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I think part of it is that Pathfinder and D&D struggle with lasting consequences besides death.In the past editions, there were other consequences: Level loss, equipment destroyed, attributes permanently lowered. But it was feeling bad, sometimes even worse than death. Between a clean death and a new character and the slow downfall of my current character, I'm not sure I'd choose the downfall. This is a very different feeling when you start losing bits of your character here and there.
Losing levels was terrible.
It also sucked to make a character, get them to level 10 with slow leveling, then miss a save or die spell.
One has to also consider GMing style and preferences when it comes to the difficulty. As I've experienced myself being that kinda braindead GM, you can fill an encounter with enough XP to be 140 with just a horde or PL-2 enemies, and end up not really challenging the party thanks to just not playing the enemies strengths well.
However, compared to 5e, there is less guesswork involved. The less enemies there are, the stronger the enemies the players face will be. The numbers put the scales set to what they will likely be, even with the GM style. I'd say from experience rather than needing to make the Players feel like they're in danger even if they aren't, you instead put the players in danger because they have the tools to fix it.
Healing spells, battle medicine, heal for large numbers. Which means a PC can be hit for a crit that deals 2/3rds of their hp, and a casting of heal or soothe can help get them up enough to survive another hit, alongside ways to keep the enemy from just attacking 3 times in a row and garunteeing killing a PC unless they're very stupid or extremely unlucky.
And at that point, nobody is really mad that it happens. It just becomes a funny moment for the table to joke about post-fight. Versus having to fret about entering that death spiral in 5e because healing is absolutely anemic and once a pc goes down, it's going to be a never ending loop of them going down, getting revived, standing up, and getting downed again, to turn the encounter into an absolute stressful slog and war of attrition.
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I dunno, as a player character I've long been ready for meaningless death. It comes with the territory of promoting good through violence.
If that comes from the current big bad, great. If it comes from a mook, that's fine. If it comes from a random anaconda we encountered trudging through the jungle, also fine.
I think probably partly that comes from a place of having more character builds I'd like to play than chances I'll have to play characters.
Some of it is probably just a hint of nihilism.
As a GM, I try to give character kills more meaning and I will pull a few punches, especially running the earlier PF2 APs.
But ultimately, the bad guys are trying to win, and I think it's important that it feels that way, even when I'm ultimately trying to make sure the party succeeds (albeit not necessarily every single member of the party)
In older games of Dnd there was a sense at least at our tables that we were not protagonists or heroes, we were vulnerable, and could die. If we did heroic things that is what made us heroic not just showing up.
i remember a first level bard I played that almost died to a rat and had to run away. I had my bard run because not doing so would have meant death by rat and a need to reroll. level one was rough back then, more so when you rolled low on starting hp.
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i remember a first level bard I played that almost died to a rat and had to run away. I had my bard run because not doing so would have meant death by rat and a need to reroll. level one was rough back then, more so when you rolled low on starting hp.
In 3.5/PF1 we just started at 3rd level, to escape these annoying goblin arrow deaths.
This was solved by Pathfinder2e stacking class and ancestry hitpoints together with the dying state.I agree that losing levels was horrible, it would not be appropriate in Pf2e. Better to use debuffs and afflictions, some of them are even engaging for some time after a combat.
Unless you have double-timed your way to the nearest settlement with a deadly disease it is maybe not obvious how dangerous these conditions can be.
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As per my experience the different shades of the illusion of difficulty are often, but not always, linked to the different game types that can be derived from any RPG, aka this is something which is in no way exclusive to Pathfinder.
A) Focus on rules
B) Focus on story
C) Focus on characters
Ad A) Some groups simply like to treat their RPG as an elaborate dungeon crawler and play likewise. GM adversary and permanent character death are not especially uncommon as most of the game is treated like a typical board game.
Ad B) Some groups are there for the often grandiose story that the GM is narrating over the course of a campaign. Individual characters - while of course taking part in the story - are not as essential to its overall progression so permanent character death may still occur once in a while.
Ad C) Some groups are there primarily for their characters. They not only want to be part of the main story, they want to experience their own stories and over time and with the help of the GM these stories ought to intertwine with the main story. Usually permanent character death is very rare, as the common interest of GM and players is to keep all characters around for as long as the main story arc lasts.
Of course in reality there is no singular game type, so most groups play a mix of the game types mentioned above. Nonetheless I noticed that as my group and I got older we pretty much shifted our playstyle focus from A) to C) for a couple of reasons.
One of the most important one is consistency. When I or some other GMs run a 6-part adventure we want players *and* their characters to actively participate in the story and this seems easiest when player and character knowledge aligns. After some really bad experiences regarding some "Ship of Theseus" like groups, i.e. the group that ended the adventure looked nothing like the group that started it, we simply decided to rate consistency over the illusion of difficulty.
Can characters still die? Of course, especially when extremely unlucky and/or making stupid decisions. Nonetheless and unless we are playing one-shots we usually aim to reduce permanent character death to a minimum. As this is our unwritten session zero social contract everyone is ok that their characters can be taken out temporarily but probably won't be taken out permanently as long as circumstances are not extraordinary.
My wife did point out that she can rely on me to give level-appropriate encounters, so the players know that they can beat the challenge no matter how scary it seems (or that if I intended for them to run, then I would have foreshadowed warnings). I view that as Balanced Difficulty rather than Illusion of Difficulty. And she would expect a lich with Power Word Kill to cast Power Word Kill.
While there is absolutely not enough to say either way in this specific case, if a GM has 100% never had a PC die, that is a very strong point of data that the GM pulls their punches.
Statistically speaking, the dice will go on a streak and kill PCs. And all the reasonable intervention/aid will not stop that. In our Amb Vlts campaign, a jump (1) followed by a halfling luck (1) meant the Monk PC was falling into lava. My PC spent their turn shooting a climbing bolt to give them something to grab.
GM ruled the botched jump so that the actual fall/impact w/ the lava would happen after their next turn began, and the attempt to catch the line (1) was followed by a hero point (1).
The GM was (respectfully) going nuts at the streak of 1s, but luck like that is literally inevitable. (The PC survived the first exposure, but the foes cut the cable/rope)
And in a lot of cases, it'll take far less dice to kill PCs. Usually, 2 nat 20s from a foe at the wrong time can put someone dying 4.
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For a GM to have never had a PC die once, especially with how the math at low levels means that full HP PCs drop dying 2 after a single crit, 0 PC death all but guarantees that something is being fudged beyond the bounds.
Usually, it's the foe's decision making.
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I think one specific area that people can recognize it's "normal" for GMs to pull their punches and change foe behavior is with familiars (and animal companions).
Even when that Alchemist is benefiting from an item relay buddy, or when that Witch's cat is hexing foes, it appears crazy rare for such fragile creatures to be targeted, let alone killed.
It's a similar story for NPCs that may be just behind the party, but they often get a "non combatant" excuse.
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As someone who's trying to use the Spirit Familiar after Gatewalkers precisely so that it'll get hit, this is fresh on my mind. Even after encouraging my GM to do so, the familiar has yet to be targeted. Next session I'm throwing the guy directly atop foes to see if it'll help.
The Spirit Familiar in specific is designed to be attacked in combat, but such GM impulses and norms are super ingrained.
No GM wants to kill a PC (the player's) pet, even when it would make perfect sense for a foe to do so.
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And of course, that's just a lead in for the can of worms that is "attacking dying PCs". People get so irrational around this topic, that I'm only going crack the lid just a smidge.
There's countless times where it really, really would make sense for the foes to secure the kill, yet there are *many* tables where attacking someone already dying just does not happen.
It's as important to convey that the group will/may not see anything "incorrect" about it, and the group/GM will invent (nonfactual) reasons why the foes are still "playing tactically" despite PCs constantly springing back up to fight instead of being targeted for a deathblow.
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It's the genuine blind spot of "foes suddenly don't kill" impulse which is an important thing to communicate.
If tables think they are doing something unreasonable/"wrong" then that's kinda all the need to change that behavior.
Most of the time, "never had a PC death" while also "never pulling punches" means that there is an unnoticed blind spot.
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My wife did point out that she can rely on me to give level-appropriate encounters, so the players know that they can beat the challenge no matter how scary it seems (or that if I intended for them to run, then I would have foreshadowed warnings). I view that as Balanced Difficulty rather than Illusion of Difficulty. And she would expect a lich with Power Word Kill to cast Power Word Kill.While there is absolutely not enough to say either way in this specific case, if a GM has 100% never had a PC die, that is a very strong point of data that the GM pulls their punches.
Our Strength of Thousands campaign had a death about two months ago. But it was an NPC.
The party was fighting gremlins, including Mitflit gremlins who had trained giant centipedes, giant insects, and insect swarms. I added a Wasp Swarm (legacy version) because the 7-member 3rd-level party with a 4th-level NPC healer needed more opponents. Then I discovered how difficult the DC 21 Fortitude save to overcome Wasp venom is on a low-level character. The elf magus Zandre was stung. She had Fort +8 and rolled a natural 1, so she took 16 damage immediately (I checked old Roll20 logs). After the fight ended, the healer could give Zandre a +2 circumstance bonus to her Fortitude saves, but she could not roll above a 10. This was early in the day, so the bard could keep casting Soothe spells kept Zandre alive until the venom expired after 6 failed Fortitude saves.
On the other hand, to hit more PCs the mitflit gremlin had directed the wasp swarm to squares that included a pugwampi gremlin ally. The pugwampi got stung, too. The party tried Treat Poison on the pugwampi, too, but its Fortitude save was only +5. Despite their efforts, the pugwampi died.
Oops, I had misread the Wasp Venom entry. The Stage 2 checks were supposed to be every other round, not every round. That would mean fewer of them.
Statistically speaking, the dice will go on a streak and kill PCs.
I worked as a professional statistician from 2008 to 2014. Six failed d20 rolls of 10 or less have a (10/20)^6 = 1/64 chance of happening, so it will happen about once per level. But it happened while the other PCs could keep Zandre alive.
For a GM to have never had a PC die once, especially with how the math at low levels means that full HP PCs drop dying 2 after a single crit, 0 PC death all but guarantees that something is being fudged beyond the bounds.
Have you taken rerolls from hero points into account?
Of course, enemy attack rolls are not affected by hero points, so let me jump to Trip.H talking about that:
And of course, that's just a lead in for the can of worms that is "attacking dying PCs". People get so irrational around this topic, that I'm only going crack the lid just a smidge.
There's countless times where it really, really would make sense for the foes to secure the kill, yet there are *many* tables where attacking someone already dying just does not happen.
It's as important to convey that the group will/may not see anything "incorrect" about it, and the group/GM will invent (nonfactual) reasons why the foes are still "playing tactically" despite PCs constantly springing back up to fight instead of being targeted for a deathblow.
My enemies do switch to another target rather than hitting a downed PC a second time. Okay, once I had a single dishonorable enemy in an Ulfen raider band take time to finish off dying characters during the battle, but he performed this on an NPC ally (the PCs were still on their feet) and suddenly he was public enemy number one to the party and their honor-driven Ulfen allies. Even without retribution, knocking all opponents unconscious before taking actions to finish them off is good tactics. Take down the healers first so that the unconscious don't get back up.
Going from full health to dying 2 due to a critical hit has never happened in my PF2 games (and PF1 has different dying rules). Statistically, 1st-level PCs need only about 6 game sessions to level up to 2nd level and the vulnerability to single-shot dying is reduced at 2nd level. I have started a PF2 campaign at 1st level only twice. The village leaders in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign assigned the 1st-level PCs to evacuate the children and elderly from the invasion, so they missed the most deadly opponents. My Strength of Thousands campaign started in a protected school environment. Only one beginning opponent was a heavy hitter. It did knock a PC unconscious, and the bard healed him immediately.
Oh wait, I did add a fight with another dangerous opponent: a Will-o'-Wisp in River into Darkness Revisited. The 2nd-level bard Jinx Fuun taunted the Will-o'Wisp and it critically hit her so that she dropped from 33 hp down to 3 hp. Another PC repositioned Jinx away from the Will-o'-Wisp and Jinx cast Soothe on herself. The students were aiding two 6th-level NPCs in killing the Will-o'-Wisp, so technically the encounter was a Trivial Threat, but it did risk deadly critical hits on PCs.
Rather than pulling my punches, I telegraph my punches. The PCs have enough forewarning that they can protect themselves.
As soon as foes know about combat healing, the last GM excuse for leaving the party PCs alive on the ground and not confirming the kill is gone. That's the #1 GM pulled punch. And yes, it 100% is a pulled punch, and not "tactical" when PCs can get back up.
There are some times where foes will fight to capture, but most fights in pf2 APs are very much with the intent to kill the PCs.
It really makes no sense for a PC to drop, only for the foe to step over them and move to engage the rest of the party.
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There's nothing "wrong" with GMs pulling their punches. There's all kinds of tables for all kinds of folks.
IMO the only thing wrong is that blind-spot / denial of that being a pulled punch. I don't think the dishonesty surrounding that reality is a good thing.
If someone is concerned with the "illusion of difficulty," the notion of lethal or even mindless monsters choosing to spare the most vulnerable and helpless PC because they are genuinely close to death is, frankly, a massive elephant that's taking up half the space in the room.
Going from full health to dying 2 due to a critical hit has never happened in my PF2 games (and PF1 has different dying rules). Statistically, 1st-level PCs need only about 6 game sessions to level up to 2nd level and the vulnerability to single-shot dying is reduced at 2nd level. I have started a PF2 campaign at 1st level only twice. The village leaders in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign assigned the 1st-level PCs to evacuate the children and elderly from the invasion, so they missed the most deadly opponents. My Strength of Thousands campaign started in a protected school environment. Only one beginning opponent was a heavy hitter. It did knock a PC unconscious, and the bard healed him immediately.
I had it happen the first chapter of Extinction Curse. One of the enemies has shocking grasp and a spell attack of +11. The crit range on that at level 1 is pretty substantial (more so if the PC has metal armor), and 4d12 will easily drop any level 1 character.
Hell, it has a narrow chance to outright kill them due to the massive damage rule that probably shouldn't exist because it's basically impossible to trigger past level 1.
I ignore that rule, which is definitely a case of pulling punches, because "oh its the first round, go make a new character" isn't very fun. Dying 2 got the point across more then adequately. Or maybe that's technically a house rule. I dunno.
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As soon as foes know about combat healing, the last GM excuse for leaving the party PCs alive on the ground and not confirming the kill is gone.
While I overall agree with you, my sole PC death (a TPK actually) needed quite some circumstances to happen (one such occurence in nearly 200 sessions as a GM so it's very far from common).
PF2 is is quite forgiving to players as long as they don't do completely stupid things (and preferably keep a hero point at the ready).
Also, there are many areas where a GM can be nice or not. And being nice is not pulling punches.
For example: Do you use mostly Moderate encounters or Severe ones? Using Moderate encounters is not pulling punches, it's just choosing a low difficulty setting. It will obviously lead to less PC death. Even something as simple as Free Archetype is technically giving the PCs a small edge. Same thing with how you give Hero Points, if you give only one at the beginning of the session and none afterwards or if you choose to always give HPs to the PCs with no remaining HPs (which will have a clear effect on the chances of death of said PC).
Overall, I'm a rather nice GM but I never pull punches. But most of the players I play with are left with the "illusion of difficulty" as they don't know about my sole TPK.
I ignore that rule, which is definitely a case of pulling punches, because "oh its the first round, go make a new character" isn't very fun. Dying 2 got the point across more then adequately. Or maybe that's technically a house rule. I dunno.
That-- is a good distinction to make.
I think I'd actually say that running a different set of rules is a great example of *not* pulling punches.
It's a less lethal system to be sure, but IMO "pulling punches" is all about the dynamic changes based on how dangerous things are getting. Which is why "not finishing the job" on dying PCs is the quintessential example.
While far too fuzzy to really discuss as a point, I've suspected a number of times where a player eats an unexpected crit, then the GM has foes navigate around that 1v1 to engage a different PC to be a pulled punch; GM playing a mind-trick on the foe *in reaction* to that danger spike to lower the chance of death.
Any time a player thinks the GM is going easy on them like that, it hurts. Breaks all sense of immersion, danger, etc.
Though I would argue that the system math (and AP encounter design) makes that practice of pulling punches nearly mandatory for the average table.
If that one PC martial rolls nat 20 on initiative, pops all their movement effects, and runs in to swing on the foe backline, that honestly could be a lethal "mistake" right there if the GM played things "naturally".
All the foes then get their turn, and just dogpile the shit out of the PC. All the GM has to "do" to kill them is just have every foe attack the closest PC, who statistically is kinda screwed when 4+ foes focus fire.
When it's that easy for a GM to "kill the PCs", the system design all but demands the GM pull their punches. If the table doesn't want/allow PCs to die, of course.
PF2 is is quite forgiving to players as long as they don't do completely stupid things (and preferably keep a hero point at the ready).
I've only played APs, and I think I'd actually disagree a bit. The system is great, but Dying is actually a pretty small buffer, and it's super easy for no one to have a chance to intervene before the next foe can step on their throat.
This may be a case of the pf2 comparison vs even more lethal ttrpgs makes it seem forgiving, but from a raw design standpoint, it's super dangerous. There are so many crazy bad save or suck effects/spells, that it's essentially mandatory to keep a hero point on standby.
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In APs, Abm Vlts alone, I can on-the-spot remember a lot of times where the GM either needs to change things beforehand, or in the moment they may notice how dangerous things statistically are and pull a punch in reaction to that "uh oh" due to how easily PCs can become 1, maybe 2 rolls from dead.
Examples: Mr. Beak, the corpselights, 2 rooms where it's scripted to save-or-get-shoved-down-a-hole, Ghost elf, fleshwarping pit room, Froghemoth, that other giant fish, THAT F+$@ING SPIDER. And of course, "you're ambushed (again), roll Will or your PC has their mind shattered.
For that one, our GM might've had some accidental serendipity, with the ambush being the cliffhanger, which meant next session started with a fresh hero point (which saved the PC). Still almost ended PCs twice with that one spell.
Yeah, there's a *lot* of "suddenly super dangerous" moments in just Abomination Vaults, and it goes out of its way to make escape non-viable whenever it can think of a reason why.
Meaning a lot of GMs will be dynamically looking for ways to make those encounters more survivable in the moment, aka pulling punches.
Our GM was open when he said "no way, that's stupid, not doing that" when rolling Froghemoth while we were on the water, and while that's not as bad as pulling punches after such a fight started, preventing that event and rolling again is a pulled punch.
On a fragile boat like that, we likely would have just TPKed with no real chance to survive. For the mistake of rolling on an encounter table.
Hence: "...the pf2 system teaches GMs to pull their punches, else death."
As soon as foes know about combat healing, the last GM excuse for leaving the party PCs alive on the ground and not confirming the kill is gone. That's the #1 GM pulled punch. And yes, it 100% is a pulled punch, and not "tactical" when PCs can get back up.
There are some times where foes will fight to capture, but most fights in pf2 APs are very much with the intent to kill the PCs.
In the beginning of Ironfang Invasion, the Ironfang Legion wanted to conquer the village of Phaendar and take its residents as slaves. That made it a capture situation.
The first battle in Strength of Thousands is an assignment to chase gremlins out of a storeroom. The PCs were instructed that the gremlins were tame and accustomed to Magaambya ways, so if the PCs followed Magaambya rules and dealt only nonlethal damage to the gremlins, then the gremlins would respond in kind and deal nonlethal back. And I altered the pugwampis by giving them a level of monk for better nonlethal damage, heh heh.
It really makes no sense for a PC to drop, only for the foe to step over them and move to engage the rest of the party.
Why assume that the goal of the enemy is to kill the PCs? Lots of enemies want loot instead so they disable the guards on one wagon (PCs guarding a caravan), grab loot, and run. Predatory animals will want one dead character as food, so their tactics are to grab the first downed character and drag their body away. That could lead to a dead PC, but most animals will release their prey and run when the fellow party members keep beating on them.
However, the part that seldom happens in my games is a PC dropping. A PC fell unconscious only four times during my entire Ironfang Invasion campaign, and one of those times was a critical hit by a single-shot unmanned trap. Perhaps it is as SuperBidi pointed out: I mostly throw Moderate-Threat encounters at the party. Thus, the party is twice as powerful as their foes and at worst the party loses only half their hit points. Sometimes the dice rolls will focus that hit-point loss on a single character, but that means that the rest of the party is in fine shape and can rally around the injured character to protect them. My players are good at that.
The first time a PC fell unconscious was a homebrew Beyond-Extreme Threat garrison (Polebridge encounter). The second time was an arrow trap that the rogue spotted, so he triggered the pressure plate from 10 feet away and the arrow strike covered the entire hallway rather than just near the plate. The last two times were when the 16th-level party faced a 19th-level Primal Bandersnatch while still injured from fighting a Wendigo. They chose to put only one character at a time in the bandersnatch's Confusing Gaze aura, so those characters took all the damage. When the first one dropped, she was immediately snatched away from the bandersnatch with Friendfetch.
I have already reached three unconscious PCs by 4th level in Strength of Thousands, due to the party having more squishy spellcasting characters and Zandre having bad luck with wasp venom.
There's nothing "wrong" with GMs pulling their punches. There's all kinds of tables for all kinds of folks.
IMO the only thing wrong is that blind-spot / denial of that being a pulled punch. I don't think the dishonesty surrounding that reality is a good thing.
If someone is concerned with the "illusion of difficulty," the notion of lethal or even mindless monsters choosing to spare the most vulnerable and helpless PC because they are genuinely close to death is, frankly, a massive elephant that's taking up half the space in the room.
I have read that the Illusion of Difficulty is caused by the GM changing their mind about the difficulty of the encounter and always pulling their punches after the party starts to lose. Therefore, the players know that they won't lose, regardless of the initial difficulty. I personally find that playing a foe consistently lets my players develop better tactics, so I try for consistent behavior instead.
Today I am taking to the road for a funeral in Michigan, so my internet access will be spotty for several days. Goodbye.
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if gm must fight with the system every session to get decent experience
instead of system help gm to build functional encounter
what is the point of that game system
I think that's exaggerating how difficult it is to run a pleasant middle between too harsh and too easy. Most people in this thread seem to manage pretty well for the taste of their group. But there's a lot of good insights going around in this thread about how to analyze that balance.
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So to respond to Trip.H ; I agree it's lame as a player to see the GM pull punches just like that.
But what I've enjoyed a lot is when the GM would like to pull punches, for example by having a monster switch targets a bit, and the players put effort into giving the GM the excuse.
The monster crits Bob for a ton of damage and nasty poison and sickened and prone. Well, it could stay and finish Bob but Alice is throwing some big spells at the monster and leaving a charge lane open to lure it in her direction. At that point the GM has a lot more "cover" to pull punches on Bob a bit without breaking the illusion.
Continuing my previous thoughts - I got pulled away for IRL stuff.
Pathfinder2e:
It isn't necessarily an ideal set of game rules for this topic. There are things like Power Word Kill that can kill a character just from a couple of bad dice rolls without much warning , or recourse .
However, I think that PF2 is pretty good at it.
There are things like Hero Points and Heroic Recovery. Which RAW may not prevent character death, but is an easy houserule hook to say that you can use it to prevent character death entirely from that encounter as long as the character stays unconscious for the remainder of the fight. There is still the possibility of TPK, but barring that, the rest of the characters can use their normal recovery means to patch up their critically injured but not dead allies.
And PF2 is pretty good at signposting the difficulty of a battle. The wording of the Combat Threat ratings and Choosing Creatures table descriptions could be a bit clearer that they are serious that when you pick an extreme difficulty (for either the encounter as a whole, or for a particular creature in the combat), the risk of character death is pretty high.
I do feel obliged to point out that most of the actual death effects and PWK and whatnot come online as bringing characters back from the dead becomes easier.
becomes easierCan become easier. The only consistently available option is Breath of Life which doesn't work on death effects.
Thus far, I do like how resurrection in pf2 is doable but not easy.
That mentioned lava death was predictably permanent.
But another PC death later gave us an appropriate side quest to take the body to Absalom for revival.
I think the possibility of it really can help reduce the huge compulsion to pull punches, but the devs know not to make the process too easy.
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And overall, I do not want to claim that pf2 is some crazy deadly system under the hood, and that it's only by constant GM manipulation do players always live.
I do think people are underselling how many foes get lobotomies to keep the PCs from dying, but it's hard to say as much without overselling that into some unreal extreme.
Yet I want to echo the OP-referenced video. Pf2 is still a system where a GM will get criticized for choosing for all the foes to group up against the one PC that rushed in. In a 4v4, if all 4 foes spend a single turn wailing on a PC, that probably sends them dying, or kills them outright. And people will say the GM is at fault. In my book, that's not okay.
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Mostly, I am trying to acknowledge that pf2 is a low HP d 20 game. And one where literal save-or-screwed rolls can be imposed as regular spells.
(okay, I will say that are definitely too many death effects in this system).
Statistically speaking, shit happens, PCs die. Maybe there was a mistake, like running inside the enemy formation, or maybe not.
The seeming rarity of PC death in the playerbase despite the math of it, is because there's a big set of invisible expectations foisted upon GMs to stop it from happening. And if pf2 is genuinely better than other systems in that regard, we can still praise the difference while recognizing that there is still a lot of room for improvement.
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InAPs,Abm Vlts alone
I TPKed my party in Abomination Vaults.
Also, pulling the punches is doing it in real time. For example, shortly after the TPK I decided to reduce the difficulty because my players were displeased by the overall high difficulty level of AV. So I did it. It's not "pulling punches". It's just adapting the difficulty to my group.Now, during the adventure itself, I didn't fudge rolls or used any mean to pull punches (and the Giant Spider nearly TPKed my party, too). I make a big difference between an out of game adaptation of difficulty, which is something that every GM is entitled to do, and a real time adaptation of difficulty, which is very much pulling punches. I dislike pulling punches because if my players realize it it reduces their feeling of difficulty. But I'm all in for adapting the difficulty to the party and to the atmosphere you want to create.
becomes easierCan become easier. The only consistently available option is Breath of Life which doesn't work on death effects.
That's between you and your buddies.
One interesting feature of PF1E for very experienced groups was that the difficulty of a prewritten adventure was dictated in a semi-collaborative fashion. The GM could set the adventure difficulty based on selecting an AP, and then the players could actively select their own combat difficulty based on how hard they optimized their characters. If you wanted to breeze through and you had a GM who was on board, you could optimize to the hilt while the GM ran the adventure "as-written". If you wanted to make it more difficult, you played weaker or more mechanically fragile builds.
Some other systems actively make player buy-in a core means of setting difficulty or raising the stakes. I've toyed around with ways to implement this in PF2e without any good successes yet.
I've found that players are most satisfied with high difficulty when there's clear feedback that the challenge is a result of their own decisions, both in and out of character. They need to be able to draw that line from their own action to their character dying without feeling like some BS was involved.
The GM adjusting difficulty between sessions can also cause some friction, unless its done with explicit player buy-in. Some players are happier to have their characters die if they've explicitly refused the GM's offer of lowering the difficulty of a campaign. It's all quite complicated!
So to respond to Trip.H ; I agree it's lame as a player to see the GM pull punches just like that.
But what I've enjoyed a lot is when the GM would like to pull punches, for example by having a monster switch targets a bit, and the players put effort into giving the GM the excuse.
The monster crits Bob for a ton of damage and nasty poison and sickened and prone. Well, it could stay and finish Bob but Alice is throwing some big spells at the monster and leaving a charge lane open to lure it in her direction. At that point the GM has a lot more "cover" to pull punches on Bob a bit without breaking the illusion.
One thing I have sort of realized is that in addition to the lore reasons a dragon or something might want to simply swat at different targets all the time, double tapping a PC is generally a more effective strategy for killing PCs, but isn't a hugely helpful strategy for winning the fight, since it generally costs actions you could have spent trying to down someone else, and focusing the damage on one person makes healing *easier* for team PC, due to the relative efficacy of like, two-action heal/soothe and the way that it simplifies the choice of whether that person should use a shield.
It can work, but the death spiral has to outpace Team PC's remaining damage output, which is a pretty big burden on the boss's action economy.
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Regarding foes not going after downed players, there's an odd interaction there with some of the dying rules. While PCs and significant NPCs get to survive dropping to 0 HP, the rules explicitly state that most creatures just die (or are destroyed) at 0 HP. If I were a GM, I'd probably explain away the fact that enemies don't go after downed PCs because they've probably never seen someone be healed from 0 HP before, so as far as they know they'd just be wasting time attacking a corpse. Of course, if an enemy sees a PC get up after hitting 0 HP, they'd probably figure out that the PCs are unusually durable and might start double tapping...
One thing I have sort of realized is that in addition to the lore reasons a dragon or something might want to simply swat at different targets all the time, double tapping a PC is generally a more effective strategy for killing PCs, but isn't a hugely helpful strategy for winning the fight, since it generally costs actions you could have spent trying to down someone else, and focusing the damage on one person makes healing *easier* for team PC, due to the relative efficacy of like, two-action heal/soothe and the way that it simplifies the choice of whether that person should use a shield.
It can work, but the death spiral has to outpace Team PC's remaining damage output, which is a pretty big burden on the boss's action economy.
That's true if the party doesn't have a healer. If the party DOES have a healer, then taking someone out of the fight permanently is actually taking them out of the fight. Dropping them will be undone once the healer gets a turn. In a 4v1 battle, one PC undoing the enemy turn with their actions is a win on action economy, while denying that is better for the enemy.
Of course, killing a PC at the first chance by hitting them while down is exceedingly unfun for healer PCs, as you are actively negating their character's ability by not giving them a chance to use it. This will in turn cause players to not want to play that, and its already not a super popular role. It'll also probably make your players rather salty with you.
In that situation, not attacking the downed player is a pulled punch... but attacking the downed player is hostile to another player's ability to shine, which is not fun for either player (as one of them doesn't get to do their cool thing and another one doesn't get to do anything).
Sometimes we just accept that enemies will behave in certain suboptimal ways because if the table mindset is "this is social time with friends and also a game", having fun together is the primary goal of the session.
If you've got a competitive "player vs GM" kind of table? Then yeah, go nuts.
Of course, killing a PC at the first chance by hitting them while down is exceedingly unfun for healer PCs, as you are actively negating their character's ability by not giving them a chance to use it.They should probably try healing before the other PC goes down.
Turns out it's pretty difficult to just do that when someone is getting ganged up on/crit by a BBEG and its not your turn. Go figure.
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If the GM needs to avoid using basic normal tactics it implies the challenge is too high for the party.
So to respond to Trip.H ; I agree it's lame as a player to see the GM pull punches just like that.
But what I've enjoyed a lot is when the GM would like to pull punches, for example by having a monster switch targets a bit, and the players put effort into giving the GM the excuse.
The monster crits Bob for a ton of damage and nasty poison and sickened and prone. Well, it could stay and finish Bob but Alice is throwing some big spells at the monster and leaving a charge lane open to lure it in her direction. At that point the GM has a lot more "cover" to pull punches on Bob a bit without breaking the illusion.
That is routine in my games, except that the players do it in all challenges from Trivial to Extreme and Beyond. I let such stunts work fairly often because they amuse me.
I do think people are underselling how many foes get lobotomies to keep the PCs from dying, but it's hard to say as much without overselling that into some unreal extreme.
I find that many foes come already lobotomized in some modules. The sentries fight rather than sounding an alarm. Less organized dungeons don't even have allies nearby to alert. Most foes have brainless tactics of "They fight to the death," rather than surrendering or running away. Those bad behaviors are evident only when the PCs are winning, so they are not part of the Illusion of Difficulty.
My sentries will sound the alarm and my players know it. So they sneak past the sentries or take them out by surprise. Sometimes enemies surrender. Sometimes they try to run away.
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So to respond to Trip.H ; I agree it's lame as a player to see the GM pull punches just like that.
But what I've enjoyed a lot is when the GM would like to pull punches, for example by having a monster switch targets a bit, and the players put effort into giving the GM the excuse.
The monster crits Bob for a ton of damage and nasty poison and sickened and prone. Well, it could stay and finish Bob but Alice is throwing some big spells at the monster and leaving a charge lane open to lure it in her direction. At that point the GM has a lot more "cover" to pull punches on Bob a bit without breaking the illusion.
That is routine in my games, except that the players do it in all challenges from Trivial to Extreme and Beyond. I let such stunts work fairly often because they amuse me.
I do think people are underselling how many foes get lobotomies to keep the PCs from dying, but it's hard to say as much without overselling that into some unreal extreme.I find that many foes come already lobotomized in some modules. The sentries fight rather than sounding an alarm. Less organized dungeons don't even have allies nearby to alert. Most foes have brainless tactics of "They fight to the death," rather than surrendering or running away. Those bad behaviors are evident only when the PCs are winning, so they are not part of the Illusion of Difficulty.
My sentries will sound the alarm and my players know it. So they sneak past the sentries or take them out by surprise. Sometimes enemies surrender. Sometimes they try to run away.
I tend to see this as not running because the fights are fast. Most fights are 18 to 30 seconds. This doesn't give a huge amount of time to choose to run or assess the PCs as very dangerous enemies.
Since PF2 doesn't lend itself too well to the type of stealthy sentry removal you see in movies or that can occur in real life, I prefer to kind of see it in that fashion due to the length of the fight.
That's why sometimes the guards don't run until you have half or more of them down. If the PCs are smart to control access, then that is often too late to decide to run.
I do chain close encounters where shouting is enough.
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I tend to try and use creature tactics from their perspective. Something less intelligent is likely to focus on whatever hurt it last or hurt it the most. Something more intelligent might be more predictive and try and make sure that when it drops something it stays down. That can be very influenced by how the battle is going though.
We had a creature recently that was a high threat for the party and due to a number of factors(bad rolls, setting that worked in its favor, catching a couple characters while they were scouting a rounds movement ahead of the party) the combat tilted very against them quickly. As a result there were a few rounds where most of the party were trying to heal, get buffs up, etc, and the couple who attacked it missed.
The creature had an ability that would bind their souls to it if they died, so since it didn't see them as a threat he spent his time making sure everyone was tagged with that power and just doing some other attacks here or there to keep them from getting to full strength. It didn't feel like pulling punches, it felt like a monster in a horror movie toying with its victims.
Lots of creatures have unique powers, whether its a shadow wanting to create another shadow, or wolves wanting to team up. Those powers might not be the most tactically strong option, but having a creature lean into what is special about it rather than what is going to be the most deadly can both help control the difficulty and make the creatures feel more thematic.
One thing I have sort of realized is that in addition to the lore reasons a dragon or something might want to simply swat at different targets all the time, double tapping a PC is generally a more effective strategy for killing PCs, but isn't a hugely helpful strategy for winning the fight, since it generally costs actions you could have spent trying to down someone else, and focusing the damage on one person makes healing *easier* for team PC, due to the relative efficacy of like, two-action heal/soothe and the way that it simplifies the choice of whether that person should use a shield.
It can work, but the death spiral has to outpace Team PC's remaining damage output, which is a pretty big burden on the boss's action economy.
That's true if the party doesn't have a healer. If the party DOES have a healer, then taking someone out of the fight permanently is actually taking them out of the fight. Dropping them will be undone once the healer gets a turn. In a 4v1 battle, one PC undoing the enemy turn with their actions is a win on action economy, while denying that is better for the enemy.
Of course, killing a PC at the first chance by hitting them while down is exceedingly unfun for healer PCs, as you are actively negating their character's ability by not giving them a chance to use it. This will in turn cause players to not want to play that, and its already not a super popular role. It'll also probably make your players rather salty with you.
In that situation, not attacking the downed player is a pulled punch... but attacking the downed player is hostile to another player's ability to shine, which is not fun for either player (as one of them doesn't get to do their cool thing and another one doesn't get to do anything).
Sometimes we just accept that enemies will behave in certain suboptimal ways because if the table mindset is "this is social time with friends and also a game", having fun together is the primary goal of the session....
I've seen first hand that generally the challenge is in spreading out healing-- focusing one person generally makes healing easier on Team Pc, you have to get the healer to make hard choices.