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We do hear folks, and I just started a big discussion about how, going forward, we need to be a lot more sparse with severe or extreme encounters in our adventures.I don't think that's particularly necessary, though the number of one big boss vs many mook encounters might be a good thing to look at.Thanks for the feedback!
That said... this is why it's so important for folks who think the adventures we publish are good or fun or "well tuned" to let us know. If all we ever hear is negative feedback (and that's fine if that's all that folks have to say overall!), then we can't responsibly assume that there's a "silent majority."
Customer feedback only works if it's given.
In response to this, I have to say that I'm not having the same issue with difficulty that other posters have. I try to signal when an encounter is very powerful narratively. And after a few misadventures the PCs are often more cautious. They are not optimized, and two players are brand new to the game.
A caveat may be that the dungeon is not far from town, so they retreat and hang out in Otari (probably the best designed gazetteer for a small town released by Paizo, so good I raved in the actual product review I did, love to see that format applied to neighbourhoods in a city/more towns in future).
But otherwise just running it as is. I as a GM tend to find dungeon crawls a slog, but this one is so full of interesting NPCs rather than faceless monster rooms that like half the time my PCs figure out something to de-escalate a situation, which I can ad-lib easily because I have enough motivation for most room's inhabitants.
I will say that I personally am never sure how many encounters in a row are expected to affect difficulty. Like a severe encounter first thing is very different to a severe encounter after 3-4 lows and moderates.
That's not AP specific, but I wish there was some suggestion of this in the encounter guidelines in the Core Rulebook or Gamemastery Guide. I know it's kind of fuzz and party dependent, but so is everything else. In a sandbox like this it's less of an issue, but whenever an AP does a "raid" type encounter where the story suggests they want to have a go at an building/set of encounters in a row, I'm happy to allow 10 minute breaks, but not sure how much is too much without a full retreat for spell-slots, etc.
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I also personally disagree that the onus falls upon the players to report to writers about difficulty, especially when we are acting on limited information (such as a player lacking GM-side information), misunderstanding the intended purpose (like noting that a room is too small for a party to fight effectively, when the writer included that for the very reason), or just plain not engaging with the encounter (like hun
Agreed. The forum user here who posted about their PC's TPK at the end of Cult of Cinders is a great example. After days of questions from GMs who have read and/or run the book it was discovered that the GM in said TPK (not the poster, mind you) was doing something very, very unorthodox in running the game, and basically made it impossible for the party to succeed. That player had no way of knowing this as they only went off the information given to them by their GM (although the GM not using hero points in their game should have been a red flag).
Player feedback can be useful, but by itself it is not sufficient.
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It is hard to discuss the really spoilery parts of abomination vaults here without getting into too many specific details, but I run that AP and play with a lot of different folks, some of whom are playing it with different GMs and one of them is reporting similar tales of constant player death and yet another one, and myself are not having nearly as lethal experience.
Like the player who said that their game is super lethal has said that their investigator has been incredibly useless because there is nothing to investigate in the ruins, it just feels like a random dungeon crawl, and I was totally shocked to hear that, as there are mysteries to explore starting at the front gate. The party I run has no investigators, but will spend hours in a room (game time, not real time) making tracings of windows, portraits and machines to research them in downtime back in Otari.
Clearly some GMs and players are struggling mightily to communicate expectations back and forth about difficulty and play style, and that is always going to be something that just takes tables time to work out together, but it also seems like there is a reasonable demand, perhaps in another year or two, for another GM focused guide to awesome adventures in PF2 that really responds to the elements of PF2 that are unique, and thus challenging to some tables. Like difficulty is very much a flexible toggle that is tied directly to the system’s tactical flexibility. The player facing build variability of PF2 is very well balanced, but if the GM is consistently having monsters demonstrate tactical awareness that is more advanced then the players respond with, the game difficulty just went up significantly in a way that will have players blaming the system.
I don’t think killer GMs are doing this intentionally, and I thought AV does an incredibly good job of directing GMs not to do this, reflecting James Jacobs long standing and oft repeated preference for powerful creatures to be arrogant and make mistakes that players identify and exploit, but clearly not every GM is picking up on that.
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<snip>Thanks for the insight, James. These kinds of stories really help us players understand the time crunch your various teams are always working under.
"Us players"? I was under the impression you don't play PF2e.
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I maintain that sign posting extreme encounters is important and kind of lacking right now, at least in Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse. It helps to make those fights memorable and important to the plot, and also sets player expectations accordingly. It is one thing to hear stories of how horrifically powerful the black dragon is before you enter the lair. If is another when you are flying kites on a hill and a APL+3 devil pops in out of nowhere.
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We do hear folks, and I just started a big discussion about how, going forward, we need to be a lot more sparse with severe or extreme encounters in our adventures.I don't think that's particularly necessary, though the number of one big boss vs many mook encounters might be a good thing to look at.Thanks for the feedback!
That said... this is why it's so important for folks who think the adventures we publish are good or fun or "well tuned" to let us know. If all we ever hear is negative feedback (and that's fine if that's all that folks have to say overall!), then we can't responsibly assume that there's a "silent majority."
Customer feedback only works if it's given.
For what it's worth, I GM for a group that's only been playing since last summer and we've run Fall of Plaguestone and we're finishing up book 1 of AoA. All the discussion here had me terrified that certain encounters were going to TPK my players but so far that's never happened despite some close calls. I didn't need to fudge any rolls or change anything about the encounters my players played tactfully and came out on top.
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For what it's worth, I GM for a group that's only been playing since last summer and we've run Fall of Plaguestone and we're finishing up book 1 of AoA. All the discussion here had me terrified that certain encounters were going to TPK my players but so far that's never happened despite some close calls. I didn't need to fudge any rolls or change anything about the encounters my players played tactfully and came out on top.
Im new to PF2 APs, but I ran many of the PF1 series. One of the best features of Paizos adventure paths is the forums. As a GM I found them indispensable in improving the experience at the table. When an encounter is perhaps overtuned, you can hear from the gaming community about their experiences. It helps you avoid the pitfalls and help decide if you want to actually change an encounter yourself.
I maintain that sign posting extreme encounters is important and kind of lacking right now, at least in Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse. It helps to make those fights memorable and important to the plot, and also sets player expectations accordingly. It is one thing to hear stories of how horrifically powerful the black dragon is before you enter the lair. If is another when you are flying kites on a hill and a APL+3 devil pops in out of nowhere.
I think this is the source of my issue at the moment. I am playing with a new GM (he has been running TTRPGs for 20-30 years) and I dont think the GM puts much effort into reading and running adventures. It seems like the GM just runs whatever is in the book and letting the cards fall where they may. He just doesnt understand that PF2 isnt a system where tactics are going to let you punch above your weight. So, we get no signposts and when things go bad, "thats just PF2".
Reminds me of stingy gold/magic item GMs in 3E not understanding wealth by level and its impact on player ability. I guess add my experience to the past gaming assumption pile posted here in this thread so far. I'm a little surprised by my recent experience because the GM has played so many systems for many years. Though, I guess that doesnt mean flexibility, it just means they have a comfort zone they apply to everything. When it doesnt work, its the systems fault...
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I'm sort of in the head space where I noticed that intentionally or not, Paizo has managed to create a system that does a really great job threading the needle on the old 'combat as war' vs. 'combat as sport' debate.
Good play and character optimization means that Severe and Extreme Encounters are *very* beatable, but engaging them without a choice can feel kind of desperate-- the way the encounter math breaks down is begging for encounters that are Severe and Extreme on their lonesome but that good play outside of combat can be rewarded with breaking them into more digestible chunks (moderate/low/trivial.)
Abomination Vaults is especially interesting as a sandbox mega dungeon, where this sort of thinking is more common-- the sandbox means both being able to get in over your head, and manipulate the play space to make things easier, and the entire space of a dungeon is a 'challenging' play area. One possible consideration in the future, is to emphasize means of the players effecting the difficulty of the encounter, even in simple ways.
Part of the reason I say this is because Exploration mode provides a formal system for adjudicating and finding such means of doing so, so if they're built into the adventure, exploration activities like search can provide a means of finding and using them.
This has been my experience in AoA as well. Well other than the fudging; our GM was a little softball on us with a certain encounter in book one. You know the one. But aside from that we've been fairly effective.For what it's worth, I GM for a group that's only been playing since last summer and we've run Fall of Plaguestone and we're finishing up book 1 of AoA. All the discussion here had me terrified that certain encounters were going to TPK my players but so far that's never happened despite some close calls. I didn't need to fudge any rolls or change anything about the encounters my players played tactfully and came out on top.We do hear folks, and I just started a big discussion about how, going forward, we need to be a lot more sparse with severe or extreme encounters in our adventures.I don't think that's particularly necessary, though the number of one big boss vs many mook encounters might be a good thing to look at.Thanks for the feedback!
That said... this is why it's so important for folks who think the adventures we publish are good or fun or "well tuned" to let us know. If all we ever hear is negative feedback (and that's fine if that's all that folks have to say overall!), then we can't responsibly assume that there's a "silent majority."
Customer feedback only works if it's given.
Between my players using Demoralize, Flanking, Enlarge, hideous laughter to cut off AoO, swashbuckler crit finisher to start the fight, inspire courage, moving away to waste the enemy actions, staying up on the ledges, his fleeing at 25hp, etc. If you think about it the crit finisher and the 25 hp flee cuts his HP in half already. I didn't have to fudge that one either. I know we're the exception here though.
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Between my players using Demoralize, Flanking, Enlarge, hideous laughter to cut off AoO, swashbuckler crit finisher to start the fight, inspire courage, moving away to waste the enemy actions, staying up on the ledges, his fleeing at 25hp, etc. If you think about it the crit finisher and the 25 hp flee cuts his HP in half already. I didn't have to fudge that one either. I know we're the exception here though.This has been my experience in AoA as well. Well other than the fudging; our GM was a little softball on us with a certain encounter in book one. You know the one. But aside from that we've been fairly effective.For what it's worth, I GM for a group that's only been playing since last summer and we've run Fall of Plaguestone and we're finishing up book 1 of AoA. All the discussion here had me terrified that certain encounters were going to TPK my players but so far that's never happened despite some close calls. I didn't need to fudge any rolls or change anything about the encounters my players played tactfully and came out on top.We do hear folks, and I just started a big discussion about how, going forward, we need to be a lot more sparse with severe or extreme encounters in our adventures.I don't think that's particularly necessary, though the number of one big boss vs many mook encounters might be a good thing to look at.Thanks for the feedback!
That said... this is why it's so important for folks who think the adventures we publish are good or fun or "well tuned" to let us know. If all we ever hear is negative feedback (and that's fine if that's all that folks have to say overall!), then we can't responsibly assume that there's a "silent majority."
Customer feedback only works if it's given.
This has been my experience as well, there's a lot of room for anyone who knows what they're doing to make these fights *easy* with good tactical play.
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I'm sort of in the head space where I noticed that intentionally or not, Paizo has managed to create a system that does a really great job threading the needle on the old 'combat as war' vs. 'combat as sport' debate.
Good play and character optimization means that Severe and Extreme Encounters are *very* beatable, but engaging them without a choice can feel kind of desperate-- the way the encounter math breaks down is begging for encounters that are Severe and Extreme on their lonesome but that good play outside of combat can be rewarded with breaking them into more digestible chunks (moderate/low/trivial.)
Abomination Vaults is especially interesting as a sandbox mega dungeon, where this sort of thinking is more common-- the sandbox means both being able to get in over your head, and manipulate the play space to make things easier, and the entire space of a dungeon is a 'challenging' play area. One possible consideration in the future, is to emphasize means of the players effecting the difficulty of the encounter, even in simple ways.
Part of the reason I say this is because Exploration mode provides a formal system for adjudicating and finding such means of doing so, so if they're built into the adventure, exploration activities like search can provide a means of finding and using them.
I do feel PF2 leans heavily into Combat as Sport right out of the box. There are tools to give a more combat as war experience, but they are not intuitive. I'm just a player though and haven't seen the GM materials and what instruction they give. Maybe its easier than I think, but PF2 feels like a very modern TTRPG to me. Not saying thats bad, but it makes old school style modules and APs rather tricky to pull off as one would expect for an old school experience.
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I do feel PF2 leans heavily into Combat as Sport right out of the box. There are tools to give a more combat as war experience, but they are not intuitive. I'm just a player though and haven't seen the GM materials and what instruction they give. Maybe its easier than I think, but PF2 feels like a very modern TTRPG to me. Not saying thats bad, but it makes old school style modules and APs rather tricky to pull off as one would expect for an old school experience.I'm sort of in the head space where I noticed that intentionally or not, Paizo has managed to create a system that does a really great job threading the needle on the old 'combat as war' vs. 'combat as sport' debate.
Good play and character optimization means that Severe and Extreme Encounters are *very* beatable, but engaging them without a choice can feel kind of desperate-- the way the encounter math breaks down is begging for encounters that are Severe and Extreme on their lonesome but that good play outside of combat can be rewarded with breaking them into more digestible chunks (moderate/low/trivial.)
Abomination Vaults is especially interesting as a sandbox mega dungeon, where this sort of thinking is more common-- the sandbox means both being able to get in over your head, and manipulate the play space to make things easier, and the entire space of a dungeon is a 'challenging' play area. One possible consideration in the future, is to emphasize means of the players effecting the difficulty of the encounter, even in simple ways.
Part of the reason I say this is because Exploration mode provides a formal system for adjudicating and finding such means of doing so, so if they're built into the adventure, exploration activities like search can provide a means of finding and using them.
The structure of the game rules lend themselves extraordinarily well to it, what with encounter guidelines that work to make some encounters worth finagling and make it intuitive to break hard encounters into smaller pieces through the actions of involved players, a chase system that could easily be repurposed to a generic system for retreat, variant rules that allow treasure to become completely fungible.
I'm going to probably write a guide on how to perform this kind of game content in the system.
snip...
I'm going to probably write a guide on how to perform this kind of game content in the system.
I'd be happy to read that when you are done.
For what it's worth, I GM for a group that's only been playing since last summer and we've run Fall of Plaguestone and we're finishing up book 1 of AoA. All the discussion here had me terrified that certain encounters were going to TPK my players but so far that's never happened despite some close calls. I didn't need to fudge any rolls or change anything about the encounters my players played tactfully and came out on top.Im new to PF2 APs, but I ran many of the PF1 series. One of the best features of Paizos adventure paths is the forums. As a GM I found them indispensable in improving the experience at the table. When an encounter is perhaps overtuned, you can hear from the gaming community about their experiences. It helps you avoid the pitfalls and help decide if you want to actually change an encounter yourself.
I maintain that sign posting extreme encounters is important and kind of lacking right now, at least in Age of Ashes and Extinction Curse. It helps to make those fights memorable and important to the plot, and also sets player expectations accordingly. It is one thing to hear stories of how horrifically powerful the black dragon is before you enter the lair. If is another when you are flying kites on a hill and a APL+3 devil pops in out of nowhere.I think this is the source of my issue at the moment. I am playing with a new GM (he has been running TTRPGs for 20-30 years) and I dont think the GM puts much effort into reading and running adventures. It seems like the GM just runs whatever is in the book and letting the cards fall where they may. He just doesnt understand that PF2 isnt a system where tactics are going to let you punch above your weight. So, we get no signposts and when things go bad, "thats just PF2".
Reminds me of stingy gold/magic item GMs in 3E not understanding wealth by level and its impact on player ability. I guess add my experience to the past gaming assumption pile posted here in this thread so...
To be fair, PF2 tactics can totally let you punch above your weight... If you get a chance to employ them. The best examples of this are snares, which are very tricky to set up but can really do tremendous damage when they work. Seriously, try laying 4 snares in the path of a large+ boss monster and then lure it to you with ranged attacks. Watch the hit points on that thing melt.
But snares are something you will never, ever use if you don't get some sign posting for encounters.
To be fair, PF2 tactics can totally let you punch above your weight... If you get a chance to employ them. The best examples of this are snares, which are very tricky to set up but can really do tremendous damage when they work. Seriously, try laying 4 snares in the path of a large+ boss monster and then lure it to you with ranged attacks. Watch the hit points on that thing melt.
But snares are something you will never, ever use if you don't get some sign posting for encounters.
Yeah we have not had any opportunity to set up any kind of advanced trap. All the encounters have just happened upon us.
Also, im pretty sure the GM threw something at us they shouldn't have. The numbers were so out of our favor that we avoided TPK because the GM chose to take a dive. It was a very unsatisfying experience.
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"Us players"? I was under the impression you don't play PF2e.
I play RPGs in general and was thanking a designer of an RPG for his insights.
I have also GMed PF2, Plaguestone specifically, for a group and ended up killing the game after 4 sessions as I wasn't enjoying it. My current main group has no interest in PF2 so I'm not sure if or when I'll run it again. I'm here as less of a PF2 player and more as an RPG nerd who loves to see how different systems work even if I never intend to use that system myself.
I have tons of PDFs for games I'll never run but bought just to read the lore and see what cool stuff that system can do.
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I'd be happy to read that when you are done.snip...
I'm going to probably write a guide on how to perform this kind of game content in the system.Sign me up as well. :D
I also agree about the encounter signposting, which should really be done a lot more often! Snares being one example, Prepared spellcasters another.
Yeah likewise.
And it's not just for tactical reasons. Getting into a hard encounter when you know that "yeah but this is the guy who's behind it all, of course this won't be an easy fight" is very different from "and then this random fight was just super hard, I guess because the most relevant monster in a Bestiary at the time was 2 levels higher than you'd typically use".
The brutality of several of the most dangerous encounters in Age of Ashes is that players push into encounters that look less threatening than they are, often with environmental effects that trap the players in place, or have surprise monsters with teleporting abilities that make escape impossible. Personally I loved those encounters but they did nearly kill a pretty tactically minded party each time. We lost characters in each of them.
Last night, in the game I am running, I collapsed 4 encounters (including a trap) on top of the players for a total encounter budget of 275 xp. It was an interesting and fun encounter for the players because the enemies had different objectives and moved through the encounter space to accomplish goals broader than murder PCs. Some wanted to escape, some tried to go grab prisoners to use as hostages. Some successfully moved off to call in reinforcement. Powerful enemies are a lot more fun to confront when you feel like you have ways to counter their goals each round
I hope to see a lot more out numbered as well as accomplish X sort of encounters. With troops and just in general fighting off larger numbers feels more fun, even when you barely make it, then some random single +2 or greater creature that beats your group down I think. Haven't seen many 8+ enemy encounters so far. Put in some stakes like get to a spot, grab a thing, protect this person, ect, and combats can be more enjoyable.
The only fun fight in the later half of AoA's was a miniboss alchemist with a bunch of rogues. Got to use some special abilities and had to keep them from flanking as they outnumbered us. The vast majority of fights have been 4 or less creatures, meaning to be a threat they have to be higher level then you, fighting higher level stuff all the time isn't fun. Fighting 4 or fewer lower level things is also not great as it's over without much fuss. So more higher level mixed with lower level stuff encounters and big numbers of lower level creature encounters would be great to see. So far AV seems to be doing the same old type of encounters, only 3 sessions in so far but I really hope it mixes things up.
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I gave the 'Combat as War' thing its own thread, since I don't want to take over this one, and I want it to get the attention it deserves.
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Sure the GM is told it shouldn't pursue, but the PCs don't know that....why would the PCs need to know that?
Players should know that retreat is actually an option, even if it uses the Chase mechanics, not feel like the existence of creatures with higher Speed traits than their characters makes it impossible to ever say "Nope, this was a bad choice, I'd like to leave now."
Oh, and it also doesn't actually require knowing whether it will or won't chase you to try to run, so it's extra irrelevant that the PCs don't know this creature won't chase.
Because the default assumption of myself, and most people I've played with is that enemies aren't going to just let us escape if they have the ability to chase us down.
And outside of very advantageous terrain (which is pretty rare when the thing chasing you can fly) it seems pretty obvious it will win any chase, because it's moving a good 45ft more per round than most PCs.So it looks like the best shot at surviving is to fight it and hope we get lucky.
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Chasing enemies into an unknown situation is dangerous. That is true for players, it is perfectly fair for enemies to have a similar expectation.
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Chasing enemies into an unknown situation is dangerous. That is true for players, it is perfectly fair for enemies to have a similar expectation.
Is the dungeon they call home really unknown to them? How do they live there if they're afraid to leave the room they're encountered in? Play your monsters as if they had as much agency as your PCs.
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Chasing enemies into an unknown situation is dangerous. That is true for players, it is perfectly fair for enemies to have a similar expectation.Is the dungeon they call home really unknown to them? How do they live there if they're afraid to leave the room they're encountered in? Play your monsters as if they had as much agency as your PCs.
dungeon’s in PF2 almost always have complex ecologies that often have monsters competing for territory and resources. There are many good reasons for monsters might not chase their enemies too fair outside of the area that is their lair.
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dungeon’s in PF2 almost always have complex ecologies that often have monsters competing for territory and resources. There are many good reasons for monsters might not chase their enemies too fair outside of the area that is their lair.
Let's apply some real-world logic to that. How does a dungeon populated by a bunch of monsters that compete for resources (except that they never seem to be doing this when the PCs arrive in most APs) not simply devolve into open conflict? Why wouldn't an intelligent PC level +2 (or even +3 or +4) monster simply take command of lesser creatures in their domain and take tribute from them in exchange for protecting them from outside threats?
Dungeons should be designed as if the monsters actually need to live in them. They should have places where certain essential tasks are done by the intelligent inhabitants, predators should eat prey, etc. Those who live there should know the layout and try to lead the PCs into other threats that they can avoid but that the party probably can't.
Dungeons aren't just a playground for the PCs and they shouldn't stay static once they've been invaded.
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dungeon’s in PF2 almost always have complex ecologies that often have monsters competing for territory and resources. There are many good reasons for monsters might not chase their enemies too fair outside of the area that is their lair.Let's apply some real-world logic to that. How does a dungeon populated by a bunch of monsters that compete for resources (except that they never seem to be doing this when the PCs arrive in most APs) not simply devolve into open conflict? Why wouldn't an intelligent PC level +2 (or even +3 or +4) monster simply take command of lesser creatures in their domain and take tribute from them in exchange for protecting them from outside threats?
Dungeons should be designed as if the monsters actually need to live in them. They should have places where certain essential tasks are done by the intelligent inhabitants, predators should eat prey, etc. Those who live there should know the layout and try to lead the PCs into other threats that they can avoid but that the party probably can't.
Dungeons aren't just a playground for the PCs and they shouldn't stay static once they've been invaded.
Have you read any Pathfinder Adventure Paths? Evil creatures often have selfish and personal motives. There are almost always secret motives that make dungeons into more interesting ecologies than unified pc killing machines
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And, in fact, the dungeon in question can be accurately described as “in open conflict.”
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And, in fact, the dungeon in question can be accurately described as “in open conflict.”
Does PF2 still work the enemies are played dynamic threats each as important as any of the PCs with full agency to act as they see fit? Should the game be designed as if the PCs winning is the inevitable end goal of the conflict?
I know I don't personally write my games that way. I set challenges for my players, let them follow their goals, but I also let them pull more than they can handle down on themselves and lose if that's how the chips fall. Losing doesn't always mean death, it could mean being forced to work for their enemy or getting their recent memories wiped to keep them off a case they nearly solved. The world is a cold place and the players, powerful as they are, are just more people in it.
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And, in fact, the dungeon in question can be accurately described as “in open conflict.”Does PF2 still work the enemies are played dynamic threats each as important as any of the PCs with full agency to act as they see fit? Should the game be designed as if the PCs winning is the inevitable end goal of the conflict?
I know I don't personally write my games that way. I set challenges for my players, let them follow their goals, but I also let them pull more than they can handle down on themselves and lose if that's how the chips fall. Losing doesn't always mean death, it could mean being forced to work for their enemy or getting their recent memories wiped to keep them off a case they nearly solved. The world is a cold place and the players, powerful as they are, are just more people in it.
Again, have you read the adventure path? Or any? Because this is a meaningless line of criticism if not.
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And, in fact, the dungeon in question can be accurately described as “in open conflict.”Does PF2 still work the enemies are played dynamic threats each as important as any of the PCs with full agency to act as they see fit? Should the game be designed as if the PCs winning is the inevitable end goal of the conflict?
I know I don't personally write my games that way. I set challenges for my players, let them follow their goals, but I also let them pull more than they can handle down on themselves and lose if that's how the chips fall. Losing doesn't always mean death, it could mean being forced to work for their enemy or getting their recent memories wiped to keep them off a case they nearly solved. The world is a cold place and the players, powerful as they are, are just more people in it.
Of course PCs can get in over their heads. They can even die. But APs do a very good job of having dungeon ecologies that are interacting with each other in very fascinating ways.Dungeons that don’t always have perfect monster unity allow for much more reasonable and engaging encounter spaces where players don’t always have to feel rushed, like they are invading a citadel.
Those kind of dungeons can be fun occasionally, but the individual encounters have to be scaled way down when 5 or more have the potential to collapse on each other.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Again, have you read the adventure path? Or any? Because this is a meaningless line of criticism if not.
I read Plaguestone while I was running it. It seemed very segmented and like it really didn't want you to mix the encounters, like ever.
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The world is a cold place and the players, powerful as they are, are just more people in it.
That is not the central design philosophy of Pathfinder 2nd edition. For that matter, it wasn’t the central design philosophy of Pathfinder 1st edition, 3.5 or 3.0.
I don’t think this game is capable of being what you want it to be, and I think the D20 games that you think hew closer to your ideal game are miles further afield than you think they are.
Our GM last night told us not to go down some stairs after we did a +2 encounter that dropped our fighter and everyone else was at half or lower HP.To be fair, the idea of pressing on without first making sure everybody is back at full hp is a non-starter in PF2.
You basically just invite death if you do.
And since Medicine is cheap to get (just a single skill proficiency) and provides basically endless free healing there just never is any reason to resume adventuring before you're back up to full health, whether that takes 30 minutes or 3 hours.
Of course the game will come across as lethal if you enter a fight at half hp. Just don't do it. PF2 is nothing like other versions of D&D or Pathfinder in this regard, where heroically pressing on when bruised and battered is a reasonable tactic when necessary.
(In PF2 "bruised and battered" is implemented by you moving on despite being Drained or Fatigued or something. That is, saddled with conditions. Not down hit points)
I suppose the context went over your head. Of course we got to full health. The point was the GM knew HARDER fights were down the stairs and wanted to lead us to content we could handle.
Our group has gone through over 8 fourth player slots since I joined, nearly one a month. Most often it's problems with the rules and difficulty that keep people from enjoying. So our GM is rather on the look out to keep us away from rough fights, he's warned us off of two already and we're only 4 sessions in.
