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

[glass]

This is not directed to Retreater specifically (and no judgment is implied either way), but as GMs, do you normally tell your players what they need to roll to save against a trap?

In my case, I do not usually tell players the DCs for things unless it is in the wrap-up phase of an encounter (by which point they will probably have figured it out for themselves if it has been rolled against commonly). However, if a player was about to spend a hero point on a roll that had a high chance of not improving I would certainly warn them of that if it was not already obvious (in general terms, if not exact numbers).

_
glass.

 

[kenada]

This is not directed to Retreater specifically (and no judgment is implied either way), but as GMs, do you normally tell your players what they need to roll to save against a trap?

I used to hide them, but I don’t anymore. Players can figure them out, and it speeds up resolution if they already know the target number. The exception is secret checks. I don’t even tell my players when I make them (thanks to using HLO’s campaign theater). I just continue narrating like normal based on the result.

 

[!DWolf]

I could read you wrong but... frankly, this sounds as if only half your team is adventuring while the other half is sitting on their hands? (In my group, everybody wants to join in on the action, so we rarely send out scouts that aren't disposable)

Plus: In my experience, sight lines are seldom very long on indoor maps. How far back do you require a character to hang in order to not have to make a Stealth check?

Plus: I have a hard time imagining you to use the official encounter budgets or playing official APs - how do your players take out Moderate or above encounters using only half a team (without great pain and suffering)...?

Right. You read that wrong but let me address the second part first. We have very different play styles: I heavily foreshadow encounters instead of having them just burst out of the darkness/brush/whatever and attack. This makes the game significantly easier (as you yourself pointed out) since players can choose how to engage the enemy. It also makes stealth mode much easier since the pointmen generally a) know what’s coming and b) are never suddenly in a combat with a powerful monster that burst out of nowhere (or if they are, they are kicking themselves over all the signs that they somehow missed). Also: if the players bypass or trivialize an encounter - I let them. I don’t need X number of fights per day because I am not playing in that style. The adventure also assumes that which is why there are passages all over it saying that if the players somehow bypass this then award them full XP. Looking at the Fortress of Sorrows: you will note the classic ‘take out the sentries’ setup. There are sentries 4 levels below the characters isolated in the towers and the adventure specifically notes that they aren’t doing a good job at it. There is an easily stealthable approach to the walls (the swamp) and the wall is easy to climb. The deinosuchus in the water is either the first obstacle or complication for the scenario depending on the situation.

That out of the way, let me illustrate what I am talking about using a hypothetical assault on the Fortress of Sorrows as example. I don’t know the exact character builds but I will use a wizard, cleric, monk, and fighter.

The sequence of obstacles for the infiltration might be:

1. Observe the guards
2. Lure away, charm, or otherwise negate the monster in the water
3. Get up to the first tower.
4. Silently neutralize the guards on the tower.
5. Repeat for the other three towers.

The party might approach this as follows:
follows:

1. Hide in the swamp well outside of detection range and use a spyglass to get info. Retreat to plan and prepare. The wizard and cleric can select the appropriate spells.
2. Lure away the deinosuchus with bait, then (for a safe position) use spells + social Kung-fu to get it on their side.
3. Have the fighter set up in the swamp with his longbow. Use waterbreathing to have the monk and cleric get to the base of the wall.
4. On the other side have the deinosuchus and wizard create a distraction (make it look like a fight between two monsters), to draw the attention of the sentries.
5. The cleric casts silence (fun fact it has no verbal component) on the monk who runs up the wall (with wall run) and kills the sentry. If necessary the fighter and cleric shoots it.
6. The fighter, cleric, and monk (using ranged attacks if necessary) take down the second sentry that is not being distracted.
7. The fighter and cleric reposition to a tower using a knotted rope the monk lowers, while the monk uses silence plus wall run to get to the third tower.
8. The monk/fighter/cleric take out the remaining sentries while the wizard uses spells to disable any sentry that survives the initial assault.
9. The party tries to keep one sentry alive (monk can choose to deal nonlethal damage) for interrogation and the party tries to time it at the beginning of the guard shift.
10. If things go wrong they just retreat into the swamp using waterbreathing and the deinosuchs covers the retreat.
11. After they have interrogated any captives, tossed the bodies to the deinosuchus, and taken other information gathering activities (crawling along the ceiling listening for instance);they plan the next stage of the infiltration.

As you can see from this example the whole party was helpful in the infiltration and no one sat on the sidelines or tried to solo a level 10 monster.

Note: if I were to run the deinosuchus as a complication instead of an obstacle I wouldn’t just drop them into combat (thank you kingmaker for teaching me that lesson - my players were so pissed) but would instead give signs that they weren’t alone in the water and let them react in exploration mode first.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm happy for you, except you keep arguing as if the game should be reviewed assuming your play style.

When in actual fact each encounter is designed to be faced by four characters.

I'm not familiar with this specific adventure, but already your first assumption, that it is even possible to lure away the level 9 monster, much less doing so without alerting the guards, is highly irregular.

Not to mention the fact that you never have much more than a 50% chance of accomplishing anything against a monster of your own level. Using spells or maybe the Command an Animal action against a level 9 monster will likely have a DC of 26 or thereabouts. Unless the heroes are severely overleveled (which practically never happens in Paizo's official APs) there is a significant risk of failing an individual DC 26 check, which should result in combat against a monster described as "an enormous predator capable of catching and eating dinosaurs".

I hope you realize I'm not trying to shame you for your gamesmastering style. You are not doing anything wrong. In fact, running an AP this way could be great!

I just don't see the relevance when discussing the rules out of the box. I don't think it lets you claim that Paizo's stealth rules work, for instance.

As you yourself say it is you that make encounters significantly easier. What you're saying is in effect "don't use the rules as written, do it my way instead". Again, that's great, but unless a DWolf is delivered in every box of rules from Paizo, it is also not relevant to our critique of the CRB, and Paizo's approach to rules design.

More generally, I have a hard time believing anyone that states the game works great for them actually uses the rules as written.

Best regards

 

[CapnZapp]

Note: since the forum upgrade, the "ridonkulous bonus" mentioned upthread had its link vanish. I expect there will be many broken/disappeared links where the poster provided a text for the link.

But let's revisit the actual argument. First, here's the link:

Roll20 - Compendium and Rule Set Directory

Browse and reference your favorite RPG rule sets for systems including D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, and Cyberpunk RED.

roll20.net

The intended takeaway was and is:

If you design a ruleset and want to encourage stealth, you need to enable the entire group. You can do that in various ways. For example, by having an ability that lets the point man to roll for the entire group. A single roll for all four heroes.

Or you can provide a really large bonus, like how 5th Edition gives out +10. That's the linked "ridonkulous bonus".

The context is that Pathfinder 2 would never give you anything more than a +2, tops. And what "follow the leader" actually does provide, is to let you apply your level to proficiency plus half the leader's proficiency level bonus. That is easily not enough - the statistical probability of at least one character still failing remains far too high.

By "far too high" I specifically mean that the alternative, that not everybody is included in the stealth mission, becomes a far better option, mathematically speaking. And that is bad for a group game.

To repeat myself, follow the leader remains useful in cases where failure is personal, but not in cases where one failure defines the outcome for the entire group.

Tl;dr: 5E gets it, PF2 don't

 

[kenada]

An adventure module is not rules. There is no right way or rules as written way of running an adventure, especially when the game’s core rulebook intentionally does not prescribe a particular adventuring day. Allowing everyone to rest before every encounter and running every encounter with enough foreshadowing that PCs can avoid or mitigate them are both legitimate ways of running the adventure.

 

[Retreater]

An adventure module is not rules. There is no right way or rules as written way of running an adventure, especially when the game’s core rulebook intentionally does not prescribe a particular adventuring day. Allowing everyone to rest before every encounter and running every encounter with enough foreshadowing that PCs can avoid or mitigate them are both legitimate ways of running the adventure.

When writing adventures professionally, I can say from my experience there is a definite assumption of play from the editor and the writer. I have had an editor tell me that an adventure someone else was writing wouldn't fit an OSR type system because it had a more 5e approach to encounter structure.
I'm writing something for OSR at the moment. As I'm writing it, it would not work well as a modern "stream of combats" adventure.

 

[kenada]

When writing adventures professionally, I can say from my experience there is a definite assumption of play from the editor and the writer. I have had an editor tell me that an adventure someone else was writing wouldn't fit an OSR type system because it had a more 5e approach to encounter structure.
I'm writing something for OSR at the moment. As I'm writing it, it would not work well as a modern "stream of combats" adventure.

But if someone took that adventure and made it work that way anyway? Is that a less legitimate way to run it?

The issue I’m taking is with the implicit gatekeeping happening here. I mean, the quiet part was basically said out loud. We must not be using the game correctly (per RAW) if we say it works great for us. It’s a way to invalidate everything that doesn’t support the narrative “5E gets it, PF2 don't”.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The issue I’m taking is with the implicit gatekeeping happening here. I mean, the quiet part was basically said out loud. We must not be using the game correctly (per RAW) if we say it works great for us. It’s a way to invalidate everything that doesn’t support the narrative “5E gets it, PF2 don't”.

I think that is being a little unfair. When evaluating a system, the adventures put out by the designers are a part of that system. This gives us an idea of how the designers expected the game to be played.

And more than that, it is also likely to be the first contact between new players and the system.

Personally, I think modules can and should adopt your approach of telegraphing fights and obstacles as they occur. I would go even further and say that certain PF modules did exactly that: identifying enemies you could convert to your cause in Legacy of Fire and Reign of Winter.

I don’t have the Gamemastery Guide so I will refrain from expressing an opinion on it. However, I do feel this was a real missed opportunity for the 5e DMG.

 

[Retreater]

But if someone took that adventure and made it work that way anyway? Is that a less legitimate way to run it?

The issue I’m taking is with the implicit gatekeeping happening here. I mean, the quiet part was basically said out loud. We must not be using the game correctly (per RAW) if we say it works great for us. It’s a way to invalidate everything that doesn’t support the narrative “5E gets it, PF2 don't”.

Any way that works for a game table is a legitimate way to run an adventure. I certainly feel that way about anything that I've written.
However, I think "out of the box" a published adventure should work with the default assumptions of the system and how that individual adventure module is written.
The module in question, which is only the second adventure written in the first adventure path in a popular new system, should be written under the assumption that new GMs would be running it, for new players, trying out a new system. None of them would have decades of experience tweaking adventures. Even in my case, as a GM who has been running games since the 1980s, I'm not overly experienced with PF2 (and who really is?)
So the writer puts a hazard on a door in the citadel. The hazard does not "go away" once the door is opened. On the other side of the door is a group of intelligent enemies who are trying to keep people from entering the inner sanctum of the citadel. The adventure says that the enemies are specifically not harmed by the hazard. Putting this information together, why would a GM not have the enemies step forward and attack the invaders? (Unless it's a purely artificial "balance" issue?)
In this case, I think it's fair that the writer should have known this was a probable outcome. If that wasn't the intent, write something in the adventure stating that the door cannot be opened until the hazard is dispatched if having a combined encounter breaks the math of the game.