It feels like the chance of getting through a camping session w/o a random encounter is exceptionally low. Sure there is the advice to limit it to one encounter per rest, but even with that, the fact that every rest will almost always trigger a random encounter feels a little overturned.
For instance: for level 1s, the encounter dc is 12. so we have a 45% of a random encounter in the first hour, and a 50% in the second hour assuming someone does a campaign activity. And then 3 checks over the 10 hours of rest/watches, at 50%, 50% and 50%. Since it looks like the overnight ones don't change the DC from what was established by the camping activities
so the chance of no encounter on a rest is (1-0.45) * (1-0.5) .... = a 3.4% chance of passing a night without an random encounter. There's only 8 random encounters in the table for zone 1. Weighting the percentage, 25% are definite combat, 15% are set-up as non-combat, and the rest(60%) are animals of varying aggressiveness.
If the list of random encounters was maybe ~4 times longer with more non-combat/rumor sources, or even just interesting observation/discovery that percentage of random encounter might work, but as it is it feels like its too much (and would likely double the expected XP if you were tracking such things). I think I recall KM 1e's random encounter list being longer, but then again, it was probably ~3 of these zones combined with the much greater swingyness of CR that brings.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've been going through the camping rules and trying to create a flowchart. I noticed that the camouflage campsite activity states explicitly that it takes an hour, whereas all the others and the general description state activities take 2 hours. I think that the camouflage campsite is a typo. There seems no reason it would take less time, and it would create a flow problem for the character that performed it as they'd be off step an hour with the group.
Perhaps an earlier version had the system based on one-hour increments instead of two? How would this affect the math (your statistical skills are waaay better than mine.
I've also noted that the discover and influence actions of the companion clock in at an hour each. That might be by design, but it seems like you could rocket your influence with a companion and be the best of buddies in 2-3 days.
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes; Camouflage is a typo and should be 2 hours like all camp activities. The discover and influence actions are fine at an hour; it's okay if you rocket your influence with a companion I think. Feel free to adjust that to once per day if you want a longer stretch.
EDIT: Or wait... it's been a minute since I've actually looked at the rules, but if Camouflage is a special case that takes place BEFORE the majority of the camping activity takes place, then yes, it should be just 1 hour, since it should happen during the camp setup, not in the middle of the campout. If I remember correctly.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Comparing the GMG values to the camping values -- its using the GMG's _daily_ random encounter rate as the hourly/per-watch rate. So the camping rules make random encounters about 4-6x more likely per adventuring day after factoring in the base per-day chance.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The GM should always adjudicate when a random encounter happens or not; if they're bogging down play, then limit them to one per day or less. (I thought I put some language to that effect in there, but it might be in the random encounter info in chapter 2 of the main book...).
Camping in the wilds SHOULD have dangers associated with potential encounters, but they shouldn't be happening so often that dealing with them is all you do in your session.
Yes there is the sidebar, but the math is just off. As written we have about a 30-40% chance of an encounter every day, and a 97% chance every night.
If the list of random encounters was maybe ~4 times longer with more non-combat/rumor sources, or even just interesting observation/discovery that percentage of random encounter might work, but as it is it feels like its too much (and would likely double the expected XP if you were tracking such things). I think I recall KM 1e's random encounter list being longer, but then again, it was probably ~3 of these zones combined with the much greater swingyness of CR that brings.
Worth pointing out that many of the Zone random encounter tables have a chance (typically on a roll of 1-5) of having you roll on a previous Zone's table (which can result in nesting back several Zones), so as the players progress the potential size of the random encounter table increases. The limited number of random encounters is, IMO, simply a side effect of PF2's rules using a d20 rather than a d% roll to determine them, and I wouldn't be surprised to see expanded lists fairly soon.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes there is the sidebar, but the math is just off. As written we have about a 30-40% chance of an encounter every day, and a 97% chance every night.My solution is to roll once per evening and then roll a d10 to determine what hour the encounter occurs at.
That's about what I was thinking -- if I use those rules the, as long as people aren't being exploity/needing to be reined in, just one extra check as part of the camping.
|
Reading over the rules for camping and putting together a document for it, I changed critical failure effects to reduce the DC of the Flat Check for Random Encounters by 2 to accommodate for making only 1 random encounter check and the increased danger.
I also decreased the DC by 2 for every 2 hours of activity the party undertakes before resting.
My party did their first couple camping sessions tonight, and we were a bit confused.
The big camping question was whether, "The PCs can take up to four Camping activities each day as long as they aren’t fatigued and as long as there’s enough time in the day before watches begin," meant four EACH or four TOTAL? Since we had five players, I decided it was each, so everyone got a go.
But doing the math, we were a bit more confused?
- PCs sleep 8h, plus watch, plus morning prep. For 5PCs, this is 10.5h
- 8h for all travel actions (this was also an assumption, because the Temperature section in the CRB says that's how long you can travel before fatigue)
- 2h required for preparing campsite before anyone can make Campsite activities. Other PCs can take other exploration actions.
This leaves us 3.5 hours for camping activities. In theory companions get a watch too, so with our four NPCs, that's 4.5 hours. Still only two activities per PC. Though by then, it's ten activities, and I started to realize that restricting it to 4 (or 5) would have been better.
Camouflage Campsite also taking an hour is probably unintentional; it doesn't seem to imply that it happens at a different time than other actions. Relax also says 2 hours, but that one hour is enough to cure Campfire Story failure. It's potentially also a typo in Step 2 "at the end of each hour that anyone undertakes a Camping activity" and should be two hours.
Does any of this track?
My read was that its a cap on four each PC per day, under the assumption that you didn't travel/stopped travelling early that day -- ie if you're staying put for a whole day after immediately re-establishing a camp, you're limited to 4 sets of actions. Normally you'll only get the 1-2 each that you listed though assuming you're travelling.
My read was that its a cap on four each PC per day, under the assumption that you didn't travel/stopped travelling early that day -- ie if you're staying put for a whole day after immediately re-establishing a camp, you're limited to 4 sets of actions. Normally you'll only get the 1-2 each that you listed though assuming you're travelling.
Ah, that would make a lot of sense, yeah.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I still like the approach I used in my KM 1e campaign (I think from a suggestion here on the board, maybe even from you DM), pick a region of the world that you think has weather like you think the river kingdoms should, and use historic weather lookup for that region of the real world and use that -- jump back like 20 years and you should have good data to last most of a campaign. Makes it very easy to plan a realistic change of the seasons.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure if it got into print, but my intention for encounters during camping is 100% that there should be no more than 1 per camp session, and often not even 1.
The amount of camp encounters with monsters should absolutely be tailored to your table's preference, but capping it at a maximum of 1 per camp is my preference (and that also matches the computer game's take on things—once you have an encounter interrupting your camp session, no other encounters hit you that session).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just a suggestion, but random encounters don't have to always be a fight.
Say you roll a random encounter - 3 giants - your party is level 1! OMG DO I HAVE TO KILL THEM OR IGNORE THE DICE?
No - just let the party hear the thumps from the footsteps - some billowing laughter from a deep voice that sounds like it's somehow above them - and 2 others responding. The Thumps get louder - let the players attempt to cover the fire/etc. Let them roll or not - just accept any attempt at cover is fine - the giants in your game are not looking for a fight - are slightly drunk and frankly full - they are just strolling.
In the morning - let the players find the tracks - impress on them the casual destruction along the path.
That's just an example - but you can make 'random encounters' much more than 'find thing - kill thing' - even in real life it's not unusual for bigger and more dangerous animals to decide a fight isn't worth it if they are unsure of the prey and threat posed - I mean injuries in the wild are often fatal - so many prey driven animals won't attack if they don't think it's a sure thing.
You can use this to your advantage.
The thing that is currently is a sticking point is the cooking rules. It's session 5 and they already have over 200 basic ingredients. The bottleneck is rations and special ingredients since each meal requires rations in addition to these ingredients and right now you get orders of magnitude more basic ingredients compared to special ingredients. So in addition to using hunt and gather I've allowed them to use the Subsist activity to get rations (one of the characters took the Forager feat to effectively negate any penalty from 8 hours of exploring).
Are you tracking and spending the ingredients right? A success in the Rostland hinterlands for example gives 15 ingredients.
A basic meal for a party of 4 requires 8 ingredients and 4 rations OR provisions. So unless multiple PC's are Hunting and Gathering or they are getting lots of crit successes they shouldn't have a huge surplus. Also are you considering bulk? A ration has a bulk of L as does a rare ingredient. Normal ingredients don't have a listed bulk but L is probably fair. Does your party have the ability to lug around 20 bulk of ingredients. Also depending on how realistic you want to be the ingredients won't last forever.
Also if multiple pc's are doing the same activity you shouldn't have them each get a result it should be one doing the roll and the others assisting to grant a bonus. Imo anyway.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not sure if it got into print, but my intention for encounters during camping is 100% that there should be no more than 1 per camp session, and often not even 1.
The amount of camp encounters with monsters should absolutely be tailored to your table's preference, but capping it at a maximum of 1 per camp is my preference (and that also matches the computer game's take on things—once you have an encounter interrupting your camp session, no other encounters hit you that session).
Yeah, that for sure didn't make it into print. The math on the rolls have you at well over 75% chance of a random encounter in most zones even if you don't do any activities. I think we did the math if every PC did 1 activity we were at like a 95% chance for an encounter at some point during the camping.
Furthermore, the rules don't say one encounter per camp session, they say once you have an encounter, the encounter zone dc just resets. So playing RAW, it's not only entirely possible, but often likely you'll get at least 2 random encounters per camp session, which certainly bogs down the game.
I get the GM is responsible for cutting out random encounters that are a) not fun and/or b) serve no narrative purpose. But would be nice for some sort of amended rule that lets the PCs do camping activates, but readjusts the math to like a 40-60% chance of an encounter depending on the danger of the zone. I'll just do it by feel for now I guess.