| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
All the talk about what Resonance does got me thinking about how other games have handled a potential unlimited amount of magic use via magic items. Looking through the AD&D DMG, I found "Potion Miscibility", with a table of interesting effects if potions are mixed in the lab or in a PC's system.
Imagine if PCs weren't limited by how many potions they could quaff between extended rests, but each time they imbibe an additional potion, the GM rolls percentile dice to see if miscibility occurs. 25% for the second potion, 50% for the third potion, etc. Or +10% for each potion after the first. Then some random effect happens, perhaps shortened duration, perhaps opposite of intended use, or nullification of the potion.
I think the idea has potential. It's not a hard limit to using potions, just makes it riskier to keep relying on them.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sure it sounds interesting. It might even have some fun and quirky impacts on the game. But I strongly suspect all the fun will be sucked out of it the first time someone drinks a healing potion to save their life (or is helped to drink one by an ally when unconscious) and you get the "opposite of intended effect" result.
It'll be memorable, sure, and players may laugh about it later. But it sucks to get screwed over by random chance for doing the right thing (trying to keep yourself or your friends alive) just as much as it sucks to get screwed over by random chance because you've done the right thing too many times today.
:|
I think the designers of a game system or rules element really need to take a hard look at where the incentives are.
Resonance has a notional goal of reducing dependence on low-level magic at higher levels. But the incentive structure universally makes those lower level magics the better alternative. So in practice, resonance is an arbitrary cap on how many things you can do in a day, while players still want to get their money's worth on the magic... because why wouldn't they want to get their money's worth?
Similarly, potion miscibility is a strong incentive to not use potions at all, because you never know when you're going to need one. And when you need one, you need it to work like you expect it to.
The incentive structure needs to be fixed before tinkering with resonance or alternatives does any good. As long as low-level magic options are vastly more efficient for your money than high-level magic options, nothing can fix the resonance problem in any way that isn't an arbitrary and heavy-handed imposition on player free will.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Similarly, potion miscibility is a strong incentive to not use potions at all, because you never know when you're going to need one. And when you need one, you need it to work like you expect it to.
You say that like its a bad thing.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Similarly, potion miscibility is a strong incentive to not use potions at all, because you never know when you're going to need one. And when you need one, you need it to work like you expect it to.You say that like its a bad thing.
Okay, if you don't want people to use the options in the game, then why have those options in the game at all?
It's all arbitrary, isn't it?
We have an option that exists, but is terrible. My intention is to fix the option. Your intention is to make it worse?
I don't get it. :|
It's not about stopping people from using an option, it's about limiting them. Resonance does it one way, my idea does it another way, and there could be another dozen options.
And while I appreciate how people feel about being infringed on their choices, if their choice is "I don't want to lose, ever", then I'll have to infringe upon that, if there's to be any real tension to the game.
Options are fine so long as you have to weigh their use.
Im not saying I like the OPs suggestion (I dont - appreciate the intent though) but I also am not a fan of the adventurer running around popping potions willy nilly like he was just drinking a bunch of Diet Cokes.
Some kinda mechanical check against the adventurer running around with a virtual IV tapping into a bladder of Healing Potion juice would probably be a good idea.
The same holds true for wands, etc.
I think Buhlmann got it right on the stream. Make consumbles do very little unless you tap into resonance to boost their use. Thats elegant. Allows emergency use and limits the effectiveness of repeated use.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not about "not wanting to lose ever." (Although, to be fair, people generally don't want to lose, why would they?)
And it's totally fine to want an option to be limited, by whatever game mechanic you choose.
The problem is that the house is on fire, but so many people are hemming and hawing about how many buckets can be used to put it out.
The options don't make any reasonable sense. Limiting them or not limiting them makes no difference until they do.
EDIT: And I say all this from the perspective of my groups' Constant GM, not from the perspective of a player - if that even makes any difference.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Make consumbles do very little unless you tap into resonance to boost their use. Thats elegant. Allows emergency use and limits the effectiveness of repeated use.
I don't see how that is any better than the current resonance problem. It's the same disincentive - bank your resonance because you might need it later. Waste your money on weak ineffective consumables (instead of wasting your money on a percentage chance of no effect). It's sprinkling some fresh parsley on yesterday's leftovers and calling it fresh dinner.
Again, I'm the GM here. And my players are avoiding consumables like they are all contaminated with beard pox. And they are doing this on one-shot playtest characters that they only keep for a session or two... that does not bode well for the attractiveness of consumables in the context of a campaign.
And just to be clear, potion miscibility has exactly the same issue. Except now we're wasting our effort and money on something that might actively make the situation worse, instead of doing little or nothing.
I'm not sure why "make magic item use unattractive" is such a vital design goal for a high fantasy TTRPG, but unholy mother of Gruumsh that seems to be the case for this playtest.
It's not about "not wanting to lose ever." (Although, to be fair, people generally don't want to lose, why would they?)
And it's totally fine to want an option to be limited, by whatever game mechanic you choose.
The problem is that the house is on fire, but so many people are hemming and hawing about how many buckets can be used to put it out.
The options don't make any reasonable sense. Limiting them or not limiting them makes no difference until they do.
EDIT: And I say all this from the perspective of my groups' Constant GM, not from the perspective of a player - if that even makes any difference.
It definitely makes a difference. As a GM, I've been there when players are paralyzed when facing a choice. I understand your perspective much better now, thank you!
And Requielle, I've seen it for characters who are only going to last for one session as well. Whatever the replacement for Resonance, I hope it does a better job of letting people use magic items in a balanced way that players can tolerate. But it would help if players could meet us GMs half-way.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
... I'm the GM here. And my players are avoiding consumables like they are all contaminated with beard pox. And they are doing this on one-shot playtest characters that they only keep for a session or two... that does not bode well for the attractiveness of consumables in the context of a campaign...
This. Consumables are so, so bad. You pay for them at least twice (money + use/resonance), maybe three times if you crafted it yourself (crafting resonance + money + use/resonance).
There are SO MANY consumables on their by-level Treasure Tables, and I have never felt more jipped while picking my items. There aren't necessarily good permanent magic items at every treasure level for every class, but at least permanent magic items give a more tangible benefit for their constant resonance cost.
As it is, item selection is a frustrating chore that - on all three playtest characters I've made so far - leaves me with items I don't really want and wouldn't have bought normally, but I had to use up my by-level item slots. And those consumables we're railroaded into taking? Nobody is using them. At least not in our games. I've seen one, maybe two, healing potions get used, and that's it. It feels terrible to be practically forced to take items that you then don't want to use.
The treasure tables and item selection rules alone (especially in conjunction with resonance), should they make it into the final product as written, are enough to turn me off to PF2e permanently. What a mess.
In PF1e, when everything was primarily gated by gp/price and your budget/lvl, I had no problem filling out my inventory with a few consumables. Item selection was fun. I looked forward to putting my inventory together on a new character. I had choice. I had RP potential. Now I have a bunch of short, limiting tables full of resonance-expensive one-shot items. And I can hope that the items I actually need/want are spread between these short, limiting tables in such a way that I am allowed to pick them. It's not even the power-level of the item that's in question, or whether I should be able to have it - it's now about whether I need/want two 4th level items, but their chart says I need to pick two 5th level items and only one 4th level item.
tl;dr - Resonance is bad and I hate it. The treasure tables are bad and I hate them. Your mileage may vary. :/
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
See? Beard pox. That's one of my players.
See? Beard pox. That's one of my players.
... so... itchy...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ah! the miscibility table - I remember that less than fondly. (albeit there was that one time a player rolled 00 on a potion of speed - permanent haste, but he aged a year every hour or so).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
How about, healing potions have a random healing effect (the normal way) if no Resonance was used. Where as, if a character used Resonance with a healing potion, it has maximum effect? Same with wands.
Heck, we could even use Resonance to maximize any healing casting effect on yourself. Cleric area effects for 4d8+4 healing? Spend a resonance and get the maximum of 36 points, even while everyone else gets the random roll.
Unless we are going to put another thing into the category of "stuff that works one way for these 4 people, and differently for the rest of the known universe" - the bad guys would be doing this, too. Maximized damage on negative energy channels, maximized healing for their undead minions. Heck, if the mechanic is going to be that resonance just gives you max dice, why not hit the party with a maximum damage fireball right off the bat?
I think that would be frustrating. And that's me wearing my GM hat - I don't want the choice between 'TPK by running the enemy in a reasonable way' and 'derp the bad guys so the party has a chance'.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not sure how you are going to convince other people to maximize damage on themselves. Not sure how Creatures without resonance are going to maximize healing on themselves. Resonance only works when the character wants to heal themselves.. not force it on someone else.
Creatures have resonance, however much they need - it's just not listed (except for the demilich), per one of the devs. I can dig up the quote when I'm back home and not on lunch break at work, if needed.
And that means that if the evil cleric is going to channel negative energy to harm you/heal his minions - he's going to have the resonance to maximise it. Just like PCs would be able to use resonance to harm the undead/heal themselves for maximum value.
And yes, the devs could also adopt this mechanic and add it to the list things that don't work the same for PCs - as I noted in my original answer. But, by default, it would apply to NPCs. The fireball example was just a logical extension - if resonance pushes one flavor of magic to maximum value, it seems likely that it would push other flavors the same way.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
OK - we can make it a really specific and persnickety rule. Even then, the evil cleric is gonna channel and *all his minions* are going to spend their resonance and get max dice of healing. Because they only have one battle today (with the PCs) and don't need to conserve their unspecified-but-adequate amounts of resonance.
I also think this will make the current issue with hoarding resonance (and all the unfun that entails) worse - because now PCs won't just be allocating their daily item resonance and hoarding some emergency potion resonance, they'll be hoarding resonance so that the cleric isn't 'wasting' their channels and heals.
I used to have a player that wanted special healing rules for PCs... he'd come up and suggest "How about PCs get to reroll any 1s on their healing stuff?". And my answer was always the same "Sure, we can houserule that, but the bad guys get to do it, too." And then he didn't want the houserule.
This feels like that.
The big limiter in 1st D&D btw was mostly that you couldn't (or for some it was very very difficult) to make items or buy them straight out. You got what dropped.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can't say I'm a fan of random tables at all. Arbitrary effects with no real reasoning other than they're on a table and you rolled that number are things that should have been left in the 70s in my opinion. They don't feel fun or whimsical or whatever to me. They just feel annoying.
Not a big fan of the "Resonance, but positive!" ideas either. Requielle is doing a good job of explaining how that's barely an improvement over having resonance be punitive.
If we absolutely must limit potions (and I don't think we should). Why not just slap a cap on how many you can take in a certain period of time? Like 5 per hour, or con mod +2 per hour or per ten minutes. It'd represent your system only being able to handle so much at once and the potions needing to clear before you can get more effect. It's much simpler than something like resonance or miscibility, requires less torturous logic to justify, there's no uncertainty of a random element and it doesn't impact anything other than potions (so wearing magic boots doesn't make it so you can heal less because... reasons). It still would have the problem of cutting off use and the incentive not to use them because later you might need them more than you do now. But setting it by the hour or ten minutes instead of day makes it much more reasonable to deal with than having to rest.
But really I think potions should just be dealt with economically. Make the more expensive ones worth the price, and have potions be more expensive than other healing items per HP gained. Leave potions as a quick HP hit for combat, and other options for when you have a minute or two to spend to get the most cost-effective healing.