The jankiness of exploration (and social) tactics revisited

[Colette Brunel]

This is a rewrite of an older thread of mine wherein I lamented exploration and social tactics. I would like to rehash some old points and add some new ones.

Thus far, I have GMed six sessions of Pathfinder 2e, each for a different party under a different premade scenario: two playthroughs of The Lost Star, two playthroughs of In Pale Mountain's Shadow, and two playthroughs of The Rose Street Revenge. As a GM, exploration mode has unfailingly been a heavily clunky mechanic that has produced nothing good, that has only hindered my ability to adequately adjudicate various forms of exploration scenes. I was actually handling it incorrectly during most of my GMing (so for Exploration mode, as it currently stands, is broken and nigh-unplayable if actually used as-written.

• Tactic Problem #1: There is very little integration between tactics and premade adventures. Thus far, the only time I have ever seen an explicit integration between exploration tactics and a premade adventure is the "Dragons" subquest of the Rose Street Revenge scenario. Other premade adventures intimate something like "If the entire party is sneaking" at best, and simply never mention exploration tactics most of the time. This means that GMs are left on their own to figure out how exploration tactics actually work.

• Tactic Problem #2: Players are supposed to describe what their characters are doing, and the GM is then to assign an appropriate tactic. However, due to how finicky exploration mode is, particularly how it can screw over those unacquainted with its crippling nuances, players quickly degenerate into declaring their exploration tactics outright. In all six sessions I have ran, players simply declared their exploration tactics outright, often with a common mistake, namely...

• Tactic Problem #3: The "Defending" tactic is worded poorly. It implies that if a character is not Defending, a character cannot have their weapon drawn and at the ready.

• Tactic Problem #4: "Investigating" sounds too similar to "Searching." Players were mixing up the two all the time. They really need different names.

• Tactic Problem #5: Investigating relies on the Recall Knowledge action, which means that a character will wind up with a glut of information... and, due to critical failures, a fat pile of misinformation as well. This is onerous for the GM to concoct on the fly, as I have covered in another thread.

• Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception. This is extremely well-hidden, away from the player version of the exploration mode rules, which means that entire groups can miss this key rule for several sessions straight. None of my players and I had noticed the existence of this rule for six sessions straight! Thus, only one character has a chance at noticing traps, hazard, hidden doors, and other secret points of interest. Furthermore, in order to be entitled to a Perception roll to notice anything inconspicuous, the party must be moving at an overland Speed of no more than 100 feet per minute. Not only is it up to a single character to make Perception checks; that character also has to slow down the group to a snail's pace.

• Tactic Problem #7: The "Dragons" scenario of The Rose Street Revenge and the hyena and manticore encounters in In Pale Mountain's Shadow strongly imply that in order for the party to be stealth, everyone must be using the Sneaking tactic. For a large number of reasons, this is simply impractical. Even with a high-Dexterity party, and even with someone with Quiet Allies present, armor check penalties will ensure that at least one or two characters are hopeless at Stealth, never mind that more people rolling Stealth means more chances for someone to roll low and alert an enemy. This means that it is virtually impossible for a party to be stealthy.

• Tactic Problem #8: Tactics can be combined (effectively using two actions per turn)... but they become fatiguing tactics, which means that if they are carried out for 10 minutes straight, the character is fatigued until they rest for a full 8 hours. Here are some examples of fatiguing exploration tactics:
• An unarmored human with the baseline speed of 25 uses Stride twice per turn, thus moving 50 feet per round, 500 feet per minute, or 5.68 miles per hour. That is a fast jog. If they do that for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because jogging is so exhausting.
• A character with neither the Ride feat nor an animal companion mounts a horse. Each turn, they use Handle an Animal (at a frustratingly unlisted DC, another problem altogether) and Command an Animal to make the horse take a single Stride action. Since this takes two actions per turn, this is a fatiguing exploration tactic. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because riding a horse at a gentle clip is so exhausting.
• A character with a young badger, bear, bird, cat, dromaeosaur, snake, or wolf companion Strides each turn and while Commanding an Animal to get their animal companion to walk alongside them. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because walking a baby animal is so exhausting.
• A character with a cat familiar Strides each turn while Commanding an Animal to have their cat familiar walk alongside them. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because walking alongside a cat is so exhausting. Best to carry the familiar instead to save on actions.
• A character simultaneously Investigates and Searches, or, in other words, keeps an eye out for points of interest while trying to remember pertinent facts. This seems like it should not be too straining, but it is actually a fatiguing exploration tactic. If a character does this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because keeping one's wits wary and using one's brain is so exhausting.
• A character simultaneously Converses and Looks Out, or, in other words, chats up someone in conversation while keeping an eye out for lies and other deceptions. This, too, is also a fatiguing exploration tactic, because simultaneously talking to people and reading people is so exhausting.
• An unarmored human NPC with the baseline speed of 25 uses Stride once per turn, thus moving 25 feet per round, 250 feet per minute, or 2.84 miles per hour. According to Wikipedia, this NPC would be moving at below-average walking speed, so it is a somewhat slow pedestrian walk. A PC wants to use Sneak twice per turn in order to tail this NPC, but unfortunately, this is a fatiguing exploration tactic, because stalking a slow-moving target through a city is so exhausting.

The eight examples above are some basic tasks that really should not be so hard to accomplish, and yet they are all fatiguing exploration tactics. In both of my playthroughs of The Lost Star, anyone trying to walk alongside a familiar or an animal companion should have been given a rough time due to how fatiguing it is to simultaneously Stride and Command an Animal before the animal becomes full-grown. In both of my playthroughs of In Pale Mountain's Shadow, fatiguing tactics rendered it completely impossible for PCs to make better time on their journey by riding horses/camels, because of the fatiguing woes of using Handle an Animal (if it succeeds against the mysteriously missing DC) and Command an Animal each turn. In both of my playthroughs of The Rose Street Revenge, players were miffed by how they had to choose between Conversing and Looking Out while speaking to an investigation suspect, because talking to someone while watching for lies is a fatiguing exploration tactic.

In order for players to circumvent this, they must exploit a well-hidden rule from page 329: "Sometimes the group might stop a fatiguing tactic before getting fatigued, then resume the fatiguing tactic. You can reset the 10-minute timer for fatigue’s onset if the group spent a reasonable amount of time on less strenuous activities. As a rule of thumb, the characters should spend about as much time on non-fatiguing tactics as they did on the fatiguing tactic for the timer to reset."

This is extremely clunky and unintuitive, and the game actually expects players to describe this in natural language as opposed to going "Combining Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, then Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, and repeat." It is difficult for the GM to adequately adjudicate this alternation of exploration tactics, let alone resolve this quickly and smoothly.

This alternation also creates some bizarre situations: someone sustaining a conversation has to alternate between Conversing and Looking Out for 9 minutes, then just Conversing for 9 minutes, etc., thus leaving the character with gaping "blind spots" wherein they can be lied to or deceived with no chance whatsoever of sussing out the bamboozlement. It still does not allow a character with neither the Ride feat nor an animal companion to gain extra overland speed while riding a mount, compared to alternating between Striding once and Striding twice. It still means that a character who wants to walk alongside a young badger, bear, bird, cat, dromaeosaur, snake, or wolf companion, or even just a cat familiar on the ground, will have their overland travel speed slowed down considerably. It still means that it is impossible to sneak and tail someone around a city.

Never mind the most damning bit: what sort of players would even tumble to the idea of alternating between fatiguing tactics and non-fatiguing tactics in the first place? The very idea is exceedingly unintuitive, and none of my players in any of my six groups thus far has ever thought of it on their own.

• Tactic Problem #9: The above paradigm creates some rather artificial and clunky setups for optimal uses of social tactics. For example, in a typical social situation, the party should alternate between Conversing and Looking Out for 9 minutes, then just Conversing for 9 minutes, then Conversing and Looking out for 9 minutes, then simply Conversing for 9 minutes, and so on. The party should alternate in such a way that half of the party is always Looking Out at any given moment, or else a sneaky lie might slip through the cracks and deceive the party.

Similarly, in a more traditional dungeon-delving scenario, here is what an ideal setup looks like. The character with the highest Perception uses Searching, because Searching only cares for the highest-Perception character in the party, and the entire party has to move at a strict overland speed of only 100 feet per minute so that the Searcher can actually find hidden points of interest. From there, characters have three real options:
• Anyone with decent knowledge skills can use Investigating, but only for those specific skills, because otherwise, there is too great a risk of misinformation.
• Anyone who can cast detect magic can use Detecting Magic.
• Anyone with higher Stealth than Perception can use Sneaking, less to actually be stealthy (because, as previously established, it is nearly impossible for the party to be stealthy), more to simply use Stealth for initiative.
• If there is something to track, anyone who has high Survival can use Tracking.
If a character lacks any of the above, perhaps because they are a Strength-based barbarian, fighter, or paladin? Then they are relegated to the booby prize job of simply using Covering Tracks, which is meaningless in the vast majority of situations. It does not seem very fair to such characters that they are stuck twiddling their thumbs.

Conclusion: All of the above is simply so janky and unintuitive that it saps my will to try to adjudicate exploration scenes using the rules that Paizo has provided. I would much rather have Paizo excise exploration mode, exploration tactics, and social tactics altogether. They are unnecessary and nonfunctional.

[Colette Brunel]

Oh, goodness. I was wrong about animal companions. As it turns out, only Animal druids with Full-Grown Companion are entitled to free actions for their animal companion, and even then, that applies only during an encounter. Thus, if you are a human Animal druid with a Full-Grown Companion bear? It will be a fatiguing exploration tactic to Stride and then Command an Animal each turn, so you will have to alternate between Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes, then Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes. This is terribly inconvenient to anyone with an animal companion they cannot mount.

[DerNils]

Hi Colette, thank you for collecting this here. May I add two more we identified during our sessions:

• Tactic Problem #10: Do companions get their own tactics?
I initially went with your Interpretation of RAW, but my druid Player found this Little gem.

CRB p.416 wrote:

If given no commands, minions

use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious
harm. If left unattended for at least 1 minute, mindless minions
don’t act, whereas intelligent ones act as they please.quote]
This is actually a good Argument for intelligent minions to act on their own, which could enable them to choose their own tactics.

• Tactic Problem #10: Can I look for hidden enemies?
As the Search tactic is specific to Hazards, secret doors and such (and combined with the hazard description in the bestiary actually Kind of works), I still struggle how to arbitrate a "Seek" tactic. If my Player is looking for ambushes and actually beats the Stealth DC of the Monster, what happens? Does he sense a Monster? All of them?
What keeps my Monsters from just starting the Encounter at 35 feet? (seek has a 30 foot range). Are they unseen/sensed?
And the same for my Player with the Stealth tactic. Beyond rolling Stealth for initiative, is he actually stealthed? What if there is no suitable cover on the battlemap for him to start there?

• Tactic Problem #11: There is no riding at full Speed.
Writing up the description of Pale Mountains Shadow made me realise that I misjudged actual riding rules. Even For my Cavaliers with a Mount companion, they still use an Action each turn to command their horse. Meaning they move half Speed? Or is that overridden by them not actually moving?
And if it is, does that mean they can stack other tactics on top without influencing their movement Speed? (forgetting about the fatigue stuff for a Minute)

Picking up on the Point that adventures don't really integrate with These rules. Pale Mountains Shadow has Players act as a guide to look for shortcuts, etc. That sounds an awful lot like an Exploration tactic to me, but it is never called out as one. And why is something like that not a normal use of survival, but hidden in a specific Module?

[Laik]

Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception.

Ouch! I never noticed that rule, and that's after GMing several groups. This thing makes difference, and I am not sure I like it.

[Laik]

This is extremely clunky and unintuitive, and the game actually expects players to describe this in natural language as opposed to going "Combining Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, then Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, and repeat."

True. The system is very game-breaking as it is, absolutely requiring metagame thinking. If designers do not change it, I just end up ignoring it completely and playing old-school, free-mode.

[Colette Brunel]

DerNils wrote:

If left unattended for at least 1 minute, mindless minions don’t act, whereas intelligent ones act as they please.

This is a slippery slope, because it is not long before "Act as the please" can be twisted into meaning, "If I do not command my animal companion, then surely, they will follow me and defend me in battle."

The point regarding hidden enemies is absolutely true, though it is technically a separate issue: Perception vs. Stealth, rolling initiative, and the transition into encounter mode. It is another issue I have been struggling with as well, because there does not seem to be a clean and easy way to adjudicate it.

As far as riding is concerned, I already cover that in one of the bullet points in problem #8.

[DerNils]

Yes, riding is more of a bullet point to 8 - I added it because you focused on the fatiguing aspect, while I am struggling how even normal riding is intended to work.

[Starfox]

There is a lookout tactic, its described under social tactics for some reason.

Otherwise this is a good going through of the flaws of the current exploration system. I'm not agreeing on every point, but I agree with the trend. I feel I could make exploration mode work as written, but I generally play fast and loose with rules anyway. A less confident GM will struggle.

When introducing a new type of scene, such as exploration tires to be, its important to get over a threshold of utility, or people will just ignore it and would be better off without the rules.

[Colette Brunel]

I do mention Looking Out in my original post.

Simultaneously Conversing and Looking Out (i.e. watching for deceptions) is a fatiguing tactic. If you attempt to do so for 10 minutes straight, then you are fatigued until you rest for 8 hours, because talking to people while reading people is so exhausting.

[CyberMephit]

Problem #1: That's a playtest for god's sake. Not every adventure must include everything. Raiders of the Shrieking Peak feature exploration, as does In Pale Mountain's Shadow.

Problem #2: This is entirely made up. The book explicitly says both ways are equally valid in the first paragraph under 'Exploration Tactics' on page 329. It says IF the player did not name a tactic or chose an action that is not one of the listed ones for the tactics THEN the GM assigns a tactic they deem the most valid for the action.

Problem #3 It would be equally poorly worded if it did not mention a weapon because a defender with just a shield but no weapon looks stupid. It clearly states the exact mechanical benefit you're getting. Now if it said "you don't have to spend an action to draw a weapon on your first turn" that would be a different matter.

Problem #4 Okay I actually agree with this one for a change.

Problem #5 You can only come up with a 'fat pile' of misinformation if your Recall Knowledge rolls are attempted with characters with no ranks and no Int/Wis bonuses, or Dubious Knowledge feat. Normally if the rolls are done by characters with higher modifiers then you only come up with one bit of misinformation per 10-20 bits of information. Yes it takes effort to create but also adds fun? Maybe the misinformation rule should be optional as I saw some strong opinions about GM acting as the arbiters of objective truth in the game world.

Problem #6 Again this is just made up. Page 331 explicitly says more than one characters can be searching (the last sentence of the Searching section). It just instructs DM to do checks for finding e.g. stone secret doors with the most favorable modifier e.g. stonecunning.

Problem #7 The Hyena encounter does not imply that at all. It implies that if nobody is using Stealth, they sneak up. If one character is Sneaking, then normally that character would be scouting ahead of the group and have a chance to detect them first. If the group is going together and one is sneaking then the hyenas sneak up but the sneaky one rolls stealth for initiative. It is of course impossible for a party of three noisy people and one silent person to be stealthy together.
The Manticore encounter specifically calls out that everyone must be Sneaking to avoid it exactly because it is an exception, not the rule.

Problem #8 The whole point of the exploration system is to abstract away from doing individual actions and it says is much... It is not mandated to be exactly corresponding to X combat actions per minute, those numbers are given as rough averages.

Problem #9 Okay I agree it is vague but then social situations can be pretty varied so how specific can the rules be? I think the idea here may be that since the social tactics are applied in 10-minute increments, they are not supposed to be used in scripted conversations with key NPCs (that would be like a social encounter or something and be run per the old rules) but for simply spending time at social events - maybe while preparing for such a conversation. And then one character can be Conversing to earn bonuses from the influencers in the crowd and another may be Looking Out to find out that some of the partygoers are actually disguised assassins or something.

EDIT: Okay I actually wanted to add my own problem with the rules... It seems that as written, you cannot use Survival to find tracks. You can Seek to find tracks using Perception, and then Follow them using Survival. This feels strange to me but not sure if that's intended.

[masda_gib]

I have to agree with CyberMephit here on all points.

Exploration Mode is there for situations where not every single action has to be counted. It abstracts and gives some guidelines.

Also, it is a completely new mode for PF so it wont be perfect out of the box. You have some valid feedback but you would find more willing listeners without that everything-not-perfect-is-utter-crap tone. :/

And on animal comps.: as a dog owner I can say that when given no orders, they will follow me when I walk away but they will absolutely not defend me in battle. :) So it's reasonable to say that you don't have to order your animal every round just to follow you in exploration mode.

[Xenocrat]

Laik wrote:

Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception.

Ouch! I never noticed that rule, and that's after GMing several groups. This thing makes difference, and I am not sure I like it.

Can you give me an exact quote? I'm not seeing anything indicating this on page 331.

[Laik]

It would be equally poorly worded if it did not mention a weapon because a defender with just a shield but no weapon looks stupid.

Stupid? We used it many times. A caster cleric or druid might want their shield raised, but the other hand free.

[Laik]

Xenocrat wrote:

Laik wrote:

Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception.

Ouch! I never noticed that rule, and that's after GMing several groups. This thing makes difference, and I am not sure I like it.

Can you give me an exact quote? I'm not seeing anything indicating this on page 331.

If more than one character is searching,

give the group a chance to detect anything that’s hidden,
using the skill bonus of the character with the highest
bonus for whatever is hardest to notice.

(end of the first paragraph)

[Mats Öhrman]

Xenocrat wrote:

Laik wrote:

Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception.

Ouch! I never noticed that rule, and that's after GMing several groups. This thing makes difference, and I am not sure I like it.

Can you give me an exact quote? I'm not seeing anything indicating this on page 331.

page 331, left column, just a little over the center:

”If more than one character is searching, give the group a chance to detect anything that’s hidden, using the skill bonus of the character with the highest bonus for whatever is hardest to notice.”

To me, that sentence implies: Take the hidden feature with the highest DC. Determine what character has the highest bonus for that feature (since various character may have more specific bonuses). Roll once using that bonus. The group as a whole finds the features with equal or lower DC compared to the result of that roll.

[Makarion]

Laik wrote:

This is extremely clunky and unintuitive, and the game actually expects players to describe this in natural language as opposed to going "Combining Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, then Investigating and Searching for 9 minutes, then only Searching for 9 minutes, and repeat."

True. The system is very game-breaking as it is, absolutely requiring metagame thinking. If designers do not change it, I just end up ignoring it completely and playing old-school, free-mode.

I suspect that, if designers do not change it, people ignore it by playing D&D 5th.

[ChibiNyan]

Remember we're supposed to playtest completely by RAW. Ignoring the Exploration guidelines means you are not testing this feature. It does say that what is 2 actions in combat per turn = fatiguing tactic, so that's the way we have to roll with it for now even if these rules are very easy to ignore.

[Colette Brunel]

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #1: That's a playtest for god's sake. Not every adventure must include everything. Raiders of the Shrieking Peak feature exploration, as does In Pale Mountain's Shadow.

Paizo is explicitly looking for feedback on how they construct adventures as well. For example, In Pale Mountain's Shadow seeks feedback on how Paizo might present adventures with less maps. I think that if Paizo wants to help sell exploration mode, they should integrate it more aptly with their adventures.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #2: This is entirely made up. The book explicitly says both ways are equally valid in the first paragraph under 'Exploration Tactics' on page 329. It says IF the player did not name a tactic or chose an action that is not one of the listed ones for the tactics THEN the GM assigns a tactic they deem the most valid for the action.

No, what page 316 says is, "While you are traveling and exploring, tell the GM what you’d generally like to do. The GM will determine which exploration tactic applies and describe the result," and what page 329 says is, "There’s no need for players to memorize the exploration tactics and use them exactly. Instead, they can describe what they’re doing, and then you determine which tactic applies. This also means you can determine how a tactic works if the character’s actions are unique." The game expects players to manually describe their exploration tactics in narrative terms.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #3 It would be equally poorly worded if it did not mention a weapon because a defender with just a shield but no weapon looks stupid. It clearly states the exact mechanical benefit you're getting. Now if it said "you don't have to spend an action to draw a weapon on your first turn" that would be a different matter

Defending would be crystal clear if it simply removed the phrase "your weapon out and." Clarity is important.

Problem #4 Okay I actually agree with this one for a change.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #5 You can only come up with a 'fat pile' of misinformation if your Recall Knowledge rolls are attempted with characters with no ranks and no Int/Wis bonuses, or Dubious Knowledge feat. Normally if the rolls are done by characters with higher modifiers then you only come up with one bit of misinformation per 10-20 bits of information. Yes it takes effort to create but also adds fun? Maybe the misinformation rule should be optional as I saw some strong opinions about GM acting as the arbiters of objective truth in the game world.

Misinformation will always be an issue whether in or out of exploration mode. I do not see why exploration mode should exacerbate the issue.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #6 Again this is just made up. Page 331 explicitly says more than one characters can be searching (the last sentence of the Searching section). It just instructs DM to do checks for finding e.g. stone secret doors with the most favorable modifier e.g. stonecunning.

More than one character can be Searching, but as per page 331, only the character with the highest Perception matters for this.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #7 The Hyena encounter does not imply that at all. It implies that if nobody is using Stealth, they sneak up. If one character is Sneaking, then normally that character would be scouting ahead of the group and have a chance to detect them first.

Doomsday Dawn, page 24: "If the hyenas detect the characters (usually because the characters’ Stealth check results are less than the hyenas’ Perception DCs or because the characters aren’t trying to be stealthy)"

Doomsday Dawn, page 26: "Two-thirds of the way up the mountainside to area B5, the manticore notices the PCs unless the entire party is stealthy in their exploration."
The Rose Street Revenge, page 15: "Remember that it can be hard for the group to avoid detection unless all of the PCs are using the sneaking tactic, but it’s also hard to spot anything but obvious hazards if nobody’s searching."

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #8

This still leads to many common activities being considered fatiguing exploration tactics. That is poor for gameplay.

CyberMephit wrote:

Problem #9

That would actually be a sensible way to handle it. However, that is not how Paizo is currently presenting social tactics.

[CyberMephit]

1) Yes and they point out the places where they actually tried something new. The Lost Star also explicitly says it's a simple dungeon crawl. I don't expect it to remain the default introductory module after the playtest is over.

2) Are you deliberately omitting parts of the text there? It says the players can either name the tactic outright or describe the actions if they don't know the name of the relevant tactic and then GM picks one. The idea obviously is that you don't have to memorize all the tactics before you start playing, which makes perfect sense. But I don't see how eventually memorizing and choosing the tactics is "degenerating".

3) I agree it would be better that way, I just wanted to point out that the first sentence is probably just a fluff text.

5) Misinformation as such is a controversial topic, some like it others don't. But I wanted to point out that you don't have to make up a 'fat pile' of it, it comes up only rarely UNLESS a character picked Dubious Knowledge. Obviously such a character would not be upset by receiving it.

6) I believe the text applies to situational modifiers, not to the rolls themselves. That said, I have long disliked individual rolls for Perception and am happy to have an excuse to roll once for the group. I am not sure the text addresses at all if a group roll or individual rolls are the right way to do it.

7) I wonder how did you run this in PF1? If the rogue declared he was stealthy but stayed with the group did you give all the party a surprise round or a way to avoid the encounter? I don't think that was right by PF1 rules either.

8/9 need picking apart in more detail and rewording and tweaks are entirely warranted there but for the discussion to take place it must be based on facts and actual examples, not hyperbole and attempts to literally interpret everything including what's not written.

I've seen a person perfectly summarize the mood of many complaints on Discord the other day: "I am not sure if I'm happy with all those directions Paizo didn't explicitly not take". I couldn't have said it better.

[DerNils]

I'll just repost this from your original thread.

Getting a bit more constructive again - the main points I worry about are
1. the 10 minutes fatiguing rule. This is a weirdly arbitrary amount of time for a System that is mostly used for overland travel or other very Long term activities.
2. The guidance to Transfer Encounter Actions into comparable longer activities (not capitalised to avoid confusion with the game term). Searching something has no relation to looking around 2 out of 6 Actions in a strictly defined space. Trying to upscale from a balanced combat simulator to everyday activities does not work in any useful way.
The whole discussion about if and how shadowing works breaks down to "Roll Stealth vs his perception DC". Is anybody really going to forbid shadowing based on movement Speed reductions? The only alternative would be to have the character autosucceed, which feels equally wrong.
The same goes for the bizarre disconnect between the Encounter rules for riding vs Exploration rules. They make sense in a the combat Simulation of Encounter mode, where action economy is king - but trying to Transfer it into Encounter Tactics leads to bizarre results.
I still think Exploration Mode has it's place, but trying to link it directly into Encounter mode Actions will fail

[Gaterie]

Colette Brunel wrote:

Oh, goodness. I was wrong about animal companions. As it turns out, only Animal druids with Full-Grown Companion are entitled to free actions for their animal companion, and even then, that applies only during an encounter. Thus, if you are a human Animal druid with a Full-Grown Companion bear? It will be a fatiguing exploration tactic to Stride and then Command an Animal each turn, so you will have to alternate between Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes, then Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes. This is terribly inconvenient to anyone with an animal companion they cannot mount.

That's a thing even D&D 5 understood correctly: move actions don't stack. When two character are attacking, they inflict twice more damages than when 1 character is attacking; when two characters move, they don't cover twice the distance of 1 character.

If I remember correctly, in D&D 5, when you take a move action, your summons/animal companions/whatever were allowed a move action, and you have to spend an action to make your summons/animal companions/whatever attack (or do anything that isn't a move).

[ChibiNyan]

Gaterie wrote:

Colette Brunel wrote:

Oh, goodness. I was wrong about animal companions. As it turns out, only Animal druids with Full-Grown Companion are entitled to free actions for their animal companion, and even then, that applies only during an encounter. Thus, if you are a human Animal druid with a Full-Grown Companion bear? It will be a fatiguing exploration tactic to Stride and then Command an Animal each turn, so you will have to alternate between Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes, then Stride and Command an Animal for 9 minutes, then just Stride for 9 minutes. This is terribly inconvenient to anyone with an animal companion they cannot mount.

That's a thing even D&D 5 understood correctly: move actions don't stack. When two character are attacking, they inflict twice more damages than when 1 character is attacking; when two characters move, they don't cover twice the distance of 1 character.

If I remember correctly, in D&D 5, when you take a move action, your summons/animal companions/whatever were allowed a move action, and you have to spend an action to make your summons/animal companions/whatever attack (or do anything that isn't a move).

It is why Moving and Attacking stopping having the same cost sometime in AD&D2E. They aren't equivalent in the slightest like this system makes them seem.

[kaid]

masda_gib wrote:

I have to agree with CyberMephit here on all points.

Exploration Mode is there for situations where not every single action has to be counted. It abstracts and gives some guidelines.

Also, it is a completely new mode for PF so it wont be perfect out of the box. You have some valid feedback but you would find more willing listeners without that everything-not-perfect-is-utter-crap tone. :/

And on animal comps.: as a dog owner I can say that when given no orders, they will follow me when I walk away but they will absolutely not defend me in battle. :) So it's reasonable to say that you don't have to order your animal every round just to follow you in exploration mode.

I would argue this depends on the animal. A battle trained guard dog would very much intervene without command if its "pack" was attacked. My friend has some well trained herd guard dogs and they had a friend visit but one that had not been formally introduced to the dog. When the friend came up to hug my friend linda the guard dog basically body checked the guy and held him pinned to the wall until my friend Linda formally introduced them.

[Shaheer-El-Khatib]

Colette Brunel wrote:

• Tactic Problem #6: As per page 331, only one character can be Searching at a time: the character with the highest Perception. This is extremely well-hidden, away from the player version of the exploration mode rules, which means that entire groups can miss this key rule for several sessions straight. None of my players and I had noticed the existence of this rule for six sessions straight! Thus, only one character has a chance at noticing traps, hazard, hidden doors, and other secret points of interest. Furthermore, in order to be entitled to a Perception roll to notice anything inconspicuous, the party must be moving at an overland Speed of no more than 100 feet per minute. Not only is it up to a single character to make Perception checks; that character also has to slow down the group to a snail's pace.

It's normal that Searching slow down. The Character is constantly like "Wait, nobody move, I saw something ... *Check precautiously* Nah, it's just a rock. Nevermind. Let's go dudes."

People are not casually walking while they are seeking things. They need time to actually process and analyze everything they see.

It's a bit odd that only one can do it and that the others can't try or just help though.

Colette Brunel wrote:

• Tactic Problem #7: The "Dragons" scenario of The Rose Street Revenge and the hyena and manticore encounters in In Pale Mountain's Shadow strongly imply that in order for the party to be stealth, everyone must be using the Sneaking tactic. For a large number of reasons, this is simply impractical. Even with a high-Dexterity party, and even with someone with Quiet Allies present, armor check penalties will ensure that at least one or two characters are hopeless at Stealth, never mind that more people rolling Stealth means more chances for someone to roll low and alert an enemy. This means that it is virtually impossible for a party to be stealthy.

It's because they thinks that every PC are together.

If someone is scooting and the rest of the groups stay away, I don't see why you would need the others to be sneaking.

And if they all go together it's seems ... logical ... that the dude in the armor plate is making more noise that the others.

Colette Brunel wrote:

• A character with neither the Ride feat nor an animal companion mounts a horse. Each turn, they use Handle an Animal (at a frustratingly unlisted DC, another problem altogether) and Command an Animal to make the horse take a single Stride action. Since this takes two actions per turn, this is a fatiguing exploration tactic. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because riding a horse at a gentle clip is so exhausting.
• A character with a young badger, bear, bird, cat, dromaeosaur, snake, or wolf companion Strides each turn and while Commanding an Animal to get their animal companion to walk alongside them. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because walking a baby animal is so exhausting.
• A character with a cat familiar Strides each turn while Commanding an Animal to have their cat familiar walk alongside them. If they do this for 10 minutes straight, they are fatigued until they rest for 8 hours, because walking alongside a cat is so exhausting. Best to carry the familiar instead to save on actions.

I'm pretty sure the Handle Animal / Companion are not meant to be done outside encounter mode.

It would need some ruling though.

Regarding companion I would like that they change the rules like that :
"You can use handdle animal to give a command to your companion, which he will follow the best he can with his actions. If no orders are made to the companion, he will act in the following pattern :
- Follow his master
- Attack anyone that attack his master
- Other relevant actions (I have no idea)"

Then in a fight, he will protect you but if you need him to actually move to flank your opponent, or made him target not the weak goblin that is attacking you but the big boss that is running toward the wizard, you would need to Handle him.

I think that would be both more fun and balanced in that way.

[sherlock1701]

kaid wrote:

masda_gib wrote:

I have to agree with CyberMephit here on all points.

Exploration Mode is there for situations where not every single action has to be counted. It abstracts and gives some guidelines.

Also, it is a completely new mode for PF so it wont be perfect out of the box. You have some valid feedback but you would find more willing listeners without that everything-not-perfect-is-utter-crap tone. :/

And on animal comps.: as a dog owner I can say that when given no orders, they will follow me when I walk away but they will absolutely not defend me in battle. :) So it's reasonable to say that you don't have to order your animal every round just to follow you in exploration mode.

I would argue this depends on the animal. A battle trained guard dog would very much intervene without command if its "pack" was attacked. My friend has some well trained herd guard dogs and they had a friend visit but one that had not been formally introduced to the dog. When the friend came up to hug my friend linda the guard dog basically body checked the guy and held him pinned to the wall until my friend Linda formally introduced them.

Yeah, we really shouldn't need to spend actions to make a combat-trained creature fight. They should just do it. As it is, becoming an animal companion makes a wild dog less effective than it was on its own or as part of a pack of dogs. It can't do anything but stand around unless ordered otherwise.

I mean, there is the "act as it pleases" clause - I could see a GM reasonably interpreting that to mean that a combat-trained animal becomes an ally in combat under the GM's control if left to it's own devices - then, you'd only need to order it if you wanted it to do something specific. If this is the intent, then I don't have as much of an issue with it.

[Cantriped]

Minions are allowed to defend themselves and avoid harm without being ordered to. Since there usually isn't a way to do that without subduing the threat by force, an animal Companion should be allowed by the GM to attack its would-be attacker back

Personally though I'd see no problem with Commands having the potential for a multiple-round duration. If I command a minion to follow behind me, they should continue to do so for as long as is reasonable. If I tell them to kill an enemy, they should keep attacking that enemy until they're dead or the minion's morale fails.

[ChibiNyan]

Cantriped wrote:

Minions are allowed to defend themselves and avoid harm without being ordered to. Since there usually isn't a way to do that without subduing the threat by force, an animal Companion should be allowed by the GM to attack its would-be attacker back

Personally though I'd see no problem with Commands having the potential for a multiple-round duration. If I command a minion to follow behind me, they should continue to do so for as long as is reasonable. If I tell them to kill an enemy, they should keep attacking that enemy until they're dead or the minion's morale fails.

It's one interpretation, but not specified. Everything in this edition is VERY specific on how it works, so this one is a big question.

I also originally thought you just give orders when you need it to change it's course of action, but there's exampels that say "You must spend an aciton EVERY TURN" commanding them.

[DerNils]

Guys, forget logic. This is an intended balancing factor that they have stated. It is to avoid summons/companion classes turns to take double the time of other classes. This is not going away.
What can go away is the adherence in exploration mode to a balancing factor in encounter mode, where it is unnecessary.

[shroudb]

Most of the problems you're having is because YOU (the GM) need to be more flexible with your application of the exploration tactics.

It's clearly stated that it's an abstracted system, treat it like this.

Also, start to combine fatiguing and non fatiguing tactics.

As an example, sneak+search can be both combined as 1/2 movement but fatiguing OR 1/4 speed and non fatiguing (exactly the same as it was in PF1 when no one had a problem with) if you alternate between search and seek+search. Ask the player if he wants to be faster but tire out, or slower and not have any problems.

For the tailing example you're flat out 100% wrong. In no system of d20 if your sneak speed was slower than your target's move speed could you ever keep up with him. No one had any problems with it then.

[DerNils]

We are going to disagree here. Being flexible has actually a very limited place in a Playtest where we try to establish a baseline of rules that are understandable by everybody. Especially not if the Playtest if their own, made for testing scenario leads to wildly in accurate data based in different rules interpretations. I can already tell you that the question from the scenario "when did your party arrive" is almost completely meaningless as they do not know which interpretation of their rules people are going with.

in PF1, even if I would be applying encounter rules to out of encounter rules, you are not telling me that following a guy with stealth was impossible. It was as simple as me taking my standard action as move action, enabling me to be the same speed as someone walking. The guy is certainly not using two actions to move if he walked, and if he is already jogging somewhere this is not shadowing.
But this is besides the point. I never heard of anybody even trying to tie the abstract former unnamed exploration mode into encounter mode rules. I also never heard of anybody measuring movement speeds for dungeon crawls, because it tends to be irrelevant.

[shroudb]

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions. In fact, it would be EXTREMELY weird to move/stop/move/stop/etc under the old rules.

If you're saying that you just "moved" and didn't have to stealth, then opponent would automatically spot you, the exactly same as here.

You can't argue that half<full

For the flexible part: the system is RULED as being an abstraction. Saying that you can't have a weapon out because a tactic which's benefit is getting a free defensive action before even rolling initiative mentions that you also have your weapon out, is the opposite of it. It's ruleslawyring of the worst form.

[DerNils]

Let's ignore PF1, as that for me is not even relevant to the discussion if PF2 works as intended.
To clarify - I am rules lawyering in this Playtest. Intentionally. To the greatest extent possible. Because that is what a Playtest is for. To make sure that intent is correctly transported via wording.
Currently, the exploration rules do not do that. They invite rules lawyering like Colette and myself apply because they fail to give any guidance beyond that.
The exploration chapter starts with the intent.
Encourage players to have their characters explore, reward their curiosity.
Then it breaks down in examples how to punish and limit players who want to do exactly that by making them slow down. Or fatigued. Or doing mental gymnastics to come up with complicated calculations how to switch between tactics because I want to look for strange markings on the wall and traps without getting fatigued.
Or force you to go down to a travel speed of 1mile per hour to make sure I do not ride headlong into quicksand.
I can of course handwave all of that because it tells me to make judgement calls on everything. But if their examples afterwards point me into a limiting and strict application of rules, I wonder if their intent is transported correctly.
Why is there no example like "in encounters, sometimes you need to spent multiple actions per turn to achieve something, e.g. riding a horse. That makes no sense in exploration mode therefore you should handwave it."

[shroudb]

So what? You want the examples Removed?

That's absurd.

They are examples inside a main philosophy of "abstract".

You don't ignore the whole philosophy just from examples. You USE the examples to enhance the philosophy.

As a matter of fact, even in the examples,
Can you stealth with your weapon out? Yes.
Can you move with your weapon out? Yes.
Can you do EVERYTHING with your weapon out? Yes.
Does it costs extra actions to do the above? No.

So, by RAW OP is flat out wrong.

To put it into perspective :

There's a "deep breath" action. It let's you hold your breath. In the description of the action, it is referenced that "you breathe".

Using OPs logic, in order to breathe in PF we need to keep taking that action because it referenced it.

As for you, investigating is not "taking a look" at the pretty runes.

As a matter of fact, since the runes are not hidden, EVERYONE automatically SEES them. "investigating" is stopping and trying to remember what they are, or decipher what they say, or etc. If you're searching for traps, and instead of focusing on them you start daydream where you've seen the random symbol in the wall, you're doing it wrong. That's how parties die.

[DerNils]

I have said what would improve the situation - make examples of what is possible beyond the strict translation of encounter mode to to exploration mode.
As to the basis of the "weapon out or not discussion" - how do you know that Colette's reading of the intent is worse than yours? I can tell you that I don't find it realistic to travel 8 hours per day on horseback with your weapon drawn and at the ready. You think it is. Who is right?
Investigating is by the way a perfect example of a completely crazy translation of the rules. So this tactic is supposed to translate the Recall knowledge action into an encounter mode thing. Why? You make that check once when you find the significant object. The CRB tells you to interrupt tactics to do this. So what is this tactic? Making 60 recall knowledge checks? What is the expected outcome?

[Almarane]

I agree with DerNils. We need to summon our inner rule lawyer as this is needed to be sure that the rules are correctly described. We cannot handwave things and just go RAI. Otherwise, we are not playtesting the rules, but only what we think the rules must be. RAI is really bad for testing. You don't say a knife is an excellent knife because it can be used as a screwdriver or a hammer but can't slice anything.

A thing some people seem to forget is that the tactics at page 316 and 317 are not just exemples :

Quote:

Use the list of common tactics that follows as inspiration. If you come up with your own idea, the GM will adjudicate your idea using these as a baseline.

What I read here is that if you do something which looks like one of those tactics, then you use this tactic. But if you have an idea that is not covered by those tactics, then your GM improvises. If you are walking with your shield and weapon drawn, then it's the Defending tactic. No exception.

What I don't like about exploration and social tactics is that they add an unecessary and hard to comprenhend layer of management. The first thing I thought after reading the Exploration Mode chapter was "how will I be able to juggle with tactics without having to explain it in details to my players and without making exploration mode boring ?" I know I'm not able to remember every tactic in details, so I will have to re-read them each time a character does something specific.

Also, I don't see what is the meaning of Social Tactics. Why should Shopping be a tactic ? And Conversing ? If a battle breaks out, you don't get anything from these tactics (I'm not even talking about Social Combat which is just mentioned and never explained). Shopping and Stealing are long time activities, whatever the system. Social Tactics are useless in my opinion.

Finally, I agree with the arguments made against Fatiguing tactics. It just pushes the character to do math to be sure to maximize the use of those tactics ("we all Sneak, and two characters Search while the two others Defend. We do that 9 minutes at half our speed, then take a break during 9 minutes. If we are lucky, we will not be interupted during those 9 minutes, otherwise we have to take another break after the combat. *difficult, long and boring maths ensue to calculate the teams spead*" This is the kind of scenario that usually make me want to quit a game, and it will be pretty common with those tactics).

[DerNils]

Common Sense is not common. If we are supposed to come up with our own interpretation of tactics based on the examples, it is valid to take this as an example what tactics encompass. If they saw the need to include "you have your weapon at the ready" in this tactic but none of the others, there may be a reason for it. Or not. We don't know.
That is what this feedback is about. It is irrelevant which one of us is "right". Us having this discussion is proof enoug that the wording needs to be improved.

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

Is this the same guy who posted a thread where he said every single character died every single time in every single adventure?

[sherlock1701]

shroudb wrote:

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions. In fact, it would be EXTREMELY weird to move/stop/move/stop/etc under the old rules.

If you're saying that you just "moved" and didn't have to stealth, then opponent would automatically spot you, the exactly same as here.

You can't argue that half<full

For the flexible part: the system is RULED as being an abstraction. Saying that you can't have a weapon out because a tactic which's benefit is getting a free defensive action before even rolling initiative mentions that you also have your weapon out, is the opposite of it. It's ruleslawyring of the worst form.

No, you could tail people, just not with Stealth. It's very difficult to be sneaky and keep a moving target in view.

However, in a populated area, you could make a Bluff check to appear not to be tailing the target. The classic "pretend to look at a paper" tactic.

In the wilderness, you didn't tail via stealth, you used Survival. Just follow their tracks and don't get close. If they're covering their tracks, then you could use stealth, since they'll also be moving at half speed.

Also worth noting that there were several ways of sneaking at full speed.

[shroudb]

sherlock1701 wrote:

shroudb wrote:

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions. In fact, it would be EXTREMELY weird to move/stop/move/stop/etc under the old rules.

If you're saying that you just "moved" and didn't have to stealth, then opponent would automatically spot you, the exactly same as here.

You can't argue that half<full

For the flexible part: the system is RULED as being an abstraction. Saying that you can't have a weapon out because a tactic which's benefit is getting a free defensive action before even rolling initiative mentions that you also have your weapon out, is the opposite of it. It's ruleslawyring of the worst form.

No, you could tail people, just not with Stealth. It's very difficult to be sneaky and keep a moving target in view.

However, in a populated area, you could make a Bluff check to appear not to be tailing the target. The classic "pretend to look at a paper" tactic.

In the wilderness, you didn't tail via stealth, you used Survival. Just follow their tracks and don't get close. If they're covering their tracks, then you could use stealth, since they'll also be moving at half speed.

Also worth noting that there were several ways of sneaking at full speed.

the whole tailing thing has been discussed to death. and yes, I agree with you, in my other examples before, i talked about disguise, deception/bluff and etc as valid options. What is the "current" issue is that you can't follow a guy with 30speed when you sneak at 15ft... which (according to me) is well... duh.

[Gaterie]

shroudb wrote:

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions.

Double move each round was "hustling", you'd know that if you had read the PF1 rules.

That's another problem with PF: the rules are far too long. Even people defending the rules often don't know how they work. PF2 makes it even worse, it's far too long and poorly written, and it's not even complete by now.

[shroudb]

Gaterie wrote:

shroudb wrote:

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions.

Double move each round was "hustling", you'd know that if you had read the PF1 rules.

That's another problem with PF: the rules are far too long. Even people defending the rules often don't know how they work. PF2 makes it even worse, it's far too long and poorly written, and it's not even complete by now.

regardless of its name, it didn't alter usability.

you could double sneak and opponent could double move. there was no reason not to if you're using the same modifiers for both.

so, a "hustling" character would move at 60ft, and the one sneaking behind him at 30.

[TheFinish]

shroudb wrote:

Gaterie wrote:

shroudb wrote:

No in PF1 it was IMPOSSIBLE to tail one.

If you did double stealth in a turn, that was 2 times half your movement, while the opponent had 2 times his move. Of course he would double move in PF1. Jogging/running in PF1 was a multiplier on your speed, it had nothing to do with how you spend your actions.

Double move each round was "hustling", you'd know that if you had read the PF1 rules.

That's another problem with PF: the rules are far too long. Even people defending the rules often don't know how they work. PF2 makes it even worse, it's far too long and poorly written, and it's not even complete by now.

regardless of its name, it didn't alter usability.

you could double sneak and opponent could double move. there was no reason not to if you're using the same modifiers for both.

so, a "hustling" character would move at 60ft, and the one sneaking behind him at 30.

You could actually keep up just fine, as long as you're willing to take a -5 penalty, which isn't that bad. Getting an ability to let you sneak at full speed without penalty was still good though.

You can't do that in PF2, whether in Encounter or Exploration Mode. You're stuck with half your speed unless you have an ability that allows you to do otherwise. So in that sense it has worse useability than PF1.

[DerNils]

Can we move past what was and wasn't possible in PF 1? I do not think it adds anything to the discussion anymore.
Shroudb was so nice to give an example how to use the new system in a beneficial way, so there is no need to endlessly discuss if this ruling makes sense or what the equivalent in PF1 was. I was part of the problem and want to apologise.
Nevertheless it has shown me an important point. This system tries to solve a problem I never had.
I mean, what do tactics achieve.
They limit if and how many people may roll perception to avoid hazards.
They specify how to start with one specific prepared action (raise shield) and basically rule out all others. (Because all other prepared actions are either impossible, like spells, or fatiguing)
They specify how to use Stealth as Initiative.
I have yet to find an adventuring use case for investigation while traveling.
All of this points towards the fact that the designers felt that the above-mentioned things needed to be limited or codified. And I fail to see why?
They killed readied spells by making most of them 2 actions already. Stealth as Initiative is something completely new and sensibly only needs the example chapter on using different skills as initiative to work.
Perception is already gated by minimum expertise to detect difficult hazards, so half of the party can't roll anyway.
The main limiting factor of tactics is speed. Thereby making them less attractive for slow races and armour wearers which will shy away from using any - if you care about travel speed, which is rarely.
So I come back to my initial question, which shroudb tried to answer - what does this system do?

[graystone]

Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:

Is this the same guy who posted a thread where he said every single character died every single time in every single adventure?

I'm not the OP but this is what happened in my group. Played the first 2 parts of the adventure and no character/PC made it through alive.

[shroudb]

DerNils wrote:

Can we move past what was and wasn't possible in PF 1? I do not think it adds anything to the discussion anymore.

Shroudb was so nice to give an example how to use the new system in a beneficial way, so there is no need to endlessly discuss if this ruling makes sense or what the equivalent in PF1 was. I was part of the problem and want to apologise.
Nevertheless it has shown me an important point. This system tries to solve a problem I never had.
I mean, what do tactics achieve.
They limit if and how many people may roll perception to avoid hazards.
They specify how to start with one specific prepared action (raise shield) and basically rule out all others. (Because all other prepared actions are either impossible, like spells, or fatiguing)
They specify how to use Stealth as Initiative.
I have yet to find an adventuring use case for investigation while traveling.
All of this points towards the fact that the designers felt that the above-mentioned things needed to be limited or codified. And I fail to see why?
They killed readied spells by making most of them 2 actions already. Stealth as Initiative is something completely new and sensibly only needs the example chapter on using different skills as initiative to work.
Perception is already gated by minimum expertise to detect difficult hazards, so half of the party can't roll anyway.
The main limiting factor of tactics is speed. Thereby making them less attractive for slow races and armour wearers which will shy away from using any - if you care about travel speed, which is rarely.
So I come back to my initial question, which shroudb tried to answer - what does this system do?

leaving aside all the rest issues, i think what they tried to achieve was to put SOME form of order to the chaos that was "exploration mode".

i've been gaming for more than 20y and i have DMed in a lot of rpgs and with a lot of different groups, and what i've seen is that every group would want to run exploration differently:

there were the more rp focused groups who kept doing stuff just for rp, there were the power gamers that tried to get an edge on everything (walking with readied actions vs everything and etc), there were the new guys who just walked, there were the.... etc etc etc you get my point.

personally, i mostly play with steady groups, and like 5% of my time on r20, never played pfs, never will. And for each of my groups i would run exploration differently, for those that wanted to "explore" there would be things to find, for those that only cared about going from point A to point B, there would be less stuff. For those trying to exploit the rules, the monsters would use the same tricks, and for those who wanted to take their time and do their own thing, they would have it. My rules were mallable enough to fit the group.

But I've also played with newer GMs, who often get lost to what to do when their players ask them to do stuff that isn't covered in any rules (exploration mode). And pfs is a very important part of pf. So, you really can't have exploration being a complete chaos.

they tried to keep the open-endedness of the old non-system by specifing that the rules are abstruction.
but they also tried to put some rules and guidelines, so that new GMs, or GMs in a position that needs consistency (pfs) can arbitate player actions on the spot

[DerNils]

That sounds about right. Then let's work on identifying the unclear cases and wordings, to make sure that these rules will be helpful and feel good for the involved parties.
We especially need something interesting to do for everybody, otherwise People will feel left out if they have to default to wandering.
And they either Need to Keep the social stuff out or expand massively on it, before they try to nail down conversations into "Social Tactics" as well.

[shroudb]

DerNils wrote:

That sounds about right. Then let's work on identifying the unclear cases and wordings, to make sure that these rules will be helpful and feel good for the involved parties.

We especially need something interesting to do for everybody, otherwise People will feel left out if they have to default to wandering.
And they either Need to Keep the social stuff out or expand massively on it, before they try to nail down conversations into "Social Tactics" as well.

Social tactics can never have rules.

There will always be that guy that does social by "I roll diplomacy trying to convince the NPC" and that guy that speaks like a politician and brings arguments that a NPC can't reasonably refuse but his character has cha 7 and negative diplomacy.

Best ruling is simply assigning a bonus or a malus to a roll depending on what the player says but even that
A) is purely GM discretion (he has to judge how good of a speech it was)
B) there will always be people who don't really like speaking much irl regardless of their character stats

For the rest exploration tactics, I feel they tried to limit power play (which I like that they did) by restricting stuff like walking with ready actions or walking while repeatedly casting a cantrip every 6 secs

But they failed a bit on other, more mundane, and more realistic stuff that you can probably do on the spot.

I feel that some of it ties to faults not with the exploration mode, but with the encounter mode that it draws upon for action economy.

Recall Knowledge as an example.

It seems obvious that a character knows things. He simply does, by virtue of his Intelligence or his experience.
And simultaneously it seems obvious that he should be able to exert himself to remember even more by taking a pause and thinking about it.

Lets say an Undead Hunter, he sees a skeleton and knows that skeletons do things A, B, and C. That should be a Free action.
If he takes a second to think about it more (taking the action) he rolls to identify even more things about him.

All the above is encounter mode, and for "balance" there's no "free action" roll to see what you simply know.

Now, extrapolating to exploration mode, that means that yes, investigation that's supposed to be stopping and thinking and remembering specific stuff every few steps, is "an action", and I agree with that.

But the complete absence of a "free action Recall" for stuff you SIMPLY Know doesn't really exists.

Perception and stealth is more or less the same. You see EVERYTHING that is not hidden. That is absurd. There are stuff that may be tiny pebbles in a corner, or (like the shadowing discussion) a face lost into the crowd.

But "encounter mode" doesn't really have "passive" perception.

All the above are left vague in the limbo of "abstract exploration mode" for the GM to rule (as it was in PF1)

But because there IS a system now, we expect that the system must rule over them as well.

Imo, this is impossible.

[Gaterie]

TheFinish wrote:

You could actually keep up just fine, as long as you're willing to take a -5 penalty, which isn't that bad. Getting an ability to let you sneak at full speed without penalty was still good though.

-5 is compensated by being 50 feet away.

Distance penalties don't make a lot of sense in Path 1 (you're basically invisible if you stand 200 feet away), but at least they exist and give you another parameter to play with when you tail someone.

... This is were the handwaving began in Path 1: the toolbox doesn't work well (distance penalties too high, too many stealth check since it's 1 or 2/round, hustling impose penalty only after 1 hour...), but at least it contains every tool you need. With a bit of handwaving, you obtain a result that seems consistent with the RAW.

In Path 2, if you try to shadow someone, the game's engine's only answer is "lol, no". You have to ignore the rules to make it work - but if you're going to ignore the rule, why have rules in the first place?

[shroudb]

Gaterie wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

You could actually keep up just fine, as long as you're willing to take a -5 penalty, which isn't that bad. Getting an ability to let you sneak at full speed without penalty was still good though.

-5 is compensated by being 50 feet away.

Distance penalties don't make a lot of sense in Path 1 (you're basically invisible if you stand 200 feet away), but at least they exist and give you another parameter to play with when you tail someone.

... This is were the handwaving began in Path 1: the toolbox doesn't work well (distance penalties too high, too many stealth check since it's 1 or 2/round, hustling impose penalty only after 1 hour...), but at least it contains every tool you need. With a bit of handwaving, you obtain a result that seems consistent with the RAW.

In Path 2, if you try to shadow someone, the game's engine's only answer is "lol, no". You have to ignore the rules to make it work - but if you're going to ignore the rule, why have rules in the first place?

It works for anyone putting a bit of resources on it.

Everyone who wants to tail can pick up Quick sneak at 8 (rogues at 7) and effortlessly keep up.

An elf/goblin can have a sneak speed of 20 by level 3, a half by 5

A monk doesn't even need Quick sneak to be way faster than an average person walking, and etc.