Can We Stop Saying "Treadmill" Like It's a Bad Thing?

[John Lynch 106]

Nettah wrote:

John Lynch 106 said wrote:

And yet you can bet the house on the fact GMs will continue to misinterpret the DC table for the entirety of PF2e without substantial changes. Happened with D&D 4e and there is no material difference in Paizo's implementation..

It's hard or impossible to make everybody get the rules a 100% of the time, that isn't really Paizo's fault. I think it would likely make a terrible rulebook to read for almost everyone if it was impossible to miss anything in the text, because it would keep stating the same thing over and over again. But a section like the current "Difficulty classes" in the rulebook should help. Perhaps include something from tables 10-2 to table 10-6 in the skill section and it should be easy enough that most groups wouldn't miss it.

EDIT: Just cut out the "trivial" part of the tables though. To me that seems more confusing than helpful.

It isn't one or two people. During 4th Ed's life we constantly saw this mechanic misused time and time again. This isn't a handful of people getting a complex mechanic wrong. It is a consistent issue that was widespread for 4th ed.

[EDIT]: It isn't just GMs who get this wrong. Paizo's own designers are now misusing the table by setting the DC based on the level of the person carrying out the task rather than the difficulty of the task.

If you all want to make out it's bad GMs "playing the game wrong" and that these GMs "fail to have basic reading comprehension skills" then fine. But you must levy such statements against the designers of the game themselves.

Alternatively you can admit the table is problematic in how it's presented needs to change substantially to avoid GMs and designers from misusing the table.

[Nettah]

John Lynch 106 said wrote:

It isn't one or two people. During 4th Ed's life we constantly saw this mechanic misused time and time again. This isn't a handful of people getting a complex mechanic wrong. It is a consistent issue that was widespread for 4th ed.

[EDIT]: It isn't just GMs who get this wrong. Paizo's own designers are now misusing the table by setting the DC based on the level of the person carrying out the task rather than the difficulty of the task.

If you all want to make out it's bad GMs "playing the game wrong" and that these GMs "fail to have basic reading comprehension skills" then fine. But you must levy such statements against the designers of the game themselves.

Alternatively you can admit the table is problematic in how it's presented needs to change substantially to avoid GMs and designers from misusing the table.

This baffles me. It might be hard for me to get how someone doesn't get it, because it wasn't an issue for me. I really don't get where the confusion comes from. Is it the name of the table that is confusing? (I mean sure, if you just take the table 10-2 and doesn't read anything else from the chapter you might get confused) To me it seems like people honestly either haven't read the chapter or lack basic reading comprehension skills.

I do agree that the playtest rulebook can be a bit of a mess from time to time, and some of the information should be presented earlier in the skills chapter, which might have made some initial confusion; but how can you have read the section "Creating appropriate challenges" and still think that climbing a rope scales with YOUR level.

[Edge93]

^^This. The rules here are blatantly clear to anyone who actually reads them rather than misinterpreting or just making assumptions. Just because a lot of people are doing it wrong doesn't make that wrong way right, nor does it necessarily mean the info is being presented wrong. It could be presented wrong but people seeing it and reasonably having no trouble understanding it kinda flies in the face of that. And I'm seeing this in multiple areas where people are complaining about how no one in their group gets this or that while my group and others understand it perfectly well. To me this together with how bullheaded a lot of people are being towards 2e on these forums points to an altogether different problem than supposedly misrepresented info. When the book blatantly says x works y way and people don't get it that isn't the book's fault.

[Gorbacz]

When you believe that your puppy got kicked, every hammer is nail. Or something to that effect.

[Matthew Downie]

Nettah wrote:

how can you have read the section "Creating appropriate challenges" and still think that climbing a rope scales with YOUR level.

Creating appropriate challenges wrote:

It’s important that you don’t simply make the DC arbitrarily higher or lower with the PCs’ level. Any increase must be justified based on how the challenge actually increased, and thus how success is more impressive

Let's say a PC wants to climb a random wall they just found, a wall that has not been detailed in any way.

Options for the GM:
(1) Work out what level the wall is likely to be... somehow.
(2) Assume by default that the wall is the same level as the party; if they're high level, attempt to justify this by saying the wall is smooth and has no good handholds.

[Vic Ferrari]

Well, fortunately, for me, like 4th Ed, the treadmill is very easily omitted or altered.

With treadmill:
20th-level Fighter, AC 45, +34 to hit
Pit Fiend, AC 44, +35 to hit
Fire Giant, AC 28, +20 to hit
Ghoul, AC 15, +7 to hit

Without:
20th-level Fighter, AC 25, +14 to hit
Pit Fiend, AC 24, +15 to hit
Fire Giant, AC 18, +10 to hit
Ghoul, AC 14, +6 to hit

I prefer the latter, as it opens up the threat range of monsters, and is aesthetically more pleasant to me.

[Nettah]

Matthew Downie said wrote:

Options for the GM:

(1) Work out what level the wall is likely to be... somehow.
(2) Assume by default that the wall is the same level as the party; if they're high level, attempt to justify this by saying the wall is smooth and has no good handholds.

Well depending on where they encounter that wall you should have an idea of what the wall is. Is it a castle wall, a cliff etc. Table 10-4 states that a cliff is a level 2 challenge. So maybe if the wall doesn't have good handholds make it a level 3 hard or a level 2 severe.

If you don't want to look stuff up and don't remember it just have them roll the check and compare the result to the dc's. If the check is a 19 the wall would have to be level 5 or higher for them to fail the hard check does that make sense to you in the given situation?

It's left quite open to the DM, which can be both good and bad.

Personally I would like some more sample situations and their levels, to easier make a reasonable dc with a quick glance at those.

[Vic Ferrari]

kaisc006 wrote:

We started seeing the treadmill thought of scaling skill DCs in Star Wars saga edition where characters got half their level added to everything with trained skills getting a +5 bump... and that received a lot of flak just like the treadmill in pf2e.

Bingo, and SWSE was a "snapshot" into 4th Ed design at the time; the +Heroic level deal makes a mess of, what is otherwise, one of the best d20 games. At high levels it completely breaks down (Defences, Skills), but, again, very easy to omit.

[Gaterie]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't see anything in the PF2 rulebook that suggests the DC to climb the same slope will ever change, in fact I believe it says the opposite.

Skill DCs mostly scale because the challenges heroes face scale in order to be befitting of someone of their stature. For treating wounds, the DC scaling is mostly just assuming "higher level people will get wounded by more terrible things, hence their wounds are more grievous and thus harder to treat" but is a bit odd.

Except you'll never climb the same slope twice. You climb a different slope each time - and each slope is slightly different than the preceding one, so each slope is exactly level-appropriate.

At level 1 you climb a 61° slope, at level 2 you climb a 62° slope, at level 3 you climb a 63° slope... And at level 20 you climb a 80° slope.

This is poor adventure design - but this is literally how treat wound works: the medic never heal exactly the same wound, and the wounds he heals happens to be exactly level-appropriate for his skill. If another medic with a different level treats the same wound, the level of the wound change.

This is also literally how lingering performance works.

This is what will happens with every skill. You can try to convince yourself it won't happen - although the designers themselves are using this kind of design. But you won't convince me - or anyone else who's actually reading the stuff written by the designers instead of imagining how the game could evolve.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

John Lynch 106 wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't see anything in the PF2 rulebook that suggests the DC to climb the same slope will ever change, in fact I believe it says the opposite.

And yet you can bet the house on the fact GMs will continue to misinterpret the DC table for the entirety of PF2e without substantial changes. Happened with D&D 4e and there is no material difference in Paizo's implementation.

I mean, "reading comprehension" is not a strong point of modern society as a whole, but I'm not sure you can do anything about it as a roleplaying game company.

It's not a question of "reading comprehension".

The designers of the rules themselves do that mistake. Are you arguing they don't comprehend the rule they have written?

Nettah wrote:

It's hard or impossible to make everybody get the rules a 100% of the time, that isn't really Paizo's fault.

Paizo's designers don't understand the rules. This is Paizo's fault.

We can't expect any GM to understand the rule if they are already too hard for the people who wrote them.

Nettah wrote:

This baffles me. It might be hard for me to get how someone doesn't get it, because it wasn't an issue for me. I really don't get where the confusion comes from.

So you're smarter than the designers from Paizo. Maybe you should apply for a job?

joke aside, i don't know where the confusion comes from either. But it's an objective fact that the people who wrote that table are making the confusion. Given that, we can safely assume this rule is far too complicated and should be dropped.

Edge93 wrote:

^^This. The rules here are blatantly clear to anyone who actually reads them rather than misinterpreting or just making assumptions. Just because a lot of people are doing it wrong doesn't make that wrong way right, nor does it necessarily mean the info is being presented wrong. It could be presented wrong but people seeing it and reasonably having no trouble understanding it kinda flies in the face of that. And I'm seeing this in multiple areas where people are complaining about how no one in their group gets this or that while my group and others understand it perfectly well. To me this together with how bullheaded a lot of people are being towards 2e on these forums points to an altogether different problem than supposedly misrepresented info. When the book blatantly says x works y way and people don't get it that isn't the book's fault.

And yet the people who wrote that rule don't understand it.

The game saying blatantly saying x has no bearing when the guy who wrote the doesn't get how it works. It's the designer's fault if he writes rules he can't understand.

[John Lynch 106]

Edge93 wrote:

Just because a lot of people are doing it wrong doesn't make that wrong way right, nor does it necessarily mean the info is being presented wrong....To me this together with how bullheaded a lot of people are being towards 2e on these forums points to an altogether different problem than supposedly misrepresented info. When the book blatantly says x works y way and people don't get it that isn't the book's fault.

You have one of two choices:

1) Pretend this this rule won't be misapplied. When faced point blank with evidence to the contrary pretend it doesn't exist, denigrate people's reading comprehension skills and accuse them of having an agenda; or
2) Accept it will be misapplied. Acknowledge that the designers of the game itself have misapplied it in at least one instance thus far and find another way to achieve the same result.

[Matthew Downie]

Gaterie wrote:

At level 1 you climb a 61° slope, at level 2 you climb a 62° slope, at level 3 you climb a 63° slope... And at level 20 you climb a 80° slope.

This is poor adventure design

That's why the 'treadmill' issue is hard to agree on: because (outside of a few anomalies like the v1.3 Treat Wounds DC) it's adventure design, not game design.

If I create a big detailed sandbox campaign world, with high level and low level areas that my players are free to navigate as they wish, levelling up will feel meaningful. That creature that they ran away from before? Now they can beat it. That mountain that only the Rogue could climb? Now the entire party can get up it.

If I create a very linear campaign, then most of the challenges I specifically create to be obstacles to the party will likely feel 'treadmill'. However, there will also be incidental skill checks that are not level-based. A level 10 PC falls out of the boat in a lake and has to fight while swimming. What's the DC of the swim check? 5, because I didn't create the lake to be a challenge to high level swimmers, it's just a lake.

[Vic Ferrari]

Matthew Downie wrote:

If I create a big detailed sandbox campaign world, with high level and low level areas that my players are free to navigate as they wish, levelling up will feel meaningful. That creature that they ran away from before? Now they can beat it. That mountain that only the Rogue could climb? Now the entire party can get up it.

Absolutely, but you can still have that without unnecessary number inflation ("...but...but this goes to 11..."). Like in AD&D, the numbers mean more, to me, most PCs and monsters don't have an AC better than 0/20, and if they do, it usually means it's a badass monster, or magic is involved. Similar deal in Basic and 5th Ed. Of course high level characters should get better at what they do, I don't think anyone is arguing against that (any form of scaling or advancement).

[Gaterie]

John Lynch 106 wrote:

2) Accept it will be misapplied. Acknowledge that the designers of the game itself have misapplied it in at least one instance thus far and find another way to achieve the same result.

We could pretend this is an isolated mistake, if there was only 1 instance.

Except this is how lingering performance works since day 1, people have complained about this, and now they are making the same mistake again. There's no reason to think they won't do the same mistake again and again.

[Matthew Downie]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Absolutely, but you can still have that without unnecessary number inflation

Number inflation has always been the main way characters and monsters get stronger. "A level 17 monk has basic unarmed damage dice of 8d4." "This spell launches four large spheres doing 10 to 40 points of damage and eight smaller spheres of half the diameter doing 5 to 20 points of damage." "Melee bite +37 (4d8+15/15–20/×3 plus grab), 2 claws +37 (1d12+15), 2 gores +37 (1d10+15), tail slap +32 (3d8+7)"

The PF2 system has its advantages, like being easy to house-rule if you don't like big numbers or rapidly increasing character power; you can make the level proficiency bonus 1 per 2 levels, or 1 per 5 levels, or zero. This is a lot easier than taking away the +20 BAB bonus from PF1.

[Megistone]

I think that just adding a good sized example of static DCs, as many have suggested already, would go a long way to make the intended rule more clear to everyone.

[Lucas Yew]

Many a woes shall be fixed if more and more absolute DCs are defined into the core rules.

Treat wounds should be much better with a fixed DC, with extra healing based on how much you surpassed that one and only target number...

[Vic Ferrari]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Absolutely, but you can still have that without unnecessary number inflation

Number inflation has always been the main way characters and monsters get stronger. "A level 17 monk has basic unarmed damage dice of 8d4."

Yes, damage (more) and hit points (more) are part of advancement, but that is not what the treadmill deal is about (what is being talked about).

[Fury of the Tempest]

Megistone wrote:

I think that just adding a good sized example of static DCs, as many have suggested already, would go a long way to make the intended rule more clear to everyone.

This. So very, very much this.

[Matthew Downie]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Absolutely, but you can still have that without unnecessary number inflation

Number inflation has always been the main way characters and monsters get stronger. "A level 17 monk has basic unarmed damage dice of 8d4."

Yes, damage (more) and hit points (more) are part of advancement, but that is not what the treadmill deal is about (what is being talked about).

They're all treadmills; some are just more familiar than others because they've been around for longer.

Is hit point inflation ("I can now fall 200 feet and survive") good?
What about attack bonus inflation (+27 to hit)? Saving throw inflation? Is skill bonus inflation (+27 Athletics) good and skill target DC inflation bad? Or are they both bad?

[Vic Ferrari]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Absolutely, but you can still have that without unnecessary number inflation

Number inflation has always been the main way characters and monsters get stronger. "A level 17 monk has basic unarmed damage dice of 8d4."

Yes, damage (more) and hit points (more) are part of advancement, but that is not what the treadmill deal is about (what is being talked about).

They're all treadmills;

Not, they really are not. I mean, I guess if we're being totally disingenuous, gaining money/treasure is a treadmill; everything and its mother can be considers a treadmill, if you stretch enough, but let's not get hysterical.

[John Lynch 106]

Megistone wrote:

I think that just adding a good sized example of static DCs, as many have suggested already, would go a long way to make the intended rule more clear to everyone.

D&D 4th ed had that. It had a lot more examples then the playtest has. It didn't stop the rule from being misused by a wide variety of people. More DCs doesn't help unless you put so many example DCs in that the table might as well not exist.

[Matthew Downie]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

They're all treadmills;

Not, they really are not.

How is "PCs do more damage but now they fight monsters with more hit points" not a treadmill?

[Vic Ferrari]

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

They're all treadmills;

Not, they really are not.

How is "PCs do more damage but now they fight monsters with more hit points" not a treadmill?

It's a dishonest analogy and an attempt to redefine what something means (especially in this context).

HP and damage is a big part of advancement in 5th Ed, but neither of those are considered treadmills, I mean, really.

[Dire Ursus]

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced, but you should be able to "get ahead" of the curve if you wanted. If a bard decides to invest skill increases and items to improve their performance skill they can make lingering performance activate more often. However if a bard decides to just leave performance alone and not touch it at all they start to fall behind and it begins to work less often. This seems like good design to me, and makes lingering performance always an interesting give or take ability while rewarding those that want to spend resources to improve their ability to use lingering performance rather than their combat ability, or their spells.

[Gorbacz]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

They're all treadmills;

Not, they really are not.

How is "PCs do more damage but now they fight monsters with more hit points" not a treadmill?

It's a dishonest analogy and an attempt to redefine what something means (especially in this context).

HP and damage is a big part of advancement in 5th Ed, but neither of those are considered treadmills, I mean, really.

It's neither dishonest nor a redefinition, merely a presentation of a different look at the philosophical aspects of the treadmill. For perhaps, wrought might be this thought, verily when looking at somebody running on a treadmill must we ask ourselves this simple and honest question: are we not running on some even bigger treadmill?

[Vic Ferrari]

Gorbacz wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Matthew Downie wrote:

They're all treadmills;

Not, they really are not.

How is "PCs do more damage but now they fight monsters with more hit points" not a treadmill?

It's a dishonest analogy and an attempt to redefine what something means (especially in this context).

HP and damage is a big part of advancement in 5th Ed, but neither of those are considered treadmills, I mean, really.

It's neither dishonest nor a redefinition, merely a presentation of a different look at the philosophical aspects of the treadmill.

Not really, it's pretty much what I said it was; the "treadmill", as it it is known, came about with SWSE, and thereafter 4th Ed, it doesn't work out so hot in the former, but works fine in latter. HP and damage have always been a part of D&D, the "treadmill" has not.

[ryric]

Sure, older editions have had a bit of a treadmill effect, but the key was in 3.X and PF1e that player choices could affect the speed at which their character advanced along the treadmill. You could actually choose to get better at certain things by neglecting others, and so the treadmill effect was much more hidden. Attack rolls scaled faster in PF1e than AC and so your ability to hit seems to get better even though you are fighting tougher foes. In AD&D1e/2e, saves all around got easier as you leveled so you knew you were more likely to make them (this also had the effect of powering down high level SoS/SoD effects).

[Mekkis]

Dire Ursus wrote:

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced,

I disagree. As levels increase, the methods of achieving Conditional bonuses increase too. With the lack of stacking, this is a serious consideration.

Dire Ursus wrote:

but you should be able to "get ahead" of the curve if you wanted. If a bard decides to invest skill increases and items to improve their performance skill they can make lingering performance activate more often. However if a bard decides to just leave performance alone and not touch it at all they start to fall behind and it begins to work less often. This seems like good design to me, and makes lingering performance always an interesting give or take ability while rewarding those that want to spend resources to improve their ability to use lingering performance rather than their combat ability, or their spells.

Lingering performance isn't actually a very interesting ability. It literally gives 1 action for one Spell Point. If you succeed on the check. There is no way to call it otherwise.

With Lingering performance, the DC to achieve the same outcome increases with level. This is the definition of a treadmill.

[Crayon]

Perhaps PF2 would work better if we omitted Levels altogether?

[Starfox]

Quoted for truth.

John Lynch 106 wrote:

It isn't just GMs who get this wrong. Paizo's own designers are now misusing the table by setting the DC based on the level of the person carrying out the task rather than the difficulty of the task.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Let's say a PC wants to climb a random wall they just found, a wall that has not been detailed in any way.

Options for the GM:
(1) Work out what level the wall is likely to be... somehow.
(2) Assume by default that the wall is the same level as the party; if they're high level, attempt to justify this by saying the wall is smooth and has no good handholds.

[ChibiNyan]

Starfox wrote:

Quoted for truth.

John Lynch 106 wrote:

It isn't just GMs who get this wrong. Paizo's own designers are now misusing the table by setting the DC based on the level of the person carrying out the task rather than the difficulty of the task.

Matthew Downie wrote:

Let's say a PC wants to climb a random wall they just found, a wall that has not been detailed in any way.

Options for the GM:
(1) Work out what level the wall is likely to be... somehow.
(2) Assume by default that the wall is the same level as the party; if they're high level, attempt to justify this by saying the wall is smooth and has no good handholds.

It would be nice if the Climb skill had objective guidelines for how difficult it is, like before. Not just "The GM will look at table 10-2 and pick one".

[StratoNexus]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Not really, it's pretty much what I said it was; the "treadmill", as it it is known, came about with SWSE, and thereafter 4th Ed, it doesn't work out so hot in the former, but works fine in latter. HP and damage have always been a part of D&D, the "treadmill" has not.

It is funny how perception colors our logic.

Now, instead of speaking about a treadmill as representing how our character's abilities increase, but so do the challenges we face, there is a this concept of "The Treadmill", that did not exist in D&D before some specified time as determined by our own perception.
In AD&D 2e
Calculated THAC0 was a treadmill, although AC was at least bound, but as your THAC0 went down, so too did many of the enemy ACs.
Your HPs increased with level, but so too did damage from enemy attacks. Enemy HPs went up, but so too did your damage (neither of these things increased by nearly as much as in 3.x, but they were still a treadmill, unless you chose to never face higher level threats).
Saving throws were not on a treadmill, you just generally got better and better at those (but what you were avoiding often got much, much more important to avoid).
Skills (non-weapon proficiencies) were not a treadmill, but you also never really got better at them.

There is very little in PF2e playtest that is inherently more of a treadmill than PF1e and 3.x
For skills, most of the static checks from PF1e still exist in PF2e. Most of the checks that do become harder are due to harder creatures increasing the difficulty (this is no different than in PF1e, it was more difficult to Acro past a creature with a higher CMD, it was harder to stealth past a critter with higher Perception, you need a higher Diplomacy check vs the nobleman than the merchant, etc.).

That said, I am all for pointing out where they have used the treadmill in a way that could be bad. Treat Wounds and Lingering Composition as designed are examples of what I perceive as an issue. Scaling HPs, to-hit, saves, and AC by level do not bother me personally.

[Ascalaphus]

I think it might be helpful to split 10-2 into two separate tables: one for diagnosing DCs for specialists, and one for casuals.

Someone who's specializing in a skill probably has a good ability score, increases their proficiency level above Trained with the (few) increases they get, and gets a skill item. Most of the current table seems scaled towards specialists.

A casual user of the skill took it at some point, probably level 1. They have a decent but not stellar ability score, spent their skill increases on an different skill, and didn't get the skill item. Because resources are scarce. The casual user gets left behind everything but the Easy column of the current table.

I understand the idea of DCs rising to keep challenging PCs, and the current system does keep PCs in closer bounds with each other than the PF1 system. But PCs do grow apart by deciding which skills "not to fall behind in". You don't feel like you get any better in those skills, you just didn't get worse.

I think a better-calibrated treadmill needs to be designed with both the specialist and casual case in mind, and allow specialists to get a bit better odds while casuals don't get left behind quite as much as they do now. Becoming better at a skill should let the specialist pull ahead of the casual; not as much as in PF1, but still noticeably so. So the DC should probably be more geared towards the casual.

[StratoNexus]

ChibiNyan wrote:

It would be nice if the Climb skill had objective guidelines for how difficult it is, like before. Not just "The GM will look at table 10-2 and pick one".

You mean like they spell out on table 10-4 (also see 10-3, 10-5, and 10-6) and in the Ordinary Tasks subsection?

I do think we firmly identified that they ought to put the generic chart LAST in the rulebook and on the same page as the more specific examples. That way you can't stop at the generic table without finding the specific tables.

Use the specific tables first. If nothing there makes sense and only if you feel it would add excitement to the scenario, consider using the generic table to assign a DC either based on something similar in the specific charts or possibly the player's current level.

[swordchucks]

John Lynch 106 wrote:

2) Accept it will be misapplied. Acknowledge that the designers of the game itself have misapplied it in at least one instance thus far and find another way to achieve the same result.

People learn in many ways. Two of the big ones for RPGs is that they learn from reading the rules, and they learn from playing the game. The thing is, Doomsday Dawn has several instances where something that should absolutely be a static DC is made level appropriate.

Specifically:

Doomsday Dawn: Mirrored Moon:

The exploration checks for this scenario are level-appropriate. In fact, the perception check is Level 9 Hard + 4 for being an "everyone roll" situation, which pushed the best success rate in my group to 15%. It wasn't fun because of the numbers, but more fundamentally, it makes no sense at all that generic wilderness exploration would be level-based. I'm running this by PBP and we changed the DCs after about 6 hexes, and it's proven very unpopular. The PCs hate rolling against a DC that most of them simply cannot meet without a crit (and even then, at least two of the PCs wouldn't get a critical effect for rolling a 20).

In brief, if it's meant to work that the world itself is static, then the scenarios have to show that. As a GM, I learn how to build a game from looking at existing examples much better than I do from looking at tables. Having that skewed is really making things hard on me as I attempt to homebrew a game for my home group.

[Bardarok]

swordchucks wrote:

John Lynch 106 wrote:

2) Accept it will be misapplied. Acknowledge that the designers of the game itself have misapplied it in at least one instance thus far and find another way to achieve the same result.

People learn in many ways. Two of the big ones for RPGs is that they learn from reading the rules, and they learn from playing the game. The thing is, Doomsday Dawn has several instances where something that should absolutely be a static DC is made level appropriate.

Specifically:

** spoiler omitted **

In brief, if it's meant to work that the world itself is static, then the scenarios have to show that. As a GM, I learn how to build a game from looking at existing examples much better than I do from looking at tables. Having that skewed is really making things hard on me as I attempt to homebrew a game for my home group.

That's pretty egregious. I'm convinced that table 10-2 should be removed now, it's more trouble than it's worth.

[Dire Ursus]

swordchucks wrote:

John Lynch 106 wrote:

2) Accept it will be misapplied. Acknowledge that the designers of the game itself have misapplied it in at least one instance thus far and find another way to achieve the same result.

People learn in many ways. Two of the big ones for RPGs is that they learn from reading the rules, and they learn from playing the game. The thing is, Doomsday Dawn has several instances where something that should absolutely be a static DC is made level appropriate.

Specifically:

** spoiler omitted **

In brief, if it's meant to work that the world itself is static, then the scenarios have to show that. As a GM, I learn how to build a game from looking at existing examples much better than I do from looking at tables. Having that skewed is really making things hard on me as I attempt to homebrew a game for my home group.

Exploring/scouting those hexes means more than just looking around so no it's not generic. It's find tracks/traces of treasure/research/allies/enemies. All of which could be argued as level appropriate for that chapter.

[swordchucks]

Dire Ursus wrote:

Exploring/scouting those hexes means more than just looking around so no it's not generic. It's find tracks/traces of treasure/research/allies/enemies. All of which could be argued as level appropriate for that chapter.

If it actually did that, I could see the case, but all the check really does is determine the amount of time it takes you to search a hex. You either find stuff in that hex or you don't, simply from deciding to search it.

The clues are somewhat different since they only occur on a crit and the crit rate, even with optimized PCs, is a flat 5%. Which... really doesn't seem like it has much difficulty variation reflected in it.

---

To extend the item, if the party were to come back to this same area at level 10, would it be appropriate for the DCs now to be based on level 10 checks? If anything, it would make more sense to have the DCs based on the level of the creatures living in a hex. Basing it on the level of PCs (which rarely matches up with monster levels in said scenario) doesn't make much sense.

[Dire Ursus]

swordchucks wrote:

Dire Ursus wrote:

Exploring/scouting those hexes means more than just looking around so no it's not generic. It's find tracks/traces of treasure/research/allies/enemies. All of which could be argued as level appropriate for that chapter.

If it actually did that, I could see the case, but all the check really does is determine the amount of time it takes you to search a hex. You either find stuff in that hex or you don't, simply from deciding to search it.

The clues are somewhat different since they only occur on a crit and the crit rate, even with optimized PCs, is a flat 5%. Which... really doesn't seem like it has much difficulty variation reflected in it.

---

To extend the item, if the party were to come back to this same area at level 10, would it be appropriate for the DCs now to be based on level 10 checks? If anything, it would make more sense to have the DCs based on the level of the creatures living in a hex. Basing it on the level of PCs (which rarely matches up with monster levels in said scenario) doesn't make much sense.

No if you came back and were level 10 they would be the exact same DCs. The author just chose level 9 because this chapter is specifically a level 9 adventure where you are finding stuff appropriate to level 9 characters...

[Tectorman]

StratoNexus wrote:

ChibiNyan wrote:

It would be nice if the Climb skill had objective guidelines for how difficult it is, like before. Not just "The GM will look at table 10-2 and pick one".

You mean like they spell out on table 10-4 (also see 10-3, 10-5, and 10-6) and in the Ordinary Tasks subsection?

I do think we firmly identified that they ought to put the generic chart LAST in the rulebook and on the same page as the more specific examples. That way you can't stop at the generic table without finding the specific tables.

Use the specific tables first. If nothing there makes sense and only if you feel it would add excitement to the scenario, consider using the generic table to assign a DC either based on something similar in the specific charts or possibly the player's current level.

Would it have helped matters any had put Table 10-2 and those other tables on facing pages rather than on opposite sides of the samepage?

[Mark Carlson 255]

4th edition and treadmill vs PF2
Note: (IMHO) This is not a dig at 4th but a valid data point in PF2 design.
I see a few people above who seem to like 4th and PF2, I will have to see if I can find someone in the 100+ people I know and communicate with fairly regularly, who like's 4th and like PF2.
The big problem I know of right off the top of my head is most people that come to mind who play PF1, D&D 3.x and D&D5th do not like 4th in any way.

If people did like 4th and did not buy in to the game, and common elements are in PF2 and 4th, what has changed so as the designers of PF2 think this time those same rules will be better received by the public and thus PF 2 a financial success vs 4th?

BTW, smart, well informed, educated people make informed decisions that turn out to be flawed all the time. A good example of this is a Chinese warship from the late 1800's that was recently found, having great armor protection but a lacquered deck that was highly flammable. After constructing 2 ships people agreed it was a serious if not fatal flaw in design.

MDC

[Mark Carlson 255]

Treadmill vs Video game:
IMHO these two things are a bit different, treadmill is as a person stated above the need to keep doing something to stay in the same place as you were. Faster treadmill you have to give more resources to stay the same, normal speed you have to spend some resources and slow in which you can spend less resources to stay the same.

Video game:
To me the video game's can be a huge trap because they generally (yes there are some exceptions or games with much more detailed in game rule sets) function as a reduced set of rules in highly structured environments (the same as books, play's and movies) and most home games are not this highly structured.

A common theme I used to see in V-games is what I call red city, blue city and green city. That is the idea that you are in one city for levels 1-3 clear it out and then move on to the blue city for levels 4-6 and then green city for levels 7-10.
In each city there are level appropriate and only level appropriate encounters, treasure, people NPC's and monsters.
The thing is again video games are highly structured, have great graphics and sound in essence offering a vastly different experience than TTRPG's. (Yes I do agree they have common elements that are the same)

In general I can say most people I know who have been excited to play pen and paper versions of video games have been vastly disappointed after playing such games.

MDC

[Mathmuse]

Real life has increasing challenges, too. For example, if a high school track star wins in the regional races, then he moves up to the state races and has to race againsts more challenging opponents. A job well done is often rewarded by another tougher job.

However, these don't count as treadmills, because the person seldom has time to increase his or her skill before the next task. Keeping skills and challenges in lockstep is a feature of games.

When I play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I expect a level-up to give me a new perk to try out, but the relative difficulty of the challenges will stay the same. The perk makes my character slightly more capable and the automatic leveling on my opponents makes them still challenging.

A few challenges that have grown bothersome will be easier. For example, if my character runs through Robber's Gorge, a level-capped ambush site on a major road, for the tenth time, I no longer want a difficult fight against the robbers. I want to keep running and leave them behind shooting meaningless arrows at my back, because I have more important quests to accomplish. I have learned to not ride a horse (besides Shadowmere or Arvak) through Robber's Gorge, because normal horses don't level up.

Pathfinder is different. It has a GM rather than computer code. GMs are much more flexible.

I don't have to keep the challenges similar. That would be boring. So instead of replacing the level 1 Goblin Commandos with level 2 Goblin Veterans who use the same tactics, I would stick with the Goblin Commandos but put a few of them riding on Goblin Dogs. That gives the goblins mobility and changes the tactics. I am not simply out to challenge the player characters; rather, I want to challenge the players themselves. Learn to deal with the new tactics, bwahaha! (It challenges me, too. How can the goblins use dog-riding to their advantage?)

I could keep the difficulty of climbing walls in step with the PCs' skill in climbing walls, but that would make the obstacle routine. The game is more fun when the challenge is not to climb the next wall, but to devise a plan where being able to climb a wall quickly is a key element. I have only a few levels to play with that, before the day when everyone quaffs a potion of flying and no-one climbs walls ever again.

By the way, Pathfinder 2nd Edition's regular climb rules, the Climb action on page 146, don't provide a way to climb a wall more quickly, short of rolling a critical success or a level 7 athletics feat or a level 4 barbarian feat. That is the flaw with treadmill thinking. If the question answered by the numbers is, "How hard is it?", we forget that we had wanted to ask, "How fun is it?" I would keep the DC of the walls constant so that the players would notice that they often rolled critical successes for more speed, and they would devise plans around climbing walls quickly.

[thenobledrake]

I think more examples of what level of task various things are, along the lines of "climbing a brick wall DC X; climbing a mossy brick wall in the rain DC X+4; climbing the outside of an airship in high-speed travel DC X+10", (but not necessarily so many examples focused on a single activity, since the goal is clearly to not have a DC chart to look up for each skill in the book) would deal with a lot of the problems that people are having with table 10-2.

Separately, I think it would be useful for Paizo to create a name for the particular kind of check that they use with things like Treat Wounds and Lingering Performance, which operate in such a way that they could be described as flat checks to which bonuses can sometimes be applied. That way people would stop looking at those checks as a misapplication of table 10-2. (And I can see why Paizo have put these special checks into the game, because they want a character to be able to get better at them with investment so they can't be flat checks, but they don't want characters to be able to be so good at the check to eventually either critically succeed or roll a 1 and fail, or set the DC so high that low-level characters feel like they shouldn't even try.)

[Captain Morgan]

swordchucks wrote:

Dire Ursus wrote:

Exploring/scouting those hexes means more than just looking around so no it's not generic. It's find tracks/traces of treasure/research/allies/enemies. All of which could be argued as level appropriate for that chapter.

If it actually did that, I could see the case, but all the check really does is determine the amount of time it takes you to search a hex. You either find stuff in that hex or you don't, simply from deciding to search it.

The clues are somewhat different since they only occur on a crit and the crit rate, even with optimized PCs, is a flat 5%. Which... really doesn't seem like it has much difficulty variation reflected in it.

---

To extend the item, if the party were to come back to this same area at level 10, would it be appropriate for the DCs now to be based on level 10 checks? If anything, it would make more sense to have the DCs based on the level of the creatures living in a hex. Basing it on the level of PCs (which rarely matches up with monster levels in said scenario) doesn't make much sense.

OK, if it navigating the wilderness (and the time it takes therein) isn't something that can become harder based on a variety of factors, such as terrain, magical interference, and local monsters you want to avoid, then I'm not sure why survival is a numerical skill in the first place.

I've seen higher survival DCs to navigate than that in PF1. I didn't inherently see a problem there, or here. Especially when here they are trying to test how well their level appropriate DCs work, not the static DCs that are trivial at this point.

[Gaterie]

Dire Ursus wrote:

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced

Why?

Why would lingering becomes unbalanced? Other metamagic feats don't require a roll: there's no roll involved with widen spell, there's no roll involved with quickened casting. Are those feat unbalanced?

I have the impression people want each check to have 50% success. So we end up with this treadmill impression: whatever your character build is and whatever you do, you roll a die and fail on 10-. Oh, you're a level 10 rogue specialized in stealth? Wait, I compute the DC ensuring a 50% success.

D&D 3/3.5/PF1 had some checks supposed to become auto-success as you level up. Those thing were a challenge at low level, but at higher level it was supposed to be as hard as walking or breathing. And this is were you felt awesome: when you look at the GM in the eyes and answer "I beat the DC" without actually rolling.

PF2 uses a better engine allowing two characters to be on the same RNG with 30 points of difference in their skills.
GM : "Roll Stealth, the DC is 20".
Fighter in heavy armor : "20? O_O I have 50% chance to crit fail..."
Rogue: "I'm not sure I'll crit succeed. Only 50% chance..."
This is how you make a player feels legendary while keeping him on the same RNG as the other players: by having him roll to see how awesome he is instead of just checking if he fails miserably. And then you can balance the game around that; eg, a failure in Stealth could just trigger a warning for team monster (they heard something, but they're not sure it's a PC) while a crit success could allow to remove a warning. Legendary Rogue Boy could never fail, and still be on the same RNG as anyone...

... But instead he's 15% stealthier than a Trained Joe and succeed 50% of the time. Because "it's unbalanced if he's actually legendary and doesn't have a 50% failure rate". The whole system is needlessly complicated: it could be summarized as "roll 1d20; 1 crit failure, 10- failure, 11+ success, 20 crit success". You're never good at anything, never weak at anything, just on the same treadmill as anyone. If someone has arbitrarily decided that one of your ability requires a check (like lingering composition), you'll never be good at it, you'll ever be "meh".

[Ranishe]

Gaterie wrote:

Dire Ursus wrote:

I've seen a lot of people state "lingering composition" is a good example of how the treadmill is bad. But I disagree entirely. Lingering Composition is something that shouldn't be a static level, because then it becomes unbalanced

Why?

Why would lingering becomes unbalanced? Other metamagic feats don't require a roll: there's no roll involved with widen spell, there's no roll involved with quickened casting. Are those feat unbalanced?

No, they take extra actions, which are a percentage of your effectiveness. Taking an action for metamagic instead of a strike at level 1 is losing 1d8 or so damage (longbow). Taking an action for metamagic at level 10 is losing 3d8 or so damage (+2 longbow).

Lingering scales basically the same way, being a percentage increase because of more flexible action economy (not requiring an action on your next turn). Whether its effect is worth a spell point for a possibility of not working is a different question.

Quote:

And then you can balance the game around that; eg, a failure in Stealth could just trigger a warning for team monster (they heard something, but they're not sure it's a PC) while a crit success could allow to remove a warning. Legendary Rogue Boy could never fail, and still be on the same RNG as anyone...

I feel like this should fall under "what is a level appropriate challenge"? Should an optimized character auto-succeed on a level appropriate challenge? Of what difficulty? What does that mean for non-optimized characters? How much does that optimization cost? Can one character reasonably be "optimized" in 2 fields? 3? 5? I sense that with such a system you end up where characters attempt what they're good at and auto-succeed, and never attempt what they're not good at. You can force them into those unspecialized areas (no one can swim, and you're all dumped in the ocean), but what does that feel like from a player stand point if your only options are ones that can't reliably succeed? And if an option is available that is of their specialty, are the other options actually options assuming there's not an added cost?