More generally, do your players also avoid metagaming like this? Ignore their character's actual experience of fighting and still assume that anyone will go down with one good hit and that that hit can come at anytime, not just after whittling them down?
That depends on the situation. If they are facing a massive enemy (such as a 2-ton dragon) their PC's aren't thinking "one arrow ought to do it." Likewise, if they are facing off against a powerful reoccurring enemy, they understand their first attack isn't likely to land successfully at all.
If they got into a tussle with the local town guard, however, they most certainly expect them to go down quickly. After all, the town guards are not vicious monsters with supernatural endurance. They are not massive beasts with tough hides. They have not yet proven themselves to be amazing heroes with an almost divine gift for clinging onto life. They are merely mortal men that can be killed with an arrow.
That is, and should always be, the default assumption at the start of an encounter lest observations or foreknowledge tell you differently. To think otherwise is metagaming.
No-one mentioned "Tucker's Kobolds" yet?
...you should assume every enemy is a threat until proven otherwise. That might result in overkill on one opponent and leaving others untouched, but if they're mooks that only costs you time.
Not that...
That's a good point. Even powerful heroes skilled at avoiding multiple attacks simultaneously might think to themselves "one arrant arrow is all it will take"--with the "arrant arrow" actually being the one that gets the natural 20 (and x3 crit) or happens to take off those last few hit points they had remaining.
It's all about what the player perceives, how that differs from what the character perceives, and how you reconcile the two in a way that makes sense in game and that avoids metagaming.
I merged the four threads on this topic.
That's a good point. Even powerful heroes skilled at avoiding multiple attacks simultaneously might think to themselves "one arrant arrow is all it will take"--with the "arrant arrow" actually being the one that gets the natural 20 (and x3 crit) or happens to take off those last few hit points they had remaining.
The difference is that whatever the descriptive mechanic is, that when you pop out of ambush and shoot someone once, if they're experienced they live through it. That means that focus fire is going to be more effective, which means that's what action competent creatures should take.
Trying to adapt tactics to "real world" physics is kind of pointless for creatures that have never seen real world physics.
Realistically, a dragon should be able to just claw cleric claw wizard tail rogue bite fighter ... end fight. Lunch at 2pm. Oo look we're serving fighter...but experimental evidence in world shows that the dragon has to keep clawing to bring down the puny human. No dragon has ever SEEN realistic results, why should they act as if they had?
If you use vitality / wound point system, sure. But as the rules are HPs lost are a result of attacks that connect, not people being worn down by narrow misses. Does it make them super human after a few levels? Sure. Such is RAW and you know, I don't really have a problem with it.Real world swat teams don't have to deal with people who can take 15 seconds worth the fire, fire back, take another 15 seconds worth the fire, fire back, ad nauseam. Swat teams, when they're going to kill, divide targets because its easy to kill someone with a fire arm.To be more specific, our GM played a group of intelligent enemies (half-celestials hellbent on assassinating our evil party) by having them each choose a target PC and focus on that target during their ambush.
It's what any real world swat team would do. One target. One kill. Bad guys are usually down before they knew what hit them.
This is the metagame gamist thinking that I've warned against.
Characters don't just absorb volley after volley of arrows and keep fighting. That's completely illogical (unless magic is involved).
The hit point system has always been abstract. It is not something new that came along with vitality and wound points.
That's a good point. Even powerful heroes skilled at avoiding multiple attacks simultaneously might think to themselves "one arrant arrow is all it will take"--with the "arrant arrow" actually being the one that gets the natural 20 (and x3 crit) or happens to take off those last few hit points they had remaining.The difference is that whatever the descriptive mechanic is, that when you pop out of ambush and shoot someone once, if they're experienced they live through it. That means that focus fire is going to be more effective, which means that's what action competent creatures should take.
Trying to adapt tactics to "real world" physics is kind of pointless for creatures that have never seen real world physics.
That's faulty reasoning. Characters with heroic levels are fairly rare. High level characters with heroic levels are EXCEPTIONALLY rare. Most everyone is going to be 5th-level or lower, and likely be built exclusively with NPC class levels. That means that most NPCs are not going to be in the mind set that you and others describe.
Realistically, a dragon should be able to just claw cleric claw wizard tail rogue bite fighter ... end fight. Lunch at 2pm. Oo look we're serving fighter...but experimental evidence in world shows that the dragon has to keep clawing to bring down the puny human. No dragon has ever SEEN realistic results, why should they act as if they had?
Actually, most dragons have invested in the vital strike line, power attack, and are incredibly strong. They could probably one shot a 5th-level character without any trouble at all. A single breath on a flyby would slay a small army (which, I'm sure, is why they are famous for doing just that!).
I imagine they are quite accustomed to doing so as well. It would be a rare event (and a rare surprise) that something enters its abode with enough power to actually threaten it.
Ravingdork,
Said dragon would recognize a fundamental difference between when he's on the offensive and when he's on the defensive. When he's on the offensive, he meets very few class A foes, some class B's, and tons of C's, D's, and F's. Accordingly he can spread his attacks around and expect to accomplish his goals.
But when he's on the defensive, he will rarely see any c's d's or f's. They're not stupid enough to attempt to beard him in his lair. So the mere fact that you're there in his lair ready to fight him implies that you must either be prodigiously insane or very powerful.
Yes, this is true. One would have to be pretty powerful to survive all the minions and traps to get to the inner sanctum. Even then, they likely set off an alarm or ten, and any dragon worth his salt will be more than ready for their arrival.
I'm mostly thinking of the naive knight who rides up to the cave entrance and calls the dragon out.
That's faulty reasoning. Characters with heroic levels are fairly rare. High level characters with heroic levels are EXCEPTIONALLY rare. Most everyone is going to be 5th-level or lower, and likely be built exclusively with NPC class levels. That means that most NPCs are not going to be in the mind set that you and others describe.
Right, but 5th level characters do not survive the plethora of cunning deathtraps that a dragon sets outside their lair. So of they're confronting her in her lair she KNOWS they're going to live through A bite and plans accordingly.
Chances are pretty good the PC's are not the first adventuring party she's had for dinner.
The hit point system has always been abstract. It is not something new that came along with vitality and wound points.If a fighter falls a couple hundred feet and survives, did he narrowly miss the ground?
No. Obviously there is a higher power looking out for them.
It's also worth noting that most people in the game world wouldn't survive a fall of a couple hundred feet.
It's all about verisimilitude and avoiding metagame thinking.
That's faulty reasoning. Characters with heroic levels are fairly rare. High level characters with heroic levels are EXCEPTIONALLY rare. Most everyone is going to be 5th-level or lower, and likely be built exclusively with NPC class levels. That means that most NPCs are not going to be in the mind set that you and others describe.Right, but 5th level characters do not survive the plethora of cunning deathtraps that a dragon sets outside their lair. So of they're confronting her in her lair she KNOWS they're going to live through A bite and plans accordingly.
Chances are pretty good the PC's are not the first adventuring party she's had for dinner.
WHY THE HECK DO THE POSTS KEEP APPEARING AND DISAPPEARING!?
HP are damage. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is deluding themselves.
Sure, it isn't particularly elegant, nor poetic, nor artistic.
It is, however, strongly supported by the RAW.
If you want to play in a game where damage is abstracted, there are a plethora of RPGs to choose from that strongly support this philosophy, but PF isn't one of them.
In PF, damage is measured in HP, and HP are reduced by successful attacks. High level PCs have a ton more HP than lower leveled counterparts and the only explanations that survive contact with the RAW are:
High leveled PCs are beloved by the divines, fate or destiny and the laws of physics are violated on their behalf.
or
Plot Immunity: High Level PCs are needed for the storyline, and thus are spared repercussions that would annihilate less important people.
or
High leveled PCs just grow stronger bones, tougher skins, etc.
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HP are damage. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is deluding themselves.
Bull. I'm not delusional just because I believe that a roleplaying game was meant to have a certain level of verisimilitude.
I'll buy your first example (divine intervention), maybe even the third (thick skinned makes some sense in the case of the barbarian at least), but certainly not the second. PCs die WAY TOO OFTEN in typical games to have anything vaguely resembling plot immunity.
A high level fighter survives because he is better at "rolling with the blow" or "utilizing his armor/shield effectively" or "is extraordinarily lucky," a wizard might survive thanks to "magical reinforcement" or a "sixth-sense." not because they can simply take an axe to the neck some how.
If you want to play an arcade game where nothing makes any real sense, be my guest (go try 4E perhaps), but I like immersive roleplay thank-you-very-much.
I guess ): But Sun Zhu strategy would work, yes?Not really. Sun Zhu's strategy is all about deception, manuevering, maintaining lines of supply and morale. There is no morale in this game, small scale makes manuevering pretty irrelavant and also means lines of supply are not really relevant, and divination magic makes deception very, very complicated.
Couldn't agree less. A GM can use quite a lot of those strategical tips to give a challenge to players.
-Deceive the metagaming players with red herrings (ex: make them believe they're fighting undeads while it's aberrations, etc.) while being fair if they try to challenge their perceptions with knowledge for example.-Use your amy's weaknesses as strenght in manoeuver: for example, split the party or get someone into a trap by baiting them with an easy kill. Hide or disguise your glass canons. Ready that arrow or spell to interrupt or counterspell the caster. Bluff helplessness (still with a fair chance to sense motive).
-Supplies take many forms. Steal, sunder, disable, etc.
-Morale is really important. I know as a player I get heated in the battle and always look for ways out when I feel the wind is not to my liking. A co-player pulls the other way by metagaming the party into oblivion so really it goes both ways: a high morale can be as deadly as a low morale.
Seriously, Sun Zhu is not a minute by minute analyst of any combat; just a teacher with the big picture in mind. You can even use his teachings in relationships, certainly so in Pathfinder roleplay.
As for players, as long as a combat is not an auto-win, Sun Zhu's big picture is very helpful. Know the ennemy and make him think it's usual tactics will make him win... except it won't. Shield ally if they gang, evade or resist if they fireball, use skills to challenge GM's expectations.
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HP are damage. Anyone who tries to argue otherwise is deluding themselves.Bull. I'm not delusional just because I believe that a roleplaying game was meant to have a certain level of verisimilitude.
I'll buy your first example (divine intervention), maybe even the third (thick skinned makes some sense in the case of the barbarian at least), but certainly not the second. PCs die WAY TOO OFTEN in typical games to have anything vaguely resembling plot immunity.
A high level fighter survives because he is better at "rolling with the blow" or "utilizing his armor/shield effectively" or "is extraordinarily lucky," a wizard might survive thanks to "magical reinforcement" or a "sixth-sense." not because they can simply take an axe to the neck some how.
If you want to play an arcade game where nothing makes any real sense, be my guest (go try 4E perhaps), but I like immersive roleplay thank-you-very-much.
Immerse YOURSELF all you want, but please stop feeding your flawed arguments to others.
What about the guy swinging the axe? Are you going to say, I don't care that you raged, power attacked, rolled a twenty and another twenty confirming the crit, your target is a high level barbarian and well, he ducked.
Sucks to be you.
No, the rules say that you hit, hit solidly and the other guy just has the blood of Thor or something like that and he's still alive and kicking. That blow would have cut a lesser man in half, but this guy is not a lesser man. He took that blow, he gritted his teeth and turned his head to face you. That hurt, and now he has found a worthy adversary.
The rules are very black and white on the subject. Whine all you want, spin all you want, but HP are damage. Every damaging event in the game is measured in HP loss. CON, not DEX adds to HP. Big things have more HP than tiny things. HP are damage and anyone who tries to argue otherwise in PF is delusional. Read the rules, prove me wrong.
Does a high level fighter lose HP if he's blind? deaf? immersed in impenetrable darkness? all of the above? If the attacker is invisible and not a rogue, does the fighter take any additional damage when 'hit'? Does a high level fighter lose HP if unarmed and unarmored? Does a high level fighter lose HP if cursed?
You can bring a cauldron to a temperature that will inflict 1 HP/turn damage, a 1st level mage will be dead before you can stir it, a high level fighter, come back tomorrow, see if he's done. How can a high level fighter evade heat?
Is that your take?
*stuff*
I think you misunderstand my intention here.
I never claimed the character didn't take damage (rules are pretty clear on that), only that the character wasn't dead, dying from a mortal wound, suddenly missing limbs, or whatever other logical thing that should have happened from the attack. One MUST reconcile these things or else lose verisimilitude.
If you don't mind the lost verisimilitude, than I suppose it is ultimately a playstyle choice.
However, you will never convince me that hit points are not an abstract mechanic because THEY ARE. It's just like the turn based system. It's abstracted for ease of play. The characters aren't actually pausing and starting over and over again. It is assumed that they are in a constant state of movement.
Hit points work similarly. Since the axe blow didn't kill the character outright when it connected, one must assume that SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED.
RD, you seem to have missed my question, so I'll restate it. Especially since you seem to have a superior attitude about the way you play.
If a high level fighter, by virtue of having a large number of hit points, survives a fall that would kill any normal human 10 times over, did he narrowly miss hitting the ground? After all, that's hp damage, and hp damage doesn't represent getting hurt by your way of thinking, right?
Not necessarily. I'm not saying that hit point damage is NEVER reflected as character injury, only that one must (often) explain away the character's survival somehow for it to make any sense at all.
You could just gloss over it I suppose, but then you risk losing verisimilitude.
*stuff*I think you misunderstand my intention here.
I never claimed the character didn't take damage (rules are pretty clear on that), only that the character wasn't dead, dying from a mortal wound, suddenly missing limbs, or whatever other logical thing that should have happened from the attack. One MUST reconcile these things or else lose verisimilitude.
If you don't mind the lost verisimilitude, than I suppose it is ultimately a playstyle choice.
However, you will never convince me that hit points are not an abstract mechanic because THEY ARE. It's just like the turn based system. It's abstracted for ease of play. The characters aren't actually pausing and starting over and over again. It is assumed that they are in a constant state of movement.
Hit points work similarly. Since the axe blow didn't kill the character outright when it connected, one must assume that SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED.
Except that you said: "Characters don't just absorb volley after volley of arrows and keep fighting. That's completely illogical (unless magic is involved). More than likely they dodged or deflected them. Such maneuvers wear them down (in the same way bullets slow John McClain down), however, and when they are slow, and that last arrow takes away their last hit points, that's when it manages to find a soft spot in their armor. Hit points (and indeed much of the game) is abstracted so as to make narrative sense."
Dodged or deflected sound a whole lot like "didn't take the damage" to me.
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This is the metagame gamist thinking that I've warned against.
Characters don't just absorb volley after volley of arrows and keep fighting. That's completely illogical (unless magic is involved). More than likely they dodged or deflected them. Such maneuvers wear them down (in the same way bullets slow John McClain down), however, and when they are slow, and that last arrow takes away their last hit points, that's when it manages to find a soft spot in their armor. Hit points (and indeed much of the game) is abstracted so as to make narrative sense.
It's not like NPCs automatically KNOW it will take several rounds of fighting to kill the PCs during a first encounter. There aren't neon signs floating over our heads saying "10th-level" or "152 HP."
The argument of using focus fire on a heavily armored target was much, much less gamist. It actually used in-game logic and observation. Something the NPCs CAN observe.
NPCs who are a challenge to high level PCs do know that it sometimes takes a bunch of attacks to kill creatures. How do they know? Because that is how they got to a high level. They have to treat every fight like that because the one time they don't that could be the end of them as it can let the enemy get the upper hand. To get to high level I am sure they saw the end of a lot of allies.
You talk about verisimilitude and then come up with reasons that only make sense for enemies who exist to only fight the PCs for one encounter. i.e. the NPCs have no experiences prior to fighting the PCs. If they leveled up over time to get to the point where they would eventually fight the PCs then they know that guy guy without armor can be just as dangerous (if not more) than they guy in armor. They will also know that they tend to be easier to kill if you get them first. There are a whole host of in character reasons that NPCs will do tactics other than what you suggest.
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In games where I have had intelligent enemies attack from ambush the most effective tactic has been to send out half the enemy to attack directly. Then the other wait until the casters start trying to do their thing. Boom, a bunch of readied attacks stop spell casting and do damage at the same time.
Works every, damn, time. Why? Because usually it is the players getting the surprise on the enemy and they just have their PCs run in slashing' and spellin'. When they do plan things they usually do the SWAT and special forces tactic of clearing rooms as they go.
Once, I had a bunch of NPCs hiding in an empty room's secret room. When the party continued on the NPCs buffed and caught them from behind when they were fighting another enemy. The wizard died to double sneak attacks from invis rogues. The sorcerer ran away (they had lagged behind the party during a chase) to alert the others. The enemy party just melted away and attacked again later. They were paranoid for a while. The assasins never attacked again because the party kept their guard up during the day. So they attacked at night and nearly killed the rogue before the barbarian jumped up, raged, and crit on two of them while standing there nekkid (bad image).
*stuff*I think you misunderstand my intention here.
I never claimed the character didn't take damage (rules are pretty clear on that), only that the character wasn't dead, dying from a mortal wound, suddenly missing limbs, or whatever other logical thing that should have happened from the attack. One MUST reconcile these things or else lose verisimilitude.
If you don't mind the lost verisimilitude, than I suppose it is ultimately a playstyle choice.
However, you will never convince me that hit points are not an abstract mechanic because THEY ARE. It's just like the turn based system. It's abstracted for ease of play. The characters aren't actually pausing and starting over and over again. It is assumed that they are in a constant state of movement.
Hit points work similarly. Since the axe blow didn't kill the character outright when it connected, one must assume that SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED.
Except that you said: "Characters don't just absorb volley after volley of arrows and keep fighting. That's completely illogical (unless magic is involved). More than likely they dodged or deflected them. Such maneuvers wear them down (in the same way bullets slow John McClain down), however, and when they are slow, and that last arrow takes away their last hit points, that's when it manages to find a soft spot in their armor. Hit points (and indeed much of the game) is abstracted so as to make narrative sense."
Dodged or deflected sound a whole lot like "didn't take the damage" to me.
To be more clear, I was listing examples of how "surviving a volley" could be explained away. The list was not meant to be finite.
In games where I have had intelligent enemies attack from ambush the most effective tactic has been to send out half the enemy to attack directly. Then the other wait until the casters start trying to do their thing. Boom, a bunch of readied attacks stop spell casting and do damage at the same time.
Works every, damn, time. Why? Because usually it is the players getting the surprise on the enemy and they just have their PCs run in slashing' and spellin'. When they do plan things they usually do the SWAT and special forces tactic of clearing rooms as they go.
Once, I had a bunch of NPCs hiding in an empty room's secret room. When the party continued on the NPCs buffed and caught them from behind when they were fighting another enemy. The wizard died to double sneak attacks from invis rogues. The sorcerer ran away (they had lagged behind the party during a chase) to alert the others. The enemy party just melted away and attacked again later. They were paranoid for a while. The assasins never attacked again because the party kept their guard up during the day. So they attacked at night and nearly killed the rogue before the barbarian jumped up, raged, and crit on two of them while standing there nekkid (bad image).
This is a really cool post full of awesome ideas. :D
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snip...a bunch of back and forth.
To be more clear, I was listing examples of how "surviving a volley" could be explained away. The list was not meant to be finite.
How you explain hit points in your own game does not matter as it is not a rules thing. If it works in your game then great.
That said I generally agree with RDs view.
Someone gave an example of the fighter walking off a cliff falling to the ground and surviving and asked how that would work in RDs method. As people have survived falling from planes in real life there are a lot of ways to hand wave it. He fell through some trees that slowed his fall. A strong up draft of air slowed him near the end. etc...
If you think of hit points as a story telling device you can come up with a lot of ways to explain why a guy trying to split your skull just happens to not do that.
That said I am also fine with the view that hit points are just natural damn toughness and you can some how shrug off axe blows for a while. Basically you treat them as an ablative armor of sorts.
Some real life tactics would work. Mounted archery, for example, defeats heavy armor handily.
Sun Tzu is mostly about strategy. As such, it won't work in Pathfinder.
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Sun Tzu is mostly about strategy.
Which actually makes it more efficient realistically, but it's heavily dependent on the GM. Real life's GM is incredibly harsh and incredibly unfair.
Sun Tzu is mostly about strategy. As such, it won't work in Pathfinder.Two things here:
First, you would have to find players for a game that centers around creating supply chains, maneuvering troops, and stockpiling resources. Then you would have to create massive numbers of house rules for these sorts of things to work with Pathfinder.
I don't think it's worth it. Just find a game that does what you want, like the Fall from Heaven II mod of Civilization IV, or Alexander the Great by Avalon Hill.
Second, you literally DO NOT HAVE the same strategic environment that Sun Tzu has. Maneuvering troops, stocking supplies, overcoming terrain difficulties just are DIFFERENT when you have flight, teleportation, and the ability to create food and drink from nothing.
If you're going to modify Pathfinder to eliminate 100s of creature types, and 100s of spells and 100s of magic items, then you're playing the wrong game. Use that time to find a game that DOES do what you want.