One of the basic foundations of Pathfinder 2e is the "Balanced Encounter" capability. That's why it's so much easier to run than other systems. The encounters are designed with the party at close to full strength. This makes it easy to design the foes / hazards.
In 5e and other systems you never know what the party's health, and available resources are when you design an adventure, so it's difficult if not impossible to design encounters without having to constantly adjust to the party's current condition. You just don't know in advance which rooms the party is going to go to first, and how long they adventure before resting... Then if you rest especially in 5e everything is better in the morning. This to me requires more suspension of disbelief than just patching up your wounds after each encounter.
So, to summarize... the healing up between encounters is so that the encounters can be balanced without the intervention and adjustments from the DM. After a while you get used to this, and I think you'll like it better. Every encounter is a challenge since you don't have depleted resources to continue adventuring.
Just give it a chance and I think any objections will disappear and you'll like it.
Just give it a chance and I think any objections will disappear and you'll like it.
Exactly what I am doing. And thankful for the opportunity.
Just give it a chance and I think any objections will disappear and you'll like it.
Hey, OSW reserves the right to endlessly object! I object to your comment! And I like it! But I still object to liking it!
Seriously tho’, I do find the concept that “encounters should be based on being set for full strength” kind of obvious. That’s the way they have been since the beginning, it has always been the DM’s job to manage the adventure. What’s written are the guidelines, able to be tweaked, massaged, accounted for or plain old used as written per the DM’s whims.
As long as there isn't 'something' dictating how the game should/must be played, I am good.
Gang, just a heads up - I will be traveling during the weekend and really busy for work next week, so updates might be slow.
No worries.
Let me know what you want to do. Rest a bit and try to heal more, scout out the hall or up the stairs, something else?
If Turac can heal then we go on. If not, then we'll wait an hour and perhaps someone can try to heal Reknar again???
I think we're still waiting on Helaman. Not sure if they're back from their trip yet.
Out of town with family till Monday PM... so might be a little slow in responding... but I'll try to keep up.
It's been quiet. Everybody still with us?
Understood Helaman. RIP Turac.
Sorry to hear that Helaman :/
Sorry to see you go, Helaman, but I understand. I'll continue to bot Turac for the time being until we decide on how to proceed.
I’m away from home for the next 4 days - I’ll still be able to check in an post, just a little less frequently (or voluminously) and access to maps might be…strained…
I've been sick for the past few days. Will post when I am feeling better.
No worries Brainiac - hope it is nothing serious, and that you feel better soon!
I will be out of town through the 27th as well. Might have time to check... might not. Don't let me hold things up.
I am off from work until January 2nd! My posts will be limited until I return. Happy holidays!
Happy Holidays!!
Have pinged Helaman/Turac to see if he wants me to bot his actions…
Helaman has stepped out of the game, right?
Ah yes. That he did. Apologies! Happy for you to bot him DM…
Hey Tol, Reknar is not trying to be adversarial, but without going into metagaming considerations, neither him (nor me) have seen any evidence which justifies releasing someone who has lied to us, and imprisoned our elder just hours ago, then tried to kill us, and only surrendered because she was defeated.
Though I will add that Reknar will abide by the will of the majority, so if the majority voice that she should be released, he will not put up any more resistance.
I don’t think you are being adversarial at all. From Reknar’s point of view, she can’t be trusted, and from the moment we met her she was…adversarial. However, Tol is a trusting sort - as a tiefling he knows what it is to be seen as an enemy, even if you aren’t. And Vanda, who definitely *was* our enemy has certainly done a lot to earn our enmity and distrust. But she claims to be on side now, is providing helpful intelligence, and Tol can see the difference between the Rustites, and the “native” inhabitants of this place. Or at least, he tells himself he can. ;)
Good :)
Now question about magical items (because we just found some minor healing pots), and identifying them - how is it handled in PF2? Is it hand-waved?
Ok, level up. Wohooo! Lets see if I can do this :P
Good :)
Now question about magical items (because we just found some minor healing pots), and identifying them - how is it handled in PF2? Is it hand-waved?
Never got an answer to this one :)
Right, sorry. Rules as written, you would use the Identify Magic activity. But I usually just hand-wave it on PbP to avoid slowing the game down.
Gotcha!
All leveled up I think.
Just realized there is no Initiative stat per se in PF2, or did I misunderstood?
Also, how do skills increase? They just gain +1 per level automatically?
Initiative can change based upon what is used. By default, it's Perception however if you're climbing it might be Athletics. If your using avoid notice it would be stealth. Usually based upon your exploration activity.
Skills go up (1) per level. Also, you can increase your expertise when you get a new skill. Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary.
Just a reminder... When using the Heal Wounds (Trained) skill an individual can only be treated once per hour unless one of the healers has a special treat that reduces that cooldown time (Can't remember the name of the feat offhand). And the Heal wounds activity takes 10-minutes except in the case of the Battle Medicine Feat which takes only one action but can only be used on an individual once per 24 hours. If you take an hour to use the Heal Wounds skill instead of 10-minutes it heals double.
Aaaah, so does that mean that Ed could not have tried Treat Wounds on Turac, because I had just tried it. Is that it?
But then, since I failed before, I can try it in an hour, spend an hour, and heal double. Right? Still need to roll as normal I assume.
Yes. That is correct. Usually best to let the highest Medicine score try the check. You can however assist to add a +1 to the check by making an Aid check with a DC of 15 if you are trained. As you'll find the +1 and +2's make a much bigger difference in PF2 over other systems due to the tight math, and degrees of success.
You are also right about the "Cool Down" time. As I mentioned there are feats to allow you to do cooler things with Medicine. Pathfinder 2 is designed for balanced encounters, so it is easier to heal than in other games so that you go into every encounter at almost full Strength.
To me taking 10-minutes or so to bandage up the scrapes and cuts, makes more sense than using up all your magical spells on healing. Gives magical healers more flexibility in choosing spells. In addition with the Remaster rules, the cleric class can get a healing font which is basically (4) Estra spell slots that can be used only for Heal or Harm spells. The "Lay-on-hands" ability also is a "Focus Spell" so you can refocus for 10-minutes then cast it again.
In actual play I've found that Heal spells, Lay on Hands, and Battle Medicine are to be used during encounters, while the Heal Wounds action and Lay on Hands are useful between encounters. The assurance feat is handy with Heal Wounds as you can basically never fail your check if your skill is high enough... though you'll also never Crit.
There is also a feat called Risky Surgery Your surgery can bring a patient back from the brink of death, but might push them over the edge. When you Treat Wounds, you can deal 1d8 slashing damage to your patient just before applying the effects of Treat Wounds. If you do, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your Medicine check to Treat Wounds, and if you roll a success, you get a critical success instead. Which can be fun if your patient is not at the brink of death.
Levelled up. Took Tiger Stance as Monk Class Feat, and Battle Medicine as Skill Feat.
As for in-combat healing, PF2 is definitely a different game and headspace to be in compared to PF1. A certain amount of disbelief is likely needed for the effects of Battle Medicine, which can give 16 HP with one action by not-at-all-a-priest. But if you think of HP as abstracted scrapes, dodges and associated tiredness and compounded fatigues, wounds, scratches, aches, bumps etc then it totally makes sense. I was kinda weirded out by it in a major way initially, but when you consider that every single enemy gets three-actions with which to critical hit you, increasing the access to and power of simple in-combat non-magical healing makes a lot of sense.
As in this post where my plucky Elven Rogue somehow managed to heal *two* of her downed, prone party members and single-handedly turned a TPK into a victory.
If you are struggling to work out what Battle Medicine *actually* looks like...here is an interesting thread on reddit of folks describing the way they narrate/describe Battle Medicine from a barbarian shouting at her allies to "not dare die on her watch" to a slap on the ass and a cry to get up to a whacking on a simple bandage...
As for in-combat healing, PF2 is definitely a different game and headspace to be in compared to PF1. A certain amount of disbelief is likely needed for the effects of Battle Medicine, which can give 16 HP with one action by not-at-all-a-priest. But if you think of HP as abstracted scrapes, dodges and associated tiredness and compounded fatigues, wounds, scratches, aches, bumps etc then it totally makes sense. I was kinda weirded out by it in a major way initially, but when you consider that every single enemy gets three-actions with which to critical hit you, increasing the access to and power of simple in-combat non-magical healing makes a lot of sense.
As in this post where my plucky Elven Rogue somehow managed to heal *two* of her downed, prone party members and single-handedly turned a TPK into a victory.
Yeah, Battle Medicine is just… Wrong for me. So I guess I am where you were some time ago OSW. And I did read a bit of your thread - so in a round, with two checks you heal 2d8x2hp. And the ‘healer’ uses a 3 action pulse, and heals… 1 hp?
Once you are healed with the medicine skill you have a one hour “cool down” and 24 hour “cool down”for battlemedicine. Since there are no “wounded penalty” in PF2 HP”s represent small injuries and fatigue… so a quick drink and wound binding make sense to me. Battle Medicine to me is rushing up and putting a quick tourniquet to staunch the bleeding. We’re so used to using magical healing it’s sometimes hard to adjust to a different method. Applying new rules to old situations invites frustration..
Yes, the disparity between non-magical Battle Medicine and Magical Healing can be a little jarring, for those of us with experience of prior editions. And in that particular case it was definitely odd that I could “heal” two people that were ostensibly prone and possibly unconscious and dying to the point where they could then act on the next turn.
Then again, for those new to gaming or coming from a different game, there’s nothing particularly strange about two different types of healing working…differently. In PF1 the two types (magic/non-magical) also worked differently from each other. And as scranford points out, the points about cooldowns matter - you can’t endlessly make those kind of in battle last-ditch efforts with Battle Medicine, and clerics can spam healing spells…my biggest bugbear is that at low levels (1st/2nd?) more actions don’t give more dice of healing for heals spells, the more actions only increase the number of folks affected/radius. There should at least be choice…
And finally, I have to think of HP in terms of “not just physical damage”. It’s been that way since at least ADnD 1e. And again, given that each and every enemy gets three actions, each with a chance of rolling a 20, things get dire. PF2 characters receive a lot of hits, and Battle Medicine is there to…staunch the flow.
Although technically Clerics at 1st level only get a maximum of 5 (Charisma mod +1) heal spells in their healing font/day/between sleeps. I guess they could choose more as a regular spell? I kinda feel like there should be a cantrip for healing to *really* spam…
Remastered gives all clerics 4 font spells not based on charisma
Yep, I do understand the concept/possible interpretations of Battle Medicine. And the idea of hp not being only physical damage.
And I do get that a round is not necessarily six seconds in pathfinder second edition, but we are still talking about an action which takes around two seconds to complete - just feels like a stretch to me.
As if they first designed the game and the monsters and combat, then realized there should also be an option for healing in combat available to everyone, so they hammered in Battle medicine. But I’ll get used to it.
I’m definitely with you Albion. I think in the game post I linked above, the DM, who is fairly new to PF2 was also somewhat taken aback. But once he realised what I had done was a basic tactic he immediately praised me for good play. It was definitely a weird moment - on the one hand it felt like I had “gamed the system” but that was only because I had used a basic thing *everyone* who has been playing PF2 has been doing for the last few years. I realised that I have a fairly strong aversion to the…concept ? of Battle Medicine, but at the same time in that scene I had to try to save my friends.
I’d heard about BM but never really seen it in practice that much…I think I had read a few threads that mentioned it in terms of the…”meta” and so like a dutiful student of the ruleset I gave my Rogue the feat to see if it could be useful. So my “gaming the system” was actually more just applying a basic function that *to me* felt…gamist. I know I’m kinda repeating myself here but it feels important to me to show how I stopped worrying and came to love the bomb.
There’s actually a lot of things I find problematic with PF2, so I’m tweaking it heavily for my own games. I find that the deadliness of the monsters actually makes me feel a little better about the fact that almost every tweak I’m making is a tacit upgrade to either character’s raw power or breadth of versatility…but the one thing that really makes me sad is that as powerful as the encountered foes seem to be, combats don’t last very long, and will possibly be even shorter if I make these changes…so it’s a bit of a balancing act…as is the vanilla ruleset…
Like always, it will depend on sensibilities, which is ok - for example, my own would make it easier for me to accept some sort of 'magical' effect which occurs in two seconds, than any form of 'mundane' one.
I guess if we looked at what says in PF2e - 'Your maximum Hit Point value represents your health, wherewithal, and heroic drive when you are in good health and rested' - then we could come up with something called hmmmm... Lets see....
'Inspiration of Heroes' = You can bolster your companion's heroic drive, even during combat. Attempt an 'Inspiration' check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds and restore the corresponding amount of HP; this doesn't remove the wounded condition. As with Treat Wounds, you can attempt checks against higher DCs if you have the minimum proficiency rank. The target is then temporarily immune to your Inspiration of Heroes for 1 day.
Of course the above is shamelessly copied from the Battle Medicine entry and could be improved a lot. Maybe the fact that HP are not just actual health, but also fatigue and drive, would need to be reinforced. But it would make more sense to me. It just feels like lazy system design to call it Battle 'Medicine', say you are actually 'treating wounds' in two seconds. And that you can do it three times in a round.
There’s actually a lot of things I find problematic with PF2, so I’m tweaking it heavily for my own games. I find that the deadliness of the monsters actually makes me feel a little better about the fact that almost every tweak I’m making is a tacit upgrade to either character’s raw power or breadth of versatility…but the one thing that really makes me sad is that as powerful as the encountered foes seem to be, combats don’t last very long, and will possibly be even shorter if I make these changes…so it’s a bit of a balancing act…as is the vanilla ruleset…
The thing is, I like long-ish fights. I am aware not all of them can or should be long. Also understand some/many will end up short, which is also fine. But I do like fights which are long enough (again not always) to have tactics changes, back and forth, opponents changes, flanks, change of attack modes, heals, etc. And not just an arms race to see who lands the most amount of damage the fastest.
Yep. The "Medicine" part is a bit of a killer. I guess because it relies on the Medicine Skill, (though Tol can use Nature) and talks about "patching up wounds". What skill would you use to key off of for your "Inspiration of Heroes"? It sounds like it could also use Charisma as an attribute modifier...I really like it.
And yes, maybe I wasn't clear - I prefer *some* combats to actually last longer than three rounds. That is a good point that not every encounter need be a do-or-die epic lengthy fight, but they certainly are my preferred option! My favorite class in PF1 was the Inquisitor, so teamwork feats, tactical positioning, setting up routines etc were all something I really strove to enact, but in reality, rarely got to see the synergies reach fruition because...the dust had already settled and my allies were looting the corpses.
@DM Brainiac - apologies for spamming your game threads with this running commentary on the ruleset. Albion and I are old grogs endlessly kvetching while coming to terms with PF2, and scranford is our long suffering companion, and generally more experienced, advisor.
Yep. The "Medicine" part is a bit of a killer. I guess because it relies on the Medicine Skill, (though Tol can use Nature) and talks about "patching up wounds". What skill would you use to key off of for your "Inspiration of Heroes"? It sounds like it could also use Charisma as an attribute modifier...I really like it.
Charisma would be cool, but I guess you could argue any skill could work - heck, you could even decide what skill to use the first time you grabbed the Feat (to make it balanced for all classes? Dunno), and take it from there. Maybe depending on the skill you chose, your Inspiration could be different, from slapping someone around to shouting words of encouragement.
And yes, maybe I wasn't clear - I prefer *some* combats to actually last longer than three rounds. That is a good point that not every encounter need be a do-or-die epic lengthy fight, but they certainly are my preferred option! My favorite class in PF1 was the Inquisitor, so teamwork feats, tactical positioning, setting up routines etc were all something I really strove to enact, but in reality, rarely got to see the synergies reach fruition because...the dust had already settled and my allies were looting the corpses.
Yep, that is the sad true. Rarely do people make character to complement or works as multipliers for others. It happens, but it is not common. Teamwork Feats are the perfect example. I have also played inquisitors many times, and always try to ping others so we could articulate Feat choices, but usually I get a... Meh. At best.
@DM Brainiac - apologies for spamming your game threads with this running commentary on the ruleset. Albion and I are old grogs endlessly kvetching while coming to terms with PF2, and scranford is our long suffering companion, and generally more experienced, advisor.
Echoing OSW's words - apologies for the thread hijacking, and for the continued grumbles and mumbles. Hat off to scranford's patience :D
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And Eric!