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Well, it's certainly too late, but I'd have loved to see a separation between action (the action points you have during your round) and action (the fact that your character does something). For example, a free action is an action that doesn't cost an action.
Having 2 notions so central to the system with the exact same name generates a lot of interpretation issues. It's also very confusing for beginners.
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It's not just two concepts in the one term.
1) Action: A fundamental building block of events that characters can use. They can be used on their own, or be referenced inside Activities.
2) Action: A general term for all of the things that a character can do no matter how simple or complex it is and no matter how much of your turn's time it takes.
3) Action: An action economy unit. You get three of these at the start of each of your turns.
So now we can have sentences like, "A free action is an action that doesn't cost an action." or "Ready costs two actions and lets you use an action as a reaction, but we aren't sure if you can only put an action in it or any one action action."
"A free action is an action that doesn't cost an action."
"Ready costs two actions and lets you use an action as a reaction, but we aren't sure if you can only put an action in it or any one action action."
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This was my one wish in What are some small changes you'd like to see in the Remaster? comment #35. And the request is perfectly in line with the Remaster goal of making the PF2 rules easier to understand.
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Yeah untangling actions and activities would be really nice. Like, where are you supposed to draw the line, since the CRB is full of things called an action but that
- take more than one action (ready basic action)
- take a reaction or free action (various basic actions)
- have a subordinate action (Long Jump skill action)
Meanwhile some activities have multiple subordinate actions, some have only one, some have subordinate activities (spellstrike), and some have none (most exploration activities).
Was there an actual point to distinguishing actions from activities? Is there supposed to be a hard difference so that you can't perform an activity any time you could perform an action (that costs that many action pips)?
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Just playing around with ideas, but wouldn't this be simpler?
- Erase the word "activity" entirely. It didn't work. We never quite understood what that distinction was supposed to accomplish.
- Use a different word for cost. I dunno, point? You can make a vanilla Strike as a one-point action. The exact word doesn't matter, as long as it's reserved for this idea and this idea alone. Normal actions cost normal points. Reactions cost reaction points. Free actions don't cost points. Normally, characters get three action points and one reaction point per turn. (And I wouldn't use "action" and "activity" as the words here. They're too similar. "Action" and "point" are easier to tell apart.)
- Use the word "action" for anything you do, regardless of the cost. Attack of opportunity is an action that costs your reaction point. Release is a free action so it doesn't cost any points. Strike is a one-point action. Double Slice is a two-points action.
- Keep the idea of subordinate actions. Double Strike is a two-points action. It has two subordinate Strike actions, but because they're subordinate, their original point cost doesn't matter anymore.
In summary:
- Use a different word for action (the thing) and action (the cost).
- Don't bother distinguishing between actions and activities.
This seems like you could do this with "Action" for the specific rules sense and "action" for "a thing you do"
So slowed would be "when you regain Actions at the start of your turn, reduce the number of Actions by your slowed value."
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I believe (with admittedly only circumstantial evidence) that the reason there's not "action points" or something like that is because they felt it would sound too technical and/or videogamey. A significant amount of folks are perfectly fine with having "focus spells", but would lose their mind over something being called an "encounter power". How things are named and described is surprisingly important to people, even at the cost of clarity sometimes. We can see the same with having flavor text bleed into spell descriptions and so on.
The naming is important, for sure. Names are important for immersion. But names also need to be clear, and right now they're quite confusing.
Re: focus spells. They're like encounter powers but they overcome one of the big immersion breaking parts of focus spells. If trick A is so hard that it's exhausting and I can do it only once per encounter, okay fine. If the same goes for trick B, okay, fine. But why can I do both A and B, but not twice A? That's weird and hinders immersion. Focus points achieve this much better. (And as general game balance goes, some form of encounter powers is a pretty nice design tool that works well.)
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Someone needs to take action!
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"usually costs multiple actions" (but there are also things labeled an action that cost multiple actions)
"usually has subordinate actions" (but not always, and so do some things labeled as actions)
The only sure-fire way to know if something is an activity and not a particularly buff action, is when it's described as an activity.
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... an activity IS an action.
But an action is not necessarily an activity; like a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle might not be a square.
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I've followed the whole discussion, and I can see that the confusion is real even among experienced players.
Still, I don't think there's any simple solution to solve this conundrum. 3-action system is clearly an important name for Paizo, and I understand they don't want to use words like action points that are quite common in video games.
Maybe every action should have cost a single action. Instead of having Power Attack costing 2 actions, they could have used the same wordings than Metamagic and consider that Power Attack is a "metastrike" action, increasing the next strike damage by a few damage dice. Similarly Double Slice could be an action that follows a Strike from your main weapon and that makes a Strike with your secondary weapon at no MAP.
Just my 2 cents.
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I could've sworn there was some significance between activity and non-activity in a couple places, but I can't recall any off the top of my head
I can't think of any in that direction either. I'm not aware of anything that says that you can only use an activity and not a simple action.
Even for exploration activities there are the rules for improvising an activity by using an action repeatedly.
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The bigger problem, of course, is the abilities and such that call for an action and we don't know if an activity qualifies. Most notably Ready and Act Together.
If you allow 1-action activities in both of those, then people can use flurry of blows with stunning fist as a reaction on the enemy's turn with a trigger of 'the enemy moves within my reach'.
If you forbid 1-action activities in both of those, then Summoner characters can't have their Eidolon use a 2-action ability like Beast's Charge while the summoner casts Boost Eidolon and Guidance (since casting spells are explicitly defined as always being an activity).
And the rules language between the two is too similar to have different rulings for each.
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Well, given the comments in other areas I think the whole point of this and basically all other Remaster threads (other than ones to express hype or perhaps disappointment as a measure to let feelings be known) are kind of moot, devs have said that the whole thing is basically already done already and that any changes, even ones to the fonts or layout that don't even change phrasing/wordcount would be nearly impossible to get done even if they really wanted to.
I guess all we can do now is hope this was already on their minds over the last 6 months when the work to consider what they DO want to/will change was actually being done.
/shrug
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Yep, and what actions are and aren't activities isn't well-defined, and I'd like that to change. But lines like
[Flurry of Blows] is an action, not an activity, yet it has subordinate actions. But you still can't use Strike-based actions or riders with it or before 'If your last action was a Strike' effects. Manifest Eidolon is a 3-action 'action' as well to cover the other description of activity.and
seem to be confused about rules lines that refer to activities as "actions" as if that makes them no longer activities.[An activity] "usually costs multiple actions" (but there are also things labeled an action that cost multiple actions)
[An activity] "usually has subordinate actions" (but not always, and so do some things labeled as actions)
Well that's the question really. Why are activities described as a thing at all? Are they meant to be separate from other actions? Are there supposed to be cases where you can do an action but not an activity (even if the action costs more than one action, or the activity costs only one action)?
It's vague and the benefit of having the term "activity" in the game system isn't clear.
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Well that's the question really. Why are activities described as a thing at all? Are they meant to be separate from other actions? Are there supposed to be cases where you can do an action but not an activity (even if the action costs more than one action, or the activity costs only one action)?
It's vague and the benefit of having the term "activity" in the game system isn't clear.
breithauptclan identified three different meanings of the word "action," so we should keep the word "activity" because we need more words.
It's not just two concepts in the one term.
1) Action: A fundamental building block of events that characters can use. They can be used on their own, or be referenced inside Activities.
2) Action: A general term for all of the things that a character can do no matter how simple or complex it is and no matter how much of your turn's time it takes.
3) Action: An action economy unit. You get three of these at the start of each of your turns.
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The Introduction chapter of the PF2 Core Rulebook first uses the word action in its English sense, "A session can be mostly action, with battles with vile beasts, escapes from fiendish traps, and the completion of heroic quests. Alternatively, it could include negotiating with a baron..." but its first use as a game keyword is,
During the game, players describe the actions their characters take and roll dice, using their characters’ abilities. The GM resolves the outcome of these actions. Some players enjoy acting out (or roleplaying) what they do as if they were their characters, while others describe their characters’ actions as if narrating a story. Do whatever feels best! If this is your first experience with a roleplaying game, it is recommended that you take on the role of a player to familiarize yourself with the rules and the world.
That is a good introduction to actions as a fundamental unit in Pathfinder, though it still does not clarify the action economy. The action economy is introduced on page 10.
During a round, each participant takes a turn. When it’s your turn to act, you can use up to three actions. Most simple things, such as drawing a weapon, moving a short distance, opening a door, or swinging a sword, use a single action to perform. There are also activities that use more than a single action to perform; these are often special abilities from your character’s class and feats. One common activity in the game is casting a spell, which usually uses two actions.
Free actions, such as dropping an object, don’t count toward the three actions you can take on your turn. Finally, each character can use up to one reaction during a round. This special type of action can be used even when it’s not your turn, but only in response to certain events, and only if you have an ability that allows it. Rogues, for example, can select a feat that lets them use their reaction to dodge an incoming attack.
Page 17 defines the action icons under Understanding Actions.
[One Action Icon] Single Actions
Single actions use this symbol: [One Action Icon]. They’re the simplest, most common type of action. You can use three single actions on your turn in an encounter, in any order you see fit.
The quote above implies that a single action is not the fundamental definition of action, but only one type of action. And then further down the page, the definition of Activity contradicts that implication.
Activities
Activities are special tasks that you complete by spending one or more of your actions together. Usually, an activity uses two or more actions and lets you do more than a single action would allow. You have to spend all the actions an activity requires for its effects to happen. Spellcasting is one of the most common activities, as most spells take more than a single action to cast.Activities that use two actions use this symbol: [Two Action Icon]. Activities that use three actions use this symbol: [Three Action Icon]. A few special activities, such as spells you can cast in an instant, can be performed by spending a free action or a reaction.
All tasks that take longer than a turn are activities. If an activity is meant to be done during exploration, it has the exploration trait. An activity that takes a day or more of commitment and that can be done only during downtime has the downtime trait.
I like the natural language of the introduction where actions as tasks that player characters want to perform and actions as well-defined game events fit into the same place in sentences.
And for clarity, the rules define one kind of action beyond action, free action, reaction, and activity. They define single action. So my favorite solution would be to dump the word activity meaning, "An activity typically involves using multiple actions to create an effect greater than you can produce with a single action, or combining multiple single actions to produce an effect that’s different from merely the sum of those actions." (quote from PF2 Core Rulebook, Playing the Game chapter, Actions section, page 461). Instead, activity will refer to actions that take longer than a turn, typically used during Exploration and Downtime mode, so they cannot follow the turn-based action economy. Instead, we could have turn-based actions subdivided into free actions, single actions, double actions, triple actions, and reactions. Single actions are actions that fit three to a turn in the action economy, double actions are defined as actions that cost twice the action cost in the action economy, and triple actions are defined as actions that cost thrice the action cost in the action economy.
I personally don't like the action/activity distinction and it's caused a lot of confusion in my players. They thought of it as some sort of completely separate minigame or subsystem of play, when in practice (reality?) "activities" are just really long actions.
I wonder if "free action" is a thing that's going to be lost in the ORC transfer because that's D&D trade dress, so it might end up being a "free activity".
So you could have "Actions" being the basic quanta of encounter mode. Whereas an Activity" is "Something you do that costs 0-3 Actions" with an aside that an Activity which costs 1 Action might be colloquially refereed to as "an Action".
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@Mathmuse: that's a nice analysis. I think that switch to "single action", "double action" etcetera is actually more economical with word count than having to occasionally say stuff like "as a two-action activity you can do X".
Reserving "activity" for downtime and exploration also feels good, since it sounds a bit more sustained than "action" so it fits the longer timeframe.
But you'd probably still need to find a nice way to phrase (and initially teach, to new players!) the concept of "if your last action was X, you can now Y". If I just used the Double Slice double action, was my last action a Strike?
Well we have that now too, it's something people need to be taught since you can't purely guess.
... when in practice (reality?) "activities" are just really long actions.
... or time-compressed actions where multiple actions are performed in less time than it would take to perform them separately (e.g. slingers' reloads).