Ruzza |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey, cool, spellcasters. I have a lot of experience with them having had a nearly full team of spellcasters (I believe we made it to level 13/14ish before Covid ended our sessions), a dedicated spellcaster player (he's played two sorcerers, a bar, and myself playing a spellcaster (magus, but still). The first thing to note is that spells, intrinsically, offer tons of options. Simply saying "Well, I Cast A Spell on my turn, which is sort of all I do," really disregards the fact that all spells are so wildly different from each other. A turn casting grease to protect your allies is not the same as a turn casting magic missile. It's not like you have a standard rotation there.
Secondly, I very much disagree that casters want to be casting a spell every single turn. Higher levels, sure, but I don't see that always being the case before 3rd level spells. My magus has a lot of options in combat that aren't just Striking Spell cantrips into things, a lot of which is repositioning, if I'm being honest. Turns out my group keeps forgetting that they provide cover for the enemies when I'm trying to fire into the fray. But I've also got a great slew of abilities by level 4: a lot of Recall Knowledge, acting as the brain of my group, Point-Blank Shot stance, even a handful of melee weapons to use as the need arises. See, that's where magus feels like cheating. I should look at my sorcerer friend who is pure magic. He's been handling Bon Mots, Demoralizing (very helpful to set me up when I've got a good shot for a full turn Striking Spell), and generally assisting the party despite being built out as a blaster. He's been handy with the Blessed One archetype's Lay on Hands as well as his very judicious use of Anoint Ally so that our monk (who relies very heavily on her skills) gets the most out of his Imperial bloodline.
But we also have encounters that have a lot more texture than "allow me to do this one thing very well." Just recently our two casters had to run ahead, away from the party after a few poor choices lead to a room filled with ochre jelly. Even having a character spending a turn throwing open doors and following up with Readied actions to slam them closed makes for a more dynamic battle than two forces standing directly next to each other swinging.
Here's another quick anecdote that I posted recently and it involves a lot of engaging with game and using the 3-action system to make a memorable encounter and less about "do the one thing I want to do as best as possible" because that would actually be... detrimental.
The magus acted quickly, hurling a spark of flame into a group of the creatures that now started to shake and rattle in their glass prisons. A sudden explosion rocked the room, singeing the leshy as they struggled. "You said flammable, not combustible!" the magus shouted, ears ringing.
In moments, the leshy was covered with tiny gnashing monsters, their grey skin writhing as they began to pierce the champion's plated armor. The sorcerer paused, flames dancing on his fingers. "I have a shot, but if I take it..." Everyone knew the implication. "Get clear!" he shouted.
The leshy lashed out at the abominations all over them, managing to pull two free, leaving only a single one clinging to their shield. They ran past their teammates, shouting, "Do it, just do it!" A moment later, the sorcerer's spell ripped through the room as a plume of fire consumed the undead.
Mechanically, our leshy champion felt this room was off and asked to Seek. They rolled high, beating the pickled punks' Stealth, putting us in initiative with the leshy going first. They asked me what the creatures were, so I told them they could make a Recall Knowledge check with Religion, something they were reasonably good with. With a success, I told them that they were combustible because of the chemicals involved in creating them. The sorcerer and the magus were thrilled, ready to pop off their produce flames and be the heroes.
The magus went next and their produce flames lit up half of the room and took out a chunk of the champion's hit points. Now everyone started to worry. The pickled punks then swarmed the champion, three of them attaching to the leshy and making a massive pile of undead swarming over the liberator. The sorcerer knew he could probably end the encounter with a good produce flames, but he didn't want to risk exploding the champion and still having to deal with the monsters. He Delayed until after the champion.
Now, my champion is a player that came over from 5e. She asked me how she could get the punks off of her and discovered, "Wait, Athletics to Escape? I'm great at that." Moments later (and a particularly lucky roll on that second Escape check with MAP), they had one left on them and ran just as the sorcerer exploded the rest behind them.
So, yeah, if you're constantly doing the same thing every turn without thinking about it, then I have to wonder what your encounters look like.
Unicore |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are a lot of fun weaknesses creatures in PF2 have written into them that players will totally miss if recalling knowledge doesn't regularly become a part of the party's combat strategy. Players love realizing they can do things like open a window to let in daylight, or throw a bucket of water on an enemy and have that action radically change the outcome of the encounter.
Ruzza |
Ruzza wrote:Reading an action to disarm is an absolutely brilliant tactic against foes you out number that are using powerful weapons (like a party full of PCs usually will be for a group of orcs). I would love to see more suggestions for tactics like this recommended in APs because I think a lot of GMs need a little bit of help realizing how flexible the PF2 system is for letting enemies do things like run away to regroup or take advantage of a more favorable environment.I have no idea how people end up having very many turns that look anything alike given how open combat is now. Not to point blame at GMs if this is happening, but the only conclusion I can come to is combat where enemies run into melee and spend all of their actions Striking, ignoring... well everything else their stat block has. Even a level 0 Orc Brute with no adjustments changes the encounter significantly depending on how a GM would run them. Opening with a thrown javelin and a Readied action to Disarm melee opponents, Striding - Intimidating - Striking, even just playing as meat shields for their ranged allies; these all change how PCs should want to interact with the encounter.
Like Grognard said up thread, if you have a "rotation" or "encounter loop," you're likely playing very suboptimally. Or, like I am callously proposing, your GM is.
Don't forget fun things like sneaky opponents using Hide and Create A Diversion to set up mid-combat ambushes! I love having non-threatening creatures set themselves up in such a way to have PCs expose themselves to the real danger.
Unicore |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Unicore wrote:Don't forget fun things like sneaky opponents using Hide and Create A Diversion to set up mid-combat ambushes! I love having non-threatening creatures set themselves up in such a way to have PCs expose themselves to the real danger.Ruzza wrote:Reading an action to disarm is an absolutely brilliant tactic against foes you out number that are using powerful weapons (like a party full of PCs usually will be for a group of orcs). I would love to see more suggestions for tactics like this recommended in APs because I think a lot of GMs need a little bit of help realizing how flexible the PF2 system is for letting enemies do things like run away to regroup or take advantage of a more favorable environment.I have no idea how people end up having very many turns that look anything alike given how open combat is now. Not to point blame at GMs if this is happening, but the only conclusion I can come to is combat where enemies run into melee and spend all of their actions Striking, ignoring... well everything else their stat block has. Even a level 0 Orc Brute with no adjustments changes the encounter significantly depending on how a GM would run them. Opening with a thrown javelin and a Readied action to Disarm melee opponents, Striding - Intimidating - Striking, even just playing as meat shields for their ranged allies; these all change how PCs should want to interact with the encounter.
Like Grognard said up thread, if you have a "rotation" or "encounter loop," you're likely playing very suboptimally. Or, like I am callously proposing, your GM is.
Every GM should try out setting a low level encounter in a field of tall grass or waist high murky water, against weaker, but fairly stealthy foes. It can really create an interesting change of pace as the enemy sneaks up, attacks, then hides in place, only to sneak off and attack someone else next turn. Sometimes, they don't even need to attack, just hide, sneak and wait for the party to move around and expose a backline party member, and you will have players start realizing that they can do the same things to great effect.
Queaux |
It is funny but I find the niche of PF2 to be the less-than-exciting beer and pretzel rpg. You can pick up pretty much any character and just push the buttons after finding out what is its main action, secondary action, and out of combat action.
There are usually 4-5 class feats which define the actions above and the rest of the feats don't matter. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. It allows you to spend time with others but as people have said to me "Everything feels the same." We discussed it and it feels like Paizo tried to too hard to squash potential shenanigans. We looked at the items and we looked at the feats (lord we looked at the feats). It felt like "ok, the 2H fighter picks the following 5 feats and then all the other feats are just fleshing out his minor background." Items likewise
I think PF2 supports this playstyle well enough. If they whole table is doing this, then the GM can balance encounters around it and you can play beer and pretzels style. That's certainly a feature of the system.
That said, you can certainly get a lot better performance by going down the conditional action and consumable item rabbit hole. I'd actually say that you can near double your chances of succeeding if you prepare perfectly for some encounters by adding probabilities to sidestep, cheese, or just perfectly meet the challenge of those encounters. There's almost no end to the level of optimization you can do on the itemization side of the game alone.
Queaux |
Ruzza wrote:Every GM should try out setting a low level encounter in a field of tall grass or waist high murky water, against weaker, but fairly stealthy foes. It can really create an interesting change of pace as the enemy sneaks up, attacks, then hides in place, only to sneak off and attack someone else next turn. Sometimes, they don't even need to attack, just hide, sneak and wait for the party to move...Unicore wrote:Don't forget fun things like sneaky opponents using Hide and Create A Diversion to set up mid-combat ambushes! I love having non-threatening creatures set themselves up in such a way to have PCs expose themselves to the real danger.Ruzza wrote:Reading an action to disarm is an absolutely brilliant tactic against foes you out number that are using powerful weapons (like a party full of PCs usually will be for a group of orcs). I would love to see more suggestions for tactics like this recommended in APs because I think a lot of GMs need a little bit of help realizing how flexible the PF2 system is for letting enemies do things like run away to regroup or take advantage of a more favorable environment.I have no idea how people end up having very many turns that look anything alike given how open combat is now. Not to point blame at GMs if this is happening, but the only conclusion I can come to is combat where enemies run into melee and spend all of their actions Striking, ignoring... well everything else their stat block has. Even a level 0 Orc Brute with no adjustments changes the encounter significantly depending on how a GM would run them. Opening with a thrown javelin and a Readied action to Disarm melee opponents, Striding - Intimidating - Striking, even just playing as meat shields for their ranged allies; these all change how PCs should want to interact with the encounter.
Like Grognard said up thread, if you have a "rotation" or "encounter loop," you're likely playing very suboptimally. Or, like I am callously proposing, your GM is.
I did this recently with Bilokos in waist high water guarding a totem. The option to hide below the water every turn was a lot of fun.
MaxAstro |
10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I know this has been said a few times, but it's so critical that I try to never miss a chance to say it:
2e is so freaking easy to GM.
That's it, that's the niche. Easiest d20 game on the market to GM. Gives the GM the most freedom and most room to add their own style. Makes customization the easiest.
I spend less time prepping entire books in 2e than I would spend building single encounters in 1e.
The Rot Grub |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think that we are in a market similar to the one in which both BX D&D and AD&D thrived alongside each other. One product served tables that wanted a simple consistent version of the game that was easy to run and easy to build for, while the other served tables that wanted more complexity to the kinds of encounters and abilities they could use to complete them.The last almost 50 years of the iterations of this game have been boiled down to a modern version that exists in two similar forms. 5e is in some ways the BX D&D of this era, with PF2e filling the role of AD&D's enhanced complexity. It doesn't provide the tactical gameplay of 4e like OP was told, but it does offer more tactically oriented gameplay than 5e. It doesn't have the customizability of 3.X, but it does more customizability than 5e.
I posted a screenshot of the back of the PF2 Core Rulebook once but my observation didn't gain traction. But I still think it's true:
There is a REASON that the back cover of the core book for PF2 has huge text saying "Advance Your Game".
"Advance" it from what? For the majority of tabletop players these days, the answer is obvious...
WWHsmackdown |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
dirtypool wrote:
I think that we are in a market similar to the one in which both BX D&D and AD&D thrived alongside each other. One product served tables that wanted a simple consistent version of the game that was easy to run and easy to build for, while the other served tables that wanted more complexity to the kinds of encounters and abilities they could use to complete them.The last almost 50 years of the iterations of this game have been boiled down to a modern version that exists in two similar forms. 5e is in some ways the BX D&D of this era, with PF2e filling the role of AD&D's enhanced complexity. It doesn't provide the tactical gameplay of 4e like OP was told, but it does offer more tactically oriented gameplay than 5e. It doesn't have the customizability of 3.X, but it does more customizability than 5e.
I posted a screenshot of the back of the PF2 Core Rulebook once but my observation didn't gain traction. But I still think it's true:
There is a REASON that the back cover of the core book for PF2 has huge text saying "Advance Your Game".
"Advance" it from what? For the majority of tabletop players these days, the answer is obvious...
As a 5e convert I enjoy having a system with so much more depth that's still easy to run. Listening to glass cannon podcasts I knew 1e was never a system I wanted to run bc the book keeping was so steep for something that had so many trap builds
The Rot Grub |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To me, P2 feels like a recognizable and advanced evolution of the original game. If you had handed it to me in the 80s, I would have recognized it and come to the same conclusion that this was a superior way to enjoy the game the way I like it. I don't know where the game goes from here, but I love where it's at today. Actions, build choices, feat silos, and archetypes are genius, and the balance to it all is elegant.
This, to me, is the answer. It's the "natural evolution" of the game. WOTC may have the marketing budget and the brand recognition, but in its last 2 editions, 4e and 5e, the designers were responding to economic demands, and arguably over-correcting each time. They needed to increase profits and deal with the lack of remaining design space in 3e, and so in 4e, an edition that was premised on leaving the OGL and shooting for MMORPG commercial success, there had to be drastic changes.
When 5e was designed, they were responding to rejection of 4e's complexity and the difficulty PF1 had, due to being based in 3e's engine, of bringing on new gamers looking for a more accessible game. To address frustration that those games were too complex, WOTC deliberately made their game (relatively) simple. They also made the rules generally vague and require GM fiat. (And these changes, of course, have been a source of frustration for some players of 5e.)
4e and PF1 were both attempts to correct some of the chronic problems of 3.5. When PF1 came out, it had to do so while still catering to the substantial number of people who still wanted to play 3.x and/or did not want to have their 3.5 back-catalog made obsolete.
PF2 is the first time the design team of any major TTRPG company has had the opportunity to revise the structure of 3.5, uninfluenced by any market demand other than that the 3.x engine had aged out and run its natural life cycle. In that sense, I see PF2 as the "natural evolution" of the game that incorporates the improvements made in 3rd edition, and benefiting from the lessons of 3dd edition.
PF2 is able to maintain the emphasis on customizability that was a breath of fresh air when 3rd edition came out in 2000, while addressing long-running complaints about the system. And it didn't have to do what 5e was forced to do, which was reduce options as a reaction to the market reception to 4e and 3.x/PF2.
The 2 companies, Paizo and WOTC, now publishing 2 games that are the major 2 poles of attraction in the TTRPG market. But the original "line of evolution" was abandoned by WOTC when it released 4e. By building on 3rd edition, PF2 is the game whose line of evolution goes back to the original 1974 game.
Mr Tea |
As others have said - it's a game that's easy to run. I started running Pathfinder (Age of Ashes) after an 8 year gap from being a GM. I have a full time job and two small children - the ease of running is amazing - it takes less time to prep a session than in my 7 year long game of WFRP 2nd ed and I knew the ruleset and stats for almost everything in the system.
It caters well for my players too. I've been playing with/running for them since '95 and we've been through dozens of games and systems. Pathfinder doesn't get in the way of telling a good story. The fighter doesn't feel like the sorcerer is just inherently better.
The APs are also easy to run and adapt for your own table.
Deriven Firelion |
My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made. It's not a new thing. Kill the enemy your fighting in the way you've built your character to do it is not some bad aspect of the game, it's a built in feature. It's expected. I don't know why anyone would bring this up as some kind of negative aspect of a RPG of any kind.
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
Hsui |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hsui wrote:Not usually one to contradict people, but in the interest of clarity for anyone new reading this thread: The above person's concept of the game is flat out wrong. If you think you have a "routine" that you can just keep doing, you're probably missing out on A LOT of combat and roleplay potential.It is funny but I find the niche of PF2 to be the less-than-exciting beer and pretzel rpg. You can pick up pretty much any character and just push the buttons after finding out what is its main action, secondary action, and out of combat action.
There are usually 4-5 class feats which define the actions above and the rest of the feats don't matter. Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad thing. It allows you to spend time with others but as people have said to me "Everything feels the same." We discussed it and it feels like Paizo tried to too hard to squash potential shenanigans. We looked at the items and we looked at the feats (lord we looked at the feats). It felt like "ok, the 2H fighter picks the following 5 feats and then all the other feats are just fleshing out his minor background." Items likewise
Funny, a group of 6 of us have been playing for quite awhile and we reached this consensus. We have roughly 100+ years of rpg experience between us (some of us started out playing chainmail) so I don't think we have a lack of understanding how to play rpgs. I am sure that if we GMed but custom crafting every encounter to the exact party, then these various feats like nimble crawl would be very important BUT we create encounters that are slightly less specific than that
Ruzza |
6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Experience is good, but it can also be constraining. Many of my players are 5e converts and have trouble moving from the Stride and Strike mentality. For many of us as coming from PF1/3.X, we have a very different set of hurdles.
As a for instance, I started at the tail end of AD&D, but 3e quickly became my game of choice for years. Then 3.5, and then a dip over to 4e before playing PF1. That's more than 20 years with ostensibly the same system. A system where there were feats that outclassed others, where I could shift my power upwards at character creation, and a system that rewarded one thing better than the rest. During the playtest, there was a lot of unlearning for me, especially when I'd scoff at feats that seemed situational at best or didn't allow me to... Well, get into a fight and pull off my one schtick.
Now, while I've played other roleplaying games over the years, none of them approached the tactical complexity of PF2. My basis for how combat should go was formed around the d20 system. I feel like that is potentially how many of us have come into PF2. But interestingly, none of that experience means anything with a system that disincentivizes that playstyle. It's like trying to apply the concepts of basketball to soccer. Sure, there's a lot of overlap, but two vastly different games.
So if you feel like you're doing combat loops and rotations (somehow any more than any d20 system game to come before it), I would talk with your GM, or in the very least look at where those loops are breaking down. ("Weird that I can't do anything when the enemy is flying/invisible/faster than me, what could I do to counter that?" sort of thing)
Verdyn |
Now, while I've played other roleplaying games over the years, none of them approached the tactical complexity of PF2.
Have you ever tried anything with less of a medieval fantasy leaning?
I only ask because I'd argue that a system like Cyberpunk 2020 (Less so CP RED) allows for deep tactical interactions even if it does have the balancing issues and rules clunkiness one would expect of a late '80s PnP game. Eclipse Phase also has a lot of depth with characters often having to change up playstyles on the fly based on which body they end up in and what equipment they can scrounge up for each mission. With both systems being the nastiest combat monster around is only going to attract unwanted attention so doing the most with the least becomes the name of the game for the party with big guns reserved for when things go south or they planned so well nobody will be left standing to say who caused all the damage.
Eclipse Phase goes a step further in flipping the script by allowing a party wipe to progress the story as everybody gets restored from a backup missing a chunk of memories and reading reports about the outcome of their last mission. A successful run might even be entirely planned around intentionally not making it out and such a memory wipe could be required by an employer leading the PCs to make choices about if they want to find a way to keep records or not. It's not the raw move x, do move y, consider condition z of PF2 but it offers a lot of unique design space for dealing with problems.
Exocist |
Ruzza wrote:Every GM should try out setting a low level encounter in a field of tall grass or waist high murky water, against weaker, but fairly stealthy foes. It can really create an interesting change of pace as the enemy sneaks up, attacks, then hides in place, only to sneak off and attack someone else next turn. Sometimes, they don't even need to attack, just hide, sneak and wait for the party to move...Unicore wrote:Don't forget fun things like sneaky opponents using Hide and Create A Diversion to set up mid-combat ambushes! I love having non-threatening creatures set themselves up in such a way to have PCs expose themselves to the real danger.Ruzza wrote:Reading an action to disarm is an absolutely brilliant tactic against foes you out number that are using powerful weapons (like a party full of PCs usually will be for a group of orcs). I would love to see more suggestions for tactics like this recommended in APs because I think a lot of GMs need a little bit of help realizing how flexible the PF2 system is for letting enemies do things like run away to regroup or take advantage of a more favorable environment.I have no idea how people end up having very many turns that look anything alike given how open combat is now. Not to point blame at GMs if this is happening, but the only conclusion I can come to is combat where enemies run into melee and spend all of their actions Striking, ignoring... well everything else their stat block has. Even a level 0 Orc Brute with no adjustments changes the encounter significantly depending on how a GM would run them. Opening with a thrown javelin and a Readied action to Disarm melee opponents, Striding - Intimidating - Striking, even just playing as meat shields for their ranged allies; these all change how PCs should want to interact with the encounter.
Like Grognard said up thread, if you have a "rotation" or "encounter loop," you're likely playing very suboptimally. Or, like I am callously proposing, your GM is.
I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them. Unless you then meta your own sneak check and make them sneak again (they’re supposed to be secret checks, which doesn’t work out great for DMs) the party knows where that person is and just attacks them. That’s what happened to me anyway - there was an additional globe of invulnerability so the enemy couldn’t sling spells from afar.
I can’t imagine this strategy works out well for players, for the same reason.
Verdyn |
I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them. Unless you then meta your own sneak check and make them sneak again (they’re supposed to be secret checks, which doesn’t work out great for DMs) the party knows where that person is and just attacks them. That’s what happened to me anyway - there was an additional globe of invulnerability so the enemy couldn’t sling spells from afar.
I can’t imagine this strategy works out well for players, for the same reason.
This is one of those scenarios where the DM should fudge things so that an exciting encounter can happen. The same goes for when the players take the time to stop and carefully set up an ambush.
It's such a rare scenario that it deserves a little extra push to make it run the way it should even though the rules make such an event unlikely.
Ruzza |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them. Unless you then meta your own sneak check and make them sneak again (they’re supposed to be secret checks, which doesn’t work out great for DMs) the party knows where that person is and just attacks them. That’s what happened to me anyway - there was an additional globe of invulnerability so the enemy couldn’t sling spells from afar.
I can’t imagine this strategy works out well for players, for the same reason.
The point isn't to - as a GM - get one over on your players. It, hopefully, plays to the strengths of the creatures you're running and also encourages a different way of approaching the fight. It adds texture and, in the context of this conversation, breaks players out of boring attack routines.
Take a Low 1 Encounter of three Goblin Warriors. This fight is a cakewalk for a group of level 1 characters. Running three goblin warriors standing in a field who run up and attack is likely to result in an uninteresting encounter. But have a warrior firing their shortbow and fleeing while his two allies hide in nearby bushes (getting to use their Stealth for initiative and to start the battle). Characters could spot out the goblins, which feels good for the players, but they might run right into the trap as goblins Delay their turns so they can get easy flanking and their ally sneaks back into cover to pepper them with arrows. Not that a 6 HP goblin is going to take more than one blow, but having a goblin devote their turn to running and diving into the brush to hide is more interesting (and doesn't have as bad of a chance of failure as you'd think for a level - 1 opponent) than just standing and fighting. To say nothing of the annoyance the two skirmishing warriors can provide as they constantly Goblin Step to set each other into better positioning.
And this is really an incredibly basic and easy encounter. There's no need to fudge anything as the rules and math support it actually working.
Also, yes, Hiding/Creating Diversions/Sneaking are all very effective for players as well. I have lots to say about a certain rogue in my party who gave my creatures nothing but grief. But also, I tend to make sure that cover is available decently often and definite say things like, "Yeah, you can Hide behind that tree stump, of course."
Unicore |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |
You don’t have to fudge things. The enemies make one stealth check vs passive perception DCsif there are 4 or 5 enemies a couple of them will succeed and the fun is having PCs use seek actions to find them. Also, taking cover gives you a massive bonus to stealth.
Verdyn |
Or don't even give them line of sight. Can't succeed at a Perception check when there's a wall in the way.
This gives me an idea for a group of goblins, or other small-sized creatures, to be looting a bunch of overturned crates and barrels from a wagon (or wagons) they've raided. The lookout would give them a warning to shut up and hide while hopefully also being stealthy enough that the PCs don't spot them. Even if they do they won't spot the ones hiding in or behind the crates. You can even have the scout and one or two other monsters flee if they're obviously spotted creating a sense of security.
This can work even better at higher levels if the small creatures are being used as disposable bodies by a larger threat hanging back and watching the situation unfold. While the PCs are chasing off or mopping up the smaller threats the actual meat of the encounter can get a free round or two of actions off and try to tip the encounter in their favor.
MaxAstro |
I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.
Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
Exocist |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
CorvusMask |
My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made. It's not a new thing. Kill the enemy your fighting in the way you've built your character to do it is not some bad aspect of the game, it's a built in feature. It's expected. I don't know why anyone would bring this up as some kind of negative aspect of a RPG of any kind.
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
I mean terrain and composition of enemy can vary what players choose to do in encounter.
But yeah I in generally agree, I don't think "round to round" gameplay in Pathfinder 1e was that different, so I find idea that "you repeat yourself way more in 2e than other systems!" weird when you genuinely have multiple approaches that are both valid <_<
Deriven Firelion |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend seek actions in the right area to locate them.
Stealth and seek is very involved now. A group of stealthy rogue-wizards could well stay hidden for quite some time even if the PCs know they are there.
Rushniyamat |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made. It's not a new thing. Kill the enemy your fighting in the way you've built your character to do it is not some bad aspect of the game, it's a built in feature. It's expected. I don't know why anyone would bring this up as some kind of negative aspect of a RPG of any kind.
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
Blades in the Dark, a narrative driven game about criminals in a haunted city, makes your life very hard if you kill someone: you gain +2 Heat (how much attention your crew draws, in the bad way), the Spirit Wardens (corpses destroyers which use crows which circles around dead bodies) might appear, and if they don't destroy the body, a ghost will hunt the players down for revenge.
You can always add complications for killing creatures: their organization and loved ones will seek revenge, they will return from tbe dead and so on. I agree that combat being so centric aspect of the system creates problems, but there several solutions - although they are very lacking, so you don't really have some :(
Rushniyamat |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made.
[...]
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
You can't say every TTRPG has this problem - because you didn't played everyone - and there are systems which frequently avoid this problem: narrative driven TTRPGs. They might not be for everyone, but they solve the problem by generaly not being combat focused and by forcing you to describe your actions in a creative way.
Exocist |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Exocist wrote:MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend seek actions in the right area to locate them.
Stealth and seek is very involved now....
They didn't start combat invisible, they started combat visible and cast invisibility (4th). I wouldn't drop my players into an extreme encounter where the opponents start out favoured.
That means they had to use the Sneak action to become undetected, which means rolling a separate stealth check for each of the rogue/wizards that wanted to become undetected.
Ruzza |
Deriven Firelion wrote:...Exocist wrote:MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend seek actions in the right area to locate them.
I'm not sure I'm seeing what didn't work here? I mean, they're still hidden even if they fail their Sneak checks as opposed to undetected which allows for more "counterplay" from the PCs.
Exocist |
Exocist wrote:...Deriven Firelion wrote:Exocist wrote:MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend seek actions in the right
They were hidden with just invisibility (except for the fact that both main damage dealers took blind fight so it didn't do as much). The problem is that you still know where a hidden creature is, so even if 3 out of 4 of them were undetected, they could all just beat up the one that failed its stealth check. If there wasn't invisibility... you could also just walk up to the creature and it would probably no longer be hidden. And I was using up 4 actions on the enemies to do so, and I think that was pretty much the best case scenario for stealthing monsters.
IMO, making the monsters sneak around only works when there's like 1-2 monsters, past that the sheer quantity of rolls means they'll always know where at least one of the creatures is, and can just beat that one up.
Deriven Firelion |
Deriven Firelion wrote:My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made. It's not a new thing. Kill the enemy your fighting in the way you've built your character to do it is not some bad aspect of the game, it's a built in feature. It's expected. I don't know why anyone would bring this up as some kind of negative aspect of a RPG of any kind.
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
Blades in the Dark, a narrative driven game about criminals in a haunted city, makes your life very hard if you kill someone: you gain +2 Heat (how much attention your crew draws, in the bad way), the Spirit Wardens (corpses destroyers which use crows which circles around dead bodies) might appear, and if they don't destroy the body, a ghost will hunt the players down for revenge.
You can always add complications for killing creatures: their organization and loved ones will seek revenge, they will return from tbe dead and so on. I agree that combat being so centric aspect of the system creates problems, but there several solutions - although they are very lacking, so you don't really have some :(
Not even sure what point your trying to make. A narrative driven game? You mean the DM or whoever runs the game makes it up as you go with no system in place to decide combat other than DM whim?
Even in a narrative driven game, characters would have limitations and a schtick. Characters aren't able to do everything and anything.
So what is your point? You don't really have some? What does that mean?
You can alter the narrative in any RPG game where a live DM runs it causing players to adapt.
Deriven Firelion |
Deriven Firelion wrote:You can't say every TTRPG has this problem - because you didn't played everyone - and there are systems which frequently avoid this problem: narrative driven TTRPGs. They might not be for everyone, but they solve the problem by generaly not being combat focused and by forcing you to describe your actions in a creative way.My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made.
[...]
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
First, what you consider a problem is not a problem to start with, it's a feature.
Even a narrative driven game would have a role for a character or a schtick. So no, this is not correct. Unless you have a very loose DM, gamemaster, or group, you don't get to just suddenly say, "Hey, I'm Superman and I destroy everything because I'm Superman because I feel like it."
You create characters with backgrounds and roles. They like to play the role they created. In a game like PF2 that role is some form of combat. And it's a feature of the system, not a negative.
I don't have to play every RPG to know how they work. Yet I've literally played probably over 50 unique games and systems, maybe a 100, different RPGs of different kinds with different rule systems over the decades of gaming. The big daddy D&D and lots of little side games of varying kinds during the various golden age of RPGs when people were churning them out like burgers at a McDonalds.
Never played a game where you didn't have some kind of defined role with some kind of world that defined what you can and cannot do with a created background with some kind of schtick.
That's just RPG 101.
Unicore |
Blind fight is an incredibly powerful feat in PF2, but also a pretty niche one that a lot of people sleep on. Players making choices like that deserve to be rewarded by having enemies assume they don’t have abilities like that until they see it.
Exocist, it kind of sounds like this party was designed around killing sneaky foes. If they struggle to do so against equal level opposition, then I would say that is the bigger problem.
Deriven Firelion |
Ruzza wrote:...Exocist wrote:Deriven Firelion wrote:Exocist wrote:MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend
Not really sure it works that way. You can run it as you wish, but as a DM I don't consider the NPCs active participants. They get to sneak by if not engaged in combat.
This whole thing doesn't make any sense. If you cast invisibility in front of the party, of course they are going to seek the enemy. They should have the means to easily do it like see invisibility spells.
If they're just sneaking past them, then it is very easy to to run by unseen, force the PCs to make Perception checks against their stealth making half-moves, and quickly move out of range.
So I'm not sure what you're trying to do with this scenario, but it sounds like you're requiring rolls that aren't necessary. An NPC or monster turning invisible and moving at half-speed is automatically sneaking. It is the PCs who have to make active Perception checks against their Passive Stealth to detect them.
Ruzza |
Ruzza wrote:...Exocist wrote:Deriven Firelion wrote:Exocist wrote:MaxAstro wrote:Exocist wrote:I tried this, even had the enemies cast invisibility. Unless you’re insanely lucky as a GM, when you’re rolling stealth 4 times, on average one of those rolls is going to be <=5, which means the party will see them.Oh no, you aren't having NPCs roll Stealth once per enemy are you? That's entirely wrong.
You make one Stealth roll and compare it to the passive Perception of everyone you are hiding from. Then if people spend an action looking for you, they get a Perception roll against your passive Stealth. Never more than one roll at a time.
There were 4 NPCs, identically built - I was testing some dual-class stuff and the final encounter for my players was 4 level 9 dual-class rogue/wizards against the 4 level 9 dual-class players.
Each of these rogue/wizards had a pretty decent stealth mod - +22 or so IIRC (+9 level, +6 master, +4 dex, +2 shadowdancer, +1 item) - the problem is that I had to roll a separate sneak check for each one when they wanted to sneak. So because there's 4 of them, one is pretty much guaranteed to flub it and roll a 1-7, which means the party knew where they were and could attack them.
In addition to that, enemies don't provide any threat if they just remain stealthed. I could use silent spell and start buffing, but there's a limit to how much buffing I could do based on spell choices, and of course, every buff cast requires a stealth check.
You don't have to do it that way. The rules are not hard on this.
I'd have the PCs make a Perception check each against the NPCs passive stealth in this situation. Then they know someone is there, but maybe not who and they can start using Seek actions if they so choose or cast see invis.
And who cares if they know something is there. They have to take actions to find them and attack. So they could stay stealthed and casting. The PCs will have to spend
I literally see zero problems here, especially if my players took Blind Fight. If anything, it rewards my playera for their choices.
Unicore |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The invisibility rules of PF2 are a little convoluted. It is easy to be confused by them and it is important to remember that the essence of the rule is “the GM decides what is going to make sense in this situation and make the encounter most fun for everyone.”
For example, the rules for being hidden are relatively straight forward, but then the rules for hiding say that any character who takes any action except sneak, step or hide is observed, unless the GM decides otherwise. However, if a creature doesn’t have a precise sense that can observe you, then you will never be less than hidden. So you have to really look closely at the conditions and creature senses to make a ruling as a GM.
That ends up making it all sound very complicated but in play it works out pretty intuitively.
A creature that is invisible is typically undetected unless it does something obvious to break that.
If it turns invisible in front of you, it is only hidden until it attempts to sneak away.
Once it is undetected, the player has to make seek actions, which have a limited area of effect. So even with good perception, it can be difficult to locate undetected foes in a decent sized encounter zone.
Also, the sneak action can be attempted multiple times. So an invisible foe has multiple chances to become undetected if they want to use them. The rules are a little light on wether a player knows whether they are undetected or hidden, as it is a secret check. This is a pretty challenging situation to GM. Personally, I think the secret check element is a hindrance here, because people usually do react when they observe something. Trying not to react to observing something should require a deception check, but that convoluted the rules even more and adds even more rolling. Personally, as a GM, I have found that just letting stealth checks be public rolls, and letting players guess if it was enough to beat the perception DC does a pretty effective job of simulating out all this extra complexity.
Rushniyamat |
Rushniyamat wrote:Deriven Firelion wrote:My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made. It's not a new thing. Kill the enemy your fighting in the way you've built your character to do it is not some bad aspect of the game, it's a built in feature. It's expected. I don't know why anyone would bring this up as some kind of negative aspect of a RPG of any kind.
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
Blades in the Dark, a narrative driven game about criminals in a haunted city, makes your life very hard if you kill someone: you gain +2 Heat (how much attention your crew draws, in the bad way), the Spirit Wardens (corpses destroyers which use crows which circles around dead bodies) might appear, and if they don't destroy the body, a ghost will hunt the players down for revenge.
You can always add complications for killing creatures: their organization and loved ones will seek revenge, they will return from tbe dead and so on. I agree that combat being so centric aspect of the system creates problems, but there several solutions - although they are very lacking, so you don't really have some :(
Not even sure what point your trying to make. A narrative driven game? You mean the DM or whoever runs the game makes it up as you go with no system in place to decide combat other than DM whim?
Even in a narrative driven game, characters would have limitations and a schtick. Characters aren't able to do everything and anything.
So what is your point? You don't really have some? What does that mean?
You can alter the narrative in any RPG game where a live DM runs it causing players to adapt.
First, the second paragraph is on pathfinder and games which don't have built-in negative effect for killing. It doesn't really have a point and agrees with your opinion.
Furthermore, when I speak of narrative driven games I generally mean Powered by the Apocalypse and its successors.Now, regarding your next post. Narrative driven games do have roles - class/playbook based or build based - but generally the abilities are loosly defined, leaving a lot of room for creativity. You already mentioned superheroes, so let's use Masks: New Generation (Powered by the Apocalypse about teen superheroes) as an example. Superpowers are descrobed only by their name - if you have "telepathy", you can do a lot with it, like mentally overloading others or using their thoughts to find them.
Queaux |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First, the second paragraph is on pathfinder and games which don't have built-in negative effect for...
I take your point here, but I think it's overreaching a little and not making a mechanical connection in others.
The overreach is that games like Pathfinder 2 that incorporate a wargame are very deterministic and result in loops. I think PF2 has the capacity to be non-deterministic through the use of varied balanced options that will all result in different situations that can't necessarily be ranked by effectiveness. How, for example, do you rate combat options that could result in a peaceful resolution against those that are more effective but can't be peaceful?
The mechanical connection you're failing to make is that something like choosing to use the "telepathy" move is similar mechanically to using the strike move even if the "telepathy" move allows for more narrative description. That leads narrative games into the same loop situation described previously.
Verdyn |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Rushniyamat wrote:First, the second paragraph is on pathfinder and games which don't have built-in negative effect for...I take your point here, but I think it's overreaching a little and not making a mechanical connection in others.
The overreach is that games like Pathfinder 2 that incorporate a wargame are very deterministic and result in loops. I think PF2 has the capacity to be non-deterministic through the use of varied balanced options that will all result in different situations that can't necessarily be ranked by effectiveness. How, for example, do you rate combat options that could result in a peaceful resolution against those that are more effective but can't be peaceful?
The mechanical connection you're failing to make is that something like choosing to use the "telepathy" move is similar mechanically to using the strike move even if the "telepathy" move allows for more narrative description. That leads narrative games into the same loop situation described previously.
I don't feel like it does. A narrative game is far more likely to ask different questions than a more mechanically focused game will.
For example, PF2 encounters are only really good at asking can the party solve this encounter via some mechanical means (this could be combat, a spell, or a skill check like stealth or diplomacy) and if the answer is no it asks if the party can escape. Very rarely, and almost not at all in an AP, does it set things up so that failing a combat encounter (not defeating it or running away) results in anything other than a TPK or Deus x Machina event.
A narrative game has far more room for failure to be an option as it often lacks a hard game over state for the player/party. Thus each encounter asks, how can this group of characters influence the story to be as favorable as possible and allows for a wide spectrum of results. As such it's easy to set up scenarios where a player who finds their main trick unable to work can actually have the most options for how to approach the scene. This is something that a game like PF2 simply doesn't attempt to handle at all.
Thomas5251212 |
Deriven Firelion wrote:You can't say every TTRPG has this problem - because you didn't played everyone - and there are systems which frequently avoid this problem: narrative driven TTRPGs. They might not be for everyone, but they solve the problem by generaly not being combat focused and by forcing you to describe your actions in a creative way.My players do the same thing over and over again with some variation here and there. They did this in every version of D&D and PF2 or any RPGs ever made.
[...]
It's that way in pen and paper RPGs. Video game RPGs like WoW. And even single player RPGs. It's never been any other way as long as I've played any of these mediums.
Not really. I've seen people describe things very rote even in those. They can't force you to work at it (and honestly, most people don't want to have to describe every damn action creatively anyway); they just punish you if you don't.
Rushniyamat |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Queaux wrote:Rushniyamat wrote:First, the second paragraph is on pathfinder and games which don't have built-in negative effect for...I take your point here, but I think it's overreaching a little and not making a mechanical connection in others.
The overreach is that games like Pathfinder 2 that incorporate a wargame are very deterministic and result in loops. I think PF2 has the capacity to be non-deterministic through the use of varied balanced options that will all result in different situations that can't necessarily be ranked by effectiveness. How, for example, do you rate combat options that could result in a peaceful resolution against those that are more effective but can't be peaceful?
The mechanical connection you're failing to make is that something like choosing to use the "telepathy" move is similar mechanically to using the strike move even if the "telepathy" move allows for more narrative description. That leads narrative games into the same loop situation described previously.
I don't feel like it does. A narrative game is far more likely to ask different questions than a more mechanically focused game will.
For example, PF2 encounters are only really good at asking can the party solve this encounter via some mechanical means (this could be combat, a spell, or a skill check like stealth or diplomacy) and if the answer is no it asks if the party can escape. Very rarely, and almost not at all in an AP, does it set things up so that failing a combat encounter (not defeating it or running away) results in anything other than a TPK or Deus x Machina event.
A narrative game has far more room for failure to be an option as it often lacks a hard game over state for the player/party. Thus each encounter asks, how can this group of characters influence the story to be as favorable as possible and allows for a wide spectrum of results. As such it's easy to set up scenarios where a player who finds their main trick unable to work can actually have the most...
Thank you ver much for explaining a hole in my argument better than I would.
I want to add few things. Mechanical focused TTRPGs tend to take every general ability and either specificlly say what it can do and what it can't or seperate it to several small abilities which have specific outcome. You want gravity manipulation? You need to take telekanisis, flight and more to represent that. It restrains you but you also don't need to deal with a$#holes.
This feature create the repetition: you always return on the same outcome (although you can try use the outcome to lead to a creative outcome, but it is hard sometimes, especially in combat), and even if you have many options, they will return on themselves in the end.
Narrative driven also have this problem, but it comes from the player side: either they use the cool thing over and over again or they don't want to describe what happens. Great systems avoid this problem by creating mechanics which let you be creative and make describing fun and natural.
Powered by the Apocalypse does it well. Great Moves are general, but the details are up to you . Additionally, since Moves are so general, people find themselves saying what happens naturally because they need to fill the gap in their mind . In Masks: New Generation you can't just say that you Unleash Your Power by using gravity manipulation - No one knows who the target is and what happen on-screen. "I force the masked person to stay on the ground by using my gravity manipulation" - now something happens and you can trigger a Move. Thomas, description don't need to be the fancy thing we are used to from D&D and Pathfinder, this is enough, and when you get tired of a specific use, it is much easier to try a new one ("I use my gravity control to put the sofa on the masked man", "I wrestle the masked man and make him fall prone"). In mechanic centered games you describe it through mechaincs: "I strike with my sword", "I cast feather fall". The problem is that the mechanics may take the spotlighr and that you are restrained by the mechanics.
Perpdepog |
Queaux wrote:Rushniyamat wrote:First, the second paragraph is on pathfinder and games which don't have built-in negative effect for...I take your point here, but I think it's overreaching a little and not making a mechanical connection in others.
The overreach is that games like Pathfinder 2 that incorporate a wargame are very deterministic and result in loops. I think PF2 has the capacity to be non-deterministic through the use of varied balanced options that will all result in different situations that can't necessarily be ranked by effectiveness. How, for example, do you rate combat options that could result in a peaceful resolution against those that are more effective but can't be peaceful?
The mechanical connection you're failing to make is that something like choosing to use the "telepathy" move is similar mechanically to using the strike move even if the "telepathy" move allows for more narrative description. That leads narrative games into the same loop situation described previously.
I don't feel like it does. A narrative game is far more likely to ask different questions than a more mechanically focused game will.
For example, PF2 encounters are only really good at asking can the party solve this encounter via some mechanical means (this could be combat, a spell, or a skill check like stealth or diplomacy) and if the answer is no it asks if the party can escape. Very rarely, and almost not at all in an AP, does it set things up so that failing a combat encounter (not defeating it or running away) results in anything other than a TPK or Deus x Machina event.
A narrative game has far more room for failure to be an option as it often lacks a hard game over state for the player/party. Thus each encounter asks, how can this group of characters influence the story to be as favorable as possible and allows for a wide spectrum of results. As such it's easy to set up scenarios where a player who finds their main trick unable to work can actually have the most...
Except on page 492 and onward in the core rulebook's game mastering chapter, where it talks about those points.
Verdyn |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Except on page 492 and onward in the core rulebook's game mastering chapter, where it talks about those points.
A few guidelines in a single chapter aren't the same as something like FATE which is entirely built around narrative freedom with some crunch to define characters and keep the story flowing. PF2 might be more passable than most rules-heavy systems at handling such issues but by design, it won't allow for the kind of freeform handling of consequences as a more narrative-focused system will.
Proven |
I don't feel like it does. A narrative game is far more likely to ask different questions than a more mechanically focused game will.
For example, PF2 encounters are only really good at asking can the party solve this encounter via some mechanical means (this could be combat, a spell, or a skill check like stealth or diplomacy) and if the answer is no it asks if the party can escape. Very rarely, and almost not at all in an AP, does it set things up so that failing a combat encounter (not defeating it or running away) results in anything other than a TPK or Deus x Machina event.
A narrative game has far more room for failure to be an option as it often lacks a hard game over state for the player/party. Thus each encounter asks, how can this group of characters influence the story to be as favorable as possible and allows for a wide spectrum of results. As such it's easy to set up scenarios where a player who finds their main trick unable to work can actually have the most options for how to approach the scene. This is something that a game like PF2 simply doesn't attempt to handle at all.
I have less TTRPG experience than most of this board so I may be misunderstanding this point, but I'm not sure lack of possible failure states in combat is specifically an issue of mechanic focused games?
I'm trying to overcome this right now, but certain books and DM blog sites have me more focused on creating combats that focus on a narrative question that doesn't bog down to "Can the Players kill/escape the opposition or die/get capture?"
One example is a rescue scenario. An NPC is up a tree and has zombies coming after them. The binary choice is whether you can kill/distract the zombies before the NPC is dead. You can also add more failure states where the more attacked the NPC is, the more or less likely they are to help the PCs afterward which ties into a social scene later.
Another example is defense. If you have a group of objects or people to defend and each object or person that's killed/destroyed or taken away can effect the story different. Which specific things are taken/destroyed can matter as well.
And then you can combine all of these together. One adventure I recently read was for teaching new players. One of the first encounters had the players escorting a merchant when a snake pops up and scares the horses. The merchant is bucked off the cart and is knocked out, the horses are freaking out and about to hurt themselves and anyone nearby in order to escape, and the snake is startled and ready to fight. And how you deal with all of these can have an effect the narrative, like whether you take the merchant's medicine kit without asking and whether you apologize about it later, or whether the players or the horses get bitten by the snake. And as its a single snake, the players aren't even asked by the module to kill it; they could just scare it away or command it to leave, but that also leaves open the opportunity to befriend the snake and make it a friend or pet.
There are other examples too, like reversing the defense scenario and trying to destroy some macguffins before they're all taken away, or taking a cue from video games and having your defense objective be a moving NPC trying to get you into a vault (adding a bit of a heist) that can eventually be hurt and killed forcing you to take the Plan B option while moving in or moving out.
And all of these can happen in Exploration or Combat mode, when I think about it.
Edit: The quoting kept messing up, so I simplified it.
AnimatedPaper |
And then you can combine all of these together. One adventure I recently read was for teaching new players. One of the first encounters had the players escorting a merchant when a snake pops up and scares the horses. The merchant is bucked off the cart and is knocked out, the horses are freaking out and about to hurt themselves and anyone nearby in order to escape, and the snake is startled and ready to fight. And how you deal with all of these can have an effect the narrative, like whether you take the merchant's medicine kit without asking and whether you apologize about it later, or whether the players or the horses get bitten by the snake. And as its a single snake, the players aren't even asked by the module to kill it; they could just scare it away or command it to leave, but that also leaves open the opportunity to befriend the snake and make it a friend or pet.
Do you have a link? That sounds interesting.
Proven |
Proven wrote:And then you can combine all of these together. One adventure I recently read was for teaching new players. One of the first encounters had the players escorting a merchant when a snake pops up and scares the horses. The merchant is bucked off the cart and is knocked out, the horses are freaking out and about to hurt themselves and anyone nearby in order to escape, and the snake is startled and ready to fight. And how you deal with all of these can have an effect the narrative, like whether you take the merchant's medicine kit without asking and whether you apologize about it later, or whether the players or the horses get bitten by the snake. And as its a single snake, the players aren't even asked by the module to kill it; they could just scare it away or command it to leave, but that also leaves open the opportunity to befriend the snake and make it a friend or pet.Do you have a link? That sounds interesting.
Here: https://theangrygm.com/gameangry/
Scroll down to the Tie-In Module: The Fall of Silverpine Watch. The encounter in question is B3 and is described in such a way to be done in Exploration mode. When I adapted it I turned it into an encounter with zombies surrounding a second NPC instead of just a snake and put it in Encounter mode to hammer in a stronger time dilemma.
To be fair, it's a 5E adventure, but it seemed easy enough to adapt. It's from a blog where the GM does complain a lot that D&D has a hard time with failure states (nothing inherently built into the mechanics) and talks a lot about ways to combat that (often building things into the narrative). Since it's for level 1 characters, the whole adventure is designed to give the players feedback whenever they do something that could have consequences, but not actually hurt the players unless they ignore multiple warnings. The merchant NPC is to be played with a disposition that alters depending on how the PCs treat her throughout the adventure, and even the boss can be skipped or turned away from encouraging the PCs to not fight it if they don't have the narrative information to better deal with him.
AnimatedPaper |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That's fine. I'm not going to try and convince you to hold my opinion. For one, there's no way of telling if the reasons I hold my opinions even apply to you. Secondly, I don't want to trash talk someone unless they're here to defend themselves and present their side.
So, you do you. I simply prefer to not support him. Edit: I will note that my opinion does not reflect on his GMing content. I agree he's intelligent and his opinions often reflect deep thought and practice.