HI All,
Just looking for some input, comments, thoughts, opinions etc etc.
I am involved in 3 PF2 games, 2 as a player and one as GM.
So far, and this is only our impression, that its almost impossible to die? Are we doing something wrong - as I read a lot of comments about TPK's and the AP's being brutal.
But that's not our experience at all. Nobody has been anywhere past Dying 2.
We have 5 players most of the time (sometimes 6), and we have been scaling encounters as per the rulebook.
Here's our thoughts:
1. Just about every player has taken a skill in Medicine - giving them treat wounds. Yes early on we got the interpretation wrong by thinking that you were immune to a players treat wounds, not all treat wounds.
2. Just about every player has taken battle medicine.
3. Healing hands and magic hands changes the healing from D8's to D10's and when using magic hands out cleric is dolling out 30 odd points during a 10 minute rest.
4. Heal spell (and I still think this doesnt seem right) at 8th level is doing 4d8+32 (2 action version) and being a cleric he gets about 4 of these every day at 4th level.
I will argue that maybe we just have been lucky in that we haven't been disturbed often while resting for 10 minutes (and feats like continual recovery, ward medic etc really assist in the healing process).
Are we missing something ? or just been incredibly lucky ?
thoughts ?
I have a lot of trouble killing my players as a GM, but this is at high level. The suggestions about which level enemies to use stop working at very high and very low levels: at low levels, every level difference with a monster is much more impactful, while at high levels, level differences matter much less, even though this is not reflected in the rules.
Also if you have 5 or 6 players, make sure that you don't just use higher level enemies, but more enemies. Preferably intelligent ones (not zombies) that know to focus on the PC with the most damage and the least defensive options.
It seems like your party has converged on a shared focus on healing. That makes it difficult for party members to die, yes.
My party also has a large reserve of healing power available, and as a GM I have to push them pretty hard to get them to sweat straight damage. Here's what I've found.
1. Make sure the GM is using the monsters' abilities. It can be tempting to just blitz through the monsters' turns so that the players can get back to playing, but attack-attack-attack is a recipe for ineffective monsters. Auras, grabs, reactions, and area spells make monsters much more threatening, and you have to remember to use them often and effectively.
2. Don't be afraid of adding monsters to the fight part way through. If they're focusing on a couple tough monsters, and then some wandering group of enemies notices the fight and joins in, they can target the back row with impunity. That can be a big threat, and will encourage the party to think about ending fights faster rather than just focusing on outlasting the enemies in HP.
3. A ten minute rest is a long time in any sort of enclosed area. It's more than enough time for some enemies to wander into the area they're resting, and put pressure on them to spend fewer consecutive 10 minute rests, or push on without resting. Don't assume you'll always get to rest and heal.
4. Make sure you're using the Wounded condition properly. My party was getting a bit cocky until a player went down twice in one combat from a couple big hits. All the healing in the world wasn't going to save them if they got knocked down and took some splash damage.
1. and 3. - The game gave free healing outside of combat, so unless there's a time constraint (at the GM's discretion) there's no problem with the party having full HP.
2. If everyone has Battle Medicine, this is great, because everyone can pitch in. There's one issue, though. Battle Medicine requires tools and hands free, which means that not all characters will have the same freedom and action advantage to use it properly mid fight. For example: A 2h barbarian will have to drop their weapon or stow it, either way there will be an extra action for the use of battle medicine, that can cause certain problems. This is only compounded by dual-wielding characters, because without house rules, a character has to spend 1 action drawing/stowing each item individually.
Regardless, this is also perfectly fine and definitely increases the party's resilience. Keep in mind that the cost of this is less skill feats in other areas that can be handy.
4. Clerics were meant to be great Healers. The best ones. In this edition, I wouldn't consider anything else under the umbrella of "Healer" if it didn't do the job competently during battle. When everyone else can heal outside of combat with low investment, then the bar for a Healer is raised. In my opinion at least.
If you have a party of 6, everyone has B.Medicine and a Cleric, of course your party is above average in this aspect of combat.
On the other hand, my group was doing fine in Age of Ashes (famously tough as well) with a party of Ranger, Monk, Wizard and an Alchemist, the only healing mid-combat we had was the Wizard's battle medicine and my Monk's healer's gloves that I kept solely to support the Ranger. We went through some very tough spots and my GM was using the house rules of "villain points", which often turned are misses from bosses into hits or even crits. This is just to illustrate that your party has great healing and has high chance to survive if things don't go south fast, but this is nowhere near a requirement.
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1. and 3. - The game gave free healing outside of combat, so unless there's a time constraint (at the GM's discretion) there's no problem with the party having full HP.
2. If everyone has Battle Medicine, this is great, because everyone can pitch in. There's one issue, though. Battle Medicine requires tools and hands free, which means that not all characters will have the same freedom and action advantage to use it properly mid fight. For example: A 2h barbarian will have to drop their weapon or stow it, either way there will be an extra action for the use of battle medicine, that can cause certain problems. This is only compounded by dual-wielding characters, because without house rules, a character has to spend 1 action drawing/stowing each item individually.
Regardless, this is also perfectly fine and definitely increases the party's resilience. Keep in mind that the cost of this is less skill feats in other areas that can be handy.
4. Clerics were meant to be great Healers. The best ones. In this edition, I wouldn't consider anything else under the umbrella of "Healer" if it didn't do the job competently during battle. When everyone else can heal outside of combat with low investment, then the bar for a Healer is raised. In my opinion at least.
If you have a party of 6, everyone has B.Medicine and a Cleric, of course your party is above average in this aspect of combat.
On the other hand, my group was doing fine in Age of Ashes (famously tough as well) with a party of Ranger, Monk, Wizard and an Alchemist, the only healing mid-combat we had was the Wizard's battle medicine and my Monk's healer's gloves that I kept solely to support the Ranger. We went through some very tough spots and my GM was using the house rules of "villain points", which often turned are misses from bosses into hits or even crits. This is just to illustrate that your party has great healing and has high chance to survive if things don't go south fast, but this is nowhere near a requirement.
Battle medicine requires only one hand free, doesn't it? And you can wear one set of tools so that drawing them is part of the activity?
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Yes, if your tools are worn, you only need 1 free hand, and drawing/stowing the tools is included. This does mean that someone with a two-handed weapon would need to spend an action to reestablish their grip afterward (Releasing 1 hand is free) and that someone with a weapon ir shield in each hand would need to drop or stow 1 item before performing Battle Medicine.
Yes, Battle Medicine requires one hand to use and the kit available.
The kit can be available as the one kit you can wear so that drawing tools is part of the activity. Or it can be held in the other hand.
So assuming those guys have the healing kit available (and not a trap kit or something for another ability), they should be fine with one hand free.
This can still be a problem for some builds, but if it's an emergency, then it's worthwhile.
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It sounds like the OP's party took healing seriously and invested, so yes, they'll counter monsters that rely on doing hit point damage, which is most of them. PF2 has been generous with healing, partly because it's a passive role many players avoid and partly because it does little to neutralize one's obstacles.
I don't see this as a flaw in the game, though if I were GM I would push the timeline more, make the monsters more reactive (unless the party's stealthy too!).
...1. and 3. - The game gave free healing outside of combat, so unless there's a time constraint (at the GM's discretion) there's no problem with the party having full HP.
2. If everyone has Battle Medicine, this is great, because everyone can pitch in. There's one issue, though. Battle Medicine requires tools and hands free, which means that not all characters will have the same freedom and action advantage to use it properly mid fight. For example: A 2h barbarian will have to drop their weapon or stow it, either way there will be an extra action for the use of battle medicine, that can cause certain problems. This is only compounded by dual-wielding characters, because without house rules, a character has to spend 1 action drawing/stowing each item individually.
Regardless, this is also perfectly fine and definitely increases the party's resilience. Keep in mind that the cost of this is less skill feats in other areas that can be handy.
4. Clerics were meant to be great Healers. The best ones. In this edition, I wouldn't consider anything else under the umbrella of "Healer" if it didn't do the job competently during battle. When everyone else can heal outside of combat with low investment, then the bar for a Healer is raised. In my opinion at least.
If you have a party of 6, everyone has B.Medicine and a Cleric, of course your party is above average in this aspect of combat.
On the other hand, my group was doing fine in Age of Ashes (famously tough as well) with a party of Ranger, Monk, Wizard and an Alchemist, the only healing mid-combat we had was the Wizard's battle medicine and my Monk's healer's gloves that I kept solely to support the Ranger. We went through some very tough spots and my GM was using the house rules of "villain points", which often turned are misses from bosses into hits or even crits. This is just to illustrate that your party has great healing and has high chance to survive if things don't go south fast, but this is nowhere
I forgot that it had settled on that with the errata. Nice reminder. It's still not a negligible investment mid-battle. Keeping in mind that each extra action is likely to trigger some unwanted reactions.
I've had more PCs die during my year and a half of running PF2e than I've had in the 20 years prior of GMing. But there is some nuance to this aspect.
Of all the PC death I've had in PF2e, all but one death was part of a TPK. The one character that died had 9 HP remaining and got hit with a Vampiric Touch, failed the save even with a hero point use.
I've now killed four parties. Admittedly the last TPK was due to some really bad player choices.
What I've found is that with the dying mechanics as they are, it is actually tough for characters to outright die; usually someone is able to get them back up before they even have to make a recovery check on their turn.
I've had more PCs die during my year and a half of running PF2e than I've had in the 20 years prior of GMing. But there is some nuance to this aspect.
Of all the PC death I've had in PF2e, all but one death was part of a TPK. The one character that died had 9 HP remaining and got hit with a Vampiric Touch, failed the save even with a hero point use.
I've now killed four parties. Admittedly the last TPK was due to some really bad player choices.
What I've found is that with the dying mechanics as they are, it is actually tough for characters to outright die; usually someone is able to get them back up before they even have to make a recovery check on their turn.
Some days the Dice Gods aren't on your side. My Monk was saved by the Incapacitation tag when I failed critically on Phantasmal Killer's save and then failed the Incapacitation Death Save afterwards, thanks to the bump I only took a hefty 40+ damage and Fear 4. We almost lost that fight, the only member standing was our Necro Wizard with 19 HP.
no negative life means it's really easy to get back people back on their feet and treat wounds resets the wounded condition so every fight you should start at 0 wounded almost full HP.
Which is a good thing. TPKs and player deaths are good to be possible but also I would generally avoid because it hampers the narrative and can easily kill investment in a campaign imo.
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I mean, you're playing an abnormally large party where everyone in it has healing abilities.
I think it'd be more of a red flag if it was easy to die with that kind of setup.
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HI All,
Just looking for some input, comments, thoughts, opinions etc etc.
I am involved in 3 PF2 games, 2 as a player and one as GM.
So far, and this is only our impression, that its almost impossible to die? Are we doing something wrong - as I read a lot of comments about TPK's and the AP's being brutal.
But that's not our experience at all. Nobody has been anywhere past Dying 2.
Where I would start is by making sure that all of the rules are being followed correctly. It is difficult to die, thanks to lots of healing in your group and hero points (if you’re using them). But no one getting past dying 2 feels very lucky.
We have 5 players most of the time (sometimes 6), and we have been scaling encounters as per the rulebook.
Here's our thoughts:
1. Just about every player has taken a skill in Medicine - giving them treat wounds. Yes early on we got the interpretation wrong by thinking that you were immune to a players treat wounds, not all treat wounds.2. Just about every player has taken battle medicine.
3. Healing hands and magic hands changes the healing from D8's to D10's and when using magic hands out cleric is dolling out 30 odd points during a 10 minute rest.
This is the first place where I question the rules you’re using. Healing Hands makes the d8 from the heal spell into a d10. It does not make the d8s from Treat Wounds into d10s. Magic Hands makes you restore max HPs from Treat Wounds, which will be either 16 or 32 (on a crit) plus whatever static bonus you’re getting. Magic Hands does not affect Battle Medicine, from what I can tell, because Battle Medicine is not Treat Wounds, which makes Magic Hands an out of combat ability. A group with a champion can already heal up out of combat given enough time, so all it’s letting you do is heal up faster. Which I don’t see as an issue.
4. Heal spell (and I still think this doesnt seem right) at 8th level is doing 4d8+32 (2 action version) and being a cleric he gets about 4 of these every day at 4th level.
That’s true at 7th level, and you could have as many as 5 if you max cha (16 at 1st, to 18 at 5th). With healing hands, it would be 4d10+32, which is an average of 54 points. Which could easily be done by a single crit from an enemy boss. I’ve taken 78 points from a single crit at 8th level before. And big enemies should be critting frequently.
I will argue that maybe we just have been lucky in that we haven't been disturbed often while resting for 10 minutes (and feats like continual recovery, ward medic etc really assist in the healing process).
Are we missing something ? or just been incredibly lucky ?
thoughts ?
So the questions I have are around making sure you’re handling the wounded and dying rules correctly. Being taken to 0 gives you dying 1. Being taken to 0 by a crit gives you dying 2. Taking any damage while dying increases your dying value by 1.
When the character is healed, they get Wounded 1. If they are dropped again, you add their wounded value to their dying value. So dying 2 if it’s a normal hit. Dying 3 from a crit. This is what makes it hard to see no one ever having gone to dying 3, since being dropped by a crit is very likely. This means no one has ever been dropped unconscious and then dropped again by a crit. Possible, but that would be lucky over 8 levels.
Removing the wounded condition in combat is rare, and that’s something else that I wonder about being handled correctly. You have to either use treat wounds (and battle medicine is not treat wounds), or you have to be healed to max hit points and rest for 10 minutes. I don’t see a way that wounded gets removed in combat without a specific ability allowing you to do so.
With regards to the healer’s tools, you can wear up to 2 bulk of tools. Not 1 set of tools. So wearing them shouldn’t be an issue for most characters. But you do need to make sure that the free hand and the actions necessary to account for it are followed, otherwise it becomes even more powerful.
So that’s where I would start, and also having the GM look at the adjustments as people have suggested.
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On the whole the game can be harsh, with hard-hitting monsters, but it's hard for 0HP to actually go on to kill someone. However, there are a few exceptions.
Some of the early adventures featured a LOT of persistent damage. When you go down 0HP with persistent damage, the clock is ticking very very fast, because each time you take damage you go to another Dying level. If a character happened to go down due to getting hit by an acid flask followed by an alchemist's fire...
Another deadly thing is spells with the Death trait - if those take you to 0HP, you're dead immediately.
Another big offender is the death by massive damage rule. If you take damage equal to or above double your maximum HP from one hit, you die. Thing is, at level 1, it's not unheard of to run into level 3 enemies. And if one of those crits you, it can do enough damage to trigger this rule. But after level 1, this gets much harder because going from level 1 to 2, PC HP goes up by a lot more than monster damage does from creature level 3 to 4.
It can still happen, but then it's mostly the work of Simple Hazards. See, Complex Hazards are expected to last several rounds and spread some damage around. But simple hazards basically have to condense all the damage of an encounter into a single attack. So they have very, VERY high to-hit (compared to monsters of the same level), and the damage is also at the top of the scale. So if you run into a level+2 hazard, that's a lot of damage and a very big chance of critting.
The common thread here is that these super-deadly things somewhat bypass the normal Dying rules.
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I mean, you're playing an abnormally large party where everyone in it has healing abilities.
I think it'd be more of a red flag if it was easy to die with that kind of setup.
That is a valid point, with the addendum that having a larger party makes it easier for everyone to invest skill increases and feats in medicine without leaving skills uncovered (or left at only Trained forever) by the party.
I mean, you're playing an abnormally large party where everyone in it has healing abilities.
I think it'd be more of a red flag if it was easy to die with that kind of setup.
To build on this, I've found that even a single character who takes a lot of healing abilities, even without truly being a dedicated healer, is a massive boon for party survivability. One of my party members decided to play a cleric, and only really used the Divine Font slots to prepare heals (IIRC) as opposed to their regular prepared slots, and they were able to do a lot for party survivability.
Later, the Paladin rejoined the Party, after IRL issues had pulled them away, which also helped immensely since they were able to use the reaction to reduce the damage a lot. We ended up with 7 players (after spending most of the campaign with 6) for the most part it helped party survivability, except for the specific scenario where I used the extra exp budget, specifically on slightly higher level foes (relative to my party) with AOE. Like Banshees and Skulltakers.
That created some very dangerous encounters, including two actual deaths for the party right before the finale at the hands of the Skulltakers Horrid Wilting effect. Even that was partially a tactical blunder though, the healer walked out around the corner and exposed themselves to a gaggle of Skulltakers who ripped him down first, otherwise, the party likely could have weathered the Skulltakers castings and taken them out.
Ultimately though, the AOEs were preventing them from being able to soak the damage with the extra bodies by scaling the damage dealt to the size of the party, so it was appropriately nasty to be by 2-4 AOEs in short order.
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OP, I would say you've got a bit of luck and good play on your hands. I've killed 4 characters as a GM. Only one of those was what I'd call beyond player control - Death Effects are nasty.
The other three, one was a result of persistent damage not going away and a player being ignored by the party. The next was deciding to start another encounter before disabling the trap, and then instead of disabling the trap they just let the paladin eat a Phantasmal Killer every round for like, 6 rounds. The last was a Barbarian, not realizing how much damage the paladin prevented, deciding the best use of his actions was to stand in the middle of 4 enemies and use Athletics checks on the boss.
So, from what I've seen, if you aren't a big dummy and you have a little luck with Death effects and Persistent damage you probably won't die a lot. You'll go down, sure, but not die.
I think there may be a tendency for player death and TPKs to be tied together in PF2 as a result of how tactical the game is.
Parties that commit fully to leaving no character behind and going all in on a hopeless fight (because the sitution of the encounter is unfavorable to them and they get caught off guard by multiple elements of it), are going to TPK, because they will run into things they are not prepared for, for sure.
With 5 players, it also becomes a lot easier to extract a PC who falls unconscious, rather than have to leave someone behind. In a game I am running, I am able to absolutely wail on the party of 5, and drop characters regularly, without any real fear of a TPK. In many ways, APs play a lot better with 5 characters than with 4 from a GM' perspective of not having to worry about the players being prepared to handle many different kinds of challenges.
Yes, if your tools are worn, you only need 1 free hand, and drawing/stowing the tools is included. This does mean that someone with a two-handed weapon would need to spend an action to reestablish their grip afterward (Releasing 1 hand is free) and that someone with a weapon ir shield in each hand would need to drop or stow 1 item before performing Battle Medicine.
Yes we realized this not that long ago, along with the fact that when it says immune to treat wounds for x time means all treat wounds, not just your treat wounds.
This is the first place where I question the rules you’re using. Healing Hands makes the d8 from the heal spell into a d10. It does not make the d8s from Treat Wounds into d10s. Magic Hands makes you restore max HPs from Treat Wounds, which will be either 16 or 32 (on a crit) plus whatever static bonus you’re getting. Magic Hands does not affect Battle Medicine, from what I can tell, because Battle Medicine is not Treat Wounds, which makes Magic Hands an out of combat ability. A group with a champion can already heal up out of combat given enough time, so all it’s letting you do is heal up faster. Which I don’t see as an issue.
AH-HA! I knew we were doing it wrong!..I felt it in my bones... It just felt wrong, but we couldnt put our finger on it, the way we interpreted it.
Thank you!
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Ugh, my players don’t just court death, they stand outside death’s bedroom window blasting Peter Gabriel on a boombox.
If the best tactic isn’t just charge in and spend every action on strike, then they are at a loss. It’s tough changing old minds to new systems.
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It just depends on how you do things as a DM and how lucky your monsters are with crits.
A crit to bring you to zero then a second crit while wounded 2 and you're dead. The wounded condition is what makes PF2 so dangerous. If that wounded builds up on you, you have a good chance of dying if you get brought down more than once. No way to get rid of wounded until a battle is over. Battle Medicine does not get rid of wounded, so don't make that mistake. It makes the game less dangerous.
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Just to note in the players' favor with regards to the dying rules, being dropped from a crit puts you at Dying 2. When you lose the dying condition, you still only gain Wounded 1 (or increment your Wounded by 1). So crit drop, heal, crit drop would put you at Dying 3, not dead. It would take three crits (or just being dropped twice then a crit on the third one) in order to kill a character. As much as I've seen the removing Wounded rule played wrong, I've also seen this part of it misunderstood quite frequently as well.
You have been seriously injured. If you lose the dying condition and do not already have the wounded condition, you become wounded 1. If you already have the wounded condition when you lose the dying condition, your wounded condition value increases by 1. If you gain the dying condition while wounded, increase your dying condition value by your wounded value.
The wounded condition ends if someone successfully restores Hit Points to you with Treat Wounds, or if you are restored to full Hit Points and rest for 10 minutes.
It doesn't matter what level your Dying condition is at or how you got there. If you do not already have the Wounded condition, you go to Wounded 1 when you remove the Dying condition.
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Are we doing something wrong
I'm not sure anyone can answer that, but I can offer some things I've seen.
1. Some parties have a lot of healing. Others have commented on this being the case for your party, so I won't elaborate much more. I'd much prefer to play in an overprepared party than an underprepared party so it doesn't bother me much, but I'll admit that it's technically overpreparing (that is, by having so many people with Medicine, you may be sacrificing expertise in other skills). I mostly play PFS, so every session is basically my character plus 3-5 random characters, and I can't count on someone else.
2. Some GMs don't seem to be taking advantage of tactics. As much as some players just rush up and Strike-Strike-Strike until the monster is dead, many times I've seen GMs make monsters do the same.
To be fair, mindlessly rushing up and slashing at the nearest creature is certainly appropriate sometimes. And it's quite deadly for brute-type monsters that have oversized attack modifiers relative to the PCs' ACs and oversized ACs relative to the PCs' attack modifiers. But I mostly use this tactic when it's getting close to my kids' bedtimes and I need to wrap up the fight. The action economy of multiple PCs vs a single enemy tends to shift this type of combat in favor of the PCs at any reasonable CR level.
Monsters bypassing the frontliners to murder the spellcasters is underused. Even if the frontliners have AoOs, AoOs are supposed to be uncommon in the world, so it's unlikely the monsters know that. All they know is that there's a lightly armored elf at close range shooting electric arcs at it, and they can reach it in one move and possibly murder it with one hit. In every spellbook review thread, people often (correctly) rate touch spells with a penalty, but people just assume that spells with a 30' range and 120' range are equally dangerous to cast and compare them based solely on the damage dealt, which is wrong. 30' = 25' movement + 10' reach.
Monsters using their natural terrain is underused. Most of the time, it's the PCs on unfamiliar terrain and monsters in their home lairs, and it feels weird that the monsters would play right into the PCs hands rather than vice versa. In a lair fight, there should be no cover for the PCs and tons over cover for the monsters; there should be hazards that the monsters are immune to or play into their unique strengths, like lava pools for magma monsters.
Combined with the above, monsters using their special abilities is underused. These are the abilities that the monsters have developed that have presumably allowed them to survive so far in a dangerous world. In-character, whether the monsters are intelligent or not, chances are that their special abilities have been the "I WIN" buttons that they've spammed at their last 10 fights. If I were a dragon and a bunch of chumps showed up at my dank cave unprepared, I'd absolutely just circle and blast them with my breath weapon unless they showed me why I can't just do that.
3. On a meta level, I feel like a lot of GMs don't use the toughness mechanic to advance the storyline. PCs make half-hearted attempts at Diplomacy or something, knowing they can just murder everyone as a backup plan; on the other hand, PCs need to be able to murder everyone on a moment's notice because they're really bad at everything else.
I think there's a limited space for that, where the PCs are kind of on a conveyor belt being plodded through a linear alley of monsters to fight.
But I prefer worlds where there are consequences for non-combat failure. If the PCs are standing before a king, the number of guards protecting the king should be daunting. At no point should the PCs feel like they can just waltz into someone else's throne room and murder everyone. Whenever possible, I'm scaling encounters like that to reward creativity - if the PCs fail, it's an Extreme encounter, if they're successful, it's Severe, etc.
4. All that being said, sometimes having a miniscule risk of death is a good thing.
Most play groups are groups of existing friends. Sometimes people have bad days at work, and just want to beat up a few CR-3, uncomplicatedly evil, mindless attackbots; which may or may not coincidentally be named after their jerkwad of a boss. Sometimes people have personal problems and want to end the session an hour early so they can vent or drink or cry or all of the above.
Sometimes people get super attached to their characters and would just rather err on the side of being unchallenged than risk losing their baby. And GMs might realistically opt to not challenge those players because they'll probably ragequit the group if they are.
In PFS, most of the combat encounters are not challenging. In most cases, I'd prefer if they were tougher. But I can see why they'd intentionally be structured on the easy side - character death is a pretty tough thing, and it's exceptionally tough to navigate with 6 strangers you've never met before.
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First Crit from the Haunt put my Investigator to Dying 2. Second Crit put her to Dying 4 = Dead.
Thankfully I helped the GM realize that Routine 1 meant the Haunt could attack only once a turn, not that it took only 1 action and thus that it could attack thrice a turn.
Yeah AoEs or mindless things can turn bad quickly. I had one of my characters drop to dying 2 then get hit by three separate AoEs that all triggered at the same time (start of my turn against creatures with an aura that dealt damage). Only a hero point saved him.
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Something else worth mentioning is. Most players and GM's don't want their players to die frequently. The risk should be there but it shouldn't occur often in a game where character creation and arcs take as long as they do in PF2e imo.
One way that PF2e does a better job of handling dead (imo) is having the resurrection elements be much harder to come by / less reliable. So if a character does die it tends to have more gravitas than how it ends up in PF2e's contemporaries where it is always "do we have the gold, yeah the gold stays static we have the gold, -sighs- I was saving for that new item"
First Crit from the Haunt put my Investigator to Dying 2. Second Crit put her to Dying 4 = Dead.
Thankfully I helped the GM realize that Routine 1 meant the Haunt could attack only once a turn, not that it took only 1 action and thus that it could attack thrice a turn.
Without any other incidents apart from being brought back from dying, your Investigator should be at Dying 3 after the second crit.
- First Crit to 0 hp: Dying 2
- Brought back over 0 HP: Dying 0 and Wounded 1
- Second Crit to 0 hp: Dying 3 and Wounded 1 (2 from crit + wounded value)
The Wounded value always only increases by 1 after coming back from dying.
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First Crit from the Haunt put my Investigator to Dying 2. Second Crit put her to Dying 4 = Dead.
Thankfully I helped the GM realize that Routine 1 meant the Haunt could attack only once a turn, not that it took only 1 action and thus that it could attack thrice a turn.
Without any other incidents apart from being brought back from dying, your Investigator should be at Dying 3 after the second crit.
- First Crit to 0 hp: Dying 2
- Brought back over 0 HP: Dying 0 and Wounded 1
- Second Crit to 0 hp: Dying 3 and Wounded 1 (2 from crit + wounded value)The Wounded value always only increases by 1 after coming back from dying.
In this case, I think The Raven Black is correct, as it was the Haunt hitting their character twice in a row and critting them while they were already unconscious and Dying 2. That does increase Dying by 2. If they had been healed back up to conscious, then they would only have Wounded 1, and you would be correct. But if you're in an AoE while you are already dying, and you crit fail a save, your Dying value increases by 2. Or if something attacks you when you're down and crits on the attack, it's the same thing.
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Unrelated to Raven Black's specific case, I think the "double crit" mechanism of death and the "massive damage" mechanism of death are both anti-fun.
Character death is taken best when it feels like a confluence of several things that are unfortunate individual events from different sources. The GM rolled high AND the player rolled low AND allies couldn't (or didn't) help AND the team used a lifeline earlier. With the diffusion of responsibility, people can't focus their ire at a single source, and everyone feels like they had agency in the death.
Massive damage is just "GM rolled high, you're permadead." Disgusted ugh.
Double crit is only marginally better: "GM rolled high and you rolled low, you're permadead." Slightly less disgusted ugh.
Both lead to pretty unfulfilling deaths.
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I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.
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I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.
The issue with Massive Damage is that it is extremely unlikely to happen after 1st level. So instead of creating a small possibility of danger throughout, it creates a high chance of danger specifically for level 1 characters. In some of the PFS scenarios/bounties, there are attacks that have a 15% or more chance to autokill some of the pregens if they are unlucky enough to be attacked once. When you hit level 2, that's pretty much never an issue.
Yes, there should be something if you fall off a cliff an unreasonable distance. But churning through level 1 characters and being practically nonexistent at higher levels is an issue.
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I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.The issue with Massive Damage is that it is extremely unlikely to happen after 1st level. So instead of creating a small possibility of danger throughout, it creates a high chance of danger specifically for level 1 characters. In some of the PFS scenarios/bounties, there are attacks that have a 15% or more chance to autokill some of the pregens if they are unlucky enough to be attacked once. When you hit level 2, that's pretty much never an issue.
Yes, there should be something if you fall off a cliff an unreasonable distance. But churning through level 1 characters and being practically nonexistent at higher levels is an issue.
It nearly happened to my wizard at 3rd level, and I had a party member die to a lightning bolt at level 5.
At very high level, it might be much, much less common, but it stays a legitimate threat through mid levels at least.
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I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.The issue with Massive Damage is that it is extremely unlikely to happen after 1st level. So instead of creating a small possibility of danger throughout, it creates a high chance of danger specifically for level 1 characters. In some of the PFS scenarios/bounties, there are attacks that have a 15% or more chance to autokill some of the pregens if they are unlucky enough to be attacked once. When you hit level 2, that's pretty much never an issue.
Yes, there should be something if you fall off a cliff an unreasonable distance. But churning through level 1 characters and being practically nonexistent at higher levels is an issue.
It nearly happened to my wizard at 3rd level, and I had a party member die to a lightning bolt at level 5.
At very high level, it might be much, much less common, but it stays a legitimate threat through mid levels at least.
Agreed, I've seen 3rd-level characters killed by massive damage. It's not just a 1st-level hazard.
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I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.The issue with Massive Damage is that it is extremely unlikely to happen after 1st level. So instead of creating a small possibility of danger throughout, it creates a high chance of danger specifically for level 1 characters. In some of the PFS scenarios/bounties, there are attacks that have a 15% or more chance to autokill some of the pregens if they are unlucky enough to be attacked once. When you hit level 2, that's pretty much never an issue.
Yes, there should be something if you fall off a cliff an unreasonable distance. But churning through level 1 characters and being practically nonexistent at higher levels is an issue.
It nearly happened to my wizard at 3rd level, and I had a party member die to a lightning bolt at level 5.
At very high level, it might be much, much less common, but it stays a legitimate threat through mid levels at least.
I can see it with some spells, I guess. But a lightning bolt at level 5 is 4d12. That means a character would have to have 48 hit points or less to die to massive damage from a crit fail, which I guess small ancestry d6 classes that don't invest in CON will fit. Unless it was a level 5 character facing a higher level caster, which could happen in a boss fight.
That's very different than an attack at first level that is critting 40-50% of the time and needs one lucky roll on a single damage die to instant kill (it's a big incentive to roll the second damage die instead of just doubling the single die). The Elite adjustment is also a big offender here, raising both to-hit and static damage bonus.
The suggestion I've seen that I like the most is to have a minimum amount of damage before Massive damage is considered. So, an attack dealing at least 50 points of damage and is double a character's max hit points. That largely eliminates the level 1 issue except in the most extreme situations, which are the only time it happens at higher levels.
I saw a player come two hit points short of dying of massive damage at 7th level. A witch who ended her turn in melee with a naunet who got crit twice after taking about ~15 damage the previous turn.
The simple answer is you have cleric.
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I saw a player come two hit points short of dying of massive damage at 7th level. A witch who ended her turn in melee with a naunet who got crit twice after taking about ~15 damage the previous turn.
I may be missing something with this post or the massive damage rules, but why is the crit twice + taking 15 damage the previous turn relevant? :) Massive damage kills you if a single hit deals more than double your max HP in one blow, not your current HP + max HP or something like that? Even a 8 con 6HP ancestry character will have 41HP at level 7, and the naunet you mentioned can't deal more than 34 damage (before the crit), so can't one-shot the witch, barring rolling maximum damage on a 8 con 6 ancestry HP witch with the Drained 2 condition? :)
I like the massive damage rules. There is something compelling about knowing that a particularly brutal crit has the capacity to kill outright.
There are better ways to get that feeling of danger.
Think of a hypothetical mechanic where every time a character goes to sleep, they roll and instantly die some small fraction of the time. Is it realistic? Sure. Does it matter how often it happens? 1 on d20? 01 on d100? 0001 on d10000? I argue no. Does it matter if it disproportionately affects low level characters or high level characters? I argue no again (although disproportionately killing new players is bad for the gaming community, it's a separate issue). The fundamental problem is that on a game level, sudden death just happens to the character, and the player has nothing active they can do. They just sit there passively and take it.
I mean, even a mechanic where massive damage goes to Dying 3 plus Wounded 3 would be a step up. At least the player gets a roll before they rip up their character sheet, and everyone gets one turn to save them.
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It nearly happened to my wizard at 3rd level, and I had a party member die to a lightning bolt at level 5.
At very high level, it might be much, much less common, but it stays a legitimate threat through mid levels at least.
Mid levels start at level 7 and that is being generous. Even then I would say it manages to stay in the "much, much less common" ballpark.
Let's do a quick math experiment:
- Level 8 early mid level adventurer. 6 ancestry, 6 class, 2 mod. 62 (124 required). Reflex expert, 1 dex mod, no resilient rune. +13
- Level 8 mid level adventurer with low HP but more realistic, 8 ancestry, 8 class, 2 mod. 88 (172 required. Ref trained, 2 dex mod, resilient rune. +13
- Level +3 (11) caster foe with Chain Lightning (one of the best maximum damage spells. 8d12 damage. DC32
- Level +3 (11) gold dragon with breath weapon 11d6 damage. DC31
Adventurer 1:
- vs Spellcaster: 7.5% chance of massive damage (45% crit, 16.84% for massive damage)
- vs Dragon: ~0.0016% chance of massive damage (40% crit, 0.004% for massive damage)
Adventurer 2:
- vs Spellcaster: 0.00135% chance of massive damage (45% crit, 0.003% for massive damage)
- vs Dragon: 0% chance, even on maximum rolls.
Now things alter this, frightened, drained and the like... But please remember that adventurer 2 isn't exactly ideal either and likely represents the average of a squishy character in a party and chain lightning and a level +3 foe is one of the worst case scenarios you will face when it comes to massive damage potential.
The actual odds of it happening in play, are so stupidly low it isn't funny. Especially as the abilities that can do it are once in a round and generally resource limited.
A real threat in mid levels this is not, not unless players are intentionally building for fragility.
Same deal with a level 5 character vs level 5, 7 and 9 casters with lightning bolt:-
Wizard: 48hp (8 anc, 6 class, 2 mod), 11 reflex (expert, 3 dex)
Casters: DC21/DC26/DC28 and 4d12/5d12/6d12 respectively.
Chance of Massive Damage:-
- vs Level 5 caster: 0.0025% massive damage chance (5% crit chance, 0.05% for enough damage)
- vs Level 7 caster: 0.425% massive damage chance (25% crit chance, 1.7% chance for enough damage)
- vs Level 9 caster: 5.6% massive damage chance (35% crit chance, 16.15% chance for enough damage)
Again, this is a pretty squishy wizard. As a rule this is as bad as it likely gets. It can happen, but past level 1-2 it is incredibly unlikely to have an impact.
I saw a player come two hit points short of dying of massive damage at 7th level. A witch who ended her turn in melee with a naunet who got crit twice after taking about ~15 damage the previous turn.I may be missing something with this post or the massive damage rules, but why is the crit twice + taking 15 damage the previous turn relevant? :) Massive damage kills you if a single hit deals more than double your max HP in one blow, not your current HP + max HP or something like that? Even a 8 con 6HP ancestry character will have 41HP at level 7, and the naunet you mentioned can't deal more than 34 damage (before the crit), so can't one-shot the witch, barring rolling maximum damage on a 8 con 6 ancestry HP witch with the Drained 2 condition? :)
Oh, thanks for that. I was apparently getting it confused with 5e's massive damage rules.
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It nearly happened to my wizard at 3rd level, and I had a party member die to a lightning bolt at level 5.
At very high level, it might be much, much less common, but it stays a legitimate threat through mid levels at least.
Mid levels start at level 7 and that is being generous. Even then I would say it manages to stay in the "much, much less common" ballpark.
Let's do a quick math experiment:
- Level 8 early mid level adventurer. 6 ancestry, 6 class, 2 mod. 62 (124 required). Reflex expert, 1 dex mod, no resilient rune. +13
- Level 8 mid level adventurer with low HP but more realistic, 8 ancestry, 8 class, 2 mod. 88 (172 required. Ref trained, 2 dex mod, resilient rune. +13
- Level +3 (11) caster foe with Chain Lightning (one of the best maximum damage spells. 8d12 damage. DC32
- Level +3 (11) gold dragon with breath weapon 11d6 damage. DC31Adventurer 1:
- vs Spellcaster: 7.5% chance of massive damage (45% crit, 16.84% for massive damage)
- vs Dragon: ~0.0016% chance of massive damage (40% crit, 0.004% for massive damage)Adventurer 2:
- vs Spellcaster: 0.00135% chance of massive damage (45% crit, 0.003% for massive damage)
- vs Dragon: 0% chance, even on maximum rolls.Now things alter this, frightened, drained and the like... But please remember that adventurer 2 isn't exactly ideal either and likely represents the average of a squishy character in a party and chain lightning and a level +3 foe is one of the worst case scenarios you will face when it comes to massive damage potential.
The actual odds of it happening in play, are so stupidly low it isn't funny. Especially as the abilities that can do it are once in a round and generally resource limited.
A real threat in mid levels this is not, not unless players are intentionally building for fragility.
Same deal with a level 5 character vs level 5, 7 and 9 casters with lightning bolt:-
Wizard: 48hp (8 anc, 6 class, 2 mod), 11 reflex (expert, 3 dex)
Casters: DC21/DC26/DC28 and...
Even if it was just a 1% chance against characters univested in con or HP, it is going to happen eventually at many tables. It definitely should not be happening as often as 5% of the time. Massive damage is one of the things that makes the higher level boss threats compellingly dangerous.
Even if it was just a 1% chance against characters univested in con or HP, it is going to happen eventually at many tables. It definitely should not be happening as often as 5% of the time. Massive damage is one of the things that makes the higher level boss threats compellingly dangerous.
We are talking about functionally fractions of a percent, that only applies to a very specific subsection of spells, to weak characters and with high level difference enemies as a rule.
It is under a 1% chance and the odds suggest it won't effect every table eventually because of everything that would have to come into play.
Massive damage as a rule is something that is for all effects and purposes an issue for levels 1-2
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I would not at all be surprised if the majority of the times massive damage would apply the group forgets it exists.