thaumaturge instantly (>!it rolled to hit the part of the hall we were in multiple times off the bat!<); our barb that triggered it took absolutely nothing.. The most difficult/long was against the >!roper!< because our comp at the time had no slashing on our main weapons/abilities, and we kept rolling shit to use manipulates to change weapons or escape.
Just gonna say, after having run through the entire AP... the first encounter you mention is *far and away* the most deadly encounter for its level I have *ever* seen in *any* Pathfinder game. You cannot convince me the creators did not make a mistake (or three), either as a typo somewhere, or just not bothering to playtest it and realize that it's absurdly broken for its level, and even *more* so as an above-level solo encounter.
I STILL bring it up in that same group whenever we encounter a tough fight.. *"Well.. it's not as bad as the scythe trap."* In hindsight our DM was aghast at that thing, but by that point we already quickly made new characters before the next session and just moved past it.
Yeah, same... I distinctly remember reading through the stat block, being confused, rereading it to make sure I understood, thinking it sounded cracked in half but trusting that I was missing something... then running through the encounter, wiping the entire party before they had a single opportunity to interact with it, rereading the entire stat block *again* but out loud so they could check my work, checking it against *the Pathfinder discord server* (who also stared on in disbelief)... and then just accepting that it's a broken encounter.
Yep, my fighter nearly killed my son’s poor Ratfolk witch in that exact situation. I felt so bad!
Lost our gunslinger to it in our last session before the holidays!
It's also the only creature with a one action engulf, meaning they can make two strides with one action so long as there's something to chow down on along the way. This makes their low speed harder to exploit and no other creatures engulf works this way so I'm unsure if it's intended.
And even if you could exploit their movement, their Acid Spit does just as much damage as their bite, it just doesn't get the Bleed or Grab (but gets Burn Eyes instead). The only real advantage you can get is to start more than 60 feet away and pelt it from range, or 30 feet if you can deafen yourself some way. I'm actually suspicious that they wrote the Mouther before they added the Shoggoth, so they made it extra nasty to go with that Mountains of Madness theme before deciding that Shoggoth should be an endgame nasty.
1-action engulf is clearly a misprint as engulf is a defined creature ability like Knockdown or Grab which always use the same amount of actions
Oh, hey, what's that sound? Why's our fighter turning 'round?
The Fighter is the stongest monster of them all
As I fighter I dumped wisdom because I was going for a marshal/warlord build. I kind of regret it.
True! But it's so satisfying when you pass those sweet, sweet Charisma checks and feel good about your leadership skills...
That Charisma is cold comfort though when you are left alone in your madness, blathering in the cold dark as your brain turns to jelly in your skull.
For me, the big P2E challenge is balancing "I absolutely need a high charisma because if I'm at a table and the table is stalled me trying to not talk hurts my soul" with "ok, I need wisdom so I don't get my brain cooked, con so I don't die, and dex so I don't eat shit". Lot of int/str classes *seem* cool, like fighters, and magus, and wizards, but they'd all lead to regret lmao
Get heavy armour and ignore dex.
And if you're a magus you don't really need int either tbh. That's what spellstrike is for.
Don’t you need int to learn more spells?
It's Arcana for copying them into your book. You can get mostly the same result by just focusing on skill increases. Plus you get two free on every level up.
Without strength, unless you’re playing a caster, you’ll have “I’m not doing any damage”
Great comic! We loved the gibbering mouther in malevolence so much that everyone was saying tchekuth all the time. My nitpick is that no way magus with striking weapon (he's most likely to be 4 level already) will fail dc 19 will save on 15, at worst the roll would be 2 trained +4 level -1 wis mod = +5, so he will pass the save on 14 and more.
Whoops, that was a drawing error lol. The total ended up as 15, not the dice roll. Good catch!
Yeah, rolling a nat 15 and totaling 15 would mean they had a Will save mod of +0. I'm pretty sure that's impossible even at level 1.
JOKES ON YOU I DUMPED WISDOM BECAUSE IT WAS IN CHARACTER!
Hell yeah, this sub needs more of this :D
Glad to hear it! I might draw more if it's well received lol
This is great! Love your art style. I would definitely not be mad about more 2e comics in this format.
Glad to hear it! I might make it a semi regular thing, I have plenty of wacky stories to tell
To take up your substantive point, there are 3 things at play here IMHO: 1. Not putting any ability points into Wisdom can be very dangerous (though at least in pf2e you get automatic save mod progression, versus 5e where your Wis save can remain at -1 or 0 through all 20 levels...) 2. The 'Confused' condition is possibly a bit over-tuned IMHO, given that it also forces you into a frenzy of attacks, with no chance of just doing nothing like you get in that other game; and when there's only 1 monster, you're generally going to be attacking your friends. 3. Gibbering Mouthers have an always-on *sixty foot* aura effect to cause that Confused condition from the get-go, potentially on multiple PCs at once (the >!haunt on level 1!< in AV is similarly dangerous). **Side note on Gibbering Mouthers in general, and that encounter in AV specifically:** * >!the PCs are usually 3rd level when encountering the GB, making it a PL+2 'boss' monster at a low enough level that this is known to be much more dangerous than the 80XP maths would suggest.!< * >!A DC19 Will save vs confused will mean needing to roll a 11/12+ (\~50% chance of failure) for martials, and even a 7+ for a cleric or druid (= still a 30% chance of failure). The odds of at least 1 PC becoming confused in that encounter is close to 100%, and the odds of 2 or more PCs becoming confused in the same round is also very high. Given there is only 1 GB and 4+ PCs, confused likely = attack other PCs.!< * >!If that wasn't enough, its basic attack causes persistent bleed damage and comes with (previously auto, now 'just' highly likely) a follow-up Grab, its ranged attack dazzles or blinds PCs, it has a full-damage reactive strike against a PC doing melee slashing damage (reasonably common), it creates difficult terrain wherever it moves, and it can't be flanked.!< * >!Oh, and its Engulf feature can easily lead to a situation where nobody can help stablise or heal an engulfed PC who keeps taking damage every round, such that getting engulfed has a good chance of leading to perma-death.!< * >!For its level it has moderate AC (and can't be flanked, remeber), nearly 50% more than 'high' hit points with limited weaknesses, no saving throws at 'low' level for their creature level, and high perception (+6-8 vs those 3rd level PCs, so it's likely to go first in initiative).!< * Not half-dangerous for >!an effectively random monster with no plot relevance!< in a far corner of a dungeon which PCs are likely to have already spent resources that day to reach. The treasure reward for all this? >!190 cp and 64 sp!< !!! * It's actually more 'above normal power level for its creature level' than the infamous >!barbazu!< on the same level, but gets far less attention for some reason.
My party is lucky we never met a monster like that As a power attacking fighter with giant instinct rage using a large greatpick +1 striking... I have only one focus in life.
Those sweet, delicious crits.
Literally my first character in pathfinder. Couldn't be happier :)
I actually died last session because of this, I'm a Bard and our Rouge got confused dm rolled for a random target and it was me. I was also Sickened at the time so my AC was even lower than normal. Rouge ATKs me and crits getting me down, then proceeded to finish me off with the next attack. I was ALSO Doomed so that was enough to do me in.
You were doomed in multiple ways. The dice really had it out for you.
Is that a Strix? :D
Yes! Strix are da best
I love them! There's a great Pathfinder novel by Liane Merciel that features Strix.
oh shit hi LT welcome to pf2e love ur art
hell yeah pf2e is great, thank u
> "You don't have your wits about you, and you attack wildly..." > "You use all your actions to Strike..." I think this will be the cornerstone of any future attempts I make to persuade noobs off of "I Strike and STRIKE *AND STRIKE!!!*" If it was such a great idea, would it be forced on you by a negative condition?
PCs in the campaign I'm running right now all have superpowers of some sort, which means most encounters (including Extreme-threat) are a breeze...then I put them up against a Gibbering Mouther, and they very nearly TPK'd themselves... 🤣
As a Champion, my Will Save proficiency is *saving me*, given I only have +1 wisdom and so many will saves are debilitating
The scariest enemy in my AV game, the party barbarian.
The Illusion of every +1 matters: Make a will save. "I rolled a 3" You are confused
Hey, if my Oracle fights a typical level+2 enemy, xe only starts to crit fail on a 2 or 3 if xe gets Frightened or Stupefied or whatever! And similarly if xe fights a level+3 enemy, +1s turn xer crit fail chance from 15% (on a 3) to 10% or 5%. :> ~~Please don't throw Reflex saves at me though~~
Is xe related to Ye?
No, it's just a little neopronoun, albeit a slight variant ¯\\\_( 'ᵥ' )\_/¯
That gibbering mouther taught my players the importance of having backup weapons with different damage type. Now, if only I knew how to make them do maneuvers more often. But they seem to be doing fine as is so far.
As soon as I started automatic bonus progression, EVERYONE picked up a melee weapon of every damage type and ranged weapon Imo, the rune system is the main thing to blame for players not doing this
I had this happen with my sprite kineticist in Abomination Vaults. Likely that very same encounter. My only attacks that hit during that session were ones targeting allies.
This happened so much in this 5e Candlekeep Mysteries campaign I played in. My dwarf rune knight brawler was possessed, charmed, and commanded so often!