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Message: <blockquote data-quote="!DWolf" data-source="post: 8104664" data-attributes="member: 7026314">And why shouldn’t I? Cult of Cinders and Hellknight Hill are replete with passages telling me, that yes, it should be run this way (I quoted some below, I can quote more if necessary). The core rulebook contains mechanics that support running the game this way - mechanics that don’t work the way you run the game (as you constantly state). You constantly complain the way that you run it, the rules don’t work, so why should I review it that way? Because dnd 5e runs it that way? Pathfinder 2e is not dnd 5e.The example I provided had exactly four characters. Just to clarify. The adventure is Cult of Cinders - I am just looking at C1 instead of C6-C7.This is allowed for in the text. Let me quote: [spoiler]a half dozen boggard cultists are stationed as guards, spread out along the central building’s palisades. These boggards are undisciplined, bored, and accustomed to noises from the swamp (including brief sounds of violence, due to Sweettooth).[/spoiler] and [spoiler]If the PCs avoid or spare Sweettooth, they gain 1 IP with the Leopard Clan. It takes about a week for word to get to the clan.[/spoiler] and several pages later (in a different encounter) the writers explicitly describe using social skills to defuse an encounter. The module clearly anticipated a solution that does not involve combat and it anticipates social skills being used to resolve encounters. It is not irregular, it is explicitly supported. I will also further direct you to page 493 of the core rulebook, where there is a whole section about bypassing encounters. Obviously this is a hypothetical example to illustrate how a sentry removal style mission works. But to further the hypothetical example: the illusionist wizard uses to illusions to lure the creature. The monk uses wall running and a rope to get the others into the trees safely out of range of the melee monster well prior to it arriving. The fighter with high survival and supporting feats caught a lot of food to bribe it with (circumstance bonus). The smooth talking cleric uses a scroll and magic item trickster to use speak with animals to negotiate with it after drinking a silver tongue mutagen (item bonus). And if that fails the smooth-talking-devil of a cleric has a suggestion spell in his back pocket. Again this is a hypothetical example, I could do the same with different characters and strategies. But notice how, even running an encounter right out of the book, the characters/players can exercise their agency and engage with the system mechanics if the monsters don’t randomly appear and attack and the gm gives them a little foreshadowing. By letting the players make decisions and act at this level (a consequence of the playstyle) the system runs well. And many players will love it because, by choosing how they approach problems (that is they have more agency), they can make all the choices they made in character creation matter and they get to solve problems creatively. (Which is not to say all groups will love it - some of course just want to bash in monster heads with their friends - more power to them but they will find that some modules, like the ones in question, will have to adjusted mechanically to fit that style because they are not designed for it). Why should we assume a default play style that doesn’t work for the system and one in which the adventures are not written for? You have assumed (likely because of DND 5e being your default) that your playstyle is what the designers/adventure writers intended when (as I have hopefully demonstrated) it is not. The adventures can be adjusted for the stream-of-combat style that you prefer (and I provided suggestions on how to do just that - I realize that some players prefer that style) but the fact that the mechanics of the adventure need to be tweaked to support that style is yet another indication that it is not the style that adventure is intended to be run in. My suggestions to heavily foreshadow changed the presentation of a scene. That is normal and expected (page 487 of the core rulebook). I did not suggest it necessary to change RAW or the mechanics of the adventure (except to make it work with the steam-of-combat style when retreater said their group preferred that style). The two styles operate the rules differently and engage different parts of it, they do not change the rules themselves - let me give an example:Scenario 1: the party while traveling across the wilderness in early winter is suddenly ambushed by a horrible skull headed monster that burst out of a snow bank. Roll initiative. Scenario 2: the party while traveling across the wilderness in early winter comes across a bloody and frozen corpse. They begin to investigate: the ranger looks for tracks, the rogue examines the body for clues as to what killed it, the wizard recalls knowledge on creatures indigenous to this region that could have done it, the cleric begins to dig a grave (pharasma). The ranger finds the tracks (they are fresh!), the wizard identifies it (kinda - dubious knowledge), the rogue figures out that it has an aura of bitter cold around it. They decide to get to defensible position with fire at the ready and let the monster come to them (through the rangers snares and the parties ranged attacks). Note that at no point did I change the rules! All the actions in the second scenario were RAW legal. They just utilized more of the system than the encounter mechanics. The designers intended this - that is why the included those mechanics. The big change was that I, through a simple act of foreshadowing, allowed the players more agency and the players, through their expertise, used that agency to make the encounter easier. This is the mechanics working as intended! Why? Because they do not work personally for you? If they do not work for you then why should we assume that your groups play-style is how they are intended to be run? Should we not do the exact opposite: look at those who the rules work for and see how they are playing?I realize that many people come into Pathfinder 2e with the assumption that Pathfinder 2e is basically an off-brand knock off of DND 5e and therefore conclude it should have the same fundamental play style (This is why you get people converting systems asking how many combats per day are expected). But its not and it doesn’t - Paizo went a different direction (one which you obviously dislike) and the fact that they don’t make that explicitly clear is my biggest gripe with the game (Though to be charitable how many other games explicitly describe how they are they are supposed to be played differently than dnd 5e? Then again when is the last time anyone asked how many combats a day are expected in shadowrun?).</blockquote>

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