Balance Concensus

[thenobledrake]

I know the topic moved on from it, but someone said "Giving away the level is a direct contradiction to immersion and helps break the illusion during play." and I had to comment:

I think this is objectively false. If the goal is immersion in your character, thinking what they think, feeling what they feel, and doing what a person in their circumstances would believable do, then the more accurately the GM communicates relevant information such as how threatening or meek the creatures around them appear to be the more accurately the player can know what their character would be thinking in that situation.

A GM giving an evocative description is inherently less accurate, and if a player acts on inaccurate information and then finds their conclusion about that information incorrect, that can be far more damaging to their immersion than simply using game terms to communicate the information those terms represent.

For example, I've never seen it argued that saying "the creature is Huge" instead of using words like immense, massive, towering or the like damages immersion, and that is identical to saying "the creature is higher level than you" instead of using words like "dangerous-looking" or whatever else - using a game term because sticking to just adjectives doesn't actually communicate anything meaningful: a "hulking hound" could be dog that is large for it's completely mundane breed, or it could be bigger than a horse, and an "imposing warrior" or "wizened scholar" could be any level.

[Draco18s]

Midnightoker wrote:

Draco18s wrote:

I wouldn't call "doing nothing" "one of the things the spell does."

It's one of the standard outcomes to get a Critical Success, so why wouldn't it be considered among the available outcomes.

Again, if I as a player cast a spell and expect it to "do something" more often than not (because a critical success is typically a 5-15% likelihood), and the spell does nothing on a critical success, then a 60% chance of a critical success is not living up to expectations.

It may be one of the possible outcomes, but there's ALWAYS an outcome of some sort or another, but a critical success is the only outcome that does nothing and causes me, as a player, to have wasted my actions. I was better off not casting that spell because then I'd still have 2 actions.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

thenobledrake wrote:

that can be far more damaging to their immersion than simply using game terms to communicate the information those terms represent.

That is certainly the challenge. With size there is more wiggle room as the words are inherrently descriptive and likely what people would use to describe the creature or synonymous with it anyway. Levels aren't quite the same, but in the case of incapacitation they are key to knowing the threat.

I found that some concepts in game just require biting the bullet and explaining the mechanics to players though. Victory point based activities are more engaging and fun if everyone knows their option and success chances in my experience, and explaining how hazards worked as the party encountered them had my group enjoying them significantly more than if I had just dropped them in and expected the players to have read the hazard section of the book.

Unfortunately you can then also run into weird immersion breaking scenarios where it can be hard to downplay a foe who is hiding their strength or who looks relatively harmless (a good example would be someone trying to charm a transformed greater barghest in a cave at level 4 if they get to know the enemies level as they meet it or in the first round of combat if it doesn't reveal its self).

[citricking]

Midnightoker wrote:

citricking wrote:

Looking at incapacitation spells, the really simple fix to make them at least usable is just don't convert successes to critical successes.

That way the incapacitation trait still does what it was meant to do, prevent incapacitation of bosses, but the spells are still usable because they still have some effect on a success.

While there was a time where I actually really wanted to implement this as a homebrew rule (the worst tier is the only tier off limits for Incapacitation, basically exactly how Phantasmal Killer works) I've decided I'm not sure it's needed.

Again, probably not needed, but it feels more "fair". Blindness for 1 minute on a Boss is absolutely a massive debuff to get. The Critical Failure on Blindness isn't needed at all to win that fight (in fact, in the logistics of a Fight that you win, it literally makes no difference).

I think you missed a detail. My proposed change was to keep the failure to success conversion, so blindness only would have a 5% chance of blinding the enemy for a minute if they were a higher level.

[Midnightoker]

citricking wrote:

Midnightoker wrote:

citricking wrote:

Looking at incapacitation spells, the really simple fix to make them at least usable is just don't convert successes to critical successes.

That way the incapacitation trait still does what it was meant to do, prevent incapacitation of bosses, but the spells are still usable because they still have some effect on a success.

While there was a time where I actually really wanted to implement this as a homebrew rule (the worst tier is the only tier off limits for Incapacitation, basically exactly how Phantasmal Killer works) I've decided I'm not sure it's needed.

Again, probably not needed, but it feels more "fair". Blindness for 1 minute on a Boss is absolutely a massive debuff to get. The Critical Failure on Blindness isn't needed at all to win that fight (in fact, in the logistics of a Fight that you win, it literally makes no difference).

I think you missed a detail. My proposed change was to keep the failure to success conversion, so blindness only would have a 5% chance of blinding the enemy for a minute if they were a higher level.

Ah I see.

So basically in the case of blindness the “until your next turn” applies in a wider net.

Certainly something, honestly could see a magic item or feat even granting that in some form, doesn’t seem overly strong.

Edit: to emphasize the important piece of incapacitation, blindness is just as effective at ending a fight on a critical failure effect as a failure effect, since rarely do fights last 10 rounds. There might be a nuanced fix, but I think it’s better reserved for items/feats of specialists.

A “The Harder They Fall” Feat that helps against incapacitation with a chosen spell each day seems like a better idea than blanket changes to incapacitation itself.

The issue is a specialist can’t invest, not that the spells have no value out of the gate. That’s a matter of support, not structural changes to a rule.

[Samurai]

Bluescale wrote:

It's the same with the table culture in my area, the GM never tells the players the level of a monster or exact numbers on a monster's AC or saves. Telling players a monster's level is just seen as too metagamey.

On a related note, the group also sees the incapacitation trait as a trap, as we always have to assume the monster we're facing will succeed on its save, and thus incapacitation will make it a critical success.

Our GM is the same way, that game info is not open to the players, which in turn makes the Incapacitation trait spells a trap option.

Similarly, our table feels the GM's should not need to tell players the damage they are about to take BEFORE they decide whether or not to shield block. That is yet another area where Paizo seems to expect a more "Gamest attitude" among players and GMs, and that is not the way we have ever played over the last 40 years... Players are able to learn what their characters can see, hear, and sense during the game, not artificial game terms like the monster's "level", or how much exact damage you might block if you choose to shield block. It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

[KrispyXIV]

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

[Samurai]

thenobledrake wrote:

For example, I've never seen it argued that saying "the creature is Huge" instead of using words like immense, massive, towering or the like damages immersion, and that is identical to saying "the creature is higher level than you" instead of using words like "dangerous-looking" or whatever else - using a game term because sticking to just adjectives doesn't actually communicate anything meaningful: a "hulking hound" could be dog that is large for it's completely mundane breed, or it could be bigger than a horse, and an "imposing warrior" or "wizened scholar" could be any level.

"Huge" is a game term, but it is something the character can actually see, which is different that a monster's actual "level". Creatures don't have a level marker floating above their heads like in some MMORPGs. You can watch them and see what they do, and if they cast a spell you could try to figure out what spell it is, which could possibly give you a hint of their minimum level (but it could also be one of their lower level spell slots and their actual level is much higher).

Again, in our group the rule on what players can learn is limited to what their characters can see, hear, and sense. They can tell if something is size small or huge just by looking at it, but that may not be a full indication of that creature's powers and capabilities.

[Samurai]

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of everyone they meet?

[KrispyXIV]

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of everyone they meet?

I mean, most people go through life every day making evaluations about people and situations constantly, predicting which actions have favorable outcomes and avoiding negative encounters and danger.

Whatever you do professionally, I'm certain that you could observe someone else's work in the same field or observe someone at work and make a quick and reasonably effective guess as to their competency (worse than me/same as me/better than me) fairly easily and quickly.

For an adventurer, their job is combat and monsters. Sizing up the opposition quickly and accurately is a survival trait.

I assume that most adventurers are as much of a "nerd" when it comes to their chosen profession as real people too - meaning they're probably up on the "industry" and know whether an Young or Adult flying fire lizard is more "their speed".

Its not about floating level numbers - my character doesn't need those. The level number is for me, the player, to summarize my characters expertise in the field of Heroing.

[Samurai]

"Young" or "Adult" dragons come with size changes usually. If an ancient dragon had cast a spell to shrink himself, then all the PCs could tell at a glance is "You see a size small dragon." If that small dragon then burned down the reinforced castle gates with 1 breath, that might give the PCs a clue that something strange is going on here.

[Grankless]

So you nerfed shields for a pointless reason like simulationism? Wack.

[Unicore]

It is an interesting breakthrough in the caster debate to realize how much of people’s perception of casters ability to effectively use their spells is tied to GMs providing the right information to make the tactical choice to use the right spell possible.

[Samurai]

Grankless wrote:

So you nerfed shields for a pointless reason like simulationism? Wack.

I removed shields taking damage too, so it all works out fine. The player just has to decide before the damage is rolled if he wants to chance possibly loosing his shield bonus to AC vs further possible attacks this round in order to block some damage from the current hit, or instead take the hit and keep his shield raised vs later attacks this round (if there are any). That is a conscious decision that a character can make in the heat of battle....if he surrounded by a bunch of goblins and so far this is the first one to attack him, it may be better to just keep the shield raised for now. If he only has 3 HP left, it may be better to reduce some damage now and hope the later attacks miss because of MAP, or they attack another target, or that you do well enough on your shield block Fort save to keep your shield raised even after the block.

[Temperans]

The point of perception and that not everything goes according to plan have always been some of the key points in the "casters feel worse debate". But often the response was and still is "use divination", "get more info", "use these exact spells", etc.

Some one said it before but spells shine when:

You have the right knowledge when preparing.
Have the right spell learned.
Prepare it at the right level.
Prepare the right number for the day.
Cast it vs the right target(s).
And then there is a ~45% chance the spell will have minimal effect.

Incapacitation makes it worse by turning that ~45% chance of minimal effect, into a ~60% chance of no effect and 0% chance of getting the critical failure/success. So there is even more competition for those few high level spells of you ever want to keep incapacitation relevant.

********************

Regarding shields. Honestly it is kind of weird that by default you are told how much damage you will be dealt before the block: And, if you block the shield and you take the same amount of damage.

Moving the block to before damage ia rolled, and reducing how much damage they take really seems like a much better version.

[thenobledrake]

Samurai wrote:

"Huge" is a game term, but it is something the character can actually see, which is different that a monster's actual "level". Creatures don't have a level marker floating above their heads like in some MMORPGs.

That view is too hung up on the literal.

One doesn't need to see "a level marker floating above their head" in order to have some sense of the difference between a barely-trained rookie soldier and a veteran swordsman, or even the difference in threat presented by marilith and a minotaur.

What the character can see, hear, and sense absolutely includes information such as what sort of threat you'd face if you had to engage a creature you can see in battle - and that information can be communicated to the player most accurately by saying what level the creature is.

And just as an aside, it's not actually a common capability of people to accurately tell the dimensions of something on sight, so a character being able to flawlessly tell the difference between a 14' tall creature (large size) and a 16' tall creature (huge size) is already across the line drawn between "a game term" and "what their characters can see, hear, and sense" - as is being able to accurately measure distance to your foe/target without assistance (which I mention not because I think anyone would actually want to not have this accuracy, but because it shows that there's no harm done by choosing to let information be accurate even when it "shouldn't be" and highlights the inconsistency created by trying to mark "game stuff" as exclusively out-of-character).

[Temperans]

You are discrediting people too much.

Everything we fo relies on having proper grasp of distance to some conceptual level. While it is true that most common people would have trouble judging distance. You can ask any athlete, hunter, etc. and they will surely tell you how well they can instintually judge distances.

Thus moving around on the battle field in 5ft squares is not absolutely unimaginable. But certainly a simplification of the complexity of actual battles.

Similarly, the human brain has the strange but useful function of making dangerous things appear bigger then they actually are. So a creature 2 inches bigger might not feel big on paper, it will seem much bigger for an actual person. (See walruses, bears, etc.)

Level is very much an abstraction that is only relevant to keep up the game, just the HP. It has inherently no relationship to any actual value, and in most d20 system its an abstraction to help players. Meaning, that it has no actual equivalence in the game.

[thenobledrake]

Temperans wrote:

You are discrediting people too much.

How is me saying "just like I can tell what person/creature I could take in a fight, so can characters - so tell them level because that communicates that info" discrediting anyone?

I'm saying characters should be given more credit, since we're already willing to extend abilities that take a lot of practice to develop such as judging distances accurately by sight.

Or are you claiming I'm discrediting real people too much by having said exactly what you yourself have said in response: most people (without particular athletic or hunting training) don't a good sense of distance, and people judging size on sight is also generally unreliable? Because that'd be really confusing.

Level is an abstraction - of observable traits. Just like Hit points are. Meaning that the belief they have no actual equivalence in the game isn't relevant: representation is what they need, not equivalence. Level, and HP, represent stuff that a character should have a sense of.

[Unicore]

Would it be ok not to tell players how much damage they have taken, or let them see the results of the damage roll? Characters shouldn’t know any of that either. They definitely shouldn’t know their dying status, so all of that should be tracked secretly as well?

When the GM reveals information that is particularly valuable to martial characters and not information that is valuable to casters, it is going to impact perceptions about which classes as most fun to play.

[ikarinokami]

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of

everyone they meet?

now you are applying logic in our world vs Golarion. our world doesn't have levels. In a world with levels I would say with 100% certainty that every creature would have a means to know if another creature was higher or lower level that itself, creatures that couldn't do that would go extinct. Much in the same way predators have an innate sense of the relative health of their prey. From an evolutionary perspective that you could be a successful specis in a world with levels and not have the ability to make intuitions about whether or not another creature is higher or lower level than itself is highly unlikely.

[Temperans]

ikarinokami wrote:

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of

everyone they meet?

now you are applying logic in our world vs Golarion. our world doesn't have levels. In a world with levels I would say with 100% certainty that every creature would have a means to know if another creature was higher or lower level that itself, creatures that couldn't do that would go extinct. Much in the same way predators have an innate sense of the relative health of their prey. From an evolutionary perspective that you could be a successful specis in a world with levels and not have the ability to make intuitions about whether or not another creature is higher or lower level than itself is highly unlikely.

Having some sense of whether a creature is a threat is indeed important for survival.

However, it is not so simple as just knowing about level. Its also a matter of how injured a creature looks/feels. How many characters are on each side. Does the character look intimidating? Etc.

Level is not enough to tell you how much of a threat something is. Just like knowing its strength is not enough.

So yeah its fine to know if a creature might look to be stronger. But that does not mean you know its level.

[ikarinokami]

Temperans wrote:

ikarinokami wrote:

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of

everyone they meet?

now you are applying logic in our world vs Golarion. our world doesn't have levels. In a world with levels I would say with 100% certainty that every creature would have a means to know if another creature was higher or lower level that itself, creatures that couldn't do that would go extinct. Much in the same way predators have an innate sense of the relative health of their prey. From an evolutionary perspective that you could be a successful specis in a world with levels and not have the ability to make intuitions about whether or not another creature is higher or lower level than itself is highly unlikely.

Having some sense of whether a creature is a threat is indeed important for survival.

However, it is not so simple as just knowing about level. Its also a matter of how injured a creature looks/feels. How many characters are on each side. Does the character look intimidating?...

this is incorrect. I'm not being mean, but your argument is completely wrong. for Golorion level = power. A creature attacking something 5 levels higher than itself is going to die even if the attacking creature is physically stronger and bigger.

In a world where you are add +level to all your actions, it is simply not evolutionary possible to survive in a such a world without be able to somehow comprehend the relative level of another creature to itself. This is especially true in the case of Golarion were level is divorced from physical stats, size, etc. Further in Golorion creatures of the same type can have different levels, meaning that a rogue +2 r 3 level creature could wreak havoc on a predatory specis because they cant tell its a higher level version.

Life n Golorion is just not possible without being able to tell relative level strengh, it's a non starter, it would be one of the first evolutionary adaption, it really is an important of aerobic respiration.

[Temperans]

thenobledrake wrote:

Temperans wrote:

You are discrediting people too much.

How is me saying "just like I can tell what person/creature I could take in a fight, so can characters - so tell them level because that communicates that info" discrediting anyone?

I'm saying characters should be given more credit, since we're already willing to extend abilities that take a lot of practice to develop such as judging distances accurately by sight.

Or are you claiming I'm discrediting real people too much by having said exactly what you yourself have said in response: most people (without particular athletic or hunting training) don't a good sense of distance, and people judging size on sight is also generally unreliable? Because that'd be really confusing.

Level is an abstraction - of observable traits. Just like Hit points are. Meaning that the belief they have no actual equivalence in the game isn't relevant: representation is what they need, not equivalence. Level, and HP, represent stuff that a character should have a sense of.

I am saying trained people are perfectly capable of judging distance and size in the moment. And that the combat grid is an abstraction to make that complicated mess way simpler. Judging distance accurately is not something that is strange or weird.

Level like HP is a very broad abstraction. While HP represents overall health, stamina, and general well being. Level represents overall experience, power, and knowledge. Now Power and some level of experience is not hard to miss by eye. However, Knowledge and mental experience is extremely difficult outside specific circumstance.

I would say whether something looks hurt, but not how much HP it has. (With some exceptions, ex something after an epic fight the party barely survived).

I would not give level.

[CorvusMask]

I'm too tired to read entire thread so probably someone mentioned this already, but grenadier alchemists at least have role in decimating enemies with elemental weaknesses: they can do decent amount of damage with spash damage already so as long they don't crit miss, they can easily deal three times great damage to a severe level solo boss just by using splash damage that matches' boss' weakness.

[Temperans]

ikarinokami wrote:

Temperans wrote:

ikarinokami wrote:

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of

everyone they meet?

now you are applying logic in our world vs Golarion. our world doesn't have levels. In a world with levels I would say with 100% certainty that every creature would have a means to know if another creature was higher or lower level that itself, creatures that couldn't do that would go extinct. Much in the same way predators have an innate sense of the relative health of their prey. From an evolutionary perspective that you could be a successful specis in a world with levels and not have the ability to make intuitions about whether or not another creature is higher or lower level than itself is highly unlikely.

Having some sense of whether a creature is a threat is indeed important for survival.

However, it is not so simple as just knowing about level. Its also a matter of how injured a creature looks/feels. How many characters are on each side. Does the

...

That is highly debatable.

For the last 20 years level was only partly related to power. And even now level affects both power and knowledge.

Its not that I am wrong in what it represents. Its that we dont agree on how necessary that info is for regular creatures.

A creature that is very low level by comparision will clearly think dont mess with that thing. But a group of low level creatures might think they have a chance vs something that doesnt look that tough, even if it is higher level.

[helleb]

ikarinokami wrote:

Temperans wrote:

ikarinokami wrote:

Samurai wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

Samurai wrote:

It's more of a "you roll your dice and take your chances" kind of play, and that attitude can hurt players in a game where you are expected to know (and the GM is expected to tell you) all kinds of out-of-character game information in order to logically make your character's in-game choices.

Its only really "out of character" though if you dont accept that your character is more at home in his home setting than the player is - Player Characters are in general far more competent than the Player or any real person.

Giving the player information like enemy level is making up for the Players handicap in not being native to the world the character lives in - its giving the Player information the character should already have.

How would your character learn such information in-game? Like I said, some things are observable, but many other things are not, no matter how long your character has lived in the world. Do characters in your game see floating level numbers above the head of

everyone they meet?

now you are applying logic in our world vs Golarion. our world doesn't have levels. In a world with levels I would say with 100% certainty that every creature would have a means to know if another creature was higher or lower level that itself, creatures that couldn't do that would go extinct. Much in the same way predators have an innate sense of the relative health of their prey. From an evolutionary perspective that you could be a successful specis in a world with levels and not have the ability to make intuitions about whether or not another creature is higher or lower level than itself is highly unlikely.

Having some sense of whether a creature is a threat is indeed important for survival.

However, it is not so simple as just knowing about level. Its also a matter of how injured a creature looks/feels. How many characters are on each side. Does the

...

If level was an important thing in Golarion, wouldn't some NPC's / lore include discussions and information about it? At least I haven't seen that happen so far. Also, how do you know evolution even works in Golarion? There's a lot of powerful beings able to mess up natural selection and evolutionary paths by using magic to introduce new creatures and phenomena in the world in way faster pace than biological evolution can react.

Though imo that's besides the point anyway. I don't know how you imagine your game worlds and characters, but I just want to be able to immerse in my powerful wizard or fighter and focus on the adventure and heroic things the party does. Having to think about level numbers or other things like that doesn't add anything to the story to me and breaks immersion. We don't generally communicate numbers like HP left either. I understand that a lot of people like playing D&D/PF like a strategy game and I too can enjoy that. That's not how we usually play though and I'm surprised if everyone else playing PF wants that. If enjoying casters requires that type of play I'm quite disappointed and I'm probably not alone.

[Salamileg]

We have a thread dedicated to talking about if characters are aware of level, could we move this conversation over there?

[Midnightoker]

Temperans wrote:

For the last 20 years level was only partly related to power.

lol wut.

If by "partly" you mean "directly related to what abilities, spells, BAB, HP, Saves and various other level based items that existed" then yeah "partly related" is accurate.

We're now not even arguing the logistics of Incapacitation, we're arguing that Incapacitation sucks because somehow players can't comprehend when something might be stronger than them.

Even though knowing whether an opponent is higher level than you does not affect the value of the spell. The value of the spell does not change based on the creature, the effects change, but the value is the same because the effects matter more.

How many max level spells are you all blowing on Goblins then? Everyone spending Cantrips on the BBEG? I just really want to see this doom/gloom/chaos game where somehow everyone has no idea that a Manticore is stronger than a villager. You don't need hyper cognitive DBZ scanners to determine that something is likely stronger than you.

[The Gleeful Grognard]

[FOR CLARITY: I personally give my players some knowledge regarding Incapacitation as I feel it is too punative without doing so. But people are making logic rather than game arguments and I wish to see how they run their games/how consistent their rulings are in this regard.]

Specifically directed towards people who are saying that level is essential / important for a caster to know upon seeing a target and that they should be automatically aware (i.e. with no knowledge check).

Would you then also say that characters should be automatically aware of immunities, resistances, weaknesses or maybe even traits / senses / abilities or something like regeneration?

~~~~~~

1.Spellcaster Against Immunity
If we take the spellcaster into consideration, say they wish to cast cast cold magic at an outsider who is immune to be cold magic. This is a limited resource that they are spending, that has zero chance of harming a target and is therefore completely wasted (in the same nature that an incapacitation spell would be). Would this be a legitimate target for knowing those elements?

~~~~~~

2.Harm vs a Deceptively Lifelike Undead
How about a target who doesn't look undead, and the party has no knowledge that it isn't a living human. Should they be told before casting a harm with a high level slot?

~~~~~~

3.Wasted Invisibility
The players don't know that the target has see invisibility or some other form of precise sight that negates invisibility, maybe even a magical item. Should the players be told this before they cast the spell and engage with this character?

~~~~~~

4.Healing the Dead
A PC goes down, the healer gets blinded. The PC then fails their death saves or gets hit by their wounded condition when they next go down. Normally they would be unconscious so not able to communicate.
Do you allow the healer to cast their two action spell on the square the player was in last, or does the character know innately that their companion is already dead despite having no way of verifying this? (obviously in this case it is a matter what the player wants to roleplay, but the question is it it metagaming for them to have this knowledge?)

~~~~~~

5.Deny Advantage/Attack of Opportunity
A bit of martial love too, and this time regarding levels. Do NPCs innately know player levels with deny advantage or attack of opportunity and do they simply not utilise flanking against those with deny advantage and avoid anything that grants attacks of opportunity?

[Bast L.]

I find NPC AoO knowledge tricky to run. I try not to cheat my players, but if someone looks like a martial type, with weapons and armor, maybe intelligent NPCs can guess that they have AoO? The players can guess from description, but don't know. I can pretend to guess for the NPCs, but I do know.

I think, overall, I run it relatively fairly. They tend to step/avoid the fighter in plate if they can and have the actions, but often don't bother/move past/stand up next to her.

[thenobledrake]

Temperans wrote:

I would say whether something looks hurt, but not how much HP it has.

Here's a lil anecdote:

Player: "I swing my axe at the orc to my left." <rolls and reports a hit for about a third of the orc's HP>
GM: "Your mighty swing forces the orc to jerk himself backwards to avoid a serious wound." <a perfectly by-the-book definition of a successful attack dealing full damage>
Player: "wait... did I miss? I thought you told me to roll damage."
GM: "You hit."
Player: "Oh, he's got damage reduction. Cool."
GM: "No damage reduction, just... HP represent more than just structural damage to the fleshy bits, especially on attacks that don't drop your target to zero HP."

The above is a conversation I've had, and is only one of many that follow the same general form of the player not being clear on what has happened as a result of an attack, despite the GM's best effort to convey appropriate information via non-game terms.

And another:

Player: "which enemy looks most hurt?"
GM: <deliberately not pointing out that none of them necessarily look "hurt" because HP are more than just tenderized meat, and answering the actual question which is "which enemy has the lowest portion of their HP remaining"> "The one next to Jim's character."
Player: "how hurt do they look?"
GM: "uh... they've definitely still got a lot of fight left in them."
Player: "Okay. And this enemy closer to me?"
GM: "hasn't taken damage yet."

This is another example of a type of exchange that I've seen happen constantly. In both this case and the prior, the simple detail of turning on enemy health bars (hooray for VTTs) not only speeds up play by providing assistance answer the above questions, but also communicates a lot more accurately - a player can see a quarter of a health bar remaining and know a lot more accurately what that means than if a GM just said "this one's looking pretty beat down"

And if you add in being able to see the actual number of HP, rather than just a bar representing the remaining percentage, you've got the added benefit of a player knowing how tough their foes look - so in the second scenario above, the player might choose to attack the full HP enemy instead of the two-thirds HP enemy because they've got a better chance of taking that enemy out of the fight with this attack which could be better for the party strategically speaking than just getting the other enemy closer to defeat.

The difference is not "now the character knows stuff they shouldn't" - it's just the player not being wrong about what the GM meant to convey, and play proceeding faster because there are less questions that boil down to "Hey GM, remind me what my character knows?"

[Saedar]

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Specifically directed towards people who are saying that level is essential / important for a caster to know upon seeing a target and that they should be automatically aware (i.e. with no knowledge check).

Would you then also say that characters should be automatically aware of immunities, resistances, weaknesses or maybe even traits / senses / abilities or something like regeneration?

I just don't care if my players know things. PF2 is a tactical minis game with some social encounter mechanics and narrative-driving mechanics added in. There's no narratively interesting reason (for me) to keep that info hidden. I think the placement of the GM as arbiter-of-fun-and-truth is a pretty hostile and outdated way to approach gaming.

To address your points...
1.) I might not come out and say it directly, but I definitely would strongly hint in that direction. This came up in Extinction Curse Book 2, with an enemy somewhere in the book being immune to magic. I thought our GM should've provided some direct hint, rather than relying on the roll of dice to surface the info.
2.) Basically, the same as 1.
3.) Generally, no. I also don't like mechanics that just nuke player options. See invis from time to time? Sure. As a frequent anti-invis tactic? Nah.
4.) I would 100% tell them the character is dead if that weren't otherwise obvious from the game.
5.) NPCs can use whatever tactics they are intended to use. I don't care if they fail, because they aren't the narrative protagonists. They only exist to give the players chances to shine or serve as narrative punctuation.

[thenobledrake]

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Would you then also say that characters should be automatically aware of immunities, resistances, weaknesses or maybe even traits / senses / abilities or something like regeneration?

Sometimes, yes. Fairly regularly, actually, there are visible details which provide indication of what sort of traits the creature has - whether it's a skeletal creature not having flesh to cut so clearly bludgeoning weapons would work better, a troll's rubbery strange hide suggesting that it is a troll (and then basic folk lore communicating that meaning regeneration and a need for fire/acid), or the substance a creature is made of giving clues.

Now, I have to present a caveat that not all of these sort of traits are plainly obvious, even among creatures that do have visual clues, so there's still a lot of motivation for using Recall Knowledge actions - especially because there are times where you might initially think you're looking at an undead but are actually looking at a golem, or you might be dealing with a thing that isn't naturally possessing of a particular trait but has it for other reasons (i.e. a human wearing a ring of energy resistance).

But I lean toward giving a player any information that I can justify them having without making a check - especially because I don't want players to feel like the more they know about the game, the more they have to either play a knowledge-focused character or make bad choices for no reason other than that they know what a good choice would be.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Spellcaster against immunity

If I've shown them art of the creature and they as a player don't think there's reason to expect a particular resistance/immunity, and they haven't chosen to go the Recall Knowledge route or didn't succeed, then it is entirely okay with me if they spend a limited resource and it doesn't work out - because that has happened as a result of their own thought processes and decision to take a risk, not as a result of me not fully communicating what their character is aware of.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Harm vs. a deceptively lifelike undead

Unless this undead has a feature that invokes rules to reinforce the deception (example: a feature like Mimic Object that cites an automatic result of a particular value for Deception checks and DCs to pass as the thing it isn't), it isn't that deceptive - let's use a dhampir as an example; it looks like a dhampir or could be confused for a vampire, but would have to actually get some disguise rules involved to make someone possibly think harm would hurt it.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Wasted invisibility

This falls into the realm of player risk assessment and assumptions, so yeah - they can go right ahead and "waste" this resource if they want. I also wouldn't stop a player casting mage armor even if I know there won't be any combat that day unless they deliberately start it, or say "Oh, I'm not using any creatures that do that type of damage" if they unpromptedly chose to cast resist energy (or energy resistance, whatever it's called this edition).

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Healing the dead

Your entire premise is flawed, as you can't target the dead with a heal spell by the rules - so blind or not, the other character being able to communicate or not, there isn't a question of how this plays out because the rules are clear about what happens if you try to target an invalid target (it's right there on page 304 of the core book; "If you choose a target that isn't valid... your spell fails to target that creature."

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Deny advantage/Attack of Opportunity

Another flawed premise, as the GM can't not know all the game term "out of character" details, so this is a case where the way things work for PCs is inherently different from how they work for NPCs.

That said, the GM's not doing their best, in my opinion, if they aren't letting PC abilities shine a little - so provoke an AoO (and then stop if the enemy in question is smart, or keep at it if they are), try to flank even if it doesn't help... just don't act like an NPC wasting something or making a dumb choice is even remotely equivalent to a player being left without any option but to do just that.

[KrispyXIV]

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

[FOR CLARITY: I personally give my players some knowledge regarding Incapacitation as I feel it is too punative without doing so. But people are making logic rather than game arguments and I wish to see how they run their games/how consistent their rulings are in this regard.]

Specifically directed towards people who are saying that level is essential / important for a caster to know upon seeing a target and that they should be automatically aware (i.e. with no knowledge check).

Would you then also say that characters should be automatically aware of immunities, resistances, weaknesses or maybe even traits / senses / abilities or something like regeneration?

~~~~~~

1.Spellcaster Against Immunity
If we take the spellcaster into consideration, say they wish to cast cast cold magic at an outsider who is immune to be cold magic. This is a limited resource that they are spending, that has zero chance of harming a target and is therefore completely wasted (in the same nature that an incapacitation spell would be). Would this be a legitimate target for knowing those elements?

~~~~~~

2.Harm vs a Deceptively Lifelike Undead
How about a target who doesn't look undead, and the party has no knowledge that it isn't a living human. Should they be told before casting a harm with a high level slot?

~~~~~~

3.Wasted Invisibility
The players don't know that the target has see invisibility or some other form of precise sight that negates invisibility, maybe even a magical item. Should the players be told this before they cast the spell and engage with this character?

~~~~~~

4.Healing the Dead
A PC goes down, the healer gets blinded. The PC then fails their death saves or gets hit by their wounded condition when they next go down. Normally they would be unconscious so not able to communicate.
Do you allow the healer to cast their two action spell on the square the player was in last, or does the character know innately that their...

In general, things that are intended to be unknown I require a skill check or experience to determine.

1 - Obviously probably resistant to an element, like a fire dragon and fire? Id probably provide a "Are you sure you want to try fireball?" if a player went that way. A Demon with a non-standard elemental immunity? Thats something you'd want to Recall Knowledge for ahead of time.

2 - Any undead that is "disguised" to the point that its narratively relevant it cant be determined to be undead by casual observation warrants a skill check at least to determine its nature.

3 - I'd probably offer a friendly reminder before the party tried to sneak by some Guard Dogs on the Strength of Invis alone. On another extreme, If they've made several checks to identify demons so far in the campaign, I might remind them that some high level demons have True Seeing and it may be worth considering that fact if they know there's a Glabrezu in the next room. But in general, See Invis is a trait unique to specific monsters that is "hidden" by default.

4 - Being Blinded, by its very nature, renders obvious information Hidden. That said... the situation you described is dire enough that I'm not going to kick my PCs while they're down. They probably heard their allies death rattle or something, and they'd get the sense they need to be using something capable of bringing someone back from the dead. Their ally is still Hidden, though.

5 - AOO is now rare enough that it qualifies as a unique monster trait in my book - it has to be determined by observation or experimentation. Its very much the exception and not the rule. Deny Advantage is also a unique monster trait but would be apparent to my players as soon as they were in position, and the opponent was not "Flanked" as expected.

None of the above information scenarios though are nearly as critical as enemy level for choosing what spells to prepare or consider in general though.

[ikarinokami]

you dont have to give an exact level. you can say something, you a get a feeling that this is a dangerous opponent, etc. Or this creature gives you a wary feeling or the monster gives off an overwhelming presence.

Authors have been doing it for decades in fantasy novels.

[Temperans]

thenobledrake wrote:

Temperans wrote:

I would say whether something looks hurt, but not how much HP it has.

Here's a lil anecdote:

Player: "I swing my axe at the orc to my left." <rolls and reports a hit for about a third of the orc's HP>
GM: "Your mighty swing forces the orc to jerk himself backwards to avoid a serious wound." <a perfectly by-the-book definition of a successful attack dealing full damage>
Player: "wait... did I miss? I thought you told me to roll damage."
GM: "You hit."
Player: "Oh, he's got damage reduction. Cool."
GM: "No damage reduction, just... HP represent more than just structural damage to the fleshy bits, especially on attacks that don't drop your target to zero HP."

The above is a conversation I've had, and is only one of many that follow the same general form of the player not being clear on what has happened as a result of an attack, despite the GM's best effort to convey appropriate information via non-game terms.

And another:

Player: "which enemy looks most hurt?"
GM: <deliberately not pointing out that none of them necessarily look "hurt" because HP are more than just tenderized meat, and answering the actual question which is "which enemy has the lowest portion of their HP remaining"> "The one next to Jim's character."
Player: "how hurt do they look?"
GM: "uh... they've definitely still got a lot of fight left in them."
Player: "Okay. And this enemy closer to me?"
GM: "hasn't taken damage yet."

This is another example of a type of exchange that I've seen happen constantly. In both this case and the prior, the simple detail of turning on enemy health bars (hooray for VTTs) not only speeds up play by providing assistance answer the above questions, but also communicates a lot more accurately - a player can see a quarter of a health bar remaining and know a lot more accurately what that means than if a GM just said "this one's looking pretty beat down"

And if you add in being able to see the actual number of HP, rather than just a bar representing the remaining...

You described the damage in a weird way and confused the players.

For the 1st Scenario: "You attacks hits the orc severely. He looks very winded and hurt." HP is both stamina and meat getting hurt. So its best to describe both.

For the 2nd Scenario: "The one next to Jim." "How hurt does he look?" "He doesn't look hurt but is breathing slightly heavier.""what about this guy?""he seems to be perfectly fine."

[Kasoh]

Temperans wrote:

You described the damage in a weird way and confused the players.

For the 1st Scenario: "You attacks hits the orc severely. He looks very winded and hurt." HP is both stamina and meat getting hurt. So its best to describe both.

For the 2nd Scenario: "The one next to Jim." "How hurt does he look?" "He doesn't look hurt but is breathing slightly heavier.""what about this guy?""he seems to be perfectly fine."

I'm still a big fan of 4th D&D edition's 'Bloodied' status. It provides enough information to the players for most purposes.

[Unicore]

I tried to move my level awareness relevant conversation over to the thread where that specifically was the heart of the discussion but as far as just character knowledge and balance, why should players get to know the exact value of their own HP, and not just get a loose sense of how injured they are? Knowing your own HP value is metagaming too.

But not knowing exactly how close to death you are would functionally taking power out of the hands of the player and make the game less fun. Why does the potion I drank 3 weeks ago, which made me feel perfectly healthy from the point I was nearly unconscious, now barely make a dent in how I feel? The answer, in world, is level. I strongly agree that your character shouldn't instantly know the exact level of a monster just from looking at it once, but it should have a sense of whether the creature is more powerful or less, AND if the character has specific abilities that interact directly with level, they should have a means of getting the information exactly in enough detail to be able to make all relevant choices about that ability from a position of understanding, because that is what characters with those powers would spend their time trying to figure out.

As a GM, it is not difficult to look at this as a fun opportunity to make the world feel more immersive and the characters more involved in learning about it, rather than turning it into a video game, and even more importantly , it is giving the players the information they need to make informed choices for themselves, rather than feeling like the GM is out to get them and that they should only pick classes, powers and feats that are as statically predictable and repeatable as possible.

[Draco18s]

Unicore wrote:

Why does the potion I drank 3 weeks ago, which made me feel perfectly healthy from the point I was nearly unconscious, now barely make a dent in how I feel? The answer, in world, is level.

One of the reasons I'm a fan of potions being a "percentage of max" system with a lower bound (e.g. "10% max or 10 points, which ever is larger").* Sure, things with very low HP get more benefit out of it, but they're also incredibly frail overall, so it doesn't take much ("Aaah, papercut!" *squirt*) to deal life threatening injuries.

That said, I'm not sure I've seen it outside of video games.

*Alternatively, put the lower bound on HP higher (eg. a level 1 has 100 hp) with a smaller scalar (and level 2 still only gains +10 on their max, rather than 10 -> 20).

[Ubertron_X]

Unicore wrote:

As a GM, it is not difficult to look at this as a fun opportunity to make the world feel more immersive and the characters more involved in learning about it, rather than turning it into a video game, and even more importantly , it is giving the players the information they need to make informed choices for themselves, rather than feeling like the GM is out to get them and that they should only pick classes, powers and feats that are as statically predictable and repeatable as possible.

100 times this. In homebrew usually everthing goes, however I guess you still need to adhere to a certain power level if you ever want to play a official adventure, AP or PFS withou the GM having to tune down every single challenge.

[The Raven Black]

Samurai wrote:

"Young" or "Adult" dragons come with size changes usually. If an ancient dragon had cast a spell to shrink himself, then all the PCs could tell at a glance is "You see a size small dragon." If that small dragon then burned down the reinforced castle gates with 1 breath, that might give the PCs a clue that something strange is going on here.

Which is definite metagaming BTW.

Samurai wrote:

Grankless wrote:

So you nerfed shields for a pointless reason like simulationism? Wack.

I removed shields taking damage too, so it all works out fine. The player just has to decide before the damage is rolled if he wants to chance possibly loosing his shield bonus to AC vs further possible attacks this round in order to block some damage from the current hit, or instead take the hit and keep his shield raised vs later attacks this round (if there are any). That is a conscious decision that a character can make in the heat of battle....if he surrounded by a bunch of goblins and so far this is the first one to attack him, it may be better to just keep the shield raised for now. If he only has 3 HP left, it may be better to reduce some damage now and hope the later attacks miss because of MAP, or they attack another target, or that you do well enough on your shield block Fort save to keep your shield raised even after the block.

How does the character know of HP or MAP? Do they have instruments giving these numbers?

Way I see it, level or any other info that has measurable IC effects is just the same as those.

[The Raven Black]

Seeing the 5 questions listed above reminds me that I never saw a NPC waste attacks on dead PCs just in case they were actually only unconscious.

Metagaming at its finest.

Granted it can be hard for the GM to separate what they know and what NPCs realistically should know in the heat of battle.