To better understand the design philosophy of hit points and healing

[AsmodeusDM]

Summary: If hit points are expected to be at or near full at the start of each encounter, and recovering hit points is a non-resource draining activity, why go through all the hoops of recovering them outside of combat?

I'm trying to understand what role hit point recovery has in the game right now. Previous editions of the game were built on the assumption that hit points would dwindle over the course of multiple encounters and that only magic (a limited resource) would allow characters to regain hit points (outside of long-term rest&recovery).

In 3.x/PF1 the CLW wand was "discovered" which was technically a "limited" resource (being a charged item) but was barely a cost past level 6 or 7.

At this point in the game you would typically heal up after each fight thus removing the entire "long term hit point ablation" that the game's resource management was built upon.

This proved somewhat useful, however, for many DMs and certain types of adventures (especially strong narrative-based adventures such as PF APs). The typical hit point depletion model was strongly tied to the dungeon-delving model of the game and didn't necessarily work well with narratively-driven adventures with tight deadlines and strong time-pressure.

The classic example of this would be the heroes assaulting the necromancer's tower before he can complete her ritual which will awaken all the city's dead. Even if the DM tried to properly balance the adventure around the PCs resources, it's entirely possible that due to the random nature of the d20-based game that the group just runs out of hit points before the final fight vs. the necromancer and either has to go into a fight that they know they will lose, or go home and sleep for 8 hours while the city falls to ruin.

Enter PF2 where-in they make 2 important realization and design decision:

- Given any opportunity to do so; PCs will heal to full after every fight. This just makes strong game sense.

- By assuming the PCs are at full hit points it actually makes the adventure designer/DMs job a lot easier. 1. you can design encounters easier because you know the PCs will be at full hp and don't have to try to account for how weakened/depleted they will be. 2. it's easier to pace your adventures because you no longer have to worry about your PCs having to leave your adventure location in the middle of their heroics to go back to town and sleep for 8 hours which often strains credibility and creates all sorts of headaches to try to manage deadlines and what all the NPCs are going to do with 8-12 hours of time until the PCs return.

To do this PF2 used a number of non-resource depleting focus spells (Lay on Hands, Soothing Ballad, etc.) and of course Treat Wounds.

That's all great.

The dilemma comes in when you consider what this free healing takes: time, often a lot of it.

In PF1 with a wand of CLW healing 5.5hp per use; you could heal ~55hp in 1 minute; more if you allowed wand sharing and/or had multiple wands. Thus an entire party could heal to full in several minutes; perhaps 10 at most.

In PF2 healing via focus spells might require several iterations of healing, refocusing, healing ,refocusing, etc... this might take 30-60 minutes.

Similarly using Treat Wounds might require several iterations which could taken 30-60 minutes and that's assuming you have Continual Recovery and Ward Medic, otherwise it could take multiple hours.

This is where the dilemma comes up....

- Your game assumes PCs are at/near full hit points each encounter.
- Regardless of game design, PCs given the opportunity will heal to full.
- You give PCs options to heal for "free" [using no limited resources]
- This takes 30-60 minutes.

So now you have your group of PCs taking ~45 minute break between each combat encounter in your adventure.

This creates a number of problems; mostly related to pacing and tension.

If you are in your standard dungeon crawl; if your PCs are able to happily take a break in the dungeon for up to an hour the game doesn't feel that dangerous or realistic.

If you are in a fast-paced/sensitive timeline driven adventure; it strains all realism that you could have your group of heroic PCs just sitting around for 30 minutes between each fight.

The counter to these points has often been:

- Use random encounters
- Don't allow them the time to heal to full

Those are great ideas; and they've worked for 50 years. But they work assuming an ablative hp model.

In PF2 your game is balanced that your hp is at full; if you interrupt a party who is weakened with a random encounter or they move along to the next encounter at half hit points, with several PCs with the wounded condition.... you are going to see some seriously high death rates amongst your PCs (and I imagine a lot of frustration).

And that's just the game mechanics issue; the pacing issue is a much more important one. Many PF APs are written from a certain sense of urgency and "heroic" style play; having your PCs resting for up to an hour after each combat encounter breaks up that sense of drama and tension and creates a lot of work for the DM to figure out how the dungeon/site they are active in responds to the PCs intrusion during the hour or so they are resting.

So....

If healing is free anyways; and the game is built upon the idea that you are at full hit points and if taking significant time to heal creates a number of design/pacing issues why do these time requirements exist?

Why doesn't healing just occur automatically or on a much shorter timeframe (say several minutes)?

What does the game GAIN but having it take 20,40, 60+ minutes to heal up to full after (almost) every combat?

[Saedar]

Hit Points are a game currency/resource. You spend HP on stakes and time pressure. Sometimes you can't take a ton of time between fights to heal to full. Sometimes you have to gamble and risk HP to get things done more efficiently.

It is, fundamentally, a pacing mechanic.

The game isn't built on the idea "you are always at full HP". It is built on the idea that your HP at the start of a fight can be an expression of narrative tension.

[AsmodeusDM]

My take away from numerous posts across the forums/reddits as well as my own play experience is that the game is very-much balanced on the "at full" hp model.

My assumptions is based on the idea of a fudge-less GM'd game. One where the GM isn't changing encounter difficulty on the fly in order to account for PCs who may have not rested, it's also based on the idea that the GM isn't fudging any random type encounters that may be happening (only having them hit when the PCs are relatively strong, holding back when they are really beat up).

Saedar wrote:

Hit Points are a game currency/resource. You spend HP on stakes and time pressure. Sometimes you can't take a ton of time between fights to heal to full. Sometimes you have to gamble and risk HP to get things done more efficiently.

It is, fundamentally, a pacing mechanic.

The game isn't built on the idea "you are always at full HP". It is built on the idea that your HP at the start of a fight can be an expression of narrative tension.

[Grankless]

Random encounters don't really add anything to the game, nor are they really an expected part of the game.

Sometimes the party doesn't have 10-60 minutes between fights. That's tension. That encourages them to try and minimize how much HP they're losing, to mitigate what they can, to try and heal as quick as they can. Enemies can react and do things.

[Saedar]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

My assumptions is based on the idea of a fudge-less GM'd game. One where the GM isn't changing encounter difficulty on the fly in order to account for PCs who may have not rested, it's also based on the idea that the GM isn't fudging any random type encounters that may be happening (only having them hit when the PCs are relatively strong, holding back when they are really beat up).

I don't think this assumption is consistent with the creative direction of the game.

If that isn't how your group enjoys playing, that's fine. Just don't project your own assumptions on the design of the game. If you knock your party out, they don't have to die. They can be captured. Left for dead. Etc. If the story stopping in its tracks isn't interesting, then don't do that thing. Or do it in a way where stakes are maintained but something interesting continues to happen.

[AsmodeusDM]

I agree; how do your PCs know how much time they "have"? Like if the PCs fight their way through a combat encounter and post-fight you have numerous PCs below 50% health how do they know if they have 10 minutes, 60 minutes, or zero minutes?

Do you utilize timelines in your adventures or all events/NPCs "quantum"?

Grankless wrote:

Random encounters don't really add anything to the game, nor are they really an expected part of the game.

Sometimes the party doesn't have 10-60 minutes between fights. That's tension. That encourages them to try and minimize how much HP they're losing, to mitigate what they can, to try and heal as quick as they can. Enemies can react and do things.

[AsmodeusDM]

Thanks for that link; it's definitely interesting to see that point of view coming from the creative director.

Coming to PF2 from systems like PbtA and FitD; it's interesting to see these ideas expressed in a d20 based game that doesn't have many of the systems that help support that style of play (Hero Points come close).

Saedar wrote:

I don't think this assumption is consistent with the creative direction of the game.

If that isn't how your group enjoys playing, that's fine. Just don't project your own assumptions on the design of the game. If you knock your party out, they don't have to die. They can be captured. Left for dead. Etc. If the story stopping in its tracks isn't interesting, then don't do that thing. Or do it in a way where stakes are maintained but something interesting continues to happen.

[Saedar]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

Thanks for that link; it's definitely interesting to see that point of view coming from the creative director.

Coming to PF2 from systems like PbtA and FitD; it's interesting to see these ideas expressed in a d20 based game that doesn't have many of the systems that help support that style of play (Hero Points come close).

This is actually a point I have brought up in several threads. I much prefer styles of play like those driven by PbtA-style games or Fate. While I think they could've gone further with explicit narrative mechanics, like in those systems, they have definitely made progress in that direction.

Hero points, failing forward, narrative focus, roll-only-when-failure-is-interesting, etc.

[AsmodeusDM]

Saedar wrote:

I don't think this assumption is consistent with the creative direction of the game.

Upon further reading that thread it seems to me that James Jacobs is saying:

- You can make your encounters easier using weak/elite templates
- if you, as a new DM, messed up and made an encounter too tough on accident you can cheat a little bit because that's your bad...
- BUT, you should try to get better as a DM so you don't have to do that anymore.

So what you call the creative direction of the game seems more to be like a "you messed up GM, learn the system better so you don't keep making mistakes"

[AsmodeusDM]

Are you familiar with GNS theory?

tl;dr: RPGs exist in three dimensions: gamist, narrativist, and simulationist.

It's easy to be a great RPG if you focus on just one element, it's possible to do two; it's damn near impossible to be all three.

D&D/PF is often accused of being a mediocre game because it attempts to do all three. PF1 was pretty solidly a gamist/simulationist game... in PF2 they have definitely embraced Narrativist structures (such as hero points and other game-running philosophies) but they haven't released all their simulationist roots and so the game does have some wonkiness as it's trying to exist in all three elements at once.

Saedar wrote:

AsmodeusDM wrote:

Thanks for that link; it's definitely interesting to see that point of view coming from the creative director.

Coming to PF2 from systems like PbtA and FitD; it's interesting to see these ideas expressed in a d20 based game that doesn't have many of the systems that help support that style of play (Hero Points come close).

This is actually a point I have brought up in several threads. I much prefer styles of play like those driven by PbtA-style games or Fate. While I think they could've gone further with explicit narrative mechanics, like in those systems, they have definitely made progress in that direction.

Hero points, failing forward, narrative focus, roll-only-when-failure-is-interesting, etc.

[Rysky]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

Saedar wrote:

I don't think this assumption is consistent with the creative direction of the game.

Upon further reading that thread it seems to me that James Jacobs is saying:

- You can make your encounters easier using weak/elite templates
- if you, as a new DM, messed up and made an encounter too tough on accident you can cheat a little bit because that's your bad...
- BUT, you should try to get better as a DM so you don't have to do that anymore.

So what you call the creative direction of the game seems more to be like a "you messed up GM, learn the system better so you don't keep making mistakes"

Pretty sure that’s the creative direction for all games.

[KrispyXIV]

As a player/gm, I view between combat healing as a form of puzzle/challenge to be solved. Spending an hour or more between encounters is undesirable.

So typically, the party looks at its abilities and resources and determines how to improve the efficiency of their recovery times - so far, the solution has been to identify quickly renewable healing sources (lay on hands, goodberry) and to figure out which characrer most wants to fit medicine > continual recovery > ward medic into their character.

I need to see more campaigns though before I decide if that's "too limited" in my mind.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

If the game or players assumed full HP after every encounter, the gameplay expectations would change drastically, and the game would outright say as such.

The fact it doesn't demonstrates just how important HP as a mechanic is between combats.

[thenobledrake]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

This creates a number of problems; mostly related to pacing and tension.

That the most assured way of healing up to full between encounters takes time is not the creator of the pacing problem.

Players (and GMs) are creating the problem with their attitude towards time management.

If you have players that are playing characters as people that want to get things done, the characters might take a 10 minute breather if they aren't explicitly in a hurry, but they won't actually think it's "normal" to spend half or whole hours doing basically nothing.

And if you have the GM keep the world moving around the characters rather than effectively having the world pause and wait, the players will naturally tend to try to keep their characters moving forward toward their goals even without explicitly knowing how long they have until some undesired event happens - and it's really as simple as having the reason why any given NPCs/monsters are wherever they are, and having things progress on a natural time frame (which I know a lot of GMs, especially if they are running a published adventure, feel like they "can't" do because there's no schedule provided to them - but that's the same as thinking you can't use a voice or inject a personality into an NPC/monster because there's no explicit directions which voice to use or traits to portray).

The end result is that players know that encounters are balanced assuming they have full HP, and they can do stuff like get a little healing between encounters, decide to press on, but also explicitly have a potion in hand ready to drink at the first sign of trouble - or have the group stay in a tight formation around a character with the heal spell with the plan being a 1st-round casting to top off the party (with the option of everyone delaying or otherwise not attacking so it's not an issue that a 3-action heal would benefit the enemy too). Then you have a party that hasn't wasted time, nor any resources, but is still fully capable of handling the encounters they face.

[Saedar]

Like. You say you are from PbtA stuff, right? Think about it in terms of the Countdown Clock concept. The factions/orgs/etc in the game world don't halt their functioning because the PCs hit "Pause". There are stakes to actions taken (or not taken). If you aren't reinforcing the movement of the world separate from the PCs, it will be inevitable that HP feels like a useless abstraction. Again: That's fine, if it is what you and your table want.

If it isn't what you want, which seems to be the case, you have to adjust your perspective to account for what the world is doing while your PCs are hanging out treating wounds for several hours. Maybe just lift the entire Countdown Clock/Factions concept from PbtA whole-cloth.

[shroudb]

it's often reasonable, to have a little break between encounters. Other times it's even reasonable to have long breaks between them. But i've found that *a lot* of times you simply don't have enough time to spend hours just resting between each and every encounter, not if you expect to advance in your goals in a reasonable time frame.

this borders extremely close to old "1 encounter/day" discussions, where you could reasonably (after a level) unload everyhting in one encounter, teleport/rest, next day go for the second encounter.

it's true that game mechanics actually allow you to do so, but it's almost impossible to actually follow the narrative aspect of a role playing game doing so.

to put a simple scenario, in a lair, if you spent 1hour after the first encounter, it's not unreasonable for the denizens to sent someone to check why they havent heard from the guards in the entrance after an hour. And when you spent another hour to rest after the encounter with the scouting party, it's not unreasonable to actually find yourself facing the full force of whatever is in the lair, a possibly much harder encounter than if you would naturally went over them little by little, since now they *know* that something is happenning in the entrance and they mobilized. (assuming reasonably intelligent occupants always)

so, while the mechanics follow set rules like a video game, the actual world is alive and moving regardless if your party is static.

[Captain Morgan]

You're trying to find one size fits all answers to a question that is really about adventure design. You can't do that, because different adventures are designed in different ways. I've dabbled with different solutions myself, like using a tension pool to mark the passage of time. It works sometimes, like if you have a bunch of X factor encounters that you decide when they happen, rather than being initiated by a player walking into a room or whatever. It doesn't work great the rest of the time.

The point of tracking hit point healing outside of combat is it leaves you the option to actually string encounters together for meaningful attrition as well as get players to chug their potions and other consumables when the time pressure is on. Even if most encounters assume full HP, they won't all do so.

There's also a versimilitude issue. Doing something to heal feels less gamey than hit points just resetting every fight. And having them take time to do so actually makes the adventuring day a day rather than a burst of combat for a few minutes and then bed time.

That said, if your PCs truly have no time pressure and are going to take however long to heal up to full, then don't bother rolling for it. Especially for the last encounter of the day. Just handwaved that they take the appropriate time until they are back to full.

[AsmodeusDM]

Numerous replies have argued that the time requirement itself becomes a tool; useful to have the PCs make interesting decisions. i.e. "if the PCs take too long, X happens"

My question to you then is how to appropriately communicate to the players the nature of the decisions they are making and the appropriate consequences therein?

Or put another way...

We get in a bad fight we are pretty roughed up; we spend 10 minutes to heal up; but the Medicine checks don't go our way so we spend another 10 minutes to make another series of checks and then we press on hurriedly. Moving through a series of antechambers we burst in through the main temples double doors; there laying in a spreading pool of crimson is the slain princess with the cackling evil priest above her.

"What!" one of the PCs cries out.

"Sorry," says the GM. "You guys took 20 mins to get here, if it had been 10 minutes it would've been a totally different story"

"Lame, how were we supposed to know that?"

...

And yes that's an absurd example; but the PCs have a point: how are they supposed to know if they have 10 minutes or 30 or 0?

Unless of course the nature of time in your game is completely arbitrary and the princess won't die until...well the DM just decides she does.

In which case your time management isn't actually important and doesn't matter because what really matters is whether or not the GM decides she dies or not.

[PossibleCabbage]

Better than making the PCs feel like they can't dawdle because monsters might wander by and attack them, is making the PCs decide that they shouldn't dawdle because there's some narrative pressure that suggests wasting time is a bad idea ultimately.

[AsmodeusDM]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Better than making the PCs feel like they can't dawdle because monsters might wander by and attack them, is making the PCs decide that they shouldn't dawdle because there's some narrative pressure that suggests wasting time is a bad idea ultimately.

Right I agree; but like at what point in a sequence of exciting events would a 10 minute rest let alone a 30 or 60 minute rest make sense.

Movies do this all the time; it's a useful pacing tool. Look at a movie like the Matrix where Neo and Trinity go to save Morpheus.

Combat #1: Lobby shoot-out scene

Pause/Rest: Elevator scene

Combat #2: Rooftop battle highlighted by battle at the end with Agent

Pause/Rest: Neo does a long sigh, Trinity helps him back up. Brief dialog. Trinity gets new helicopter power

"Combat #3": Helicopter mini-gun attack/Neo's leap to save Morpheus.

But these weren't 10-minute or 20-minute breaks; at most they were 1 minute maybe 2. But in my mind if this were a game, those characters were "resting" and "regaining hp"

[Squiggit]

Going to break with most of the other people here. The game absolutely doesn't really handle playing down on HP very well. If you're going into a meaningful encounter with your party severely wounded, it tends to create a lot of problems. The game's math is just too finely tuned to really have it make sense to go from one challenging encounter to another with your characters being at half HP and out of focus points.

But working against this reality is the fundamental issue that PF2 made its rest cycle really long. Spending an hour or more between battles resting isn't really practical. Even ten minutes is a really awkwardly long wait time if there's any sense of narrative pressure.

In practice, imo, it creates a sort of dissonance where the players feel like there's a severe time crunch, but the game generally still needs to allow for at least some degree of recuperation between encounters, so that time crunch gets stretched.

[shroudb]

Squiggit wrote:

Going to break with most of the other people here. The game absolutely doesn't really handle playing down on HP very well. If you're going into a meaningful encounter with your party severely wounded, it tends to create a lot of problems. The game's math is just too finely tuned to really have it make sense to go from one challenging encounter to another with your characters being at half HP and out of focus points.

But working against this reality is the fundamental issue that PF2 made its rest cycle really long. Spending an hour or more between battles resting isn't really practical. Even ten minutes is a really awkwardly long wait time if there's any sense of narrative pressure.

In practice, imo, it creates a sort of dissonance where the players feel like there's a severe time crunch, but the game generally still needs to allow for at least some degree of recuperation between encounters, so that time crunch gets stretched.

that is the job of the gm though.

balance the encounter difficulty with the narrative he wants to tell.

he cant really expect to to throw really challenging encounters one after another wihtout giving breathing room to the players, unless it's a very specific scenario to create tension that should never be overused.

that said, some times stuff don't go as planned. bad rolls, bad luck, random stuff happen, and in those times, it's up to the tension the gm has created and the tactical acumen of the players that decide if they can or can't take the rest with whatever the outcome for either option will mean.

[The-Magic-Sword]

I've noticed that for some weird reason people take "If your players can heal between every encounter, that's fine, it won't break the game's balance" as "Your players should be healed after every encounter, otherwise it breaks the game's balance"

Its like its dead set in our minds that it has to be one or the other, either you HAVE to whittle them down, or they HAVE to be fully rested.

In reality, the game just has so many ways to heal in combat, mitigate damage, avoid exposing yourself, afflicting creatures with crowd control, or simply being able to take enough hits that being a little down on HP isn't a dramatic shift unless you get really unlucky in a whole slew of ways.

It's something the GM should pay attention to somewhat, but not something that can be pinned down as a science of how every encounter should start.

[KrispyXIV]

One thing thats important to mangung healing mechanics now is setting expectations for your party so that they - and just importantly, you - know what the Time Pressure is.

For me, theres approx 5 general states, expressed in terms of Princess Peril -

The princess is in danger now, and any significant delays (rests) may result in her death.

The princess is in immenent danger - you can probably get away with taking a single break to recover in this area, but more than that is ill advised.

The princess is to be married in an hour. Given the ground you have to cover, you can probably rest for 2-3 ten minute periods total if you want to make it in time.

The princess is in peril, but theres no immenenent danger. A rest after each encounter is totally reasonable, its only if you rest for hours on end things might develop adversely.

And

There is no princess. No pressure at all really, or its measured in days or weeks - rest all you want.

Generally, as long as the GM and the players understand the current level of tension, you can maintain appropriate tension throughout the adventuring day.

[AsmodeusDM]

I think that the truth is that many may GMs fudge, a lot, and when they say "their games are fine" they are in fact fudging, almost constantly so that the game goes as expected.

I'm not even saying that in a derogatory way; if that works for you and your group that's fine. But it does irk me when people say a game is balanced, but those selfsame people are always fudging dice or encounters or timing so that it better fits with the "evolving narrative"

I'm totally fine by the way with a game where the GM "cheats" or fudges; I play a lot of super hero games and basically before the game or session I'll lay it out for the players

"Look guys we are doing genre here, you guys are the super heroes and this is a pretty light-hearted game so if there are people trapped in a burning building and you roll low, I'm not going to be like 'they all die', we'll figure out a story reason and appropriate consequence (likely to your hero) and move on with the game from there.

What I do NOT like is games where GMs secretly fudge and manipulate behind the scene; where they act like their game is RAW and play-it-as-it-lies-let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may but are actually fudging constantly on skill DCs and ACs and saves and hps, etc, etc.. Those games seem very disingenuous to me.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I've noticed that for some weird reason people take "If your players can heal between every encounter, that's fine, it won't break the game's balance" as "Your players should be healed after every encounter, otherwise it breaks the game's balance"

Its like its dead set in our minds that it has to be one or the other, either you HAVE to whittle them down, or they HAVE to be fully rested.

In reality, the game just has so many ways to heal in combat, mitigate damage, avoid exposing yourself, afflicting creatures with crowd control, or simply being able to take enough hits that being a little down on HP isn't a dramatic shift unless you get really unlucky in a whole slew of ways.

It's something the GM should pay attention to somewhat, but not something that can be pinned down as a science of how every encounter should start.

[The-Magic-Sword]

I mean, I view quietly fudging as another tool in the GM's toolbox, but there's an integrity to the hull of their game they're dealing a little damage to whenever they do it, do it too much and rather than improving the game, the verisimilitude collapses.

But personally, I was speaking from experience, and my game doesn't fudge anywhere near as extensively as you're suggesting.

Instead, it comes from the players having plenty of tools to not get borked if they get caught out, everything from health potions, to three action heals that cover everyone, to champion reactions providing resistance for potentially lethal situations, to rotating the front line to make the squishies less likely targets.

[KrispyXIV]

I provide DCs and consequences up front and roll dice in the open, because my players don't like the idea of rolls being "fudged" in their favor.

In general - and relevant to the topic - I've never found it hurts the play experience to make as much information as reasonable available to the players to act on.

That includes rolls, DCs, and expectations on how much time and resources they should be investing in healing between encounyers.

[Tarlane]

As an additional note to all this, even if there isn't a strict time pressure in a broad sense, the players knowing that you might adjust other encounters by their delays.

For instance, the players get in a fight and there are a few rooms around them. If enemies behind those doors hear the combat there are a few possible reactions. They might come charging out and join in the fray. They might decide the original group should be able to handle it and just be conscious of the players approach. They might ignore it(under paid mook, overconfident demon). Or they might prepare.

Its that last case that can be used for time pressure if the players know its a possibility. If the players walk into a new area immediately after a fight, they might find some enemies scrambling into more defensive positions without much change. But if they take at least a few minutes, the enemies might be bunkered down and have some environmental/defensive bonuses, might have called in support, or just have caused a bit tougher of a fight. Players don't need to know for sure when this happens, just an awareness that the world isn't static in the spots they can't actively see can express that.

[Saedar]

KrispyXIV wrote:

I provide DCs and consequences up front and roll dice in the open, because my players don't like the idea of rolls being "fudged" in their favor.

In general - and relevant to the topic - I've never found it hurts the play experience to make as much information as reasonable available to the players to act on.

That includes rolls, DCs, and expectations on how much time and resources they should be investing in healing between encounyers.

Same. I've never liked GM screens (literal or metaphorical), as either a player or GM.

I don't fudge rolls when I'm running a game because I don't need to. If death is on the table, my group knows that. You set the scene and tone in such a way to convey "things are getting rough". The "princess" example upthread by Krispy is spot-on. There is a narrative. Stick with what makes things narratively interesting.

Worth noting: This doesn't really work in a sandbox game very easily. If sandbox is what you're doing, yeah. Random nonsense can drop a ton of bricks on your party and ope dead party. That's just how it be sometimes.

[AsmodeusDM]

KrispyXIV wrote:

One thing thats important to mangung healing mechanics now is setting expectations for your party so that they - and just importantly, you - know what the Time Pressure is.

For me, theres approx 5 general states, expressed in terms of Princess Peril -

Generally, as long as the GM and the players understand the current level of tension, you can maintain appropriate tension throughout the adventuring day.

I'm right there with you; so my question is for the first 2 princess danger states how do you reconcile the need for recovery (and it's associated time cost) with the need of the timeliness of the plot

[Saedar]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

One thing thats important to mangung healing mechanics now is setting expectations for your party so that they - and just importantly, you - know what the Time Pressure is.

For me, theres approx 5 general states, expressed in terms of Princess Peril -

Generally, as long as the GM and the players understand the current level of tension, you can maintain appropriate tension throughout the adventuring day.

I'm right there with you; so my question is for the first 2 princess danger states how do you reconcile the need for recovery (and it's associated time cost) with the need of the timeliness of the plot

If the PCs are under pressure, maybe the opposition is, too? They couldn't throw together a strong defense. There are a bunch of much lower-level enemies and you only really begin to scale up as you "ascend the castle", so to speak. Use the relative strength of the opposition as a signal.

[KrispyXIV]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

KrispyXIV wrote:

One thing thats important to mangung healing mechanics now is setting expectations for your party so that they - and just importantly, you - know what the Time Pressure is.

For me, theres approx 5 general states, expressed in terms of Princess Peril -

Generally, as long as the GM and the players understand the current level of tension, you can maintain appropriate tension throughout the adventuring day.

I'm right there with you; so my question is for the first 2 princess danger states how do you reconcile the need for recovery (and it's associated time cost) with the need of the timeliness of the plot

Two general strategies -

The first is to ensure that the encounters are balanced with this sort of impetus in mind. That does mean sometimes making sure they're less dangerous.

The second, and my preference, is to let these sort of situations serve as a reminder as to why healing consumables exist, and why the party should consider investing in them ;) There are player available options for recovering on the go, and normally my parties are reluctant to use them in normal play. Extra pressure generally serves to get them to see them as a resource to be used, instead of horded.

[AsmodeusDM]

KrispyXIV wrote:

I provide DCs and consequences up front and roll dice in the open, because my players don't like the idea of rolls being "fudged" in their favor.

In general - and relevant to the topic - I've never found it hurts the play experience to make as much information as reasonable available to the players to act on.

That includes rolls, DCs, and expectations on how much time and resources they should be investing in healing between encounyers.

I really respect this for a few reasons.

#1 It eliminates the soft fudge.

A lot of time GMs are quiety fudging and they don't even know it; a soft fudge is where you roll the die in the open or you openly announce the DC to the table before the PC rolls. Seems fudge free right? But.. if you also don't clearly state what's as stake it's still a natural tendency (even subconsciously) to fudge the roll.

I see this happen at tables all the time.

PC: "Okay; I'm going to try to wrest control of the ritual from the circle of demons!"

GM: "Okay that sounds pretty risky; it's going to be DC 25!"

Other PC: "Yikes, what happens if he fails!?"

GM: "heh,heh... you don't want to find out! mwhahah"

PC rolls; gets 26 "Yes!"

GM: "whoa; just barely! Good thing too; if you had failed your soul would have been sucked into the Abyss!"

Other PC: "Awesome ; that was epic!"

This is an illusion. The GM has both sides of his bets covered; if the PC passes the check we can pretend like if they failed the roll their soul would have been consumed by the Abyss; so then they seem heroic and a badass. But IF they do fail; the GM hasn't set the stakes so high that they are forced into a corner; instead they can mitigate it and just turn it into a bunch of damage or some Will save or something else not nearly as threatening.

So yeah; setting clear expectations with the PC about what will happen should they pass AND should they not pass: is for me, critical to making proper informed and meaningful decisions.

#2 meaningful and informed decisions.

It might not be very simulationist, but I think at least being up front with the PCs about how much time and healing they need is WAY better than turning everything into Quantum ogres and Quantum timeclocks.

I'd much rather a GM "break the 4th wall" and have a real meaningful chat with us allowing us to make proper decision.

e.g.

*fight ends PCs are kinda beaten up*

PC: "Should we heal up real quick?"

Other PC: "Probably that fight was tough"

GM: "Actually; you know what even now the circle of demons is preparing for the final ritual; there's no time for you to rest"

PC: "Okay! Onward we go!"

Is there anyway the PCs could have actually had that information? No; but like a movie cutaway to a shot of the villain letting us know their plans; if this kinda of narrative game is one that you want to play then I think you should embrace the genre.

[KrispyXIV]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

I'd much rather a GM "break the 4th wall" and have a real meaningful chat with us allowing us to make proper decision.

e.g.

*fight ends PCs are kinda beaten up*

PC: "Should we heal up real quick?"

Other PC: "Probably that fight was tough"

GM: "Actually; you know what even now the circle of demons is preparing for the final ritual; there's no time for you to rest"

PC: "Okay! Onward we go!"

Is there anyway the PCs could have actually had that information? No; but like a movie cutaway to a shot of the villain letting us know their plans; if this kinda of narrative game is one that you want to play then I think you should embrace the genre.

In a lot of cases, this is the best way to share information the Characters would have as residents of the theoretical world they inhabit, but that the players might not have because of the limitations of their interface with that world (ie, its a game).

I assume that my players character's know more about hypothetical demonic rituals than the players themselves do - therefore, as the GM, providing information like this is helping bridge the gap to make sure the narrative in the world keeps flowing in a way that works and makes narrative sense.

In summary, I feel like being overly simulationist and strictly rationing information is often making things less realistic, because it tends to forget that if the PCs were real people, theyre every bit the experts on in-setting lore and adventuring that we are at real world culture and whatever our expertise is.

[AsmodeusDM]

Tarlane wrote:

As an additional note to all this, even if there isn't a strict time pressure in a broad sense, the players knowing that you might adjust other encounters by their delays.

For instance, the players get in a fight and there are a few rooms around them. If enemies behind those doors hear the combat there are a few possible reactions. They might come charging out and join in the fray. They might decide the original group should be able to handle it and just be conscious of the players approach. They might ignore it(under paid mook, overconfident demon). Or they might prepare.

Its that last case that can be used for time pressure if the players know its a possibility. If the players walk into a new area immediately after a fight, they might find some enemies scrambling into more defensive positions without much change. But if they take at least a few minutes, the enemies might be bunkered down and have some environmental/defensive bonuses, might have called in support, or just have caused a bit tougher of a fight. Players don't need to know for sure when this happens, just an awareness that the world isn't static in the spots they can't actively see can express that.

I think that is all very reasonable; given 5-10 minutes. But half-hour? An hour?

It's just such a wonky amount of time; 5e has this problem too with it's short rest being an hour.

In a dungeon delving based game I think it makes PERFECT sense; in that genre of game the Random Encounter via wandering monster is still a thing and the PCs are kinda operating on their own anyways.

But in most adventures, especially Pathfinder, you are in a far more dynamic and time sensitive situation than your typical dungeon.

[Tarlane]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

I think that is all very reasonable; given 5-10 minutes. But half-hour? An hour?

It's just such a wonky amount of time; 5e has this problem too with it's short rest being an hour.

In a dungeon delving based game I think it makes PERFECT sense; in that genre of game the Random Encounter via wandering monster is still a thing and the PCs are kinda operating on their own anyways.

But in most adventures, especially Pathfinder, you are in a far more dynamic and time sensitive situation than your typical dungeon.

If the players are taking an extended amount of time like that often enough that you want to curb the behavior I'd probably go the opposite way. After they make some noise and then sit around for a half hour before checking on any locations that may have heard them, I'd have them go into the next room and find no enemy but see it has been hastily stripped.

It doesn't really matter whether there would have been anything of real value in there. Having the players think that the enemy heard them coming and took the opportunity of their rest period to grab anything they could in the room and run away tends to play on the players base instincts and will have them subconsciously weighing whether they actually think they need that one extra lay of hands, ect.

[Mathmuse]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

I think that the truth is that many may GMs fudge, a lot, and when they say "their games are fine" they are in fact fudging, almost constantly so that the game goes as expected.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sigh.

My players are masters of the unexpected plot twist. Their main combat skills are adaptive tactics and teamwork. My main GM skill is improvisation. "Expected" is not particularly meaningful in combat in my campaign.

Also, I never used a GM screen and always rolled my dice in the open. I often tell my players information about enemy hit points, "Your 6 points of damage barely bothered him. He lost 5% of his hit points." And I give them plenty of opportunities for information gathering and scouting. I am not going to change what they learned. I don't fudge. I give them hero points to handle emergencies.

As for healing up between encounters, in the 2d part of my PF2-converted Trail of the Hunted module the party had about one encounter per day. That naturally meant that they were at full resources, health and spells, before the encounter. In the 1st part, an army of hundreds was just 200 feet away from them, securing territory as they advanced, so going in the wrong direction or pausing in one place could have slaughtered the party. It wasn't until the 3rd part that they had to worry about the timing of healing. See Controlling "difficulty" and balancing player expectations, comment #73 for a description of that part in a relevant thread.

My players like when their opponents react to their actions. They love verisimilitude. They want to sneak up on a sentry and take him out before he can raise the alarm, and if they fail, they want that alarm to alert the castle. If they take too much time in a room, then an enemy with business in the room might wander in and raise the alarm. And when the alarm is raised, the guards group up into powerful squads and go looking for the intruders. Sometimes the PCs have to retreat. On the other hand, a dungeon of mindless zombies or dumb animals or amateur bandits who have no discipline are not going to organize.

[thenobledrake]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

My question to you then is how to appropriately communicate to the players the nature of the decisions they are making and the appropriate consequences therein?

It is as simple as starting to have things the party encounters appear to be in the middle of some kind of activity. Meaning that when the party opens a door and sees NPCs/monsters in a room, don't just describe what they look like and what's in the room, also describe what it appears they were doing - even innocous things like them sitting around a table playing games, eating, or getting ready to bed down and sleep for a bit.

That will put the idea into the players' minds that stuff happens even when the PCs aren't there to see it, and if doesn't right away, it certainly will the first time the party ends up facing a severe encounter after finding an empty area with signs of recent activity and then proceeding into the next area, where they then find the work force from the prior area and also the next shift worth of workers having a bit of an exchange or the like. (For this example, imagine the reason a tribe of goblins and bugbears are here is because they're digging for artifacts they believe to be somewhere in the area, and a shift of goblins are reporting to their bugbear allies what minor finds they've made during their shift so the bugbears can decide where to focus their digging - and if the party would have shown up earlier, they'd have found the goblins still at work and the bugbears in a separate room having breakfast)

AsmodeusDM wrote:

"Lame, how were we supposed to know that?"

Setting aside that most times an adventurer and a kidnapped princess are in the same area it's because the adventurer's quest is to rescue the princess, the answer to this question is simpler than most people think:

You weren't. What you were supposed to know is that you don't know all the details of everything that's going on in the world around you, and should act accordingly - you don't know the bad guys are doing something nefarious that you need to hurry and stop, but you also don't know they aren't, so it's up to you to decide how to proceed but there are consequences either way.

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

In reality, the game just has so many ways to heal in combat, mitigate damage, avoid exposing yourself, afflicting creatures with crowd control, or simply being able to take enough hits that being a little down on HP isn't a dramatic shift unless you get really unlucky in a whole slew of ways.

It's something the GM should pay attention to somewhat, but not something that can be pinned down as a science of how every encounter should start.

That's why I mentioned stuff like my players proceeding on while wounded, but prepping to heal some more at the sign of trouble.

But some people seem convinced that a wounded character behaving more cautiously than normal in an encounter to make up for their minor lack of HP is going to swing a defeatable encounter all the way over to an assured defeat.

AsmodeusDM wrote:

I think that the truth is that many may GMs fudge, a lot, and when they say "their games are fine" they are in fact fudging, almost constantly so that the game goes as expected.

I haven't fudged a single die roll in over 20 years. It's not actually as necessary as many people view it as being. The key is in the choices that lead up to die rolls. In my experience, a lot of GMs will make choices with as much lethal efficiency as they can - monsters always at peak coordination, focusing fire on a particular PC, and the like - and then they get to a die roll that either they fudge or a character dies, so they fudge, and they don't recognize that they could have avoided needing to fudge that roll by making different choices at points before that die roll.

Simple stuff like playing monsters inefficiently on purpose - attack who they are "mad at" rather than who would be the "best" target, do things that fit the personality of the monster even if they aren't a "smart" tactical option at the moment, and so on - also letting your players know that you won't be fudging, so if their character dies it's not your own fault helps. Basically, when your goal is to not fudge, it's a pretty easy thing to figure out how to accomplish.

AsmodeusDM wrote:

#1 It eliminates the soft fudge.

I'd never heard of this "soft fudge" before... it made me laugh, so thanks for talking about it.

[Castilliano]

As well as seconding much of what Mathmuse & thenobledrake wrote, I'll add that even some of the earliest "dungeon crawls" had dynamic enemies. If you stirred up the hornet's nest you fled, sometimes pursued, sometimes with preparations waiting for your return. This is one of the reasons many of the earliest DnD archenemies were Chaotic Evil, so that they wouldn't coordinate so much that they'd wipe the floor of the PCs and there could be separate factions in the megaplex that wouldn't run to the aid of another. In a handful of modules, writers accounted for PCs pitting certain groups against each other (though not required to) or what might happen if PCs freed some slaves. Small notes here and there told a bigger picture that I don't see much anymore, likely since many chapters of modules & APs are built around taking one or two sessions in a straightforward manner, even megadungeon Emerald Spire where there's little continuity between floors (though some).

There might be different patterns at different times of day (usually just two, awake & asleep), different stations when the alarm's raised (not just movement, but perhaps tables turned over for cover or a lowered portcullis), and wandering monsters that represented an active ecosystem/city/fortress (including not only patrols & pets, but in one case monstrous children out raiding a pantry or the leader caught without his minions as he hurries to get something (oops!)).

And not all enemies were kill, kill, kill.
Some specifically could be reasoned with, or had certain points where their morale would break or they'd turn docile due to a warmonger leader dying. You might even find a traitor or spy in their midst, that is if you didn't slaughter them too as part of the pack. Rewards (especially from freed slaves) often came in the form of debts owed, fame, friendships, potential alliances, and the like.
You want Elfin Chain? Go save an upper class Elf. :)

Well that stirred up some old memories!

That said, I've wondered too what PF2's expected balance was between recovery and time pressure. The modules & APs seem to assume parties must Treat Wounds & Refocus to thrive, even in awkward situations. Those lulls seem like they'd kill the tension, make ongoing dread difficult at best. Killing like clockwork? Meh.

Cheers

[AsmodeusDM]

thenobledrake wrote:

I haven't fudged a single die roll in over 20 years. It's not actually as necessary as many people view it as being. The key is in the choices that lead up to die rolls. In my experience, a lot of GMs will make choices with as much lethal efficiency as they can - monsters always at peak coordination, focusing fire on a particular PC, and the like - and then they get to a die roll that either they fudge or a character dies, so they fudge, and they don't recognize that they could have avoided needing to fudge that roll by making different choices at points before that die roll.

Simple stuff like playing monsters inefficiently on purpose - attack who they are "mad at" rather than who would be the "best" target, do things that fit the personality of the monster even if they aren't a "smart" tactical option at the moment, and so on - also letting your players know that you won't be fudging, so if their character dies it's not your own fault helps. Basically, when your goal is to not fudge, it's a pretty easy thing to figure out how to accomplish.

I think that's pretty solid all-around excellent advice.

I think my "problem" with PF2 is that RPGs have come a long way in the last couple of years. Due to the huge popularity of Crit Role and other online games it seems more than ever that traditional games are trying hard to shift towards the more narrative playstyle that the indie space has been doing for years.

Now I've been playing Fate and DWorld and Monsterhearts forever; but it was always sorta a well separated bin: here are my narrative focused indie games... here are my trad d20-based dungeon murderhobo games...

It seems that WoTC and Paizo have been trying to "catch up" so to speak and making their games more narrative (see Inspiration and Hero Points along with several other elements like Incap); and while I applaud their actions I still feel like there are a lot of growing pains to go through.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like the actual fudging I do most as the GM is narrative fudging; that is not die rolls but I will adjust my narration for the maximum dramatic impact.

So the state I try to build to is where the players feel pressure to go quickly, because they believe that if they hurry that some horrible outcome can be prevented, so when they decide to take a 10 minute rest to refocus and heal that feels like a real cost, but unless they take the minimum possible time (i.e. no rests) they're still going to arrive in the nick of time anyway.

I'll write a couple different versions of the scenario based on "PCs made good time" and "PCs did not make good time" with the former being better for the group, but they're never going to actually arrive after the captives have been sacrificed to trigger the apocalypse or whatever.

[Ubertron_X]

The thing is there is a difference in between a party that is already struggeling, perhaps due to unlucky rolls or missing system mastery, and a party that has already demonstrated full system mastery but is playing it overly save.

And while I would never recommend to put additional pressure on the former a little extra presure on the later seems okish to me, at least from time to time.

[AsmodeusDM]

Castilliano wrote:

As well as seconding much of what Mathmuse & thenobledrake wrote, I'll add that even some of the earliest "dungeon crawls" had dynamic enemies. If you stirred up the hornet's nest you fled, sometimes pursued, sometimes with preparations waiting for your return. This is one of the reasons many of the earliest DnD archenemies were Chaotic Evil, so that they wouldn't coordinate so much that they'd wipe the floor of the PCs and there could be separate factions in the megaplex that wouldn't run to the aid of another. In a handful of modules, writers accounted for PCs pitting certain groups against each other (though not required to) or what might happen if PCs freed some slaves. Small notes here and there told a bigger picture that I don't see much anymore, likely since many chapters of modules & APs are built around taking one or two sessions in a straightforward manner, even megadungeon Emerald Spire where there's little continuity between floors (though some).

There might be different patterns at different times of day (usually just two, awake & asleep), different stations when the alarm's raised (not just movement, but perhaps tables turned over for cover or a lowered portcullis), and wandering monsters that represented an active ecosystem/city/fortress (including not only patrols & pets, but in one case monstrous children out raiding a pantry or the leader caught without his minions as he hurries to get something (oops!)).

And not all enemies were kill, kill, kill.
Some specifically could be reasoned with, or had certain points where their morale would break or they'd turn docile due to a warmonger leader dying. You might even find a traitor or spy in their midst, that is if you didn't slaughter them too as part of the pack. Rewards (especially from freed slaves) often came in the form of debts owed, fame, friendships, potential alliances, and the like.
You want Elfin Chain? Go save an upper class Elf. :)

You've basically just re-written the OSR manifesto :D

[Oakblade]

From my humble experience as a GM, I find the idea of "nobody in the second room in the dungeon heard the fight in the first room" more mind-boggling than the concept of HP.

Did your party of all rogues pull off a perfectly synchronized assassination with not a single enemy able to yelp out a warning for help?

No?

Then you better clear out the whole dungeon in one go, or the rest of its denizens will:

a) fortify the hell out of it
b) send out a scout or two to evaluate your strength and numbers
c) set up an ambush
d) gather ALL encounters in one room and march to attack you en-masse
e) pack up all their stuff and leave, leaving you an empty dungeon devoid of treasure, but still full of booby traps
f) some or all of the above

From that perspective, my dungeons are usually 1-2 rooms. If you're sneaky or clever you might be able to bypass the first or do shenanigans to split up your enemies. But the kobolds/goblins/wolves/elves/whatever will not sit around wondering when you'll come over to murderize them once they start hearing disturbing noises from the room down the hall.

Unless the game has really high stakes: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/inattentive-guards

[Castilliano]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

Castilliano wrote:

As well as seconding much of what Mathmuse & thenobledrake wrote, I'll add that even some of the earliest "dungeon crawls" had dynamic enemies. If you stirred up the hornet's nest you fled, sometimes pursued, sometimes with preparations waiting for your return. This is one of the reasons many of the earliest DnD archenemies were Chaotic Evil, so that they wouldn't coordinate so much that they'd wipe the floor of the PCs and there could be separate factions in the megaplex that wouldn't run to the aid of another. In a handful of modules, writers accounted for PCs pitting certain groups against each other (though not required to) or what might happen if PCs freed some slaves. Small notes here and there told a bigger picture that I don't see much anymore, likely since many chapters of modules & APs are built around taking one or two sessions in a straightforward manner, even megadungeon Emerald Spire where there's little continuity between floors (though some).

There might be different patterns at different times of day (usually just two, awake & asleep), different stations when the alarm's raised (not just movement, but perhaps tables turned over for cover or a lowered portcullis), and wandering monsters that represented an active ecosystem/city/fortress (including not only patrols & pets, but in one case monstrous children out raiding a pantry or the leader caught without his minions as he hurries to get something (oops!)).

And not all enemies were kill, kill, kill.
Some specifically could be reasoned with, or had certain points where their morale would break or they'd turn docile due to a warmonger leader dying. You might even find a traitor or spy in their midst, that is if you didn't slaughter them too as part of the pack. Rewards (especially from freed slaves) often came in the form of debts owed, fame, friendships, potential alliances, and the like.
You want Elfin Chain? Go save an upper class Elf. :)

You've basically just re-written the OSR manifesto :D

Hadn't heard of that, but I like the Wikipedia entry on their style of play: "...tests players skill and ingenuity in often strange or unfair situations. The players should expect to lose if they merely pit their numbers against the monsters, and should instead attempt to outwit or outmaneuver challenges placed in their way. Keeping maps comes highly recommended."

I have adopted many old school modules! Even translated several horror/demonic elements/stories over into a Deadlands campaign before the pandemic.

I play more of a hybrid though because I like modern systems more than so much adjudication (though I do prefer that to slowing down for rule minutiae.) If anything, modern rules (feats) allow much more high fantasy action than I'd default to allow.
I'm reminded of a new player entering a dungeon and about to make a map. Thankfully his PC has actually bought paper & pen, but then he asked me where to start drawing. I told him wherever he wants, and it puzzled him because he'd assumed GMs told players this so their maps would align with the published ones. Um, no. Wing it if it goes off the edge, just like any adventurer would have to.
Other players adopted the "always go left" rule so they can trace their ways back if the map (or mapmaker) got destroyed. :) (more like they got separated)

[thenobledrake]

AsmodeusDM wrote:

...I still feel like there are a lot of growing pains to go through.

Maybe the largest of which is admitting that the "murderhobo games" thing comes from the people playing the game, not from what is actually in the books.

Just like GMs paint themselves into a corner they feel they have to fudge their way out of, "murderhobo" play is the result of particular choices being made - the players choosing certain actions, and the GM rewarding those actions (and then being shocked, I guess, when the players choose those same actions again).

[Temperans]

Its like the idea that all doors are open, when in reality that is often not the case. Or that the enemy will wait to complete their ritual until after the party arrive, when they most certainly wouldn't wait. Or the fact that an enemy who know there is combat will lock every door behind them to buy as much time as possible to escape. Or the fact that an enemy that can fly/swim/burrow certainly wont wait in the ground when they can just fly/swim/burrow away.

But then its also a fact that if you are not at max health chances are you might die if someone does not have in combat healing. Heck even when you are at full health its very easy for it to happen if the players are not prepared.

[Castilliano]

Temperans wrote:

Its like the idea that all doors are open, when in reality that is often not the case. Or that the enemy will wait to complete their ritual until after the party arrive, when they most certainly wouldn't wait. Or the fact that an enemy who know there is combat will lock every door behind them to buy as much time as possible to escape. Or the fact that an enemy that can fly/swim/burrow certainly wont wait in the ground when they can just fly/swim/burrow away.

But then its also a fact that if you are not at max health chances are you might die if someone does not have in combat healing. Heck even when you are at full health its very easy for it to happen if the players are not prepared.

Then you have to tune the difficulty (and opportunities for rest or finding helpful equipment) to suit the moment. A series of mediocre encounters can feel tenser if there's a deadline and the players know all those nicks will add up. Thing is published PF2 encounters have few encounters that aren't individually challenging so it'd be dangerous to string them together or force the party to do so.

Plus those PF2 crits make attrition difficult to measure since those spikes throw off predictions.

[Temperans]

Agreed Castilliano, the frequency of crits and how much damage they do makes it unreliable to not be at anything but full HP. This is specially true at low levels where some classes (casters) can easily die in 2-3 of hits even at full HP.

[Mathmuse]

Castilliano wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Its like the idea that all doors are open, when in reality that is often not the case. Or that the enemy will wait to complete their ritual until after the party arrive, when they most certainly wouldn't wait. Or the fact that an enemy who know there is combat will lock every door behind them to buy as much time as possible to escape. Or the fact that an enemy that can fly/swim/burrow certainly wont wait in the ground when they can just fly/swim/burrow away.

But then its also a fact that if you are not at max health chances are you might die if someone does not have in combat healing. Heck even when you are at full health its very easy for it to happen if the players are not prepared.

Then you have to tune the difficulty (and opportunities for rest or finding helpful equipment) to suit the moment. A series of mediocre encounters can feel tenser if there's a deadline and the players know all those nicks will add up. Thing is published PF2 encounters have few encounters that aren't individually challenging so it'd be dangerous to string them together or force the party to do so.

Plus those PF2 crits make attrition difficult to measure since those spikes throw off predictions.

I recall a PF1 adventure where all the doors were open. However, one player character was great at picking locks, so I locked them to let that character show off.

The other PF1 example is a major spoiler for Fortress of the Stone Giants.

Fortress of the Stone Giants:

The final boss, giant wizard Mokmurian, was down in his underground laboratory beneath the fortress. That area was scry-proof and teleport-proof and cave-ins had closed off all but one corridor to his lab. It was a linear dungeon with a boss fight at the end. Mokmurian would have been massacred like a rat in a trap against the strength of the party. Which would have been a shame since he had been acting pretty smart beforehand.

Therefore, I made two sensible changes. First, Mokmurian was a transmuter wizard and had a form of Earth Glide as a transmutation school ability. When the party arrived in his lab, he used that ability and walked away through a caved-in corridor. It was filled with rock and he could walk through rock. The party could not follow. Second, before he departed, he called the party to meet him in the courtyard for a fair contest: four party members versus him and three other giants. He had lost a lot of respect with his army due to the party killing his people. Mokmurian wanted to earn the respect again. He lost the contest, with the party nullifying the clever tactics he tried, but his death was more dignified.

I rely on my players to tune the difficulty, in both PF1 and PF2. I provide information and they make the decisions. Hm, "provide" sounds too passive; more precisely, they actively seek information and I reward them for the effort. They ask questions of rescued captives, they listen at doors, they peek around corners, they check for tracks in dusty rooms, they roll Recall Knowledge on tiny clues (I houseruled Recall Knowledge to give more information), etc. Both the information gathering and the decision-making are well-practiced skills of experienced players. Sometimes they bite off more than they can chew. Then they pull out their expensive consumables to temporarily operate at a higher level.

I am trying to figure out how to explain this to new players. Currently, I rely on my experienced players teaching the newbie players by advice and example.