Why are hazards so damn powerful?!

[thenobledrake]

Unicore wrote:

To me, this is a good problem for the game to have.

I agree that having numerous exploration activities that are desirable enough to make it actually feel like a choice which ones to do is a good problem to have.

I was just trying to point out that it's up to player decision too, rather than solely the purview of the GM, to determine how many characters get a roll to notice a hazard... while also acknowledging that "the players can choose" doesn't mean the choice made is going to be the best choice.

To me, for example, it feels like the "optimal" set of exploration activities for general 'dungeon' use is 1 character Detecting Magic, 1 character Investigating, and as many as are left in the party Searching.

[Relic123]

Ubertron_X wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that once it comes to mechanical benefits the player who actually is doing the talking should have the skill appropriate for the situation (as athletics for kicking in a door, which wizards seldom do), however I have seen too many "silent" players because of the reverse conclusion, aka "if the GM will have me roll a check at the end of this conversation I will most probably terribly fail, so I better stay silent all the time", which can leave many characters and gaming rounds very very bland.

thenobledrake wrote:

I've seen quite a few situations where a player is just playing their character naturally, not thinking about mechanics or anything, and then their called upon for a die roll to figure out the results because they were doing something that might have an important outcome and they go "...can someone else roll, my character sucks at this?"

And no, someone else can't roll. You don't get to say "I kick the door open" and it's actually the player whose character has the best Athletics that makes that roll, so you don't get to say "I ask the NPC for a favor" or something like that and get the player whose character actually didn't dump charisma and skip all the social skills to roll.

Just chiming in that this has inevitably been my experience in all ttrpgs (5e, starfinder, and pathfinder). If I'm not the party face (Cha main stat and relevant max skill), I keep my damn mouth shut. Out of character I might have a good angle or negotiation approach, but without the numbers to back it up I'm more likely to do FAR more harm than good. There's zero incentive for my character to participate in the conversation. This is even more true with critical failures in PF2, one of those on Make an Impression will screw your entire party.

[3Doubloons]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

That Hazard you're referring to is level 8, it being really hard for a level 5 party is pretty much expected. Now, whether a level 8 Hazard should be included in that place in that adventure is another matter (I'm a little dubious on that myself), but that's very much an adventure design complaint rather than one about Hazards per se. I doubt fighting a level 8 monster would've gone much better.

Spoiler:

It also matters that this hazard is pretty easily avoided. It doesn't actually prevent anyone from exiting the tunnel on either end; most PCs can make it through the tunnel in two rounds, so worst case, they might take 4d6 damage if they just rush through. Even assuming max damage and crit fails on the saves, 48 damage is plenty survivable by the average PC

[thorin001]

thenobledrake wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Age of Ashes actually has at least 1 section where the whole party is expected to roll diplomacy checks, or at least has the option to. There are some other big group skill challenges too.

Even without an adventure framing an option as any/all characters rolling Diplomacy, the social skills can come up pretty frequently unless a player just plain isn't having their character interact with any NPCs.

I've seen quite a few situations where a player is just playing their character naturally, not thinking about mechanics or anything, and then their called upon for a die roll to figure out the results because they were doing something that might have an important outcome and they go "...can someone else roll, my character sucks at this?"

And no, someone else can't roll. You don't get to say "I kick the door open" and it's actually the player whose character has the best Athletics that makes that roll, so you don't get to say "I ask the NPC for a favor" or something like that and get the player whose character actually didn't dump charisma and skip all the social skills to roll.

That whole situation is usually a group effort, but the GM wants a failure so he tasks the person with the lowest modifier to make the roll. Or if the low Cha character is the one who initiates a conversation a roll is demanded before anyone else can join the conversation, even if it is known that the plan is to hand the conversation off.

[thenobledrake]

thorin001 wrote:

That whole situation is usually a group effort, but the GM wants a failure so he tasks the person with the lowest modifier to make the roll. Or if the low Cha character is the one who initiates a conversation a roll is demanded before anyone else can join the conversation, even if it is known that the plan is to hand the conversation off.

Not in my experience, since I'm the GM in the situations I'm talking about and I do not care whether it is a success or failure whenever a roll is called - I'm literally thinking either way could be interesting and I have no reason to adjudicate one rather than the other, so I've thought "this sounds like a job for dice!"

And uh... as far as "called for a roll before anyone else can join the conversation." you wanna draw a diagram for me of how it is that you read the minds of players to know their unspoken plans to join in before any variable outcomes get resolved? Because I'm not talking about Player One saying "I wanna go talk to the NPC" and the GM saying "Roll a check", I'm talking about Player One having been talking back and forth with an NPC for a bit - and no one else has joined in on their own, or been invited to join in by Player One - and having gotten to a point in the conversation where it has become important to determine how well it is going, or Player One outright declaring something like "I'm gonna threaten that NPC so they do the thing we want" and then remembering that they didn't choose to be good at that because I said "Roll an Intimidation check"

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Unicore wrote:

To be fair, Detect magic can be a great clue in to the presences of higher level magical traps. A player that realizes that their is magic in the area, might be a good indicator that it is time for the whole party to consider changing up exploration activities.

If the party wants to hedge their bets that the magic means monsters or an eminent attack, then maybe they are better off scouting and avoiding notice, but it comes with the cost that they might get one shotted by a powerful hazard that could have been detected if the party focused on finding it. To me, this is a good problem for the game to have.

I will say that there are plenty of situations I have been in where Detect Magic has been both impractical and also not available for use, either because there is other magic in place fooling your detections, or because there are mechanics in place which prevent your Detect Magic from working, which aren't necessarily GM-FIAT "Anti-Magic Zone" shenanigans, either.

[Luke Styer]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This is what Quiet Allies is for. Notably, Quiet Allies uses only one roll, but everyone's starting bonuses, so either using Follow The Expert, or better yet being Trained in Stealth (which nets an extra +2, remember) is very relevant for the others taking advantage of the guy who has it.

Follow the Expert grants its circumstance bonus even if the "following" character is Trained or better.

You "can add your level as a proficiency bonus to the associated skill check, even if you’re untrained." Emphasis supplied. You aren't required the give up your actual proficiency bonus if you have one.

"Additionally, you gain a circumstance bonus to your skill check based on your ally’s proficiency . . .." That's a completely separate sentence from the bit about picking up a phantom proficiency bonus. I see no reason to believe the two are linked.

[Luke Styer]

Unicore wrote:

One of the reasons this thread exists is because the probability of a party discovering traps is more dependent upon the number of people the GM allows to make the perception check, than it is on whether the best character at finding them has a wisdom of 18 or 14.

Is the GM supposed to be "allowing" certain PCs to be making checks, though, or is that determined by a combination of exploration activity and character features? If you want your character to make perception checks to discover traps, pick the Search exploration activity. Or play a Rogue and take the Trap Finder feat.

[Staffan Johansson]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

That Hazard you're referring to is level 8, it being really hard for a level 5 party is pretty much expected.

Not reading the spoiler since I'm playing in that campaign, but again: I think part of the perceived lethality of (complex) hazards is that there's some amount of "double-dipping" in lethality-boosting.

First, there's the idea that since a complex hazard's supposed to challenge an entire party, it needs to have pretty beefy stats.

Second, a complex hazard is given an XP value equal to a same-level monster.

But a moderate encounter has two same-level monsters, or one level+2 monster. Which means that an encounter with a single complex hazard needs to be with a level+2 hazard to be considered a reasonable challenge, and that pushes the DCs and damage a bit too far. For example, a 5th level party would face a 7th level hazard. This would give Stealth/Disable DCs of 27, an attack bonus of +18, save DC 25, and hitting for about 20 hp per round. It's likely at least one of those values is increased by 2-3 points, because hazards are supposed to have one extreme value. At 5th level, even a character fairly optimized for trapfinding and disabling will likely have Perception of about +13 vs traps, Thievery +14 (including an item bonus), and saves in the +8 to +13 range. Those are pretty bad odds.

I think the easiest fix would be to double hazard XP, which in turn would mean that a level 5 complex hazard would be a moderate encounter for a level 5 party, which would seem rather reasonable.

[Cyouni]

I do need to point out that a lot of hazards can be disabled with a few skill checks. The highest I've seen - barring extreme outliers like the Armageddon Orb - is 3 skill checks for a hazard, and it usually takes less, oftentimes down to 1 skill check.

This is equivalent to being able to one-shot a monster.

[Shisumo]

Cyouni wrote:

I do need to point out that a lot of hazards can be disabled with a few skill checks. The highest I've seen - barring extreme outliers like the Armageddon Orb - is 3 skill checks for a hazard, and it usually takes less, oftentimes down to 1 skill check.

This is equivalent to being able to one-shot a monster.

Indeed. When my party encountered the AoA Book Two hazard in question, it accomplished absolutely nothing, being disabled by one of the PCs before its first initiative came up.

[Deadmanwalking]

Luke Styer wrote:

Follow the Expert grants its circumstance bonus even if the "following" character is Trained or better.

Yep. So minimum of +4 over those who aren't Trained, probably more as levels rise. Being Trained at Stealth is pretty nuce if you have that one Expert with that Feat.