Pathfinder 2 Blog: Critical Success and Failure

[Cosi]

Consider though that if a 3rd-level Dispel has a chance of suppressing (or even eliminating) any magic spell effect, item or trap regardless of how late in the game you encounter them - is it any wonder that strategies like Disable and Sunder get relegated to the backseat? In P1, there is precious little else that is worth putting in those slots as a result, since almost nothing will scale as well/remain useful as long. If however you were forced to use a 7+ slot at those levels to dispel instead, you'd be much more conscientious about when you'd do so, and much more likely to resort to that only when mundane solutions are impractical or fail.

It it's wrong for dispel magic to remain relevant at the same cost throughout the whole campaign, why is it right for Sunder to remain relevant at the same cost throughout the whole campaign?

[Knaight]

Why is caster level insufficient for this? It also gives you an elegant way of representing a character with really strong illusion/detection/fire magic -- give them a CL bonus for the purpose of determining whether their magic wins out or not.

It's not. It's another good way of handling it. That said, spell level with optional upcasting is a bit more interesting, in that it creates a decision around how much magic to spend.

[Cosi]

It's not. It's another good way of handling it. That said, spell level with optional upcasting is a bit more interesting, in that it creates a decision around how much magic to spend.

I disagree. I think if you are going to spend "more magic", you should get an effect that is more substantively impressive, not merely one that is higher on the trump card totem pole. The 7th level dispel magic variant should do something like steal buffs, damage your target, suppress casting, or jump to other targets -- all (I think) things that higher level dispel magic variants do in 3e already. Simply requiring that you use a 7th level slot for it to have 7th level numbers is boring.

[Zanos]

Personal Incredulity Fallacy aside, WotC themselves attempted to address concerns that ToB was seen by some as "too anime." That's a pretty odd epithet for them to write about their own book out of the blue, unless they'd actually been on the receiving end of such comments, and in numbers sufficient enough to provoke an official response no less.

Now, with that said I'm not trying to impugn ToB and PoW's mission at all, and if P2 ended up with a laundry list of maneuvers-as-martial-spells" (in core or later on) I wouldn't have a problem with it. But I do have major doubts that will be the case all the same.

Not really "personal incredulity" fallacy. Maybe the sample size is biased but I had a couple hundred PF players come through my PW over the years, and almost all of them wanted Path of War, which we eventually did allow. There were people making the same "anime" complaints(which PoW kind of invites, especially with stuff like Mithral Current), but they were a very verbal but extremely tiny minority, maybe totaling 5 people.

Consider though that if a 3rd-level Dispel has a chance of suppressing (or even eliminating) any magic spell effect, item or trap regardless of how late in the game you encounter them - is it any wonder that strategies like Disable and Sunder get relegated to the backseat?

Yes, actually. Dispel magic as mentioned generally only has a chance and each attempt consumes resources, where skill usage generally costs nothing. The problem is that those abilities are difficult to leverage without sticking your head under a guillotine. Still if a Wizard is in a party with a rogue, do you think the wizard is going to spend resources trying to do what the Rogue is doing for free? Perhaps if the player and character are obsessed with being in the limelight, but not generally a rational action.

In P1, there is precious little else that is worth putting in those slots as a result, since almost nothing will scale as well/remain useful as long. If however you were forced to use a 7+ slot at those levels to dispel instead, you'd be much more conscientious about when you'd do so, and much more likely to resort to that only when mundane solutions are impractical or fail.

Simply not true. There are many good third level spells that can have a relevant impact even at high levels. Haste, Slow, Arcane Sight, Herosim, Communal Energy Resistance, Lesser Animate, Shrink Item, and I'm sure more if I cared to look can all be useful at high levels, even if they aren't your first choice to cast every round or might not have immediate relevance in combat.

And again, what wizard is wasting resources, even marginally less valuable ones like lower level slots, before the rogue even rolls? Even if he does dispel isn't an ideal solution for traps, since it only suppresses them for 1d4 rounds and has its own roll to make.

I disagree. I think if you are going to spend "more magic", you should get an effect that is more substantively impressive, not merely one that is higher on the trump card totem pole. The 7th level dispel magic variant should do something like steal buffs, damage your target, suppress casting, or jump to other targets -- all (I think) things that higher level dispel magic variants do in 3e already. Simply requiring that you use a 7th level slot for it to have 7th level numbers is boring.

I agree. Running on a treadmill to do the same thing you were doing 10 levels ago is extremely uninteresting and dull.

[Morty]

I think the ship on ToB/PoW-style maneuvers has sailed. They seem devoted to the vision of non-magical abilities not having any kind of internal resource. The fighter and rogue feats they've revealed are passive, random or can be performed at will at the cost of an action... and they're also firmly in the realm of "add your shield bonus to Reflex", "scare someone" and "deal a bit of bleeding damage".

Then again, they've also talked big about how weapon and skill proficiencies will let them do amazing things, but provided no details. Of course, proficiencies are available to every class.

[stack]

Wouldn't mind seeing a basic dispel option at 1st level (touch, single effect, requires a roll) that scaled to cover the other options.

[Ignimortis]

I think the ship on ToB/PoW-style maneuvers has sailed. They seem devoted to the vision of non-magical abilities not having any kind of internal resource. The fighter and rogue feats they've revealed are passive, random or can be performed at will at the cost of an action... and they're also firmly in the realm of "add your shield bonus to Reflex", "scare someone" and "deal a bit of bleeding damage".

Then again, they've also talked big about how weapon and skill proficiencies will let them do amazing things, but provided no details. Of course, proficiencies are available to every class.

I already supposed that I'll have to wait for DSP to release PoW II: War Harder. Shame, but also good, because PoW is the best subsystem period, IMO, and Paizo could bungle it if they decided to make some parts of it default and then leave out something else.

[Psyren]

Not really "personal incredulity" fallacy. Maybe the sample size is biased but I had a couple hundred PF players come through my PW over the years, and almost all of them wanted Path of War, which we eventually did allow. There were people making the same "anime" complaints(which PoW kind of invites, especially with stuff like Mithral Current), but they were a very verbal but extremely tiny minority, maybe totaling 5 people.

I'm certain you believe your campaign to be representative. Maybe it even is. As I've said, if there truly is a sea change of some sort happening, I'm not opposed to seeing it reflected - and I'll further note, there is plenty of opportunity outside core to do that too. My doubts however remain.

Yes, actually. Dispel magic as mentioned generally only has a chance and each attempt consumes resources, where skill usage generally costs nothing.

In P1, the "resource cost" of 3rd-level slots on 9th-level casters eventually becomes so minuscule as to be non-existent. It may not actually be infinite, but it doesn't affect your overall strategy to anywhere near the degree that upper slots do, and that is in part what relegates mundanes to the dust heap.

Simply not true. There are many good third level spells that can have a relevant impact even at high levels. Haste, Slow, Arcane Sight, Herosim, Communal Energy Resistance, Lesser Animate, Shrink Item, and I'm sure more if I cared to look can all be useful at high levels, even if they aren't your first choice to cast every round or might not have immediate relevance in combat.

Indeed, and these are precisely the kind of spells casters should be using their lower slots for - doing jobs that they are best suited for (e.g. Arcane Sight and Shrink Item) or making the martials and thus the overall party better in ways that save them build resources (Haste, Heroism, Energy Resistance.) These are very different than a low-level dispel being a spammable swiss army knife.

Not sure why you mentioned Slow, it's a pretty bad example - the save DC will be pretty low unless you heighten (which defeats the purpose) or are up against a bunch of mooks (in which case it hardly matters what you use, you're going to win.)

And again, what wizard is wasting resources, even marginally less valuable ones like lower level slots, before the rogue even rolls? Even if he does dispel isn't an ideal solution for traps, since it only suppresses them for 1d4 rounds and has its own roll to make.

I agree, except that is the constant refrain around here, that you have "no reason" to bring a rogue when the wizard can do his job.

[Eldariel]

Indeed, and these are precisely the kind of spells casters should be using their lower slots for - doing jobs that they are best suited for (e.g. Arcane Sight and Shrink Item) or making the martials and thus the overall party better in ways that save them build resources (Haste, Heroism, Energy Resistance.) These are very different than a low-level dispel being a spammable swiss army knife.

Not sure why you mentioned Slow, it's a pretty bad example - the save DC will be pretty low unless you heighten (which defeats the purpose) or are up against a bunch of mooks (in which case it hardly matters what you use, you're going to win.)

Eh, I dunno, the system has bad saves as a mechanic; if you target anyone's bad save (like, oh, say a Fighter's), a 3rd level slot is more than a match for all the random bonuses they may have accrued. Same with monsters, with the key difference that the toughest monsters, Outsiders and Dragons, have all good saves of course.

[Psyren]

I think the ship on ToB/PoW-style maneuvers has sailed. They seem devoted to the vision of non-magical abilities not having any kind of internal resource.

I think so too, but if they did decide to do this, core is an unlikely place for it. For one thing, the folks who do want this sort of thing have demonstrated (repeatedly) that they don't mind paying to get it separately.

Eh, I dunno, the system has bad saves as a mechanic; if you target anyone's bad save (like, oh, say a Fighter's), a 3rd level slot is more than a match for all the random bonuses they may have accrued. Same with monsters, with the key difference that the toughest monsters, Outsiders and Dragons, have all good saves of course.

If someone has that bad a will save at high levels though (that a 3rd-level spell can lay them low), Slow is the least of their problems. But my overall point is that P1 casters have so much breathing room to spare that they could very well stick a Slow in there on the off-chance that they come across such a benighted foe. As 5e has proven, drastically reducing the casters' complements has not caused riots in the streets or lack of sales.

Consider for example a 5e cleric - they get 37 spell slots total at max level, including domains, across their 9 spell levels. PF Clerics meanwhile get 49 - and that's just the base, before we even take bonus spells into account, or pearls, or consumables etc. But I haven't personally heard any cleric players in 5th crying poverty, and a big part of that is that the 5e cantrips being at-will and also autoscaling makes up for a lot of the reduction, even as it forces them to consider what they prepare more carefully.

[Pex]

If someone has that bad a will save at high levels though (that a 3rd-level spell can lay them low), Slow is the least of their problems. But my overall point is that P1 casters have so much breathing room to spare that they could very well stick a Slow in there on the off-chance that they come across such a benighted foe. As 5e has proven, drastically reducing the casters' complements has not caused riots in the streets or lack of sales.

Consider for example a 5e cleric - they get 37 spell slots total at max level, including domains, across their 9 spell levels. PF Clerics meanwhile get 49 - and that's just the base, before we even take bonus spells into account, or pearls, or consumables etc. But I haven't personally heard any cleric players in 5th crying poverty, and a big part of that is that the 5e cantrips being at-will and also autoscaling makes up for a lot of the reduction, even as it forces them to consider what they prepare more carefully.

I was personally put off at first by the lower number of spell slots, but I got used to it. It's not only Cantrips to make up for it. Saving throw DC is independent of spell level. Bad guys don't have saving throws of +Yes except for the BBEGs, not even counting Legendary Resistance. Low level spells remain relevant as the levels progress. The few that don't never were (Witch Bolt) or niche for low level play (Sleep). Even damage spells remain relevant despite the hit points of bad guys because it's enough for hit points attrition to let the warriors finish them off better. (Egad I can't believe I'm promoting 5E magic. Yes, yes, I do, I do very much like Pathfinder magic. ) Whatever P2E does, if low level spells remain relevant beyond utility and buffing as the levels progress that's a plus.

[Morty]

I think so too, but if they did decide to do this, core is an unlikely place for it. For one thing, the folks who do want this sort of thing have demonstrated (repeatedly) that they don't mind paying to get it separately.

Of course, plenty of problems people have with ToB/PoW result from their being attached as a late, and in PoW's case third-party, supplement that has to exist beside the more typical classes, rather than being integrated into the base game.

[137beth]

New blog, this time about clerics.

Hmm, one think that jumps out at me is the heal/harm feature that replaces channel energy. Specifically:

Your choice of deity determines which spell you can cast with channel energy. Pharasma lets you cast heal, Rovagug makes you cast harm, and someone like Abadar or Lamashtu lets you choose your path at 1st level.

So it looks like they are stepping away from the angle of "good=healing, evil=harm."

[upho]

I mean, has it? Made progress, I mean. Even being freely available this time via the PFSRD, I would wager the percentage of the playerbase that actually read it (much less used it) is fairly small compared to the whole.

Probably, but my point was mostly that many of those who disliked ToB but still had a look at PoW seem to think a lot better of it. AFAICT, the most often mentioned reason for this appears to be that PoW doesn't come with a deeply integrated and controversial flavor like "Tome of Battle: The Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic" did. So PoW seems to have far less of ToB's flavor issues which you and the article you linked to mentioned:

Personal Incredulity Fallacy aside, WotC themselves attempted to address concerns that ToB was seen by some as "too anime." That's a pretty odd epithet for them to write about their own book out of the blue, unless they'd actually been on the receiving end of such comments, and in numbers sufficient enough to provoke an official response no less.

Of course, it also helps that PoW has easily three times the amount of content of a generally higher quality, including several good archetypes for Paizo classes, and is very actively supported by its designers, something which WoTC unfortunately ignored doing for the 3.5 predecessor.

Now, with that said I'm not trying to impugn ToB and PoW's mission at all, and if P2 ended up with a laundry list of maneuvers-as-martial-spells" (in core or later on) I wouldn't have a problem with it. But I do have major doubts that will be the case all the same.

I share those doubts. And as someone mentioned, Paizo not introducing that particular system may turn out to be a good thing for its fans in the end, as I believe DSP is far more likely to do it right, at least if a large part of the motivation for doing so is P2 struggling with C/MD issues.

I'm genuinely confused about what grievance that is. Casters having to manage scarcity and thus rely on mundanes more? A world that is more logically consistent, where magic designed to be hidden has a chance to stay that way?

No, my grievance is specifically with a system where the general rule for spell interactions is based CL or SL and lacking enough meaningful exceptions to that rule (which AFAICT was what some previous posters suspected may be the case in P2).

The reason why I would dislike such a system is that it makes for a less dynamic game where the players are less rewarded for using in-game and IC tools creatively, but are instead encouraged to focus more on boring PC build numbers. As an example, I don't want a game where a specialized spell such as dispel magic must be heightened or CL-boosted to the max just in order to have a chance of doing its thing against a spell or caster of a higher level. Note that I also don't want a 3rd level dispel magic to remain as capable against all sources of magic (such as items and traps) as it is in P1. Since I also agree with Cosi that a heightened spell should generally provide a fundamental mechanical improvement, not merely increased numbers, having dispel magic apply to such sources of magic seems like decent options for heightening IMO.

BTW, I would really like to see P2 apply the same principle to pretty much all PC tools, including those of martials.

[upho]

If someone has that bad a will save at high levels though (that a 3rd-level spell can lay them low), Slow is the least of their problems.

Are you saying that the fighter having say a 50% chance of making the save against a 3rd level spell is a huge difference from him having a 25% chance of saving against the same caster's 8th level spell? And if you do, in comparison to what, exactly? I mean, the differences between good and bad class save bonuses are themselves at least equally great in higher levels, not to mention the even greater potential differences based on whether the class promotes prioritizing boosts of the relevant stat or not. When these factors are put together, the differences between different same-level targets' chances of saving often have a greater impact than SL does also in an actual P1 game IME.

And of course, in P1 it's pretty likely that if a high level caster flings a 3rd level offensive spell which allows for saves, most targets who don't have both a good save progression and a pretty high related stat (and/or substantial other bonuses) aren't going to have much of a chance of making that save.

Consider for example a 5e cleric - they get 37 spell slots total at max level, including domains, across their 9 spell levels. PF Clerics meanwhile get 49 - and that's just the base, before we even take bonus spells into account, or pearls, or consumables etc. But I haven't personally heard any cleric players in 5th crying poverty, and a big part of that is that the 5e cantrips being at-will and also autoscaling makes up for a lot of the reduction, even as it forces them to consider what they prepare more carefully.

Regardless of my other thoughts on 5E, this is most certainly a thing P2 should copy.

[Scowling Dragon]

No, please keep away from 5e.

I don't bring it up because people here are aggressive against criticism but I personally deeply dislike 5e on almost every level.
I think its mainly popular because people just pick up the broken pieces and see whatever they like in it.

But having played it for 6 months with a good GM everybody involved was disappointed and I played a cleric.

[Psyren]

New blog, this time about clerics.

Hmm, one think that jumps out at me is the heal/harm feature that replaces channel energy. Specifically:

So it looks like they are stepping away from the angle of "good=healing, evil=harm."

So the variant channeling by deity is going to be baseline it looks like. Hopefully they have guidelines for coming up with abilities for other deities.

No, my grievance is specifically with a system where the general rule for spell interactions is based CL or SL and lacking enough meaningful exceptions to that rule (which AFAICT was what some previous posters suspected may be the case in P2).

I think there will be exceptions to that rule. True Seeing for example. What won't be possible however is a dozen different ways to render illusions pointless by realizing they're there just via low-level detection.

No, please keep away from 5e.

Ship's sailed I think.

Besides, less spell slots isn't just beneficial, it's downright necessary if at-will cantrips are going to scale.

[Scowling Dragon]

Ship's sailed I think.

I get it that. Im just not interested in buying all the fixes that I use for PF all over again with a big 2.0 written near them.

Like again, Paizo doesn't want a playtest, it wants a victory lap. Like when is the actual mechanical coaching going to start? The baseline for their maths? Stuff thats actually important for this sort of thing instead of just extrapolations from previews.

Besides, less spell slots isn't just beneficial, it's downright necessary if at-will cantrips are going to scale.

Im not complaining about the less spell slots thing in this perspective. I consider all spell slots archiac, fiddly and overall a bad system.
I consider 5e downright UNFINISHED. Not modular, or open ended, or flexible but unfinished.

[Pex]

First read on cleric I don't like removing spontaneous healing. That along with Channel Energy is what allows the cleric not to be a healbot yet have healing when it's necessary. I need to see how the new channeling works before making a final judgment.

Turn Undead only working if the undead rolled a 1 (critical fail) is not worth a feat. That needs to change.

Their plan is to lessen the numbers of spell slots but not as much as 5E did since you'll have multiple spell slots of levels 6-9. With more potent Cantrips this could be alright. Having played spellcasters in 5E I was never perturbed playing being out of spell slots. I still had Cantrips and those spells needed to be cast. It was long rest time anyway when I needed the long rest.

They are right it is nice to have choices to make for class features. On one hand it is a nerf you only get one Domain to start and do not automatically get the higher level ability as you do now, having to spend a feat on it, but it makes sense in reformatting the game to the 2E template. It's not even much of a nerf really. There's no real difference between P1 where you automatically get the 8th level ability of a Domain and P2 where at 8th level you take the feat to get the higher level ability. The nerf is only having one Domain. Perhaps the Domain abilities will be potent enough in their own right, doing more than what they are in P1.

[Baroncognito]

Turn Undead only working if the undead rolled a 1 (critical fail) is not worth a feat. That needs to change.

You haven't been keeping up on what a critical failure is.

If your result was 10 or more lower than the target DC, or if you rolled a natural 1 and didn't meet the target DC, then you critically failed.

It looks like the flee effect might be in addition to the damage. So it might look something like:

Turn Undead:
Success: Half Damage
Critical Success: No Damage
Failure: Damage
Critical Failure: Double Damage, Flee

The current version is:
Success: No damage, no fleeing.
Failure: No damage, fleeing

So it seems like it sacrifices turning capability, yes, but it also does something to the undead that don't flee. I don't know, I haven't used "Turn Undead" since 3.5, despite playing a fair amount of clerics.

[Kurald Galain]

Frankly I found this disappointing.

I dislike that they're using superlatives like "becoming legendary" when they really mean "get Spell Focus as a feat". As a mandatory pick, and at level 12. Buff-focused clerics (like their example cleric of Gorum) wouldn't even want that, and debuff-focused clerics want this feat several levels earlier. And either way, getting 5% better at things you can already do is not "legendary". What is this, 5E?

Reduction of spells per day seems fine to me. Mid-level casters in 3E/P1 have way more slots than they need, anyway. It's kind of weird how they announce "spell points" as a unified mechanic for all classes' resource pools, and then give the cleric a distinct channel pool anyway. It also appears that they're running off the paradigm that all rolls and DCs increase by the same amount each level, making this increase effectively meaningless.

[skaddix]

Frankly I found this disappointing.

I dislike that they're using superlatives like "becoming legendary" when they really mean "get Spell Focus as a feat". As a mandatory pick, and at level 12. Buff-focused clerics (like their example cleric of Gorum) wouldn't even want that, and debuff-focused clerics want this feat several levels earlier. And either way, getting 5% better at things you can already do is not "legendary". What is this, 5E?

Reduction of spells per day seems fine to me. Mid-level casters in 3E/P1 have way more slots than they need, anyway. It's kind of weird how they announce "spell points" as a unified mechanic for all classes' resource pools, and then give the cleric a distinct channel pool anyway. It also appears that they're running off the paradigm that all rolls and DCs increase by the same amount each level, making this increase effectively meaningless.

I suppose the idea is to make non utility spells more useful at higher levels but really most don't get to higher levels. I was confused about how many spell slots you actually get is it 3 per spell level? How many spells known?

I want the reach cleric to work. I suppose one domain for free is good for balance since plenty of Divines only gave you one good Domain if that while others got two of them which was pretty unfair. Granted they could have just rebalanced those domains and beefed up the crap one so every Divine at least had two good ones.

But I also agree you cannot claim a unifying spell points system then give something separate. I guess this is for balance reasons. Otherwise the Clerics would probably get an absurd number of spell points which they could spend on non channel skills or make them absurd as a multiclass.

I don't like paying a feat tax for Turn Undead.

[Pex]

You haven't been keeping up on what a critical failure is.


It looks like the flee effect might be in addition to the damage. So it might look something like:

Turn Undead:
Success: Half Damage
Critical Success: No Damage
Failure: Damage
Critical Failure: Double Damage, Flee

The current version is:
Success: No damage, no fleeing.
Failure: No damage, fleeing

So it seems like it sacrifices turning capability, yes, but it also does something to the undead that don't flee. I don't know, I haven't used "Turn Undead" since 3.5, despite playing a fair amount of clerics.

Correction noted, but I'm still not comfortable with it. If your DC is 15 the undead has to get a total of 5 or less including its saving throw modifier. Might as well be only rolling a 1. Skeletons and zombies can turn, but wraiths? specters? mummies at higher level? On first read it doesn't look effective. The details will matter - the expected DCs, the undead saving throw modifier, something else they didn't mention because it's only a looksy.

[exelsisxax]

Correction noted, but I'm still not comfortable with it. If your DC is 15 the undead has to get a total of 5 or less including its saving throw modifier. Might as well be only rolling a 1. Skeletons and zombies can turn, but wraiths? specters? mummies at higher level? On first read it doesn't look effective. The details will matter - the expected DCs, the undead saving throw modifier, something else they didn't mention because it's only a looksy.

You add your level to all your DCs, so we're stepping into a realm where getting DC 20 is likely trivial early on, and at higher levels 40 would be expected. Doesn't seem too low, but they haven't told us what saves actually are yet either.

Then again, it's probably meaningless because level is likely getting added to saves, because nobody learned anything from 4e and 5e having pointless character advancement schemes.

[Kurald Galain]

Correction noted, but I'm still not comfortable with it. If your DC is 15 the undead has to get a total of 5 or less including its saving throw modifier. Might as well be only rolling a 1.

DC 15 is the expected target for level one. Whatever makes you think that every low-level undead will have at least +4 on its will save?

[Scowling Dragon]

DC 15 is the expected target for level one. Whatever makes you think that every low-level undead will have at least +4 on its will save?

Assuming it follows similar patterns, +1 Level, +2 Prof, +1 Stat.

=P
This is a guesstimate because Paizo isn't interested in solid playtesting.

[Kurald Galain]

Assuming it follows similar patterns, +1 Level, +2 Prof, +1 Stat.

So, again, whatever makes you think that every single low-level undead has a 12+ wisdom and a +2 proficiency? Especially when Paizo calls +2 "legendary" and reserves it solely to high-level anything?

If, say, skeletons have one hit die, 6 wisdom and are non-proficient in will saves, that gives them a -3 to the roll against a DC of 5. Those are pretty good odds for a 1st-level cleric of turning skeletons.

[Remuko]

Assuming it follows similar patterns, +1 Level, +2 Prof, +1 Stat.

=P
This is a guesstimate because Paizo isn't interested in solid playtesting.

I wouldnt expect undead to have "proficiency" in will saves w/e that even means especially a mindless undead. Also do low level undead have Wis mods of +1? I thought they have 10-11 Wis so no +1 from that either. This means they'd have +1 level. That's it.

[Cosi]

Calling a +2 bonus legendary is insane. It's one tenth of the RNG. A guy with a +2 bonus beats a guy without it something over half the time. We don't tell stories of the legendary Hercules, who beat mortal men in contests of strength slightly over half the time.

[Kurald Galain]

Calling a +2 bonus legendary is insane.

Well, yes.

On the one hand, this is precisely what 5E does, too; and 5E is pretty popular. On the one hand, this is probably the most common criticism of 5E.