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like getting in someone's face and offloading a full round of attacks is fun, running round doing skill checks, casting buffs etc is the exact opposite of fun.
For you, perhaps.
For me, assuming my character is built for it, doing skill checks and casting buffs can be the exact definition of fun.
Don't assume that everybody likes the same things in games
Buffing the encounter is punishing the players,Or you could let players be rewarded for being cautious and smart...not throw all your toys out the pram while screaming badwrongfun, PF2 combat is already stuffed with chores and frustration, don't punish trying to mitigate that dullness to get it over with.I would love nothing more than for that to be a good idea.
But, given the reality that it's a game system and not a perfectly mutating narrative that can instantly buff foes to match the 1/3 door kicks that randomly spooked a player, resulting in 2 rounds of prebuffs, your suggestion is not a good idea in practice.
There is no way in-system to prevent (or worse, punish) prebuffs. Alchemy does not have the common "bright and noisy" baggage of spells, and all spellcasters have access to Conceal Spell anyway.
There's just no denying that the game itself warns you explicitly that prebuffing is balance-breaking.
I would absolutely quit a GM who did that just because someone prebuffed.
Pre buffing is an advantage, yes.
The necessity of doing so in Pf1 and 3.5 was tedious and unfun, yes.
Limited prebuffing where and how it makes sense and where players actually do have the advantage of knowing danger is in the next room, acceptable.
Players getting their scouting wrong (failed perception or not trying to scout and assuming) and pre buffing only to find the next area was only a marginal threat and a waste of resources, also acceptable.
Pre buffing into a room where foes start attempting a conversation, well players can decide if losing buff time for an exchange of words is worth while.
I guess i would just think that if the players expect they are in a fight for their lives with no other kinds of interactions possible that kind of set up encourages prebuffing.
Where any discernible information they can gain from their means of scouting ahead leaves room for doubt about what to expect then prebuffing loses its appeal.
A fun game probably has a mix of situations. Some where players have this advantage and others where they are at a disadvantage, and others still where its even, and also moments where even combat isnt an certain outcome of going to the next room or area or whatever.
If the situations are varied the players get rewarded for preparation and good rolls but have a harder time when they arent prepared. It evens out.
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Again, the catch is that there is no mechanical "buff effect carry limit" where PCs can only have 3 buffs running at a time, etc.
The "upper limit" of prebuffing has no mechanical safety beyond PCs deciding that it's too much of a hassle / gp cost to perform.
The entire point of many Invested items is to gain passive buffs, many of which are much smaller in power than prebuffs. Boots of Bounding grant +5 spd while Tailwind Wand grants +10 spd.
Passive buffing magic items have limits thanks to Invested, while there is no buff limit mechanic. The game will continue to add more spells, elixirs, and prebuffs. All of which can potentially combine until every statistic is buffed in 4 different ways.
Again, prebuffs are not just "an advantage," prebuffs are hella strong. That R1/2 spell is 2x the spd of a limit-maxed L7 Invested item. It's outright *better* for PCs to buy 2 R 2 Tailwind wands instead of taking up an Invested slot on the Boots o B.
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Without following the book's "one prebuff action" rule, or using some other house-ruled limit, you're essentially giving up the notion of combat balance to always be decided by the player's whim, when it's supposed to be the GM/story's.
That no-rule version always leaves the door open for players to spontaneously decide they want to rofl-stomp that particular upcoming encounter, so they start reading their item list of R 1, 2, &3 buff scrolls. The GM cannot predict the rare time a player makes that choice, and it is really not the GMs fault that the "fun" of said boss is utterly deflated thanks to players deciding to turn their PCs into roid monsters.
Nor is it the fault of the players for using the rules in a manner to maximize their potential for success, which is something their PCs would certainly agree with.
It *is* the fault of the GM, for not understanding that one buff rule was pretty damn important, and the consequences for not using that safety limiter are entirely the responsibility of the GM who made the choice.
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If you are trying to toss 8 hr+ spells into the pre-buff category of "only one per encounter," and then suggest players are playing wrong if they think they try to have mystic armor, false vitality, tailwind, and a mountain resilience spell active when entering an encounter, I think you are being way too hard on your players.
Pre-buffing absolutely has a number of intense limits in PF2:
1. 1 minute spells are the majority of strong combat pre-buff spells, a length of time that severely hampers the idea of players turning themselves into "roid monsters."
2. Only having 3 bonus types, and many ways of accessing them, means that it is difficult to really push the math that far out of balance, especially as +3s are very expensive, and so the vast majority of these kinds of buffs are +1s until very high level. +1s are nice. +1s matter. +1s don't break encounters, or replace the need for strong tactical play in combat encounters.
3. It actually is a fairly heavy investment for a character to go heavy on lots of scrolls and have them accessible without blowing through actions and thus rounds of duration. A retrieval belt can only be used once a minute, even if it is a higher level version of the item, you can only have one retrieval prism active at a time and if you want to use another, it has to be attached again like any other talisman. Sleeves of Storing are pretty essential items for casters and other consumable users, but they actually do fill up if you are burning through scrolls like candy, and casting pre-buffs from scrolls and having to spend actions drawing/retrieving those scrolls means not tricking items and not concealed casting, or spending 2 rounds to cast each spell. All this leads to one or two pre-buff spells being frequently feasible, but more than 2 extremely difficult, especially if only one or two players in the party are capable of casting spells and willing to invest in being vending machines of scrolls and spells.
4. The vast majority of characters will only ever be able to use one mutagen at a time, and getting essential item bonuses from consumables, especially stuff like perception bonuses requires either a substantial amount of gold, or chugging them constantly if you want to have bonuses while engaging in any kind of exploration activity.
The issue is just not nearly as serious as you are making it out to be and it is nothing like PF1 rocket tag.
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I do not know why, but you seem to consistently have selective amnesia when talking about this topic.
I literally specified that said wands are cheaper than the boots while providing more (pseudo)permanent speed, yet you wave gp cost as a defense/distraction. You still wave "pf1 was worse" as some kind of defense for pf2, when you know it is completely irrelevant.
Even when others are more opinionated, you are the one it has been the most difficult/frustrating to discuss this with.
"Every +1 matters"
Prebuffs are very strong, and add a lot of numbers.
That's the core of the issue. Combat is a numbers game, and the ability to add numbers before the fight begins makes the equation lopsided as hell.
Please stop flailing around for these weak deflections.
For the Nth time, we are talking about prebuffs, and the potential GMs who may ignore the "one prebuff per PC" guidance. This is when the action cost of scrolls does not matter.
Duration does not matter.
Just because 1 min effects tend to be more potent does not somehow delete the numbers benefits of 10 min, 1 hr, or 8 hr effects.
At L8, my Alchemists can drink/feed all day darkvision, and later throw 15ft bursts of darkness. Prebuffing darkvision, especially when it bypasses the build/ancestry feat investment, "is hella powerful" even if it happens during daily prep.
Alchemists can give PCs +1 over the normal attack stats at all levels, while still using the item bonus category.
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I already attempted to convey this, but the way buff stacking works is due to the large number of different statistics available to buff. No, you cannot outright auto-win by stacking attack & AC buffs, but that doesn't really help much. You take one Fast Healing effect, then mix it with a Temp HP effect, then some form of reactive "restore Hit Points" effect, drinkable dmg resistance, etc. Even it's "spread out" you still become absurdly tanky before initiative.
Spells especially are notorious for giving unique, "not a status bonus" effects, and foe-side penalties are sprinkled in every buff source. I can feed people Frogskin Tinctures to poison anything that makes bite contact, and a Pucker Pickle outright imposes a -2 Circ penalty to any further rolls that would "taste" someone.
How many claw attacker PCs would pay 12 gp to get the effect of an extra damage elemental rune for an hour?
That's surely not a thing they can just do right?
It is after HotW.
Claws of the Otter is a "crap spell", except for the detail that the spell adds 1d6 bonus cold damage to the claws. And the scroll is 12 gp at its most expensive. And the Trick Magic Item DC is 18.
Again, there is no end to these spells nor items. Prebuffing as a concept will continue to get more and more powerful. 1d6 bonus damage here, "explode for __d__ damage" there, until the PC advantage stacks up to make the victory a foregone conclusion.
In a world of (always growing) limitless choice and no per-PC effect limit, it's up to the GM to make arbitrary safeties and limits for things like that.
It's just absurd to pretend there's not already enough buff options to destroy game balance. As soon as one comes to the realization that enough numbers are already there to substantially drop difficulty, it's really obvious that the book's "one doorkick buff" rule/guidance is not something that should be ignored.
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So to be very clear, @Trip H., you are arguing that having Mystic Armor active would be a casters 1 buff spell, and they would crossing the intended "1 buff per encounter" line if the same caster cast False Vitality?
That just seems excessively punitive and nonsensical to me, and makes playing a caster much worse. Not for this combination specifically, but because there are tons of all day spells that are clearly not meant to be exclusive. Environmental Endurance, for example is often just one part of making deep undersea exploration feasible.
So to be very clear, @Trip H., you are arguing that having Mystic Armor active would be a casters 1 buff spell, and they would crossing the intended "1 buff per encounter" line if the same caster cast False Vitality?
That just seems excessively punitive and nonsensical to me, and makes playing a caster much worse. Not for this combination specifically, but because there are tons of all day spells that are clearly not meant to be exclusive. Environmental Endurance, for example is often just one part of making deep undersea exploration feasible.
FFS dude, stop engaging dishonestly.
No, I have not argued that at all.
My claims:
1. Prebuffs are powerful enough to imbalance combat to the point of greatly altering the outcome ("breaking" combat balance).
2. The game's own rule/guidance of "one doorkick(pre-fight) prebuff" is super important.
My claimed consequence / needed action created by 1 & 2:
Because prebuffing (combat breaking) is at the fickle whim of player behavior, GMs are responsible for talking through that table's "gentleman's agreement" as to the arbitrary (as in, not mechanically limited like Investment) rules around prebuffing.
Doorkick rules are the most important/balance-breaking, but that's one common expression of the root problem.
Which is unlimited prebuffing.
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Do note that this is the same core issue that causes some GMs to ban Tailwind Wands. Different specific case, and one that many choose to address via a single item ban. The root problem is not the wand, but prebuffing.
Prebuffing is a big splinter in the very foundation of pf2, and is something that all savvy GMs should beware.
And doorkick/pre-fight prebuffing is such a natural tactic/compulsion that it's something that all GMs should have a rule for, or at least create one in reaction to the first time the players dump their bags and throw a buff party outside a boss door.
And yes, a "no, you guys can't do that, because: because" type of rule sucks balls, but as soon as players perform a big buff dance, that demonstrates that it's needed for the sake of numbers integrity.
And lastly, despite all your mischaracterization, I've not imposed any personal rule once, and the only "actual rule" I've repeated with any degree of "should" weight is the guidance/rule of the damn book!
It's just completely nuts to me that I have to argue for the rule of "one doorkick prebuff" to actually be considered the default when that's exactly what the text instructs.
While I can guess that the strong opposition to limiting prebuffs is often related to those who've "experienced worse" in pf1 and are scared of loosing that power source, it's still astounding how many chained mental backflips are being performed to keep dodging the exiting rule guidance itself being the source of the "one doorkick buff" idea (yet, the dodges are always done without directly opposing said rule).
If you disagree with the "one doorkick prebuff" thing, please actually share your unobfuscated rule/opinion on how "the prebuffing question" should be handled, instead of attacking "mine" (the book's) from every angle, once your smokescreen attempts fail.
If you think so, just say ~"I think that is a bad rule/guidance, and do not have any limits on prebuffing" and maybe elect to share a "because ____ __ ___" and be done with that point.
I will call out the books being stupid and advocate for homebrew when I think it's appropriate, even when it's the minority take. There is no need to be shy about that on a pseudonymous internet forum.
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In my reading, the one prebuff suggestion is talking about general guidance for parties that are taking no precautions and using spells with one minute duration. I don’t think it is nearly as balance oriented as you do and I think reading all day buffs, like tailwind, false life, mystic armor, elemental endurance, etc into “only 1 prebuff” is highly problematic behavior for a GM to engage in.
Getting +1s to every possible combat statistic with consumables is nearly impossible and highly dependent on what kind of bonuses we are talking about. A GM that always has every enemy standing up and alert in a dungeon is narrative breaking problematic behavior on its own, but having PCs prebuff and then having aware enemies grab weapons and take up defensive piositions is a very easy way to balance these things. At higher levels, many humanoid NPCs often have consumables listed in their gear. GMs can have them use them too for narrative continuity. PCs can dispel spell buffs. Enemy casters can do the same. What level of this will be fun for each table is highly subjective, which is where the 1 rebuff advice probably comes in as a starting place until the whole table is ready, but it certainly does not include long duration spells and consumables. That kind of stuff is a part of those classes power budget and will absolutely decimate their comparative power levels if you just strike it down.
The key to all of this as a GM is don’t make boring dungeons where the exact same tactics and strategies work every time, over and over again. Paizo already takes care of this pretty well in their own adventures. As your players learn to cooperate and accomplish more, you can start to adjust some challenge knobs more, but you want to stay behind their learning curve, not ahead of it, and have sensible, narratively compelling back up plans to keep the story moving when the dice are being rough. That is always valuable advice, but it does double work when the table is able to stop playing PF2 like a video game and play it like a cooperative story telling game.
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I don’t think it is nearly as balance oriented as you
Casting advantageous spells before a fight (sometimes called “pre-buffing”) gives the characters a big advantage, since they can spend more combat rounds on offensive actions instead of preparatory ones. If the players have the drop on their foes, you usually can let each character cast one spell or prepare in some similar way, then roll initiative.
The book's advice is 100% about combat game balance. Nor does it make any pretense about this "one doorkick prebuff" being something that makes narrative sense in-world, like w/ the common community excuse of loud magic. The rule is simply an arbitrary limit to something the PCs can always do, for the sake of combat balance.
If the PCs want to be undetected and prebuff, there is nothing the GM can do with stuff that makes sense in-story to balance it. The GM will only be able to "cheat buff" the foes in response to the buff party tactic via things like elite template at the last minute, more HP, adding items to their belt, etc.
We already went over this.
If the PCs are heard by foes for buffing too close, they will modify the tactic so they are not heard. The PCs do not even need to sit on the other side of the door. As soon as they know foes are close (scouting) they can buff while inside a bubble of silence, use Conceal Spell, etc.
Pf2 is an unbound ttrpg, you cannot impose "fake rules" like that. The GM will loose the "arms race" every time. Either make a rule, or deal with the consequences of not doing so.
Again, you have chained yet another backflip dodge while still lying about my stance on this.
I think reading all day buffs, like tailwind, false life, mystic armor, elemental endurance, etc into “only 1 prebuff” is highly problematic behavior for a GM to engage in.
Stop lying, or get your eyes checked. I never even put that concept to text, and I most certainly never suggested that as a good idea.
Buffs of any duration can used in a boss door buff party, and there is 0 mention of duration in the book's "one prefight buff" guidance. Numbers are numbers.
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Getting +1s to every possible combat statistic with consumables is nearly impossible and highly dependent on what kind of bonuses we are talking about.
That is irrelevant.
The threshold is a fuzzy "there are enough existing prebuff options that without restriction, combat balance is affected to the point of disruption."
In my experience, that level of power can be achieved with enlarged Bless(& now Bene), Haste, Numbing, & stacking bonuses to damage on the primary Striker. Haste is the most expensive, and the most potent. Casting it in combat is a big trade/gamble, as you are sacrificing an early turn for more actions later. As a prebuff, it's just free actions.
Getting even just a few more outright offensive actions than normal, when you otherwise would need to respond to their damage w/ healing, movement, or defense is enough to blatantly tip the scales. It really does not take much.
Again, in a system where every +1 matters, this shit is super obvious guys.
You mathematically cannot state that small differences matter, then pretend it's fine to let PCs spend 3 turns roiding themselves. That ends the challenge right there.
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And again, players are infinitely inventive. You can't stop prebuffing via in-world stuff.
They will bring an air source into a magic "buff bag" full of scrolls carried by the Rogue to hold a buff party in the pocket dimension if they don't like the GM's "foe smart" attempts at counterbalance.
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I'm sorry if I came across like I did think that. I don't like pf2e combat and want to find anything I can to get it over with, that is a me thing.
I feel you, which is kind of funny since I really like PF2. But pretty much every character I make has at least one way to avoid or prevent a fight, and if I can avoid an encounter with Diplomacy/Deception/Intimidation/Stealth/etc, I'm doing it (combat is not my favorite thing).
Amusingly, this makes me worse at prebuffing. Any enemy that realizes I've prebuffed can run the clock out on those buffs by talking, and if I don't realize they're just stalling for time (entirely possible with lousy perception), I'll take the bait to try and talk our way past it. The more offensive minded folks in the party will chafe at that, heh.
I don't find it that big a deal in PF2 and find this whole conversation kind of bewildering. It's not like in 3.5 where for one encounter we spent an hour planning and had a list of buffs that went all the way down the whiteboard we used for combat (and its a big whiteboard), or my Curse of the Crimson Throne group that had so many buffs we needed a stack of index cards on the table to track what they all did. For some of those situations we literally had a fight won before it even started, and while that made us feel clever, it was slow and wasn't fun for the GM (or players not invested in planning).
Just recently one of my Ruby Phoenix groups prebuffed with Heroism before a fight*, which required someone to sneak ahead successfully, figure out the situation, get back, buff far enough away to avoid getting noticed, and then get in before they expired. With 5 players that doesn't leave 1 minute buffs up very long, and if they're being smart enough to scout ahead and use their scrolls?
Good for them. I'm not their enemy as the GM, and I want them to have a good time. Punishing them for actually thinking ahead just seems foolish. I mean, if it was ruining the game for me, then we'd have to have a discussion about it, but they've got a limited pile of scrolls.
* Not one of the tournament matches.
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If the PCs are heard by foes for buffing too close, they will modify the tactic so they are not heard. The PCs do not even need to sit on the other side of the door. As soon as they know foes are close (scouting) they can buff while inside a bubble of silence, use Conceal Spell, etc.
As a GM, I'm okay with that. You've just listed a lot of resources the party can use to make sure that they can get their prebuffs off. Cool...if you're casting silence (or buying scrolls of it) or spending Feats to be able to cast quietly then why should I stop you from doing the thing?
Intelligent foes will also do things to prepare if warned and given an opportunity.
The opening infiltration in Prey for Death is a great example of a good balanced way to handle the enemy's countermeasures -- you track Awareness points based on what the party does, and at each level of Awareness points different countermeasures are taken. But that's just codifying something that most longtime GMs already do -- have the adventure target react to circumstances.
What the art of GMing *is* is telling a satisfying story while providing the level of challenge the party wants. And there are lots of levers you can use to adjust that level of challenge. Once you've gotten enough experience at running games, some of this might be *complicated*, but none of it is *hard*.
Players can prepare for whats next however they want.
If they read the situation right its an advantage they deserve.
If they read it wrong it could mean wasted resources.
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I like giving prebuff periods as a reward for good stealth, ambushes, and unique plays; I don't like it when they begin to become the default. I do share the balance concerns Trip has—but even beyond that, I think constant prebuffing has a rather homogenizing effect on encounters and just starts piling on the sticky note tracking at an IRL table. (Large amounts of buffs are easier to handle on a VTT, though.)
If prebuffing were to get out of hand, I would really prefer to address it out of character as a table first, instead of pushing back from behind the screen. If players persisted even after talking about it, I would probably consider adding limits on 10m and 1m buffs before I consider the more in-universe responses. That sort of GMing always struck me as strangely passive-aggressive.
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I agree with Bluemagetim, why take away good strategy/planing?, that is like saying since you bought a ladder the wall is now dubbled in height.
use logic rather then wim, if they try to prebuff just outside the door without subtle trait, then they will most likely trigger the combat.
if noone is around to hear it, then let them and then track how meny rounds of the buffs they waste getting to the encounter.
De incentivizing strategy is one of the worst things a gm can do even if they have good intentions.
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Like everything, prebuffing is good in moderation. If your players are prebuffing all the time or if your players are never prebuffing, there's certainly an issue somewhere.
Now, if the party optimizes for prebuffing, building a good scouting strategy and paying for feats like Conceal Spell, then it has to be accepted as a party strategy. Of course, balance has to be taken in consideration, if the end result is an overwhelmingly effective party then the GM should intervene. But as the players paid to be good at prebuffing then it should be rewarded.
So I don't think there's a definite answer on prebuffing. It's a good thing when it happens but it can be abused. Like most things, the GM has to handle it with care.
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So if the players are doing to well they should be punished? Why?
If the players have found a way to trivialize the game then there's an issue.
It's not about doing well, too well, or anything like that. It's about playing the game versus repeating the same thing ad nauseam because it just works.But I read before that you dislike combat in PF2. So for you challenging fights are a "punishment" , for me it's part of what makes the game fun. So I don't think we will agree on this question.
Something to think about: What can most monsters do if you prebuff even if they know you're there?
The vast majority of rooms do nothing until you enter, so if you prebuff there is no real danger. Prebuffing is best if used when it is needed in the big encounters and the enemy will be doing the same if they are capable. If not, then they don't.
I've even seen players buff during battle only to have the battle over by the time they have their buffs up. Some player getting a lucky crit or just wrecking an enemy that isn't that strong.
Often times prebuffing doesn't matter. It makes the players feel like their spells matter even if they don't.
The biggest force multiplier is not buffs; it's a party of players with multiple actions doing offense.
Even today at level 14, my players fought a hill giant warlord CR+2 with CR equal bodyguards riding three elite CR-3 mammoths. Fight was over before it started. They just used their actions to drop three eclipse bursts on them to open the fight. The rest was just clean up.
High level groups with caster power are absolutely brutal even in PF2. Melee martials even with a decent ranged attack like a rock are mostly doomed against caster AOE. Didn't even need buffs. Just burn them to the ground.
I don't worry much about pre-buffing as it doesn't do much save in a few circumstances. I worry more about caster AoE power which can just ruin encounter after encounter when you have a few brutal casters dropping AoEs or AoE slowing a group or single target slow a boss. Least of my worries is a pre-buff which likely won't even equal the effectiveness of caster AOE power.
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You answer me as if I was somehow disagreeing with you. I don't, just read my 2 previous posts.
GM job is complex, there's no hard truth. You constantly have to juggle between tables and players (I play with lots of different players), adjudicate situations on the spot, stay aware of what's happening and adapt to the situation. That's one of the most taxing and complex job I know.
Challenging
Challenging means that failure is around the corner. It's not about how you succeed, it's how you could have failed.
Now, there are players who dislike challenging, there are players who have different perception of challenging and overall, once again, no hard truth about it.
I, as a player, like challenging. As a GM, I can unfold challenging sessions and easygoing ones. Once again, no hard truth, just seizing the moment.
To go one layer deeper to harp on about as to *why* prebuffing is a problem:
The GM is the one responsible for setting the combat balance / difficulty to maximize the party's fun.
If the players keep a "buff bag" that they jump into once an a blue moon, that wrecks the GMs set balance point. Boss door fight buffing is such a problem, *because* it happens so close to the initiative roll; that boss encounter was already made by the GM and exists, it mostly too late to intelligently re-balance it.
Yeah, if the PCs buffed the exact same every fight, the GM could accommodate.
A PC that uses the same buffs every morning just ups their expected power as if they had some extra feats/etc.
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In practice though, even daily prebuffs can still puts a huge amount of extra work onto the GM, because of how *contextual* buffs are, and how the more variables are at play, the less predicable / balance-able combat as a whole becomes.
Every additional maybe buff is less consistency for the GM to work with. (Does the foe use bites? If no, then Pucker Pickle & Frogskin are worth 0 power, etc.)
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The most important detail here is that normally the GM is the one who is trusted to balance combat, and prebuffing instead puts that power in the players' hands.
If the party is looking ragged and low resource at the end of a session
before a boss, it's the GM who might secretly nerf the boss a bit to keep it fun.
If the players have the possibility to seriously increase their own power-level, this mean that the GMs ability to balance is trashed. Once the players start to carry a buff bag, the GM just doesn't know if nor how much said party will do the buff dance, and can't actually know how powerful the party will be when they start the fight.
And again, players are infinitely inventive. You can't stop prebuffing via in-world stuff.
They will bring an air source into a magic "buff bag" full of scrolls carried by the Rogue to hold a buff party in the pocket dimension if they don't like the GM's "foe smart" attempts at counterbalance.
So again, because I am trying to get at the heart of your argument, you are saying:
the game has a 1 buff maximum rule that should include all forms of buffing regardless of duration or source.
Thus any deviation from allowing PCs to proceed into an encounter with more than one active buff is not playing the game by the rules and expected power level of PC.
My disagreement with you is that:
1. I see the section of the GM core you keep pointing back to as advice (and especially advice for the situation of "the party is at the door to a room and wants to cast spells before opening it") and not as rules text; and
2. I do not think that all buffs are equal, and that largely, duration is the naturally limiting factor in how effectively a party can really prebuff.
I agree that the GM should talk to players about expectations for what spells and consumables can accomplish in a campaign and if the GM doesn't want magic generally solving problems, then making that clear to the players is important. However, I think your interpretation of the "1 buff maximum" excessively harsh if it is including things like tailwind wands, or I presume being buffed with false vitality (since you list sources of temp HP as an unbalancing buff) to be a player's one active buff.
In my actual play experience with parties that like active buffing, the cost-benefit of trying to maximally buff everything all the time is unfavorable to the players. High level buffs are exceedingly better than lower level ones and parties that only ever rely on rank 1 and 2 spells/cheap consumables will waste a lot of time and resources compared to parties that use buff spells selectively within the context of the encounters they expect ahead. Does wasting time and resources matter? That is 100% the realm of GM discretion, but, again in my experience, players tend to self correct when they realize they are throwing too many consumable resources at non-threatening encounters, and tend to double down on over preparing when the game is feeling excessively difficult, so often times that becomes a useful means of feedback to a GM that is paying attention.
Also, making dungeons that are narratively dynamic and require changing strategies is an essential GM skill to learn that is fostered by every paizo AP and adventure I have read or played. I think a GM that tries to use rules to change player behavior instead of adjusting the types of encounters and narrative pacing is inviting repetition and rules exploitation into the game, not discouraging those things.
If the players keep a "buff bag" that they jump into once an a blue moon, that wrecks the GMs set balance point. Boss door fight buffing is such a problem, *because* it happens so close to the initiative roll; that boss encounter was already made by the GM and exists, it mostly too late to intelligently re-balance it.
I think this might actually be more at the root of the problem than anything to do with buffing.
If dungeons are always so predictable and static that the boss encounter is behind its own door, and the players always know which door that is, and don't have to worry about that encounter collapsing into low and moderate threat encounters around it, then pre-buffing becomes a problem.
But if isolating the boss encounter into its own partitioned encounter with enough time to pre-buff unlimitedly is a common experience for PCs, than of course they will choose to do that.
But if the boss creature is intelligent, why is it sitting still an unfavorable environment? It could just leave with its treasures. It could recruit additional allies in extra time. It could set traps that will add difficulty to the encounter. It could spy on the party in such a way as to have a much more advantageous position when the encounter begins. It could go and take hostages to use as bartering pawns or human shields against the party if they take an excessive amount of time to engage it.
There are many narrative solutions to the issue that make the game more fun and dynamic than setting arbitrary mechanical limits on prebuffing.
Which might at first be difficult for new GMs, which is where general guidance for about how many prebuffs to allow before introducing a complication are valuable, but eventually even that general advice is not necessary.
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If the players keep a "buff bag" that they jump into once an a blue moon, that wrecks the GMs set balance point.
From my experience, buff bags are only a high level (potential) issue. At lower level, they are either too expensive or give bonuses too low for the players to care about.
Even combining Bless, Benediction, Bane and Malediction is very far from a problem: 1 minute buffs very often end before the fight even starts. And in the case of these spells it's even worse because of the need to Sustain them to make them useful.
On top of that, it's extremely easy to control: When a player wants to buy dozens of Scrolls of the same spells, as a GM you should raise an eyebrow. It's not necessarily an issue but if it becomes one you can just tell your players the game is not intended to be played that way (which is rather true, you're not supposed to use dozens of Scrolls per adventuring days) and limit the number of available Scrolls and as such the potential for such prebuffing.
Overall, I think it's a non-issue. I don't expect, both as a GM and player, to ever face this situation and if it happens I expect it to be handled quickly.
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PF2E's difficulty levers are coarse, because +1/-1 are so impactful. As a result, adjusting for a party that prebuffs effectively will risk pushing the game too far—especially in encounters consisting solely of a few enemies above PC level. PF2E has a ceiling on where you can put the difficulty without the game becoming miserable.
I also think it's just unfun and disingenuous to respond to a party tactic by attempting to numerically invalidate the tactic behind the screen. You're silently removing player agency, and worse, you're putting them in a position where they now need to prebuff to meet your expected performance levels. Everything is taking more time and effort for the players, and they ultimately gain no additional benefits over the time when they didn't prebuff. And instead of ameliorating the problem, you've actually just made the problem behavior required! That feels awful.
Because of those two things, it makes more sense to me to just cut off the problem (if players ever want to start abusing it) than try to adjust encounter balance to compensate.
I think I am interested in how things play out for you Trip H.
The reason i ask is because its been a problem for you and I dont want to invalidate your experience by just saying its not a problem for you.
My players dont really think about prebuffing mainly because most battles have some kind of exploration or story beats happening first in my games. So if they are in a situation where they can prebuff its one where prebuffing was actually a result of their planning and preparing for the coming fight.
It hasnt for us been a problem.
What has it looked like on your end?
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if players enjoy prebuffing and 'trivialising' encounters, why is that a problem?
2 questions in one.
As I stated, if players like prebuffing and take the necessary measures (scouting, Conceal Spell, etc...) then I think it's both legitimate and fun to allow them to prebuff and as such get an advantage.
If players like to trivialize encounters then I'd certainly dial the difficulty down (without any need for prebuff). As a side note, I regularly put trivial encounters for my players to feel that their PCs are super strong, it's nice to feel that your character is actually getting stronger and stronger and it's a feeling you don't get if you always face Moderate+ encounters.
The only case where I may want to intervene is if it gets old. Basically, if players use the same kind of strategy over and over again because it works far too easily and end up facing only trivial encounters when it's not expected. Roughly, I intervene when the table is getting bored by an over use of the same recipe.
In general, the parties I play with expect some level of difficulty. So a strategy that trivializes encounters is causing issue by itself. But it's not always the case.
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So if the players are doing to well they should be punished? Why?If the players have found a way to trivialize the game then there's an issue.
It's not about doing well, too well, or anything like that. It's about playing the game versus repeating the same thing ad nauseam because it just works.But I read before that you dislike combat in PF2. So for you challenging fights are a "punishment" , for me it's part of what makes the game fun. So I don't think we will agree on this question.
Fair point that we wont agree, so I will ask a slightly different question: if players enjoy prebuffing and 'trivialising' encounters, why is that a problem?
I assume you don't mean it this way, but you are coming across like the people who complain about games having easy difficulty settings.
Oh and before people say I just don't like challenging combat: I play wargames for that, and they do it, imho, better for the style of tactical I enjoy.
The only problem is if you have a party that regularly prebuffs, and then complains that the combat is too easy. (Or worse, doesn't complain, but gets quietly bored of it.)
The solution to this has nothing to do with buffing, prebuffing, or altering encounters, and everything to do with talking with your group. You should have an "are you having fun?" checkin every so often.
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This is a game of rules, it has a baseline used for balance. Part of that baseline is little to no prebuffing. This also includes scouting and ambushing enemies. The rules for encounter building are for when your group clashes head on with an enemy.
Everything you do to change that default makes work for the GM. Either by having to change the encounter balance or just finding out what the players and party as a whole are looking for.
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This is a game of rules, it has a baseline used for balance. Part of that baseline is little to no prebuffing. This also includes scouting and ambushing enemies. The rules for encounter building are for when your group clashes head on with an enemy.
Everything you do to change that default makes work for the GM. Either by having to change the encounter balance or just finding out what the players and party as a whole are looking for.
This baseline doesn't exist. I'm always wondering when you make such statements how you prove it. What if the module recommends the monster is pre-buffed before the fight? What if the battle starts more than three moves apart and you start buffing while the monster is moving towards you and couldn't attack it anyway? What if the monster knows you're there, but doesn't open the door because they wouldn't do that anyway and just sit inside taking cover while you're pre-buffing?
What exactly is the baseline of the game? Enemy and PC rolling initiative as soon as the door is open regardless of what else the PC or enemy would or can do?
Presuming there is a baseline is a highly limited way to look at a game that is supposed to emulate magical adventuring in an imaginary world.
This baseline doesn't exist. I'm always wondering when you make such statements how you prove it. What if the module recommends the monster is pre-buffed before the fight? What if the battle starts more than three moves apart and you start buffing while the monster is moving towards you and couldn't attack it anyway? What if the monster knows you're there, but doesn't open the door because they wouldn't do that anyway and just sit inside taking cover while you're pre-buffing?What exactly is the baseline of the game? Enemy and PC rolling initiative as soon as the door is open regardless of what else the PC or enemy would or can do?
Presuming there is a baseline is a highly limited way to look at a game that is supposed to emulate magical adventuring in an imaginary world.
Prebuffed and debuffed encounters typically do have their encounter rating adjusted somewhat, for what it's worth. I can think of a few encounters in the AP I'm running that have CR adjustments in place because an enemy starts combat sickened or slowed.
I agree that there isn't a single platonic ideal of The Encounter that the system is balanced around, yeah. But the system math does still behave in consistent and predictable ways, and it's not hard to account for the impact of a lot of these supposed "gotcha" cases—as you illustrated yourself by talking through some of them.
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You really think most tables with Stealth easily available don't send a stealth character as a forward scout or use magic for scouting?
I don't have an opinion on it, but I'm a bit curious as to the commonality of it. at the tables I GM that sort of thing seems to have been subsumed by the Scout exploration action.
I'm starting a new campaign in a few weeks for a group that includes three players I've only played beside, and never GMed, and who have a very different play style than the groups I usually run, so I'm curious to see if a bunch of different patterns emerge.
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You really think most tables with Stealth easily available don't send a stealth character as a forward scout or use magic for scouting?I don't have an opinion on it, but I'm a bit curious as to the commonality of it. at the tables I GM that sort of thing seems to have been subsumed by the Scout exploration action.
I'm starting a new campaign in a few weeks for a group that includes three players I've only played beside, and never GMed, and who have a very different play style than the groups I usually run, so I'm curious to see if a bunch of different patterns emerge.
I'm so used to getting called out for the way my table runs, I don't even know what is common any more.
We scout. We use terrain to our advantage. We position tactically with melees up front and casters in back. We used ranged power to our advantage to soften targets.
I don't know how common any of this is. I've been gaming so long I don't know what it is sit at a table with young players doing their first foray into these types of games.
I was very into reading and studying military style weapons and tactics when younger. A couple of my buddies and I used to try to do spec ops campaigns and loved Navy S.E.A.L.S. and Green Berets.
So we tend to play like we're emulating an elite combat unit as much as possible. One of our other players was an officer in the military. Almost everyone has experience with tactical play whether tactical war board games or miniatures or military service or lots of reading and studying of tactical operations.
So my group may not be the norm. I would love to see a demographic study of playstyles in these types of games. I've always noticed an obvious divide between the combat-focused gamers like myself and some of my players and RP/creative focused players who focus more on the RP including maybe more humor and non-combat interaction in play without much focus on the gritty details of combat power.
I would think on the list of exploration activities, scouting would be a high priority exploration activity used by many groups.
This is a game of rules, it has a baseline used for balance. Part of that baseline is little to no prebuffing. This also includes scouting and ambushing enemies. The rules for encounter building are for when your group clashes head on with an enemy.
Everything you do to change that default makes work for the GM. Either by having to change the encounter balance or just finding out what the players and party as a whole are looking for.
100%
It also seems to need repeating that a whole hecking lot of pf2 play is done within the published APs. Possibly (hopefully) being played with milestone leveling.
There absolutely is a balance & power level expectation for the party. One that I've seen broken. My poor Stolen Fate GM has been trying to deal with how nutty our (low tactics, 0 scouting) L13 party's power level is, and we're just system savvy with smart Class/Archetype selection, 0 tactic cheese/prebuffing abuse. It took us agroing a min of 6 encounters at once to actually have to retreat.
*Especially* if you also browse the reddit from time to time, you can see all possible variants of wildly mis-matched balance issues. From players being so over-leveled they complain about never getting good loot (because it all looks underleveled from their PoV) to players getting powderized by a high level encounter.
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Basically, if you think the concept of combat that has both the possibility to die and to survive is a valid form of pf2 play, then you intrinsically support the notion that said combat should be fair.
Just because something is in the PC's favor, does not mean that it is fair.
An easy balance culprit to point to is Haste. The spell is hella strong, as it's a direct change to the action economy.
It's also right at the upper edge of the "cheap" consumables at 30gp for a L3 scroll.
Haste is great to use as a case-study because it also has the R7 version. The only upside of R7 Haste is that one 2A spell cast now buffs six targets, where you'd previously need six casts of the R3 version. That's it.
A party of 4 with a spellcaster can spend 120 gp, prebuff at a boss door, and get the buff-power that the game balances as *better* than an R7 spell (because this is being cast for 0 combat actions). +1 Striking weapons are 100 gp, and sell for >= 50gp.
Full party Hasting can be done at a rather early level without breaking the bank. Like waaaaay before casters will have access to the R7 Haste.
Overall, people here are *really* underselling how powerful prebuffing can be, and that's fine. It's okay to not care about combat balance all that much, and the ~"not everything is about balance" takes are totally valid.
What's not okay is to lie about the numbers. Every +1 does matter in this system. Even the minor buffs, like Bene & Bless, are basically increasing your PC level by 1 for those rolls. The very smallest buff increment is a full level's power. It's a lot.
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In my experience, most players really do try not to upset the apple cart, and are not seeking to power max. That's ultimately why the issue isn't relevant for tables w/ a stable roster of players. But, it may be somewhere between 1/10 to 1/15 ish that really do just take every scrap of power they can think of. I've seen that they may not have the system knowledge/creativity to think of the buff bag idea (and a surprising amount have never really looked at the scroll prices), but every GM I've spoken to instantly said: yes, they have to deal with problem power gamers on the regular. And when I asked about the Tailwind wand, there was variance in the color of it as a yellow to red flag, but all the GMs recognized common power tricks like the Tailwind wand as important flags that told them to keep a closer eye on that player.
I've had a GM tell me unprompted that I've been unwittingly teaching him how to power game his own PC Alchemist, and I'll admit I winced at that. Part of the reason I chose Alchemist was because it was complicated enough to keep that itch busy, and because it was a bottom-tier choice, so I told myself I could "power game while keeping it legal, and I'd not cause table issues w/ over-performing the other PCs." To be honest, that's mostly borne out as true (hooray?), and while Bottles of Night are pretty badly balance-breaking if an RK confirms no darkvision, the main balance-breaker I've encountered are just the gods damned spell scrolls. Once you learn to dodge the Draw action, they are just spell slots you pay gp for.
I come at this issue as someone who enjoys power gaming and doing weird combos that spit out high numbers, but mostly in videogames (and I've submitted tickets after some discoveries that've resulted in changes), and I also have just enough game making experience to see how delicate combat balance in a ttrpg like pf2 is in comparison.
Scouting doesn't use Exploration activities, there's no exploration activity that covers that.
Now, I agree that scouting "inside a dungeon" is doomed to fail. Any failed check and you are either toasted by a trap or caught alone in a Moderate+ fight => bye bye scout.
Scouting is primarily meant to be used either with magic (Prying Eyes and such) or outside any dungeony environment.
Now, if with your party you allow scouting inside a dungeon, well, you're a nice GM to me. Or your players are fine losing a character every other dungeon.