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It's always a tossup as to how wordy to be, but I should have been a bit more specific when including that specific ambush.
That night ambush was an example of non-rocket tag "BS difficulty" that needed GM intervention outside the low levels. We all ate the first chain lightning with no downs, but that put us into danger range for a 2nd one, and yeah, being prone and getting zapped sucked.
We forgot about unconscious being a -4 to the save, that could have downgraded one or two of us and been a lot worse, yikes.
None of us went down that fight due to 3/3 having healing on hand, and the GM pulling punches by not throwing more lighting up our ass.
Rocket tag is typically spoken of as super fragile, full-->down in a single turn type fights. Typically won by initiative roll & who lands the first "rocket" due to the hyper damage/ complete disabling abilities of maximally prebuffed high level play.
I've staked the claim that Lvls 1-3 of pf2 is a version of rocket tag due to the bad HP math, where its normal for the system's prescribed encounter math to result in full-->downs with 0 player agency (beyond never getting in the fight).
Edit: we also never had the chance to keep watch, because the whole thing was a 0 choice narrative chain-gang that dragged us to the edge of the country to this bizarre hermit city for no reason. The first time the "ball" was passed to us as players was when the attack happened. We literally had 0 agency in wtf was even happening until taking damage.
The handoff / link between book 1 & 2 was the only one that seemed to put any effort into it, and this is not fair to anyone, especially the GMs that trust them. There have been 6ish different independent antagonist factions in six books, and at this point we are starting to doubt the bug theming and mcguffin will ever matter again. Our PCs don't make any sense, and are a bunch of walking contradictions with everything the stupid AP forces us to do. Can't even have personal motivations, our PCs are just along for the ride.
My PC was genuinely close to retiring from the campaign after that ambush, due to how insane every NPC is to brush off their OWN ATTEMPTED MURDER, and because my PC has no reason to be there.
The AP declaring that you, +0 CHA, no CHA skill training PC, you are a diplomat now, abandon your research, classes, students, city, and go there "or else" is unacceptably bad writing. 0 attempt to personally invest us in the plot.
It's so insulting that this next book does literally nothing to motivate / reason for the PCs to participate. The last book's excuse was pathetic, our student's father getting kidnapped, so I guess we are now warring against an entire mercenary army and liberating a town (f*!@ing hell), but even that was > 0.
Now we are doing a vague "diplomatic mission" to engender a hostile city's... good vibes? No one has been able to commit to any specific goal like a trade agreement, it's just complete thoughtless nonsense. Spent all session doing influence system rolls and NOTHING ELSE, such an engaging experience. After not triggering the Bright Lions trap, where the book itself apparently says "if the PCs do this, the whole AP is wrecked, good luck GM."
Yet, turning them down somehow unlocks an entire archetype based around being one of their agents, wtf. Seriously, how TF do they bait the players that much into a choice that the AP does not support, and sounds like suicide, to the point of adding an entire archetype for PCs who make that unsupported bad choice.
How TF does SoT have a higher user review score than Gatewalkers.
TIP: Option 1, no assassination, delete it, it never happens.
Option 2. Have the assassins attack the PCs in their home at the school. Solving the mystery of why you were attacked is a bad hook, but that is at least a plot hook to give the PCs a character-driven excuse to go to the city and find out who sent the assassins after you and why.
There is no way to have the attack happen after the delegation arrives and preserve a sensical narrative.
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It's always a tossup as to how wordy to be, but I should have been a bit more specific when including that specific ambush.
That night ambush was an example of non-rocket tag "BS difficulty" that needed GM intervention outside the low levels. We all ate the first chain lightning with no downs, but that put us into danger range for a 2nd one, and yeah, being prone and getting zapped sucked.
We forgot about unconscious being a -4 to the save, that could have downgraded one or two of us and been a lot worse, yikes.
I performed the calculations about Chain Lightning. It deals 8d12 electricity damage, average 52 damage, with a basic Reflex save. A 12th-level CON +2 6-hp-per-level character of a 6-hp ancestry would have 102 hp. I presume that a 6-hp-per-level character would not leave their Constitution at +0 after the 5th-level and 10th-level attribute score boosts. Nevertheless, 102 hp is less than twice 52 damage, so a critical failure would take this minimum-hit-point character down from full hit points. Of course, most players would spend a hero point for a reroll, but I have seen rerolling into a second critical failure before.
The main difference between taking down a 1st-level character with a single critical hit and taking down a 12th-level character with a single critically failed save is probability. Downing a 1st-level character is much more likely and does not require a minimum hit point build.
As for Trip.H's Strength of Thousands venting, the module Secrets of the Temple-City appears to deserve it. As far as I can guess, the night ambush was supposed to serve as break between the boring exposition of High Sun-Mage Oyamba explaing the party's diplomatic mission to temple-city Mzali and the boring diplomacy of talking to eight prominent people in Mzali to gain influence points. It serves no plot purpose, but it is the only combat in Chapter 1 of the module. That the Magaambya Academy and the city of Nantambu want to open diplomatic relations with Mzali makes sense, but adding the party of adventurers to their delegation of diplomats makes no sense until the diplomacy is over and a new adventure starts in Chapter 2, Raising the Sun.
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As for teaching the tactics of the game, I remember the Dungeons & Dragons informative joke about paladin pajamas. A character who relies on armor that must be removed while sleeping can keep a separate set of comfortable armor to sleep in, such as armored cloak, armored coat, explorer's clothing, padded armor, or quilted armor. At 12th level they can afford to enchant their pajamas with +1 armor and resilient runes. This is a non-obvious tactic, taught by cruel experience after a couple of encounters while sleeping.
All of the heavy armors from Player Core (and hopefully heavy armors in general) come with padded armor as part of the suit of armor.
I believe it is expected that heavy armor users sleep in that, and so maintain some level of protection and maintain their runes even while resting.
Even if that's not the intent of the developers, that's certainly how we play it at my tables.
Damn, thanks for bringing the math. That shows that even I was underestimating how long this one-shot potential lingers.
A PL -1 caster (solo!) still being able to one-shot the squishes at L 12 was outside of my expectation. I had presumed that a L12 one-shot would require something like a PL +1 caster w/ Never Mind or other non-damaging incap spell to bypass HP.
Considering that said NPC caster could /"should" have feats like Quickened Casting to open with yet more damage, yeah, I'm surprised and saddened to agree that the example I went to explicitly compare against low level rocket tag, itself definitely still qualifies as rocket tag (that the player can never shoot first in). Ooooof.
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Honestly surprised to learn that there was outright one-shot potential on a high rolled crit fail, even my PC w/ 138 was not outside that danger.
Looks like a ~5% chance on crit to reach 138 & outright oneshot.
Comparing that 5% high roll to your average caster dropping to Dying 2 in their bed on a 56% likely dmg roll goes to show how quickly that oneshot danger vanishes with a small boost to HP though.
The notion that it's still published content to have sleeping PCs be subject to one-shot magic as an opener is such indefensible math, idk what to even say. The -4 & -1 of being asleep & armorless makes it that much worse.
Smallest of silver linings is that saves are rolled by players, and subject to hero points.
Though, considering that a 2nd chain lighting can be thrown when PCs only have time to stand + grab (+ 1A interact to get free of the bedsheets if your GM is of that kind), goooood luck surviving that fight if run "legit."
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Oh, and I'm guessing the room is supposed to be fully dark as well. Thanks to Darkvision Elixirs being 24 hr, that was not a problem for us, but it would be yet another "holy shit, this is unwinnable" problem for some parties needing 2A to get some light while the foes are launching rockets.
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Considering that said NPC caster could /"should" have feats like Quickened Casting to open with yet more damage...
Why? NPCs are not built anything like PCs. The shouldn't have feats at all. What leads you to believe that they should possess abilities that work against balanced encounter design?
Once per day abilities like Quickened Casting are powerful, designed specifically for PCs, and are often reigned in only by their once per day limitation. To put such an ability on an NPC or creature that is likely only going to live long enough to use it once anyways essentially does away with that limitation, and thus serves only to imbalance the encounter unnecessarily.
As with any encounter you're building, you need to ask yourself "is this likely to make the encounter more, or less, fun for my players?"
Why? NPCs are not built anything like PCs. The shouldn't have feats at all. What leads you to believe that they should possess such abilities?
By and large, a lot of NPC humanoids do seem to ape or mirror PCs in their available actions (though their math, like Strike dmg, is whatever the designer wants). Unlike NPC Strikes, spell effect math being hard-coded tends to make it more likely those casters will ape PC casters, or even have a unique feat unavailable to PCs, like how Teacher Ot had some assistive magic reaction to someone else casting a spell.
I can say for certain the Ranger assassin was locking-in and doing Skirmish Strike, Twin Takedown, et al. It seems appropriate for the assassins to each have 1 or 2 feats relevant to their expertise, such as an assassin mage using Subtle Spell for discretion, or Quickened Casting for the quick-kill nature of the job.
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It's also just good for design & balance to have mirrored consistency like that.
NPCs don't need to have the same number of feat slots or anything, but it really does help the verisimilitude of the world, and even helps the math.
It can be a big "reality check" to one's system to uncover what numbers are BS when you construct a mirror match with the PC's toolkit.
And when spells, items, etc, (yes, including feats) ARE explicitly universal, making the combat functional in a mirror match is kinda Paizo's only option.
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In almost all games where characters gain HP via leveling, PCs start with a substantial base pool, and have rather small [% total] gains.
If you want that to happen, you need to drastically reduce the ability to fight up or down large level differences in creatures in another way; if level isn't a particularly large factor on total HP, then lower level characters will be much more effective at taking down higher level enemies than today (especially with things that mitigate or avoid target defences, like half-damage-on-a-save abilities or Force barrage). Once could boost their defences in other ways - make AC and saves scale more significantly with level, for example. That would introduce further complexity - for one, how would that scaling happen in PF2's design? Are there additional proficiency ranks for defences only? Is your total proficiency not equal to the same number for defences as other numbers (i.e. trained is 2+level for everything else, but 2+1.5*level for defences)? Do you get a penalty to attack higher level targets? Alternatively we accept that defences are just something that scales less than offensive capability with level, which could also be fine, but will affect the game's feel as well. I don't disagree that there's a significant problem with going down in 1 hit at low levels, but pretending that there's an objectively correct game design is foolish - any change to a game's design has wide ranging flow-on effects, and there's not an objective right or wrong answer to which set of side-effects is better. "Subjectively, avoiding the tactical consequences of low time-to-kill is more important to me than the consequences of doing so" is a perfectly reasonable statement, but it's not objective game design.
Just to clarify, the issue is not even the |size| of of the % HP increase on level up. Some games like big dramatic differences between levels, others prefer it to be a bit smaller.
The issue is that the size of the HP% change itself changes by a factor of 7x across the levels. I'm not winging at the set velocity, I'm trying to reveal that there's acceleration going on.
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This changing change makes the very concept of a PL+1 fight an ambiguous challenge. Most of the time, that'll mean +1.x in most stats and defenses.
But how much of an HP difference that is, who knows.
It could be as large as 35+% jump in a single level up, or as small as 5% bump in a level up.
(IMO) that's just "objectively" a bit of bad game design, inherited from 40+ years ago when 'game design' was just a bunch of dudes winging it.
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And we can see the results as the low level one-shots and the tactics-destroying rocket tag play that cannot be refuted.
I find one thing odd about using the term rocket tag though.
Its not a guaranteed one shot. Its not actually they case that any given enemy striking your character can or will one shot the pc.
In fact most of the time odds are against it happening.
Most of the time, if a crit can take out a PC, so can a MAP strike + a MAP -5 strike. (The exception is for things with deadly, fatal, etc.) That's still pretty unstable.
I personally consider that a PC going down is expected on any non trivial fight. I start worrying (as a player but also as a GM) when 2 PCs are on the ground.
I play in general in 5 or 6 PC parties. In 4-(wo)man parties, one PC down is still rather common but 2 is much more dire.
I don't want a "fix myself. I'm glad PF2 made the game deadlier again. I think a lot of...It sounds like you find it a feature, and the rest of us find it to be a bug out of line with the rest of the game.
The rest of us in this thread? Yeah, I guess the majority in this thread are of this mindset.
I want a deadlier game all the way up myself. I think PF2 slightly moved the game back to slightly more deadly, but I'd like to be even more so. My entire group likes the game more dangerous with mortality being important.
It's hard to sell a game of dragons and demons and devils and other horrifying looking creatures as scary when you beat them easier than Mario stomps mushrooms or some other video game on easy mode.
I'm not quite sure why so many on this thread want easy mode and even easier mode at the lowest levels. It's pretty strange.
PF2 goes out of their way to make a game that is at least slightly more dangerous which I had heard people asked for as they were tired of PF1/3/0 the easy mode, crush everything game where they removed save or die spells and nearly every harsh ability in the game including making poison and disease almost a non-factor to a slightly more lethal game where poison, disease, traps, and monsters were more dangerous again.
You got Trip H saying he's having an easy time past the early levels where he and his group are sleepwalking through the game with the only dangerous levels being 1-4.
Now folks like yourself seem to want an even easier game at 1-4. I don't want that. It's not fun. Game should have the lethality increased more at the higher levels to mirror 1-4 play. I'd rather have that occur. That would make the game more dangerous and entertaining making the game more consistent, but the other way.
I'm still unhappy so many ask for the removal of save or die spells. That random dangerousness was fun.
The issue isn't necessarily about hard or easy though. The issue is that at level 1/2 if you follow the normal encounter building rules, you get a result that is significantly harder than if you attempt to follow those same rules at higher levels, because of the randomness of dice rolls allowing for 1 shots to happen. THIS IS A PROBLEM.
Liking a more challenging game is fine, there is neither a right or wrong associated with that, just a personal preference.
At higher levels you could consistently run Severe/Extreme encounters and achieve that kind of challenge you're looking for.
The problem is that the rest of are pointing out that those trying to build moderate or even low threat encounters at level 1 & 2 are still finding them very deadly when the players have a string of bad rolls and the enemy a string of good rolls, to the point where a single lucky crit from the enemy can knock a player down to like dying 2. And that pretty much can't happen anywhere else in the game. And it's a bad design.
If you want a hard encounter, run Severe and Moderate. It doesn't mean that at level 1 and 2 the encounter building portion of the game is broken because the enemies at those levels, relative to player values of AC and HP, are too strong and results in a kind of game play very different from what happens from levels 5-20.
So flatly, your desire for a challenging game doesn't matter (no offense) and you're ignoring the issue the rest of us are pointing. The game already handles your desire that by changing encounter type you're building for. We're talking about the inconsistency of the encounter building chart at low levels compared to higher levels.
It's a hard balance to be sure. I do think that the threat of death really needs to be there, meaning PCs "should" drop dying every now and again. But, it's also true that PCs "should" be making big mistakes in combat, and that downs really need to be resultant of mistakes as much as possible.
One design rule I've come to learn is that a "theoretically perfect-play" party *should* win every (winnable) fight. The conceptual nature of "loss" should be fused into the concept of a "mistake."
However, a game with "perfect fairness" should be one where perfect play is beyond human expectation, so it'll still be normal for parties to loose due to expected errors/misplays.
The way that works in a ttrpg like pf2 is that of lack of knowledge and hyper contextuality. As much as I have "done the math" and figured out (some of) what good choices are and are not, I will often kick myself half a round later for my "good turn" now being "a mistake" once I remembered that missing bit of contextual info. That dynamic is what makes for a tactically engaging game.
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Basically, the above is another way of saying that "full-->downs delete tactical nuance and fun from the gameplay."
Because pf2 is a d20 game, and one with multiple attacks per foe turn, it makes a huge difference if PCs can or can not count on surviving until the next turn when at maximum HP.
I honestly think there is a very substantial and significantly ~hidden problem with the current HP math that is presently being hidden / band-aided by GMs and how they pilot foes /situations.
That AP run by the 1/3 GMs I mentioned, who was a "yes, and" style who tried to let consequences happen raw, and who slowed down the open rolls when things got dangerous, had *a lot* of deaths.
Every player had a PC die at least once, and the Monk's lava death meant swapping to a Sorc/Kin, while the other deaths typically meant some Timeless Salts and a trip to Abasalom for a resurrection (and a painful gp penalty).
What I did not mention/emphasize was that this was a full dual class game. Most of the surface had 3 PCs, but a Champion/Cleric joined to make it a party of 4/4 DUAL CLASS player characters.
The GM noticeably pulled his punches a *little* bit once or twice via lobotomy, and had foes prioritize dropping the whole party instead of securing kills. Aside from that, the GM "cheating" was only in the rare improvised actions or reasonable things we could/should be able to attempt outside of encounter mode.
Just that GM's desire to not cheat in the PCs favor made that AP incredibly lethal, even for an objectively overpowered as hell party of PCs. 5 total PCs deaths before Belcora was slain. These were actual, "did happen" deaths. Not counting the interventions like Wrin poofing in to save the TPK vs the corpselights.
Another was the GM improvised ability for the Magus/Rogue to do some mushroom parkour to reach the spider that ganked, paralyzed, and abducted my PC in the vertical direction.
That Magus vert gain for a slash on the silk is an example of a GM "anti-BS cheat" done *against* the system's rules for the sake of prevent my PC's BS death.
(who's only "mistake" was getting paralyzed on the ambush hit)
As I can at least count those, plus the aborted froghemoth on the water roll, the current total would've been 13 PC deaths, without counting other GM intervention I missed/don't remember.
The other 3 APs I've played thus far have had a total of... zero PC deaths. Quite a lot fewer than 5 13, lol.
Because even when the system math is crazy lethal, GMs are incredibly predisposed to intervene to prevent those deaths.
That degree of "GM hidden lethality" is why I'm banging this drum in the first place. Because the problem and fix are obvious, but only if you can see through the GM smokescreen.
The issue of the "bad low level math" can be outright invisible to most players when they are inside the GM's "anti-BS bubble," so the idea of a community band-aid like +20 starting HP for all PCs is not going to get off the ground unless more people understand that it both is a real problem, and that the change does much more good than harm to the gameplay.