Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Hi everyone,
Yesterday, I played an adventure with my Alchemist. Very early it was foreshadowed that an enemy we will face was "very scary". And right in the middle of the adventure, what do we find on a corpse? Bravo's Brews!!!!
First, if everytime an item is super cool for an adventure you give some to the party you basically discourage players to buy these items. Why would someone ever buy Bravo's Brews when they are part of the loot every time they are important?
Second, when you have in the party someone who can handle this very specific story element, you basically remove part of the class utility. It's even worse than that, because I had produced a few Bravo's Brews and was now screwed with less reagents than if I had played stupidly and just ignored the information we got.
And it's like that in many cases. Underwater combat? Just take these potions of Water Breathing and these Dragon Turtle Scales. Airborne situation? Potion of Flying and Scrolls of Air Walk.
It would be way better to just tell the players: If you want potions of Water Breathing or Scrolls of Air Walk, we can provide you with some. Even at a discount (even if it's not nice for the character who bought a Scroll full price in case the situation arise). Something to reward the player who has the right tool for the job (and who may have paid for that tool).
Or maybe replacement items, like "On the corpse, there are 2 Bravo's Brews. But if your players have already planned the situation by buying some beforehand, give them 2 super cool items so they will feel rewarded for their forethought". Or even "You find 2 special Bravo's Brews that stack with other Bravo's Brews" so at least you don't end up screwed with extra items.
In case this message ever reach an adventure writer...
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What you are seeing is the balancing act scenario writers have to perform between "too easy" and "unfair situation." Because writers don't want to put the players (and Paizo doesn't want to put customers) in situations where they feel cheated, scenarios are usually weighted towards "too easy."
Let's take the water breathing example. Your low-level party finds a long, submerged tunnel they will need to traverse. What are the writer's options?
1. Don't give the players anything, but don't put in time pressure. If they don't have the right item/spell at the moment they can leave and come back with it. Downside: players might as well rest. Which means they get all their daily abilities back. That's not a showstopper, it just means the writer has to treat that as a breakpoint where the characters are starting fresh with no expended resources, and can't write anything time-dependent.
2. Don't give the players anything, and make time an issue. If they don't have the right thing, they can't progress or maybe instead lose rewards because of delays. Downside: can easily feel "unfair" to players.
3. Give the players potions of water breathing. Lets them progress without putting a break in the scenario. Downside: you found it. The players who did prepare/invest for such situation feel like their cleverness was unrewarded.
4. Put in an alternate solution (puzzle, alternate path, etc.). Downsides: the obstacle doesn't really feel like an obstacle, and again prepared players can feel slightly undervalued.
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As for your suggestion of rewarding prepared players: it's something that could work in a home game but not very well in the big Organized Play setting. Because it would be difficult to account for everything and you don't want GMs making variable decisions.
For example: if we took your suggestion of putting in a Bravo's Brew that stacks with other Bravo's Brews. OK, what about other sources of item bonuses to will saves? If I've got resilient armor, should the special brew stack with it? What about other items found in the adventure? Oh, here's some magic armor! I've already bought magic armor, so should I get some extra bonus? Going on and on, making a decision on each thing you find.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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While I get stuff like Bravo's Brew and other stuff that's not vital to have can feel like you just wasted resources, a lot of other consumables (like the aforementioned Water Breathing or Resist Energy) can save your hide. Especially with spells being more rare now, consumables are great loot drops (although sometimes a little too convenient). The trick usually is to not give enough to supply the entire party with the item, or give players the option to get a superior option.
In the cases where there's more party members than Bravo's Brews, you have to decide who gets the items and who don't. In that case, the ones who have bought some of their own (or made something similar with spells or being an Alchemist) get rewarded for their resourcefulness and/or thinking ahead (they don't have to fight over limited resources). In the second case, this is for more mid-level stuff I guess, the adventure could provide Lesser Bravo's Brews (or something similar), while players can already buy the Moderate version. In that case, you still get some freebies, but you don't feel useless when you've prepared yourself accordingly.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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What you are seeing is the balancing act scenario writers have to perform between "too easy" and "unfair situation." Because writers don't want to put the players (and Paizo doesn't want to put customers) in situations where they feel cheated, scenarios are usually weighted towards "too easy."
Let's take the water breathing example. Your low-level party finds a long, submerged tunnel they will need to traverse. What are the writer's options?
1. Don't give the players anything, but don't put in time pressure. If they don't have the right item/spell at the moment they can leave and come back with it. Downside: players might as well rest. Which means they get all their daily abilities back. That's not a showstopper, it just means the writer has to treat that as a breakpoint where the characters are starting fresh with no expended resources, and can't write anything time-dependent.
2. Don't give the players anything, and make time an issue. If they don't have the right thing, they can't progress or maybe instead lose rewards because of delays. Downside: can easily feel "unfair" to players.
3. Give the players potions of water breathing. Lets them progress without putting a break in the scenario. Downside: you found it. The players who did prepare/invest for such situation feel like their cleverness was unrewarded.
4. Put in an alternate solution (puzzle, alternate path, etc.). Downsides: the obstacle doesn't really feel like an obstacle, and again prepared players can feel slightly undervalued.
Your example is not a good one because it's one that can't be properly handled. From my experience, there are two cases occuring:
- Something is mandatory to the adventure (like a potion of Water Breathing for an underwater one) and it's provided right at the start.- Something is not mandatory but super strong (potion of Resist Energy, Bravo's Brew) and it's provided either at the start or during the adventure.
For the case when it's provided at the start, we could ask the characters to pay for their consumables. After all, the money you gain also covers consumables. And it's very common to go shopping just after getting a mission.
In the other case, I would just not give these items. Actually, the current situation where a few items are provided but not enough for the party is clearly unfair ("Ok, all the other martials have Cold Iron weapons but me, I'll be very useful for these fey fights...").
I'm all in for the game to be quite easy and not require a great system mastery to be playable, but prepared casters and alchemist are supposed to get an advantage out of it. Strike, Strike, Strike should not get you through the adventure, if there's no thinking, the fun also goes out for many players.
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So yes there's a few different types of usage:
1) The adventure just won't work without X. The potions of waterbreathing scenario is a good example. I don't think these are a problem; these style of 'helpful aids' are normally given during the mission briefing and is basically 'we're sending you someplace that normally your level isn't expected to handle without advanced notice'. If we made you buy your own consumables, a brand new level 1 would be locked out. And even if its a 3-6, if multiple scenarios assume you'll have extra gold to spend on 'I can overcome the 'thing' that makes this scenario different', people will run of out of gold quickly.
2) The adventure is easier with X. Often in a module or an AP, these items are given either a) after encountering the creature/setting/problem that is beaten by X or b) behind a side/optional harder thing before the boss. In case a) its meant to signal, (I think), that was a tough fight, you're likely to see more of them, here's something you might want to stock up on. In case b) its a reward for doing something extra. I think both of those can work pretty well.
2a doesn't work well in society play, its the 'here's a fun item to put on a chronicle sheet' if it comes up after the final encounter/skill challenge and often feels weird, especially if its a common item you'd have access to anyways. People won't play the scenarios in any given order so even say within a metaplot arc you can't really use it to signal what it does in APs/modules.
2b can work in society play and sometimes does, but when it does work it can trigger what the OP is mentioning -- especially if there's not in-game time for a prepared caster(and alchemist's reagents counts as one for this purpose) to reshuffle their load out.
However when 2b is more or less on the main path, rather than a true hard/side challenge it does feel even more unsatisfying. If someone has been paying attention, and using their limited resources to prepare for something, then having those things just given to you undervalues the work you just did.
One of the trickiest bits IMO, is characters varying their default load outs based on the scenario blurb. This is where a character who could something from their daily slots before learning they get it for free; and scenarios often don't give time for daily preparation after the mission briefing.
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Contributor
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One additional point (as someone known for underwater adventures, ha ha): scenarios should be playable be a group of pre-gens if there are pre-gens in tier. If an item is necessary to even attempt the adventure, like potions of water breathing for an underwater scenario, then it has to be provided or the all pre-gen group might be stuck on the shores.
I realize that can be unsatisfying if you invested in underwater abilities for your PC, and at least in 9-24: Beneath Unbroken Waves, I had the Venture-Captain offer an alternate consumable if you didn’t need the water breathing potion.
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One additional point (as someone known for underwater adventures, ha ha): scenarios should be playable be a group of pre-gens if there are pre-gens in tier. If an item is necessary to even attempt the adventure, like potions of water breathing for an underwater scenario, then it has to be provided or the all pre-gen group might be stuck on the shores.
I realize that can be unsatisfying if you invested in underwater abilities for your PC, and at least in 9-24: Beneath Unbroken Waves, I had the Venture-Captain offer an alternate consumable if you didn’t need the water breathing potion.
And in that one a character who has a swim speed or the underwater marauder feat is STILL going to shine. Waterbreathing is an essential and so pretty much HAS to be given to the characters but secondary things really don't need to be.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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To be fair, in OP's case, I think it's a bit of an inelegant design that the adventure (if it is the adventure I'm thinking of) both signposts what's coming up, as well as give items for it. Ideally, IMHO, a scenario should do either of them, not both.
As Belafon and I said up above, the second one is a bit artificial ("We find a potion of Resist Energy in the middle of nowhere? Huh, that's convenient."), but as Kate said, you don't want your players to be completely caught with their pants down. It also teaches new players that these items exist*. I mean, compare it to the Legend of Zelda games. That whole series revolves around "find item in dungeon, beat boss with it."
It might also be a way to help players deal with a problem that not everyone is prepared for. In PF1, swarms were absolute pains in the ass to deal with, and you always tended to find a few alchemist fires just beforehand, just in case. The trick here, IMHO, is giving people proactive things versus reactive things. A Bravo's Brew helps you overcome a challenge, but not actually defeat it. An alchemist fire defeats that swarm no problem. Bravo's Brews are relatively harmless to hand out, as they're not silver bullets for specific enemies. But either way, I understand the frustration of getting the items handed to you after you've taken the precautions.
And the former, it's pretty difficult to properly signpost enemy strengths. If you walk into a dungeon with all kinds of scary enemies, it's probably too late to turn back and buy some Bravo's Brews, so you have to rely on what you have at hand. And since Pathfinders tend to go into ruins that have been abandoned for hundreds of years, you can't really have the Venture-Captain mention offhand, "By the way, you're gonna need this if you go in there," as nobody has been there before. Plus, you don't want to straight up spoil the encounters beforehand. "Oh, by the way, be careful of vampires" ruins the whole murder mystery plot you're set out to unravel.
There's this difficult balance scenario writers need to make between making useful loot drops so players don't feel like they're going in blind, but also not making the scenario a cakewalk by telling them, "psst, you're gonna need this." And like Kate said, scenarios are written for the lowest power level available (pregens). If the authors worry about encounters being too strong, an item drop like this can mitigate a lot of it, or give the party a nice boost.
(Also, personally, I don't think Bravo's Brews are "too strong." They're good things to have, just like antitoxins and the like. "Too strong" are things that are just way out of your level range, designed as a safety net for the brutal encounter up ahead.)
*I read a thread on Reddit a long while ago where someone was complaining the scenarios were too hard. Their entire lodge TPK'ed several times and no one has made it past level 3 before. Turns out, they were all new to the game and simply didn't know certain items existed. So they repeatedly walked into a brick wall of either flying enemies, enemies that spam Darkness, and other things like that. They didn't know there were potions of Fly or oils of Daylight available to them. In those cases, things like this are good tools for new players.
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There's a big difference between 'teaching' situations with consumables in 1-4's and that sort of thing in a 5-8 for example. You want new players to learn that things exist and consumables can/should be considered in budgeting.
By level 6 tho, you're 15-20 scenarios in and should have learned what to do and what not to do and shouldn't be expecting convenient consumables.
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On the other hand, if it is known that there is a scary monster about, it might make sense that *other adventurers* may have prepared themselves with defenses.
(I have no clue what scenario we are talking about, let alone whether I played or GMed it. But sometimes the loot you find is because other people thought it would be good loot to have in that area.)
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1) The adventure just won't work without X. The potions of waterbreathing scenario is a good example. I don't think these are a problem; these style of 'helpful aids' are normally given during the mission briefing and is basically 'we're sending you someplace that normally your level isn't expected to handle without advanced notice'.
I contend that "we're sending you someplace that normally your level isn't expected to handle" is a bad thing in general.
At some point, every character needs to learn how to deal with underwater, darkness, invisibility, fliers, incorporeals, etc. And regardless of where that point is, once you're past that point, characters just need to get thrashed a little.
The last bit, "without advanced notice," makes it a little different, but not totally different. I have no problems with "the village getting attacked by ghosts happens to sell ghost charges and ghost touch runes for 20% above market price." That gives the opportunity for characters to prepare, and slaps on a penalty for not preparing before the adventure. That seems cool. But otherwise, I consider the scenario description and the mission briefing to be "advanced notice" - if the VC tells you you're going to the underwater city of Atlantis and you didn't run out and immediately buy water breathing potions and ask prepared spellcasters to rearrange their daily preparations ... I mean ... a punishment is warranted.
If we made you buy your own consumables, a brand new level 1 would be locked out.
"In Subtier 1-2, the venture captain hands you a potion of water breathing. In Subtier 3-4, the venture captain points you towards the commisary."
if multiple scenarios assume you'll have extra gold to spend on 'I can overcome the 'thing' that makes this scenario different', people will run of out of gold quickly.
PCs get waaaaay over WBL. If they have to buy 1 on-level alchemical consumable every scenario (on top of the school item that they get), they'd still be easily over WBL.
The game was designed with 8 Treasure Bundles per scenario in mind. I'm guessing most characters average 9.5+ TBs. If the party needs to run away from the ghost because they literally can't hit it, and they lose 2 Treasure Bundles, that's exactly what was intended.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If adventure A expects you to buy consumables to even attempt it, and B doesn't need them, is A also going to have more treasure in it?
At that point, if you brought an alchemist who can make the consumables, you just saved some money.
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The OP and I have different ideas of what us "super powerful."
Anyhow, if a subset of scenarios become known for requiring purchases (i.e., you're instructed to buy the must-have-to-even-play thing in the briefing), a subset of the population is going to actively avoid it. That's different than warning people they'll face a white dragon and giving them time to buy energy resistance.
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The OP and I have different ideas of what us "super powerful."
Anyhow, if a subset of scenarios become known for requiring purchases (i.e., you're instructed to buy the must-have-to-even-play thing in the briefing), a subset of the population is going to actively avoid it. That's different than warning people they'll face a white dragon and giving them time to buy energy resistance.
Am I just an outlier here then? Half my characters have scrolls of those things - Resist Energy, Faerie Fire/See Invisibility, Dispel Magic, etc. By the time you really /need/ them, those costs are negligible to your budget but when you need them, you need them, and you don't have time to go back to the commissary.
Pathfinder Society Developer
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Like others, I'm seeing that this is about two things: items that are necessary for plot/environment reasons and handed out at the start of the scenario to make an adventure possible, and items that are nice to have and conveniently show up at the "right time."
In the former case, I can't imagine a situation where we would design and publish a scenario that's only possible if a party has a specific type of ability (e.g. water breathing or flight), and somehow neglect to hand out that ability at the beginning of the scenario. People sign up for these adventures well in advance and sometimes pay for a seat. We don't want to turn folks away or tell them to play a different character just because they can't afford the potion they need. Do we expect higher level PCs to be a bit more prepared? Sure. Do we expect every PC to be prepared for every possible environment or enemy? Of course not. Whether we should be sending lower-level PCs into those types of "higher level" adventure areas (e.g. underwater) is another question entirely. But when we do, we (and the in-game Pathfinder Society) need to make sure they have the tools they need. I think there's a way to do that while still giving PCs options/choices and rewarding PCs who do happen to be prepared for that type of adventure, such as by offering an alternative type of item for those who don't need the "necessary" one.
In the case of "items that happen to show up at the right time," like an item that gives you a bonus against fear-based enemy right when you need it... I suppose sometimes you'll just need to suspend disbelief a little bit. As others have mentioned, plenty of games do this sort of thing to "train" players about the existence/use of specific items. Are we going to do it all the time? No. Are we going to do it sometimes? Sure. I honestly think that handing out some, but not enough for the whole party, is a good thing in adventure design, for a few reasons. One, it means the party needs to make a choice. Do you give the bonus against fear to someone who already has a high Will save, increasing their chance of completely shrugging off an effect with a critical success? Do you give it to the person with the lowest Will save in the hopes they don't critically fail? Do you give it to the person in the front line, hoping they soak up the ability before anyone else gets hit? Also, if you only get two items from the adventure, then someone who brought along a batch of that same item can say, "I already have that, I don't need one." And, if you already made/bought enough for the whole party to have it? Congratulations, you're probably doing something right.
In an environment where adventure authors and developers cannot possibly anticipate the makeup of individual parties, many rewards you find are going to seem redundant or unnecessary.
I don't like the idea of offering the choice to GMs to change up the item(s) that the PCs find lying around, because that puts even more of a burden on GMs who probably don't know exactly what the players have brought to the table in terms of items/abilities. "Oh, there are some bravo's brews here. I better ask the whole table if they brought any, and see if I should replace this with something else." That seems like too much of a mental burden, and too time consuming. I do like the idea of giving choices to players, though, such as by having a grateful NPC offer a choice of rewards. "You want a healing potion or an alchemist's fire?" That sort of thing. But we can't do the same thing every time.
Just my two cp. I'm open to further thoughts and always appreciate discussion of adventure design practices! Org play adventures occupy a very unique space in that regard, for many reasons. Thank you all for contributing to the discussion.
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Personally, I see things like Bravo's Brew to be pragmatic purchases like antidote, antiplague, etc. that are within the reach of most characters and relatively cheap. Most of my characters are pragmatic and invest in 1-2 of these items in a variety of flavors, but I find that most players only focus on the small handful of items that apply directly to a PC's primary focus/ability. By placing these items in the scenarios, my hope is that more players are exposed to how they can provide valuable boosts when they are needed. We shouldn't be restricting scenario development based on the possibility of very specific and narrow-focused builds. Should we never put a weapon in because it impinges on the martial? Should we never reward a wand or a scroll because of casters? Then why would we never place an elixir because of an alchemist?
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I prefer the item rewards be tied to a defeated enemy rather than the Society. You want an Uncommon spell? You have to defeat an enemy spellcaster who uses it on you and take their spellbook. You want the super powerful supersword? Pry it from the evil orc's cold dead hands.
Do we expect higher level PCs to be a bit more prepared? Sure. Do we expect every PC to be prepared for every possible environment or enemy? Of course not.
Not sarcastic/rhetoric: why not?
1. The Wealth By Level argument. Society awards a huge amount of surplus. Officially, it's supposed to be used for consumables - 8 TB/scenario already gives above WBL, and then Earn Income was supposed to give a bonus to replace the consumables used, and then the schools give out a free consumable.
Why don't we expect a level 8 character - who, assuming they've averaged 10 TB/scenario, has 1,839 (plus Earn Income) gp, to have 739 gp worth of consumables to match the WBL table (1,100 gp) in the CRB?
2. The martial/caster argument. This requires a little bit of extrapolation on my part, but the damage that casters are capable of outputting is below that of martials, and I hypothesize that's by design. If the only thing that PCs ever faced were Big Piles of Hit Points with greataxes on flat ground and no cover, there would be no question that everyone would just play martials. The casters sacrifice a significant amount of raw power in return for versatility - specifically because when complicated enviromental situations come up, they're able to take care of {darkness / invisibility / underwater / flying / incorporeal / etc}.
If a caster never deals a single hit point of damage in a fight against a band of orcs, nobody complains that their character is useless and demands that enemies be changed to fit their character build. And yet, the moment that a martial has to sit out a fight because they don't have a way to see in magical darkness, it's something that the scenario authors are expected to fix.
What's so bad about a character sitting out a combat because they were ill-prepared? Yes, it's possible that the party has to run away and fail that part of the scenario. That's not the end of the world either.
if a subset of scenarios become known for requiring purchases (i.e., you're instructed to buy the must-have-to-even-play thing in the briefing), a subset of the population is going to actively avoid it
I agree with the description - I agree that people would do that, and do do that.
I disagree with the proscription - that the fact people do that should drive the scenario design up front.
I understand Paizo is a for-profit entity, so they don't get to be as blase about popularity as I am. And if that's what it comes down to, I'm not so idealistic as to demand they write unpopular scenarios because of what I think should be.
But there's a mismatch between certain design criteria like WBL and class balance, and the the way Society is subsidizing the unprepared.
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Venture-Agent, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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I suspect that the scenario used as an example is the one I GMed last night. It gave out Bravo’s Brew and a scroll that would both be useful in the final fight.
In my opinion, how much directly useful consumables should be available depend on a number of things:
1. Level of the adventure. If it is a 1-4 adventure, be generous and treat it as a teaching opportunity. Give one or two very useful consumables so that attentive players will realize they can use them and hopefully learn the value of them.
2. Environment vs level. Some environments are much harder at mid level than high level. The exact levels have changed — flight used to be common at 5th level in PF1 — but when traveling to other planes or particularly dangerous environments such as underwater or someplace with lava flows you should give out some consumables that allow the party to survive. I would prefer that be given by the VC because it shouldn’t normally be a surprise to the VC that you are going into such a place.
3. Surprise! If there is no warning at the beginning of such a challenge, you should probably give at least one consumable that helps with it.
4. They Should Have Known: Starting at mid-level and continuing into high level, you should start expecting that people are prepared for it. If the VC mentions a particular danger, you really should prepare for that danger. If it isn’t mentioned but was fairly common at lower levels, they should have learned by now. Since there are no longer pregenerated characters for the higher level adventures, you don’t have the situation where a newcomer would even be playing the adventure. Expect the players to be able to handle challenges like that.
5. Wow! That was a lot of Combat! If the whole adventure is challenging combats, you probably should drop in some healing supplies. More if it is a low level adventure than a high level one.
6. This Just Out! If the lastest book included a consumable that makes a challenge much easier, give one out to alert people that it exists. Examples of this would include Ghost Charge (PF2 APG alchemical item) and Nanite Patches (SFS AA3 consumable). Items that weren’t in the original CRB that alleviate a challenge.
Be generous with consumables at the lowest level. Likewise be generous when the group is facing an uncommon or new for their level threat. At high levels, expect them to be able to adapt better.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Do we expect higher level PCs to be a bit more prepared? Sure. Do we expect every PC to be prepared for every possible environment or enemy? Of course not.Not sarcastic/rhetoric: why not?
1. The Wealth By Level argument. Society awards a huge amount of surplus. Officially, it's supposed to be used for consumables - 8 TB/scenario already gives above WBL, and then Earn Income was supposed to give a bonus to replace the consumables used, and then the schools give out a free consumable.
Why don't we expect a level 8 character - who, assuming they've averaged 10 TB/scenario, has 1,839 (plus Earn Income) gp, to have 739 gp worth of consumables to match the WBL table (1,100 gp) in the CRB?
To be fair though, Earn Income doesn't do a whole lot, IMHO. Yeah, it's a nice bit of money, but negligible compared to your regular TB earnings. At level 1, you earn 14 gold per adventure. If you succeed your Earn Income, that's 4 silver extra. A single minor healing potion takes 10 adventures of successful Earn Incomes to recoup the money lost. By then you can already get the lesser healing potions.
Anyway, a Bravo's Brew is a level 2 item, so it's not like a fresh character is able to buy it off the bat, but that's half of one scenario's worth of money. At level 2 I'd buy some extra essentials (a bomb or two, a kit of some kind, maybe a backup weapon), rather than a single Bravo's Brew. But the Brew is an outlier, price-wise, so that's not entirely valid.As for your second point (the 700+ gp of spare cash), maybe you're saving for something (a level 9 item is about 600 gp)? The fact that you're above average wealth-wise doesn't mean you have to spend everything until you're back at average. My Wizard suddenly splurged on several items all at once (mainly because I didn't know what to spend it on), and now he's saving back up for the next big purchase. Yeah, I can wait a scenario or two to buy it, but then I'm missing out on bonuses. And you know how some people are about optimising their builds.
Plus, as said before, not everyone is aware of all the options and/or are capable of carrying all of them due to carrying capacity. At some point, you'll have to decide where to draw the line. There's 10 (PFS-legal) alchemical bombs at level 1 alone, each costing 3 or 4 gp. You can technically buy one of each just to be prepared for every situation, but then you're not spending that money elsewhere. You simply can't be prepared for everything.
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Your example is not a good one because it's one that can't be properly handled.What you are seeing is the balancing act scenario writers have to perform between "too easy" and "unfair situation." Because writers don't want to put the players (and Paizo doesn't want to put customers) in situations where they feel cheated, scenarios are usually weighted towards "too easy."
Let's take the water breathing example. Your low-level party finds a long, submerged tunnel they will need to traverse. What are the writer's options?
spoilered for length:1. Don't give the players anything, but don't put in time pressure. If they don't have the right item/spell at the moment they can leave and come back with it. Downside: players might as well rest. Which means they get all their daily abilities back. That's not a showstopper, it just means the writer has to treat that as a breakpoint where the characters are starting fresh with no expended resources, and can't write anything time-dependent.2. Don't give the players anything, and make time an issue. If they don't have the right thing, they can't progress or maybe instead lose rewards because of delays. Downside: can easily feel "unfair" to players.
3. Give the players potions of water breathing. Lets them progress without putting a break in the scenario. Downside: you found it. The players who did prepare/invest for such situation feel like their cleverness was unrewarded.
4. Put in an alternate solution (puzzle, alternate path, etc.). Downsides: the obstacle doesn't really feel like an obstacle, and again prepared players can feel slightly undervalued.
Sorry, not following what you are saying here. Are you saying that there’s no way to put an underwater tunnel in a low-level adventure?
Out of the four suggested ways the writer could handle it (definitely a non-exhaustive list, BTW) only “no water breathing? You lose!” Is what I would consider a “wrong” way of handling it. The others provide varying degrees of satisfaction to the players depending on their individual circumstances but all allow the plot to progress.
Please expand on “can’t be properly handled.”
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You simply can't be prepared for everything.
It depends on what you mean by "everything". Literally every possibility conceivable to humankind? No. The 5-6 most common pitfalls by level 6-ish (most are Item 3 or Item 4)? Definitely.
Also, there are some procedural solutions. For example, spellcasters should be allowed to prepare spells after the mission briefing - so it's not just a question of the fighter buying a potion, a perfectly acceptable solution is the cleric using their spell slots to prepare something they otherwise wouldn't have.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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These long lists of "required" items were something I really started to dislike in PF1. It makes building a new character a tedious tick the boxes exercise, more like I'm doing corporate due diligence than gutsy adventuring.
It also makes characters feel very samey; ostensibly these are two different characters but they share 20 out of 30 inventory items?
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Sorry, not following what you are saying here. Are you saying that there’s no way to put an underwater tunnel in a low-level adventure?...Your example is not a good one because it's one that can't be properly handled.What you are seeing is the balancing act scenario writers have to perform between "too easy" and "unfair situation." Because writers don't want to put the players (and Paizo doesn't want to put customers) in situations where they feel cheated, scenarios are usually weighted towards "too easy."
Let's take the water breathing example. Your low-level party finds a long, submerged tunnel they will need to traverse. What are the writer's options?
** spoiler omitted **
If you put an underwater tunnel in a low level adventure you need the characters to have potions of water breathing. But from the way you phrase it (the characters happen to find an underwater tunnel) you can't give them beforehand, unless you're ok with completely breaking verrisimilitude ("Here's your mission and a few potions of water breathing that are useless but who knows."). And the solution of putting potions of water breathing in the path is risky as some parties won't get them (like the stealthy party who decides not to fight (and loot) the enemies who happen to have the potions of water breathing).
You need the tunnel to be known beforehand so you can hand the potions to the party in all the cases. That's why I said your example doesn't work.These long lists of "required" items were something I really started to dislike in PF1. It makes building a new character a tedious tick the boxes exercise, more like I'm doing corporate due diligence than gutsy adventuring.
It also makes characters feel very samey; ostensibly these are two different characters but they share 20 out of 30 inventory items?
You need a torch, the light cantrip or darkvision. A way to handle invisibility (you only need one in the whole party). A way to handle climbing and flying at higher level. A way to handle underwater. And a ranged weapon.
And yes, in my opinion, at some levels, not having a potion of Flying or a ranged option is a serious liability that should be punished.Why every Barbarian would rune their swords like crazy but some of them would just die from a level 1 ranged flying enemy because they don't even have a bow?
I agree that you need some specialization, but there are levels of specialization that are crippling.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Thanks everyone for your answers.
The adventure I'm speaking about is a level 3-6 adventure. So, I understand the level argument and I agree with it (I have years of PFS so I tend to forget that there are also beginners). I hope this kind of things will disappear when my Alchemist will get into higher levels as it would be very troubling to receive a Potion of Water Breathing at level 10 as it's a situation that every party should be able to handle at that stage.
Also, I'm not saying that a party should be stuck anywhere in any adventure. Just that having the proper tools for the job should be an asset. For example, the PFS could give you the Potions of Water Breathing at the cost of a few of your treasure bundle at the end of the adventure. That would be quite logical actually, as the PFS will need a way to get its money back.
As a side note, the very same adventure hands you scrolls that are mandatory to complete the mission. But our group had no caster, so it shows that having to hand out items is a dangerous process that can lead to parties being stuck. I think allowing parties to buy the proper items they will need is better as there are often alternate solutions (there is a low level alchemical item that could be used instead of the scrolls for example).
Anyway, I opened this conversation because of the (small) frustration generated by the Bravo's Brews. The adventure was really nice. It was just a small moment where I felt bad of being prepared, which is a bit sad.
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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This particular example - bravo's brews - is also misleading because those give just +1 or +2 to your will save. It doesn't make you immune, it doesn't trivialize the encounter. The bigger issue is that the combat is actually easier for a higher level party because they get more supplies - more bravo's brews, and more of the important scroll, which doesn't really make sense from a difficulty point of view, higher level should be more difficult than the lower level, not the other way around.
Also, if you're lower tier or if you have a full party, there aren't enough of these items for everyone, so prepared characters are still better off because they will have that bonus certainly, while some of the less prepared characters may get it from the potion and the rest do not. It's just that the scenario offers you a chance to boost your saves for 2-4 partymembers. Probably to make it less likely that the whole squad is crippled by effects. Likewise, when you do find a resist cold potion or similar during an adventure, rarely the adventure gives you enough for the whole party, except when you actually need it to go forward:
Like the water breathing potion. "How do we breath underwater" isn't supposed to be the challenge of the adventure - everything else is - so it makes sense to give the party waterbreathing potions to ensure they can take part in the adventure.
Sometimes adventures throw dangerous environments or enemies at you to test if you're prepared and if you can overcome the challenges. Sometimes the adventures use dangerous environments as the setting rather than the obstacle, or enemies that are slightly too challenging or risky for you, so the adventure either gives you a way to negate that environment partially or completely, and gives you tools to become slightly less vulnerable to that specific enemy or tactic to offset the overt danger.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I think the current setup generally is pretty good at introducing items to players and letting players earn the occasional advantage during the scenario. It can be a bit awkward for some classes like alchemists, or wizards in the case of you finding scrolls, but in general, it still seems reasonable, and you likely will not find enough items for the whole party.
EDIT: There is also the consideration that locals or dead adventurers should have something that makes sense for them to have while in that area.
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Why don't we expect a level 8 character - who, assuming they've averaged 10 TB/scenario, has 1,839 (plus Earn Income) gp, to have 739 gp worth of consumables to match the WBL table (1,100 gp) in the CRB?
While I get what you are saying here... but I would rephrase this to "why don't we expect that the character has spent around 739gp for consumables?"
Because, of course, if we are expecting them to buy them, we should expect that they have used a good number of them along the way.
Also, you realize, of course, that many (most) players will look at that and say if I buy permanent items with that 739gp, they can use them all the time, rather than a plethora of things used only once.
I am not saying either way of looking at it is wrong, but I will say I tend to go the route of more permanent items myself.
And, yes, this is causing me pain right now with my level 8 monk, who does not have a fly potion.
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Am I just an outlier here then? Half my characters have scrolls of those things - Resist Energy, Faerie Fire/See Invisibility, Dispel Magic, etc. By the time you really /need/ them, those costs are negligible to your budget but when you need them, you need them, and you don't have time to go back to the commissary.The OP and I have different ideas of what us "super powerful."
Anyhow, if a subset of scenarios become known for requiring purchases (i.e., you're instructed to buy the must-have-to-even-play thing in the briefing), a subset of the population is going to actively avoid it. That's different than warning people they'll face a white dragon and giving them time to buy energy resistance.
All of those things increase your ability to survive challenges, yes. That's different than what I'm talking about. None of those things are required to participate in a scenario, unless there was a hypothetical scenario where the door to the place to be explored could only be opened by using a Dispel Magic on it.
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many (most) players will look at that and say if I buy permanent items with that 739gp, they can use them all the time, rather than a plethora of things used only once.
I am not saying either way of looking at it is wrong, but I will say I tend to go the route of more permanent items myself.
And, yes, this is causing me pain right now with my level 8 monk, who does not have a fly potion.
Well, obviously, if a permanent item or solution comes online at the same level as a temporary solution, then it's a no-brainer to take the permanent solution.
But if a character waits levels to take a permanent item, they have to deal with the levels in between permanent and consumable solutions.
Again, I agree with the descriptive aspect - that people DO tend to buy only permanent items.
And they essentially completely neglect any temporary solution, because they're often provided by the scenario.
Essentially, characters get 10 TB instead of 8 TB, then Earn Income, and spend none of it on consumables (and end up way over WBL) and then rely on free items given by the scenario.
That's the way it does work, but it's really not the way the designers said it was supposed to work.
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All I know is finding or being given items that are helpful before the encounter you need them is a better situation than the common PFS1 disappointment of finding an item that would have been helpful in an encounter in the treasure you get after that encounter.
When things like this work best, finding or being given the item turns a difficult encounter into a manageable one. Also being prepared for it on your own gives you an advantage in the encounter.
Fighting a flying creature at levels when flight isn’t guaranteed for the PCs? Giving one potion of fly means an unprepared group will have a chance. If someone also has their own potion, or brought their archer, or has a range weapon that they’ve put runes on even when they are primarily melee, now the odds start to swing towards the PCs.
I don’t know the scenario in question and didn’t look at the spoiler, because I haven’t had time to play any of season 3 yet. If it’s a situation where without something like Bravo’s Brew, the party is likely to TPK, then the scenario providing some Bravo’s Brew is a good thing. If someone also brought Bravo’s Brew and that makes the encounter easy instead of just manageable, then they are being rewarded for having done so.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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If someone also brought Bravo’s Brew and that makes the encounter easy instead of just manageable, then they are being rewarded for having done so.
The thing is the opposite happened: I've been punished for preparing Bravo's Brews. Sure, we've been able to put everyone under Bravo's Brew, which didn't help much as only the frontliners needed it. But I lost some of my precious reagents for the whole day (20% of them), which greatly diminished my capacity to last.
The message sent was more: Don't bother being prepared, the adventure is built for unprepared parties so the whole preparation thing will be done for you.
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I guess putting monsters in that are immune to fire is punishing pyro-sorcerers? Or putting in oozes is punishing swashbucklers and rogues? I just don't understand the perspective that putting a treasure item into a scenario is punishing to anyone. So, on occasion you will be over-prepped for a scenario. It happens. Consider it the balancing effect of when you get to "win" every other scenario because you are prepared and everyone else is not.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Or putting in oozes is punishing swashbucklers and rogues?
Yes, of course. Every Rogue player expects to meet a certain number of oozes in their carreer but if you go far above this number I can assure you Rogue players will complain heavily.
I just don't understand the perspective that putting a treasure item into a scenario is punishing to anyone.
Well, it looks like the core of the issue is that. Maybe it's not something that happened to you when one of the ability of your character is negated by an item at the exact moment where it should be at its best. Especially an ability that you can't use often (as most PFS adventures are played in one day without the ability to make your daily preparations). It feels punishing, I can tell you.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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If I understand correctly, the sequence of events was as follows?
* Mission briefing. Recall Knowledge checks indicate creatures with a nasty fear effect to be expected.
* Alchemist then during daily prep makes bravo's brews to help with that.
* Later on in the adventure, the party coincidentally finds bravo's brews.
* In the eventual fight, they have more brews than needed; and the alchemist could have saved some reagents.
I guess with those events it's a bit sour for the alchemist, mainly because the warning about fear came so much earlier than the helpful item. If it had been the VC saying "oh, you expect scary creatures? Let's look in the pantry", before the alchemist committed their reagents, then I don't think this would have been so annoying.
Imagine this wasn't bravo's brews but water breathing potions: during mission briefing you find out you have to do an underwater mission. VC doesn't help with that. You decide to buy water breathing potions. Then later on you find a stash of water breathing potions so you didn't need to buy them after all. Wouldn't you be a bit annoyed too?
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Not really, I'd be glad that I get to save my water breathing potion for when the need arises without prior warning - without this adventure, I might not have even purchased one.
Unless the alchemist prepared Bravo's Brews for -everyone- in the party, this didn't really negate their abilities - rather, it complemented their abilities: instead of alchemist being able to spare a couple reagents to help half of the party, now the full party gets helped.
If the alchemist did prep for everyone (or prepped enough that there were brews left over), yeah, it can be annoying, but consider the alternative:
If they hadn't prepared bravo's brews, they would have prepared something else. Like antidotes or Antiplagues. Would it have felt better for the alchemist to prep something that wasn't useful at all in the adventure?
It can suck when your abilities don't work, but for comparison, you failed to provide +1 or +2 to a specific saving throw vs one encounter - compare it to the experience of a rogue or mental spell magic user in a scenario where just about everything is immune to your special gimmick. This thread is simply making too big of an issue about a scenario offering a minor bonus one of you already was providing.
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Well, it looks like the core of the issue is that. Maybe it's not something that happened to you when one of the ability of your character is negated by an item at the exact moment where it should be at its best. Especially an ability that you can't use often (as most PFS adventures are played in one day without the ability to make your daily preparations). It feels punishing, I can tell you.
Meh. Every character build has weaknesses and every one could encounter (and probably will) a situation where their prime function is negated. I could see an argument if this happened on a regular basis, but they only happen on occasion. Encountering an occasional challenge that negates a character's prime function is not a punishment.
If the writers never gave items to overcome the most obvious challenges then we would just be complaining that our handlers were intentionally sending us on missions that we are not equipped to complete. Personally, I think that pragmatism should be rewarded, but its not upsetting to see tools awarded that aid in mission completion.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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Meh. Every character build has weaknesses and every one could encounter (and probably will) a situation where their prime function is negated. I could see an argument if this happened on a regular basis, but they only happen on occasion. Encountering an occasional challenge that negates a character's prime function is not a punishment.
It's the opposite. It's not a weakness, it's a strength that is negated by an item.
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This mostly just sounds like a problem with consumables. Outside of Society I've never seen someone even consider any of the consumables mentioned in here - because they're too expensive system wide. Actually, every game I've been in the consumables conversation usually goes something like "man, a consumable or two for X, Y, Z would be nice" *read consumables price and duration* "oh well, guess not. Maybe at level N where it lasts longer" *reach level N* "naw, still not worth it"
And inside Society it's usually "well, if I'm wrong and this next room doesn't have the Thing in it then I wasted my gold because it doesn't last long enough for 2 rooms. But if I'm in the fight then I don't have the actions or the hands to use it. Guess it stays in the bag." And for stuff like waterbreathing or air walk, if not given I know many people who would never even consider it an option unless given to them.
Giving people more gold will only get some people to buy more because the underlying system "math" for most players says they're severely overpriced and a permanent item is almost always a better use of resources - extra gold just let's them deal with 2 situational things every time they come up instead of the 1 they could afford otherwise.
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extra gold just let's them deal with 2 situational things every time they come up instead of the 1 they could afford otherwise.
Except that they don't deal with it.
Characters don't take the money they could have spent on consumables of water breathing and then buy a permanent item of water breathing - they take the money they could have spent on consumables of water breathing and buy a ring of fire resistance for themselves.
And then stand on the shore with their hand out expecting Deus Ex Potiona when an aquatic combat breaks out.
If the writers never gave items to overcome the most obvious challenges then we would just be complaining that our handlers were intentionally sending us on missions that we are not equipped to complete.
I don't see +1 striking daggers handed out before tough combats to make sure everyone is equipped, in case someone chose to defer buying a decent weapon for themselves.
At some point, if characters aren't equipped to deal with some problems common to the world of Golarion (and let's focus on underwater, dark, invisible, and flying), the Society can't keep subsidizing their unpreparedness.
We're not talking about off the wall abilities given to Unique monsters that nobody reasonably could have expected. Water covers 2/3 of Golarion, what the abyss is your character going to do when they find something interesting underwater?
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extra gold just let's them deal with 2 situational things every time they come up instead of the 1 they could afford otherwise.Except that they don't deal with it.
Characters don't take the money they could have spent on consumables of water breathing and then buy a permanent item of water breathing - they take the money they could have spent on consumables of water breathing and buy a ring of fire resistance for themselves.
And then stand on the shore with their hand out expecting Deus Ex Potiona when an aquatic combat breaks out.
If the writers never gave items to overcome the most obvious challenges then we would just be complaining that our handlers were intentionally sending us on missions that we are not equipped to complete.I don't see +1 striking daggers handed out before tough combats to make sure everyone is equipped, in case someone chose to defer buying a decent weapon for themselves.
At some point, if characters aren't equipped to deal with some problems common to the world of Golarion (and let's focus on underwater, dark, invisible, and flying), the Society can't keep subsidizing their unpreparedness.
We're not talking about off the wall abilities given to Unique monsters that nobody reasonably could have expected. Water covers 2/3 of Golarion, what the abyss is your character going to do when they find something interesting underwater?
A ring of fire resistance comes up far more often than anything waterbreathing. It's fairly explicit in the books that special circumstances like being underwater or flying need adventure level support. It's why we can't ride sharks and birds anymore. They expect it because the system says to, basically.
And a striking dagger isn't even in the same ballpark - it's explicitly expected by math and permanent too.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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But if I'm in the fight then I don't have the actions or the hands to use it. Guess it stays in the bag."
They have the actions, they just choose not to use them. Unless the weapons are welded to the players hands, they can always stow the weapon (interact) or if your feeling lucky, drop the weapon (free) to get the hands available.
Players not using items mid combat is entirely the players choice. They normally choose to stomp the gas pedal instead of doing a tactical retreat and using the items that could possibly help.
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. . . what the abyss is your character going to do when they find something interesting underwater?
Traditionally, hold your breath and swim. If the entire rest of the scenario is behind a stretch of water that requires water breathing to survive, then that is something on an entirely different level.
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Here's another tangential example:
There's a treasure bundle or 2 at the bottom of a deep pit/cleft/whatever underwater; you can see the shimmering glint of gold from the surface.
The challenge is designed to require holding your breath and swimming to reach it and requires either a certain number of rounds of some appropriate DC athletics check to reach (let's say 2 rounds' worth, so 2 rounds down and 2 rounds up burns 4 rounds of breath, leaving you 3 failures on a CON 10).
Critical successes make it easier and give you more breathing (ha) room.
Using a consumable or spell slot to gain water breathing (or improve athletics or gain a swim speed) or being an azarketi trivializes the challenge. Congratulations, you were just rewarded an easy 2 treasure bundles for your preparation/thinking/fortuitous build.
The above is a situation that does not require dropping bestial mutagens or potions of water breathing along the way as part of the design.
The whole party must swim through an underwater tunnel that requires the equivalent of 30 successful swim checks (90 feet long) so holding your breath for 10 rounds, assuming no failure, which requires a CON 20. Nobody could reasonably do this, so if it had to be this way, providing people with a means to reduce the difficulty to doable or all the way to trivial would be appropriate and expecting any random player to have the means to reduce the difficulty to doable would be unreasonable.
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But if I'm in the fight then I don't have the actions or the hands to use it. Guess it stays in the bag."
They have the actions, they just choose not to use them. Unless the weapons are welded to the players hands, they can always stow the weapon (interact) or if your feeling lucky, drop the weapon (free) to get the hands available.
Players not using items mid combat is entirely the players choice. They normally choose to stomp the gas pedal instead of doing a tactical retreat and using the items that could possibly help.
They choose not to because the items never seem worth it. It's a fundamental flaw with the tight math - the numerical difference most items make (until high levels) is below our perception threshold.
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First, someone has to successfully spend an action recognizing a threat can produce a fear effect, which also usually means someone else has recognized all the resistances and weaknesses. Pulling out a Bravo’s Brew takes 2-4 actions and has the manipulate trait. That’s a lot of action to spend. You gain +X vs. DC X+17 fear effect. A martial character has lost an attack. A spellcaster has lost an opportunity to cast a spell.
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Maybe if we stopped giving items out during scenarios and thus letting all characters blow every single penny on the most top-of-the-line gear, they would either be more pragmatic or leave a wealth cushion so they could buy the things they need to complete their mission. And maybe that would mean the developers wouldn't feel the need to over-tune the encounters to provide a challenge.
Then again, I find thing entire discussion to be a bit overly dramatic.
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Maybe if we stopped giving items out during scenarios and thus letting all characters blow every single penny on the most top-of-the-line gear, they would either be more pragmatic or leave a wealth cushion so they could buy the things they need to complete their mission. And maybe that would mean the developers wouldn't feel the need to over-tune the encounters to provide a challenge.
Then again, I find thing entire discussion to be a bit overly dramatic.
That absolutely wouldn't happen. Have you met most players? And have you seen how awful the price on consumables is?
And encounters are overtuned because 2e is so tight on the math and society has mostly scripted encounter triggers.