But that's exactly my point.
A time limits weights on resources and choices, while not having a given time limit but just "You should hurry or else..." is, mechanically speaking, worth nothing.Not saying it's not fine or it's bad, but that's just kinda different to have a whole adventure built with a time limit in mind ( mechanics ), and another one that let you intend that you might not have that much time ( flavor ).
Strongly disagree. As a GM, I'm never going to tell my players you have exactly 3 weeks before X happens, unless there is some very specific reason they should know that kind of information. Like they find someone to interrogate that has that info, or find written instructions. But more likely anything written that is found is going to be vague, and interrogation of anyone but high level enemies is likely to be equally vague and unhelpful. And I don't think I need to tell you that you have 3 weeks, I don't want to tell you either because knowing kills the sense of urgency. In my mind "you should hurry or else the BBEG will get the McGuffin that will let them do some horrible thing" is really all the players need to know.
Also, plenty of APs do have mechanics associated with failure to do things on time, but almost never do the players actually know what those mechanics are. They simply experience the outcome based on how they play through. And that's also exactly how it should be.
I am not sure you got what I meant.Apparently not, I am not understanding what you are saying.
Basically what I read from this is that if the AP writers don't specify out exactly how many weeks the players have available to complete the plot objectives, then the players should feel free to take literal years between battles and the GM should just allow that. That adding such things would be a houserule added to the AP that the players have grounds to contest against.Yeah, AP are pretty straightforward ( and there's almost always no issue in terms of time ).
For example, if you were to flee from the before mentioned "Stone Golem", you might easily go back to the city, do half a year of retraining, crafting, etc... and go back finding the room exactly as you left it.
It may be different if there were some time limit to achieve a specific goal, but I think it's never the case with premade works.
I think maybe I also don't understand what HumbleGamer is suggesting.
Humble, are you saying that without very specific timelines and consequences that the players are aware of that it's meaningless?
Or are you saying if it's not expressly written for GMs about how long and exactly what the consequences are it's meaningless?
I mean, I disagree with both. But the 1st one is completely crazy. The players shouldn't ever really get that information.
The second one is sort of understandable, but only in the sense that an inexperienced GM or a GM who needs the support of the written adventure to tell their players "So you decided to to spend 3 months crafting, and now the Demons have corrupted all ward stones and all the cities have fallen under their control. You are still level 4 and the villains have basically reached their end goal, with only Kenabres still protected because of your initial actions here. The demons have become entrenched, and while you can still try to unf%@& things here, it's become 100 times harder than it was before. You will most likely die, and I will not pull punches."
A GM shouldn't need it written explicitly for them what happens if the players don't do what they should do, just read through the adventure and think "If the players ignored this completely, what would be the result?" And that's what happens. Writers don't always write that out because again, they're trying to write the story for the players to be heroes and intervene. Writing out what happens when they don't do that is a lot of extra writing and basically amounts to writing a story book in which there are no PC heroes and evil gets to do whatever they want unopposed. That's not what they're trying to write.
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So I think it might be summed up with these lines:
Given a random AP, time is never an issue.
Unless, obviously, the DM decides so.
But even then it would be adding an extra to something not meant to have time issues ( but ofc if the DM decides so, the players will face consequences and will have to deal with time too, obviously )
It looks like a fundamental difference in assumptions.
You are assuming that if the AP doesn't list out a time limit, that there - by default - isn't one.
That isn't an assumption that all people make. So it is good to at least understand and acknowledge that when giving advice.
Because advice that may work for your particular gaming group and your assumptions, isn't going to go well at different tables.
The other assumption - the one that all of my games go with - is that the time limit is not known to the players, and it isn't written in the AP, but it most definitely does exist. The GM may not be tracking time explicitly, but unless the GM mentions that we have no time pressure and instead have several weeks or months of free time, that we need to actually go and do something about these problems that we know about. Spontaneously deciding on our own as players that we are going to take 6 months of downtime isn't going to go well.
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You are assuming that if the AP doesn't list out a time limit, that there - by default - isn't one.
That isn't an assumption that all people make. So it is good to at least understand and acknowledge that when giving advice.
Because advice that may work for your particular gaming group and your assumptions, isn't going to go well at different tables.
It is not an assumption.
An assumption is trying to figure out how a bad written feat works...
No, the other meaning of assumption. The formal logic meaning of assumption. Something that is considered true from the very beginning and forms the foundation of how everything else is interpreted. Synonyms: axiom, principle, self-evident, precept.
But if an adventure doesn't mention time in the proper way, it's not an assumption that there are no rules about it. It's a mere observation.
This is exactly the assumption that Briet is pointing out that you shouldn't make.
Writers don't spend their time writing out the consequences of what happens when the players don't do what they should do because that's a lot of wasted writing for the groups that don't try to take 6 months to go fishing. They expect the GM to do their job and keep the players involved in playing out the story before them.
You are assuming that just because it isn't written means it shouldn't exist. GMs are not computers. They're supposed to expand and extrapolate. Writers cannot write for every possible scenario. The AP provides a background and a prompt, but a good GM knows how to improvise and react and provide a living believable world to the players playing in it.
Just because the writers aren't writing out explicit rules about "if the players don't stop minion #33 from doing this particular thing then the BBEG get's the McGuffin in 1 week and then ascends to super godhood in 3 weeks, and then collapses the material plane in 5 weeks".
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It's just a standard AP, and whatever the DM decides to add to it ( and the players will play consequently).
That is more what I am trying to point out. That the GM and the players often have the basic understanding that there is a progression of time in the world. That the enemies don't just sit around when not being attacked.
For example:
1) all of the Bumblebrashers are dead
2) Voz has found and repaired the portal
3) The Cinderclaws have begun using the portal again
4) The citadel is now crawling with Charau-ka and Boggard warriors
5) The town is being raided by said Cinderclaws
So giving general advice that 'oh, you can just retreat from the battle and come back six months later and nothing will have changed' is not a standard tactic that is going to work in most cases.
This is exactly the assumption that Briet is pointing out that you shouldn't make.
Writers don't spend their time writing out the consequences of what happens when the players don't do what they should do because that's a lot of wasted writing for the groups that don't try to take 6 months to go fishing. They expect the GM to do their job and keep the players involved in playing out the story before them.
You are assuming that just because it isn't written means it shouldn't exist. GMs are not computers. They're supposed to expand and extrapolate. Writers cannot write for every possible scenario. The AP provides a background and a prompt, but a good GM knows how to improvise and react and provide a living believable world to the players playing in it.
Just because the writers aren't writing out explicit rules about "if the players don't stop minion #33 from doing this particular thing then the BBEG get's the McGuffin in 1 week and then ascends to super godhood in 3 weeks, and then collapses the material plane in 5 weeks".
I take issue with this way of thinking for several reasons.
1) It doesn't fit with the pacing of retraining and other downtime activities as presented in the core rules.
2) There is often precisely zero information about how the scenario/dungeon/plot point evolves over time and only changes things based on the players overcoming challenges and moving on to the next section of the adventure.
3) Such strict timelines actually stifle player creativity as it leaves no time to do anything but follow the plot railroad that the AP is generally set upon.
If you want there to be a time limit write one in and attach mechanics to it. It isn't hard, Red Hand of Doom did it back in 2006 and the total overhead was probably 2 or 3 pages out of 128. There's zero excuses for adventure design to have devolved since then.
It's just a standard AP, and whatever the DM decides to add to it ( and the players will play consequently).That is more what I am trying to point out. That the GM and the players often have the basic understanding that there is a progression of time in the world. That the enemies don't just sit around when not being attacked.
For example:
** spoiler omitted **So giving general advice that 'oh, you can just retreat from the battle and come back six months later and nothing will have changed' is not a standard tactic that is going to work in most cases.
Do you also ensure that encounters crash in on the party when fought in enclosed spaces or plan for if the spot the party chose to take a short rest in will be visited by a patrol? If you don't why do you enforce reality on one scale and not the other?
Also, how do you deal with crafting, retraining, and other downtime activities which the game should support?
Also, how do you deal with crafting, retraining, and other downtime activities which the game should support?Er, the game does support these? (Or am I experiencing a senior moment? [dammit I had more than decade before that])
You might consider the manner in which Gloomhaven's narrative proceeds. Gloomhaven scenarios never time out, no matter how many times the players fail at them.
Now I realize that this is a realism breaking game mechanic, but in essence, unless an AP states otherwise, they all use video-game-like, retry the scenario as often as you like. (Like the APs have a purely game-like utility that if your table wants to, there's nothing stopping you from playing through them again using characters of whatever level you want. [And D&D adventure modules had this same feature, it's where video games get their "repeat the level" mechanic and games like Gloomhaven get their scenario replayability.])
If you want more realism regarding time passage for APs, that's an after-market modification you need to make to the average AP.
I think you misunderstand me.
I'm arguing that DMs running APs shouldn't be strict on time because enforcing tight timelines conflicts with downtime activities and retraining. Unless an AP is designed with timeline mechanics and adds in ways to mitigate the lack of downtime you're losing an entire pilar of the game by not allowing players at least a couple months of downtime every handful of levels.
Do you also ensure that encounters crash in on the party when fought in enclosed spaces or plan for if the spot the party chose to take a short rest in will be visited by a patrol? If you don't why do you enforce reality on one scale and not the other?
Well, I am a player in the AoA game.
But yes, we do expect that if we take a short rest in the middle of a hostile area we are likely to get interrupted. We either have to go to a safer area or barricade ourselves somewhere.
And we have had nearby enemies come in as reinforcements - though not often.
But that is the thing - we as players are the ones policing our realism in the game. If you and HumbleGamer and your respective groups like the less realism style games where you have no time pressure - the rules certainly support that.
But it isn't the default expectation. At least not enough to be giving that as advice in general.
Also, how do you deal with crafting, retraining, and other downtime activities which the game should support?
We have plenty of downtime available. During reasonable break points in the plot of the campaign.
Also, how do you deal with crafting, retraining, and other downtime activities which the game should support?Can support. It's not a given in every adventure.
That really nerfs several classes that otherwise rely on crafting. Wizards in particular, and casters in general, greatly benefit from being able to craft ample volumes of scrolls as they otherwise have little of value to spend their gold on. It also makes it hard for RP to happen as players feel rushed out of doing intelligent things like investigating, gathering info, aiding the NPC populations in preparing to face trouble, etc.
Too strict a clock not only goes against how PF2 is designed but also ruins how players interact with the material.
And we have had nearby enemies come in as reinforcements - though not often.
Given the cramped nature of many Paizo AP dungeon designs doesn't this hurt the verisimilitude of the adventure?
We have plenty of downtime available. During reasonable break points in the plot of the campaign.
How would you define such breaks and do you assume that other groups would make similar assumptions to your group?
The game doesn't rely on crafting.
Unless a character builds specifically for it, they won't be able to do crafting at all.
And even if they do build specifically for crafting, it isn't better than just buying the scrolls and consumables that you need. Not unless the campaign is specially designed for needing crafting (low resource or low settlement level survival campaign).
The game doesn't rely on crafting.
I would highly disagree. The game has by default a multitude of downtime activities, crafting being among them, and not supporting them removes a lot of interesting texture and interaction from the game. It seems rediculous to disallow that pillar of the game in APs just because the designs didn't spell out the exact tempo said AP should play out at.
It also makes it hard for RP to happen as players feel rushed out of doing intelligent things like investigating, gathering info, aiding the NPC populations in preparing to face trouble, etc.
Investigating, gathering info, and aiding the NPC populations to face trouble is the 'handling the plot events' that I am talking about. Not just the killing of monsters.
And we have had nearby enemies come in as reinforcements - though not often.Given the cramped nature of many Paizo AP dungeon designs doesn't this hurt the verisimilitude of the adventure?
It hasn't so far.
We have plenty of downtime available. During reasonable break points in the plot of the campaign.How would you define such breaks and do you assume that other groups would make similar assumptions to your group?
I would not make such assumptions about other groups. The 'appropriate' breaks in the plot are for each group to determine. We did take a week of downtime to recover and better equip ourselves after having to retreat from a battle. There were several references to even that brief passage of that time in the narration and description of the events though.
It seems rediculous to disallow that pillar of the game in APs just because the designs didn't spell out the exact tempo said AP should play out at.
You seem to have this false dichotomy here.
It isn't a binary decision: either the GM sets no time limits and the entire world and all the enemies freeze while the players spend as much downtime as they want, or the GM is forcing a frantic pace where the players are never given even any time to say "hi" to the townsfolk.
Seriously - middle ground exists.
After identifying a creature's weakness, you use a thematically resonant bit of esoterica to attune your attacks to your discovery. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes activate the highest weakness you discovered with Exploit Vulnerability, even though the damage type your weapon deals doesn't change.Relevant text as to why thaumaturge doesn't actually break regen. In this case, as no chaotic damage is being done, regen never turns off.I don't think that interpretation is correct. Activating a weakness is functionally the same as dealing that damage type, so if the weakness and regeneration-disabling damage type are the same, the regeneration is turned off. I would be very surprised if that was intended any other way, despite the inaccurate language.
The bit about your weapon's damage type not changing merely states that you don't suddenly only deal chaotic damage. You deal whatever damage type(s) your weapon deals plus the weakness.
The text, which is quoted right there, is very specific in saying the exact opposite.
It's a magical ability to trigger the weakness that isn't even useful if you actually deal that damage type.
It isn't very specific at all, which is the problem. Outside of it, damage dealt triggers weaknesses. For that, the rules say you simply increase that damage. The rest just says "take damage" without specifying the type. In cases like this, it would only make sense to be the same damage type as the weakness, meaning you disable the resistance/regen.
I take issue with this way of thinking for several reasons.
1) It doesn't fit with the pacing of retraining and other downtime activities as presented in the core rules.
2) There is often precisely zero information about how the scenario/dungeon/plot point evolves over time and only changes things based on the players overcoming challenges and moving on to the next section of the adventure.
3) Such strict timelines actually stifle player creativity as it leaves no time to do anything but follow the plot railroad that the AP is generally set upon.
If you want there to be a time limit write one in and attach mechanics to it. It isn't hard, Red Hand of Doom did it back in 2006 and the total overhead was probably 2 or 3 pages out of 128. There's zero excuses for adventure design to have devolved since then.
I understand your complaints, but I don't see them as actual problems.
1) Your typical AP isn't intended to have downtime or allow for retraining. There's nothing wrong with that as long as players know that's the case up front. In the case of a new player realizing that their character isn't working the way the want as a GM I feel better about handwaving the retraining time rather than handwaving the consequences of being in a living world that reacts to the PC actions (or inactions).
2) True, it's left up to the discretion of GMs. This is a computer game, and there are so many possible paths that players could take. It's up to GMs to figure out how to handle that, and no writer could ever possibly cover all the possible permutations so it would be a waste of time and paper to try. They write the script with the concept that the GM will use it for inspiration and adapt as needed.
3) Yes, that's true. But that's true of most any story. You can have APs that don't follow that presumption, Kingmaker is an example where timelines are incredibly flexible and there can be a lot of downtime.
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Briet
This is a complete off-topic aside, but this was the post where it finally clicked for my internal monologue how 'breithauptclan' is pronounced. I don't know why it took this long but I am relieved that the uncertainty is over.
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Especially in PF2, crafting doesn't really help anyone with anything except getting access to an item if it's not otherwise available. It doesn't actually make items cheaper. Supposing the location you are in has on level relevant tasks for you to do, you can make as much money using lore (and sometimes other skills) to do stuff as you can with crafting. Actually because of crafting rules you lose a few days worth of time each time you craft an item, so it's actually worse than just working a day job and using that money to buy an item.
As long as your GM isn't making it difficult for you to buy stuff you want then crafting doesn't gain you much.
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On occasion people have complained that typical Paizo dungeons are too big to clear in one run, but the story sounds a lot like things are super urgent and you need to do that.
The dev answer was usually along the lines of "the AP is just a starting point for the GM, and besides, there's no strict mechanical timeline of how fast you have to do this in the book".
So you have on the one hand the story which usually sounds somewhat urgent. On the other hand, there's usually no mechanics that require you to go all that fast. And in fact it might just not be reasonable to do a 10-encounter dungeon in a single day even though all the rooms are close to each other.
So as GM you gotta pick a balance point there.
As for downtime, again I think this is a matter of taste. Most APs have some fast-feeling parts of the story and some slow points in between. It would feel weird to take a few months downtime just before the final bossfight of the book. Taking that downtime afterwards, before starting on the next book, usually makes more sense.
Some groups care about downtime and getting into details about crafting etc, others just say "okay shop between sessions and you can retrain some stuff if you want" and speed along.
I'd say opportunities for retraining are actually much more important than crafting, but the GM can just say it all happens offstage and not spend much playtime on it.
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In my opinion, there is an unspoken agreement in all games like this:
- GMs will not force an actual specific timetable/deadline on the PCs,
- PCs should generally believe there is a specific timetable/deadline, and
- Players should act like there is a specific timetable/deadline, even when they know better
Likewise, published adventures can't really assume PCs will have the appropriate resources for a particularly 'unusual' encounter unless they actually provide said resources: Lower level adventures in particular can't just assume you have a spellcaster with the appropriate spells that is willing to expend the spell slots (which might make up a large portion of their casting resources), nor can any adventure just assume the party can do Chaotic damage necessary to shut down a Marut's regeneration (but apparently they did).
I feel like there is room for the answer to "What do we do if we didn't have the thing on hand?" To be "You retreat and go get the thing" but that's highly dependent on context. Going to explore an abandoned ruin and discovering its haunted by ghosts and deciding to go back for those ghost touch longswords and you saw back in town is a valid answer because the ghost problem isn't really going to go anywhere while you're gone and you can (usually) retreat from the area back to safety.
It's cool when the werewolf hunting vampire slayer gets to benefit from springing for a silver weapon, and the rest of the party might decide to pick up silversheen for and adventure in the Wolfman Forest, but the marut just isn't like that. If you start a fight with a marut without having a Cleric of a chaotic deity in the party, you can't end that fight until you go find a convenient anarchic rune or priest or that uncommon bomb
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What I've seen is that GMs are often willing to accept the party running away if they see they can't do a fight, and you can construct a story about how the party is able to get away that looks plausible at least if you don't look too closely.
The marut is problematic again because it's very mobile and because as an inevitable, "it doesn't give up" is kinda part of the theme.
It feels like the kind of enemy you can't just randomly put in a room. You really have to plan this one out as GM and think about what if the party can't win, then what else can they do?
I know very, very little about the AP in question, but it feels like "marut" isn't the sort of monster that says "I see you enter my space and now I will chase you forever." Like... there should be options for either disengaging (because it has Rules that it is Following) or just not getting into combat in the first place (it's not any kind of evil). If it really is a brutal lesson in "Well, as a high-level party of course you need to have every kind of damage type there is available to you at all times" that's... not great. It's a reason to prioritize alchemists, I guess?