Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: is it RAW or RAI to always take 10 minutes and heal between encounters?

[payn]

GMs in a PbtA have an agenda and principles they’re expected to follow. Most are things experienced GMs would consider good practices, but together they’re meant to keep you on the path of playing to find out what happens (instead of what’s in the GM’s notes).

I assumed as much. I've just become accustomed to winging it when trying a new and/or vague system. As a GM, in any game no matter how well or poorly built, the show must go on!

 

[CapnZapp]

So what you’re saying is you only need to be faster than the slowest member of the party (they can be the bait).

You never need run faster than the bear, no ...

 

[Thomas Shey]

If monster A sees hero H disappear around a corner, it simply runs to that corner and... there you are.

And when you've made two corners? Three? And its not clear which way you've gone on either?

If you aren't a Rogue-class character you have zero options to just "disappear".

Almost any spellcaster certainly does, and in games without those, a lot of characters have useful stealth skills. Heck, that's even true in PF2e.

Sure it is possible to envision a map with enough twists and turns that 10 or 15 squares is enough to break line of sight (multiple corners to turn), but mosts maps just aren't like that. Plus - again unless you're an experienced Rogue - you are running away, you are not stealthing away. And since you aren't stealthing, monsters will automatically locate you by sound ("I can hear her running in the left corridor").

Fifteen squares is 75'. Maybe the maps you see don't have multiple cover within that, but I've seen plenty. And that's not even counting classic dungeons where you easily can have one or more corners within that.

Also PF2 combats are calibrated so that every round is incredibly decisive. Just spending your actions on "run away!" can all by itself be the tipping point between success and failure - had you stayed and fought, the impact of that decision can easily be enough to win (even though you might have to endure going down, spending money on healing potions, getting uncomfortably close to Dying 4, etc).

That's true with a lot of games, and the reason people don't do it more often (I've noted before that people used to playing BRP based games or others with rapid pace-of-resolution don't tend to find the fact things can go bad quickly in PF2e when they go bad particularly striking). I'm making the assumption that you've assessed the situation as unlikely to go well and just got the hell out or the question is moot. The one time our group did that it was because we looked at a single hit damage result and went "Welp, even for a crit we can't stand up under those. Time to get the hell out."

All of this assumes what actually is not the common case at all, namely that there is no other hero the monsters can wail on. Just because you ran away does not necessarily mean all your party friends have yet had the time to do the same.

Its exceedingly unlikely in my experience that if one person withdraws, the rest won't do so at first opportunity. YMMV.

Assuming we're still discussing the regular combat rules and mapped combats; not TOTM of course.

Honestly, I don't see there as being any particularly significant difference in practice.

 

[CapnZapp]

Rules or not, at some point unless you're on a dead flat plane, any pursuers are simply going to lose sight of you from multiple interposing obstacles. At that point any continued pursuit becomes guesswork at best unless the terrain heavily channels people.

Yeah, no, now you're theory crafting.

In nearly every practical case Paizo has ever published, you start your round less than ten squares away from the monster you wish to evade.

I am saying that you simply can't do it using mundane means (your legs). At the end of your round you might well be around a corner, but you won't have had time to stealth or hide, and then the monster again ends it's turn ten or fewer squares away. Commonly, the monster can spend two actions moving and then attack you at range.

If you're a Rogue able to Stealth at full speed, or can fly or teleport, or can plop down a Wall of Force, then sure.

But very seldom is running away the mundane way going to work.

This is the basis for the entire chase system discussion we just had...

 

[CapnZapp]

My only argument is that this isn't a particular Paizo problem, and holding them to a standard virtually ever other game I know of, in or out of the D&D sphere fails at seems--off.

Pathfinder 2 actually works significantly differently than most other D&D games. You can move three times your Speed, not just two.

The rulebook comes off as totally clueless about this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, no, now you're theory crafting.

No, I'm describing terrain both in real life iand n games I've seen.

In nearly every practical case Paizo has ever published, you start your round less than ten squares away from the monster you wish to evade.

And?

I am saying that you simply can't do it using mundane means (your legs). At the end of your round you might well be around a corner, but you won't have had time to stealth or hide, and then the monster again ends it's turn ten or fewer squares away. Commonly, the monster can spend two actions moving and then attack you at range.

Since you can often do so after one move, I disagree with your premise. All you have to do is break line of sight with at most a 50' move. Again, unless fighting on a flat plane, not that hard.

If you're a Rogue able to Stealth at full speed, or can fly or teleport, or can plop down a Wall of Force, then sure.

But very seldom is running away the mundane way going to work

Still disagree, and I've explained why by now.

.

This is the basis for the entire chase system discussion we just had...

And since I don't agree with the premises you're working under...

 

[Thomas Shey]

Pathfinder 2 actually works significantly differently than most other D&D games. You can move three times your Speed, not just two.

The rulebook comes off as totally clueless about this.

That can just as easily favor escape, not hinder it. If anything, the impulse nature of movement actually makes it easier than it should be to escape in a lot of terrain, because if you're literalist, by the time a pursuer has moved there's more opportunity for visibility to be broken than their would necessarily be in an immediate pursuit.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Breaking pursuit has a lot of factors. For example, typically speaking in real life when you are just running away, you are moving far faster than you normally would in combat; you aren't thinking about exactly where you need to be or making complicated weaves and such. So judging retreat speed merely by your movement is probably not accurate; you could probably do an Athletics check in there to get up to a real sprint and extra movement. Also worth noting that the incentives to continue running are obviously higher for the fleeing compared to the pursuer, since one will lose their life while the other merely loses their prey.

Further, like @Thomas Shey says, there's plenty of chances for breaking line of sight if you are just running, and once that happens it gets much more difficult for the pursuer. It's like if you are chasing someone in a building, and they turn a corner and you lose them for a moment. You are now alone in a hallway with doors and an intersection not far away. What do you do? If you don't know where they are, you might stop and listen (which let's them get further), look around to make sure they didn't go into a room, or simply pick a path and continue running, hoping you chose the right one. It's actually fairly easy to lose individuals, which is why bombshelling (the act of everyone running off in different directions) can make pursuit really difficult, especially for formed up formal units.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I've created a new thread for the whole "Retreat" debate. I think we really need to start creating new threads for these topics in this forum; it'd probably help organize things a bit better and maybe spark better discussion by refocusing the topic into a separate thread. At the least, couldn't hurt things.

 

[FrozenNorth]

My only argument is that this isn't a particular Paizo problem, and holding them to a standard virtually ever other game I know of, in or out of the D&D sphere fails at seems--off.

Is Paizo being held to a different standard? Or are we only talking about Paizo here because this is the Pathfinder board? I’m pretty sure that if you go to the D&D boards, or the other role-playing boards, complaints about similar issues come up periodically.

And @Retreater just added a complaint about PbtA, just to be different.