But see, in a situation like the one you encountered OSW, here is how in my head such thing should pan out, and not necessarily in PF2, but in any fantasy type game with the usual Fighting Man, Cleric, Magic User, Thief kinda classes:
- There is build up to the encounter. Clues about what lies ahead somehow (can be a rumor, can be a pile of rusty armous, or previously burnt victims, or something you heard back in the village, or something about the story of the place, whatever). Even if there are NO clues, in a worse scenario you can always have;
- The scout: I know, I know, it is hard to implement. But makes a lot of sense. Scouting and gathering intelligence about what lies ahead for me is an integral part of the game since I started into RPG. I am aware PbP is a very specific medium, which makes it even harder, but I am sure there is a way;
- With the information gathered by the scout, the group devises a tactic to face this particularly hard opponent - do they know what this creature is, and how it fights?, is it alone, etc, etc.
- The group goes in with a plan to implement that tactic.
Of course several things can go wrong - the scout can be caught and/or killed, maybe no one knows the creature, or they are mistaken about it, maybe they still get unlucky with the dice, or maybe they are unable to execute the plan accurately because there are other variables to be taken into account, which the scout could not have observed (hey maybe the bad guy is a 'different' bad guy, a caster troll, or a flying ogre, who knows?), etc, etc. And of course there will be cases when the players are not allowed/expected to scout nor gather intel, and they just need to think on their feet as a team. And of course there will be other situations still in which the approach is totally different.
But in any case, the flow I described means you are engaging with your environment, you are proactive instead of reactive, it rewards smart play and out of the box thinking, and using the character's abilities to their full extension (Stealth, Knowledges, and so forth). No need to create as many failsafe mechanisms since the players should be more 'prepared' for what they will be facing, or at least have been given the chance to do so. At the end of the day, I feel like less things are left to chance (insofar as you are playing a game with dice :D), less Hail Mary's, and more engaging play can be had.
Next we can have a discussion about whether this is a PF2 thing or not. I say probably not, but like an old grognard I will go back to the Scouting action and say what I described is MUCH different than +1 to Initiative, and that the latter leads you into a very different kind of game.
These are all great points. The problem for me is that I rarely play the scout, and often my fighters aren’t exactly super bright. Even still, I don’t see a lot of scouting and preparing for ambushes/preparing ambushes. You are absolutely right, there was a signal error made by the entire party even before the GM chose to ignore the caveat about the power of the [redacted].
And we were given all the clues. We knew the “boss” was likely here, and my character had even correctly guessed almost at the start of the adventure what it was. Our witch did ask to send her owl up to look around, but by then we were all in the room and … all in, as it were. Player error or character error, it is ultimately all the same.
As for whether it is a PF2 thing or not, i would say it is not. I imagine a good portion of PF2 players are “tactical min-maxers” who play their characters as tactical beasts who are metagamed outside of and beyond the characters’ actual mental/IQ capabilities to create synergistic teamwork strategies and “win” scenarios and APs. Especially the wizards!
But PbP makes things in some ways harder, in some ways easier. We have a whole Discussion tab in which to metagame, but the tactical conversations would necessarily have to be stilted and glacially slow. I’ve seen Discussions pages long about who has what capability and how it might synergise with what - but most of that is prior to the game even starting. I dunno. I’m a little more haphazard and organic, and besides, I’m still stumbling through the ruleset and it just got updated. Gah!
Anyway, going to try not to die to some centipedes and a sickly derro. I know Tol doesn’t know she’s a derro, or what a derro is, or that derro are now dero. But he knows what a stick to the head feels like, and likes to respond in kind. Except he needs to deal with the leggly creatures first…
But in any case, the flow I described means you are engaging with your environment, you are proactive instead of reactive, it rewards smart play and out of the box thinking, and using the character's abilities to their full extension (Stealth, Knowledges, and so forth). No need to create as many failsafe mechanisms since the players should be more 'prepared' for what they will be facing, or at least have been given the chance to do so. At the end of the day, I feel like less things are left to chance (insofar as you are playing a game with dice :D), less Hail Mary's, and more engaging play can be had.
Next we can have a discussion about whether this is a PF2 thing or not. I say probably not, but like an old grognard I will go back to the Scouting action and say what I described is MUCH different than +1 to Initiative, and that the latter leads you into a very different kind of game.
What you are describing will likely change everything about the posited written/created encounter. It likely won’t happen in a static encounter, the enemies will likely lose whatever advantages they had OR the characters will lose their element of surprise OR be ambushed trying to set up an ambush, or perhaps the boss will have more or less minions - maybe some left to find the distraction the PCs set up, or unfortunately the rousing created by the distraction backfired and made more minions turn up; OR…or…or…. So yes, the Scouting concept generally changes the entire narrative structure of any set encounter or even wandering monster it brushes up against.
Right up until the weapons are readied. Then you still get the +1 to initiative. ;)
Ok, if you run it like that then I am cool. Keep the dynamics and add a +1 to Init. Which prompts another question.
If the Scout actions is 'You scout ahead and behind the group to watch danger, moving at half speed. At the start of the next encounter, every creature in your party gains a +1 circumstance bonus to their initiative rolls'
That means the whole group needs to move at half speed. Right? Are you moving with the group, or ahead and behind the group (maybe it does not matter)?
Ok, if you run it like that then I am cool. Keep the dynamics and add a +1 to Init. Which prompts another question.
If the Scout actions is 'You scout ahead and behind the group to watch danger, moving at half speed. At the start of the next encounter, every creature in your party gains a +1 circumstance bonus to their initiative rolls'
That means the whole group needs to move at half speed. Right? Are you moving with the group, or ahead and behind the group (maybe it does not matter)?
I’m not sure the whole party does need to be moving half speed - just whoever is using that action. Though if only you are moving half speed, what is the rest of the party doing? Staying still until you circle back? Then moving on? As Exploration is kind of an abstraction, maybe it *is* best to say everyone is moving half speed. Though my question really is: how often does your speed really matter in Encounter mode. In a chase or where resources are scarce, perhaps ground covered and at what rate might be important to track…otherwise I’d probably hit it with a wand of handwavium.
As for the bonus: I guess it’s going to be an adjudicated kind of thing, where I would say you can only give that bonus to your party if you have some way of reliably importing some kind of support/intel to them, or provide a warning etc.
I struggled with the whole lack of preparation for combat thing when I first started playing as well. As long as the enemy is also unprepared, I find it's not really game changing. In RAW, everyone would have had to draw / load their weapons at the start of the combat... enemy and ally. This works okay at the table where everyone can rush though this but is difficult in the already slower pace of PbP... so I like handwaving having to draw/load/prepare before combat. Since everyone is doing it, it works. In RAW everyone except the centipedes would have to spend time preparing for combat, which in PbP only delays everything an action... though the centipedes not having to do this is one advantage to natural weapons. My players were frustrated at being unable to prepare for an encounter they knew about, so I put in a house rule. [ooc]Any initiative rolls over 20 gets (1) pre-initiative count action, Natural 20 or total of 30+ gets (2) such actions. Seems to be a good compromise... but again not really ideal for PbP.
Another house rule I instituted is the consequences of rolling a (1) in combat. RAW there is no penalty. My house rule is you lose an action. Whether additional actions this round, or one the following round. A small penalty that's easy to assess but gives meaning to rolling a NAT 1.
The whole (4) degrees of success make a +1 or +2 very important as it increases you chance to critical. Learning to synergize between party members is SO important in PF2. Once you get the difference in game actions ingrained it flows very smoothly and causes the party to learn to work together better. We're in session 12 of my tabletop game and combat is now even quicker than 5e because the group is finally getting it.
Another note about the revised rules... they've changed up how the recall knowledge works a bit.
Now you ask a question... What type of creature is this? Does it look fast? Does it use it's fangs and claws?
The GM then tells you which of your knowledge skills can be rolled to determine this outcome. After that normal recall knowledge rules apply.
@Scranford: to be clear, I wasn’t applying any of this discussion to our current adventure. More a general “theory of GMing/play”. In effect, in a PbP, the GM has to walk an incredibly fine line between waiting for the players to tacitly explain what their character is doing (or even a player, or the rule of three where if three characters agree to do something it happens) and moving the game along to keep momentum. It is a common refrain on these forums that the deadliest threat to a PbP is a closed, unknown, mysterious but usually innocuous….door.
As for RK, I’ve read multiple threads on it before the Remaster. I’m on the side of loony folx who want every creature to have tacit, DC related knowledges that can be given out, as unrealistic as that might be for pagecount. Other folks want the elastic approach, which while it puts the onus on the DM to create information seems a bit…elastic. Weirdly, with all the threads currently flying about about this or that change, the only one I wanted to know about was that I heard there was a change to RK. And I didn’t see anything until your post just now! My thanks to you, but…I don’t even get how what you wrote works, nor how it is that different from before.
@Scranford - I like the loss of actions rule on rolling a 1. Otherwise, where characters “drop weapons” or similar a monk….never can. (Although I could just see that as a baked in advantage for monks). But with your rule, even a monk needs to be careful…not to be…unlucky!
For those interested in trying to take her alive:
"You can make a nonlethal attack in an effort to knock someone out instead of killing them (see Knocked Out and Dying). Weapons with the nonlethal trait (including fists) do this automatically. You take a –2 circumstance penalty to the attack roll when you make a nonlethal attack using a weapon that doesn't have the nonlethal trait. You also take this penalty when making a lethal attack using a nonlethal weapon."
Creatures cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 Hit Points. When most creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they die and are removed from play unless the attack was nonlethal, in which case they are instead knocked out for a significant amount of time (usually 1 minute or more). When undead and construct creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they are destroyed.
So I’m guessing the actual, final attack that takes them from a positive number to 0 needs to be non-lethal, and if you are in a group attacking someone, and you all don’t know if you are going to a) hit or crit or b) take them to 0 you need to make a non-lethal attack at -2 to the attack roll to ensure you don’t kill them.
Most people take a –2 circumstance penalty when making a lethal attack with nonlethal unarmed attacks, because they find it hard to use their fists with deadly force. You don't take this penalty when making a lethal attack with your fist or any other unarmed attacks.
So, does a monk still take -2 to attack non-lethally? Seems like they should.
Yes, the last hit needs to be nonlethal.
Monks can attack nonlethally at no penalty since their unarmed strikes have the nonlethal trait. They are able to also attack lethally at no penalty. It's win-win!
Thanks for the clarifications Brainiac.
Apologies if I missed some piece of obvious information (which I most probably did), but do we have any sort of evidence or strong suspicions that Elder Ordwi has already been made captive, or something worse?
Because Reknar is suspicious, but still going on the assumption we might just be able to meet up with him, or at least try.
But from the Gameplay posts it seems we are trying to 'trespass' into the place? I mean, even if all is well with Ordwi, we still risk imprisonment or worse if we simply invade someone else's private property. Right?
Absolutely. Tol was going off Ed and Rek’s anxieties, but we can tone it down a notch and just try the front door. Which may lose us our advantage. But we don’t have enough information either way, so we’ll have to chance it.
Which is why Tol wanted to go to Rusthenge first to have…actual proof… of…whatever nefariousness the Thassilonians are up to. Down with. Something.
Also consider that Elder Ordwi said she would meet you this morning. She has yet to emerge from Stonehome...
That *is* a good point.
Then I guess my Gameplay post makes sense.
So, do you want to use the tunnel to get into the yard, or climb down onto the roof?
Good question! Tol’s for the roof, as just posted, but happy to be outvoted!
Ed will vote for the tunnel.
Hess is much more comfortable with tunnels than heights.
Let’s go tunnel. Hess’ fear of heights will….sway… Tol out of an abundance of care.
Hey guys, I have a couple of questions about the current trap, if that is ok:
1. What is the default activity for detecting traps? Is it Scouting?
2. Are passive Perception checks a thing in PF2e, or should we say we make sure to say we are looking for traps?
3. It looks like Tol rolled a 1 on his saving throw, yet he took no damage. What am I missing?
4. I never said Reknar entered the room :P
Thanks!
Reknar, the Noob
1. Searching is the activity for looking for traps. Since Reknar had not declared an exploration activity, I had him default to that. I rolled secret Perception checks for both Reknar and Turac. Unfortunately both failed.
2. If you are not Searching as your exploration activity, you have to specifically say you are looking for traps to get a Perception check against them. Your Perception DC is considered your passive Perception if other creatures are specifically trying to sneak past or trick you.
3. There were no saving throws for this trap. Instead the spikes made attack rolls against each of your ACs.
4.
Reknar draws steel - "Damn this! Let us hope somehow Elder Ordwi is safe" - he growled, peering carefully into the hallway before moving forward.
I read that as Reknar peered into the room (attempting that secret Perception check) and then subsequently moving forward. If you meant it as something else then I apologize. You can remove the damage the trap dealt to you.
I was under the impression the trap triggered *in the room with the bodies* as we approached the doors to the next room.
I’m just glad Brainiac goes alphabetically! Fourth roll was a 1, Tol is fourth!
Let’s work out our “marching order” so we can see who will be taking the brunt of future ambushes/traps/pits/showers of gold and gems.
Tol is happy to go first…Searching indoors, or Scouting outdoors…
1. Understood, and thank you! Some posts back I had noted my default exploration activity would be Investigation, but I actually think Search might work better, so I will use it from here on.
2. Got it.
3. Got it. I misinterpreted it. My bad.
4. Fair enough - your interpretation makes sense, as well as your adjudication. Game on, and thanks for all the replies ;)
On marching order, I am not sure how this should work. My mind is still wrapped around the 'rogue goes ahead to scout' mentality. But if that is not the case, then it makes sense that Reknar takes point and facetanks traps.
More questions - Treat Wounds takes about 10 minutes per wounded character, right? So if we need to treat four wounded characters, does that mean 40 minutes? Or if split between me and Turac, it is still 20min. Am I correct?
Yes, each attempt takes 10 minutes but if multiple PCs attempt it at the same time, then the total time would be only 20 instead of 40.
Not sure what the others think, but in a stressful situation such as this I am guessing we do not want to pause for 20 minutes.
What does everyone think?
EDIT: Should have read Gameplay first. Thanks Turac! :P
To be honest, from my reading of the Gameplay, I’m not seeing that the current situation is either tense nor stressful. While we might be stressed by the lack of information, and worried about Elder Ordwi, it seems like whatever happened….already happened, and some time ago. Nothing particularly seems to be breathing down our neck or attacking us. But yes, let’s use quick magic rather than faff about with bandages, I can definitely agree on that! Particularly when my character has no medical skills nor equipment…Tol can rustle up Medicine in Nature, but that’s about it…
My two cents - after what we have heard around town and our suspicions, arriving at the place where we are supposed to meet Elder Ordwi and to find it like this, for Reknar means time is of the essence and we should act quickly.
In the hopes we can still be of assistance to him. That is tense and stressful not for our own immediate situation, but for what may be happening in the background.
Yep I get it.
We could move on but keep in mind PF2 is designed for most encounters to take you down a bunch of HP, then use Medicine and healing magic to refresh after each encounter. If you go into more encounters down a bunch of HP you'll probably get a TPK.
Hess would be "VERY" hesitant to move on down most of his HP, and would beg for healing.
But Hess, that makes for a very weirded paced game, does it not? If you have to assume a 20-40-60 minute pause between encounters?
But Hess, that makes for a very weirded paced game, does it not? If you have to assume a 20-40-60 minute pause between encounters?
Better 20-40 minutes now than resting forever in eternity. As we level up there are other ways to both limit the time needed for medicine, and the number / frequency that medicine can occur. Save the spells for "In-combat" healing.
In 5e you have the "short rest" which takes an hour anyway. At this time, I don't see what the downside of waiting 20 minutes or so would matter... and healing 2d8 without using one of the valuable spell slots can be invaluable. I find in our tabletop games the Medicine skill is used frequently and effectively.
Stepping back outside into some cover or something to catch our breath, and bandage some wounds is to me a more viable strategy then using up all the healing spells and continuing on at a breakneck pace. :-)
At this time, I don't see what the downside of waiting 20 minutes or so would matter...
Imagine they are running away with a kidnapped Elder Ordwi, taking him into a boat and whatever. Don't you feel like 20min can make a difference?
I guess you know something I don’t. Seems like the next room is another encounter to me… and quite honestly Hess is more concerned with his own survival. But we’re all learning. Hess will just hide.
I’m with Hess, as to me, it really appeared that whatever happened to Stonehome and/or Elder Ordwi had already happened. I’m not sure we could know what any delay might cause, so the sustainable use of available resources would make sense in any situation where you aren’t actively being chased. Which it seems we now are!
To me the Medicine system makes for a *slightly* more believable game taken from a lens where I don’t really grok with popping cure potions and endless fonts of divine healing. Even after 40 years. Then again, bandaging up severed arms and impaled livers also breaks that immersion, but I guess I’m a firm believer in older concepts of “Hit points” not being just “cuts,burns,spikes,slashes,damage” but tiredness, exertions, bruising etc.
I also really liked 4e “Bloodied” concept, whereby at half hitpoints certain abilities and activities kicked in. Or even Palladium’s SDC and HP. Essentially anything that separates the stress and wear of battle from your final actual Body points makes sense to me. But that is another discussion!
I guess that is fair enough - games are played by people, and people have different interpretations. That is what makes it so interesting.
I like the idea of using medicine, but as soon as it becomes a mechanic thing which is automatically used at the end of every encounter, it becomes much worse than a potion of healing or a cure spell for me.
If it meant finite resources (like the pots or spells do), or the ability to heal a certain type/amount of wounds (like you hinted at), then it would make more sense. In its current iteration, it is basically providing infinite potions of healing at level 1, just making it so it takes longer to drink them. Feels video-game-y and forced.
As for the current situation, shouldn't we wait for them to come at us, to avoid getting full attacks to the face?
I didn’t think 15’ was much different from toe to toe- one Stride for them or us, and there are only two of them. I’m not always the best tactician, and Tol is likely worse.
I guess that is fair enough - games are played by people, and people have different interpretations. That is what makes it so interesting.
I like the idea of using medicine, but as soon as it becomes a mechanic thing which is automatically used at the end of every encounter, it becomes much worse than a potion of healing or a cure spell for me.
If it meant finite resources (like the pots or spells do), or the ability to heal a certain type/amount of wounds (like you hinted at), then it would make more sense. In its current iteration, it is basically providing infinite potions of healing at level 1, just making it so it takes longer to drink them. Feels video-game-y and forced.
I absolutely see that we both don’t like the video-gamey concept. We just differ on which method best represents that feel. To me it makes sense that you would provide first aid after any injury. Every injury. That feels…more “realistic”. Much moreso than going to a shop to buy a magic potion. I feel like this actually gets closer to the root of my problem - it’s not so much the frequency of healing, but the provenance of magical healing and my disdain for magic shoppes as a concept. It makes magic…commonplace, which I guess, in Golarion, it clearly is.
But our real discussion should be about how we corral our resources each day to make it bedtime! Not where they come from and how verisimilitudinous they feel for various participants…
For those of us strugglin…er…new to PF2e there is Dawnsbury Days a third-party CRPG of PF2 available on Steam. Is free, and is a beta of a full game. I have it, but haven’t given it a spin yet - I’m hoping I can test out a bunch of…tactical things…
To me it makes sense that you would provide first aid after any injury. Every injury. That feels…more “realistic”.
Agreed. But with infinite bandages? And infinite time to spare between fights? Feels like an half-baked, forced solution to me. Perhaps aimed at making Gameplay more 'straightforward'? You assume this pause of whatever minutes between fights and infinite healing resources, so you don't have to worry anymore about encounter flow and balance vs. player resources and strength. Just always assume they are the top of their strength, or close. Done and dusted. It will appeal to some, and not to others, which is of course fine.
I am also not a fan of magic marts, and will always run games without them, so I am not advocating players should be walking around with their pouches full of healing potions. I find I like the balanced solutions between some limited ability for 'mundane' healing, balanced out with the usefulness of having characters who are capable of magical healing. Manage your resources, make decisions whether it is a good idea to spend or save them, etc. Found a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 32 charges in it? Cherish it!
Again just to make it clear - this is NOT a criticism of PF2e or those who like PF2e. Just sharing some of the reasons why it rubs me wrong sometimes, since we have been talking about it openly.
I hear you on the unlimited factor. And definitely agree on the “optimum strength, all healed up, every time: Guaranteed!” being a little on the nose. However, given an actual hindrance or two - the people with the skills being knocked out/unconscious and/or the Cleric/Healer out of spells or the aforementioned out of action coupled with being chased, or hemmed in etc and it won’t be like that all the time. It definitely does seem to be a design parameter of either PFS or the system generally however, that you will face every encounter at that optimum strength.
Maybe healing kits should have a finite use, or the number of times you can receive medicine per day be managed…better - I mean it is already capped thus:
The target is then temporarily immune to your Battle Medicine for 1 day.
I love cherishing a wand of cure light wounds with a set number of charges that we found in a vault. That feels earned, and hard won.
The target is then temporarily immune to your Battle Medicine for 1 day.
Ok, I like that.
I wonder if the target becomes immune to Battle Medicine from a specific healer, of from Battle Medicine in general for that day?
Battle Medicine is a feat that allows you to apply Medicine in 1-Action instead of 10-minutes, and it does make you immune to that for the next 24 hours. All of the other medicine checks have a 1-hour cool down, but there is a feat you can take to give you a 10-minute cool down instead. There is also a feat that lets you make multiple medicine checks in the 10-minute healing period.
My tabletop group were all 5e players, and they had the same concerns when we first began. I made a couple of house rules to appease them which we've since discarded as once the system was given time to prove itself, they realized they were unnecessary.
1. I made an random encounter table that increased the chances of an encounter the more time spent healing.
2. We did make and still use a rule that if you roll a natural 1 on a medicine check the kit is "broken" and is only half as effective till refilled. (1d8 instead of 2d8). If you rolled another one while broken, then you had to replace it.