Pathfinder 2E Actual AP Play Experience

[CapnZapp]

It may take some time for the players and DMs to learn to preserve resources and run a continuous series of encounters.

My problem is that I don't see any resource-preservation game in it. Medicine and its feats mean that once you've crunched the (very) cluttery numbers, you basically heal back up to full without spending resources in one hour. (Any resources you spend are things that recharge in precisely that hour).

And since the encounter math is so (very) tight, I feel my hands are tied.

My natural inclination when the heroes procrastinate is to have the monsters react, and heroes usually don't want that to happen: bringing in reinforcements, regrouping, the like.

If the game is at maximum hardness already from the start I can't bring myself to doing that, since it isn't their fault they're struggling - they actually need to act cautious in order to survive.

And if I did bring myself to do it, I would just cause a TPK, since the game math simply doesn't allow you to fight two encounters as one, not even when the two encounters are only average.

At this stage I hear y'all saying "but crap the guidelines and ease off the difficulty" and you're right, it would solve all these problems. Except I want to make sure I'm not the only one having a problem here. Making a change would mean not running the AP as-is. And to make that change I want to hear it from the players.

Right now, I guess I'm just baffled about how high Paizo set the ribbon. Man, I thought I was tough...

 

[Jester David]

However, this is a big problem for me, since this messes with pacing. It's a bit like the way 5E changed "short rest" from 5 minutes to one hour, except that in 5E it isn't really a problem, since you simply never have to take short rest after short rest - you can nearly always pull of a whole sequence of encounters between rests, and indeed the 5E system is predicated on just that.
...
This in turn means that the credulity of dungeon runs is sorely tested. Why aren't the monsters reacting to invaders? In 5E or maybe AD&D the answer is "because it all happened in the last hour or so". In PF2, I'm getting a bad taste of videogame in my mouth as I struggle to justify why each encounter remains static and isolated, even when the heroes have cleared out half the dungeon over several hour's worth of exploration. Yes, PF2 (at least in this AP) features the bad old "classic" trope of fighting some monsters in one dungeon room, while the denizens of the next room - less than 60 feet away! - are expected to just sit on their hands, at least until most of the first room's monsters are dead enough for reinforcements not to break the game's encounter math!

PF1 also tended to have players healing up to full each fight. It just tended to require 10 minutes and a wand of cure light wounds.
It makes for easier balance: you know how hard fights will be since the party is generally at or near 100%. (Which is also why 4e introduced short rests and spending healing surges.)

I think the problem is one we discussed in another thread: the adventure writer not knowing what the balance was yet and assuming it was like PF1 where an at-level fight was relatively easy and you could have four in a day without being pressed.
APs also tend to have hard XP caps: they need to get people from level A to level B in a set number of pages, with either means a whole bunch of filler encounters or a smaller number of really, really hard encounters.

Ironically, the change to 1 hour short rests in 5e was explicitly because of feedback that 5-10 minutes was too short: DMs didn't know how much would change in the dungeon due to a short rest. So it was made an hour so it would be easier to accept things changing and the passage of time. Monsters would move locations and things would shift, and you couldn't just have a long rest in a room where you killed a bunch of dudes next to the chamber of other dudes you're about to murder.


I'd recommend introducing a small narrative house rules to make things easier: reduce the duration of rests. Adjust the time it takes to heal to full from 1 hour to 10 minutes. Which still allows focus spells to recharge but doesn't disrupt verisimilitude like sitting around for an hour.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ironically, the change to 1 hour short rests in 5e was explicitly because of feedback that 5-10 minutes was too short: DMs didn't know how much would change in the dungeon due to a short rest. So it was made an hour so it would be easier to accept things changing and the passage of time. Monsters would move locations and things would shift, and you couldn't just have a long rest in a room where you killed a bunch of dudes next to the chamber of other dudes you're about to murder.

Well, nothing about that is applicable to PF2, or at least the EC AP.

I'd recommend introducing a small narrative house rules to make things easier: reduce the duration of rests. Adjust the time it takes to heal to full from 1 hour to 10 minutes. Which still allows focus spells to recharge but doesn't disrupt verisimilitude like sitting around for an hour.

Coming into this, I indeed expected ten minutes to be the "gold standard" you should (nearly) always grant your heroes, precisely because the system seems predicated getting one such period of time.

But it isn't enough to heal back up. And the alternatives just don't cut it - spending the Cleric's precious (and powerful) battle heals out of combat? Nah. Spending lots of gold on potions? You can barely afford your precious weapon runes as is. Neither is attractive compared to loading up on Battle Medicine and other feats, where you get all the healing you want for free, except time.

I've already considered just saying "everybody's always at max hp after ten minutes". It would certainly cut down on the tedious admin. But it would mess with the game balance, since everybody would want to retrain out of the healing feats now.

It's like the bits with 10 minute rests were written by a designer who expected the game to flow more like 5E. Where you can easily take four or more encounters without breaking a sweat; making each 10 minute break more of a luxury than a desperate must. Somebody that didn't think that even a single L+2 monster can easily chew up a hundred hit points or more, and that's at level 6.

 

[Jester David]

I've already considered just saying "everybody's always at max hp after ten minutes". It would certainly cut down on the tedious admin. But it would mess with the game balance, since everybody would want to retrain out of the healing feats now.

First, I wonder if by not having sinking resources into the Battle Medicine feat tax, the party might have a better chance in combat. Which you say can already be hard.

Second, I wasn't suggesting a free heal, but eliminating the arbitrary hour long recharge between using the Medicine skill. The PCs still use Medicine but it only takes 10 minutes and then they're on to the next fight.
Maybe instead of an hour between uses of Medicine it could be an hour OR until you're injured. (Maybe with a threshold so they don't stab themselves with a spoon for 1 point to proc the Medicine recharge.)

 

[Schmoe]

Sounds more like you're burnt out on the adventure path philosophy instead of the system. I don't blame you- I'm in the same boat. Like the system well enough, but APs are really not working well for me.

That's my takeaway, too. This really sounds like a critique of the AP, not really the game mechanics itself. On that note, I think dave2008's point is a good one: hopefully later APs will get better.

That being said, the notion that it takes 1 hour to recover to full capacity, not 1 day, will certainly have an effect on how the game plays out. Or if I'm reading correctly, more so that it just takes a relatively short amount of time to recover to full health after each encounter, every time, all day, as long as you want.

 

[Schmoe]

But it isn't enough to heal back up. And the alternatives just don't cut it - spending the Cleric's precious (and powerful) battle heals out of combat? Nah. Spending lots of gold on potions? You can barely afford your precious weapon runes as is. Neither is attractive compared to loading up on Battle Medicine and other feats, where you get all the healing you want for free, except time.

You've dismissed a number of options here relying on precious resources, but earlier it sounded like you were dismayed that there's nothing in the game pushing the group to call off the adventure for the day - no sense of attrition. Maybe the solution could be that the players shouldn't have an hour between each encounter and they should be using precious resources to heal up faster, and that would introduce the attrition you're looking for.

 

[Celtavian]

Why is that? I am not familiar with PF2e in play, but I find it trivially easy to make encounters challenging for my players in 1e, 4e, and 5e of D&D. What is different about PF1 or PF2 that makes that difficult?

Monsters out of the book in 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e and PF1 were all weak against a well built party of experienced players. I won't comment on your players, but if I take some monsters out of the book and toss it at my players they will destroy those encounters. 5E started off promising for being able to use monsters out of the book. Then the players figured out how to make really powerful 5E characters using optional multiclass rules, feats, and bless. Made 5E super easy. I really had to modify the PF1 monsters to make them challenging. A solo PF dragon against a group of optimized, well-played PCs died in about a few rounds barely doing any damage in return.

With PF2 I pulled a Gelugon right out of the Bestiary with no modification against a six person lvl 10 party of experienced players optimized with a bard, took two of them down and chewed up party resources like a boss creature. I was surprised. I haven't been able to do that for decades against a six person level 10 party with my players. Just open up a monster book and toss it on the board to fight, especially one they know, and challenge them.

OK, maybe that is the issue. I never run APs, so maybe that's why it is easy for me!

I usually heavily modify APs to challenge my party. The only AP module of a series I can use as written is generally the first one, maybe the second one. Once the party hits about 7th level, I have to heavily modify the APs to challenge them. Not this AP. My party is level 11 and I have been running the modules exactly as written. They are still heavily challenge and often have to take breaks between fights just to survive the next encounter. And this is the enemies as written in the book. No modification at all.

Haven't been able to do that for decades. I was pretty shocked.

 

[Celtavian]

My problem is that I don't see any resource-preservation game in it. Medicine and its feats mean that once you've crunched the (very) cluttery numbers, you basically heal back up to full without spending resources in one hour. (Any resources you spend are things that recharge in precisely that hour).

And since the encounter math is so (very) tight, I feel my hands are tied.

My natural inclination when the heroes procrastinate is to have the monsters react, and heroes usually don't want that to happen: bringing in reinforcements, regrouping, the like.

If the game is at maximum hardness already from the start I can't bring myself to doing that, since it isn't their fault they're struggling - they actually need to act cautious in order to survive.

And if I did bring myself to do it, I would just cause a TPK, since the game math simply doesn't allow you to fight two encounters as one, not even when the two encounters are only average.

At this stage I hear y'all saying "but crap the guidelines and ease off the difficulty" and you're right, it would solve all these problems. Except I want to make sure I'm not the only one having a problem here. Making a change would mean not running the AP as-is. And to make that change I want to hear it from the players.

Right now, I guess I'm just baffled about how high Paizo set the ribbon. Man, I thought I was tough...

You don't think a well made party can fight two average encounters together? I would have to check.

I'm running the Age of Ashes AP. I've been grouping all the encounters together and the party seems to handle it. It's challenging, but they win. The only series of encounters in a day that were spread out with encounter set pieces.

I know exactly what you're talking about with medicine. A well built medic can get a party up with minimal resource expenditure. The way the game plays this seems expected. In combat healing is necessary and effective, but the healing fonts get used up quickly. The game is fast and furious as far as back and forth damage goes. Not so bad to have downtime healing from a medic that isn't magic based. Given what hit points represent, I've been ok with it. It makes sense within the context of PF2 healing and hit points.

 

[CapnZapp]

First, I wonder if by not having sinking resources into the Battle Medicine feat tax, the party might have a better chance in combat. Which you say can already be hard.

Actually no. Your logic presumes skills feats and combat upgrades share character choices, like how perhaps Linguist and, say, Greatweapon Fighting are presented as two equal choices in 5th Edition, but this is not so in Pathfinder 2.

You gain a given number of skill feats (which you can use for feats improving a skill, such as Medicine) and you gain a given number of class feats (which you can use to gain new ways of killing monsters). These aren't interchangeable.

Thus, by not investing in Battle Medicine, you might become better at Diplomacy, or Intimidation, or a Lore skill. But you can't become better at being a Thief or Fighter.

There's only two characters with Medicine skill feats in the group (the Barbarian and Rogue), mind you.

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

Sounds more like you're burnt out on the adventure path philosophy instead of the system. I don't blame you- I'm in the same boat. Like the system well enough, but APs are really not working well for me.

I see your point, but I hope not. After all, I'm only about 30% done with the Extinction Curse...