Remaster: Clarification on Dying rules

So, it seems that the remaster clarifies that your Wounded value is added to your Dying value anytime your Dying value increases. It looks like the game will be much more deadly...

I also wonder what will change in how players will use healing, as healing a downed ally will now be a death sentence in a lot of situations.

I admit; I'm not a fan of this.

While it does me going down once is okay if you get stabilised (and are facing enemies who won't just finish you off and you aren't hit by persistent damage), dying potentially instantly on one failed recovery roll once when you have Wounded 1 is extremely punishing. Essentially, if you get revived, you HAVE to run - which is kind of a problem for Martials in particular, who have to spend an action to get up, *and* an action to grab their weapon, and then have to Stride - or Step, if they're in range of an enemy (because while only 1/4 enemies have Attack of Opportunity, how can you ever truly know unless you've moved out of range before?) You'd need to be heal substantially and protected for that to work.

Ironically, this does give a serious advantage to Casters; they can get up, Step or Stride, and then Stride again.

... I just don't know. I feel this is too deadly and I wonder if this is partly why there is a gap between people who feel the game is too deadly versus people like I that feel the game is dangerous but not too dangerous; if the former were running RAW and RAI, then I think that criticism starts to be less based on the severity of encounters ran and perhaps some mistakes on players and GM parts, and more so that the rest of us were running a kinder version of the game...

I think this should be an optional rule, honestly. Wounded adding to your initial Dying condition - making it so that, if you're Wounded 1, one Critical Fail is all it takes to end you - is already a powerful incentive to to make sure someone doesn't go down, make sure they are stabilised, and clear enemies away from them.

With this rule in place, it's fairly arguable you shouldn't heal them at all until the end of the fight - because it seems like it's much more likely for them to die if you heal them and bring them back up at all, rather than giving them some chance at running and being more of a tactical decision.

Note, I'm a rather junior GM; only about 22 or 23 sessions under my belt, and I've only ran a few severe encounters - and I've only had a character gain Wounded once. Perhaps my view if this is rather skewed by my general worry of making encounters too hard and killing newer players or characters - to the point I may be making encounters a bit easier than the players could actually handle. But that fear is without the clarified RAW and without adding Wounded to every time you gain Dying. If I followed RAW and RAI, I would be even more afrad

Pretty sure I would have lost at least 2 long-time characters already under that rule. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I don't mind a dangerous game but losing a character barely ever feels good.

But if it's the rules I will probably enforce them in my Kingmaker game starting next year. We'll see how it goes.

which is kind of a problem for Martials in particular, who have to spend an action to get up, *and* an action to grab their weapon, and then have to Stride - or Step

I love it when martials are running for their life and spend an action grabbing their weapon. I killed at least one of them because of this mistake. Don't grab your weapon if you intent to run away, it's suicidal and pointless.

MadamReshi wrote:

which is kind of a problem for Martials in particular, who have to spend an action to get up, *and* an action to grab their weapon, and then have to Stride - or Step

I love it when martials are running for their life and spend an action grabbing their weapon. I killed at least one of them because of this mistake. Don't grab your weapon if you intent to run away, it's suicidal and pointless.

I can see that; but it is a major setback to lose a weapon that has runes on it, economy wise, and it's a major disadvantage if the fight is otherwise winnable, especially if it's important story wise - for example, it's totally possible for a fight to go in a way for a melee martial to have been the only one taking significant damage, while the rest of the party has only last resources; and several enemies are well damaged or dead.

In that scenario, getting up and running away without your weapon takes you out of the fight unless you have a backup... which I suppose may be wise, but is expensive. And that could cause friction at the table, or at-least cause issues for the Martial player in question unless they have another form of contribution.

It's also uneven in who it affects; quiet a number of Monks are going to be fun.

It is an interesting balance point, though I'm not sure how fun it is; on the one hand, it is quite a powerful thing for anyone reliant on unarmed attacks, or have backup weapons and magic items to support that, or those who carry ranged and melee weapons about. On the other hand, anyone using a shield is going to suffer.

It is something I'll keep an eye on, no matter what rules I'm running.

Pretty sure I would have lost at least 2 long-time characters already under that rule. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I don't mind a dangerous game but losing a character barely ever feels good.

But if it's the rules I will probably enforce them in my Kingmaker game starting next year. We'll see how it goes.

If this is confirmed, I expect my coming PFS games to become far far more deadly. We should have feedback by the end of november I think.

I feel defenses will become much much more valuable, as well as anything that boosts HPs and recovery checks or that eliminates / reduces persistent damage.

Strong in combat healing will become more important. Bringing someone barely back up to positive HP will often be too risky. I could also see Stabilize be used more often (via spell or medicine) to keep people from dying without bringing them back into combat with wounded.

Likewise, Diehard and anything that makes you more resilient will become much more attractive.

Temporary HPs too.

I already planned to go Living Monolith with my Animal Barbarian Dwarf. Feels like it will be an even better choice than I thought.

So, it seems that the remaster clarifies that your Wounded value is added to your Dying value anytime your Dying value increases. It looks like the game will be much more deadly...

I also wonder what will change in how players will use healing, as healing a downed ally will now be a death sentence in a lot of situations.

I think this was initially a plausible interpretation before, but was disregarded because it felt too deadly.

I am not sure how I feel about this, since monsters are already deadly enough as it is, and it forces players to try and not be downed in the first place (because it seems recovering is going to be strictly out-of-combat, since doing so in-combat is just going to kill off that character).

SuperBidi wrote:

MadamReshi wrote:

which is kind of a problem for Martials in particular, who have to spend an action to get up, *and* an action to grab their weapon, and then have to Stride - or Step

I love it when martials are running for their life and spend an action grabbing their weapon. I killed at least one of them because of this mistake. Don't grab your weapon if you intent to run away, it's suicidal and pointless.

I can see that; but it is a major setback to lose a weapon that has runes on it, economy wise, and it's a major disadvantage if the fight is otherwise winnable, especially if it's important story wise - for example, it's totally possible for a fight to go in a way for a melee martial to have been the only one taking significant damage, while the rest of the party has only last resources; and several enemies are well damaged or dead.

In that scenario, getting up and running away without your weapon takes you out of the fight unless you have a backup... which I suppose may be wise, but is expensive. And that could cause friction at the table, or at-least cause issues for the Martial player in question unless they have another form of contribution.

It's also uneven in who it affects; quiet a number of Monks are going to be fun.

It is an interesting balance point, though I'm not sure how fun it is; on the one hand, it is quite a powerful thing for anyone reliant on unarmed attacks, or have backup weapons and magic items to support that, or those who carry ranged and melee weapons about. On the other hand, anyone using a shield is going to suffer.

It is something I'll keep an eye on, no matter what rules I'm running.

A monk would still lose the benefit of their stance. Powerful fist is likely a better (and definitely cheaper) backup than what the martial had, but monks also get charged the stance action on the front end of every fight.

Can someone check the numbers on this? It seems to me that, statistically speaking, no one would survive to level 20 under such a punishing rule.

Could we see an actual citation of new(-old?) game rules first? :)

I can see that; but it is a major setback to lose a weapon that has runes on it, economy wise, and it's a major disadvantage if the fight is otherwise winnable, especially if it's important story wise - for example, it's totally possible for a fight to go in a way for a melee martial to have been the only one taking significant damage, while the rest of the party has only last resources; and several enemies are well damaged or dead.

In that scenario, getting up and running away without your weapon takes you out of the fight unless you have a backup... which I suppose may be wise, but is expensive. And that could cause friction at the table, or at-least cause issues for the Martial player in question unless they have another form of contribution.

It's also uneven in who it affects; quiet a number of Monks are going to be fun.

It is an interesting balance point, though I'm not sure how fun it is; on the one hand, it is quite a powerful thing for anyone reliant on unarmed attacks, or have backup weapons and magic items to support that, or those who carry ranged and melee weapons about. On the other hand, anyone using a shield is going to suffer.

It is something I'll keep an eye on, no matter what rules I'm running.

I was speaking of a case where the character is running away. If you're planning on staying here, you should recover your weapon but then you are not really running away.

And if you care more about losing a weapon than your character, well, to each their own. But I tend to dislike this kind of reasoning that I find extremely metagamey (as I'm pretty sure the player considers their character can't die or that a resurrection is not really costly compared to a fully runed weapon).

Could we see an actual citation of new(-old?) game rules first? :)

I found this information on Reddit, I don't have the source of the guy who posted it. But I wanted to be the first one so that's all I can give you!

Can someone check the numbers on this? It seems to me that, statistically speaking, no one would survive to level 20 under such a punishing rule.

It's definitely more deadly but it mostly changes the way people use healing. Instead of yoyoing characters who go down you will let them down and raise them at the end of the fight. So I'm not sure it really changes things that much. Going to Wounded 1 during combat is already a rather rare case.

Strong in combat healing will become more important. Bringing someone barely back up to positive HP will often be too risky. I could also see Stabilize be used more often (via spell or medicine) to keep people from dying without bringing them back into combat with wounded.

Considering the chance of crit, I don't want to get back on my feet when Wounded 1 even if it's from a strong healing.

While this is a clarification of existing rules and therefore not a real change, I personally prefer having the wounded condition merely increase the starting value, instead of adding to the dying value each time it increments. The current rule I feel is not only excessively deadly, but also causes recovery checks to spike in failure rate from the first application of the condition instead of being smoother.

With RAW rules for dying and wounded, your chance of death is the following based on your wounded condition, excluding effects like Toughness or Diehard, as well as further incoming damage:

Whether confirmed as the official rule or not, I hope there is something in the GM core that talks about dialing in deadliness to what fits best for your party.

Personally, I really like this rule and prefer games where characters die occasionally (like every few sessions) to games where characters popcorn up repeatedly. One reason I prefer this is because I have found that players are more willing to cut their losses and run when the character that got themselves in a bad spot dies, rather than bounces up and down and then uses a hero point, and the rest of the party has spent 3 or more rounds trying everything to save the character only to get fully TPK’d because the weren’t just down 3 actions a turn but 5 or 6 for multiple rounds…but I also stopped getting upset if a beloved character dies a long time ago. I like campaigns where the cast of characters grows and changes. TPKs make this much more difficult than the occasional character death.

At the same time, not implementing this rule seems like a really easy “variant rule” to employ for tables where deaths are happening too frequently for player enjoyment. Which is why I hope the GM core addresses the lethality of the campaign in a way where “less character deaths” rules are seen as just another way to play, like free-archetype, rather than some kind of “easy cheat” which you never here anyone call Free-archetype.

Alternatively. GMs can also just give out more hero points, and give them out more often, especially if difficult encounters are on the horizon. The lethality of a campaign is something the GM should always be paying attention to and talking to their players about. Shrugging your shoulders and saying “it’s the game, sorry” and not acknowledging the agency the table has in dialing that in is a problem that the GM core should address.

Errenor wrote:

Could we see an actual citation of new(-old?) game rules first? :)

I found this information on Reddit, I don't have the source of the guy who posted it. But I wanted to be the first one so that's all I can give you!

Ok. But well... I still think we first need something more substantial to discuss. As a potential interpretation this rules variant was already discussed quite enough.

MadamReshi wrote:

I can see that; but it is a major setback to lose a weapon that has runes on it, economy wise, and it's a major disadvantage if the fight is otherwise winnable, especially if it's important story wise - for example, it's totally possible for a fight to go in a way for a melee martial to have been the only one taking significant damage, while the rest of the party has only last resources; and several enemies are well damaged or dead.

In that scenario, getting up and running away without your weapon takes you out of the fight unless you have a backup... which I suppose may be wise, but is expensive. And that could cause friction at the table, or at-least cause issues for the Martial player in question unless they have another form of contribution.

It's also uneven in who it affects; quiet a number of Monks are going to be fun.

It is an interesting balance point, though I'm not sure how fun it is; on the one hand, it is quite a powerful thing for anyone reliant on unarmed attacks, or have backup weapons and magic items to support that, or those who carry ranged and melee weapons about. On the other hand, anyone using a shield is going to suffer.

It is something I'll keep an eye on, no matter what rules I'm running.

I was speaking of a case where the character is running away. If you're planning on staying here, you should recover your weapon but then you are not really running away.

Or you can leave your weapon and retrieve it if needed in later rounds. If you are running away from the enemies, chances are high you won't try to get to melee range soon and should use your ranged option in the meantime instead. If you don't have a ranged option then you should have one.

And if you care more about losing a weapon than your character, well, to each their own. But I tend to dislike this kind of reasoning that I find extremely metagamey (as I'm pretty sure the player considers their character can't die or that a resurrection is not really costly compared to a fully runed...

To be fair, I haven't played; I'm seeing it from the perspective of a GM, and I might be looking at this too much from the worry of 'what if the players decisions could make it difficult for them to get weapons? What adaptions am I going to make to solve this?' As an actual player, I would care more about my life.

MadamReshi wrote:

which is kind of a problem for Martials in particular, who have to spend an action to get up, *and* an action to grab their weapon, and then have to Stride - or Step

I love it when martials are running for their life and spend an action grabbing their weapon. I killed at least one of them because of this mistake. Don't grab your weapon if you intent to run away, it's suicidal and pointless.

Traditionally, most players would prefer their character's die than lose their gear: It's just a lot easier (and cheaper) to get resurrected than to replace their gear...

I don't think this is quite as true in PF2e as resurrection costs actually scale quite high, but the old instincts remain...

[Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury voice] I acknowledge that Paizo has made their decision, but since I view it as a stupid-ass decision, I won’t be following it.

EDIT: At least, assuming that the understanding in this thread reflects the actual text.

It's pretty clear, not someone still reading ambiguous text in the remaster. Taking damage while dying calls out adding your wounded value. The fail and crit fail effects on recovery checks each call out adding your wounded value.

I'm seeing it from the perspective of a GM, and I might be looking at this too much from the worry of 'what if the players decisions could make it difficult for them to get weapons? What adaptions am I going to make to solve this?'

If, as a GM, I gave them a severe encounter and 'running away disarmed' was the regular result, my solution would be dropping the encounter difficulty.

If 'running away disarmed' was due to terrible luck on the player's parts or player inexperience with the system, I'd probably give them some future scene which lets them re-engage or find some other way to trick the monster allowing them to get their gear back.

If it's just the players being foolish in ways they should know better ('sure! we can handle a 9th encounter today! I demand we press forward!'), well...save up for your next rune and don't behave that way again.

Players assuming that making a new character is less costly than losing a weapon is decision based on faulty logic that many GMs reinforce (especially running pre-written APs) but at least was called out in the GMG as untrue. No campaign should be treating wealth and treasure as a flat, fixed value by the default rules. There isn’t some set gold value that the party will get over the course of the campaign that is either wasted or exploited. There are level by level target numbers that will occasionally be gone over or under but should be checked regularly. Really losing a good weapon (and not just having to leave and come back to the same encounter with more awareness of what will be faced) can be a scary moment (the fun of fights over lava pits), but it should be an opportunity for the GM to bring in something awesome and new, maybe even a level ahead on runes the character was saving up for. When players get into pinching pennies because gold is a non-renewable resource, but will abandon characters to start new ones who will come in with better and more focused treasure than the last character had, there is not enough useful treasure being given out in a campaign.

Starting wealth by level should look like a floor, not even a halfway point to the ceiling.

That is all fair. I didn't mean to distract the thread with my musings.

I really would like to ask this question in any of the streams or videos by content creators coming out over the next two weeks. Or maybe I should just calm myself and wait for the PDF release =p

I have run it with the "deadly" RAI since launch.

I have never had a player die because of it, I have however had lots of players scramble to make sure they are healed up and have emergency options and backup defensive/safe tactics.

I have had players get near death because of it though, it means that players who go down once know that going down a second or third time is very very dangerous.

I have two pf2e groups and have run quite a lot of it. I recommend giving it a shot m before thinking it is "too deadly".

It is pretty spooky when someone is wounded 1, makes a saving throw to go to dying 1 and then fails their next one and is straight back to dying 3. But again that is a part of the fun.

(the fun of fights over lava pits)

That is how the barbarian in my AoA campaign lost everything. To be fair, he knew jumping over the lava for the cool moment had a 10% chance of not going the way he wanted.

Cool moment with the rogue dragon disciple focus spell growing wings and just having enough carrying capacity to get the barbarian up and out of the lava.

They were a spirit barbarian so I worked in a posessed axe later on so they were happy in the long run.

Looks like a cleric can still use a max lvl heal slot and battle medicine check to get a PC back into the fight with a sonewhat safe amount of health. Then again, we play fairly recklessly at our table and don't even save hero points for recovery (it's not like I softball it either, We've had 4 character deaths over the years). It is scarier for a conservative playstyle though.

Could we see an actual citation of new(-old?) game rules first? :)

HERE

Looks like a cleric can still use a max lvl heal slot and battle medicine check to get a PC back into the fight with a sonewhat safe amount of health. Then again, we play fairly recklessly at our table and don't even save hero points for recovery (it's not like I softball it either, We've had 4 character deaths over the years). It is scarier for a conservative playstyle though.

Honestly saving hero points for death seems like a bit of a waste.

Sure it is guaranteed, but it isn't like it gets you up again.

My players most frequently use them on saving throws or attacks or checks they really want to go through. And sure I have seen double ones before, but generally it works in their favour and has a bigger impact than stablizing would have (i mean it is better to not need to stablize than not).

I admit it. I despise ping-pong healing.

That being said, I've played with single-point dying increases and it's never been an issue. Not like how 5e or 4e were.

I have run it with the "deadly" RAI since launch.

I have never had a player die because of it, I have however had lots of players scramble to make sure they are healed up and have emergency options and backup defensive/safe tactics.

I have had players get near death because of it though, it means that players who go down once know that going down a second or third time is very very dangerous.

I have two pf2e groups and have run quite a lot of it. I recommend giving it a shot m before thinking it is "too deadly".

That's my feeling on it too. If people at the table are understanding that this is how the dying and wounded rules work, they will adapt their strategies.

We haven't run with the 'add wounded to dying when failing recovery check' before. But we also don't generally engage in popcorn characters either. When someone is down, they usually stay down for the rest of the fight already - or if they do get healed up a bit, they usually draw back and fight from safety even if it is less effective.

The main issue is it creates a trap option where you think you're helping a dying PC but you're sealing their fate instead. Still, I think it's fine so long as the DM strongly warns the players that rubberbanding a dying character is a bad idea.

This should definitely not be the default. From the perspective of a new player, the game is already sufficiently hard, especially many way overtuned official Adventure Paths. Making it easier to lose your character will likely lead to deterring new players. It will most likely contribute even more to the famous statistic that most players end their journey before level 3.

This being an optional rule for veteran players is perfectly fine though.

I foresee many PC deaths in PFS, especially for experienced players, until we collectively get the hang of this rule.

Ways to get out of dying (Stabilize cantrip, First Aid and Hero Points) will see their value skyrocketing.

Melee combat PCs will be less attractive IMO.

The Medic archetype will become even more valuable for Doctor's visitation.

I foresee many PC deaths in PFS, especially for experienced players, until we collectively get the hang of this rule.

I've always thought that 'heal before characters drop' was the preferred tactics.

This rule change doesn't add that unexpectedly.

I foresee many PC deaths in PFS, especially for experienced players, until we collectively get the hang of this rule.

Ways to get out of dying (Stabilize cantrip, First Aid and Hero Points) will see their value skyrocketing.

Melee combat PCs will be less attractive IMO.

The Medic archetype will become even more valuable for Doctor's visitation.

Doctor's visitation doesn't restore enough hp to feel safe, honestly. At lower level, yes, but once you're dying I think only a max level heal is enough to survive the next round comfortably given that crit fails on basic saves and critical hits happen regularly.

Cleric gets EVEN MORE necessary. Which I'm not sure is good meta. The devs have mentioned they built their rules with the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party and it's REALLY showing here.

Cleric In-combat healing gets EVEN MORE necessary.

Cleric is most definitely not the only source of in-combat healing.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Cleric In-combat healing gets EVEN MORE necessary.

Cleric is most definitely not the only source of in-combat healing.

No... but the ludicrous number of fonts is highly important, especially given some APs DO NOT obey the 3 moderate encounters per long rest rule. Most other classes (druid, say) run out of slots. And also aren't rolling d10s for heal.

I've done without a cleric, but I'd hate to bring a party to Age of Ashes without one using the new rules.

breithauptclan wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Cleric In-combat healing gets EVEN MORE necessary.

Cleric is most definitely not the only source of in-combat healing.

No... but the ludicrous number of fonts is highly important, especially given some APs DO NOT obey the 3 moderate encounters per long rest rule. Most other classes (druid, say) run out of slots. And also aren't rolling d10s for heal.

I've done without a cleric, but I'd hate to bring a party to Age of Ashes without one using the new rules.

Yes. And the AP writers have apologized for not fully understanding the new game system well enough when they wrote those first APs and recommend that GMs adjust the difficulty of the AP encounters to follow the guidelines in the GM guide.

So I don't see how it is the game developers who are insisting that you run the game in a way that demands maximal amounts of healing.

The Raven Black wrote:

I foresee many PC deaths in PFS, especially for experienced players, until we collectively get the hang of this rule.

Ways to get out of dying (Stabilize cantrip, First Aid and Hero Points) will see their value skyrocketing.

Melee combat PCs will be less attractive IMO.

The Medic archetype will become even more valuable for Doctor's visitation.

Doctor's visitation doesn't restore enough hp to feel safe, honestly. At lower level, yes, but once you're dying I think only a max level heal is enough to survive the next round comfortably given that crit fails on basic saves and critical hits happen regularly.

Cleric gets EVEN MORE necessary. Which I'm not sure is good meta. The devs have mentioned they built their rules with the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party and it's REALLY showing here.

Doctor's visitation to Administer First Aid to stabilize. Not for Battle Medicine which just makes you a magnet for further attacks.

Cleric gets EVEN MORE necessary. Which I'm not sure is good meta. The devs have mentioned they built their rules with the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party and it's REALLY showing here.

I think they'll be 2 current of thoughts:

I was already in the second category, with Cleric a liability in my opinion. With the new rules, I'll be strongly against any kind of dedicated healer in the party (well, I won't make a tantrum if there's one, but I know I play in hard mode then).

Well I admit that I haven't played all of the recent APs... but I have played blood lords and it's horribly lethal in some places.

There are definitely situations where you get more than 3 moderate fights per day and where even the cleric was running low on slots.

And our group tries its very best to be proactive with healing.

Also, it's funny, but I think it's a nerf of Heal (deserved one in my opinion). Heal was awesome on a downed character. Also, 3-action Heal was very powerful against Undeads. Now, healing a downed character is dangerous and 3-action Heal is unusable if there's anyone down in the AoE. Healing takes a hit, but Heal takes a bigger one.

On the other hand, it makes 1-action heals more interesting. Medic obviously, Lay on Hands and also Chirurgeon (if the remaster makes an actual healer out of it).

Also, it's funny, but I think it's a nerf of Heal (deserved one in my opinion). Heal was awesome on a downed character. Also, 3-action Heal was very powerful against Undeads. Now, healing a downed character is dangerous and 3-action Heal is unusable if there's anyone down in the AoE. Healing takes a hit, but Heal takes a bigger one.

On the other hand, it makes 1-action heals more interesting. Medic obviously, Lay on Hands and also Chirurgeon (if the remaster makes an actual healer out of it).

Honestly as a GM it makes me wonder if you should just try to avoid wounded characters.

I already try to spread out damage whenever possible to avoid murdering people, and it's generally common etiquette to not focus fire dying characters.

Ping pong already made PCs drop their weapons (and wands, and shields if applicable) and fall prone, it's extremely painful now.

Honestly as a GM it makes me wonder if you should just try to avoid wounded characters.

I already try to spread out damage whenever possible to avoid murdering people, and it's generally common etiquette to not focus fire dying characters.

Ping pong already made PCs drop their weapons (and wands, and shields if applicable) and fall prone, it's extremely painful now.

I'm much nastier than you. Intelligent enemies focus fire, drop PCs that were just healed back, target the healer and other low defense characters and so on. I have them sometimes making RK checks to recognize PCs spells and act accordingly.

I play combat as war (with a strict observance of both rules and common sense).

Calliope5431 wrote:

Honestly as a GM it makes me wonder if you should just try to avoid wounded characters.

I already try to spread out damage whenever possible to avoid murdering people, and it's generally common etiquette to not focus fire dying characters.

Ping pong already made PCs drop their weapons (and wands, and shields if applicable) and fall prone, it's extremely painful now.

I'm much nastier than you. Intelligent enemies focus fire, drop PCs that were just healed back, target the healer and other low defense characters and so on. I have them sometimes making RK checks to recognize PCs spells and act accordingly.

I play combat as war (with a strict observance of both rules and common sense).

Yup. And when in a game like that is when one might finally realize how bad of a metric it is to measure a character's value by just their DPR.

Edit: Or by their healing output.

Doctor's visitation doesn't restore enough hp to feel safe, honestly. At lower level, yes, but once you're dying I think only a max level heal is enough to survive the next round comfortably given that crit fails on basic saves and critical hits happen regularly.

Cleric gets EVEN MORE necessary. Which I'm not sure is good meta. The devs have mentioned they built their rules with the traditional fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric party and it's REALLY showing here.

I run this rule and have only had a cleric in one campaign (AV)... Heck no other campaign has even close to had a dedicated healer.

No... but the ludicrous number of fonts is highly important, especially given some APs DO NOT obey the 3 moderate encounters per long rest rule. Most other classes (druid, say) run out of slots. And also aren't rolling d10s for heal.

What rule is that? Also none of my groups have ever followed that rule. Heck I had my second AV group go through 10 encounters in a single game day last month, half of which they were under leveled for (level 2 in the library, so the primary enemies were harder than intended but not lots of solo fights). They are a tempest druid, universalist wizard, mastermind rogue and redeemer champion.

This was abnormal and not what I would expect from parties (10 encounters in a row SHOULD have been too much), but that similar has happened a number of times I find it hard to believe that 3 moderate encounters is the goal, moderate encounters are pretty easy as a rule.

The encounters were ghouls, ghoul caster and ghouls, ghoul casters, violet fungus, scrivner (this was hard and I am surprised they won), ghouls, ghouls and caster, ghoul casters, golem, major ghoul caster.

I've done without a cleric, but I'd hate to bring a party to Age of Ashes without one using the new rules.

Funny you mention that because my first pf2e campaign was AoA with these rules and no dedicated healer (there was a cleric at level one but the player dropped out) it was thief rogue, spirit barbarian, bomber alchemist and druid, who was then replaced with a bard at level 15 after the shifting druid died at the end of level 13.

The druid was focused on shapeshifting and was very rarely able to cast in combat heals. The bard didn't even take soothe (imo a mistake but his choice).

The alchemist made sure the party had healing elixirs in advance, the barbarian would buy emergency potions, the alchemist and rogue has trick magic item and some wands (overcharge was occasionally used), 3 characters had battle medicine, one had medic (had to wait for the apg to release though).

Two players were essentially brand new to rpgs, all were new to pf2e.

This isn't to say "it will be easy no deaths", but given that I run without free archetype and the players got through AoA with 4 deaths and the rules as they were then, I doubt it will be that dire.

(Deaths in AoA were Rogue at 9 to an enemy velstrac tramping over their downed body on the way to hit other PCs and critting them, druid at 13, they refused to use aoe heal on undead and instead fought as a dragon in a location they couldn't manuever in, bard at 18 to a balor's vorpal blade, barbarian at 19 due to a dragonshard guardian using reverberating revenge and the AoE hitting the downed barbarian who had gotten a bit overconfident and forgotten they can never ever ever roll well in a pinch)

My group played with the dying rules adding wounded and dying together since day 1 of the playtest for the phb and the only time I've had people die is crit failing an instant death spell once

(Deaths in AoA were Rogue at 9 to an enemy velstrac tramping over their downed body on the way to hit other PCs and critting them, druid at 13, they refused to use aoe heal on undead and instead fought as a dragon in a location they couldn't manuever in, bard at 18 to a balor's vorpal blade, barbarian at 19 due to a dragonshard guardian using reverberating revenge and the AoE hitting the downed barbarian who had gotten a bit overconfident and forgotten they can never ever ever roll well in a pinch)

We had no deaths in Age of Ashes, but we also had a party of dhampirs with harm font cleric, hag sorcerer (with crossblooded for harm), dual weapon fighter, and flurry ranger. It was obscenely coordinated and plowed through practically every combat. I honestly don't remember people dropping, but in the combat against Mengkare we did keep track of healing and by the end calculated it was over 1,000 points worth.

How'd they die to a vorpal blade at 18? It's incapacitation and is a level 17 item. Or did they actually roll a crit fail?

And yeah my GM plays combat as war. I'm currently GMing for a bunch of new players and thus very much do not, because I'd prefer they didn't, like, quit the system.

A strange change. This means there's a massive jump in lethality from not wounded to wounded 1, since now any damage or any failed recovery check kills a downed character with w1... and as an odd side effect w2 almost doesn't mean anything.

I'm not sure how this makes the game better, tbh. The builds that are hurt the most by this change are characters that already kind of sucked (thinking stuff like melee warpriests or battle oracles or hair/claw witches).

... Does make Diehard a bit more attractive since it makes instant death harder.

We had no deaths in Age of Ashes, but we also had a party of dhampirs with harm font cleric, hag sorcerer (with crossblooded for harm), dual weapon fighter, and flurry ranger. It was obscenely coordinated and plowed through practically every combat. I honestly don't remember people dropping, but in the combat against Mengkare we did keep track of healing and by the end calculated it was over 1,000 points worth.

How'd they die to a vorpal blade at 18? It's incapacitation and is a level 17 item. Or did they actually roll a crit fail?

And yeah my GM plays combat as war. I'm currently GMing for a bunch of new players and thus very much do not, because I'd prefer they didn't, like, quit the system.

When you heal you don't contribute to end the fight quickly, increasing the duration of the fight and the need for healing.

There really are 2 schools when it comes to healing and I feel this change will increase the gap between both schools.

Calliope5431 wrote:

We had no deaths in Age of Ashes, but we also had a party of dhampirs with harm font cleric, hag sorcerer (with crossblooded for harm), dual weapon fighter, and flurry ranger. It was obscenely coordinated and plowed through practically every combat. I honestly don't remember people dropping, but in the combat against Mengkare we did keep track of healing and by the end calculated it was over 1,000 points worth.

How'd they die to a vorpal blade at 18? It's incapacitation and is a level 17 item. Or did they actually roll a crit fail?

And yeah my GM plays combat as war. I'm currently GMing for a bunch of new players and thus very much do not, because I'd prefer they didn't, like, quit the system.

When you heal you don't contribute to end the fight quickly, increasing the duration of the fight and the need for healing.

I have an Angelic Sorcerer and I honestly don't heal. Not that I don't want but that I nearly never feel it's the good thing to do.

There really are 2 schools when it comes to healing and I feel this change will increase the gap between both schools.

Yeah. It's sort of bizarre...I recall our extinction curse party had a bard as the only real healer, and it didn't matter because between the wizard, rogue, and monk everything got shredded too quickly to hurt us.

My objection to cleric is more rooted around its approach always working. "Edit:undo the boss's last turn" is a heck of a thing to have pretty much on tap. Whereas creatures can critically succeed against most spells and it's actually possible to miss with a flurry ranger's attacks or whatever. There isn't a save or attack roll for healing. It just works.