| FitzTheRuke |
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When PF2 was announced, the things that drew me to it most were the Three Action economy and, to a lesser extent, the Four Levels of Success.
I'm a game retailer, and I've taught hundreds (maybe over a thousand) people to play RPGs. I've been playtesting PF2 with two groups of six.
I'm getting concerned that the drawbacks (there are always drawbacks to nearly everything) to my two favourite things in PF2 will eventually become unbearable. Allow me to illustrate:
1: Three Action Economy.
The way I see it, some of what makes the three-action economy worthwhile is: It's easy to grasp - you don't need to keep track of lots of action types if everything is an action; It easily puts a cap on what you can accomplish in a round - with every action being equal, it enforces things like drawing/stowing items, readying shields, and manipulating objects; It puts movement under the same scale as well - you can swap movement and actions simply.
Trouble is, in practice... several undesirable things occur. Warning: I'm going to nit-pick here. You may think these things are not *that* bad, and I'd agree - I'm just worried that they will start to become bigger issues over time.
First of all, I play with a wide variety of players re: system mastery, from people who understand rules minutia to people who will never learn the rules ever. Something that happens a lot with both types is, when things are desperate, they want to accomplish more than the rules allow them to.
Every session, multiple times, with nearly every player, I've got to remind them that they can't just draw their weapon for free (for example), it's an action. You can't just get extra actions. It would be unfair to the other players who are sticking to three.
I really like that the three-action economy forces players to pay attention to what's in their hands, but I'm finding that I am *constantly* having to crush what people think they can accomplish on their turn. "No, you can't cast a spell and drink a potion - you had a hammer in that hand. You've got to put it away, get the potion out, and THEN drink it. That's like, a ton of extra actions."
I'm not doing a very good job of explaining, but my point is: It's making me feel like a "strict" game master - constantly telling my players "no" in a way that has been frustrating them.
I think it's precisely *because* they've got three actions, which seems like a lot, that they wind up at four or five without thinking about it. (Maybe I will further give examples in the discussion if you're not following me. Like I said, I'm not sure I'm explaining it well.)
The other problem is on the opposite end:
I find that as a GM, I often have no idea what to do with the monster's third action. Players do this too, sometimes. Sometimes there's a pause, where myself or the player takes some time trying to decide what to do with the third action, eventually deciding just to roll another attack, which usually misses anyway.
This step takes *time* out of the game, only to feel useless. This constant disappointment and time-consuming pause can't be good for the game.
2: The Four-Levels of success
The four levels of success seem like a great idea too. The best result of it, IMO, is how it solves the problem of save-or-suck, both for the recipient, and for the deliverer. I can't stand it when I take the time to cast a spell, for example, only to have the target make its save, and the spell does nothing. The higher the level, the worse that feels. On the other side, having spells end an encounter because of one bad save roll isn't desirable either. This solves that.
Some nice things can happen with skill checks under this system too.
In practice, though there's a few problems:
Not everything *has* a Crit or Fumble effect, so a *lot* of time, it's a wash, even after the calculation is made to discover that you've hit +/- 10. I would argue that the math is not hard, but it IS disappointing to discover that you've critted or fumbled only to find that it's the same result as a normal success or failure. If nothing interesting is happening, then why are we bothering?
This +/-10 system has also forced them to balance the math in such a way that it barely comes up - You rarely crit on a 17 or fumble on a 3 anyhow, so again, why are we bothering?
I guess what I'm asking is: Is it worth it? (This thread is vague musings, so I'm not saying I have an answer. I'd like to hear your thoughts.)
In conclusion: I'm starting to question if the things that originally drew me to the playtest will be, long-term, actually good things for the game.