I checked to see if this has been brought up, but I did not see it. If I am relitigating a topic, please direct me to the correct discussion.
Thesis: Suppression should have traits to make it make more sense narratively, and it might need a buff as well. I think Fear and Mental are needed. It probably could use a buff, too.
Starfinder Playtest Review: The fluff states you are forced to act less efficiently for your own safety. The rules say -1 circumstance penalty to attacks and a -5 foot status penalty to speed.
Playtest Event: So during the playtest, our group encountered some mindless enemies. The enemies were suppressed by an attack that did them no damage. Why? The attack did them no harm and the enemies were immune to being frightened. What is preventing these enemies from simply advancing?
At another point, some ranged enemies were suppressed. So on their turn, despite being suppressed, they closed the distance and shot at the less-defended party members rather than the Soldier. They became more dangerous because they attacked squishier teammates.
What is suppression? In military science, suppressive fire is fire sufficient to render the target unable to effectively complete its mission effectively. I didn't say it neutralizes the target, renders the target completely unable to act, nor that it it has to come from a particular source.
For example, if a squad encounters a hostile team, it would typically engage having one team suppress the target as the other maneuvers to deliver decisive fire. (This is exactly the euphemism it sounds like.)
The reason it works is because the suppressive fire is too flipping scary so the target feels it's forced to stay down, not do its job, and take cover/shelter. Suppression depends on psychology; the target has to be afraid of the attack. The attack doesn't have to be effective. Green troops, for example, might be suppressed by ineffective fire while veteran troops start maneuvering immediately.
Suppression is based on a tacit threat: if you don't stay down, this is going to become effective fire. You are going to die.
Suppression in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy Context: Let's imagine a scenario: a sci-fi fire team waits with a prepared kill zone. Suddenly, a group of enemy soldiers enters and the team attacks. The enemy soldiers presumably do not want to die and run for cover. They're being suppressed!
Next, a bunch of expendable robots are sent in. They're programmed to rush and take the position no matter what. Our heroes engage but cannot make the robots fall back - they can only blast away. They just keep coming! The robots cannot be suppressed; you're firing for effect, not suppression.
What other games do: I quickly thought of two RPGs games and two skirmish games that use suppression.
In the old Warhammer 40k series Dark Heresy and related games, suppression required you to roll with a massive penalty to hit - you were almost never going to score a hit. However, every enemy you suppressed had to roll a Willpower roll to do much more than dive for cover.
In Cyberpunk RED, suppression has you roll an Autofire skill roll to affect an area. All enemies in that zone must roll a Concentration roll if they plan to do anything other than dive for Cover.
In Star Wars: Legion, a unit hit by an attack gains a Suppression token, even if the attack does no damage after all saves are rolled (oversimplification). Too much suppression and a unit loses one of its actions on its turn.
In Cyberpunk: Combat Zone, a suppressive weapons forces a character who reacts to it to run for cover without returning fire.
In these games, the ability to ignore or recover from suppression depends on a "courage" stat - Willpower, Concentration, Courage, etc.
Thoughts on Changes: My bottom line.
1. Suppression should have the Mental and Fear tags.
2. Suppression should have a clause allowing you to ignore it if an enemy cannot damage you with the weapon or ability they are using to suppress you. I.E. An enemy with Fire immunity cannot be suppressed by a flame weapon.
3. Even with these further restrictions, Suppression seems to need a buff. Maybe allow the suppressing character a reaction to target the suppressed character if they Move / Strike / Cast a Spell? Or maybe the suppressed targets take a -1 circumstance penalty against an enemy that is suppressing them and a -3 against other targets, which would push them to target the suppressing enemy. Or forced movement?
4. Or would it be better to force suppressed enemies into a dilemma: either spend your first action taking cover / striding away from the source of the suppression, or give the suppressing character a free reaction against you?
Thank you.
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Mindless things react to suppressing fire for the same reason they dodge melee and ranged and reflex attacks - some sort of ingrained survival instinct. There’s no reason to treat near miss suppressing fire differently.
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Mental on the suppression save just adds a really annoying point of failure against a very narrow subset of enemies. I don't see this doing anything to make the game better.
I don't think 2 makes sense either, as there are a number of abilities that automatically suppress or suppress without dealing damage in the first place.
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N.B. the term "fluff" is disfavored by Paizo folks who have asked us to use a less pejorative alternative (like lore, thematics, flavor, etc.)
But I think that suppression specifically should not have an emotion or fear trait because it should also apply to "anything that recoils from pain/danger" which might include mindless things.
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I don't really like that most of the argument for change is regarding either 'reality' or other game systems and how their suppression mechanics work.
Why can't we look at the Suppressed condition for this game from just the point of view of this game?
Flanking doesn't really make much sense from a realism perspective either. Dealing with two attackers is difficult, no matter if both are on the same side of you or not. So by virtue of realism, every character should be getting the Gang Up feat automatically at level 1.
And other games have dealt with flanking or attacking an opponent from an advantageous position much better. Final Fantasy Tactics has characters placed on the map with facing. If you attack from directly in front of them, they will take less damage and have a chance of blocking the attack. If you attack from either side, they take a bit more damage, and if you attack from behind, then they take even more damage than attacking from the sides. That is much better. Why doesn't PF2/SF2 do that instead?
I don't think 2 makes sense either, as there are a number of abilities that automatically suppress or suppress without dealing damage in the first place.
I actually see that as a disconnect that should be addressed. The weapon or item used should at least have the ability to threaten harm, even if the ability used does not do harm. The real world analogy would be that if you shoot at me with a Nerf gun, I will not be suppressed. I have to believe the attack is dangerous.
N.B. the term "fluff" is disfavored by Paizo folks who have asked us to use a less pejorative alternative (like lore, thematics, flavor, etc.)
Thank you, so noted. I rarely post on the boards.
While I get the idea, Conditions do not have traits. Rather, the abilities that impose conditions have traits. So the ability can be granted the tag, but not the condition itself.
Thank you, yes. The trait tag should go on the effect that causes suppression. This would also allow suppression from sources that simply make the target believe it is in eminent danger, even if it is not.
I could imagine a spell that creates a hallucinatory barrage and that forces saves in order to avoid being suppressed because you believe you are under intense fire.
I don't really like that most of the argument for change is regarding either 'reality' or other game systems and how their suppression mechanics work.
Why can't we look at the Suppressed condition for this game from just the point of view of this game?
The argument comes from the events in the game, where my immersion was broken by having a mindless enemy pinned down because it felt it was threatened by fire. Also, by the strange tactical decision of choosing new targets because being suppressed caused them to want to ignore the character suppressing them.
The discussion for what to change to looks at both the term when used correctly and also what other games have done. What is suppressive fire?
As for the second comment, respectfully:
1: They called it suppression and suppressed. That word is an affordance that clearly is meant to invoke the feeling of being pinned down by an enemy with fire superiority. Otherwise, why are you using that loaded term?
2. The RPG space in fifty years has always eaten its own. A game designer who doesn't look at what other designers have done building a game are simply put not good designers. A familiarity with other systems and what terms mean is helpful.
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Solid no-thanks from me on this one. This doesn't make the game more fun for me, and it also doesn't make the game more immersive for me.
When my Soldier laughs maniacally and launches a barrage of shrapnel at a small cluster of robots, I want their tracks jamming as they drive out of the debris and their targeting suffering from the sudden impact.
When my Soldier laughs maniacally and launches a barrage of shrapnel at a small cluster of mindless zombies, I want their movements even clumsier as the deal with newly missing chunks and their attacks thrown off by bits of metal still embedded in them.
In fact, the last thing I want is my Soldier to only be able to debuff enemies who can feel fear. That gives some unpleasant incentives.
Sure, humans suffer reduced performance for psychological reasons, but that doesn't mean I want to actually treat "suppressed" as an emotion. It's a handy name, and it fits most use cases.
The argument comes from the events in the game, where my immersion was broken by having a mindless enemy pinned down because it felt it was threatened by fire.
Do you also feel that way about what Xenocrat mentioned - Reflex saves and Dex bonus to AC?
Truly mindless creatures wouldn't dodge attacks or Fireballs either.
The discussion for what to change to looks at both the term when used correctly and also what other games have done. What is suppressive fire?
As for the second comment, respectfully:
1: They called it suppression and suppressed. That word is an affordance that clearly is meant to invoke the feeling of being pinned down by an enemy with fire superiority. Otherwise, why are you using that loaded term?
That is more an argument for changing the narrative description of the condition and/or its name. Which I can understand. Personally I am not thrilled with the name "Asset" for the Envoy's special target. "Mark" makes a lot more sense from a language perspective.
But that doesn't mean that the mechanics of the ability are in need of fixing.
And it definitely doesn't mean that adding the Mental and Fear traits is a good idea. Just go look at the PF2 forums regarding Swashbuckler and see how much non-fun people were having with the class when their main class features didn't work on mindless creatures.
And in the context of this game, Pathfinder2e hasn't had the best track record with naming their traits. The most notorious is the Attack trait. The mechanics of the trait are that the actions with the Attack trait interact with your Multiple Attack Penalty. And after some errata, by definition any action with the Attack trait is an attack.
But under absolutely no circumstances should you ever, EVER, confuse an 'attack' (an action with the Attack trait), with a Hostile Action. Because casting a Fireball at someone absolutely should be considered a Hostile Action, but Escape almost certainly should not. Grapple is circumstantial and depends on if you are trying to hold down an enemy so that you and your allies can damage it better, or if you are trying to prevent an NPC from inadvertently walking off a cliff.
So I think that is where the Suppressed condition is. The name and flavor may be off target, but the mechanics are fine.
Edit: Or maybe just incomplete. QuidEst provided a lot of additional descriptive flavor options that work quite well to describe the effect.
A similar ability that has narrative flavor that doesn't match the lack of Mental trait is the Redeemer Champion: Glimpse of Redemption. The GM can play the ability as though mindless and truly irredeemably horrible characters never choose the option to forego the attack, but that isn't required by RAW.
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I don't want something else that would get Immunity to a condition. As someone who deals with a lot of Mindless enemies. I already sometimes suffer with what we can do against them...So having suppression not work on those enemies would ultimately be unfun as others had said. Suppression is about a very strong attack or sheer volume of projectiles to hinder your opponent physical rather then mentally.