I think that is being a little unfair. When evaluating a system, the adventures put out by the designers are a part of that system. This gives us an idea of how the designers expected the game to be played.
I doubt any two groups are going to have the same experience, so trying to generalize just from one’s own seems problematic at best. If the goal is figuring out how the system is intended to be used, you have to look at various different experiences and consider the totality of them. That’s not what’s being done here.
Personally, I think modules can and should adopt your approach of telegraphing fights and obstacles as they occur. I would go even further and say that certain PF modules did exactly that: identifying enemies you could convert to your cause in Legacy of Fire and Reign of Winter.
To be fair, that was !DWolf’s suggestion. I think I basically agree, though it seems like this AP does that in some places or is otherwise amenable to it.
I don’t have the Gamemastery Guide so I will refrain from expressing an opinion on it. However, I do feel this was a real missed opportunity for the 5e DMG.
GMG has some pretty good tools for the GM. I think it generally does a pretty good job as a toolbox (though I find the settlement and leadership stuff unsatisfying).
Any way that works for a game table is a legitimate way to run an adventure. I certainly feel that way about anything that I've written.
However, I think "out of the box" a published adventure should work with the default assumptions of the system and how that individual adventure module is written.
The module in question, which is only the second adventure written in the first adventure path in a popular new system, should be written under the assumption that new GMs would be running it, for new players, trying out a new system. None of them would have decades of experience tweaking adventures. Even in my case, as a GM who has been running games since the 1980s, I'm not overly experienced with PF2 (and who really is?)
So the writer puts a hazard on a door in the citadel. The hazard does not "go away" once the door is opened. On the other side of the door is a group of intelligent enemies who are trying to keep people from entering the inner sanctum of the citadel. The adventure says that the enemies are specifically not harmed by the hazard. Putting this information together, why would a GM not have the enemies step forward and attack the invaders? (Unless it's a purely artificial "balance" issue?)
In this case, I think it's fair that the writer should have known this was a probable outcome. If that wasn't the intent, write something in the adventure stating that the door cannot be opened until the hazard is dispatched if having a combined encounter breaks the math of the game.
I think there are a couple of issues here. The first is the hazard. It just doesn’t sound like a very good setup. Even if we were using Proficiency Without Level or a totally different system like 5e, killing one of the PCs before things start doesn’t makes for a particularly good encounter. Maybe core PF2 is more vulnerable to a TPK in that situation, but it’s still a bad one regardless.
The other one is intent and default assumptions. The only ones I think are safe to make is party size (4 characters), level (all the same) and equipment (appropriate for the former), and that they will work and fight together as a team. Assuming more than that would risk assuming my experiences as the default. It’s worth noting the CRB does touch on published adventures, saying that changing them is not just acceptable, it’s preferable. Consequently, ‘tweaking’ them to foreshadow danger seems like a reasonable thing to do.
Now, if the problem is that the game just doesn’t teach you those things, then I agree. I’ve linked this article before here, but I’ll link it again: System Matters. Games could do a much better job of teaching GMs how to run them properly. That’s probably why streaming is so important now as a way to get new people into the hobby. It provides a way to learn from someone else that can reach a much bigger audience.
Then what's the point of that clearly written DC 32 Perception check to detect the hazard in the adventure? Putting an extremely difficult check like that seems antithetical to foreshadowing.
Then what's the point of that clearly written DC 32 Perception check to detect the hazard in the adventure? Putting an extremely difficult check like that seems antithetical to foreshadowing.
The point of the foreshadowing is to communicate to the players that there is danger ahead, so they know to use their player expertise to activate character expertise. The trap expert would still need to check the door for the magical trap. The specifics ultimately come down to the situation and how overtly one wants to inform the PCs.
One of the things about hidden hazards is they’re often pretty boring. If the hazard’s Stealth DC has a minimum proficiency rank, then the only way the PCs even know to check is foreshadowing. Without some sort of logic telling them to look, they’re just going to be tripping over random traps and getting blown up (not fun), or they’re going to be Searching all the things because the GM likes making them do boring stuff so they don’t die (also not fun).
And why shouldn’t I? Cult of Cinders and Hellknight Hill are replete with passages telling me, that yes, it should be run this way (I quoted some below, I can quote more if necessary). The core rulebook contains mechanics that support running the game this way - mechanics that don’t work the way you run the game (as you constantly state). You constantly complain the way that you run it, the rules don’t work, so why should I review it that way? Because dnd 5e runs it that way? Pathfinder 2e is not dnd 5e.
When in actual fact each encounter is designed to be faced by four characters.
Just to clarify. The adventure is Cult of Cinders - I am just looking at C1 instead of C6-C7.
but already your first assumption, that it is even possible to lure away the level 9 monster, much less doing so without alerting the guards, is highly irregular.
a half dozen boggard cultists are stationed as guards, spread out along the central building’s palisades. These boggards are undisciplined, bored, and accustomed to noises from the swamp (including brief sounds of violence, due to Sweettooth).
and
If the PCs avoid or spare Sweettooth, they gain 1 IP with the Leopard Clan. It takes about a week for word to get to the clan.
and several pages later (in a different encounter) the writers explicitly describe using social skills to defuse an encounter.
The module clearly anticipated a solution that does not involve combat and it anticipates social skills being used to resolve encounters. It is not irregular, it is explicitly supported. I will also further direct you to page 493 of the core rulebook, where there is a whole section about bypassing encounters.
Not to mention the fact that you never have much more than a 50% chance of accomplishing anything against a monster of your own level. Using spells or maybe the Command an Animal action against a level 9 monster will likely have a DC of 26 or thereabouts. Unless the heroes are severely overleveled (which practically never happens in Paizo's official APs) there is a significant risk of failing an individual DC 26 check, which should result in combat against a monster described as "an enormous predator capable of catching and eating dinosaurs".
Obviously this is a hypothetical example to illustrate how a sentry removal style mission works. But to further the hypothetical example: the illusionist wizard uses to illusions to lure the creature. The monk uses wall running and a rope to get the others into the trees safely out of range of the melee monster well prior to it arriving. The fighter with high survival and supporting feats caught a lot of food to bribe it with (circumstance bonus). The smooth talking cleric uses a scroll and magic item trickster to use speak with animals to negotiate with it after drinking a silver tongue mutagen (item bonus). And if that fails the smooth-talking-devil of a cleric has a suggestion spell in his back pocket. Again this is a hypothetical example, I could do the same with different characters and strategies. But notice how, even running an encounter right out of the book, the characters/players can exercise their agency and engage with the system mechanics if the monsters don’t randomly appear and attack and the gm gives them a little foreshadowing. By letting the players make decisions and act at this level (a consequence of the playstyle) the system runs well. And many players will love it because, by choosing how they approach problems (that is they have more agency), they can make all the choices they made in character creation matter and they get to solve problems creatively. (Which is not to say all groups will love it - some of course just want to bash in monster heads with their friends - more power to them but they will find that some modules, like the ones in question, will have to adjusted mechanically to fit that style because they are not designed for it).
I hope you realize I'm not trying to shame you for your gamesmastering style. You are not doing anything wrong. In fact, running an AP this way could be great!
I just don't see the relevance when discussing the rules out of the box. I don't think it lets you claim that Paizo's stealth rules work, for instance.
Why should we assume a default play style that doesn’t work for the system and one in which the adventures are not written for? You have assumed (likely because of DND 5e being your default) that your playstyle is what the designers/adventure writers intended when (as I have hopefully demonstrated) it is not. The adventures can be adjusted for the stream-of-combat style that you prefer (and I provided suggestions on how to do just that - I realize that some players prefer that style) but the fact that the mechanics of the adventure need to be tweaked to support that style is yet another indication that it is not the style that adventure is intended to be run in.
As you yourself say it is you that make encounters significantly easier. What you're saying is in effect "don't use the rules as written, do it my way instead". Again, that's great, but unless a DWolf is delivered in every box of rules from Paizo, it is also not relevant to our critique of the CRB, and Paizo's approach to rules design.
My suggestions to heavily foreshadow changed the presentation of a scene. That is normal and expected (page 487 of the core rulebook). I did not suggest it necessary to change RAW or the mechanics of the adventure (except to make it work with the steam-of-combat style when retreater said their group preferred that style).
The two styles operate the rules differently and engage different parts of it, they do not change the rules themselves - let me give an example:
Scenario 1: the party while traveling across the wilderness in early winter is suddenly ambushed by a horrible skull headed monster that burst out of a snow bank. Roll initiative.
Scenario 2: the party while traveling across the wilderness in early winter comes across a bloody and frozen corpse. They begin to investigate: the ranger looks for tracks, the rogue examines the body for clues as to what killed it, the wizard recalls knowledge on creatures indigenous to this region that could have done it, the cleric begins to dig a grave (pharasma). The ranger finds the tracks (they are fresh!), the wizard identifies it (kinda - dubious knowledge), the rogue figures out that it has an aura of bitter cold around it. They decide to get to defensible position with fire at the ready and let the monster come to them (through the rangers snares and the parties ranged attacks).
Note that at no point did I change the rules! All the actions in the second scenario were RAW legal. They just utilized more of the system than the encounter mechanics. The designers intended this - that is why the included those mechanics. The big change was that I, through a simple act of foreshadowing, allowed the players more agency and the players, through their expertise, used that agency to make the encounter easier. This is the mechanics working as intended!
More generally, I have a hard time believing anyone that states the game works great for them actually uses the rules as written.
Why? Because they do not work personally for you? If they do not work for you then why should we assume that your groups play-style is how they are intended to be run? Should we not do the exact opposite: look at those who the rules work for and see how they are playing?
I realize that many people come into Pathfinder 2e with the assumption that Pathfinder 2e is basically an off-brand knock off of DND 5e and therefore conclude it should have the same fundamental play style (This is why you get people converting systems asking how many combats per day are expected). But its not and it doesn’t - Paizo went a different direction (one which you obviously dislike) and the fact that they don’t make that explicitly clear is my biggest gripe with the game (Though to be charitable how many other games explicitly describe how they are they are supposed to be played differently than dnd 5e? Then again when is the last time anyone asked how many combats a day are expected in shadowrun?).
The point of the foreshadowing is to communicate to the players that there is danger ahead, so they know to use their player expertise to activate character expertise. The trap expert would still need to check the door for the magical trap. The specifics ultimately come down to the situation and how overtly one wants to inform the PCs.
@Retreater I believe this is a case where if you use the GMing style "if you don't say you check for traps, you don't check for traps". In this case, foreshadowing is useful (if not essential). (Kenada is free to tell me I'm wrong though)
If you run games more like me, however, you will simply assume the lead character is actively detecting stuff to the best of his abilities, without anyone having to point that out. This means he gets his "spot traps" check automatically. It also means the players can be confident they're never "cheated out of a check".
It cuts down on all the "I poke it with a 10-feet stick" chatter. For some groups that chatter is core to their role-playing experience. For us, it takes away time from combat and socializing.
One of the things about hidden hazards is they’re often pretty boring. If the hazard’s Stealth DC has a minimum proficiency rank, then the only way the PCs even know to check is foreshadowing. Without some sort of logic telling them to look, they’re just going to be tripping over random traps and getting blown up (not fun), or they’re going to be Searching all the things because the GM likes making them do boring stuff so they don’t die (also not fun).
I'm not sure I interpret the rules to give "minimum rank" this significance.
All that requirement does, AFAIK, is to ensure a trap check fails to detect the trap if it isn't met.
Whether you need to foreshadow or not is - again AFAIK - something that depends on other factors, such as the one I discussed in the post previous.
I have other issues with the PF2 implementation of trap detection disabling I find much more problematic. It concerns "non-traditional" traps, for just a single example:
An object haunted by the echoes of a vicious mind attempts to kill someone who comes near.
2e.aonprd.com
The rules have several examples of traps which you evidently can disable by making a mental check (in this case, Religion) rather than to take action with your fingers (Thievery).
How do I (the GM) know this? Because the hazard says so?
But how do the players know this?
I can't get the pieces to fit. First, the trap is hidden until detected. So it's not like the party hears ominous moaning or insane chatter.
Only if the Perception check is made do you get clued in there's a trap at all. What does this mean - that the ominous moaning is so low and subtle it's hard to hear?
And what does it mean for the example trap linked above? It says an object is "haunted by the echoes of a vicious mind". But it tells me nothing of how to present the trap to the players. Does it mean audible echoes? Or does it mean "a disturbance in the Force".
And okay, so the Rogue manages to percept the hazard. But she's not trained in Religion, so I'm assuming she knows nothing of the nature of the hazard. And if the Cleric rolled low on his Perception, he presumably has detected nothing, so how can he know Religion is involved?
How do we go from the "there's some kind of trap here" state, to the state where the Cleric realizes "this must be a spirit I can talk out of existence"?
I have absolutely no idea.
And even if you do realize there's a "spirit" what does that mean? How do you know you can exorcise the spirit just by making a check?! Are players expected to be so meta that they know which spirits that can be dispelled with a mere skill check, which spirits that require a greater ritual, and which spirits that must be bested in combat?
I can find no better way to impart the "roll Religion" knowledge than to... say "you can roll Religion to disable the trap".
As you probably agree, this makes for extremely dull and flat roleplaying.
It exhibits the worst tendencies where "rollplayers"
...say "I roll an Intelligence check to figure out the puzzle" instead of, you know, actually engaging in the puzzle, figuring it yourself as a player.
...say "I roll Diplomacy to convince the King to let us pass" instead of, you know, actually roleplaying your character, making up arguments and telling the king (GM) yourself.
...say "I roll Wisdom to see through the lies of the Witch" (or worse, "I Detect Evil" and if I get a reading, I draw my sword") instead of, you know, making up your own mind whether to trust the little old lady or not.
Please tell me there is a better way to run traps Please tell me Paizo isn't so entrenched in their own rules system they take it for granted that gamesmasters just tell players the meta knowledge their characters need to know in order to take rational action.
More importantly: Gamesmastering traps usually is no problem.
Only here in PF2 have I encountered these problematic questions. Again, why are the rules so prescriptive? What is the value of this incredible rules minutae?
My conclusion is the same as with every other issue I'm having: The rules would have been objectively better if a truckload of crud were erased before publication.
It's exhausting that you bring up this as an example. Such considerations are definitely not always there.
Obviously I too would not have any problems with this specific example.
You ignoring all the other AP dungeons where the monsters in room #2 are expected to just sit on their hands while the monsters in room #1 less than 60 feet away are slaughtered, makes for a very bad faith discussion.
I am telling you there's a difference between Pathfinder 2 and most other editions of D&D.
In most other D&D, having the monsters of room #2 come charging to the rescue of the monsters in room #1 makes for a more interesting and challenging fight.
In PF2, it might turn a "moderate" encounter into an "extreme" one.
And PF2 does not kid around with these labels. Please tell me you see the problem, and aren't so full of your own play style and scenario modifications you can't see other GMs struggling.
(Which is not to say all groups will love it - some of course just want to bash in monster heads with their friends - more power to them but they will find that some modules, like the ones in question, will have to adjusted mechanically to fit that style because they are not designed for it).
I find your claim, that there is even a single PF2 module not designed for "kick in the door" players, highly highly questionable.
But it does make it easier for me to see why you're willing to cut the rules so much slack.
Name even a single PF2 module that, in your view, isn't designed for the "kill one room, then kill the next room" play style as written with zero modifications.
You have assumed (likely because of DND 5e being your default) that your playstyle is what the designers/adventure writers intended when (as I have hopefully demonstrated) it is not. The adventures can be adjusted for the stream-of-combat style that you prefer
I consider more relaxed rpgs (including 5E!) much better suited to alternative play styles like yours, where the group is open to defeating encounters in many more ways than merely killing them. I'm posting argument after argument where scouting and stealth and skill use is shot down and shot down again, simply by PF2 making failure an inevitability.
My argument is that the extremely tied down rules of PF2 actively make it harder and work against you. My argument is that PF2 pretty much forces you to play in a style for which other rules subsystems are ill prepared.
That's the basis of my entire complaint. (Just to take a single example, how the rules seem to expect players to rest for no more than 10 to 30 minutes, except the overall difficulty makes players extremely reluctant to resume adventuring before being fully healed up, which can easily take 60 minutes or more)
