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Who even spends that much time at those levels to become the problem you claim it is? Are new gamers really spending so much time at low level that they are getting driven out of the game due to the hit point math?Honestly, given that almost all the older "community wisdom" is reflective of play patterns almost entirely exclusive to L1-L4, I'd say it's an issue.
Most campaigns don't come anywhere near finishing, and most start at level 1. If they're APs, they barely make it out of book 1 or book 2 before the campaign collapses due to scheduling issues or something else. A lot of people's only experience with PF2E just is low level.
I am a 63-year-old gamer who first played Dungeons & Dragons in 1979 (my wife started in 1978). I am often behind the times in real life, so I worry about having older community wisdom that is outdated. Could you provide some clear examples so that I can adjust to modern gameplay?
Also, I have finished all the Paizo APs that I have run, except that the current one is still in progress. That is Rise of the Runelords, Jade Regent, Iron Gods, and Ironfang Invasion, with Strength of Thousands in progress. Rise of the Runelords ended as the party reached 17th level, so I added The Witchwar Legacy and some homebrew adventures to continue the campaign to 20th level. My players added extra missions to my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion game and gained extra XP, so I rewrote the adventure path to go to 20th level, too.
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Oh, I mean specifically for PF2E. It's changing, and you see less of it these days. But earlier in the game's lifespan there was a lot of advice (particularly for casters) that took too many lessons from L1-4 play—and L1-4 play in campaigns with high difficulty, to boot. Such advice included but was not limited to:
-Fighters are the best class in the game.
-Casters without strong features aside from their basic spellslots are weak. (Bard is the dominant caster, in particular; Cleric is close behind for easy access to lots of casts of Heal.)
-Spellcasters should focus on buffing or debuffing, and evaluate spells largely by their "success" condition if they have a save. Fear and Magic Weapon are the spells you hear most discussed, etc.
It's really easy to see how people could come to these conclusions after playing high difficulty low level content, but they're conclusions that don't generalize to the rest of the game at all. Casters pick up around L5 and only get stronger; they are not weak at all. Buffs and debuffs are more valuable the higher the difficulty is, so it's not hard to see how someone playing the earliest PF2E content (which loaded up on poorly balanced encounters) would think Fear, Magic Weapon, and bard songs are some of the strongest caster options in the game. Enemies above party level cause swingy outcomes that're quickly remedied by 2A Heal, and Cleric has a lot of those, so that's good. Fighter is good for high difficulty content, because it's more consistently hitting. (It also has the most forgiving class feature that requires the least teamplay to get value.) You get the idea.
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Pathfinder 2e is quite nearly perfect at all levels of play.
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Who even spends that much time at those levels to become the problem you claim it is? Are new gamers really spending so much time at low level that they are getting driven out of the game due to the hit point math?Honestly, given that almost all the older "community wisdom" is reflective of play patterns almost entirely exclusive to L1-L4, I'd say it's an issue.
Most campaigns don't come anywhere near finishing, and most start at level 1. If they're APs, they barely make it out of book 1 or book 2 before the campaign collapses due to scheduling issues or something else. A lot of people's only experience with PF2E just is low level.
Not sure how to parse this. The DM and players have to dedicate time to play for these games to work. So if they're collapsing, fixing this supposed hit point problem isn't going to change that.
I don't spend much time at level 1 to 4. The low level game is the low level game or the low build point game or the low game of anything I've ever played.
Even when I think of WoW or Everquest, the low level game is something you slot through as fast as you can. Trip H telling me low level video games don't have this problem makes me wonder what he is even talking about because when I'm playing lowbie guy in newbie zone, you die the most in that level range as you have the smaller number of powers, weak gear, and low stats so you can die in a newbie zone with ease compared to when you obtain higher levels, gain powerful abilities, and build up amazing gear where you can rip apart stuff solo that little newbie character couldn't do even against level appropriate enemies.
These games always start off with the paradigm of being weak and growing very strong whether it's a tabletop RPG or a video game. If you can't stomach getting passed the newbie phase and learn the high end game, you won't do very well at these games or video games.
I consider it a feature myself, but Trip H is telling me it's a problem that is fixable. I don't get what that means. You're never going to make level 1 to 4 feel like level 15 to 20 and I'm not sure anyone even wants that.
Going from weak, one shottable newbie to uber fighter crushing groups seems like what players want. If they can't make it past the newbie phase to get to that point, they aren't very invested in the game to start with.
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Not sure how to parse this. The DM and players have to dedicate time to play for these games to work. So if they're collapsing, fixing this supposed hit point problem isn't going to change that.
I just want to point out that people's impressions of the game are based on what they've actually played. As a result, the vast majority of people's impressions of the game are based on low level play, because it's pretty rare for people to be in campaigns that last long enough to get out of the early levels. And as a further result, when many people go to discuss and talk about PF2E, they end up talking about low level PF2E. So the low level experience has a way of becoming the "received experience" for the game, the one the most people talk about, the one that imprints itself on the wider TTRPG community.
That's not great when the first four levels are pretty different from the rest of the game—especially for casters.
Fixing low level swinginess won't make groups stay together any better, obviously. But it will give people an impression of the system that's more accurate to higher level play. That would then mean that when they give their opinions, there's less of a disconnect between people who've only gotten through early levels and those who have played longer campaigns or higher level ranges. And that would mean, in turn, that the "community wisdom" you see about casters being awful and so on would change a bit.
It's basically unquestioned design wisdom that the first few levels are the most important to get right because they're the ones that see the most play. PF2E is in the unfortunate position of having a L1-4 that feels like an entirely different game unless you dial the difficulty back a pretty large amount. It would be best if that weren't the case.
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Players being weak and having few tools is completely unrelated to the game's difficulty.
Yes, it's normal for low level play to be "boring" because the game cannot assume the player has preexisting transferable skills.
Each game typically has to be built for a genre newbie's experience, and for them, I assure you the novelty of it being their first ___ means that they are not bored for those early levels.
Again, being "weak" is a completely different axis from being made of paper and getting insta gibbed by an exploding stove.
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And to say it outright: getting oneshot for the "mistake" of being within Stride distance is outright not good game design.
I don't care if some subset of people like it, that scenario completely invalidates the concept of an HP number, and has countless knock on effects creating bad incentives. It's okay to claim bad/good in arbitrary opinions so long as the "why" explanations are able to be supported or opposed.
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HP should be a number that matters.
There are countless better ways to convey the feeling of being a weak neophyte than getting pancaked and dying on the floor with no agency to prevent it.
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And to be clear, there are many other "bad math" issues in pf2e, some in the opposite direction.
I've already abused pf2 to the point I tanked 9 zombies at once for a few turns (one poor sod couldn't even swing because he couldn't get adjacent).
I was the only PC without flight, and had the turn to quaff 2 buffs before they cleared the distance w/ a triple stride.
Because of pf2's bad math, I got to double resist the phys & cold damage, with Numbing active.
I didn't even have to spam self-healing, and was finally able to try out my deviant stomp ability without worrying about allies.
We didn't even realize that we were not supposed to be able to dogpile the flying boss and kill her first, as it was only after we cleaned up and kept moving that we discovered there was supposed to be some sort of moving engagement we accidentally skipped. Whoops.
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There's always room for improvement, and I do not know how anyone can more clearly attempt to explain that "no, unavoidable one-shots are genuinely bad and should not happen"
*Especially* when those one-shots only happen at the low levels, and do not exist for the "real" pf2 game. Those first 4ish levels are nothing but a parade of bad lessons.
I've started 3 APs from level 1, and all of them had PCs drop dying 2 from the low HP problem. Even had GM NPC intervention to keep the story going when it should have been a TPK. And also seen plenty of obvious last-moment GM lobotomies to avoid killing downed PCs.
Failure is supposed to be fun, but those no-mistake KOs aint it, chief.
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Someone is going to drop in harder fights where a GM isn't pulling punches. The creatures are just set up to do that, and GM rolls are notoriously crit heavy.
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Not sure how to parse this. The DM and players have to dedicate time to play for these games to work. So if they're collapsing, fixing this supposed hit point problem isn't going to change that.I just want to point out that people's impressions of the game are based on what they've actually played. As a result, the vast majority of people's impressions of the game are based on low level play, because it's pretty rare for people to be in campaigns that last long enough to get out of the early levels. And as a further result, when many people go to discuss and talk about PF2E, they end up talking about low level PF2E. So the low level experience has a way of becoming the "received experience" for the game, the one the most people talk about, the one that imprints itself on the wider TTRPG community.
That's not great when the first four levels are pretty different from the rest of the game—especially for casters.
Fixing low level swinginess won't make groups stay together any better, obviously. But it will give people an impression of the system that's more accurate to higher level play. That would then mean that when they give their opinions, there's less of a disconnect between people who've only gotten through early levels and those who have played longer campaigns or higher level ranges. And that would mean, in turn, that the "community wisdom" you see about casters being awful and so on would change a bit.
It's basically unquestioned design wisdom that the first few levels are the most important to get right because they're the ones that see the most play. PF2E is in the unfortunate position of having a L1-4 that feels like an entirely different game unless you dial the difficulty back a pretty large amount. It would be best if that weren't the case.
I very much disagree with this. If people are quitting at the low levels, they are never going to build a character they feel great about in a TTRPG or a video game.
I remember nothing about characters that I made in level 1 to 5 in TTRPGs or video games. They are throwaway characters with no real investment.
If you're not playing to the higher levels, you aren't investing in any game you play. You're dabbling. Just because there are a bunch of people who dabble a bit in a TTRPG by sheer numbers doesn't mean you need to get those levels "right" meaning what? What does "right" mean?
It takes not too many sessions to get to level 4, especially if you're doing milestone leveling. Those first 10 levels in a video game you crush right through them death or not with your crappy throwaway gear that isn't memorable at all until you reach level 10 or so and get some power boost like talent points or trees or what not.
I'd love to see your data on this idea that level 1 to 4 is the crucial levels for these games. I'm doubting that greatly.
I think the people who play these games don't really start to like them until they've had that first at least middle level character in the 8 to 12 range. That's when a player who has really invested in these games starts to feel what it is to play a character up.
Here we are talking about PF2, the game that has started characters off feeling much stronger than they have ever felt and people are still trying to find a problem with the early levels. Casters do more damage than they did in any edition of the game. Martials start off better than they have in any edition of the game.
Yet somehow you're positing that there is still a problem for new players that you want to fix how?
So far PF2 added more hit points, better AC, better stats, higher damage cantrips, much better access to weapons for casters, and there's still a problem?
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[] I remember nothing about characters that I made in level 1 to 5 in TTRPGs or video games. They are throwaway characters with no real investment. []
This is what I mean about the present moment pf2 being a different game than those old ttrpgs.
That "throwaway" PC for L1 does not exist anymore.
When people come to the table with a PC in today's "adventure" norm, that means they've got the backstory, character, etc, rather well fleshed out by L1.
Now that I'm thinking on it, every single other player in every single pf2 game I've witnessed has also planned ahead with their build. It's never been discussions about "what to pick" in a vacuum, it's always been about if/how they should change their preexisting build plan.
To be clear, players still develop and add to backstory as the campaign actually runs, character investment does grow.
But it is absolutely a different era, where a much larger amount of player investment is put into the L1 PCs before they even start rolling.
A player quite literally cannot begin without selecting species, class & sub-class, even their background is a slot that cannot be left blank at L1. Veeeery different from just picking "Elf" in ye olden days.
The idea of treating a PC as disposable is an alien point of view to the *vast* majority of pf2 players today.
This is why it is super important that *when* PCs die, it feels fair and earned. The death of a party member *should* be immensely significant, a scar that is felt for the remainder of the campaign.
The "meat grinder" disposable hero mindset outright tanks the ability to have drama and stakes, because, who cares?
(it's genuinely great that your own style vibes with the mechanics, but I'm asking you to try to look at things from a non-personal PoV)
(I also want to prompt you to consider if / how much the reason that you have that taste is *because* the old games trained you to play that way. Those games were ~harmoniously built around that meat grinder.
Meanwhile, the as-is pf2 is a disharmonious mess at L1, where the system tells players to invest in those PCs, but the math really, really wants to kill PCs. As a result, the GMs have to pull every BS trick in the book to minimize the body count, and the players don't actually learn correctly because low L play is a fuzzy tactical mess where being within Stride distance is itself a high risk gamble.)
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[]Here we are talking about PF2, the game that has started characters off feeling much stronger than they have ever felt and people are still trying to find a problem with the early levels.
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This just shows that you are still not treating pf2 as a standalone game. In your mind, it's an update to an older game you used to play. This makes it incredibly difficult to engage you in meaningful discussion.
I did play half a campaign of 3.5 as a sorcerer, but I'm coming at this from a perspective of a programmer who has dabbled in game dev. Even the indie and hobby scene has developed a huge amount of scholastic-style understanding of game and system design. These days, you can sit down in a class room and study bad game design.
Learning that ttrpgs have essentially been stuck in cryostasis was like stumbling into an old tomb. During my first AP, it was a neat ride to see what the devs changed from 3.5, and what stayed the same. This is even more apparent because ttrpgs had their systems get frozen way before the machine coding of computer games fostered a huge evolution on systems and what kinds of math equations work, and which suck at their job.
I do want to stress that on the whole, pf2 absolutely took a heat-gun and scalpel to many of the most problematic design elements while doing what it could to keep the cosmetic skin of 3.5 / pf1 untouched.
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Pf2 in specific is absolutely fascinating because there's no possible way to create such a good "half way there" result that has the design-savvy sense to rip the most problematic bits out, while delicately preserving so much of the "system aesthetics" of pf1 to make the transition as from 1 to 2 as painless as possible.
It's easy to take for granted just how much pf2 *is* pf1, even the level range of 1-20 is there literally because that's what it was in pf1. Done so that pf2 is not rejected by pf1 players, not because it make the most design sense.
It must have been absolutely hair-pulling to remodel the existing system as opposed to starting a new one.
Honestly, I kinda wished they went for the "build from scratch, but make it as comfortable for veteran hands as possible" approach, as that would have resulted in a very different set of present day "problems" that would be much easier to improve/address with new book releases.
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Someone is going to drop in harder fights where a GM isn't pulling punches. The creatures are just set up to do that, and GM rolls are notoriously crit heavy.
This is a good thing in a team game IMO. The threat of death needs to be genuine for players to care about it, and pf2's system of a dying state that is mathematically going to happen every now and again is a genuinely great way to thread the needle.
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The devil is in the details, and the key "bar" for a dying event to clear is that the players *need* to feel that they had the agency to have avoided that outcome if they had made different choices.
Luck plays a part, but players need to have the agency for a "bad luck allowance," in that they could have absorbed the normal luck swing and sill avoided dying/death.
Rephrased: it is exactly because crits happen, that those normal crits cannot auto-down a PC without it feeling like b~&$$!$+. Crits need to be a big yikes, but because they are the unavoidable X-factor, they *must not* be the reason for a PC to drop. There always must be something else, "I was out of position," "shoulda thrown a disable/debuff instead of that dmg spell," etc.
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I cannot think of anything more "fun destroying" than the "I made no mistake and am still dying" event, and that is the specific occurrence I'm attempting to speak toward. Every single AP I've played has had multiple of those events, even b&*!#~#$ like GM overruling a L1 death by rapid disease with a nonsense DC in SoT.
Right now, low L pf2 play involves a *lot* more GM intervention to prevent PC death than I think is being talked about. This is largely *because* the GMs have just as much a nose for b%~@#*%~ as their players, and will pull strings to avoid those specific BS deaths from happening when possible.
The result is a combat experience where imo no one has any idea of what tactics are working well, and what are not. If I drop dying from a single little gremlin with a hammer critting me on the first strike, maybe I did make a mistake? Was that supposed to be some slow foe you can kite/disable? It's only because I have larger pf2 experience that I have the gall to respond: "no, it's the system that is wrong, there was no misplay in that event."
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If you cannot trust the basic HP math, you cannot distinguish good tactics from good luck, nor bad tactics from bad luck.
Hence, "the game doesn't do a good job teaching players how to play"
That bad HP math is the core issue behind the topic of this thread. It's real, (it's homebrew ~fixable), and it harms the experience.
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Sometimes deciding to engage was the mistake.
Low level characters are more unique in that they have a greater sense of mortality than they do when they level.
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snip
The idea that people need to play basically a full 1-12 campaign to really start liking or feeling good about the system is just... at odds with reality. People are going to start forming opinions about the system from the second they read the book, and their opinion of actual play will start to form from their very first session. You can say people won't have an informed opinion, sure. But they'll certainly have an opinion, and they'll certainly talk about it. A lot of people have opinions of PF2E formed almost entirely from the beginner box.
The idea that you don't remember characters until they get some levels seems absurd to me. Some of the most memorable characters I've RP'd and RP'd with have barely scratched level 3.
In your words, I feel—to exaggerate a bit—a lot more of the paradigm where you go, "Oh, Dave the Barbarian died to a pretty nasty hazard, and I need a new character," and then you erase the "D" off Dave's name and put a "B" and play Bave, Dave's brother. There's a hint of the old-style expectation that the game itself will sort the wheat from the chaff, and you grow to value those with enough luck to survive and become strong. This doesn't really fit how paizo sells, markets, and makes money off the game nowadays. Most people playing APs expect to either carry their characters through the whole thing or at least have a character death be a meaningful plot event, and most APs are written with that expectation. APs are the vast majority of PF2E play!
The main paradigm is much more focused on cooperative storytelling nowadays, partially driven by the rise of Critical Role and other real-play podcasts, partially just driven by the market segment of narratively-inclined TTRPG-ers being pretty large. This sort of more lethal L1-4 with weaker casters you baby so they can grow up and become strong, this sort of paradigm where part of class choice is their literal odds of survival, this game design where the game's luck itself is supposed to be the real arbiter of who is important and who matters and who is left in the dust and buried in a shallow grave? It just doesn't fit with the rest of the game at all, and it certainly doesn't fit with how paizo makes most of their profits off adventure paths.
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I had a sega genesis game back in the day where you played as 3 brothers.
You play the first brother until you die. Then you restart as the second brother. then the third if the second dies. Then its game over.
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snipThe idea that people need to play basically a full 1-12 campaign to really start liking or feeling good about the system is just... at odds with reality. People are going to start forming opinions about the system from the second they read the book, and their opinion of actual play will start to form from their very first session. You can say people won't have an informed opinion, sure. But they'll certainly have an opinion, and they'll certainly talk about it. A lot of people have opinions of PF2E formed almost entirely from the beginner box.
The idea that you don't remember characters until they get some levels seems absurd to me. Some of the most memorable characters I've RP'd and RP'd with have barely scratched level 3.
In your words, I feel—to exaggerate a bit—a lot more of the paradigm where you go, "Oh, Dave the Barbarian died to a pretty nasty hazard, and I need a new character," and then you erase the "D" off Dave's name and put a "B" and play Bave, Dave's brother. There's a hint of the old-style expectation that the game itself will sort the wheat from the chaff, and you grow to value those with enough luck to survive and become strong. This doesn't really fit how paizo sells, markets, and makes money off the game nowadays. Most people playing APs expect to either carry their characters through the whole thing or at least have a character death be a meaningful plot event, and most APs are written with that expectation. APs are the vast majority of PF2E play!
The main paradigm is much more focused on cooperative storytelling nowadays, partially driven by the rise of Critical Role and other real-play podcasts, partially just driven by the market segment of narratively-inclined TTRPG-ers being pretty large. This sort of more lethal L1-4 with weaker casters you baby so they can grow up and become strong, this sort of paradigm where part of class choice is their literal odds of survival, this game design where the game's luck itself is supposed...
These games are as they have ever been. It's always been focused on cooperative storytelling for some groups. Combat for others. No one comes to this games for any single reason. They come to them for a variety of reasons.
My group and I were mainly driven to these games due to reading books. But we brought other people in by association because they were our friends and wanted to give the game a shot.
The DM mostly teaches the game. I imagine that is how it is now. Some person who likes these types of games finds others who like these types of games, forms some social group after a time playing them either by DMing or finding players, then playing allowing players who get into these games to build up characters they like over time from memorable adventuring.
You're trying to tell me that 1 to 4 is how they form this? Not my experience. These games are not for dabblers. These types of games are for strange people who like some aspect of these types of games. Some love to tell stories. Some like imagining the visuals. Some like figuring out how to do great combat. Some like the social aspect. Something about these games gets hold of them and then they get hooked.
I don't know how anyone playing these games would think they were made for anyone but nutty TTRPG players who like reading textbook like rules and novel-like creative work to run a game trying to simulate fantasy stories or combat games using the mind as the gaming engine.
When someone doesn't get into it, they don't want to read a bunch of rules or spend too much time on a game that feels like school to them.
But what keeps these games alive is there is this niche of humans who do like to read textbook like rules and tell stories using them or math out how to best optimize and win in combat. It's a weird hobby.
I don't care how good they make level 1 to 4 because PF2 has done it as well as any game I've seen for a TTRPG, this type of game is still only going to attract a bunch of strange people with imaginations that allow them to invest in these games to the point where they will make it past level 1 to 4 often if they like them.
If players are quitting the game that early, they don't have much interest in these games. I'm not sure how much simpler you can make them to attract the strange people who keep the game alive that invest in reading textbook like rules versus someone who wants a quick, engaging experience where they don't die much and feel powerful from level 1.
Right now Barbarians start out with 23 hit points, d10 martials at 21, d8 martials at 18, and d6 casters at 16. This is at level 1. CR-1 monsters are doing something like a weapon die of damage or less. You might get crit shotted at level 1 by a CR 1 or 2 boss doing big damage, cleric can heal you up.
By level 2 you're pushing 20 to 30 hit points and it keeps going up.
Now in this thread, the idea is being pushed this is a different game at low level and 1-4 are some kind of hard situation when it is the easiest it's ever been. Now people want level 1 to be easier.
It's just a strange idea that some of you are staking your claim on. Just strange.
I'll leave it there. I don't see it. PF2 made the early levels as easy as they've ever been, yet some are still not satisfied.
This is about as mainstream as I think TTRPGs will ever get. It's always going to be a niche hobby for people that like to read and take an arcane set of rules that simulates a combat game and a story game and find a group to play with. The people who really invest in these games will always carry this hobby and the game companies that make products them.
They won't give up because level 1 to 4 isn't "right." Just like they haven't given up when the game was much deadlier and less well designed. People who really like these games invest in them for the long-term and aren't easily deterred.
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Yup, and this has me wondering just how much the perception of AP difficulty has to do with expectations and experience with this screwy / level-changing math.
Basically, I'm curious what we'd see if those AP rating threads included a "first pf2 AP" question, perhaps revealing how many of the "abnormally high difficulty" answers coincide with it being their first taste of low level pf2 play.
If someone is not primed with the idea that the balance of combat itself is completely different at low level, then they will not even have the context to understand that gameplay shift, and will likely instead simply think of the overall combat scenario as having high difficulty.
It is completely alien to non genre-savvy people that the game balance would be so different and lethal at low level, but not at mid lvl and up.
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I honestly was not fully conscious of just how prevalent this low lvl HP math issue until mindfully putting the pieces together (and I've now checked my campaign note files).
I had completely mentally glossed over that 3 / 3 low lvl APs had blatant GM intervention to prevent PC death, most more than once.
SoT had at least 3 events, though one was a disease, so not HP related.
Checking my notes, the 1st assassination attempt was worse than what I remembered.
I'm guessing the "walk up and crit" downing me almost spiraled us, as I noted the PC went down a 2nd time and we only turned it around because of Protector Tree.
I had completely forgotten that 2 PCs almost died to centipede venom, and all PCs were pf2 savvy w/ healing.
AV had Wrin-intervention after all PCs dropped to avoid TPK vs Corpselights (and we started L2 after B.Box), and Gatewalkers had a couple. The dogs got a lobotomy, the Druid guy got a lobotomy/fled early, and that bomb trap oneshot someone out of combat, and could have rolled higher to invoke instant death (on a reg fail, not crit).
Found the hazard for the curious: 2d10 +13 fire damage. This is exactly guaranteed to one-shot the 15 HP example PC at L1, lol. (10% chance to insta kill via 2x HP rule)
If L2 with 24HP, that's a 55 % chance to one-shot. Better hope that it doesn't get triggered in combat.
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Edit:
wow, those Corpselights are absurdly overtuned, what the f*&#.
A party of PCs need to get through 40 HP per foe, and this is before +1 or Striking runes, so their attk 1d8+6 is close to dmg parity w/ the PCs.
And they've got surprise healing via AoE dmg cone.
And the "not down at 0 HP, need one more hit as wisp" mechanic will only further imbalance the fight. I get that Mr. Beak is more memetic, but it's no wonder this was way worse in our playthrough. What the f~!! where they thinking. Without foreknowledge, 1 of those lights is going to posses the available corpse, yet further threatening the party. No way Lvl 1 PCs are fit to handle that fight.
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There may be some who consider this a feature and not a flaw, but certainly not our group. Tactics don't matter, nothing matters. An L+2 or higher enemy crits, and odds are they _will_, somebody goes down. At lvl 1 even some L+1 enemies can do that.
My wife says that the vulnerable levels are when tactics matter the most. My players, trained in tactics by my wife, use teamwork to keep everyone alive. But this ties back to this thread's original topic, that PF2 does not teach new players how to handle encounters. How can new players use tactical teamwork to keep their characters alive when they have not yet had time to learn tactical teamwork?
Yup, and this has me wondering just how much the perception of AP difficulty has to do with expectations and experience.
I own Fall of Plaguestone, one of the earliest PF2 modules. Its first encounter is Severe Threat, three creature -1 and one creature 2. The instructions to the GM are to hold back the creature 2 until one of the creature -1 dies, thus, this is supposed to start as a 60-xp Low Threat that upgrades to a 100-xp Threat without a chance to rest and recuperate. That is still brutal.
I honestly was not fully conscious of just how prevalent this low lvl HP math issue until recently really putting it together *and at the moment I dug up my note files). I had completely mentally glossed over that 3 / 3 low lvl APs had blatant GM intervention to prevent PC death.
SoT had at least 3, though one was a disease.
Checking my notes, the 1st assassination attempt might not have been L1, and it was worse than what I remembered. I'm guessing the "walk up and crit" downing me almost spiraled us, as I noted the PC went down a 2nd time and we only turned it around because of Protector Tree.
First level in Kindled Magic in Strength of Thousands began with a harmless Group Interview with Teacher Takulu Ot. Then the PCs had to finish five service projects in a tradition named Perquisite. Three of the projects had no combat and no danger. One project, Tempest-Sun Mage Assignment, was set up as combat with non-lethal damage to chase away gremlins, but a careless GM could make it lethal. In another project, Cascade Bearer Assignment, the party encountered a hostile 3rd-level myceloid named Umbo while gathering mushrooms.
In my campaign, Umbo knocked one PC to dying and that PC caught purple pox. A bard PC cast Soothe on the unconscious PC immediately.
Following the Perquisite assignments is the Introduction Ceremony, an encounter listed as Severe 1 because of an assassination attempt. This encounter was supposed to be the last encounter at 1st level. I had increased the difficulty of some assignments, because of my oversized 7-member party, and they had just reached 2nd level early and could handle the battle. I increased the number of enemies in the Introduction Ceremony encounter to keep the challenge Severe Threat; nevertheless, a Severe 2nd-level encounter is less likely than a Severe 1st-level encounter to kill a PC. One PC was knocked unconscious.
I had completely forgotten that 2 PCs almost died to centipede venom
Venomous centipedes showed up twice due to Kindled Magic's insect/arthropod theme. The 2nd-level party encountered a single Centipede Swarm, creature 3 as a Low-Threat 2 during the Bug Problem mission. The PCs were supposed to have been gifted a moderate antidote (centipede venom only) from their dorm-mates Anchor Root and Chizire beforehand, but I had missed that paragraph and so my party lacked it. In my campaign, the fire kineticist incinerated the centipede swarm with Flying Flame area-effect impulse before the swarm poisoned anyone.
The encounter with multiple Giant Centipedes, creature -1, was in the Masking Ceremony in Tireless Hall, Severe 2. Several teachers were also in Tireless Hall, but I and other GM treat them as rescuing other students so the PCs are on their own. But "almost died to centipede venom" is a situation in which the GM should have sent a teacher over to save the PC. Alas, Takulu Ot's only healing was a potion of minor healing, and the other teachers had no stat blocks in Kindled Magic. Teacher Mafika Ayuwari had a stat block from Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and he could cast Heal, but that is obscure knowledge.
Despite Kindled Magic replacing a lot of 1st- and 2nd-level combat with service projects that rewarded with XP, the party still had some Severe-Threat combat at those levels. I view Severe Threat as best reserved for boss battles (Kindled Magic's boss battle was Severe 3), Nevertheless, Kindled Magic had five Severe-Threat encounters. One was supposed to be non-lethal damage and another was formal sparring supervised by a teacher, that that still left three potentially lethal Severe-Threat encounters.
wow, those Corpselights are absurdly overtuned, what the f**%.
A party of PCs need to get through 40 HP per foe, and this is before +1 or Striking runes, so their attk 1d8+6 is close to dmg parity w/ the PCs.
And they've got surprise healing via AoE dmg cone.
And the "not down at 0 HP, need one more hit as wisp" mechanic will only further imbalance the fight. I get that Mr. Beak is more memetic, but it's no wonder this was way worse in our playthrough. What the f#~# where they thinking. Without foreknowledge, 1 of those lights is going to posses the available corpse, yet further threatening the party. No way Lvl 1 PCs are fit to handle that fight.
Their "Weaknesses bludgeoning 5 (in skeletal corpses) or slashing 5 (in fleshy corpses)" makes the 40 hp more manageable, and their Death Light has a 1d4-rounds recharge. The Claim Corpse and Sunlight Powerlessness are very situational abilities, for example, no other corpses could be nearby, but that is dependent on the design of the encounter. However, I agree, "Melee [one-action] jaws +10 [+5/+0], Damage 1d8+6 piercing" seems like excessive damage on a creature that I think was designed to be supernaturally scary rather than physically brutal. That is 1 damage higher than the High Damage in Table 2–10: Strike Damage.
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I'm not convinced the underlying math at low levels is problematic. I suspect that perception stems far more from the imbalances found in some of the earlier adventure path modules, which are known to have been calibrated poorly as the rules were still being written at the time.
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I'm not convinced the underlying math at low levels is problematic. I suspect that perception stems far more from the imbalances found in some of the earlier adventure path modules, which are known to have been calibrated poorly as the rules were still being written at the time.
The lack of an HP buffer combined with the most rapid period of numerical scaling in the game objectively make combats against higher level enemies more lethal. You are correct that the early modules are balanced poorly, but part of that is just that the encounter-building guidelines are not functional at low level. A single APL+2 enemy feels more like a severe (or rarely extreme) threat at those levels. APL+3 is a nightmare.
I also, personally, think the encounter-building guidelines have a hard time hitting "engaging, but not lethal" at low levels. My experience is that there's barely any daylight between "snoozefest" and "people are getting crit to the ground frequently" if you follow the encounter builder, especially with the lack of APL-3 or APL-4 enemies to fluff out encounters.
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I'm not convinced the underlying math at low levels is problematic. I suspect that perception stems far more from the imbalances found in some of the earlier adventure path modules, which are known to have been calibrated poorly as the rules were still being written at the time.The lack of an HP buffer combined with the most rapid period of numerical scaling in the game objectively make combats against higher level enemies more lethal. You are correct that the early modules are balanced poorly, but part of that is just that the encounter-building guidelines are not functional at low level. A single APL+2 enemy feels more like a severe (or rarely extreme) threat at those levels. APL+3 is a nightmare.
I also, personally, think the encounter-building guidelines have a hard time hitting "engaging, but not lethal" at low levels. My experience is that there's barely any daylight between "snoozefest" and "people are getting crit to the ground frequently" if you follow the encounter builder, especially with the lack of APL-3 or APL-4 enemies to fluff out encounters.
Low level encounters fail to hit that sweetspot specifically for the math problems that game has at that level range.
You can't really make anything engaging where everything Is, more or less, "whoever hits twice/crits once wins, let's see Who Rolls Better we'll see whoever wins in three rounds". You don't have time to setup, you don't have time to apply proper debuffs (casters don't even have them yet) and so the game relies completely on a "whoever kills First wins" which, funnily enough, gets completely flipped on its head at High levels where fights genuinely end 3 rounds before they're actually over because both players and monsters are totally focused on control| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't know how anyone playing these games would think they were made for anyone but nutty TTRPG players who like reading textbook like rules and novel-like creative work to run a game trying to simulate fantasy stories or combat games using the mind as the gaming engine.
When someone doesn't get into it, they don't want to read a bunch of rules or spend too much time on a game that feels like school to them.
But what keeps these games alive is there is this niche of humans who do like to read textbook like rules and tell stories using them or math out how to best optimize and win in combat. It's a weird hobby.
I don't care how good they make level 1 to 4 because PF2 has done it as well as any game I've seen for a TTRPG, this type of game is still only going to attract a bunch of strange people with imaginations that allow them to invest in these games to the point where they will make it past level 1 to 4 often if they like them.
Wow! Talk about Gatekeeping and badwrongfuning. And an obvious case of my opinion of the hobby is the only opinion of the hobby.
I'm glad I've only been playing since 1988 and not since the 70's so I don't think that way.
I hate reading textbooks of rules. If I'm not having fun at the beginning I don't want to stick with it. Break out a new system give me d6 Star Wars or a d10 World of Darkness.
I'm not a dabbler but if the creation system asks to invest in character through creation, like background in PF2, don't have the math at the level of creation be the most likely to take you out of the game.
If my level 1 PF2 character dies I don't want to make a new one all of it becomes wasted time. Frustrated, wasted time.
Still not a dabbler.
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I can vouch for this, I dont really think the math underneath it is problematic but its rather obvious this game is balanced around the usage of resources to decrease encounter difficulty, And it really is levels 1-3 where you absolutely don't have these resources while the math itself remains the tightest where a single point actually makes a whole lotta difference.I'm not convinced the underlying math at low levels is problematic. I suspect that perception stems far more from the imbalances found in some of the earlier adventure path modules, which are known to have been calibrated poorly as the rules were still being written at the time.The lack of an HP buffer combined with the most rapid period of numerical scaling in the game objectively make combats against higher level enemies more lethal. You are correct that the early modules are balanced poorly, but part of that is just that the encounter-building guidelines are not functional at low level. A single APL+2 enemy feels more like a severe (or rarely extreme) threat at those levels. APL+3 is a nightmare.
I also, personally, think the encounter-building guidelines have a hard time hitting "engaging, but not lethal" at low levels. My experience is that there's barely any daylight between "snoozefest" and "people are getting crit to the ground frequently" if you follow the encounter builder, especially with the lack of APL-3 or APL-4 enemies to fluff out encounters.
It of course makes sense that any of the options, choices, or resources that one would use to have a greater degree of control are unavailable at the earliest levels, both to enforce a sense of progression and to reduce complexity of decision-making for brand new player or for players that prefer to ease into understanding mechanical complexity. Having to consider many different actions from access to feats, or having a supply of situational consumables would not be well-suited to the earliest levels, and would mean an increased overhead in starting out the game.
Since the party doesn't have these things (they either can't at all in the case of feats or generally don't have the resources in the case of items or spells), though, it doesn't make sense that there isn't a greater accounting for this in the balance of the game. That is to say, there is (generally) no particular reason from a narrative storytelling perspective nor from a mechanically satisfying game-feel perspective that combat at the earliest levels should be especially deadly. If anything, this would feel more satisfying in many campaigns if it escalated rather than de-escalated. To achieve this, there should likely be special provisions in encounter building and the underlying logic at low levels or adjustments to expected accuracy and damage from enemies that operate at those level ranges to account for this that just are not present in the current state of the game. There would obviously be ripple effects to these changes (if 4th Level creatures were weakened to a degree that they could be suitable as extreme encounters against parties of brand new characters, this would make them worse as level -2 fodder against 6th Level parties who are practically existing in a different universe from 1st Level characters), so it isn't as simple as just suggesting a blanket change and being done with it.
For experienced players, a solution could simply be to avoid playing at those levels at all...but then this returns to the original topic at hand. There are many different reasons why new players and/or GMs may not want to begin at a level above 1, and even if they were willing to they would need to be exposed to the notion in the first place to even consider it. The game really does a less than ideal job easing in new players.
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I do believe there is a +1 weapon in that very room available before the corspselights rise, and another on the same floor, depending on the order the party clear things its a cointoss if the party finds it or not.
I want to remember the Adventure warning the GM about the lethality of that encounter, But I also know it doesn't point out the rather blatant weakness of the corpselights which I feel is something the writer simply forgot to include considering the fight takes place by a window.
But AV alone has seen a fair share of level 1 deaths between haunts, level 3(or higher) creatures,bleed,disease and death effects like pre-nerf mr.Beak.
though.. even the Beginner box is rather lethal with a few of the encounters.
James Jacobs specifically built AV to be an old school, sandbox dungeon crawl including the death he probably grew up experiencing in old school, sandbox dungeon crawls.
Not a great example of softball AP design some on here seem to want.
Getting wasted by odd traps and monsters and an ogre out of a cave like occurred in Keep on the Borderlands in the elder days was part of the memorable experience of these games. I figure AV was meant to capture that old school feel a bit.
Not be perfectly designed to make sure you don't die because bad low level design.
I don't know if some of you realize this, but many older players miss the lethality they grew up on. Surviving a lethal game is part of what makes a character memorable and is missed by certain generation of gamers.
I got one player when he DMed, he made encounters where he looked at you and said. "Roll a d6." You rolled it and if your number came up wrong, he said, "You are dragged away in the whirling maelstrom of pandemonium." He didn't want the players to have a way to survive. He wanted to make a memorable adventuring experience that if you survived it, you would remember that character. If you didn't, you would remember it as well.
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James Jacobs specifically built AV to be an old school, sandbox dungeon crawl including the death he probably grew up experiencing in old school, sandbox dungeon crawls.Not a great example of softball AP design some on here seem to want.
You know what is an example of it, though? The AP that's repeatedly surveying as one of the best APs paizo has ever released: Season of Ghosts.
And that's a really plot-heavy, softball AP. It's among the easiest APs I think I've ever seen.
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I can't say I agree with the OP's conclusion, even accepting the premise. Low level play being different than high level play doesn't mean the game is bad at teaching new players how to play. It just means low levels are bad at teaching you how to play high levels. But reaching high levels is almost always a gradual process, so people have plenty of time to learn their new best practices along the way.
I think a more likely conclusion to draw is that the fragility of low level characters plus the overturned difficulty of early APs and original bestiary monsters means many players will give up before they reach the higher levels of play. But if someone sticks it out I expect they will learn how to play the other levels as it becomes gradually relevant.
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Because I totally get that it's easy for things to get lost in my over-wordiness:
Starting level pf2 play has "bad" math because HP is so low that one cannot (easily) distinguish good tactics from good luck, nor bad tactics from bad luck. The abundance of one-shots and other "0 misplay downs" promotes confusion and strategies that do not match higher level pf2 play.
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Yes, design is always "technically neutral," and the meta game always exists. Players "can learn" that at low level, preventing / avoiding foe Strike opportunities are "meta," as is hyper-aggression damage dealing. (the flipside of this is that buffs and debuffs are trash if the foes can attack)
It is *because* there will always be a very real, very playable meta that forces us to exercise arbitrary judgements as to if it's a "good/fun" or a "bad/less fun" meta.
As this community has a history of discussing rocket tag as being a bad thing that does not promote fun, I am hoping that framing this low level play as "rocket tag without tools" helps to get to the heart of the issue.
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If there is any level during which it *would* be appropriate for combat to be slower and more spongy than pf2 normal, it would be the newbie zone. If there is any level range where it would be *inappropriate* for a single bit of luck, or a single bad decision, to result in PC death, it would be the same newbie levels.
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You know when I am playing a videogame like wrath of the righteous I turn off things like permanent death and make conditions go away after combat. The reason is because its annoying to manage those things in a videogame.
A ttrpg is completely different for me. Its a social experience where luck, tactics, the whims of others at the table all come together to create the experience.
I wouldnt turn any of those things off in a ttrpg.
Just saying I like the low level feature of vulnerability. I like that it becomes less prominant as your character grows out of those levels. I dont think there is a problem to fix because.
Besides some say there are no tactics involved? You need both tactics in the fight and a strategy going in.
Tactics need to account for the conditions.
If there are goblins with bows on a ledge and goblins with dogslicers at your level which do you stop first?
Take into account the deadly trait and the fact that bows can strike at range. You dont want to give them enough strikes to make luck become inevitability.
What does that mean when it comes to tactics? Not much because tactics are not going to level the playing field. But It means you dont fight without a clear advantage. Dont just charge in. Come in with a strategy to level the odds against you. Strategy, a plan, thats whats needed.
That might mean trying to use before combat ploys with deception stealth diplomacy whatever just to gain favorable positioning for some of your team.
Just to throw this in there. If a GM is auto nixing any reasonable attempts to level the playing field thats kinda bad on the GM.
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I can't say I agree with the OP's conclusion...,I think a more likely conclusion to draw is that the fragility of low level characters plus the overturned difficulty of early APs and original bestiary monsters means many players will give up before they reach the higher levels of play. But if someone sticks it out I expect they will learn how to play the other levels as it becomes gradually relevant.Okay, but that's a problem and it needs fixing.
For obvious reasons I have not read the APs I'm playing in. But a simple fix that doesn't mess with the mechanics would be for the APs to strongly and clearly advise GMs of first-time groups to play with PCs one level up. As someone mentioned earlier, this is already a pretty natural 'fix' for groups who complete the beginner box, level their characters up to L2, and then want to start a new 'level 1' AP with the characters they already have.
Oh, I never said it wasn't a problem that needs fixing. I was just noting that it wasn't the problem the OP articulated.
But also... I think the problem has been largely fixed? At least as much as we can expect it to be. The vibe I have is that newer APs are indeed easier. I don't hear people complaining about Getting wrecked by unfair encounters as much, at least. And objectively speaking monster core creatures are weaker than bestiary creatures. Someone did a comparison of equivalent creature between the two and monster core generally had lower AC, to hit, and/or damage. Monster Core followed the creature building rules a lot more closely than the early monster that were created while the building rules were still being written/calibrated. Go figure.
The early APs are still borked, but I don't think Paizo intends to print more copies of five year old APs when they could focus on newer books. Especially now that those old books would need to be remastered in addition to whatever errata text.
They could print James Jacob's "you can give them an extra level" suggestion in the books going forward, but it feels a lot less important now that adventures are easier. If you've got players still struggling with that lowered difficulty... We are approaching a point where the problem feels like GM Core advice on how to deal with groups that aren't as tactical. That's not even a new player thing. I know extremely established players who are aveese to to "free damage" tactics like switch hitting at low levels or snares at mid levels, because it is more fun to run in and mash face.
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Try to think of this in terms of "time to kill" like in an FPS game. There's a world of a difference between games where getting in goblin sniper range means getting headshot insta-killed, versus getting a chunk of health deleted.
The possibility of the snipe being a 1-shot is itself a very big difference in what kind of game you are playing..
Games with short TTK are typically ~low strategy like CoD, where they lean into it with design like fast and location random respawns, killstreaks, etc. They have their own appeal, and the *lack* of tactical need is part of that appeal.
Games with a short TTK *and* that are considered "tactical" are rare, notoriously noob unfriendly, hard as f&~$ to balance, and "sweaty" to play. Main example is Counterstrike, which had the playerbase rioting over the addition of a new revolver, w/ cries of "OP!". And CS has pros give the devs private feedback for pre-balancing before launch!
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Adding more TTK dramatically increases the tactical potential of games, as that means more time for setup --> payoff dynamics to occur.
For shooters, there is a limit to what that can mean. This is how R6: Siege was conceived; altering the environment before and outside of shootouts is a way to add setup:payoff tactical depth to a shooter with short TTK.
And in ttrpgs, that ability for setup and payoff is the lifeblood of tactical fun, and will make all the difference in the world.
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Right now in low level play, players cannot take a single round "for granted" in the dictionary use of that phrase; one simply cannot presume they will survive a single round of direct combat because of how easy it is to go from 100% --> dying while it's not their turn.
Because one can always drop dying, low level PCs have to always fight like they are on their last hit; psychologically speaking, it plays like everyone has 1 fuzzy HP.
This is tactically as opposite as it could be when compared to later level pf2 play, where you can count on surviving 1 or more rounds of aggression depending on your PC (in the hand-waived imagined "default" combat).
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Implications on tactical play aside, the existing low-level rocket tag just misrepresents what pf2 combat is even like to play.
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But low level play is also P2E play.
You just have a different experience at level 1 because your playing a character that has the minimum training and experience you could have as a pc barring level 0 alternate rules.
To add here, ttrpgs generally dont play in realtime like a shooter or an rts.
You have a moment to talk with other players and formulate a plan of action. That is an opportunity for strategizing and coordinating to overcome the odds. Or deciding its too risky and looking for alternatives options. Its a game with very few limits if the GM lets it be.
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To add here, ttrpgs generally dont play in realtime like a shooter or an rts.
You have a moment to talk with other players and formulate a plan of action.So the solution is to slow down combat scene game play? I don't want that. I want the strategizing and coordinating to come on line with player experience, so that as they become faster deciding what to do, they get more options and thus the combat scenes don't slow down...but also don't stay repetitive level after level.
It depends I guess.
When players have the moment to talk about how they want to approach a threat ahead of them in my experience they do that anyway. Its usually a problem for the group when one player just rushes in starting an encounter without a word to anyone else in the party.If they dont have time because its an ambush or something then they have to just make the best decisions they can when they get their turn. And in that case the GM is completely responsible for making the ambush one they can overcome or at least escape with plenty of obvious signaling.
But I do agree with your second paragraph. If the table doesnt want a lethal experience the GM can and should make the game the one the table wants to play.
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As this community has a history of discussing rocket tag as being a bad thing that does not promote fun, I am hoping that framing this low level play as "rocket tag without tools" helps to get to the heart of the issue.
The player characters are given tools to prevent 1st-level rocket tag: Ready, Seek, Step, Take Cover, and Raise a Shield. With training in the right skills, add Recall Knowledge, Tumble Through, Climb, Grapple, High Jump, Long Jump, Reposition, Shove, Trip, Create a Diversion, Lie, Gather Information, Make an Impression, Coerce, Demoralize, Hide, and Sneak. Some classes give significant 1st-level abilities, such as a champion's reaction or a focus spell. The PCs don't have to kick down the door and rush blindly into combat. They can scout ahead and fight defensively, using the terrain to their advantage. They prepare with equipment at 1st level, especially armor and weapons for martial characters, but also with potions and elixirs.
For example, a 1st-level party of druid, fighter, rogue, and wizard was caught in a blizzard. Despite the low visibility, they spotted the shelter of a cave. The cave had a Snowfall hazard 0 at the entrance and a single room with a skeletal Corpselight creature 2 inside. Two more skeletons lay on the floor. A 30-xp hazard 0 and a 60-xp creature 2 made a 90-xp Moderate-Threat encounter.
Before entering the cave, the party used Seek to check for danger. They spotted the Snowfall hazard and disabled it. This alerted the Corpselight, giving it a turn to Stand, Sneak, and Hide in a good position by the entrance.
The rogue, weapon drawn, Seeked at the cave entrance to find more hazards, Strode 10 feet inside, and Seeked again. He spotted the corpselight, but had no actions for a retreat. The corpselight Hid anew, Snuck, and Struck at the rogue, catching him off-guard. The rogue's off-guard AC was 15 (10 + 4 dex + 1 item + 2 proficiency - 2 off-guard), and the corpselight has +10 to hit with its jaws Strike. It could critically hit on a natural 15 or better, a 30% chance. Thus, let's say it did crit. It dealt 2d8+12 piercing damage, so let's put the damage at 21. The rogue dropped to dying 2.
That is the nasty case that many people have complained about. But what could happen next?
The fighter Strode into the cave, Interacted to pick up the rogue, and Strode back out of the cave. The wizard made a Recall Knowledge check to identify the special attacks of the corpselight, made another Recall Knowledge check for its defenses, and Strode further away from the danger. He told everyone of the Death Light and weakness to bludgeoning. The druid cast her one prepared Heal spell on the rogue and Took Cover against the rock outcropping around the cave. The rogue got to his feet, weapon still in hand, and Hid in the concealment of the blizzard. The party became better prepared to face the corpselight if it chased after tham.
Unless the corpselight can get its target off-guard again, or attacks the low-AC wizard, it can no longer crit with a 30% chance. If the fighter raises his shield, this his AC goes up to 19, so the corpselight would have only a 10% chance of a crit. And the fighter can shield bash the corpselight for 1d4+9 bludgeoning damage, slightly better than the 1d8+6 damage of the corpselight's jaws attack. The party has the advantage, despite the early bad luck of the 30% crit. The party can also exploit the terrain and possibly Sunlight Powerlessness if the blizzard does not block the sunlight.
If the corpselight's jaws attack dealt only 1d8+4 damage, which seems more reasonable to me, the critical hit would be only 2d8+8, which could often leave the target with 1 hit point. That would permit a retreat and leave the party at a more proper advantage for a fight against a Level+1 creature. As Trip.H pointed out, giving the party more time before someone falls to dying lets the party set up better tactics.
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I think that Mathmuse's example is not a hit on PF2 at all. It's just a poorly designed encounter.
Without the hazard, it is a level +1 encounter. Ok, that's not bad.
However, the terrain in the cave favors the monster. It's immune to Precision, which significantly limits the level 1 rogue's damage potential. It has an AoE effect which heals the corpselight *and* debuffs the party.
On top of that, it has damage resistance, and its weakness to sunlight that could level the playing field is negated *by the blizzard* outside. The actual damage that the creature does is not overly high.
In effect, in the example, *everything* was set up for the monster to succeed and for the party to fail. Of course, the fight would go the monster's way,
In PF2, as Deriven has pointed out in the thread, character are so much more suriviable at level 1 than in any previous d20 game ever made.
No game can compensate for a badly designed encounter. This one, though, at least gives great encounter design rules and a HP buffer at low levels to help people learn.
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The rogue got to his feet, weapon still in hand, and Hid in the concealment of the blizzard. The party became better prepared to face the corpselight if it chased after tham.
So how did the rogue still hold their weapon when:
Source Player Core pg. 446 2.0
You're sleeping or have been knocked out. You can't act. You take a –4 status penalty to AC, Perception, and Reflex saves, and you have the blinded and off-guard conditions. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you're holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're positioned so you wouldn't.
I'm not even going to talk about how when you are carrying or dragging someone you can only move 50 feet per minute making it effectively 5 feet per turn and whether that constitutes all 3 of the fighter's actions.
Or with the movement enforced how could the fighter raise his shield while moving the rogue.
It's easy to come up with your easier tactics if you are playing in the vacuum of the rules.
But hey, you do you.You're Mathmuse not Rulesmuse
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Math's constructed scenario is a good example to demonstrate how this specific low HP issue creates a death spiral, where all the party's actions and choices change in response to a PC dropping; no longer being spent to win the fight, but are instead spent to prevent dying.
If said PC had not dropped, those actions would instead go toward securing an advantage, doing dmg, etc.
The actions spent recovering from that one crit demonstrate just how many knock-on affects the low HP issue creates.
(I really, really do advocate for all GMs who run L1+ play to just add a flat 10 or 15HP to all PCs starting health)
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The Rogue dropping dying is a game-warping penalty that I want to make sure people are properly paying attention to. We all know that dropping means the Rogue will need 2A to get up and grab 1 dropped item. If a PC spends a turn on the ground where they needed a dying check, that's 3 more actions gone.
The Fighter lost an entire turn to (non RaW) carry the Rogue, and the Druid burned a 2A chunk + Spell to cast Heal.
In that example, it was 2 + 3 + 2 for SEVEN actions lost. Without considering any other expenditures or tactical considerations, I just want to hammer that home.
The difference between dropping due to one-shot, or being able to survive the first hit, was a seven action penalty paid during combat in that example.
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This isn't even an abnormally bad example matchup. Every time a PC stays down long enough to need to roll a dying check, that'll result in the same 7 action cost due to that forfeited turn.
In the example above, it's kinda a best case for a one-shot scenario. The Rogue w/ foe-immune precision dmg went down, the party got the RK to learn the weakness, and the Fighter had B type damage in-hand to make use of it.
Yet, they are still looking pretty damn rough due to only having 1-hit of damage done by the time the scenario ends.
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The rogue got to his feet, weapon still in hand, and Hid in the concealment of the blizzard. The party became better prepared to face the corpselight if it chased after tham.So how did the rogue still hold their weapon when:
Source Player Core pg. 446 2.0
You're sleeping or have been knocked out. You can't act. You take a –4 status penalty to AC, Perception, and Reflex saves, and you have the blinded and off-guard conditions. When you gain this condition, you fall prone and drop items you're holding unless the effect states otherwise or the GM determines you're positioned so you wouldn't.
Oops, I goofed. I remember earlier editions of D&D/Pathfinder when being stunned caused characters to drop held items. This does not happen in PF2, so I wrote a mental note that items are not dropped when stunned. I carelessly, mistakenly overgeneralized it to unconscious, too, yesterday.
Since the rogue cannot deal precision damage--I missed that in the list of the Corpselight's immunities, another error because skeletons are not usually immune to precision damage--he needed to draw an alternative bludgeoning weapon regardless.
I'm not even going to talk about how when you are carrying or dragging someone you can only move 50 feet per minute making it effectively 5 feet per turn and whether that constitutes all 3 of the fighter's actions.
Could you give me a reference to these carrying rules? My players have carried other players, conscious rather than unconscious, and I have applied the Riding Sapient Creatures rules instead.
Or with the movement enforced how could the fighter raise his shield while moving the rogue.
The fighter did not raise his shield in the 1st turn. But he will raise it in the 2nd turn.
It's easy to come up with your easier tactics if you are playing in the vacuum of the rules.
But hey, you do you.You're Mathmuse not Rulesmuse
Alas, when I answer questions in the Rules Discussion subforum, I have a 5% error rate. The error might not be in the heart of my answer, it might be in an example or additional discussion, but someone will point it out.
I think that Mathmuse's example is not a hit on PF2 at all. It's just a poorly designed encounter.
And is running into a corpselight in a featureless room deep in an underground tomb any better? That is the default. The Sunlight Powerlessness would still not matter. Most GMs will have the corpselight active and waiting without the excuse of it overhearing the party disable a hazard.
Sigh, I wanted to show that 1st-level characters have tactics available even after one party member has fallen to an unlucky critical hit. I chose a Corpselight as the opponent because Trip.H had already mentions it as a creature that could easily drop a PC. I modeled the encounter on a module I once ran where the party took shelter from a raging thunderstorm in a forgotten mausoleum in the wilderness, but changed the storm to a blizzard to justify the Snowfall hazard. I forgot that simple hazards have less XP, a 3rd error.
I had wanted to go on to describe the party taking advantage the terrain outside the cave in battling against the corpselight, but I was tired from errands (I am disabled and tire easily) and the comment seemed long already, so I left that out. And the corpselight is overpowered for a 2nd-level creature with abilities closer to 3rd level, so the party would have had to treat it as Moderate Threat rather than Low Threat, a rough encounter with one party member already severely injured.
I apologize that my example was full of errors. I provide examples because whiteroom theorycrafting leaves out too many details that my players regularly exploit. I prefer using real examples from my campaigns, but my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign provided village defense force support to help the 1st-level party against the squads of four 1st-level Hobgoblin Soldiers, my mini-campaign begun with A Fistful of Flowers started at 2nd level, and Strength of Thousands had only one no-holds-barred fight at 1st level cut short in my campaign by chasing away the foe.
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Could you give me a reference to these carrying rules? My players have carried other players, conscious rather than unconscious, and I have applied the Riding Sapient Creatures rules instead.
Here are dragging:
Source Player Core pg. 269
In some situations, you might drag an object or creaturerather than carry it. If you’re dragging something, treat its Bulk as half. Typically, you can drag one thing at a time, you must use both hands to do so, and you drag slowly— roughly 50 feet per minute. Use the total Bulk of what you’re dragging, for instance, if you’re dragging a sack filled with treasure, total the Bulk of everything inside.
Carrying a creature really gets into the weeds cause you would have the Bulk of the creature + the Bulk of its items + your bulk to contend with
more than like likely makeing you encumbered giving you that condition and it's negatives.
Source Player Core pg. 269 2.0
You might need to know the Bulk of a creature, especially if you need to carry someone. This table lists the typical Bulk of a creature, but the GM might adjust this number.
Creature Bulk
Size of Creature Bulk
Tiny 1
Small 3
Medium 6
Large 12
Huge 24
Gargantuan 48
Carrying heavy or unwieldy itemss is touched on here in Bulk
Bulk
Source Player Core pg. 269
Carrying especially heavy or unwieldy items can make it more difficult for you to move, as can overloading yourself with too much gear. The Bulk value of an item reflects how difficult the item is to handle, representing its size, weight, and general awkwardness. If you have a high Strength modifier, you usually don’t need to worry about Bulk unless you’re carrying numerous substantial items.
Whether like dragging if it needs 2 hands is not expressed here or in carrying held items.
Carrying Items
Source Player Core pg. 267
A character carries items in three ways: held, worn, and stowed. Held items are in your hands; a character typically has two hands, allowing them to hold an item in each hand or a single two-handed item using both hands. Worn items are tucked into pockets, belt pouches, bandoliers, weapon sheaths, and so forth, and they can be retrieved and returned relatively quickly. Stowed items are in a backpack or a similar container, and they are more difficult to access.
I would say that yes it takes 2 hands, but that is me and it corresponds to the dragging rule which makes for easy extrapolation.
In your example the fighter either carrying or dragging would have needed to either drop their weapon (for free) or stow their weapon at the cost of an action. Then either pick up the Rogue or place hands on the Rogue (an action) The either drag or carry at the negatives that I assume would happen. Thus leaving them in range of Stides from the enemy and unable to raise a shield without dropping the rogue.
My .02 cents
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Could you give me a reference to these carrying rules? My players have carried other players, conscious rather than unconscious, and I have applied the Riding Sapient Creatures rules instead.Here [you] are dragging:
Nope. The fighter was carrying not dragging. I had checked the Table of Creature Bulks and seen that the rogue had bulk 6. The fighter has STR +4, so he can carry 9 bulk without encumbrance and 14 bulk with encumbrance. The equipment the fighter already carries (breastplate 4 bulk, shield 1 bulk, longsword 1 bulk, backpack contents 2 bulk) puts him over the 9-bulk limit into encumbered, but that is just a -10 penalty to Speed, so the fighter could move 15 feet to exit the cave, because I specifically said the rogue was only 10 feet into the cave and the fighter has to go only 5 feet into the cave to reach him.
I don't think that the rogue's items add to his bulk. Remember that bulk is inconvenience rather than weight. If you wish to play the rules that way, well, the rogue dropped his weapon, his leather armor has bulk 1, and the fighter can Release his backpack as a free action before entering the cave.
One advantage of 1st level is that the characters own few items, so they usually can carry more additional bulk than fully-equipped characters.
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I understand that he was carrying. I was giving the dragging rules first. Or did you just skip over the rest?
Did the fighter have a weapon in hand prior to going into the cave? Without this ever occurring before how would he know to take off his back back.
The enemy can still stride to him before his next turn and he wouldn't have had the chance to raise his shield. So the enemy would have thew same chance of critting on the fighter that he had on the rogue
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Math's constructed scenario is a good example to demonstrate how this specific low HP issue creates a death spiral, where all the party's actions and choices change in response to a PC dropping; no longer being spent to win the fight, but are instead spent to prevent dying.
Classic beginner mistake. I generally play healers, I don't heal downed PCs. And when I go down I refuse being healed unless there's no real danger left.
But it has nothing to do with low HPs, I see the same mistake being done at every level.
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I understand that he was carrying. I was giving the dragging rules first. Or did you just skip over the rest?
I skimmed the rest, because I am still tired. I had misinterpreted your first sentence, "Here are dragging:," as "Here your fighter is dragging:," rather than, "Here are the dragging rules in case your fighter is dragging:." In skimming rather than analyzing, I thought that you were arguing that encumbered carrying is as bad as dragging.
Did the fighter have a weapon in hand prior to going into the cave? Without this ever occurring before how would he know to take off his back back.
At the turn that the rogue entered the cave, the party was expecting natural hazards and would prefer having one hand free. Thus, the fighter did not have his weapon drawn and the rogue had drawn a one-handed weapon. As fighter dropping his backpack (I presume that is what "off his back back" means, but I have made erroneous presumtions about your words already), that is after he sees the rogue knocked to dying by the corpselight. But I misremembered the Release action, because it applies only to dropping hand-held items, so he is stuck with his backpack. He can Release his shield to free a 2nd hand, but since the shield is strapped to his arm, that would not reduce the bulk he carries.
The enemy can still stride to him before his next turn and he wouldn't have had the chance to raise his shield. So the enemy would have thew same chance of critting on the fighter that he had on the rogue
Yes, that is a weakness of the fighter's actions.
Tristan d'Ambrosius, are you arguing that a character who has been knocked to dying 2 by a critical hit in the 1st round is best left for dead? That makes the critical-hit problem worse.
This afternoon I described this scenario to my wife, who is a better tactician than I am, because I am making so many mistakes.
She says the fighter should have delayed his turn until the wizard Recalls Knowledge and casts Light on his shield. Then the fighter should have entered the cave to stand over the unconscious rogue, shield bashed the corpselight, and raised his shield. The druid could cast Stabilize on the rogue from a distance. Later, the druid and wizard had spells that deal bludgeoning damage, such as Timber and Telekinetic Projectile. The tactical plan is to force the corpselight to respond to the attacks rather than finish off the rogue.
I did not mention the corpselight's Death Light to her, and the wizard would have only one Recall Knowledge action and would miss learning about the Death Light. Alas, if the corpselight included the fighter in the Death Light cone, it would also have included the unconscious and wounded rogue. Anything less than a critical success by the rogue in the DC 18 Fortitude saving throw would send him to dying 3, and a critical failure would kill him. And Death Light does not even trigger the fighter's Reactive Strike.
Sigh.