Discussions on balance changes are missing the point, in my opinion. All fall under crushing tax of marking hit points every. single. swing.I don't want to seem like I am siding with Verdyn here, but I do not get this criticism. You are already marking hitpoints on every single swing that actually brings the fight closer to its conclusion (ie every one that hits). True you would mark more times because the misses would do less damage, but OTOH you would be rolling fewer attacks in total which would more than compensate if you tuned the damage number right.
_
glass.
It's the idea that every chip attack takes a couple extra seconds of time to account for. So "marking more times" actually is a fault in and of itself; it might be only a couple extra seconds, but those add up. Worse, these aren't as fun for many; I'd be fine with it, but apparently that's a minority opinion. So you're sinking extra time, a couple seconds at a time, into the part of the game that most people don't enjoy instead of stuff that they do, as they'd likely pursue more swings and misses instead of any of the other tactical options.
At least, that seems to be the conclusion Mark and the other designers came to in that post I linked. I was actually a little surprised that was part of the decision, like I said that seems like a perfectly good time to me, but Dr A Gon seems to have nailed it exactly.
To step back a little. I still think that it makes sense for a modern boardgame to embrace technology to an extent and I'm going to do my best to outline some of the advantages I can see such an integration bring to the table. I think it can enable both more interesting design without overwhelming the players and also enable more freedom in RP. Not full VTT but also not pure analog either.
1) Less mental math at the table. This is the obvious one. If you automate your character sheets and have every sheet signed into the game session the DM is hosting you don't even need to track damage and healing as this could be part of the automated table APP.
2) Both players and the DM can fire off all their rolls in a burst, likely by clicking a button or two, and get automated feedback about the results and then get into describing how things have gone down. Rather than rolling to hit, having the GM confirm the hit, rolling damage, having the DM mark the damage down, and then describing things.
3) It gives the DM a real-time view of your character sheet so there's never a case where you think you have x HP and they think you have y because one of you missed an attack or added something wrong. This means everybody has clear info and there's no guessing if one or more people messed anything up.
4) It leaves a trail of dice logs so you can see if a fight that felt awful was actually bad or if a few key rolls whiffed and colored one player's perception of the battle.
5) Least important at most tables. It prevents cheating on die rolls or using abilities that aren't on a character sheet. For groups where this isn't an issue, this costs you nothing, for groups where it is it can save a long conversation that nobody ever wants to have.
This is only tangential to my original point but I wanted to come at it fresh and do a better job explaining why I feel this integration is an essential next step for TTRPGs.
Don't think it needs to require an app, but digital support tools can be pretty enticing.
Might sound odd, but honestly one of the things that got several of the groups I interacted with to abandon certain other tabletops in favor of Pathfinder wasn't the underlying mechanics of the game or support, but d20pfsrd and aon providing a centralized, convenient digital way to look at all the rules options.
So I can definitely see why having more support in that fashion could be attractive to some players.
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An issue I've certainly had with tools designed to automate much of the gameplay - HeroLab springs to mind for PF1 - is people's reticence to use house rules, come up with homebrew content, or use 3PP content that isn't available in the application. It's certainly understandable - you've paid for the content, you don't want to spend a bunch of time mucking about with everything, but it's worth considering if you're talking about the future of ttRPGs. A big advantage of ttRPGs is that ease of customization - if a table doesn't enjoy Will saves being Wis based, it's easy to make them Cha based with a flick of a pencil. The more you automate, the more difficult you make it to move outside of the lines the game is assuming correct. This can be mitigated with well-designed programs - there's no reason to hardcode Will saves to be Wis based, to continue the example, but that needs to be considered in the design stages.
To build off Squiggit's point, that's what got me into Pathfinder originally. All of their stuff is up online, and accessible for my screen reader, and when one game system does that, and other game systems don't, it makes it pretty easy to pick which I'm going to play.
Conversely, to build off thenobledrake's point, apps might also kill the game for me because, as more niche products, apps like that aren't always rigorously tested, or tested at all, to make sure they are compatible with screen reader or voiceover software. What could be "the next step for TTRPGs" could be a step backward, as far as I or anyone else using assistive technology is concerned.
I do wish the SRD came in an app form that I could take offline. There was an app for the SRD for PF1. I've idly considered learning programming enough to make my own, but haven't done so.
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If you are afraid of maths to the extent that you don't want to add basic numbers at the table, then go play another game. PF2 is not for you. D&D5 is probably much more your speed.
Please don't ask to make PF2 fit in the same design space as D&D5 - they are different and that is how we want it.
Yes some really good tools would improve PF2. Pathfinder always had a big edge in that they made so much of their rules available on line - which makes it so easy to search and find.
The level of integration of other game systems with character builders and virtual table tops has moved a long way in the last couple of years. PF2 needs to catch up here. But Paizo is not a technology company - as anyone who has used their online store will tell you. It is more of a job for the wider gaming industry. But there is still a role for Paizo here in cooperating and pushing this along. They can't just expect to free load off the community the way D&D can.
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If you are afraid of maths to the extent that you don't want to add basic numbers at the table, then go play another game. PF2 is not for you. D&D5 is probably much more your speed.
Please don't ask to make PF2 fit in the same design space as D&D5 - they are different and that is how we want it.
I wanted the opposite, I want Paizo to add more math for 4DoS on every attack and people pushed back that it was too much mental load on the table. An app designed for PF2 would help with that.
But Paizo is not a technology company - as anyone who has used their online store will tell you. It is more of a job for the wider gaming industry. But there is still a role for Paizo here in cooperating and pushing this along. They can't just expect to free load off the community the way D&D can.
Every company is a tech company these days. Grocery stores, warehouses, pharmacies, bookstores, restaurants, they all rely on computers to run smoothly and those that do attempt to run on pen and paper and only taking cash tend to be destined to close. Paizo should realize that trying to only wear one hat will hurt them in the long run and seek to change this sooner rather than later.
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If you are afraid of maths to the extent that you don't want to add basic numbers at the table, then go play another game. PF2 is not for you. D&D5 is probably much more your speed.
Please don't ask to make PF2 fit in the same design space as D&D5 - they are different and that is how we want it.
I wanted the opposite, I want Paizo to add more math for 4DoS on every attack and people pushed back that it was too much mental load on the table. An app designed for PF2 would help with that.
But Paizo is not a technology company - as anyone who has used their online store will tell you. It is more of a job for the wider gaming industry. But there is still a role for Paizo here in cooperating and pushing this along. They can't just expect to free load off the community the way D&D can.Every company is a tech company these days. Grocery stores, warehouses, pharmacies, bookstores, restaurants, they all rely on computers to run smoothly and those that do attempt to run on pen and paper and only taking cash tend to be destined to close. Paizo should realize that trying to only wear one hat will hurt them in the long run and seek to change this sooner rather than later.
If people wanted a game that requires an app to play, they would play a CRPG.
Please point to one TTRPG company that's had success using this design method.
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If people wanted a game that requires an app to play, they would play a CRPG.
Please point to one TTRPG company that's had success using this design method.
The trend has started with board games but I've been in TTRPG groups that use VTT elements to smooth moment to moment gameplay. Why wuldn't we expect this to become more common over time?
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If people wanted a game that requires an app to play, they would play a CRPG.Please point to one TTRPG company that's had success using this design method.The trend has started with board games but I've been in TTRPG groups that use VTT elements to smooth moment to moment gameplay. Why wuldn't we expect this to become more common over time?
I sincerely hope you're capable of telling the difference between something that enhances the experience vs something that is required to make basic functionality work.
What you want is basically only supported by VTTs with heavy automation (for example, Fantasy Grounds) and is completely inaccessible to anyone else.
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If people wanted a game that requires an app to play, they would play a CRPG.Please point to one TTRPG company that's had success using this design method.The trend has started with board games but I've been in TTRPG groups that use VTT elements to smooth moment to moment gameplay. Why wuldn't we expect this to become more common over time?
Because the game still has to work as a round the table board game. With people who don't want those tools just books and paper and dice.
That is still a large part of the market. Probably also the most important as they are more likely to buy the books.
There is no point building a game so complex it forces people onto technology they don't wnat. Thats a different game and a different customer base.
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The trend has started with board games but I've been in TTRPG groups that use VTT elements to smooth moment to moment gameplay. Why wuldn't we expect this to become more common over time?
You are probably right, but still a decade or two away from moving into using tech more heavily in gaming. Paizo would jettison a good amount of their customers today if they did that.
It's the idea that every chip attack takes a couple extra seconds of time to account for. So "marking more times" actually is a fault in and of itself; it might be only a couple extra seconds, but those add up. Worse, these aren't as fun for many; I'd be fine with it, but apparently that's a minority opinion. So you're sinking extra time, a couple seconds at a time, into the part of the game that most people don't enjoy instead of stuff that they do, as they'd likely pursue more swings and misses instead of any of the other tactical options.Let's say for the sake of argument that a miss does half damage. That means that for every two extra write downs, you save a write down and and attack roll on the back end. So they may add up, but they also subtract. Even if it takes slightly more time in total (which seems unlikely), that is hardly a "crushing tax".
I am not actually in favour of DoaM for routine strikes, for reason I cannot entirely articulate. I was just pointing out that this reason does not hold water IMNSHO.
You'll have to take that up with Mark and the rest of the design team, as they were the ones that came to that conclusion for that reason.
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It's the idea that every chip attack takes a couple extra seconds of time to account for. So "marking more times" actually is a fault in and of itself; it might be only a couple extra seconds, but those add up. Worse, these aren't as fun for many; I'd be fine with it, but apparently that's a minority opinion. So you're sinking extra time, a couple seconds at a time, into the part of the game that most people don't enjoy instead of stuff that they do, as they'd likely pursue more swings and misses instead of any of the other tactical options.Let's say for the sake of argument that a miss does half damage. That means that for every two extra write downs, you save a write down and and attack roll on the back end. So they may add up, but they also subtract. Even if it takes slightly more time in total (which seems unlikely), that is hardly a "crushing tax".
Half is the level of Certain Strike on a longsword, so half is incredibly unlikely to be the number. Let's take 1/4 instead (approximately half the flat modifier), which means that for every 4-5 extra damage markers, you're saving 1 standard attack roll + damage marker. It gets worse when you put crits into the equation, where 8-10 extra damage markers saves you an attack roll + damage marker.
There's already an optional rule to add 4 degrees of success to martials: critical hit/fumble decks.
And they do a fun job of it, most of the time.
Anything beyond that is more likely to bog down the game with having to remember more things, which is the opposite of why I tend to pick martials. My numbers and actions do their thing, double their thing, or they just don't do their thing.
Well, 5 degrees of success:
Nat-20 crit
Crit
Hit
Miss/crit-miss
Nat-1 crit-miss
Half is the level of Certain Strike on a longsword, so half is incredibly unlikely to be the number. Let's take 1/4 instead (approximately half the flat modifier), which means that for every 4-5 extra damage markers, you're saving 1 standard attack roll + damage marker. It gets worse when you put crits into the equation, where 8-10 extra damage markers saves you an attack roll + damage marker.It's the idea that every chip attack takes a couple extra seconds of time to account for. So "marking more times" actually is a fault in and of itself; it might be only a couple extra seconds, but those add up. Worse, these aren't as fun for many; I'd be fine with it, but apparently that's a minority opinion. So you're sinking extra time, a couple seconds at a time, into the part of the game that most people don't enjoy instead of stuff that they do, as they'd likely pursue more swings and misses instead of any of the other tactical options.Let's say for the sake of argument that a miss does half damage. That means that for every two extra write downs, you save a write down and and attack roll on the back end. So they may add up, but they also subtract. Even if it takes slightly more time in total (which seems unlikely), that is hardly a "crushing tax".
In fairness to glass, half damage on a miss was specifically what was tested in the post I linked and was referring to in my reply.
In fairness to glass, half damage on a miss was specifically what was tested in the post I linked and was referring to in my reply.Half is the level of Certain Strike on a longsword, so half is incredibly unlikely to be the number. Let's take 1/4 instead (approximately half the flat modifier), which means that for every 4-5 extra damage markers, you're saving 1 standard attack roll + damage marker. It gets worse when you put crits into the equation, where 8-10 extra damage markers saves you an attack roll + damage marker.It's the idea that every chip attack takes a couple extra seconds of time to account for. So "marking more times" actually is a fault in and of itself; it might be only a couple extra seconds, but those add up. Worse, these aren't as fun for many; I'd be fine with it, but apparently that's a minority opinion. So you're sinking extra time, a couple seconds at a time, into the part of the game that most people don't enjoy instead of stuff that they do, as they'd likely pursue more swings and misses instead of any of the other tactical options.Let's say for the sake of argument that a miss does half damage. That means that for every two extra write downs, you save a write down and and attack roll on the back end. So they may add up, but they also subtract. Even if it takes slightly more time in total (which seems unlikely), that is hardly a "crushing tax".
Funnily enough, I just checked it, and it's half minimum damage, or approximately equal to half Certain Strike damage (since in playtest, Certain Strike was minimum damage). So my calculation was even more accurate than I anticipated.
Huh. So it is. I skipped that word entirely when I read that, and I even double checked when I wrote my reply.