Pathfinder 2E Another Deadly Session, and It's Getting Old

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, honestly, if one really wants "combat as war" as a basis, few modern games outside of the OSR sphere are going to be satisfying; the vast majority of modern games either based around making combat mechanically interesting, or getting it out of the way (in a hopefully nonlethal way) as fast as possible to get on to the parts of the game the designers (and presumably players) find more interesting.

 

[GrahamWills]

Yeah, honestly, if one really wants "combat as war" as a basis, few modern games outside of the OSR sphere are going to be satisfying; the vast majority of modern games either based around making combat mechanically interesting, or getting it out of the way (in a hopefully nonlethal way) as fast as possible to get on to the parts of the game the designers (and presumably players) find more interesting.

I guess it depends on what you want for a “satisfying combat”. I’ve had groups whose idea of a satisfying combat was spending hours of preparation, scouting and building advantages, and then destroying the encounter rapidly because they had done such a good job. They absolutely felt that was satisfying. That happens pretty regularly in games I run irrespective of the system (Fate, D&D4E, Savage Worlds). So long as you have a system that allows any form of pre-combat advantage to be created (which is frankly more common in modern systems than older and especially OSR systems) any system can do this — it’s player and GM style only that decides if it ”works”

The point of war is to remove the ability of the enemy to harm you. Modern systems, with their emphasis on creating advantages, on combating threat clocks/dials, on leveraging social and non-sword-swinging skills, etc. — they are by far the easier to run combat as war in.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess it depends on what you want for a “satisfying combat”. I’ve had groups whose idea of a satisfying combat was spending hours of preparation, scouting and building advantages, and then destroying the encounter rapidly because they had done such a good job. They absolutely felt that was satisfying.

That's satisfying planning. Not the same thing. You can do that in virtually any game.

That happens pretty regularly in games I run irrespective of the system (Fate, D&D4E, Savage Worlds). So long as you have a system that allows any form of pre-combat advantage to be created (which is frankly more common in modern systems than older and especially OSR systems) any system can do this — it’s player and GM style only that decides if it ”works”

The point of war is to remove the ability of the enemy to harm you. Modern systems, with their emphasis on creating advantages, on combating threat clocks/dials, on leveraging social and non-sword-swinging skills, etc. — they are by far the easier to run combat as war in.

I'll accept the argument--but I don't think most of them are actually interested in doing that.

 

[GrahamWills]

That's satisfying planning. Not the same thing. You can do that in virtually any game.

obviously, you do what you enjoy, but planning is an essential part of what most people think of as “war”. If you don’t like planning, then just play systems where you don’t need to plan to be be consistently successful — that‘s the “combat as sport” model — the GM always ensures a balanced fun combat and so planning is at best minorly relevant. That’s not a dit — I play and enjoy 4E which is about as “combat as sport” as you can get!

but when desiring the “combat as war” style, for which planning is arguably a larger component than actual rolling dice to see who hits who this round, more modern systems seem to work better for me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

obviously, you do what you enjoy, but planning is an essential part of what most people think of as “war”.

Which is why I distinguished between "war" and "combat" in my original post. Satisfying planning and satisfying combat aren't the same thing.

If you don’t like planning, then just play systems where you don’t need to plan to be be consistently successful — that‘s the “combat as sport” model — the GM always ensures a balanced fun combat and so planning is at best minorly relevant. That’s not a dit — I play and enjoy 4E which is about as “combat as sport” as you can get!

but when desiring the “combat as war” style, for which planning is arguably a larger component than actual rolling dice to see who hits who this round, more modern systems seem to work better for me.

Well, that, as I said, is a reasonable argument; its not one I necessarily think most modern games are designed for, however. Note my comment about the second category of games--ones where getting through the combat as fast as possible is the intent. That may, in some cases, reward planning but I'm not sure its still what most people who are talking about as "combat as war" are talking about.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Yeah, it does vary quite a bit what people tend to mean, that's why I elaborated so heavily in my post about the incentives for each being different-- it doubled as a summary of what I meant by each.

I think that there's a definite difference between say Kids on Bikes/Brooms approach to combat (roll a 'fight check') and combat as war as practiced by an OSR game, namely that the latter has a bunch of mechanics intended to let the players sink their teeth into setting up the situation-- like extensive environmental effects and so forth. They might both be faster than combat as sport, but its to very different ends.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Absolutely. Because in the end, neither of them is about the combat itself.

 

[Retreater]

Last night I was playing OSE and my 4th level thief died in two rounds after getting hit by a piercer. It sucked to lose a character, but it's not like PF2, because character creation takes about 5 minutes in OSE. Losing a character in PF2 means you're out of the game for over an hour as you make up a new one. It's way too lethal for the time investment to make a character, learn how to play the character, etc.

 

[kenada]

Last night I was playing OSE and my 4th level thief died in two rounds after getting hit by a piercer. It sucked to lose a character, but it's not like PF2, because character creation takes about 5 minutes in OSE. Losing a character in PF2 means you're out of the game for over an hour as you make up a new one. It's way too lethal for the time investment to make a character, learn how to play the character, etc.

If you know the system and (more importantly) what you want to do, it’s possible to make a character somewhat quickly. That’s still a lot slower, it’s probably not a good default assumption, and it’s certainly not going to be the case for anyone who likes to browse through the options instead of going in with an idea in mind. I tried to make one quickly and came in at around fifteen minutes. My players take at least four or five times as long.

I did talk my group into trying out OSE (just a one-shot), so maybe my issues will be rendered moot in time. I’m certainly looking forward to giving it a spin.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was going to say that I could likely, if I went in with a concept firmly in mind and was dealing with a class I already knew my way around, to do it in five minutes.

Its entirely fair to note that people inexperienced with the system and/or less decisive will take longer, but I think the idea its intrinsically going to take an hour to do so is a little excessive.

That said, I can think of games far more intrinsically lethal than PF2e that have character gen that is just as long (Almost any BRP or RQ related game comes to mind). Under normal circumstances, you actually have to work to lose a single PF2e character (note that there are unusual circumstances with some monsters, but they're just that). A PF2e character can end up going down relatively easily, but to use two examples I'm recently familiar with, its far easier to have a Mythras or Fragged Empire character actually die.

(Note the qualification I made on "single"; a TPK is a different situation).