Hit / Success Chance Vs 5e

[Sporkedup]

Bringing it back around, to me I think the big distinction between the games isn't the hit chance afforded to players... It's how easily enemies can hit them.

It's similar to spellcasting in that way: players encounter a wizard boss whose spells absolutely wreck them, but when they have the spells themselves the effects seem less.

Player math and monster math don't match all the time, and sometimes I wonder if my players would rather have the monster math, haha.

[Malk_Content]

Although both games do still try to stops players just auto wrecking bosses. PF2 does this with accuracy math, 5e with Legendary Resistance.

[Unicore]

I think some players have a hard time understanding that monster math is built around the assumption that the monster will be out numbered when it is at its most powerful, often times having to fight entirely on their own, so spending any actions buffing or debuffing is pretty much handing victory to the party. Then, when the monster can expect to get similar support, the players are usually ahead in what they can do, so they have to work together to get bonuses or else their actions will be wasted anyway.

-1 and 0th level monsters are a little different, but they are glass cannons who break very easily and that math flattens out very quickly. Some APs throw 2 or 3 level +1 or even level +2 monsters at the party or place them in such close proximity that GMs throw those encounters at their players together and that gets incredibly dangerous. Which can be a lot of fun, but players need to be be given clues that the danger level just kicked up and be on board with the idea that some fights are best avoided at times, or they will get quite upset.

A lot of tables want to play with the assumption that they can just overpower any encounter that is placed in front of them and if your table has that expectation, you probably should talk to them about your options for making everyone happy if you are running a published AP, because the math of APs does not default to “smash your way through it and be fine.”

Luckily it is really easy for GMs to make those adjustments (way, way easier than making encounters harder) often just by giving players free archetypes and maybe a level or two.

[Sporkedup]

Oh, I understand how and why it works. I think my players generally do too. Admittedly, telegraphing threat levels is something I'm not great at and am actively trying to improve.

It's definitely better than legendary resistances--it's absolute bananas that 5e DMs get a metacurrency to just undo things and draw out a fight when they want. Not a fan.

I'm less concerned about my players than random newbies who get in a big scrap, miss on an 11 and get hit on a 2... It all works out, the game functions quite well, but it's definitely a bit of shell shock for new players, in my experience. They do think the assumption is they win and all survive just fine, but the numbers don't immediately suggest that!

[thenobledrake]

Malk_Content wrote:

Although both games do still try to stops players just auto wrecking bosses. PF2 does this with accuracy math, 5e with Legendary Resistance.

The psychological response to game mechanics is very interesting to me. Especially when it comes to trying to ask discreet questions because it often starts to show some inconsistency in what the player answers.

For example, if you ask about how often they want to hit and how impactful they want a hit to be separately, you'll find a lot of folks with confident answers that they want to have around 70% accuracy, and that they want each hit to have a significant impact... but they'll also confidently tell you that they absolutely hate "rocket tag" gameplay.

That area of the game is less easy to tell what a player really prefers than the mechanical protection against "save or suck" though; I've yet to have a player tell me they prefer Legendary Resistance and it's "it gets to just say no to your spell effect, dice be damned" over creatures just having straight-up good odds of passing the save in the first place and a predictable (and thus less arbitrary feeling) bonus added to certain effects through the incapacitation trait.

Both shut down the "auto wrecking" but one does so in a way that just feels more annoying because the game basically tells the player the odds of their spell working fully are pretty high, and then the odds are actually 0%.

[Staffan Johansson]

thenobledrake wrote:

That area of the game is less easy to tell what a player really prefers than the mechanical protection against "save or suck" though; I've yet to have a player tell me they prefer Legendary Resistance and it's "it gets to just say no to your spell effect, dice be damned" over creatures just having straight-up good odds of passing the save in the first place and a predictable (and thus less arbitrary feeling) bonus added to certain effects through the incapacitation trait.

Both shut down the "auto wrecking" but one does so in a way that just feels more annoying because the game basically tells the player the odds of their spell working fully are pretty high, and then the odds are actually 0%.

This is another place where I think 13th age had the better solution: hp caps on incapacitating abilities. This keeps the function of hit points as plot armor, and turns abilities like these into finishers instead of openers.

[Temperans]

Honestly the psychological response is pretty interesting. Because it also includes the group who saw the math and knew what that meant and either: Likes that wargamy "constant strategy" aspect or absolutely hates it. Many people really like coming up with a plan and sticking with it, which just doesn't work in PF2 (unless you are playing Bard).

[Tavaro Evanis]

Verdyn wrote:

Heck, with cards you could even deal players a small hand of 5-cards that they must empty before they can draw again so they can have more agency in how the battle flows.

This idea intrigues me! Each player receives a pack of 5 d20 rolls of known value. The cards may be spent on attacks, skill checks, etc., or essentially anything that requires a d20. Of course, VTTs would require re-coding, but it's doable. Has anyone tried this?

[MEATSHED]

Tavaro Evanis wrote:

Verdyn wrote:

Heck, with cards you could even deal players a small hand of 5-cards that they must empty before they can draw again so they can have more agency in how the battle flows.

This idea intrigues me! Each player receives a pack of 5 d20 rolls of known value. The cards may be spent on attacks, skill checks, etc., or essentially anything that requires a d20. Of course, VTTs would require re-coding, but it's doable. Has anyone tried this?

It is doable, but it makes investigators' Devise a Stratagem not work super well as everyone already knows what they have rolled (you could change it to instead use the top card of their deck if you wanted to, which might help a little), and will create some odd gameplay patterns like doing a bunch of stuff you know will fail to redraw your hand. Generally, it can solve some problems but it will also introduce some new ones.

[Malk_Content]

MEATSHED wrote:

Tavaro Evanis wrote:

Verdyn wrote:

Heck, with cards you could even deal players a small hand of 5-cards that they must empty before they can draw again so they can have more agency in how the battle flows.

This idea intrigues me! Each player receives a pack of 5 d20 rolls of known value. The cards may be spent on attacks, skill checks, etc., or essentially anything that requires a d20. Of course, VTTs would require re-coding, but it's doable. Has anyone tried this?

It is doable, but it makes investigators' Devise a Stratagem not work super well as everyone already knows what they have rolled (you could change it to instead use the top card of their deck if you wanted to, which might help a little), and will create some odd gameplay patterns like doing a bunch of stuff you know will fail to redraw your hand. Generally, it can solve some problems but it will also introduce some new ones.

Malifaux is a game that uses decks (both the wargame and the rpg) how it works is you get a hand, but draw from the top card of the deck. You can play a card from your hand to replace the one from your deck, but you don't get a new hand until you've spent them all, the RPG works by tailoring your personal mini deck (as the different suits represent differing things.)

[Exocist]

Tavaro Evanis wrote:

Verdyn wrote:

Heck, with cards you could even deal players a small hand of 5-cards that they must empty before they can draw again so they can have more agency in how the battle flows.

This idea intrigues me! Each player receives a pack of 5 d20 rolls of known value. The cards may be spent on attacks, skill checks, etc., or essentially anything that requires a d20. Of course, VTTs would require re-coding, but it's doable. Has anyone tried this?

The game is not really balanced around this, so I have a suspicion it won’t work because if you really want to break it, its dead easy to. Just start randomly making tumble through checks instead of strides (even with untrained acrobatics) or other inconsequential actions that also include other actions to get rid of “bad” dice rolls. Feats like Monster Hunter or Known Weakness would become invaluable just because you get to throw away a bad card on something you’re already doing (admittedly the rules might be different for secret checks but you get the idea).

[Heather F]

I've removed a few more comments. Stay on topic and flag posts rather than respond to them.