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Yes I’m a big fan of a 10 minute “short rest” where characters can role play and get some powers and hit points back. 10 minutes is better then 5e’s hour because it’s short enough for heroes to do in most situations without seeming lazy. I really like the idea of a cleric praying and tending to the dead after a battle.
It certainly sounds great in theory. Whether or not it will prove so in practice remains to be seen, I suppose. There's the possibility it could lead to some janky start-stop loops that feel shattered and inorganic.
I lean towards the former being the case, but it's tough to be sure until it's been thoroughly worn out by the public and its vast difference in styles and methods at each gaming table.
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I kept reading on the forums for the longest time about the "15 minute adventuring day." I had zero idea what anyone was talking about.
Then recently, I was running a game, rather than as a player like I usually am.
The characters were 2nd level. They had traveled several hours thru the forest to get to the bad guys' fort. In the very first encounter, the wizard cast a slotted spell every single round. When the fight was over, the group announced the wizard was out of spells, so they were going back to town to rest and get their spells back. They left the fort, and traveled back to town. And returned the next day. They did the same thing on day 2.
So, now I know what everyone is talking about. The problem isn't the game. It's the players. But I just don't know what to do about it. Other than have the bad guys be tougher, since they have been able to get more evil allies while the PCs rest in town.
Hopefully some of these PF2 innovations help out with this. Such as better cantrips.
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It certainly sounds great in theory. Whether or not it will prove so in practice remains to be seen, I suppose. There's the possibility it could lead to some janky start-stop loops that feel shattered and inorganic.
I lean towards the former being the case, but it's tough to be sure until it's been thoroughly worn out by the public and its vast difference in styles and methods at each gaming table.
IMO, this is largely solved by having a lot of 10 minute activities that the party would be engaging in anyway, so no one is feeling useless during that time period. And we have a lot of those so far.
It also has some interesting strategy implications for party construction. For example, it would be better for the rogue to take Medicine than the Paladin, because the rogue can Treat Wounds while the Paladin Refocuses. And that also makes sense in fiction: the paladin never had to learn first aid when they had such a renewable well of magic to use.
I honestly find situations where 10 minutes is reasonable, but an hour isn't pretty rare. Either the circumstances mean you need to press on or they don't.
In any reasonably sized "dungeon" complex, you should be worrying who heard that first fight and not wanting to give them time to get ready for you. If that's not an issue, take your time.
I felt similarly at first, and thought that it didn't really matter whether activities like Identify, Repair, or Treat Wounds took an hour or 10 minutes to do, as long as they all ran on the same time scale for the sake of no one holding up the party.
But in practice 10 minutes feels like a more organic unit of time than an hour. Even outside of the defined activities, 10 minutes is a good rule of thumb for how long it takes to thoroughly search a room or two, or all the dead bandits littering the field. It is a good length of time for questioning an NPC you captured or rescued. It is a good length for flipping through the enemy's journal they forgot and finding the most relevant passage that gets printed as the handout.
The other advantage over the 5e short rest is the PCs can actually DO something during this time, rather than just twiddling their thumbs. As much as I like dragging a sweepy widdle warlock around in a little red wagon, 5e's short rest mechanics make characters basically just take a nap a couple times a day. It can get borderline narcoleptic.
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I kept reading on the forums for the longest time about the "15 minute adventuring day." I had zero idea what anyone was talking about.
Then recently, I was running a game, rather than as a player like I usually am.
The characters were 2nd level. They had traveled several hours thru the forest to get to the bad guys' fort. In the very first encounter, the wizard cast a slotted spell every single round. When the fight was over, the group announced the wizard was out of spells, so they were going back to town to rest and get their spells back. They left the fort, and traveled back to town. And returned the next day. They did the same thing on day 2.
So, now I know what everyone is talking about. The problem isn't the game. It's the players. But I just don't know what to do about it. Other than have the bad guys be tougher, since they have been able to get more evil allies while the PCs rest in town.
Hopefully some of these PF2 innovations help out with this. Such as better cantrips.
The only thing you really can do is find narrative reasons to discourage this in game if it is a problem. A Ticking Clock is one way. Introduce danger traveling between the wilderness and the fort. Have enemies whose allies go missing raise security and increase patrols, or send them out in search parties to ambush the party when they return.
IMO, just do what actually makes sense in the story. If none of the above are true, than it is entirely rational for the party to take the safest possible route to victory. But don't feel the need to force these wrinkles where they don't feel organic. Goblins don't generally have the organization or attention span to up security or intercept the party on their way back to town, but HOBGOBLINS do.
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Goblins don't generally have the organization or attention span to up security or intercept the party on their way back to town, but HOBGOBLINS do.
Hey. How did you know it was Thistletop goblins?
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Goblins don't generally have the organization or attention span to up security or intercept the party on their way back to town, but HOBGOBLINS do.Hey. How did you know it was Thistletop goblins?
Well, it IS the most popular AP. I'll note the Thistletop goblins might try a little harder out of fear of Nualia, but you should avoid making them too competent.
Later dungeons have smarter enemies and specify how security is improved, an some dungeons even replenish fallen rank and file over time.
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Goblins don't generally have the organization or attention span to up security or intercept the party on their way back to town, but HOBGOBLINS do.Hey. How did you know it was Thistletop goblins?
Have you tried posting on the Runelords board? I am not sure how active it still is but there might be people who know more specifics about helping with this
I don’t want to derail the thread too much but I am sure there are several ways you can address this. First is add random encounters to burn resources on the way. And factor in the ticking clock as mentioned. I believe there is technically a ticking clock in Runelords but it is not clearly spelt out at what point that timer runs out - it is judgemental
Also whilst the goblins are crazy and disorganised there should be plenty of other things there that are not quite so bad (from what j remember of the book )
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Part of the problem with "generate a narrative solution" to the 15 minute adventuring day is that before long you have trained your players to avoid classes with "low adventuring stamina."
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Part of the problem with "generate a narrative solution" to the 15 minute adventuring day is that before long you have trained your players to avoid classes with "low adventuring stamina."
Eh. At least in 2e, that basically translates to "don't play spellcasters." And a party with no casters is going to need all that stamina cuz they are gonna have to fight their way through things the casters could have bypassed and such.
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The first solution is to talk to the players. Most of the in game solutions have too good a chance of backfiring.
While this is a good general policy, I actually don't think it is necessarily the best solution here, because it doesn't sound like the players are doing anything wrong to correct. These in game solutions are viable tools to use, and it might be be good to explain potential consequences to your players.
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Yea. I would eventually- maybe at the end of the chapter- have to explain to them why things got so hard. Because, I feel what would happen is.. they "camp" after every single minor fight. Giving the bad guys time to prepare and bolster. Which makes the bad guys that much tougher. Causing the PCs to keep up their tactics of casting every single spell in every single fight. So it would be a circular problem. I'd have to explain to them "out of game" why things got progressively harder. haha
Previously, they would enjoy this. Because, since they are munchkins, they would see it as opportunity to spawn more fights, thereby generating more XP for them. But this time, I'm not doing XP. I'm doing milestone levels. So they're just making it harder on themselves =p
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Novaing in every fight is a meta-game problem.
LOL Doesn't novaing every round make you like the average NPC/monster in the average adventure? ;)
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Probably the thing that satisfies me the most about the new more useful cantrips. So casters can still be useful without novaing their badassest spells every single fight.
It does. But it makes more sense for them most of the time.Novaing in every fight is a meta-game problem.LOL Doesn't novaing every round make you like the average NPC/monster in the average adventure? ;)
Oh I understand. I just find it interesting that the two are expected to use different tactics but they are thought of as equally 'tough'. In CR terms, they are the same.
But that's kind of the point
Yep, agreed: Just interesting how much of it hinges on tactics. For it all to fall in place, it assumes one side holds back and the other doesn't. In situations were the balance shifts one way or the other, I'd be tempted to cut the experience reward: If the wizard novas, uses every spell and goes to take a siesta, in the 4 to 1 situation I'd cut the experience by 1/4th to compensate. Seems an easier method than a timer all the time or something similar. This added in with some improved tactics from monsters when they continually return to the same place again and again should even things out.
But that's kind of the pointYep, agreed: Just interesting how much of it hinges on tactics. For it all to fall in place, it assumes one side holds back and the other doesn't. In situations were the balance shifts one way or the other, I'd be tempted to cut the experience reward: If the wizard novas, uses every spell and goes to take a siesta, in the 4 to 1 situation I'd cut the experience by 1/4th to compensate. Seems an easier method than a timer all the time or something similar. This added in with some improved tactics from monsters when they continually return to the same place again and again should even things out.
To achieve a similar effect without cutting encounter XP you could have an XP pool for finishing the task/dungeon. And every day, it gets reduced by a fixed amount. Maybe everyday after a number of days for bigger dungeons.
Party clears the big dungeon in 2 days or less? Full 400XP award. Each additional days means 100 less XP.
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It certainly sounds great in theory. Whether or not it will prove so in practice remains to be seen, I suppose. There's the possibility it could lead to some janky start-stop loops that feel shattered and inorganic.
I lean towards the former being the case, but it's tough to be sure until it's been thoroughly worn out by the public and its vast difference in styles and methods at each gaming table.
In 4e encounter powers removed all choice from the game. You always opened with your most powerful encounter power, then worked your way down until you just had at-will powers left. I'm not surprised to see encounter powers being praised given the tone of the playtest, but I'll need to see it in action in its final form before I sing its praises.
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In 4e encounter powers removed all choice from the game. You always opened with your most powerful encounter power, then worked your way down until you just had at-will powers left. I'm not surprised to see encounter powers being praised given the tone of the playtest, but I'll need to see it in action in its final form before I sing its praises.
Between theme, racial, class, item powers, and consumables, you had dozens of choices to choose from each round in 4e. Many of which are move or minor actions that can be slotted in as needed (rarely on the first round), others of which are situational buffs, debuffs, or healing, others that are part of innerparty combos or need to be set-up, and few of which are obviously “the most powerful encounter power”, regardless of the level next to the name. Too often, a daily power, item power, or consumable would be a better choice, and for most classes, including the ranger from core and certainly psionics and essential classes, the encounter powers aren’t even competing with the at-wills in that manner, since they often engage the scenario from a completely different vector from the at-wills and often from each other. To say nothing of the specifics of the situation or scenario before the party, which may include a mix of minions and bosses or include multiple rooms of enemies, or might include reinforcements.
Only the most tactically inept players would open with their most powerful encounter power and work their way down until they had just at-will powers left. This would be like suggesting that the player of a Pathfinder Wizard, in a fight that they (perhaps incorrectly) expect will be the only one of the day, start casting from their highest level spell slots and work their way down (when such slots may include things like dispel magic or freedom of movement or dimension door, all things also true of 4e encounter powers).
As someone who played 4e once a week for years, I can confidently say that your view on encounter powers is not an accurate one, respectfully.
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I think we need more examples of Focus Spells before we can talk about them in an informed fashion on a mechanical level.
I will say that they fit into the game vastly more seamlessly than Encounter Powers did on a thematic level. Encounter powers were universal and refreshed for...some reason? There may have been attempts at explanation, but they never struck me as very good and certainly haven't stuck in my head.
Focus Spells are specifically magical and are recovered in ways specific to the Class in question (which has to have some sort of magic to have them). The amount of time is similar, but the thematic explanation is vastly better in every way.
Additionally, several Classes have none of them, and several others have Focus Spells but no actual spells. Classes with only actual spells and no Focus Spells also seem possible, though are, I think, absent from the core rules (Bard often qualifies in practice with only Counterperform, but they do have Counterperform), which is much better for preserving legitimate differences in feel among the Classes.
D&D 5E does better than 4E did at all this thematic stuff with short rests and how they function, but it's still not nearly as good or justified in-universe as PF2 looks to be doing.
Agree on the thematic, for sure. Although I will point out that 4e started heading in this direction with Essentials, for which only the magic-based classes got encounter powers.
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One thing I'm wondering about focus powers is- can a character get a pool of >1 focus, or is it just "you get 1"? I know the 10 minute refocus gives you 1 back so having a max of like six wouldn't be absurd.
I'm particularly interested about the monk here since a lot of monk powers were about "moving around" which is a thing someone might want to do multiple times in a combat.
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One thing I'm wondering about focus powers is- can a character get a pool of >1 focus, or is it just "you get 1"? I know the 10 minute refocus gives you 1 back so having a max of like six wouldn't be absurd.
I'm particularly interested about the monk here since a lot of monk powers were about "moving around" which is a thing someone might want to do multiple times in a combat.
We know that some additional Feats that grant Focus Powers also grant Focus (the ones revealed were for the Sorcerer, but other Classes presumably have them as well).
So the question becomes, how many of your 11 Class Feats grant Focus Spells and bonus Focus? For most characters this'll be a small number (probably 2-3 at most for most characters), but you can probably get to 6 or so (or even more) if you're of a Class and path that focuses on them (for example, based on the playtest, the Storm Druid is likely heavily Focus Spell based and might hit that point).
I'm kind of confused by insistence of claiming manga/anime as unnatural :p
I'm kind of confused about who you're talking to. Are you posting in the right thread?
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IT was in the OP post.
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I'm kind of confused by insistence of claiming manga/anime as unnatural :p
I think they were referring to the genre disconnect.
D&D 3.5 and earlier certainly had some anime influences in terms of power level, but they didn't have Fighters or other martial characters throwing out named attacks with specific mechanical effects outside the Book of 9 Swords (and the Bo9S stuff was clearly and specifically not universal in-world).
It's thus reasonable to feel that having all of them suddenly doing that is unnatural. It's a startling shift in genre and feels wrong. It's not that manga/anime is any more unnatural than more gritty heroic fantasy ala Lord of the Rings, it's that if Aragorn is suddenly talking about his 'Western Blade Slays The Sun' technique it feels kinda off.
Which I get, and for the most part agree with, as I wouldn't want the anime adaptation of LotR to be the only LotR available. Though I do now actually want to see an anime of LotR featuring Aragorn using a technique with the above name (or something in the same vein)...
Between theme, racial, class, item powers, and consumables, you had dozens of choices to choose from each round in 4e.
In theory, yes. In practice, no.
Many of which are move or minor actions that can be slotted in as needed (rarely on the first round)
Yup. Which meant you would get most powerful standard action encounter power, most powerful move action ancounter power, most powerful minor action encounter power.
others of which are situational buffs, debuffs, or healing, others that are part of innerparty combos or need to be set-up, and few of which are obviously “the most powerful encounter power”, regardless of the level next to the name.
As someone who played 4e once a week for years, I can confidently say that your view on encounter powers is not an accurate one, respectfully.
All I can do is speak to my experiences after 5 years of extensive LFR play and several home games.
I will say I did play with some of those people who did treat it like a tactical war game. And obsessed over every move. They might have successfully reduced the number of resources expended. But they did it at the cost of game time at the table. Given you had more than enough resources to overcome almost all LFR modules even if you were "playing up" this meant there was little to no reason to even bother minimising resource usage.
Only the most tactically inept players would open with their most powerful encounter power and work their way down until they had just at-will powers left.
I think your vastly overestimating the level of tactics required to defeat a 4e encounter.
This would be like suggesting that the player of a Pathfinder Wizard, in a fight that they (perhaps incorrectly) expect will be the only one of the day, start casting from their highest level spell slots and work their way down (when such slots may include things like dispel magic or freedom of movement or dimension door, all things also true of 4e encounter powers).
(1) I never said highest level. (2) Buffs that last for more than 1 combat are not within the same realm of encounter powers. (3) The types of choices that can be made with PF1e spell slots are vastly different to "always available next combat" encounter powers.
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Another thing I hope is that cantrip has a little bit more oomph even at early levels, compared to the playtest.
I mean, between rolling a Ray of Frost for 1d8 and 1d4+4, I prefer the latter any time of the week.
We know that the Divine list has a cantrip that deals d4+Stat Alignment Damage (and goes up 1d4 every spell level).
Divine was the worst offensive list in the playtest and likely remained so, so this seems exceedingly likely.
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Another thing I hope is that cantrip has a little bit more oomph even at early levels, compared to the playtest.
I mean, between rolling a Ray of Frost for 1d8 and 1d4+4, I prefer the latter any time of the week.
We know that the Divine list has a cantrip that deals d4+Stat Alignment Damage (and goes up 1d4 every spell level).
Divine was the worst offensive list in the playtest and likely remained so, so this seems exceedingly likely.
Not only that, if you compare bestiary entries there is a distinct tendency to increase the fixed value of damage and reduce the dice (be it size or number). Same with spells like Heal, which moved from a 4th-level 9d8+wis healing to a much more predictable 4d8+32.
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Not only that, if you compare bestiary entries there is a distinct tendency to increase the fixed value of damage and reduce the dice (be it size or number). Same with spells like Heal, which moved from a 4th-level 9d8+wis healing to a much more predictable 4d8+32.
This is generally true. It's probably somewhat less true of spells (there's no evidence that something like Fireball isn't still a pile of d6s), but it's certainly a general trend.
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I mean, Fireball being a pile of d6 is a matter of brand.
But having cantrips that are just slightly more accurate crossbows as per action economy and damage... That was a bummer.
I've seen that divine cantrip. I just hope that it is a common trend.
Idk, the Pathfinder_RPG subreddit has been a nest of doomsayers regarding this new edition but I have high hopes
Well, cantrips upgrade for free where crossbows do not. That said, an item that upgrade the DPR of your cantrips seems more likely to occur now that TAC is gone.
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I'm kind of confused by insistence of claiming manga/anime as unnatural :pI think they were referring to the genre disconnect.
D&D 3.5 and earlier certainly had some anime influences in terms of power level, but they didn't have Fighters or other martial characters throwing out named attacks with specific mechanical effects outside the Book of 9 Swords (and the Bo9S stuff was clearly and specifically not universal in-world).
It's thus reasonable to feel that having all of them suddenly doing that is unnatural. It's a startling shift in genre and feels wrong. It's not that manga/anime is any more unnatural than more gritty heroic fantasy ala Lord of the Rings, it's that if Aragorn is suddenly talking about his 'Western Blade Slays The Sun' technique it feels kinda off.
Which I get, and for the most part agree with, as I wouldn't want the anime adaptation of LotR to be the only LotR available. Though I do now actually want to see an anime of LotR featuring Aragorn using a technique with the above name (or something in the same vein)...
I'm pretty sure at least for some of wizards the verbal component is just shouting the name of the spell ;P
But yeah, I'm not really sure what is difference between focus powers and however 4e did encounter based powers, I'm just bit annoyed about unrelated terms being used as derogatory :p From my understanding, 4e's mechanics were closer to MMO or video game mechanics complete with "tanks", lot of hp for bosses and such.
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I don't have any idea whatsoever how form or shape the encounter powers had in 4e and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I do like the idea of "special" attacks for martial characters.
They can add an interesting layer for martial combat and if done right, they can be tools to add to the classes that have been just using full round actions to be meaningful every round.
It could be very interesting, specially now with the 3-action system, to have 2-cost attacks that have a meaningful trade-off in terms of effect. More crowd-control, debuffs or simply something they gain after releasing some fancy attack. I doesn't need to be like anime and manga, with insane abilities that must be shouted, but something akin the Iaijutsu Strike from the Sword Saint archetype for Samurais is a good baseline, although the ability was horrendously implemented (too convoluted for low reward, unbeatable combo).
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IT was in the OP post.
Thank you! With 30 posts above it, without a quote or name it it wasn't clicking with me. :)
D&D 3.5 and earlier certainly had some anime influences in terms of power level
As far as actual anime, it was the other way around, d&d influenced it. Many, many anime follow the sword and magic of d&d to this day.
As for the rest... I'm not really on board with using anime to describe 'over the top'. Anime covers slice of life and dramas like Heidi, Girl of the Alps or Kare Kano were NO supernatural or over the top elements happen. We don't do the same with american blockbusters like john wick, the matrix or avatar do we?
It's thus reasonable to feel that having all of them suddenly doing that is unnatural
In a world with demons/gods/fey lords/elemental lord and a host of various other divine level creatures tossing around curses/blessings/powers/spells/ect... It kind of DOES seem unreasonable when a lot of things boil down to 'a wizard did it'. We aren't playing a WW2 reenactment with realism at the forefront. Adding fantasy to the game brings with it the "unnatural" by definition. Other game have the grim/gritty realism factor missing from d&d.
I always figured the trope of "calling out the name of your ultimate technique" in fiction came from like Hong Kong action films in the 70s, and anime/manga simply copied and exaggerated that.
Novaing in every fight is a meta-game problem.LOL Doesn't novaing every round make you like the average NPC/monster in the average adventure? ;)
Yep. And most of them wind up dead, too.