I actually really prefer the stamina rules, and can not see any real complexity in adding them to pathfinder. I like that it shows the line between negligible wear and tear during combat, and where you are being worn down to no longer avoiding more serious injuries that need medical attention.*nods*
And I dislike it since it doesn't accomplish that (to me anyway), you have two HP pools that are forced to flavor two different ways (minor vs major damage) but that tends to fall though.
"I cast disintegrate."
"You winded him."
"I kick him in the shin."
"You have grievously wounded him."Ah. You work your narrative backwards from the way I do.
“I cast disintegrate” he avoids most of the effects then most mear mortals have ever been known to do
“I kick him” His fatigue catches up with him. He is slow in pulling his leg back, and you hear a pop from his ankle and a cry out.
This is probably one of the only problems I do have with stamina. The disintegrate spell is such a good example too. You watched the guy get hit by it. You've seen this spell destroy solid stone. But the guy isn't even scathed after getting directly hit? And everyone can do this if they just have enough HP? It's a bit ridiculous.
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My two cents.
I absolutely adore the SP/HP/RP system. All five of my players always want to keep going until they are out of resolve. They regularly spend it on either class abilities or augments like the dragon's breath gland. With 4-6 resolve each they get through 4-6 encounters every adventuring day at low levels, I expect they'll start resembling the energizer bunny at high levels. I often find myself asking if they want to take a full rest, and unlike in PF1E, even when the casters are out of spells they say: 'no, I've still got some stamina, let's keep going'.
Now, part of this is probably my houserule that replaces the death & dying rules with the rules from PF1E. They aren't saving their resolve to prevent death, they're always using it to not be in that situation in the first place.
It doesn't need to be a separate pool, but psychologically I think my players see SP as the pool that doesn't really matter, but they back off on risky maneuvers and such as soon as that cushion is gone. If it was just hit points that you heal half of after a 10-min break that same thought process would be missing.
Not all of us limit interactions of NPCs to "stabby obstacle"
True, but not nearly the point. The point is that you can abstract NPC health because it's not nearly as important as PC health. PC health gets to be granular with subtleties. If we're getting that specific about a non-monster NPC, we're either dealing with what is effectively a MacGuffin plot point or we're too deep in the weeds for a bit player.
No you should not {need more complex health rules for PCs}
Yes you should (neener neener). Honestly, unless a game is specifically going for realism (so not d20 games), PCs need to have different standards for healing, dying, and death. In most 3.5E D&D games I played, we essentially abstracted monster death so that they were dead at -1 hit point because it was a little ghoulish for our good characters to rifle through fallen humanoids' pockets while they bleed out over 9 rounds.
We've already established that NPCs are built with different rules than PCs, why is their health being streamlined an issue?
{RE: two health pools not complicated} For you and them, but I have heard people having issues with it. For me it's not that it's hard persay, but that it's needless complexity.
I've never had anyone have a question about it more than twice.
First Time
Me: "Take 8 damage."
Player: "So I subtract it off my hit points?"
Me: "First your Stamina; when that's gone, then your hit points."
Player: "Okay."
Second Time
Me: "Take 4 damage."
Player: "So is this Stamina or Hit Point damage?"
Me: "If you have Stamina left, it goes to Stamina. Any remainder goes to Hit Points."
Player: "Oh, I get it now. Right."
And I never have a problem with it again. I've had a lot more questions about stuff like Flat-Footed. This is an already extremely complicated game; Stamina rules barely register.
{RE: only two kinds of direct HP damage} Precisely, right now. That will definitely change as more supplements come out.
I honestly don't expect it to become common enough that it becomes a major issue.
You had someone roll and you took a rest, so there was an interruption, just not one that you minded. Did you only have the one fight?
Actually it was a static-healing channel, so he technically didn't roll; if the enemies had done 8 less damage or I had let someone else take a hit, there would have been zero extra maintenance.
We had a knock-down, drag out fight right after that and I was in no danger of death due to lack of Resolve.
I don't have a constant up to date grasp on everything in the playtest but I thought the Cleric's channels were a completely separate source from their Spell/Focus pool?
I'm not up-to-date either. I'm just thinking of how Clerics have been since the beginning of D&D. Their resources are split between healing and... everything else. Speaking of complexity; they almost needed a spreadsheet or a flow chart to figure out their spells per day.
Even if a Cleric's healing is now separate, they still have to decide on how to spend their combat actions between healing and fighting; Starfinder and the Stamina system resolved that nicely by making half the health pool self-maintaining.
{RE: spending RP like candy for powers} Yes... at high level play. You can do lots of fun stuff at high level.
...and at low level you really don't have other things to do with Resolve other than get Stamina back or Not Die. Kinda interferes with your point of the pool being used for different things being a problem. Either you have enough RP to spend on really effective stuff and still Not Die, or you have basically nothing to do with it except Not Die. Most RP powers start showing up around 6th level, at which point a reasonably statted character will have 7 or 8 RP... which is plenty (way more than I've ever needed).
"I cast disintegrate."
"You winded him."
"I kick him in the shin."
"You have grievously wounded him."
More like:
"I cast disintigrate."
"The effort of resisting your magic leaves him sallow and weak."
"I kick him in the shin."
"Seeing that he is unable to gather the energy to resist, your kick goes through his defenses like a ton of bricks. You feel a slight 'crack' and he yelps in pain."
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Yes, but the hp system by itself is worse. The disintegrate doesn’t do any noticeable damage, but the cleric heals him of... no damage.. just because.This is probably one of the only problems I do have with stamina. The disintegrate spell is such a good example too. You watched the guy get hit by it. You've seen this spell destroy solid stone. But the guy isn't even scathed after getting directly hit? And everyone can do this if they just have enough HP? It's a bit ridiculous.Ah. You work your narrative backwards from the way I do.
“I cast disintegrate” he avoids most of the effects then most mear mortals have ever been known to do
“I kick him” His fatigue catches up with him. He is slow in pulling his leg back, and you hear a pop from his ankle and a cry out.
How you narratively described taking Stamina/HP damage is a wonderful way of describing it, but the fact that you have to narratively dance around Stamina/HP/going from one to the other that is rather grating.
Which makes your follow up post rather odd. Disintegrate does as much "visual" damage as the GM descibes. Mechanically disintegrate does a LOT of damage.
Having 1 pool of HP instead of 2 doesn't remove visuals or the narrative.
Yes, but the hp system by itself is worse. The disintegrate doesn’t do any noticeable damage, but the cleric heals him of... no damage.. just because.This is probably one of the only problems I do have with stamina. The disintegrate spell is such a good example too. You watched the guy get hit by it. You've seen this spell destroy solid stone. But the guy isn't even scathed after getting directly hit? And everyone can do this if they just have enough HP? It's a bit ridiculous.Ah. You work your narrative backwards from the way I do.
“I cast disintegrate” he avoids most of the effects then most mear mortals have ever been known to do
“I kick him” His fatigue catches up with him. He is slow in pulling his leg back, and you hear a pop from his ankle and a cry out.
What do you mean? If someone is low health I will always describe their wounds they have taken. If a creature survives a disintegrate spell I'll say their torso is spraying blood everywhere as part of their chest has a literal hole that's been disintegrated away. I can't describe it that way if someone just has their stamina gone because it wouldn't make sense that they can just sit there take a breather and suddenly the hole is gone.
Now Treat Wounds doesn't really fix this completely since really it's just 10 minutes of medical aid. But it's a hell of a lot more believable that these legendary people can use natural remedies and such to begin heal a hole in someones chest, then these people can just take 10 minutes and the hole suddenly goes away.
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This is probably one of the only problems I do have with stamina. The disintegrate spell is such a good example too. You watched the guy get hit by it. You've seen this spell destroy solid stone. But the guy isn't even scathed after getting directly hit? And everyone can do this if they just have enough HP? It's a bit ridiculous.
I actually really prefer the stamina rules, and can not see any real complexity in adding them to pathfinder. I like that it shows the line between negligible wear and tear during combat, and where you are being worn down to no longer avoiding more serious injuries that need medical attention.*nods*
And I dislike it since it doesn't accomplish that (to me anyway), you have two HP pools that are forced to flavor two different ways (minor vs major damage) but that tends to fall though.
"I cast disintegrate."
"You winded him."
"I kick him in the shin."
"You have grievously wounded him."Ah. You work your narrative backwards from the way I do.
“I cast disintegrate” he avoids most of the effects then most mear mortals have ever been known to do
“I kick him” His fatigue catches up with him. He is slow in pulling his leg back, and you hear a pop from his ankle and a cry out.
This isn't a problem created by Stamina though. This was just as much a problem when you had high HP values. A PC can take Disintegrate spell to the face if they've got enough points, whether its stamina or hp.
In the case of stamina, you can describe it as the spell only grazes him, discharging only a portion of it's power into the target, winding them rather than destroying.
Arguably disintegrate should just straight up kill you, but that's too powerful an effect, so it started doing HP damage instead. But unless it outright kills you, then you have this dissonance.
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I would not want stamina introduced.
The game needs to meet a fine balance of being able to play with some non-dedicated healers, while allowing dedicated healers to feel useful (and not requiring dedicated healers to be just healbots).
I don't think there's a way to make dedicated healers (or non-gish clerics in general) playable with the stamina system as it, by nature, de-emphasizes healing. Especially with how weak buffs/control spells are, there really aren't good things for a dedicated healer to fall back on for 50-70% of the fight.
One could argue that dedicated healers are something that should not exist. It's a purely reactive role that doesn't really contribute to the success conditions as much as it is a patch for overly deadly game design.
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This is probably one of the only problems I do have with stamina. The disintegrate spell is such a good example too. You watched the guy get hit by it. You've seen this spell destroy solid stone. But the guy isn't even scathed after getting directly hit? And everyone can do this if they just have enough HP? It's a bit ridiculous.
I actually really prefer the stamina rules, and can not see any real complexity in adding them to pathfinder. I like that it shows the line between negligible wear and tear during combat, and where you are being worn down to no longer avoiding more serious injuries that need medical attention.*nods*
And I dislike it since it doesn't accomplish that (to me anyway), you have two HP pools that are forced to flavor two different ways (minor vs major damage) but that tends to fall though.
"I cast disintegrate."
"You winded him."
"I kick him in the shin."
"You have grievously wounded him."Ah. You work your narrative backwards from the way I do.
“I cast disintegrate” he avoids most of the effects then most mear mortals have ever been known to do
“I kick him” His fatigue catches up with him. He is slow in pulling his leg back, and you hear a pop from his ankle and a cry out.
This isn't a problem created by Stamina though. This was just as much a problem when you had high HP values. A PC can take Disintegrate spell to the face if they've got enough points, whether its stamina or hp.
In the case of stamina, you can describe it as the spell only grazes him, discharging only a portion of it's power into the target, winding them rather than destroying.
And you can describe it just the same with HP alone if the PCs have enough, which is a point in HP alone's favor since you can flavor it however you wish rather than having to have two specific ways of flavoring damage depending on which HP pool is being attacked.
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True, but not nearly the point. The point is that you can abstract NPC health because it's not nearly as important as PC health.Gonna disagree on that.
PC health gets to be granular with subtleties.Why? Or at least in regards to HP itself when they also have Resolve/Hero Points as well.
If we're getting that specific about a non-monster NPC, we're either dealing with what is effectively a MacGuffin plot point or we're too deep in the weeds for a bit player.???
Yes you should (neener neener).That's unnecessary.
Honestly, unless a game is specifically going for realism (so not d20 games), PCs need to have different standards for healing, dying, and death. In most 3.5E D&D games I played, we essentially abstracted monster death so that they were dead at -1 hit point because it was a little ghoulish for our good characters to rifle through fallen humanoids' pockets while they bleed out over 9 rounds.We have different rules for death/dying, but having different rules for healing/health is just needless complexity that doesn't add or enhance anything.
We've already established that NPCs are built with different rules than PCs, why is their health being streamlined an issue?Because the more you divorce every aspect of a creature from the set rules others use the more jarring it is, not to mention the more rules you have to keep mind of. Not a fan of monsters being built completely differently, really not a fan of items and equipment having absolutely no effect on a monster's stats, would absolutely not be a fan of them having a completely different way of health/healing.
That doesn't make it not be an additional needless complexity.I've never had anyone have a question about it more than twice.
First Time
Me: "Take 8 damage."
Player: "So I subtract it off my hit points?"
Me: "First your Stamina; when that's gone, then your hit points."
Player: "Okay."Second Time
Me: "Take 4 damage."
Player: "So is this Stamina or Hit Point damage?"
Me: "If you have Stamina left, it goes to Stamina. Any remainder goes to Hit Points."
Player: "Oh, I get it now. Right."And I never have a problem with it again.
This is an already extremely complicated game; Stamina rules barely register.And it will be even less complicated if the HP rules don't add on to that, which Stamina/Resolve and a completely unique system for NPCs would do.
[on attacks bypassing one pool]I honestly don't expect it to become common enough that it becomes a major issue.We'll have to wait and see, it won't take that many though.
Actually it was a static-healing channel, so he technically didn't roll;(Wait, so Healing Touch then?)
if the enemies had done 8 less damage or I had let someone else take a hit, there would have been zero extra maintenance.If negligible damage was done no resources would be spent remedying it, that's not unique to the Stamina system.
We had a knock-down, drag out fight right after that and I was in no danger of death due to lack of Resolve.
Cool.
Even if a Cleric's healing is now separate, they still have to decide on how to spend their combat actions between healing and fighting; Starfinder and the Stamina system resolved that nicely by making half the health pool self-maintaining.No it didn't, it made one class feel useless since they couldn't use their abilities unless significant damage was dealt. And on the other side is the Envoy who's ability is to heal Stamina of someone who was just damaged so they have to choose in combat too, which becomes even more constraining if there's not a way to heal HP in the group. With Treat Wounds all of the Health is self-maintaining, not just half. It's limited by failing the check, Short Rest is limited by Resolve. The former won't make you die faster when you go down though.
...and at low level you really don't have other things to do with Resolve other than get Stamina back or Not Die. Kinda interferes with your point of the pool being used for different things being a problem. Either you have enough RP to spend on really effective stuff and still Not Die, or you have basically nothing to do with it except Not Die. Most RP powers start showing up around 6th level, at which point a reasonably statted character will have 7 or 8 RP... which is plenty (way more than I've ever needed).Depends on the game. And those things (Dying/Resting/Class) make that leash way too tight a feel.
More like:
"I cast disintigrate."
"The effort of resisting your magic leaves him sallow and weak."
"I kick him in the shin."
"Seeing that he is unable to gather the energy to resist, your kick goes through his defenses like a ton of bricks. You feel a slight 'crack' and he yelps in pain."
Not a bad way of doing it, but the fact that you have to be wary of which HP pool they're in is irksome.
Also flip that around, do you have your players declare when they go from Stamina to HP? Possible to cause too many slowdowns if you're trying to be narrative.
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One could argue that dedicated healers are something that should not exist. It's a purely reactive role that doesn't really contribute to the success conditions as much as it is a patch for overly deadly game design.One would be making a terrible argument then. Might as well do away with tanks or skill monkeys.
Playing a support character is fun for many people and should be a viable playstyle.
Whoa there. I love support characters in Starfinder. The Stamina system doesn't preclude support characters. Envoys are one of the best classes, and their Stamina heals aren't even a mandatory class feature!
Dedicated healers are support characters, but support characters are not all dedicated healers. Support can and should be a full range of activities, of which healing should be one part. Building a character that ONLY heals is essentially giving up: you're accepting that you can't do anything but wait for the damage and then put bandages on the boo-boos. I don't know, but I feel like MMOs have trained a segment of gamers to just accept this fate, but it doesn't need to be that way.
If you can't do much for (and don't need to) the first half of damage taken, then that frees you up to actively participate toward the conclusion of the encounter, which sounds fun for me!
Rysky, the thread has gotten too long to easily quote.
First off, sorry for the "neener neener" bit. I felt like you were being overly dismissive.
Me: "PCs should have more complex health rules than NPCs."
You: "No they shouldn't."
Me: "Uh-huh!"
You: "Nuh-uh!"
ET CETERA AD INFINATUM
We have different philosophies of the roles and rules of NPCs, and that's okay. The fact of the matter is that Paizo is moving in the direction of treating them differently, which makes a certain kind of game easier. I wouldn't really recommend it for, say, a gritty World of Darkness game, but a D&D-style heroic fantasy? Different rules all day long. It's only really jarring if you can peek under the hood, but a certain level of suspension of disbelief is needed to play any game, regardless.
RE: My SFS fight Wednesday night.
Yes, I believe it was a Healing Touch. We happened to have a Healing Connection Mystic with us this time around.
My point was that, if that 8 damage was done to someone who still had Stamina, there would have been no maintenance needed other than a spent Resolve point on a couple characters, and the Mystic's Touch wouldn't have even been needed (I was glad he got to contribute in combat AND use his connection power, though; Mystics often complain about not being able to do much other than their spells, but he managed to land a number of auto-pistol hits).
As Malik_Content said, almost universally players will let the table know if they're out of Stamina. I also try to let the players know if the monsters are "bloodied," to borrow a term from 4E D&D. It helps them prioritize the combat objectives.
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I've always liked the bloodied terminology, it feels good in narrative.
And you can describe it just the same with HP alone if the PCs have enough, which is a point in HP alone's favor since you can flavor it however you wish rather than having to have two specific ways of flavoring damage depending on which HP pool is being attacked.
Nah, IMO you need two ways of flavoring it at minimum, regardless of whether or not you use stamina, since in theory only the last blow that takes you to 0 or negative is a "real" blow. Even at 1 hp you functioned just as well as at full hp.
Ideally in my opinion you would have the HP you gain at level 1 and never gain HP again. Instead you would only gain stamina (though obviously for this to work you would need to increase how much stamina is gained).
This makes the majority of your ability to resist damage stamina based, and means that direct damage to hp is super scary (as it should be).
Though it does basically eliminate the need for healing, except in the now very scary situations of things that directly damage HP.
All of which for me, is exactly what I want.
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One would be making a terrible argument then. Might as well do away with tanks or skill monkeys.
Playing a support character is fun for many people and should be a viable playstyle.
'Viable' is fine (and it's already applicable in Starfinder, btw). 'Required' isn't. Many don't want to play the healer and feeling like the system requires it doesn't help anything, trope or not.
Using a Stamina like system doesn't have to nerf dedicated healers. With how available treat wounds is by default, since people only get bolstered from individual healers one at a time, if a stamina system were implemented, I'd make stamina refresh's not be tied to a limited resolve mechanic.
I wouldn't bother to stop HP healing from spilling over to Stamina healing. Since HP healing would normally be a limited resource, why someone would intentionally burn a bunch of HP healing on stamina very much would be odd, since stamina would presumably be refreshed much easier with a short rest. Is it really worth spending a spell slot to recover a die or two of stamina points right now, or simply rest ten minutes and get all or most of them back for just the time. The latter would normally seem a better use of resources.
At present taking Medicine as a skill almost seems like a mandated skill, for sake of something like Pathfinder Society, since you won't know if there will be any dedicated healers available in any random party makeup. Worse, someone else could accuse you of not being a team player if you didn't take it, since anyone could botch a treatment roll, it almost demands at least 2 in each party then. Alternately, if a healing potion would reset treat wounds bolstering, it might reduce the bottleneck caused by an individual skill healer making a botch. From a storytelling standpoint, the individual bolstering of Treat Wounds per healer seems to break some of the constancy for the story aspect, but I understand the game mechanic intent.
The point system is to kind of put a total limit on the adventuring day, so that you can't just go on forever.
Perhaps you should just be limited to a number of rests based on the expected number of encounters per day (which was 4 in PF1, but I'm not sure if they held in Starfinder or PF2).
I understand the purpose is to have a form of attrition over the day. I get that. However, in the end, if stamina is to represent the sort of light sprains, scrapes, light bruises, and such that impact someone for a time, but you can generally work past. From a story concept it doesn't necessarily need to be limited. If you get woke up every hour to fight rats, other than being fatigued, does it really concern you if the few HP you lost in each encounter end up not being enough to deplete you? Assuming we are allowing frequent refreshes in the first part, I'd rather see them be free for this minor damage. The stuff that gets past the first half, that stuff I'd rather see be slower to heal, and require resources, be it magic, skilled treatment that is limited in number of uses, etc.
If you want, make it so that you can't be Fatigued to get free refresh, or limit how much of it will return for free.
I don't mind the idea of there being a resource that gets consumed refreshing stamina, but I don't see it as really necessary. Easy to further house rule one way or another to facilitate a particular feel of play. Some people would see it as 3 resources, however, instead of 2 (or 1).
You could tie it to Con mod. That way your barbarian who is in front getting battered around a lot can also recouperate more times naturally than the wizard who is hopefully avoiding taking much damage. Although this would possibly make Con too good.The point system is to kind of put a total limit on the adventuring day, so that you can't just go on forever.
Perhaps you should just be limited to a number of rests based on the expected number of encounters per day (which was 4 in PF1, but I'm not sure if they held in Starfinder or PF2).
You don't have to tie it to a stat; you can tie it to class.
Like, give 2/day to non-martials, 3 to martials, and 4 to Barbarians to make them feel special.Then, feats can increase them: a general feat to get one more, Barbarian dedication give one more too, and some classes may have their own feats to play with them.
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But more broadly, I find myself asking : Why isn't there more Starfinder in this ?
...
Some comments from 1 or more of the design team, seem convinced that the type of stories you tell in Fantasy & Science Fantasy are different enough that the same mechanics often can't work & I....I just don't see it myself.
This is where I'm at. Starfinder is a great system, and I would absolutely love it if PF2e was aligned closer to that system to encourage tables to use both and have to learn fewer things.
Also, let me summarize my last Starfinder session and see how it compares to Pathfinder.
1. Met with a clan of dwarves, drank beer and learned about their missing clansman who hasn't been heard from after going off to search for treasure.
2. Traveled to where he was last thought to be and found his abandoned ship.
3. Saved him and some of his team from local monsters that had captured them and planned to use them as food.
4. Went further into the old abandoned magical research facility in search of the unaccounted for member of the dwarf's team.
5. Found a portal covered in runes that could connect to the elemental planes of air or fire. Also found some spellbooks.
6. Fought a huge fire-wind elemental and looted some magical research stuff.
7. Found the last member of the expedition and returned to be rewarded with a ring of resistance and all the beer we could carry.
During this session we had a few short rests, and some of us came out with two or three resolve left. We didn't have a healer. It was fun as all heck.