Hazards, obstacles, chases, and haunts mostly involve various skill checks that can be made to overcome them -- using some skills can be more difficult than others to overcome them. I know chases usually have the caveat of "if the PCs come up with something reasonable" let them try it.
My question is how do you run these? There are several options from a more gamist perspective all the way to a more narrative perspective.
Let's take overcoming a Violent Crowd for example:
Succeed at two of the following checks in any combination:
Athletics DC 25 (trained) to confiscate dangerous debris, Diplomacy DC
25 (trained) to calm the crowd, Intimidation DC 23 (untrained) to scare
the crowd away, Will DC 28 (trained) to maintain a brave and confident
demeanor; an effect such as calm that can target an area counts as one
automatic success.
The more gamist approach to running this makes it much easier than a narrative approach.
Gamist approach (easy mode): You let the PCs know their options for overcoming the obstacle/hazzard. Essentially you tell them the skills/saves/attacks they could attempt, whether training is required, and at the very least a relative difficulty. This allows the PCs not not waste fruitless actions guessing what they should do.
Narrative approach: You simply set the stage that will certainly include hints, but nothing outright that alludes to specific skills, training requirements, and certainly not difficulty.
Middle Ground: And of course there's somewhere in between those two, where you could describe the options they might want to take, like confiscate the debris, clam them, scare them, or be brave and confident, without giving away the actual things they'll be rolling to start with.
I've personally done all three before. And I'm not sure which I prefer. I find in Chases, because of the "creative caveat" PCs will just try to use their best skill over and over again and waste game time trying to convince me whey they should be able to use their best skill every time.
Because the Narrative Approach above can result in "wasted actions," the Middle Ground might result in very ineffective actions, and while the Gamist Approach will result in efficiency of actions -- it seems it may come down to a question of game balance. Should appropriate leveled obstacles/hazards take into account there may be "wasted actions" or not as PCs may be trying to figure out the best course of action. This isn't clear to me within the rules. When dealing with a Creature, sure there may be wasted or ineffective actions if a Recall Knowledge isn't successful. But skill challenges with Chases, for example, don't really allow for a Recall Knowledge in a Chase round.
So what's the advice for how to approach? Do you guys use the Gamist, Narrative, or Middle approaches above? And what were the designers' intent, do you think?
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I don't like to see people wasting an action on something that can't possibly work, so I will typically tell them what the options are, or at least warn them if they want to try something that can't work.
I don't tell them DCs and outside of something where they get to know it (such as by doing Discover to learn Influence skills), I don't tell them relative difficulty either. The PC in question wouldn't have a reasonable way to know that, even if they could deduce that Thievery probably won't work in this situation.
So I guess what your middle ground is.
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I will tell them which skills are available and which ones are easier or harder (but not actual DCs). I want players to be able to make informed decisions, not have to resort to betting or trying to read my mind.
I don't often have the problem of a player trying to talk me into letting them use their best skill for everything. I'll usually set a higher DC for alternative skills unless it truly makes sense that it's a really good option that the writer just totally overlooked.
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I also tell players the skills the scenario says they can use, but I also tell them that if they want to try other skills, they can. I make a DC call based on how they describe using the skill in the case they want to try something outside the encounter stat block.
I try to mix the gamist and narrative approaches.
I also tell players the skills the scenario says they can use, but I also tell them that if they want to try other skills, they can. I make a DC call based on how they describe using the skill in the case they want to try something outside the encounter stat block.
Yeah I do this too. When you list skills off, people can get tunnel vision and forget that they can be creative. That's the downside of listing the skills off.
Reminding them "if you want to try something not listed, let me know" goes a long way to show that the door is open to creative solutions.
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My players are very experienced and take these decisions out of my hands. I start by describing the situation narratively, and then they start making their own plans before I could get into the possible skill checks they could perform.
For example, in the module Spoken in the Song Wind the PCs were assigned to work with the local police called the Chime-Ringers (the police used chimes rather than police whistles). The local Chime-Ringer representative, Virgil Tibbs, I had created to playtest the Runesmith class, so I deviated from the module as written. He told them the current case: robbers were grabbing the musical instruments and donation bowls of street musicians and running. If the musician or a bystander gave chase, they found a thug in their way, who delayed them long enough for the robber to get out of sight.
The module proposed a set of DCs for various methods of obtaining clues. Questioning the street musicians said, "Getting useful information from them requires a successful DC 20 Diplomacy, Performance, or Society check, or a DC 18 check using a relevant lore (such as Art Lore)." Asking the Chime-Ringers (the module as written did not have them working directly with a Chime-Ringer) said, "Obtaining information requires a successful DC 18 Diplomacy or Society check, or a DC 16 check using a relevant lore (such as Legal Lore)." Questioning shady characters with underworld connections said, "Getting useful information from them requires a successful DC 22 Deception, Intimidation, or Thievery check, or a DC 20 check using a relevant lore (such as Underworld Lore)." They could question multiple performers or shady characters for more clues with each check taking half a day. For ending the investigation, the module said, "Once they’ve obtained four clues from any source, they know enough to track the robbers to their hideout." The module provided a map of the hideout for combat to arrest the robbers.
My players did not give me time to describe those options. Instead, they began discussing a possible trap among themselves. Some of the PCs were well trained in Performance. They teamed up with three street musicians to hold a well-advertised charity performance at an open marketplace for the victims of robbery. They used the Item Facade spell to make cheap musical instruments appear more expensive. The robbers showed up, tried their grab-and-run, but not all of them succeeded in escaping. Two were captured. And the familiars of two PCs followed the ones who did escape to their hideout. Details at Virgil Tibbs, Playtest Runesmith, comment #8.
I had them make Diplomacy checks for working with street musicians to hold a charity performance. The performing PCs had Performance checks, but those were just for fun. The non-performing PCs had easy Deception checks for blending into the crowd, or a harder Stealth check for hiding on a roof. A Perception check for Sense Motive let them spot a thief on his preliminary walk-through. The party had a nonlethal combat encounter to capture robbers after the grab. And the familiars had Stealth checks for follow escaped robbers unseen. But I was reacting to the PCs' actions rather than telling the players their options myself.
I guess this counts as a narrative approach in which the GM does not fully control the narrative.
I recall my elven monk getting left behind in various chase scenes because of a few bad rolls despite the fact that she was literally twice as fast as anyone else in the race.
It can be pretty urksome when the scenarios in question do not seem to take something as fundamental as that into account.
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I think that the first question that you have to ask is: Are the players helping the GM tell an interesting story, or are the players trying to beat the GM at a game?
That will go a long way towards deciding which way to run any challenge - both combat challenges and skill challenges.
I don't really like playing with people who are playing the game competitively and trying to 'mechanically win'. So I assume that my players are not doing so, and will usually give a standard DC and a set of recommended skills (Lore gets a reduced DC if it is an appropriate Lore). I also generally try to include at least one of: perception, saving throw, attack, or armor bonus (AC converted back to a bonus value) because that ensures that every character has some option to participate in the challenge with a roll that they are at least trained in.
And that is in addition to inviting additional skill options if they can come up with valid narrative reasons for using them.
The reason for this is because the skill challenges are mathematically designed for optimal play. The DC and number of successes needed in the allotted number of actions provided doesn't account for making checks with untrained skills or spending actions on Recall Knowledge to investigate what would be effective.
Now, if you do have a different group of players than I do and need to play your cards closer to the vest, there are some options available for that. As is mentioned earlier in this thread, you can certainly keep a fixed set of skills available (allowing additions for particularly good ideas that you hadn't thought of previously). You can also either require Recall Knowledge actions spent, or allow one Recall Knowledge check as a free action in order to gain information on what skills are available to be used.
However... If you do these, make sure that your math checks out. Pathfinder2e does not natively or intuitively support this style of competitive play. It is very easy for a GM to 'win' against the players. Which results in a very much not fun game to play and a story that ends well before the planned conclusion.
For example:
The party is four level 6 characters. Characters will therefore have mostly trained skills with a couple of skills at expert proficiency. They have gotten their first attribute boosts beyond first level, so many attributes are going to be at +2 or higher, though none will be above +4. There are likely still a couple of attributes at +0 or +1. So bonus values are going to be between +8 for trained but unoptimized skills and +14 for a fully optimized expert proficiency skill with maximum attribute synergy.
If I set the DC to be around 24, require 8 successes, and the challenge runs over the course of 4 rounds where each character gets one attempt per round: I am setting up a 50% overall success scenario. The entire party will have 16 attempts in total and will need to succeed at half of them in order to get the 8 points needed. They also only have an approximately a 50% success rate if they are using fully optimal skills for every attempt.
That is probably too much for me even using my relaxed way of running things. Some characters don't have any fully optimized skills (looking at you Kineticist) and some may not be able to justify using them for every skill challenge (a Sorcerer fully optimized in Diplomacy isn't going to be able to talk the cliff into letting them climb it easier).
So for my way of running things, I would do something like lower the number of successes needed or lower the DC in order to tip the probabilities in the party's favor so that they have a more than 50% chance of succeeding. Maybe make a tiered outcome - a low bar to meet that will allow the campaign to proceed with some narrative setbacks, and a higher bar that will allow the party to fully succeed with no setbacks.
If you are also going to add in requirements for Recall Knowledge actions to find out which skills are available, or find out which skills have a lower DC, then you are going to need to adjust things even more - adjust the overall typical DC or the number of successes needed. Otherwise you are cutting into the action count available.
With no other changes to the example: If everyone has to spend one action on Recall Knowledge, that means that effectively the party only has 12 actions remaining to get the 8 successes required. The probability of overall success dropped from 50% to about 20%. And that is assuming that everyone is using fully optimized skills and that all of the characters succeed at their Recall Knowledge checks. The probability of overall success will be even lower if those two assumptions are not met.
There is an entire category of disabled people whose disability literally distills down to "I can't 'read your mind' or 'pick up on your hints' effectively". So you are making some massive assumptions about your own ability to give hints and other people's ability to recognize and understand those hints that you are giving.
You are mechanically punishing a player for having a disability that prevents reading your hints. Their character has to spend actions doing Recall Knowledge while the other player's characters don't - those other players can just 'pick up on your hints' and 'magically know' what the right skills to use are.
A similar and perhaps worse effect happens if your list of appropriate and effective skills is fixed and you are resistant to allowing players to try and justify using skills that they are good at. This not only lowers the probability of overall success, but it does so unfairly. Some characters are going to be hit harder by this than others. Which means that some players are going to feel that their characters are ineffective compared to the other characters in the party.
I also tell players the skills the scenario says they can use, but I also tell them that if they want to try other skills, they can. I make a DC call based on how they describe using the skill in the case they want to try something outside the encounter stat block.
I try to mix the gamist and narrative approaches.
Agree. Only allowing 2 or 3 skills, because the group should have most covered, is bad design IMO. Every character should get a chance to do Something in the encounter, even if it's a long shot.
You can't always have a full group interacting with something so you need to make it so every character can interact with the situation. Either an extreme DC for using a crazy idea with a "wrong" skill, or make it so they don't win even if they meet the DC but either make it easier for others or manage to get around the situation in a more fail forward manner.Getting into a situation where you don't have the skills for a skill challenge so you have to roll 18+ sucks. Been there, done that, it's miserable and demoralizing as a player. It's part of your job as a GM to make sure the adventure doesn't dip into the un fun for everyone due to things not matching up. The only exception is when you foreshadow/signpost that going here and doing this will require x, y or z otherwise you will have a very bad time. Because then it becomes a clear choice to engage with that situation.
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I recall my elven monk getting left behind in various chase scenes because of a few bad rolls despite the fact that she was literally twice as fast as anyone else in the race.
It can be pretty urksome when the scenarios in question do not seem to take something as fundamental as that into account.
PF2 philosophy that the group is the star, rather than the individual, at work. Feature, not bug.
Being the fastest by far will play a role in combat encounters already.
I recall my elven monk getting left behind in various chase scenes because of a few bad rolls despite the fact that she was literally twice as fast as anyone else in the race.
It can be pretty urksome when the scenarios in question do not seem to take something as fundamental as that into account.
PF2 philosophy that the group is the star, rather than the individual, at work. Feature, not bug.
Being the fastest by far will play a role in combat encounters already.
BOO!!! BOO!!! RUBBISH! FILTH! SLIME! MUCK! BOO!!! BOOO!!!
I totally get that, but it shouldn't be at the expense of verisimilitude.
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(...)
I guess this counts as a narrative approach in which the GM does not fully control the narrative.
I like to think of this style of GMing as "I'm putting a problem in front of you. I've made sure that at least some solutions exist, so that the adventure won't stall. But it's totally cool if you bring a different solution. The key goal is that you have fun engaging with the problem and the story it tells."
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Finoan gave a good explanation about why you need to balance how much RK or experimentation players need to do, with the DCs and how many checks players get and how many successes they need.
Overall, I hope the goal is to create a challenge that the players will probably win. But where it's uncertain if they'll win it easily, massively, barely, or maybe get really unlucky and fail. And where the adventure doesn't brick up if they fail that skill challenge, but winning is still better than not winning.
I don't think challenges where you need to do some RK are inherently worse or better. But it does need to factor into the numbers when you're figuring out the odds. If the players have less free actions remaining because they needed to do RK, you need to take that into account when determining how many overall actions/DCs/VP needed there are. And if you need to succeed at RK to get essential information about how to continue with the challenge, what if players fail the RK check? Normally with RK, at that point you can't try again. What happens to your skill challenge then? (It's no coincidence that the Discovery check in social challenges doesn't block on a failure.)
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I recall my elven monk getting left behind in various chase scenes because of a few bad rolls despite the fact that she was literally twice as fast as anyone else in the race.
It can be pretty urksome when the scenarios in question do not seem to take something as fundamental as that into account.
PF2 philosophy that the group is the star, rather than the individual, at work. Feature, not bug.
Being the fastest by far will play a role in combat encounters already.BOO!!! BOO!!! RUBBISH! FILTH! SLIME! MUCK! BOO!!! BOOO!!!
I totally get that, but it shouldn't be at the expense of verisimilitude.
But it's not at the expense of verisimilitude is it? Chases rarely involve actual speed by overcoming whatever obstacles exist between point A and point B. "Congrats, you got to the pile of crates before everyone else! But when everyone else gets their, they scamper over them or slip through them much faster than you can manage to do."
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It would be bad if having a high speed auto-solved every chase, or if it gave you a bonus on every chase skill challenge on every obstacle.
But it's also not cool if it never plays a role at all even when the particular obstacle clearly calls for raw speed.
I think it's good as a GM not to cling too tightly to your skill challenges. Sometimes, someone has the perfect feat, magic item or spell to just totally own that problem. That's okay if it's just "well, the AP writer is asking for you to do this, but your solution makes sense and would just completely do it", once or twice. It's not as much fun if it works on every skill challenge. But if you pose the problem and a player goes "I have the perfect solution for this", okay that's cool.
But that should be occasionally, not all the time. Sometimes in a chase, being really fast should matter. But not all the time on all obstacles.
It would be bad if having a high speed auto-solved every chase, or if it gave you a bonus on every chase skill challenge on every obstacle.
But it's also not cool if it never plays a role at all even when the particular obstacle clearly calls for raw speed.
Yeah, this. Sometimes speed definitely matters. Other times, not so much. I know of one chase that takes place on an airship, and your speed would be utterly meaningless because the ship itself is what has to navigate.
Piloting Lore, though? That would be super useful.
I think it's good as a GM not to cling too tightly to your skill challenges. Sometimes, someone has the perfect feat, magic item or spell to just totally own that problem. That's okay if it's just "well, the AP writer is asking for you to do this, but your solution makes sense and would just completely do it", once or twice. It's not as much fun if it works on every skill challenge. But if you pose the problem and a player goes "I have the perfect solution for this", okay that's cool.
But that should be occasionally, not all the time. Sometimes in a chase, being really fast should matter. But not all the time on all obstacles.
Yeah, agreed. I loved it on the weekend when we got to the "you have to get around this obstacle" problem and I went "I use the Mountaineering Training tactic, the whole party has a climb speed, so we simply climb up to the ceiling and go around it."
It's fun to be able to use your stuff to be effective, but that shouldn't be able to solve every problem.
Yeah, I've had mixed experiences with that sort of thing in PFS. In one scenario, my goblin inventor / mech pilot had to get over a ground-based obstacle. After the GM listed off several complex skill checks to go THROUGH the obstacle, I told the GM "Nah, my character simply uses Explosive Leap to jump over the obstacle." He gave it to me, sans skill checks.
In a different PFS session with a different GM, but similar situation, the GM seemed to take it as a personal affront that a player voice any autonomy at all, and that if we weren't choosing from the scenario's list of "approved skills," we were "doing it wrong."
I understand that it's generally better to ask rather than tell the GM about these sorts of things, but some GMs be straight-up power-tripping and can't take anything they perceive as possibly challenging that authority. Thankfully, such GMs typically either learn to adapt quickly or get tossed to the proverbial curb by the players.
We're all in it for the fun, not just to make a GM feel good about themselves at the expense of everyone's time and energy.
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It would be bad if having a high speed auto-solved every chase, or if it gave you a bonus on every chase skill challenge on every obstacle.
But it's also not cool if it never plays a role at all even when the particular obstacle clearly calls for raw speed.
Yeah, this. Sometimes speed definitely matters. Other times, not so much. I know of one chase that takes place on an airship, and your speed would be utterly meaningless because the ship itself is what has to navigate.
Piloting Lore, though? That would be super useful.
I think it's good as a GM not to cling too tightly to your skill challenges. Sometimes, someone has the perfect feat, magic item or spell to just totally own that problem. That's okay if it's just "well, the AP writer is asking for you to do this, but your solution makes sense and would just completely do it", once or twice. It's not as much fun if it works on every skill challenge. But if you pose the problem and a player goes "I have the perfect solution for this", okay that's cool.
But that should be occasionally, not all the time. Sometimes in a chase, being really fast should matter. But not all the time on all obstacles.
Yeah, agreed. I loved it on the weekend when we got to the "you have to get around this obstacle" problem and I went "I use the Mountaineering Training tactic, the whole party has a climb speed, so we simply climb up to the ceiling and go around it."
It's fun to be able to use your stuff to be effective, but that shouldn't be able to solve every problem.
Note that climbing on the ceiling needs Athletics skill checks.
Keeping to the walls is easier.
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PFS specifically asks the GMs not to get away from what is written. I can totally see GMs sticking to the letter of this.
Over the years PFS has added more nuance to that. This snippet has been in the PFS rules since at least 2014:
Creative Solutions
Sometimes during a game, your players might surprise you with a creative solution that the adventure did not anticipate. Rewarding the creative use of skills and roleplaying makes games more fun for the players. If your players find another solution that resolves or bypasses an encounter, give the PCs the same reward they would have gained by resolving the encounter as the adventure anticipated.
The Pathfinder Society never wants to give the impression that the only way to solve a problem is to kill it.
They also added a lot of clarification about GM adjustments to unexpected player actions here ; that part is more of a change, loosening previous "run as written" instructions a fair bit.
If you have overwhelming speed, then it's hard to argue with. I remember trying to use dragon form to get around a ground hazard. The reasoning for not allowing it was fair, as it was a test of enduring and overcoming, not avoiding. But in most other situations, it would be hard to say your 90+ speed doesn't matter.
As you get to higher levels, solving around problems should get more common then only resolving through them.
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Sometimes that's a problem with authors putting low-level flavored problems in chases for high level characters.
A low level chase is about "how fast can you get everyone over this garden wall". A high level chase problem is "a magical sandstorm is specifically chasing after you and seems intelligent and doesn't want you to dodge it".
I think we should celebrate that at some level, some things just aren't a reasonable obstacle anymore. Like at level 5, it's ridiculous to worry about provisions during hexploration. You've just graduated from those beginner level problems. It's time to start doing things where you run into much bigger scarier problems.