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A question about Paizo/PF adventure design
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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8140058" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>I too went into GMing PF2 with the expectation "give them 10 minutes for sure, but make it an exciting choice to rest for two or three such ten-minute periods".</p><p></p><p>That quickly fell apart. Medicine gives unlimited access to free healing, but it will often require 30, 60 or even 90 minutes.</p><p></p><p>Characters are completely and totally unable to take on another encounter (even a Low one) if one or more heroes is barely above zero hp, so it's not like there's a choice. (I guess there is a choice for parties with a healer, since the Cleric or whatever can burn all her Heal slots to bring everybody back up to full health in an emergency, but only once or maaaybe twice a day)</p><p></p><p>So the entire minigame I expected "hmm... I'm getting two 10-minute breaks, will I use them to repair my shield or regain my focus point or stand guard or Treat Wounds..." just doesn't happen in practice.</p><p></p><p>Since you regularly get four or five such periods, just go "I'll do all of them" and the game of choosing just falls to the floor.</p><p></p><p>PS. Other than the 10-minute downtime period, PF2 doesn't have any "short rest" notion.</p><p></p><p>Instead of 5E's simple and fast "you take a short rest and now you're back" you have to do a lot of fiddly and cludgey calculations that mostly just tell you whether you needed 30 or 50 minutes. And that is practically never interesting. You'll quickly dump all those little niggly rules and just say "you rest up and everybody's at full health and noone cares whether it took 40 or 70 minutes".</p><p></p><p>You quickly learn to never keep adventuring while significantly damaged, unless you enjoy turning up the already scary difficulty level a notch or three. The encounter building model of PF1 absolutely assumes the party enters each encounter at full health - various forms of weariness is instead handled through Conditions (fatigued and drained comes to mind). It just isn't fun to have a fight knowing you could have avoided giving the monsters a significant if not decisive advantage by just refusing to move before treating your wounds.</p><p></p><p>Long rests still exist - you bed down for the night, and the spellcasters regain spell slots and whatever else they need to do in the morning. But you only need this if you have an actual spellcaster in the group. A party consisting of only warriors can keep on adventuring practically forever (meaning they can mow through an entire level's worth of encounters in a single day, if they only get half an hour's worth or so of rest in-between each of them).</p><p></p><p>At low levels, Wizards et al actively suck - and suck hard - so by spellcaster I mostly mean a combat healer; a character devoted to casting a single spell in a single configuration: the two-action Heal spell and being content with nearly irrelevant cantrip attacks in between. Sure you can bring a Bard or something for social encounters, but since all APs are so railroaded you don't actually need one. What you do need, however, are warriors to kill monsters and possibly the combat medic to counter the unlucky die rolls you <em>will</em> experience sooner or later. (Then at maybe level ~9 you can switch out one of the warriors for a Wizard, since at that level he starts justifying his presence in the group, something you will quickly appreciate once you reach higher levels...)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8140058, member: 12731"] I too went into GMing PF2 with the expectation "give them 10 minutes for sure, but make it an exciting choice to rest for two or three such ten-minute periods". That quickly fell apart. Medicine gives unlimited access to free healing, but it will often require 30, 60 or even 90 minutes. Characters are completely and totally unable to take on another encounter (even a Low one) if one or more heroes is barely above zero hp, so it's not like there's a choice. (I guess there is a choice for parties with a healer, since the Cleric or whatever can burn all her Heal slots to bring everybody back up to full health in an emergency, but only once or maaaybe twice a day) So the entire minigame I expected "hmm... I'm getting two 10-minute breaks, will I use them to repair my shield or regain my focus point or stand guard or Treat Wounds..." just doesn't happen in practice. Since you regularly get four or five such periods, just go "I'll do all of them" and the game of choosing just falls to the floor. PS. Other than the 10-minute downtime period, PF2 doesn't have any "short rest" notion. Instead of 5E's simple and fast "you take a short rest and now you're back" you have to do a lot of fiddly and cludgey calculations that mostly just tell you whether you needed 30 or 50 minutes. And that is practically never interesting. You'll quickly dump all those little niggly rules and just say "you rest up and everybody's at full health and noone cares whether it took 40 or 70 minutes". You quickly learn to never keep adventuring while significantly damaged, unless you enjoy turning up the already scary difficulty level a notch or three. The encounter building model of PF1 absolutely assumes the party enters each encounter at full health - various forms of weariness is instead handled through Conditions (fatigued and drained comes to mind). It just isn't fun to have a fight knowing you could have avoided giving the monsters a significant if not decisive advantage by just refusing to move before treating your wounds. Long rests still exist - you bed down for the night, and the spellcasters regain spell slots and whatever else they need to do in the morning. But you only need this if you have an actual spellcaster in the group. A party consisting of only warriors can keep on adventuring practically forever (meaning they can mow through an entire level's worth of encounters in a single day, if they only get half an hour's worth or so of rest in-between each of them). At low levels, Wizards et al actively suck - and suck hard - so by spellcaster I mostly mean a combat healer; a character devoted to casting a single spell in a single configuration: the two-action Heal spell and being content with nearly irrelevant cantrip attacks in between. Sure you can bring a Bard or something for social encounters, but since all APs are so railroaded you don't actually need one. What you do need, however, are warriors to kill monsters and possibly the combat medic to counter the unlucky die rolls you [I]will[/I] experience sooner or later. (Then at maybe level ~9 you can switch out one of the warriors for a Wizard, since at that level he starts justifying his presence in the group, something you will quickly appreciate once you reach higher levels...) [/QUOTE]
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