Pathfinder 2E Mark Seifter wants to set the record straight: Feats and Improvisation in Pathfinder 2e (Video)

[Thomas Shey]

Surely that could be better achieved then by not writing the feat the way it is? The proposal here is not that the feat grant a new action, but instead it should be understood to mitigate a penalty. There's no reason it couldn't simply have done that, instead of existing the way it does.

Sure, but its not a secret that a lot or people prefer ad-hoc penalties rather than fixed ones for things like this, and it has the advantage it saves space. They absolutely should have spelled out that its okay to use penalties rather than the feat (this is a problem going all the way back to 3e) but I doubt they'd have set them numerically even if they had.

I personally don't think it's good that the penalty is left as a game design exercise to the reader, but setting aside that issue, the presentation is pretty clearly bad. The proposed penalty could have been explicitly written into the ability, and/or the feat could have been written to clearly mitigate the penalty instead of as if it grants new capabilities.

That I won't argue against.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

To be clear, the feat is only relevant to your adjudication if a player uses it-- it does not contain general rules for coercing multiple people, only rules that pertain to someone taking that feat. It is not located in any section that contains general rules.

Coercing multiple people via a harder dc is just an application of the advice for how to adjudicate and set dcs applied to the base Coerce action. It isn't game design either, just an application of the general guidelines for doing something that would be harder than usual.

 

[Eric V]

So ... here are the rules for Coerce (from AoN):



So it says "a creature." The circumstantial attitudes referenced include "hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, helpful." It does not give guidance to impact a group. [I won't even talk about how worthless the skill is because it takes a minute - but there's a feat for that, too.]

For the GM to learn that there are alternative rules to coercing a group, they need to go to the Group Coercion feat and read that.

And how many feats are on AoN that a GM might need to read to learn the rules? 4,232.

This is a game with multiple people around the table. The GM should know the rule for Coerce. If a player wants to have a character better at coercion, then they can look up the rules for doing so, and choose feats accordingly.

Players can take ownership of their characters and character build.

 

[Teemu]

There is some inconsistency in the social skill actions. Coerce and Request are made against a single creature, but Lie is made against everyone who’s present. It’s an example of how the complexity of the game makes it difficult for the designers to follow the game’s internal logic. The tag system is infamous for this.

 

[Eric V]

There is some inconsistency in the social skill actions. Coerce and Request are made against a single creature, but Lie is made against everyone who’s present. It’s an example of how the complexity of the game makes it difficult for the designers to follow the game’s internal logic. The tag system is infamous for this.

Isn't that just following some real-world logic? Everyone who hears the lie gets a chance to believe it or see through it, but if I am only talking to one person, Coerce would be single-target.

 

[Teemu]

Isn't that just following some real-world logic? Everyone who hears the lie gets a chance to believe it or see through it, but if I am only talking to one person, Coerce would be single-target.

Sure a little bit but you could also say that if I witness someone scaring another person, the scary person would then be more intimidating than if they’d failed scaring off their victim. That’s not happening in baseline PF2. Besides, it’s not like PF2 rules stick to real-world logic at all. Paralyzed is completely unrealistic, you can’t shove people with your shoulders or kicks, you can fix fatal wounds in minutes, etc.

 

[Eric V]

Sure a little bit but you could also say that if I witness someone scaring another person, the scary person would then be more intimidating than if they’d failed scaring off their victim. That’s not happening in baseline PF2. Besides, it’s not like PF2 rules stick to real-world logic at all. Paralyzed is completely unrealistic, you can’t shove people with your shoulders or kicks, you can fix fatal wounds in minutes, etc.

I confess, I don't understand the bolded part.

As for the shoves and such, I am pretty sure it's game balance. I am playing a fighter with a katana in Season of Ghosts AP and if there were no such limits, I'd be pretty OP at my level. YMMV.

All this is just to say I don't find the difference between Lie and Coerce to be an inconsistency.

 

[Teemu]

I confess, I don't understand the bolded part.

As for the shoves and such, I am pretty sure it's game balance. I am playing a fighter with a katana in Season of Ghosts AP and if there were no such limits, I'd be pretty OP at my level. YMMV.

All this is just to say I don't find the difference between Lie and Coerce to be an inconsistency.

It was awkwardly phrased. Point being that even if you’re not being addressed, seeing someone be charismatic or intimidating towards someone else, successfully, will typically have a bit of an influence on you. That would be the “realistic” approach, like how Lie is compared against everyone around you. But realism is not something PF2 particularly cares about, so within the logic of PF2 it would make more sense to keep Lie as a single target action, if Request and Coerce are single target as well.

Edit: a more practical example: Imagine you’re facing off against a troll and a bandit. You successfully Coerce the troll. In PF2 that has 0 impact on your ability to Coerce the bandit (baseline, barring GM adjustments).

 

[Velderan]

It was awkwardly phrased. Point being that even if you’re not being addressed, seeing someone be charismatic or intimidating towards someone else, successfully, will typically have a bit of an influence on you. That would be the “realistic” approach, like how Lie is compared against everyone around you. But realism is not something PF2 particularly cares about, so within the logic of PF2 it would make more sense to keep Lie as a single target action, if Request and Coerce are single target as well.

Edit: a more practical example: Imagine you’re facing off against a troll and a bandit. You successfully Coerce the troll. In PF2 that has 0 impact on your ability to Coerce the bandit (baseline, barring GM adjustments).

A morale system or something like what AD&D had could help there, but I think as GM I would just either give a bonus to a separate roll on the bandit or make it automatic if they’re clearly the weaker of the two just to move things along.

The longer I have played PF2e, the looser I have gotten with the rules if I feel like the player should just succeed given the circumstances. I appreciate PF2e usually having a rule for something but don’t 100% feel compelled to follow them if failure seems dumb.

 

[Eric V]

It was awkwardly phrased. Point being that even if you’re not being addressed, seeing someone be charismatic or intimidating towards someone else, successfully, will typically have a bit of an influence on you. That would be the “realistic” approach, like how Lie is compared against everyone around you. But realism is not something PF2 particularly cares about, so within the logic of PF2 it would make more sense to keep Lie as a single target action, if Request and Coerce are single target as well.

Edit: a more practical example: Imagine you’re facing off against a troll and a bandit. You successfully Coerce the troll. In PF2 that has 0 impact on your ability to Coerce the bandit (baseline, barring GM adjustments).

It's possible I'm not remembering the rules myself; isn't Coerce an out-of-combat ability?