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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8213471" data-attributes="member: 70468"><p>Hit probability is a thing, but if I’m a player looking to decide whether to stay or keep fighting, the most obvious thing to consider is the worst case scenario. Without crits, that’s easy. If I have 20 hp left, and I see the creature does 2d6, then I know I can definitely take one more hit. It may happen this round, or it may happen in a few rounds, but I know I am guaranteed to survive at least one more. That helps me know I can continue in the fight.</p><p></p><p>When you add crits, especially frequent ones with such a wide range of damage, that consideration disappears. I may know the creature does 2d6, but it could end up doing 24 damage in the worst case scenario. I now have to decide whether I want to push my luck. Additionally, if the worst case scenario is such that I can lose most or even all of my hit points in one hit, then my only options are not to fight at all (obviously not the intent) or roll with it.</p><p></p><p>That’s not a criticism of PF2. That’s just how it goes about creating dangerous feeling combat situations without having combat be actually dangerous. In that first scenario, I’m worried about how long I can stay because I die at 0 hit points. If I make a mistake, I’m gone. In the second one, I’m weighing the risk of going down and potentially hurting my party tactically. If we take the risk, we can win, but it could also swing the battle against us.</p><p></p><p>The effect of PF2’s design is that you want to do what you can to control and mitigate that swinginess. You’re right about how tactics factor into that. Using debuffs and movement is a big part of controlling that. If you can force an enemy to burn action economy getting to you, those are hits you’ve mitigated at the cost of your own action. If it’s the difference between a hit and not, then going for a stroll in combat is quite good effective healing at no cost.</p><p></p><p>If I were to levy any complaint about this particular design decision, I would say that it’s not for every group. If your group is like mine (not very tactically inclined), then they’re going to struggle with taking the steps they need to take to survive and win. For whatever reason, they have a much easier internalizing the old-school approach and playing accordingly than they did the tactical approach favored by PF2.</p><p></p><p>Trying to bring this back around to the topic at hand, but I think @Retreater’s suggestion to run something small for your group first is a good one. Groups will respond differently to PF2’s tactical play, and knowing how your players will helps you tailor and tweak things to be fun for them. This is especially true if you are bringing in assumptions from previous editions because PF2 upends a few of them (particularly with regards to encounter guidelines that actually work for the most part).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenada, post: 8213471, member: 70468"] Hit probability is a thing, but if I’m a player looking to decide whether to stay or keep fighting, the most obvious thing to consider is the worst case scenario. Without crits, that’s easy. If I have 20 hp left, and I see the creature does 2d6, then I know I can definitely take one more hit. It may happen this round, or it may happen in a few rounds, but I know I am guaranteed to survive at least one more. That helps me know I can continue in the fight. When you add crits, especially frequent ones with such a wide range of damage, that consideration disappears. I may know the creature does 2d6, but it could end up doing 24 damage in the worst case scenario. I now have to decide whether I want to push my luck. Additionally, if the worst case scenario is such that I can lose most or even all of my hit points in one hit, then my only options are not to fight at all (obviously not the intent) or roll with it. That’s not a criticism of PF2. That’s just how it goes about creating dangerous feeling combat situations without having combat be actually dangerous. In that first scenario, I’m worried about how long I can stay because I die at 0 hit points. If I make a mistake, I’m gone. In the second one, I’m weighing the risk of going down and potentially hurting my party tactically. If we take the risk, we can win, but it could also swing the battle against us. The effect of PF2’s design is that you want to do what you can to control and mitigate that swinginess. You’re right about how tactics factor into that. Using debuffs and movement is a big part of controlling that. If you can force an enemy to burn action economy getting to you, those are hits you’ve mitigated at the cost of your own action. If it’s the difference between a hit and not, then going for a stroll in combat is quite good effective healing at no cost. If I were to levy any complaint about this particular design decision, I would say that it’s not for every group. If your group is like mine (not very tactically inclined), then they’re going to struggle with taking the steps they need to take to survive and win. For whatever reason, they have a much easier internalizing the old-school approach and playing accordingly than they did the tactical approach favored by PF2. Trying to bring this back around to the topic at hand, but I think @Retreater’s suggestion to run something small for your group first is a good one. Groups will respond differently to PF2’s tactical play, and knowing how your players will helps you tailor and tweak things to be fun for them. This is especially true if you are bringing in assumptions from previous editions because PF2 upends a few of them (particularly with regards to encounter guidelines that actually work for the most part). [/QUOTE]
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