Going Backwards

[thenobledrake]

If a game's balance point is over-shot by the act of a player taking what seems like a useful and reasonable option for the character they want to portray, then that's a game that is not at all balanced in practice - no matter how theoretically well-balanced it would be if players instead realized that their character was going to hit the balance point in some area of the game automatically so they should instead spend their choices on other areas of the game (i.e. full spellcasters leave the save DC boosting feats alone, take some rando thing like Mounted Combat instead, and let multi-class builds that dabble in casting be the ones that take the save DC boosters)

And yeah, class-based games are going to feel like class limit you on what your character can do without picking up some identity from another class... also, water is wet.

[Temperans]

Squiggit, we agree that feat trees could had been done better in PF1 to make things easier.

But then people bring in Ivory Tower Design without understanding what its about. The entire thing is about how you present the rules and how much guidance you give players. Not about how good the options are. PF2 still has plenty of white ivory design; With all the feats that sound like they might be useful but there is no guidance of when would they be useful.

Ivory tower design is about that "aha" moment when you realize how to make something work. Much like when you learn a new chess opening.

White Ivory Design that article also has a link to the original white ivory design article.

P.S. Yes Rysky, the aspect of "some parts are better then other" came because of how much content 3e and PF1 had. Its really hard to make everything perfectly balanced when you have so much freedom in how you build.

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

P.S. I just realized that PF1 is balanced around, "it makes sense for Y to be stronger than X, unless Z". Which leads to this, "Weapons are stronger than unarmed strikes, unless player is a Monk".

While PF2 is balanced around, "concept X is around as good as concept Y or Z".

PF1 is balanced around the nature. While PF2 is balanced around the concept.

This article helped me realize what the difference in balance is: types of balance

[vagrant-poet]

Planpanther wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

I'm surprised no RP with your group. We had some amusing roleplay in that module so far. Even my combat monster murder hobo group talked to more than a few folks.

We have spoken to zero townfolk. Not even Wrin. My druid character did parlay with some creatures, but as soon as the paladin saw his opportunity, he laid them to waste. Thats how its gone so far. Maybe it will get better...

I personally would not play with that group. Does not sound like my cup of tea, and trying a system is not worth hours wasted with murder-obsessed players.

Exploration mode is so much of the connective tissue of the game, that I'm not even convinced you're getting a very accurate experience of the game.

[Temperans]

vagrant-poet wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Planpanther wrote:

Im going through Abomination vaults as a player but the group is pretty mechanical driven. The GM just said, "your in town and the old ruin dungeon a few miles away has been giving off weird lights go investigate". Since its been a trek back and fourth and wonton murder. We havent even met a single NPC yet.

Im not complaining, I joined this group solely to get some PF2 experience. Though, damn if I don't miss some good old fashioned RP...

I'm surprised no RP with your group. We had some amusing roleplay in that module so far. Even my combat monster murder hobo group talked to more than a few folks.

We have spoken to zero townfolk. Not even Wrin. My druid character did parlay with some creatures, but as soon as the paladin saw his opportunity, he laid them to waste. Thats how its gone so far. Maybe it will get better...

I personally would not play with that group. Does not sound like my cup of tea, and trying a system is not worth hours wasted with murder-obsessed players.

Exploration mode is so much of the connective tissue of the game, that I'm not even convinced you're getting a very accurate experience of the game.

Exploration mode has nothing to do with roleplaying. There are too many games that don't have an exploration mode to say that its a connecting tissue. Specially when you look at the rules say. To many it reads like codifying the usual travel time.

[vagrant-poet]

I never said exploration mode was roleplaying.

I said I would not play with that group because they don't play a way I'd enjoy.

ALSO in pathfinder 2e, exploration mode is everything that happens in the dungeon that isn't going round by round in encounter mode, so if it's being completely ignored, and all of the various skill activities that occur in it, I don't think that testing the system would be something you'd get from that game.

[Guntermench]

Rysky wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

Ivory Tower game design. A philosophy taken from MtG where they added a bunch of draft chaff equivalent feats to give players a sense of pride and accomplishment for sifting through all the garbage to achieve system mastery.

It was a mistake in 3rd edition and a shame, if inevitable, that it continued in 3.5 and 1e.

Just a note, Monte Cook, I believe, said they tried their best to avoid Ivory Tower design in DnD 3rd that was so prevalent in MtG.

That it occurred there and in P1 was unintentional yet natural outcome of having so many moving pieces and more and more options that were published over the system(s) lifetime. It didn't creep in due to some malicious elitism.

Afaik he said that was the exact philosophy they used, thinking it was a good idea, and he later came to think it was a mistake.

[Planpanther]

vagrant-poet wrote:

I never said exploration mode was roleplaying.

I said I would not play with that group because they don't play a way I'd enjoy.

ALSO in pathfinder 2e, exploration mode is everything that happens in the dungeon that isn't going round by round in encounter mode, so if it's being completely ignored, and all of the various skill activities that occur in it, I don't think that testing the system would be something you'd get from that game.

Explo-mo is something new to PF2. It has roots in traditional play and I like the idea behind it. I understand that many gamers are not used to it, and since they dont need it (very easy to ignore) they just pass on it. Some even actively hate the very idea (which I dont think they ever really used it so its a shame).

Yeah the group I'm playing with isnt my ideal and I'll probably have to find another one to try explo-mo. I am, however, getting a nice taste of the combat and chargen system. I have gotten to see that feat chaff has been removed in PF2, however, a lot of optimal choice has been shifted to proficiency bumping. Also, the skill system has gotten the PF1 feat treatment that pits all three pillars against each other for the same resource. Thats fine if you are a rogue, sucks for just about any other class. OF course, thats not a problem for "info dump lets get to combat" groups such as the one I have now. Which is why you have folks lined up saying its all good on one side and others who see room for improvement on the other. I suppose never adopters too.

[Unicore]

Planpanther wrote:

vagrant-poet wrote:

I never said exploration mode was roleplaying.

I said I would not play with that group because they don't play a way I'd enjoy.

ALSO in pathfinder 2e, exploration mode is everything that happens in the dungeon that isn't going round by round in encounter mode, so if it's being completely ignored, and all of the various skill activities that occur in it, I don't think that testing the system would be something you'd get from that game.

Explo-mo is something new to PF2. It has roots in traditional play and I like the idea behind it. I understand that many gamers are not used to it, and since they dont need it (very easy to ignore) they just pass on it. Some even actively hate the very idea (which I dont think they ever really used it so its a shame).

Yeah the group I'm playing with isnt my ideal and I'll probably have to find another one to try explo-mo. I am, however, getting a nice taste of the combat and chargen system. I have gotten to see that feat chaff has been removed in PF2, however, a lot of optimal choice has been shifted to proficiency bumping. Also, the skill system has gotten the PF1 feat treatment that pits all three pillars against each other for the same resource. Thats fine if you are a rogue, sucks for just about any other class. OF course, thats not a problem for "info dump lets get to combat" groups such as the one I have now. Which is why you have folks lined up saying its all good on one side and others who see room for improvement on the other. I suppose never adopters too.

I think 4e had something very similar to the concept of exploration mode, but it was pretty different in play. I would say that most games have had exploration mode, they just don't call it exploration mode and they leave how to handle it very open-ended.

There is nothing wrong with that in theory, but it was very common for 1 or 2 players to basically take over the game when things were happening outside of encounter mode and for players to lose track of what they were doing in a room. When the party came to a new door, they either had to explain in detail their process for checking for traps before approaching, detecting magic, listing closely at the door, stealthily checking to see if it was locked, double checking that the lock is not trapped in some fashion, then picking the lock, then stealthily trying to open the door...etc, etc. It got really time consuming and so a lot of tables would just develop a standard operating proceedure that probably should have make every 5ft step in a dungeon take anywhere between a full minute or possibly even 10, depending on the party's level of paranoia.

Encounter Mode really, really helps GMs remember to check in with each player more often and can streamline this process. The problem is that some GMs think of exploration mode as happening in arbitrary but specific units of time and not something where players can change what they are doing every they receive new information about the setting. A player is wise to be defaulting to searching when they first enter a room or walk down a hall way, but it means that they can't also be detecting magic, avoiding notice, and investigating everything all at the same time. This is most useful for transitioning from exploration mode to encounter mode to keep the free actions before combat to a reasonable number, but it doesn't mean that a character can't enter a new room avoiding notice, then stop and begin searching the room when no one jumps out at them, then detect magic (if they have the ability), then investigate any specific aspects of the room that might be of interest.

GMs who don't think they are using encounter mode, probably are using it in their heads, but their players are stuck trying to guess how the GM is arbitrating it and then plead with the GM to change their minds about how they are doing it when the players expectations for what their character can be doing differ from what the GM decided.

[vagrant-poet]

This is exactly my experience/understanding.

It DID take me a little bit of time to understand exploration mode, but using it to check in at appropriate but not always hard-coded intervals lets you move through the book-keeping quickly, while still having a great idea what's happening at the moment you transition to encounter mode.

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