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I'm not particularly good at super simplifying things, but I'll drop in the copy from a document I made to introduce the infiltration mechanic to them. I also made notes to enhance/flesh out the Pagked infiltration (i.e. giving them a sliver of information with each success in the first stage of the infiltration). If you're interested, I could clean those up and drop them in here as well.
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AN INTRODUCTION TO INFILTRATIONS
In PF2e, Infiltrations provide a way to tell a cinematic heist or suspenseful espionage scenario, putting skills and social strategizing ahead of combat. While combat can take place, an Infiltration largely relies on skill checks, the creative use of resources (spells and abilities) as well as out of the box/off the menu thinking. Think of this as bringing a “Mission Impossible” or Bond-like scenario to life in a roleplaying game. The Infiltration mechanic means that the entire endeavor isn’t doomed due to a single bad die roll at an inopportune moment. Failure comes as the result of suspicion rising over time and ultimately reaching a tipping point.
Having said that, an infiltration can almost entirely be executed via roll mechanics – assessing each challenge then making the appropriate rolls. But we can also apply a role playing mindset here – visualizing the scene and painting the picture through our collaborative descriptions of what is happening, and what want to do. I’ll be awarding hero points based on role playing creativity and how players contribute positively through their involvement in the scenes and advancing the story.
While I can’t tell you exactly what skills will be most useful, think a typical infiltration. You can’t go wrong with social and espionage type skills.
OBJECTIVES
Each infiltration has defined objectives that must be accomplished to succeed. Achieving each objective requires overcoming one or more obstacles, which take one or more successes to defeat.
Once you complete one objective, you move onto the next.
PREPARATION ACTIVITIES
Before the infiltration begins, you have an opportunity to prepare for the infiltration. Each of these preparation activities can take an entire day to complete, and some require secret rolls (so you don’t know if you have succeeded or not).
Most successful preparation activities provide you with an Edge Point, which is like a Hero Point except that instead of providing a reroll, it automatically uses the ‘edge’ you earned from the activity to turn a would-be failure or critical failure during your infiltration into a success. Some Edge Points are situational (i.e. an Edge Point earned from creating disguises can only be used when faced with a challenge involving your identity.
AWARENESS POINTS
In combat your character has Hit Points. The equivalent in an infiltration is Awareness Points (AP) – except here APs go up while HPs go down in combat.
As you progress through the infiltration, the party will accumulate Awareness Points as a group. If the group reaches a defined number of Awareness Points, the infiltration fails. You will not know the number of Infiltration points required to fail.
In addition to the risk of failure, reaching certain AP thresholds can trigger complications (an additional challenge to be solved) or increase the DCs required to overcome the obstacles required to succeed in the infiltration.
You typically gain APs by failing or critically failing against defeating an obstacle or complication. The infiltration will also take place in rounds – an abstracted amount of time that could be a minute or ten minutes or 3 hours depending on the situation. Each round a PC has the opportunity to take one action vs. one of the challenges they currently face – and after each round, one AP automatically gets added to your pool.
INFILTRATION POINTS
To achieve objectives, you must overcome a number of obstacles to progress. You may not need to defeat all obstacles, while some obstacles may make overcoming a different obstacle easier.
All obstacles can be solved through the successful use of the listed skills, but may also be defeated through other creative ideas (including spells or the unconventional use of other skills/ideas).
A successful roll typically provides 1 Infiltration Point towards a specific obstacle, while a critical success usually provides 2 Infiltration Points. A failure often results in Awareness Points going up by 1, while a critical failure adds 2 Awareness Points.
Most obstacles require 2 or more ‘Group’ Infiltration Points to solve – meaning that anyone can contribute to the total IPs needed to overcome the obstacle. However, some obstacles require 1 ‘Individual’ Infiltration Point – meaning everyone in the group must find a way to succeed to progress.
Examples of obstacles might include getting past the guard at a front gate, or shadowing a patrol.
You can use Edge Points to turn a failed roll to a success or a Hero Point to reroll (as usual).
COMPLICATIONS & OPPORTUNITIES
Over the course of the infiltration, complications and opportunities can arise.
Complications are additional tasks or challenges that can pop up when you reach certain Awareness Point thresholds, or as a result of either solving (or failing to solve) an obstacle. An example of a complication is someone claiming to recognize you if you’re disguised.
Opportunities can also emerge. Usually you can’t directly earn Infiltration Points from an opportunity, but succeeding at an opportunity can provide another benefit – potentially finding valuable information, an additional Edge Point, or reducing your Awareness Points.