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By popular demand, I've elected to write up my thoughts on how Pathfinder 2e naturally creates an excellent environment for 'OSR' style 'Combat as War' elements as another solution for the difficulty of the encounter guidelines, and indeed, a fun and exciting way to play the game that awakens the full potential of the system (e.g. really uses its systems to maximum effect.)
These are my quick and dirty notes, but I've been percolating this playstyle for a while through my most recent 'A Watcher's Tale' campaign as I've become more familiar with the system. I expect to be able to properly give voice in play to all of these elements and more in my upcoming (sixish months out? a player of mine is running a campaign at the moment) Pirate-Themed Hex Crawling West Marches. Ideally I'll be able to has this into a proper playstyle guide as I grow more experienced and confirm my theories.
Feel free to discuss this playstyle, I'd prefer to keep it from devolving into a debate on the validity of this playstyle in the system, since it seems fairly self evident. Instead I'd like to treat this thread as a ground zero for experimenting with, developing, and troubleshooting it.
I'm aware that OSR games usually make different choices frequently associated with this playstyle, chiefly player character disempowerment to discourage character optimization and limited access to magic items. But part of the premise of the thread is that these things aren't a true necessity, and that the different experience provided by utilizing them in a player-empowered system like Pathfinder 2e is equally valid, if distinct.
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I feel like 'combat as war' feels worse as a player in a system where the NPCs don't play by the same rules as you do. A PF2 GM could stat up an army of NPCs using the PC rules but it's just not a system designed for that. So instead any 'war' will have the PCs move from fighting grunts, to fighting sergeants, to fighting a unit of grunts lead by a sergeant, to fighting some elite guards, to fighting a guard captain, on up the treadmill until the campaign ends. A true war should have them afraid of an entire infantry company falling upon them should they ever fail to hit and fade or stealthily accomplish their goal.
Think of it this way. A PC in Cyberpunk doesn't view a corporate stronghold as a dungeon crawl and should seek to spend twice to three times as much effort on scouting and planning as they do on the mission. They want to get in, and out. Period. They would never take an hour to rest in an office trying to patch themselves up because that would be suicide against an active enemy. If they fail on the first go they may not get a second chance because their foe will react.
In PF2 the PCs are encouraged to take frequent rests and even to leave and come back to a mostly static dungeon experience. If you play foes smart and use the enemies superior numbers to harry the PCs and never let them rest you'll be seen as a killer GM, but that's what 'combat as war' should look like. The smaller force needs to use its concentrated power while the larger force should seek to use its numbers and the numbers should always win if the smaller force makes too many mistakes.
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I feel like 'combat as war' feels worse as a player in a system where the NPCs don't play by the same rules as you do. A PF2 GM could stat up an army of NPCs using the PC rules but it's just not a system designed for that. So instead any 'war' will have the PCs move from fighting grunts, to fighting sergeants, to fighting a unit of grunts lead by a sergeant, to fighting some elite guards, to fighting a guard captain, on up the treadmill until the campaign ends. A true war should have them afraid of an entire infantry company falling upon them should they ever fail to hit and fade or stealthily accomplish their goal.
Think of it this way. A PC in Cyberpunk doesn't view a corporate stronghold as a dungeon crawl and should seek to spend twice to three times as much effort on scouting and planning as they do on the mission. They want to get in, and out. Period. They would never take an hour to rest in an office trying to patch themselves up because that would be suicide against an active enemy. If they fail on the first go they may not get a second chance because their foe will react.
In PF2 the PCs are encouraged to take frequent rests and even to leave and come back to a mostly static dungeon experience. If you play foes smart and use the enemies superior numbers to harry the PCs and never let them rest you'll be seen as a killer GM, but that's what 'combat as war' should look like. The smaller force needs to use its concentrated power while the larger force should seek to use its numbers and the numbers should always win if the smaller force makes too many mistakes.
Thankfully, in a dungeon crawling context, opposition doesn't necessarily take the form of a singularly organized force. This is why mythics underworlds, ancient ruins, and elaborate cave systems are popular (often more than one of these at once) dungeon themes, unlike a traditionally staffed enemy stronghold, areas of the dungeon aren't under organized central control.
In this schema, 'Combat as War' is active, but the foes are limited by their own resources, which probably don't encompass that of the entire dungeon. The dragon sleeping on his massive treasure hoard is not the employer of the monsters in his lair, they're either incidental neighbors, or one's presence is useful to the other somehow, and therefore they don't mutually care about the other being slaughtered.
For your kind of 'enemy stronghold', we're not looking at a crawl, more of a raid structure anyway.
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Thankfully, in a dungeon crawling context, opposition doesn't necessarily take the form of a singularly organized force. This is why mythics underworlds, ancient ruins, and elaborate cave systems are popular (often more than one of these at once) dungeon themes, unlike a traditionally staffed enemy stronghold, areas of the dungeon aren't under organized central control.
In this schema, 'Combat as War' is active, but the foes are limited by their own resources, which probably don't encompass that of the entire dungeon. The dragon sleeping on his massive treasure hoard is not the employer of the monsters in his lair, they're either incidental neighbors, or one's presence is useful to the other somehow, and therefore they don't mutually care about the other being slaughtered.
For your kind of 'enemy stronghold', we're not looking at a crawl, more of a raid structure anyway.
True, but there are just as many adventures that take place in the tower of an ancient and terrible wizard. Do you really want his 12 level tower that has the floor space of a small city to be just a raid? Do you always have to default to the lower floors being abandoned and filled with increasingly challenging types of monsters that just happen to have a unique strata agreement with one another?
Also, yeah, you can spin a dungeon as a large cave complex that just happens to also house all manner of challenges and treasure, but that strains belief unless it is exceptionally well done.
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As I mentioned up top, I don't want this thread to devolve into a discussion of the validity of the playstyle. So I think its best to cut this line of conversation off here, combat as war as you're discussing it and what I discuss in the post aren't the same.
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As I mentioned up top, I don't want this thread to devolve into a discussion of the validity of the playstyle. So I think its best to cut this line of conversation off here, combat as war as you're discussing it and what I discuss in the post aren't the same.
It might be useful to define your terms then.
I say this because my assumption is that combat as war should involve an organized enemy force that has more resources than the PCs but which has less concentration of power. This the enemy with many troops should play one way and the PCs should play another. I have trouble seeing how my vision would work in PF2 but it's possible that your vision does work and I'm merely failing to see your specific line of play.
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As I mentioned up top, I don't want this thread to devolve into a discussion of the validity of the playstyle. So I think its best to cut this line of conversation off here, combat as war as you're discussing it and what I discuss in the post aren't the same.It might be useful to define your terms then.
I say this because my assumption is that combat as war should involve an organized enemy force that has more resources than the PCs but which has less concentration of power. This the enemy with many troops should play one way and the PCs should play another. I have trouble seeing how my vision would work in PF2 but it's possible that your vision does work and I'm merely failing to see your specific line of play.
Read the end of the second paragraph of the original post I linked : )
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Read the end of the second paragraph of the original post I linked : )
For some reason, I thought that was linking back to the thread that spawned this discussion.
Having read your thoughts, I'm forced to agree that PF2 isn't actively hostile to your proposed style of play. Though, and this just might be my genre-savvy talking, I feel like a lot of what you've outlined is just good common sense dungeon/encounter design. Like of course some encounters should be designed so that they can combine or be fought separately based on what your characters do. Of course, the GM should reward their players for coming up with a plan even if that plan doesn't 100% fit the rules or the exact feats they have.
Your thesis seems to be a rebuttal to the PF2 is just reskinned 4e argument rather than a triumphant statement of how PF2 has kicked this style of play up to the next level. Does that seem a fair assessment of things or am I still missing the point?
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Read the end of the second paragraph of the original post I linked : )For some reason, I thought that was linking back to the thread that spawned this discussion.
Having read your thoughts, I'm forced to agree that PF2 isn't actively hostile to your proposed style of play. Though, and this just might be my genre-savvy talking, I feel like a lot of what you've outlined is just good common sense dungeon/encounter design. Like of course some encounters should be designed so that they can combine or be fought separately based on what your characters do. Of course, the GM should reward their players for coming up with a plan even if that plan doesn't 100% fit the rules or the exact feats they have.
Your thesis seems to be a rebuttal to the PF2 is just reskinned 4e argument rather than a triumphant statement of how PF2 has kicked this style of play up to the next level. Does that seem a fair assessment of things or am I still missing the point?
From my point of view, we're seeing a lot of people discussing the encounter guidelines (and by extension, the APs) in a way that heavily suggests that most people play the game more like you seem to be referring to in terms of 4e: they move through the environment until they find the encounter, confront it directly using their character abilities to take it on in in a straight fight, and then move on to the next-- so 'Severe' and 'Extreme' encounters become litmus tests for optimization level and moment to moment tactics ('combat as sport'), rather than challenges solved by negotiating the terms of engagement.
In that context, I see Pathfinder 2e as providing both mechanics that would allow someone to play more in line with the old school expectation of negotiating the terms of engagement, and incentive to do so through its difficulty (contrasted with 5e and Pathfinder 1e, where the encounter guidelines were much less accurate, meaning even 'hard' fights weren't actually hard.)
The thing I think is unique about it, isn't so much that it does it better than other games that do this, it's that it does all of this in post-3e player empowerment centric system (character optimization is big, magic items are plentiful, wealth by level is a thing) mostly stuff like this is a part of games imitating older systems. It also seems to do it better than 5e, which some people like for OSR-esque play, but doesn't have the procedures to back that up, or functioning encounter math to make it necessary.
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*Nods*
I think that one of PF2's weaknesses is that it has a lot of rules for things that never used to have them* but without a lot of guidance in how to apply them. For example, by raw, what does a recall knowledge check actually reveal about any given creature and in which contexts should the information given change? This type of issue tends to spill down into exploration rules where DMs used to more free-form exploration may feel more restricted than they should by rules designed to prompt exploration rather than rigidly confine it.
*In their core rules. Systems often had approximate rules added later and somewhat haphazardly.
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*Nods*
I think that one of PF2's weaknesses is that it has a lot of rules for things that never used to have them* but without a lot of guidance in how to apply them. For example, by raw, what does a recall knowledge check actually reveal about any given creature and in which contexts should the information given change? This type of issue tends to spill down into exploration rules where DMs used to more free-form exploration may feel more restricted than they should by rules designed to prompt exploration rather than rigidly confine it.
*In their core rules. Systems often had approximate rules added later and somewhat haphazardly.
I'd argue this specific example was a problem in PF1 as well, and would definitely have preferred more concrete examples in the same vein as trained->legendary tasks in other skills.
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*Nods*
I think that one of PF2's weaknesses is that it has a lot of rules for things that never used to have them* but without a lot of guidance in how to apply them. For example, by raw, what does a recall knowledge check actually reveal about any given creature and in which contexts should the information given change? This type of issue tends to spill down into exploration rules where DMs used to more free-form exploration may feel more restricted than they should by rules designed to prompt exploration rather than rigidly confine it.
*In their core rules. Systems often had approximate rules added later and somewhat haphazardly.
Recall Knowledge is easy, its just easy to miss if you're used to knowledge checks in other systems.
As written, to use it you have try and recall a specific piece of information-- then on a success you recall the piece of information you asked for, and on a crit success additional information.
So there's basically an implicit/explicit question, if its being called for correctly. "How do we stop the Troll from regenerating" for instance.
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Recall Knowledge is easy, its just easy to miss if you're used to knowledge checks in other systems.
As written, to use it you have try and recall a specific piece of information-- then on a success you recall the piece of information you asked for, and on a crit success additional information.
So there's basically an implicit/explicit question, if its being called for correctly. "How do we stop the Troll from regenerating" for instance.
That feels unintuitive to me. It seems easier to simply ask, what does my character know about this particular monster and where did they obtain this knowledge and then have the GM work from there. IRL ask a D&D/Pathfinder player to name something specific about a troll and it won't take them 2 seconds to think up each specific thing about that monster.
Given the time constraints of a single action in a combat round, I would probably give my players something like, "Troll. Big. Clumsy. Not so bright. Use fire and acid. Tyshev's codex of beasts and other creatures." For a less well-read character, the same info might be, "Troll. Wiped out an entire unit. Got tripped up by a snare after we confused it. Torches helped finish it." This gives some info about weaknesses in a style specific to two types of character and examples like this in the CRB would be awesome to have.
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It might be easier, but i think the system does it this way so the player can decide to ask for something useful to them, and to potentially make multiple checks for multiple distinct pieces of information, this view makes a lot of sense in view of feats like 'Hypercognition' and seems like a stronger design in the long run because it helps to avert knowledge checks being only for flavor and better supports the idea of using them in combat for things like Saves.
Its also easier for the GM to answer the question accurately than try to thread a needle on what kind of information they'd be giving out
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By popular demand, I've elected to write up my thoughts on how Pathfinder 2e naturally creates an excellent environment for 'OSR' style 'Combat as War' elements as another solution for the difficulty of the encounter guidelines, and indeed, a fun and exciting way to play the game that awakens the full potential of the system (e.g. really uses its systems to maximum effect.)
I would favorite this post 50 times if I could.
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A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.
Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
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I feel like you must be using a very different exploration mode to me, because it feels barely interactive at all to me. You pick from the list of activities and get the listed effect.
You can decide you're sneaking, which just means initiative is now a stealth check rather than a perception check.
Investigating is just "The GM rolls some recall knowledge checks in secret and lets you know if you happen to know anything"
Scouting ahead doesn't let you spot foes in advance so you can actually plan encounters, just gives the party a +1 circumstance bonus to initiative (which is entirely redundant with both a fighter class feature and a general feat).
Search means you get to make checks to notice hidden stuff.
It's basically everything non-combat boiled down to a single sentence and maybe a (secret) skill check.
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Well, the old version of Exploration mode varied from "we move forward as a clump" to "describe everything inch by inch", so PF2's at least gives a good baseline to operate from though hopefully the settings are intriguing enough to provoke more specific interactions whether or not combat occurs or obstacles present themselves.
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Very interesting essay. I broadly agree but I have some comments and ideas for extension.
Exploration tactics
I know the "Investigate" tactic exists, but we've seen almost zero examples of what it could practically do and how it would benefit the party. I usually see brand new players get excited because hey, I'm a wizard and knowing stuff is what I'm good at. And then it turns out the scenario just doesn't have any content for it. So this one I think needs further development. Maybe the starting point should be that you almost always get something from it, followed by guidance for the GM on how to actually come up with content when a written adventure gives you nothing to start with.
The Scout tactic is a bit disappointing to me, because what I think "combat as war" really wants is the ability for one stealthy character to sneak ahead, see what threats are there, and report back to the party so they can make a plan. That's what most people think of when you say scouting. The +1 initiative tactic doesn't actually give you an opportunity to pause, make a plan, perhaps decide to change direction..
Another thing that I think is needed is for environments with more stuff in them that players can use. You mention players using doors or traps against the monsters, but that requires a terrain rich in such features. I think that's something to keep in mind for the GM when preparing an adventure.
Chases
You have some really interesting ideas with "slow down enemies" as a chase card as well as "close the big door". But it's not entirely right for the GM to decide when to do this, that should be a player choice ideally. I think when setting up a bespoke retreat system, that could be part of it. We already have the idea that moving past an obstacle can be done with several different skills. What if we extend that to there being two possible tasks: move past the obstacle (which gets the party closer to freedom) and hinder pursuers. This could lead to interesting situations where a particular obstacle requires skills only some of the characters have, so they're working on that while the rest of the party is trying to buy them time.
Powerful enemies
I like your idea that the PCs can just sense it when an enemy is much more powerful than them. In the struggle to clamp down on metagaming we're maybe too strict sometimes on "you don't know anything about the monster that you didn't earn with Recall Knowledge". But when you run into a balrog you should just feel you're outclassed.
You could take this idea even further and say that the bigger the power difference between PCs and monster, the EASIER it gets for them to sense its approach and know that they need to book it. You can flavor this in various ways - an ominous presence, big stamping feet, heavy wings flapping in the air, the monster subconsciously growling, or plain roaring. Stuff that's maybe below the radar of its (also kinda loud) peers. But that weaker prey (aka the PCs) have no trouble noticing and running away from. This is kinda a reversal of "higher level = better stealth skill/Perception DC".
Sandbox vs Adventure Path
Some AP parts have been described as sandboxes but I think that's very rarely accurate. Almost always you're on a current mission to stop a bad thing from happening and you can't just decide to walk away and come back later when you're stronger.
Also, usually there's a series of problem/solution things planned, where the clues in one scene lead you to the next, and the next, and the next. APs very much are going somewhere (the end of the book, the next book, the last book). A sandbox on the other hand really doesn't have a predetermined destination.
I think combat as war benefits from the freedom of a sandbox situation, where the party can scout out a potential adventuring area, decide it's perhaps still above them, and come back later. Or go on, notice they're in over their head, and run away, and then come back better prepared and maybe at a higher level.
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I feel like you must be using a very different exploration mode to me, because it feels barely interactive at all to me. You pick from the list of activities and get the listed effect.
You can decide you're sneaking, which just means initiative is now a stealth check rather than a perception check.
Investigating is just "The GM rolls some recall knowledge checks in secret and lets you know if you happen to know anything"
Scouting ahead doesn't let you spot foes in advance so you can actually plan encounters, just gives the party a +1 circumstance bonus to initiative (which is entirely redundant with both a fighter class feature and a general feat).
Search means you get to make checks to notice hidden stuff.
It's basically everything non-combat boiled down to a single sentence and maybe a (secret) skill check.
See generally, I view this element as working well because you're still piloting through, hearing about, and making choices about the environment. The search and investigate checks are just about delivering information to the party to make those choices with-- ergo, do we find the secret passage, do we notice the trap, do we recognize what the mosaics might be depicting.
In classic games, that's often a matter of giving the GM specific instructions about where to search, and in say 5e there's kind of a debate about the use of perception vs. specific instructions. I like that 2e offers the clear answer of your character's perception being their ability to search their environment and that this gives you information you can use to make choices 'hey guys lets check out this secret passage'
I will say, I think that Scout is badly named, since it seems like its designed to be more of a 'lookout' who pays attention for signs an enemy is showing up while everyone else is paying attention to specific things.
Your way of running "Avoid Notice" isn't RAW, if two parties are avoiding notice they just pass each other, so there's definitely room to do the sneak without engaging in combat, and therefore to take the chance to perform set up. The book even talks about switching to encounter mode without combat to track the movement of various entities as the party sneaks around them.
Because of this if the party itself pauses, and the rogue or whatever 'Avoids Notice' by themselves, they can actually 'scout', not engage the encounter, and return to report their findings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFR-7N_nOS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8pDjNAuhXc
I will say, as always for TTRPGs, the stealth rules are a little scattered around the rulebook.
Very interesting essay. I broadly agree but I have some comments and ideas for extension.
Exploration tactics
I know the "Investigate" tactic exists, but we've seen almost zero examples of what it could practically do and how it would benefit the party. I usually see brand new players get excited because hey, I'm a wizard and knowing stuff is what I'm good at. And then it turns out the scenario just doesn't have any content for it. So this one I think needs further development. Maybe the starting point should be that you almost always get something from it, followed by guidance for the GM on how to actually come up with content when a written adventure gives you nothing to start with.The Scout tactic is a bit disappointing to me, because what I think "combat as war" really wants is the ability for one stealthy character to sneak ahead, see what threats are there, and report back to the party so they can make a plan. That's what most people think of when you say scouting. The +1 initiative tactic doesn't actually give you an opportunity to pause, make a plan, perhaps decide to change direction..
Another thing that I think is needed is for environments with more stuff in them that players can use. You mention players using doors or traps against the monsters, but that requires a terrain rich in such features. I think that's something to keep in mind for the GM when preparing an adventure.
Chases
You have some really interesting ideas with "slow down enemies" as a chase card as well as "close the big door". But it's not entirely right for the GM to decide when to do this, that should be a player choice ideally. I think when setting up a bespoke retreat system, that could be part of it. We already have the idea that moving past an obstacle can be done with several different skills. What if we extend that to there being two possible tasks: move past the obstacle (which gets the party closer to freedom) and hinder pursuers. This could lead to interesting situations where a particular...
You bring up a good point on the subject of Investigate, specifically that there has to be some useful information in the environment for knowledge checks to get. I've used it in the past with a player's "Summoning Lore" to recognize when the 'veil' was thin and portals were likely to rip open and spew out enemies, or with religion to drop exposition on ancient religious practices as the party moves through a temple.
I'm partial to allowing it to either be useful to the overall campaign (learning about the various parts of history, religion and magic that intersect with the overall story) or to point at specific secrets in the dungeon ("you know that temples like this usually had secret rooms where important rituals to darker gods were conducted") I think a lot of exploration mode hangs off 'adventure design' there have to be traps and secret doors for the party to find, lore has to be interesting and pertinent somehow which some GMs don't think about.
Specifically for chases I'm thinking the GM trigger is more just for foes that are so much more powerful than the party that they'd obviously be instagibbed (basically what you say in the powerful enemies section), as a way of avoiding a debate that could result in them convincing themselves you wouldn't throw something their way they couldn't beat, but I freely admit a lot of groups would resent the GM hard framing the retreat and it doesn't require the GM to be the one to trigger it by any means.
I agree with you about the bespoke retreat system, although I suspect it would be a surprisingly minor variation on the current chase rules, literally just adding a clause about being able to halt or slow the progress of the pursuing party-- they're already gaining points themselves as per the system.
Edit: At the end, I think it depends, I try not to be too strict about what sandboxing has to mean-- Zelda BOTW is still a sandbox even though in theory, the whole thing is a mission to take down Ganon. So I'm open to a lot of freedom of approach intermixed into the alchemy of another plot-- I think that what diffuses this playstyle is more the design of the dungeon having only the critical path to the end that takes the party through consecutive, sequential encounters. Even if the overall adventuring areas take place in unbroken sequence, or it eventually bottlenecks into a confrontation with a singular boss.
A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
As you can see from the text, you're trying to recall something specific by the rules of the game, and the success and critical success conditions refer to you recalling the specific piece of knowledge. House Rule it if you prefer some other method, but this is how it actually be.
This is good write up! I will also echo Investigation is undercooked, partially because when there's something interesting to investigate players will often stop and investigate it. Often APs will list knowledge checks in the environment and are vague about what actually triggers them. Such checks would be a key time for Investigate to trigger but the APs don't explicitly say this and GMs (or at least, me) have been inclined to just give players the check when they enter the room or whatever. It would also make sense if Haunts were found with Investigate over search, but the rules don't do that.
And scouting really should have been called Look Out Duty, because that is what it is. Actually scouting would be what it was in PF1: the sneaky person creeping ahead to bring information back.
A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
As you can see from the text, you're trying to recall something specific by the rules of the game, and the success and critical success conditions refer to you recalling the specific piece of knowledge. House Rule it if you prefer some other method, but this is how it actually be.You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
No, their reading works perfectly fine as written. Even if you assume the "bit" refers to something explicitly defined by the player, which isn't explicit. The success condition says you get that bit OR something useful to the situation. Which means the GM can give you something actually useful instead of answering your question.
The rules are pretty open ended here, and personally I haven't found a problem with them. Other GMs can be much stingier without necessarily violating the RAW.
A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
As you can see from the text, you're trying to recall something specific by the rules of the game, and the success and critical success conditions refer to you recalling the specific piece of knowledge. House Rule it if you prefer some other method, but this is how it actually be.You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
Wuh?
No house rules involved here."A bit" is not "something specific" at all. It's a vague unit of info, and as phrased there's no implication of targeting or choosing. In fact "a bit" is as vague as "some", the only difference being it's a singular piece which helps clarify how much. And from the player side targeting a specific bit would imply they actually know something that they then want their PC to discover.
"The knowledge" may seem important because it sounds specific, but in English it only refers back to the vague "a bit". Equally nonspecific statements about the information, i.e. "some info" or even "random info", would also lead to using "the" in the followup as it refers to the previous statement.
As in, there's zero specificity in these rules.
Think of speaking to a friend and asking them if they could send you a bit of info about a company. In no way would that be a request for specific information about that company, yet if you were to talk about it later, it'd be phrased as "the" information.
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As for getting useful information, the basics of Recall Knowledge gives us that:
"Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation."
I'm not saying a player couldn't try to target specific info, only that the rules aren't forcing it; players don't have to. They can hunt for a "useful clue" instead, where hopefully the GM knows what's useful.
I would let my players choose specific information if they wanted (with the caveat that a Success might give them only that their topic does not apply to the creature), but it'd likely be wiser for players to choose "useful clue" instead.
This is good write up! I will also echo Investigation is undercooked, partially because when there's something interesting to investigate players will often stop and investigate it. Often APs will list knowledge checks in the environment and are vague about what actually triggers them. Such checks would be a key time for Investigate to trigger but the APs don't explicitly say this and GMs (or at least, me) have been inclined to just give players the check when they enter the room or whatever. It would also make sense if Haunts were found with Investigate over search, but the rules don't do that.
...A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
As you can see from the text, you're trying toYou attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
See but that clause is pretty much so the GM can avoid having to give up the goods if they don't want to, I think its justt an out, although you'll notice it isn't a part of the critical success, if its critical they just get the information and then additional stuff.
A Success means they get a useful piece of information. There's a problem if players ask the questions and answers only head toward useless information, i.e. a martial asking about which materials or physical damage types to use vs. a creature w/ no relevant qualities.
I would think Hypercognition would only worsen matters as the player begins running out of questions while the possibly genius or veteran PC wouldn't. And there are corner cases, like with Basilisk's blood, where the most important thing to know might never be asked about.Plus IMO a GM should not have any difficulty choosing what's most pertinent to the PC asking (or the party in general) so I don't understand having to thread any needles there. You give them a piece of info they can put to good use. In PFS with makeshift groups this might take foresight in getting to know the PCs' strategies, but in a home game I don't see how a GM could not know what info the PCs would be able to use.
As you can see from the text, you're trying to recall something specific by the rules of the game, and the success and critical success conditions refer to you recalling the specific piece of knowledge. House Rule it if you prefer some other method, but this is how it actually be.You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill.
Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context.
Success You recall the knowledge accurately or gain a useful clue about your current situation.
Wuh?
No house rules involved here."A bit" is not "something specific" at all. It's a vague unit of info, and as phrased there's no implication of targeting or choosing. In fact "a bit" is as vague as "some", the only difference being it's a singular piece which helps clarify how much. And from the player side targeting a specific bit would imply they actually know...
from the text: You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. The GM determines the DCs for such checks and which skills apply.
I don't think your reading is valid, it talks about you "trying to remember a bit of knowledge" and then discusses what the GM decides, it doesn't mention the GM deciding what knowledge you get until the success line, then it frames the 'useful clue' part as an 'or' with the 'remembering the knowledge part' when I try to remember something, I have a question that I'm trying to remember the answer to, and it probably isn't 'everything I know about this thing' because then the additional information clause on a critical success doesn't do anything, and the allusion to a 'bit' of knowledge makes less sense.
so if you point at a statue and say 'knowledge check!' and roll a success, that 'or doesn't make sense, because there would be nothing to contrast to a useful clue.
You'd basically have a question you want answered, e.g. "What is a troll's lowest saving throw?" or "Who is the king depicted in the statue?" and that makes the verbiage makes sense.
Then note that the Critical Success line mentions 'the' singular knowledge, which wasn't required by the success line, and extra info on top.
I'm uncertain which clause you're referring to.
If you mean the "or" re: useful clues, where does the text imply it's an "out"? It could be used as an excuse for one, but there's nothing that I see that suggests it's intended as one.
And the Critical Success reference doesn't help because that's still relying on "a bit" being specific, which I feel I've established it's not.
If I try to recall a bit about my time in Japan, that sounds to me more like I'm fishing around rather than targeting something specific.
Know what would be an out? Not attaching specificity to "a bit" so that you can choose something that both help the PC/party and doesn't derail plot details.
Would anybody here rather knowledge be made into a skill-like rule, rather like how perception is currently handled, and players are just given a flat level of knowledge based on their proficiency rather than making checks each fight. Players that have high intelligence being at a slightly higher tier than players of the same proficiency level with no intelligence investment. This takes some tension out of things but also helps the player have a better idea of what exactly their character knows rather than finding that out on a check by check basis.
For example:
A person trained in a knowledge skill might know the saves, AC, attack bonus, and special traits of all level-2 monsters losing one piece of info for each level the monster exceeds level-2.
Expert is level-1.
Master is level.
Legendary is level+1.
High intelligence could give more lore and monster motivation type info as a reward for that player's investment.
You could even still have roles for things like researching a higher-level threat that they wouldn't otherwise know much about or for working out specific puzzles.
I'm uncertain which clause you're referring to.
If you mean the "or" re: useful clues, where does the text imply it's an "out"? It could be used as an excuse for one, but there's nothing that I see that suggests it's intended as one.
And the Critical Success reference doesn't help because that's still relying on "a bit" being specific, which I feel I've established it's not.If I try to recall a bit about my time in Japan, that sounds to me more like I'm fishing around rather than targeting something specific.
Know what would be an out? Not attaching specificity to "a bit" so that you can choose something that both help the PC/party and doesn't derail plot details.
The "or" doesn't have meaning in your reading because there's no knowledge that two conditions can be contrasted with, the critical success reading helps us because you haven't established that bit isn't specific, that is in fact, the subject under debate. It helps us to ascertain that recall knowledge is referencing a specific piece of knowledge.
"Critical Success You recall the knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context."
if the knowledge is just an unprompted lore entry, it would be removed and the clause would read
"Critical Success You recall knowledge accurately and gain additional information or context."
Although it still wouldn't make sense, because it would mean the first half is "tell them a non specific amount of information about this thing" and the second half is "once you're done telling them a non specific amount of information about this thing, tell them more information about this thing!"
Without alluding to a specific piece of information the player is trying to recall, the answer to a question that prompted the knowledge check, the initial information and the secondary information have no boundaries to establish where one begins and ends.
This also makes more sense with the additional guidance given about how the GM will adjudicate which skill is used, which only makes sense if you can ask specific questions that might need different skills:
"For example, Arcana might tell you about the magical defenses of a golem, whereas Crafting could tell you about its sturdy resistance to physical attacks."
Then further below these are examples of tasks, which are active uses of the skill, basically something you might try and do, in the same way someone else might climb up a wall, or pick a lock, each of these are very specific requests for information:
"These examples use Society or Religion.
Untrained name of a ruler, key noble, or major deity
Trained line of succession for a major noble family, core doctrines of a major deity
Expert genealogy of a minor noble, teachings of an ancient priest
Master hierarchy of a genie noble court, major extraplanar temples of a deity
Legendary existence of a long-lost noble heir, secret doctrines of a religion"
You'll notice that each of these are specific things a player would want to know, "Hey GM, do I know this guy's name?" "Give me a recall knowledge check"
By default "a bit of information" is not specific and I've given a couple of examples that demonstrate this. You still haven't shown how it is ONLY specific in this instance, and repeated references to "the" do not help as I've also shown "the" would be used in nonspecific instances too.
And I'm not sure why you reference "nonspecific amount" when the amount's specific: a bit. One piece of datum. Crit Success gives you another.
And yes, I agree you've cited some excellent examples of specific questions that could be asked. Again, I'm not saying a player couldn't ask for specific information (unless perhaps it was too meta), I'm saying they're not forced to ask for specific information. So they could ask a specific question or they could ask for just whatever's relevant.
"What pertinent stuff does my PC know about this creature?" (or person or place or object, etc.) works fine by the rules RAW as far as I can tell. And those nonspecific questions too would lead to a GM adjudicating which skill to roll. (And I think a GM should write down all the PCs' Recall Knowledge skills so they can do so secretly.)
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If you insist on being wrong, and utilizing only the least functional reading of the rules. I can't help you, the tasks make it obvious, since otherwise theyd list proper nouns for the GM to decide what random piece of info you would get from a knowledge check about that thing.
My concern isnt whether the GM could accept a broad query and give you info accordingly, its whether a player asking a specific question is meant to get a specific answer to the question they ask.
If i'm right, its a powerful tool for exploration, and it isnt somehow broken, players can use recall knowledge secure in the knowledge that their question gives the check context to be useful.
I stand by my reading that this is RAW, and thats yours nakes no contextual sense.
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Allowing the Recall Knowledge check to be determined by the question asked and performed as a secret roll would be less concrete than the current system where the roll is determined by the creature type.
Not sure how making something more vague resolves the concern that something is too vague.
Magic swords interpretation that it answers a specific question is how I read it, though I have stuck to the creature identification table for the roll itself when determining info about monsters. Non identifier questions use other skills.
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Would anybody here rather knowledge be made into a skill-like rule, rather like how perception is currently handled, and players are just given a flat level of knowledge based on their proficiency rather than making checks each fight. Players that have high intelligence being at a slightly higher tier than players of the same proficiency level with no intelligence investment. This takes some tension out of things but also helps the player have a better idea of what exactly their character knows rather than finding that out on a check by check basis.
For example:
A person trained in a knowledge skill might know the saves, AC, attack bonus, and special traits of all level-2 monsters losing one piece of info for each level the monster exceeds level-2.
Expert is level-1.
Master is level.
Legendary is level+1.
High intelligence could give more lore and monster motivation type info as a reward for that player's investment.
You could even still have roles for things like researching a higher-level threat that they wouldn't otherwise know much about or for working out specific puzzles.
Not really? I can see the argument for it but I don't see why that same argument doesn't apply to, well, any other check. In fact, ifwe are gonna start removing checks this would be low on my list. Recall Knowledge has a permanent consequence of failure that defines the state of play. By comparison, checks to pick a lock usually happen without time pressure, which means if you roll long enough you will get through eventually, maybe breaking some picks along the way. That is something that should just be gated auto success based on proficiency.
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Also, I'm honestly not sure what Castilliano and The-Magic-Sword are arguing about at this point. Or at the very least, I'm struggling to see what the difference winds up being in actual play, since both of them seem to be aiming at what they think is a generous and helpful reading of the rules. As far as I can tell, the specific example Sword cites is that a player should be able to ask what a creature's lowest save is and get an answer on a success. Castilliano doesn't actually say you can't do that; they point out that doing so might ultimately not be as beneficial as letting the GM pick the information so the player actually gets something useful. Some monsters have ties for weakest saves and/or have saves that are really close together, for example, which might be much less relevant than an elemental weakness.
I will note that the rules don't explicitly prevent asking for something really specific like that, but the Creature Identification rules on page 506 don't really encourage it either: "A character who successfully identifies a creature learns one of its best-known attributes—such as a troll’s regeneration (and the fact that it can be stopped by acid or fire) or a manticore’s tail spikes. On a critical success, the character also learns something subtler, like a demon’s weakness or the trigger for one of the creature’s reactions."
So when a player identifies a creature the GM generally picks what they learn. It doesn't say a player can't request the weakest save on a creature (perhaps without even identifying the name of the creature in the process) but there's an implication that isn't how things work at least.
As far as how one SHOULD use Recall Knowledge, I have strong feelings and a system I think works rather well, but I am going to spoiler it because it is getting a bit off topic.
My usual approach: Read the creature's flavor text until you reach something the party can use. Then stop and add any mechanical emphasis that might be needed to understand what the ability actually means in game terms. Also, I reveal the monster's type or traits and make sure the players are aware of what that means. IE, all demons have a weakness to cold iron and good, and many have a weakness related to their sin.
I think this is a superior approach to offering the players a menu where they might make a bad choice, especially because a success is supposed to get you its most well known feature. And if you get an exceptionally plain stat block or your players have rolled enough checks to exhaust distinct abilities,* then you can offer stuff like lowest save. If a player specifically wanted to request that as their first bit of info, I'd probably allow it as well.
If you insist on being wrong, and utilizing only the least functional reading of the rules. I can't help you, the tasks make it obvious, since otherwise theyd list proper nouns for the GM to decide what random piece of info you would get from a knowledge check about that thing.
My concern isnt whether the GM could accept a broad query and give you info accordingly, its whether a player asking a specific question is meant to get a specific answer to the question they ask.
If i'm right, its a powerful tool for exploration, and it isnt somehow broken, players can use recall knowledge secure in the knowledge that their question gives the check context to be useful.
I stand by my reading that this is RAW, and thats yours nakes no contextual sense.
Not insisting. Reading.
"Least functional"? *
My version has all the same functionality as yours re: specificity AND the option for the players asking in more general terms if desired.
Not sure how you got that X > X + Y (w/ Y being a positive naturally).
Who's suggested random info?
"Useful" is not random. In fact, IMO the player should receive the most pertinent info available.
I do not understand your concept of using a list of proper nouns (names?) as answers. What would suggest that'd be a thing?
If your concern is whether a player asking a specific question is meant to get a specific answer, then don't be concerned. I've twice told you I agree that's a fine option. And yes it could be powerful. Or it could be weak depending on how close to the mark the players' thoughts are.
Not sure how players can be secure in the knowledge that their question will lead to useful answers when they can ask specific, useless questions. By my reading, asking a general question would always lead to a "useful clue" without the risk of derailing oneself.
You do state much that is RAW, but I think if you're demanding the player ask specific questions only, you're house ruling.
I mean, if a player asks "What does my PC know about X that's useful?" will you really demand they tell you what's useful about something the players might have no inkling about? Sure, it'd be helpful if they expressed a preference, but what's to guarantee they choose something useful? A GM on the other hand should know exactly what a "useful clue" represents within the combat, story arc, or players' concerns.
*ETA: This phrase makes me think you have no clue what my point is. Maybe this time?
Its just a pet peeve of mine, since people tend to make Recall Knowledge useless despite it actually working really well in the system. I like the player emphasis because I like player driven game play, so I'm more defensive of it than other people might be.
To tie this back into the thread, I think that the emphasis on skill feats as their own separated toolkit does a lot for the exploration space-- a party member can really capitalize on it empower the party within adventuring spaces. If they choose to invest in recall knowledge, there's a lot that they can do-- assurance, dubious knowledge, unmistakeable lore, additional lore that are specific to the themes of the campaign.
I had a party member get some mileage out of their "Summoning Lore" for instance, which was useful for a group of what were pretty much Witchers. Honestly, if you know a little about the adventuring space you're going into, there are features that let you switch your lore skills around, which it just kind of dawned on me that they would be very useful under this kind of game specifically, damn.
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If you insist on being wrong, and utilizing only the least functional reading of the rules. I can't help you, the tasks make it obvious, since otherwise theyd list proper nouns for the GM to decide what random piece of info you would get from a knowledge check about that thing.
My concern isnt whether the GM could accept a broad query and give you info accordingly, its whether a player asking a specific question is meant to get a specific answer to the question they ask.
If i'm right, its a powerful tool for exploration, and it isnt somehow broken, players can use recall knowledge secure in the knowledge that their question gives the check context to be useful.
I stand by my reading that this is RAW, and thats yours nakes no contextual sense.
Not insisting. Reading.
"Least functional"? *
My version has all the same functionality as yours re: specificity AND the option for the players asking in more general terms if desired.
Not sure how you got that X > X + Y (w/ Y being a positive naturally).Who's suggested random info?
"Useful" is not random. In fact, IMO the player should receive the most pertinent info available.
I do not understand your concept of using a list of proper nouns (names?) as answers. What would suggest that'd be a thing?If your concern is whether a player asking a specific question is meant to get a specific answer, then don't be concerned. I've twice told you I agree that's a fine option. And yes it could be powerful. Or it could be weak depending on how close to the mark the players' thoughts are.
Not sure how players can be secure in the knowledge that their question will lead to useful answers when they can ask specific, useless questions. By my reading, asking a general question would always lead to a "useful clue" without the risk of derailing oneself.You do state much that is RAW, but I think if you're demanding the player ask specific questions only, you're house ruling.
I mean, if a player asks "What does my PC...
Then sorry, I must have misunderstood your point, although I do think that asking more specific questions is probably a more immersive use of the skill, since useful is pretty relative and this involves engaging more with the lore.
Not really? I can see the argument for it but I don't see why that same argument doesn't apply to, well, any other check.
The difference, to my mind, is that RK represents things a player's character knows. It's much more difficult to play a character when there are aspects of their knowledge only revealed at the roll of a die. This doesn't mean there aren't situations suitable to calling for a check, just that those should be related to gathering new information, conducting research, and solving mysteries.
In fact, ifwe are gonna start removing checks this would be low on my list. Recall Knowledge has a permanent consequence of failure that defines the state of play. By comparison, checks to pick a lock usually happen without time pressure, which means if you roll long enough you will get through eventually, maybe breaking some picks along the way. That is something that should just be gated auto success based on proficiency.
Recall knowledge is one of the few skills that shouldn't be reactive. How often do you really have to wrack your brain to see if you know something? Trivia nights, if the category is known in advance you usually have an idea of how likely you are to do well and some good guesses about the kinds of questions you'll get right and which ones you'll probably miss on.
I'd like to massage RK to give that level of knowledge to players from session 0.
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Do you do trivia nights during a gun fight? If not, I'm not really sure why they are a relevant comparison to trying to recall a specific fact while an orc tries to remove your spleen.
Also, since I'm assuming you don't have an eidetic memory, I'm assuming there have been times where you know you know an answer but can't immediately bring it to mind. During trivia night, even.
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I think it's good to embrace the flexibility of the Recall Knowledge rules and trust in your friends playing and GMing in good faith, rather than trying to nail down one specific way they should be used only.
Sometimes you want to know something specific and you RK to ask that question. Sometimes you don't really know what the most important question is and just let the GM toss you something useful. And sometimes the GM decides that your specific question ("what is its weakest save") is less important than something else ("its blood can reverse the petrification but only if used in one hour").
If you can trust the other people at the table to be in good faith and trying to make the game fun then you really don't need to nail it down further.
I agree that it's possible to play this way, but what's your solution to the high scaling in DCs? You mention a sleeping dragon. If it's sufficiently high level that they don't want to fight it, it probably has quite the high Perception modifier? Similarly with Recall Knowledge, the players can't make smart decisions if they don't know what they're up against, and the book saying the RK DC should be level-based makes it very likely they fail or critically fail the checks.
I think I'd personally try to figure out a better way for RK DCs. Especially for creatures such as Dragons which have lower level versions with lower level RK DCs. I'd say the DC should remain an easy one for the creature's lowest level version, except maybe for the unique features that only show up at the higher levels. But that's a whole other can of worms.
IMO the game should really have a some way to gauge relative level. Like how they can sense power levels in various anime like DBZ or HxH. You could potentially give it on that little bit of info on a failure but not a critical failure as well. PF1 had an AP with a unique CR 11 flesh golem, and it was only DC 17 Arcana to realize it was no normal flesh golem and was probably way too powerful for the low level party. You could also make it a Perception check to gauge instead of a knowledge check.
That can work fairly well, actually, because many monsters have variants that run a variety of levels. So if the sleeping dragon is an adult blue and the player rolls high enough to identify a young blue, you can say "It is a blue dragon. A young one would be a tough fight and this is no young one." Or something to that end.
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I agree that it's possible to play this way, but what's your solution to the high scaling in DCs? You mention a sleeping dragon. If it's sufficiently high level that they don't want to fight it, it probably has quite the high Perception modifier? Similarly with Recall Knowledge, the players can't make smart decisions if they don't know what they're up against, and the book saying the RK DC should be level-based makes it very likely they fail or critically fail the checks.
I think I'd personally try to figure out a better way for RK DCs. Especially for creatures such as Dragons which have lower level versions with lower level RK DCs. I'd say the DC should remain an easy one for the creature's lowest level version, except maybe for the unique features that only show up at the higher levels. But that's a whole other can of worms.
Oh sorry, thats what i get for referring to ideas without explaining them, its meant to be a dungeonwide mechanic using the victory point mechanic and some of the infiltration rules (like awareness points)
They set the DCs around the level of the party, generally i base things like this around the idea that a creature that is a tough combat challenge, isn't as tough a challenge in all areas.
That dungeon is based off the lonely mountain, as depicted in the Hobbit movies, in the center of the dungeon there's a treasure room where the dragon sleeps on his hoard, this room also interconnects with the many areas of the dungeon. PCs can circumvent the treasure room by dungeon passageways that interconnect the whole dungeon less directly.
These passages and rooms are home to other denizens who pay the dragon tribute to have permission to live there, the dragpn doesnt super care about them but his reputation is a form of protection all its own and their tribute adds to his treasure-- players will interact, fight with, etc these denizens as they explore the dungeon.
Meanwhile the GM will track the dragon's level of wakefulness using victory points (awareness points) the dragon has a different sleeping position at various levels of wakefulness, and once he wakes up, he beelines to the PCs and I use the chase rules to adjudicate their desperate escape like that one scene in the movies. Players can attempt to sneak through the treasure room, or pilfer treasure from the room directly, but its a bigger risk and harder. The dragon's sleeping positions block various entrances and exits, so changing it changes what areas of the dungeon are accessible.
Wake Points happen based off of various things, loud spells and items, any item taken in the treasure room, combat too close to the treasure room, etc. I have to make a list at some point while im making it.
It probably resets after a few ingame days.
Do you do trivia nights during a gun fight? If not, I'm not really sure why they are a relevant comparison to trying to recall a specific fact while an orc tries to remove your spleen.
Why aren't the PCs scouting out ahead of time and making checks prefight wherever possible? Why can't PCs get a certain level of base knowledge about threats common to the region and creatures well below their level? I'm not talking about giving everything away for free, I'm talking about ensuring that players aren't surprised by something they expect their character to know going the other way due to the whims of the dice.
I'm generally in favor of reducing variance and letting skilled characters feel skilled in day-to-day play and then challenging them when it's their time in the spotlight. I tend to run games that don't treat the characters as anything special so in exchange I ensure that the players are happy with the characters they're able to build.
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...I agree that it's possible to play this way, but what's your solution to the high scaling in DCs? You mention a sleeping dragon. If it's sufficiently high level that they don't want to fight it, it probably has quite the high Perception modifier? Similarly with Recall Knowledge, the players can't make smart decisions if they don't know what they're up against, and the book saying the RK DC should be level-based makes it very likely they fail or critically fail the checks.
I think I'd personally try to figure out a better way for RK DCs. Especially for creatures such as Dragons which have lower level versions with lower level RK DCs. I'd say the DC should remain an easy one for the creature's lowest level version, except maybe for the unique features that only show up at the higher levels. But that's a whole other can of worms.
Oh sorry, thats what i get for referring to ideas without explaining them, its meant to be a dungeonwide mechanic using the victory point mechanic and some of the infiltration rules (like awareness points)
They set the DCs around the level of the party, generally i base things like this around the idea that a creature that is a tough combat challenge, isn't as tough a challenge in all areas.
That dungeon is based off the lonely mountain, as depicted in the Hobbit movies, in the center of the dungeon there's a treasure room where the dragon sleeps on his hoard, this room also interconnects with the many areas of the dungeon. PCs can circumvent the treasure room by dungeon passageways that interconnect the whole dungeon less directly.
These passages and rooms are home to other denizens who pay the dragon tribute to have permission to live there, the dragpn doesnt super care about them but his reputation is a form of protection all its own and their tribute adds to his treasure-- players will interact, fight with, etc these denizens as they explore the dungeon.
Meanwhile the GM will track the dragon's level
Hmm, what's interesting about that is that some people would say the exact opposite-- that scaling (or a lack of vertical progression at all) is essential to sandbox play.
Personally, out of the abstract, when I run this dungeon it'll probably be in the context of a West Marches Hex Crawl, the DCs will likely be set not to the party's level, but to the level of the lead itself (the players will form a party and decide to go on the voyage knowing the designated level of the lead so they can make an informed decision) and the other obstacles in the adventure. The reason this works in my eyes, is because what's there IS there, but the statblock of the creature itself doesn't tell the whole story-- its 'perception' probably isn't what's meant to be used while its lying on its treasure hoard in a deep slumber, until it wakes up, the infiltration mechanics I designed around it to emulate its sleeping state, and the idea of lower level creatures sneaking around its dungeon, is "what's there."
The perspective shift isn't about scaling the challenges to the PCs, its about using mechanics appropriate to the role the creature plays relative to the PCs. The Dragon is not something they can take in a fight, period, so the mechanics it uses aren't about fighting-- there's an infiltration mechanic about not waking it up, and when it does wake up, a chase mechanic that uses DCs based on the obstacles PCs encounter while fleeing. That seems like sleight of hand, but its just a different way of thinking about interactions built into the game, especially the GMG subsystems. This way, whatever the designated danger level of the Dungeon, I can include things outside of that while allowing them to play a different role beyond 'arbitrarily killer fight you can't run away from because the mechanics don't support it.' Waking up the dragon is a failure state, and then they need to reach another failure state (failing the chase) for it to kill them.
Its a somewhat 'gamist' conceit, but its one I'm comfortable with. It'll also make it very satisfying when the PCs come back at a higher level after exploring the majority of the dungeon walking on eggshells, and can actually slay the dragon and claim the bulk of the hoard.
I agree that it's possible to play this way, but what's your solution to the high scaling in DCs? You mention a sleeping dragon. If it's sufficiently high level that they don't want to fight it, it probably has quite the high Perception modifier? Similarly with Recall Knowledge, the players can't make smart decisions if they don't know what they're up against, and the book saying the RK DC should be level-based makes it very likely they fail or critically fail the checks.
I think I'd personally try to figure out a better way for RK DCs. Especially for creatures such as Dragons which have lower level versions with lower level RK DCs. I'd say the DC should remain an easy one for the creature's lowest level version, except maybe for the unique features that only show up at the higher levels. But that's a whole other can of worms.
IMO the game should really have a some way to gauge relative level. Like how they can sense power levels in various anime like DBZ or HxH. You could potentially give it on that little bit of info on a failure but not a critical failure as well. PF1 had an AP with a unique CR 11 flesh golem, and it was only DC 17 Arcana to realize it was no normal flesh golem and was probably way too powerful for the low level party. You could also make it a Perception check to gauge instead of a knowledge check.
That can work fairly well, actually, because many monsters have variants that run a variety of levels. So if the sleeping dragon is an adult blue and the player rolls high enough to identify a young blue, you can say "It is a blue dragon. A young one would be a tough fight and this is no young one." Or something to that end.
I'm thinking that since I don't want players unknowingly wandering into anything, I'm going to steal the genre conceit of things like Dragon Ball and other Martial Arts Fantasy, where you can just 'tell' that someone is in a whole different class than you are. You might not know what it is, but you can feel that it would crush you like a bug if its 4 levels over you.
I suppose that would generically count for groups of creatures where the encounter as a whole is too much as well, where you realize that if they catch you, you're just dead, no skill check needed, your preservation instincts just warn you.
Yeah so, basically the plan is that we'll have a big hex map of the Pandoran Islands, when you want to do something you get a party together by asking other player characters to come with you and work it out with a GM willing to run it, work out shares of the treasure, and so forth. But the structure for doing that is a little different, because I wanted to get away from Robbins proscription on outings taking more than one session (we tried one session in 5e, it just doesn't work for us, combat is too slow.)
Instead, there are 'leads' which can really be anything-- a treasure map some of the players found in a prior adventure, something off the public rumor table, something someone noticed in an adventure and made public information (Like Robbins Black Door example), even a hook from a player's backstory. Really anything can be a lead, it doesn't even require a GM to pre-create it as one (although a GM has to be willing to run with it, at the end of the day.) But because we're formalizing it, it will gain a level somewhere along the way (either when its placed on the public table, or when a player approaches a GM about making it one, before assembling a group.) That level corresponds to what Ben Robbins referred to in his 3e West Marches about things getting higher level as you radiate outwards from town, and telegraphing pockets of higher level danger so players don't just stumble into something out of their league.
When the GM is prepping the content of the lead, that level is the level used for the encounter guidelines, and all content and treasure (loosely, our treasure is going to look very different from the standard, but that's a whole other kettle of fish) is designed as if for a party of four PCs of that level. The level of the lead doesn't depend on the PCs, and PCs are welcome to freely choose to pursue leads (read: enter adventuring spaces) completely independently of their level at their own risk.
This is also designed so that the party can take more or less players, and pursue leads of whatever level they wish, so you might take six L3 players to a place designed for four L4 or whatever, or mix the group-- since the treasure doesn't scale up, and neither does the difficulty, you'll usually be accepting less pay out for having to split it more ways, or going to a lower level space. So you might be able to punch a little above with more people for a cool higher level pay out, or play it safe. Incidentally, leveling up is also going to be governed by treasure.
The Combat as War elements isn't being intended for the same outcomes as in an OSR system (which leans into it fully and says ever just fighting is stupid), instead, I'm looking to bring elements of it to create a new playstyle thats right for my group, to not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' basically if you've seen Kenada's recent post on enworld about their experience it should be understood that in contrast, my group does use the options and customization and such that Kenada mentions theirs was leery of losing but didn't actually use, so just switching to another system isn't desirable, we really love this one and I'm excited for this usage of it for this purpose, I think it will make my games better, not worse. I'm actually somewhat convinced I'm stumbling onto a new (or a new variant of one of the culture of play, that marries OSR adventure structural elements to neo-trad interests player empowerment interests.
In that light you can understand my current thesis of play as rejecting the idea of mutually inclusive relationships between player disempowerment, combat as war, and sand box structure. Here, 'Combat as War' and 'Combat as Sport' are being admixtured rather than treated as dichotomous to create an experience where not all combat is suicidal, but players still want to negotiate the playspace with finesse, since the alternative is often brutal encounters, or in the case of out-of-encounter-guideline foes, desperate chase scenes that present real risk. Sometimes they will mess up and have to work hard to overcome a brutal encounter directly, sometimes they may even be overwhelmed and have to stage a retreat. But the 'I have like 5 hp, so one cheap shot will drop me? better make sure no one can ever take cheap shots' logic doesn't apply, you're still heroes who can seriously throw down.
Once the party has a lead, they can go on a voyage, where they chart a course to their goal using the hex map that ends when they return to port. To keep the treasure you get, you have to get it safely to a friendly port. A Voyage is basically just a name for a 'potentially multisession' excursion, players can't use those characters until they come back (or abandon, which ends their participation in that one instantly, but they don't get to keep anything they got out of it) to encourage them to finish voyages.
So the 'lead' level is just a way of conveying similar information as Robbins did about their 3e game world, but using a neat little meta-structure that emulates pirates setting off after a specific haul or mission of whatever and then returning to a port they have a permit to do business in.