Weapons can deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. Aside from a target's immunities, weaknesses, or resistances, does the type of damage ever make any difference? Seems to me if you do X points of damage the target loses X points of health, and whether X is bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing doesn't matter.
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Weapons can deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. Aside from a target's immunities, weaknesses, or resistances, does the type of damage ever make any difference? Seems to me if you do X points of damage the target loses X points of health, and whether X is bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing doesn't matter.
Feels like you're downplaying those weaknesses and resistances. Having one or the other is quite common and can be the difference between anywhere from 5 to 20 extra damage on any given hit.
There's also things like Swallow Whole which require piercing or slashing to cut your way out. A GM would probably also not let you cut a rope with a hammer or chop down a stone wall with a long sword.
You should carry multiple damage types to deal with these issues, at least until rune costs make it non-viable. (Which never happens for certain builds thanks to things like Doubling Rings, and won't really happen to anyone with ABP.)
I'm aware of all that, Captain. Not downplaying it, just addressing a more specific question. :-)
My characters generally do carry multiple weapons. But... What's ABP?
Thing is, coming from Harnmaster, where damage type does make a difference ("Impact" --- an attribute of the weapon used --- gets reduced by armor values which depend on the damage type, and from that you get "injury points" which reflect the wound, and which must be eliminated to heal the character) I was just kind of surprised that the differences in damage types is to some extent at least ignored in Pathfinder. Different levels of abstraction between the two systems, I guess.
There are a number of "healing" spells in Harnmaster, but in general they don't reduce "hit points" (Harnmaster doesn't have hit points) or "injury points", they just reduce the time it takes to heal. Nobody's getting healed from say a serious cut to the arm instantly, or even in ten minutes. Gonna take a few days. Yeah, I know, most Pathfinder players would find that kind of thing anathema. Different strokes. :-)
My characters generally do carry multiple weapons. But... What's ABP?
Automatic Bonus Progression. A rules variant from the GMG where the sort of essential "make my math better" bonuses (like weapon and armor fundamental runes, magic items that provide Item Bonuses to skills, etc) are removed from items and baked into the level progression of the characters.
Automatic Bonus Progression. A popular GMG optional rule which essentially removes magical item bonuses to stats and striking runes and makes that progression inherent to the character leveling up. It makes things like switch hitting much easier and makes characters feel less dependent on their gear to be badass in exchange changing balance and wealth by level progression some.
Oh, that. ABP further abstracts what in my mind has no need of abstraction. I like the whole runes approach to weapons and armor and would not want to get rid of it.
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That's why it is an optional rule. I only mentioned it because it does significantly impact how you can handle multiple damage types at higher levels.
And yes, once all is calculated out and all the resistances, weaknesses, immunities, or other rules effects take place - HP damage of any type is still just HP damage. It can be described differently in the narrative, but mechanically it just deducts HP.
Damage in PF2 is just a very abstract thing. It makes it very much more playable as a game. Mental damage can kill you. Slashing damage can be non lethal. Tell whatever story you want to have fun. Weaknesses, immunities and resistances make encounters a lot of fun though
Some weapon runes are also restricted by the damage types of the weapon. Here's my current list.
• Runes by Armor and Weapon Characteristics
It's not a big thing, but it's one more little thing to add to the pile.
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Nice guide, Gisher! :-)
Pathfinder: take ten hit points damage. Then suck down a lesser healing potion. Good to go.
Harnmaster: you receive a serious wound (11 injury points, a minimum) to your right upper arm, make a fumble roll to see if you drop your weapon, treat (or have someone else treat) the wound to stop the bleeding, testing endurance to see if the bleeding stops, then by cleaning and dressing it, testing condition once per day to see if your injury points decrease by 0, 1 or 2 points or if the wound gets infected (only on a critical failure). You should be good to go in a week or two. :-)
I know, not most Pathfinder players' cup of tea. :-)
On that Harnmaster scenario, if the strike impact was high enough there is a chance the blow would amputate the arm. Then you go into shock and start bleeding out.
The general rule about combat for Harnmaster is "don't". :-)
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Yeah, that's a system pretty clearly designed with a very different goal. There are a lot of systems I like that have a lot more debilitating injury, instead of just hit points. They generally are suited to different styles of game play than this one is.
Using big buckets of easily replenished HP as a modification of Alien would be terrible, because the mechanics wouldn't work for the tone of the game. The sort of injury mechanics you're talking about would be just as bad for Pathfinder for the same reason.
I'm confused. Is this a thread about PF2E or an advertisement for Harnmaster?
Yes. No. Maybe, I dunno. :-)
I came to Pathfinder from Harnmaster (which I got to from original D&D, but never mind that). So contrasts between the two systems tend to jump out at me.
I'm confused. Is this a thread about PF2E or an advertisement for Harnmaster?
I mean it is different. Difficult healing, and consequences can be fun to play. But also terrible, if your GM is obnoxious and tries to force you to roleplay out long injuries.
It is just it is the antithesis of Heroism, and just doesn't work in a game with regular dangerous encounters.
I suppose it depends on how you define "dangerous". :-)
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I had seen some but not all of those. Didn't realize you had a list of 'em all. Good to know!
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Yeah Pathfinder and D&D have often been criticized for "unrealistic" damage systems, where someone is functioning at full power whether they're at 100 or 1 HP, and then suddenly they're out cold.
But it's not because they couldn't come up with another idea, but because it works well for the particular genre they specialize in. Which is more of a "Die Hard" kind of action movie genre, where the hero gets beaten and bashed but by the next scene, he's just got a sexy scratch on his eyebrow and he's still unstoppable.
D&D and Pathfinder are quite far into the "strong PCs" part of the spectrum. Game systems where injuries also give you penalties tend to be more more into the "desperate gritty struggle" side. The kind of film noir getting killed in a dark muddy rainy alley kinda thing :P
PF2's damage type system I'd say has a lot going for it.
* Monsters often have weaknesses and resistances.
* Compared to PF1, they have fewer immunities, fewer resistances, and more weaknesses. You aren't as often stymied because the enemy is straight up immune to all things you do. But there are more opportunities to exploit a weakness if you have the right tool.
* There's no more "a +X weapon ignores a type Y resistance".
* It's easier to get extra damage types on your weapons.
* Come classes (fighter, champion) get resistance to some damage types based on which medium or heavy armor they're wearing.
* Special material weapons are possible but expensive. It's a real choice whether you'll take them or not. Not like PF1 where you needed a really compelling reason not to.
Overall I'd say the damage types encourage you to try to build a bit broadly, so that you'll more often be able to take advantage of situations. But they don't do it quite so heavy-handedly that you'll end up completely blocked if you don't have the exact right thing at hand.
I suppose it's better than the 1980's "A-Team" genre where everybody is spraying bullets all over the place but nobody gets hurt. I mean, I liked the show but jeez. :-)