Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

[CapnZapp]

Wait what? It took 40 minutes of table time to deal with healing?!?!? This should be a 5 minute activity - it can take 10 minutes because people waffle in my experience but 40?!?

I hope I simply misunderstood you there...

Since the rules ask you to make a lot of small decisions, I believe it. 40 minutes is high, though.

But I resent the Treat Wound rules for easily stealing 10-15 minutes of game session time after each bigger battle, of which there are several each level of an official AP.

Should you roll or use Assurance (Medicine)? Should you go for a higher DC or settle for the lower one? Did you roll well or do we need another 10-minute period?

But it doesn't end there...

Are you immune to my Battle Healing? Who do I treat first? I have Godless Healing, do you remember if you've taken magical healing from the Cleric today?

NONE OF THIS MATTERS.

It's all clutter that steals the focus from adventure. It's minutae for minutaes sake.

These rules are written as if it matters greatly exactly how many ten-minute periods the party needs. Six? Or seven? And as if it's important to know whether it leaves Bob the Barbarian with 3 damage or maybe 9.

When in actual fact...
1) there are other rules that depend on the number of 10-minute periods are kept to a minimum, or why otherwise ask players to choose what activity they take. Focus points are 1-3 so if you take more than 30 minutes of rest, why make a big deal out of which exact activities that let you regain one?
2) the overall game pretty much just waits until you're fully healed.

The idea that "if you longer more than 10-30 minutes you might risk monsters wandering into your camp" just plain doesn't work.

The game NEEDS you back at full health, or the scenario can't continue since it's too big of a risk: every upcoming encounter can be one where you need every resource just to survive!

So why did Paizo let some over-enthusiastic simulationist write the Medicine rules?!

What the game needs is "after the fight you rest. You're back at full hp. Where do you go now?"

This takes all of ten SECONDS, and puts the focus squarely where it should be.

Not on downtime decisions, administration, calculations, and analysis paralysis, is where.

 

[CapnZapp]

They seem to have been at least in part in the 1e PhB though: "A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. [...] Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces."

Yes.

This discussion is ages old. What else is there to say?

Hit points is what the story needs them to be.

 

[glass]

Fourth Edition took a radical shift in declaring that Hit Point damage definitely did not include any sort of physical injury, in spite of all the variables involved; and for whatever reason, that was the one thing from 4E that both 5E and PF2 integrated into their core rules.

Nonsense. 4e did nothing of the sort (you are "bloodied" when you have half hitpoints or fewer). 4e declared that hit points were not soley physical injury but also incorprated luck, stamina, willpower, and confidence, and that any physical injuries are not severe enough to significantly hinder you. Just like every single edition of D&D back to 1974.

In regards to the matter the relative complexity of 4e, 5e, and PF2: My take is that both 5e and PF2 are more complex than 4e, with PF2 being slightly more complex then 5e but spending that comlexity more usefully IMNSHO. The surposed uber-complexity of 4e is an edition warrior talking point that, as usual, bear little resemblance to reality.

_
glass.

 

[Ancalagon]

In regards to the matter the relative complexity of 4e, 5e, and PF2: My take is that both 5e and PF2 are more complex than 4e, with PF2 being slightly more complex then 5e but spending that comlexity more usefully IMNSHO. The surposed uber-complexity of 4e is an edition warrior talking point that, as usual, bear little resemblance to reality.

_
glass.

My experience with 4e is limited - but it is not zero. The notion that it is less complex than 5e baffles me.

 

[billd91]

My experience with 4e is limited - but it is not zero. The notion that it is less complex than 5e baffles me.

you are not the only one.

 

[glass]

My experience with 4e is limited - but it is not zero. The notion that it is less complex than 5e baffles me.

And vice versa with me. I was going to argue with you about it, but what's the point?

_
glass.

 

[dave2008]

It is a five minute activity in PF2E. I am not sure where the confusion on the healing rules are coming from. In-game can take longer, as healing has some mechanical impact in terms of how often you can treat wounds and such, but in terms of play time it's a five minute activity.

@Ancalagon was referring to this quote from @FrozenNorth: "I found that after a battle, we would spend 40 minutes out of game on healing "

 

[Eric V]

@Ancalagon was refer to this quote from @FrozenNorth: "I found that after a battle, we would spend 40 minutes out of game on healing "

"Out of game???" WOW.

 

[willrali]

@Ancalagon was refer to this quote from @FrozenNorth: "I found that after a battle, we would spend 40 minutes out of game on healing "

That seems excessive. My group never spends more than five minutes on this.

Regardless, I think folks are putting too much burden for time wasteage onto the system. Much of the question of 'how much time do you spend bogged down' is determined by the people in your group. I've had extremely fast and slick experiences with systems as diverse as GURPS, AD&D 2, Vampire and Pathfinder. When people know the rules (or when the DM is highly versed in the rules and can make quick decisions), and when they're engaged and want to keep things moving, things move fast.

Otherwise, they don't, and this holds even for the lightest of rules systems.

If you've disengaged players who couldn't give a fig about learning the system and what they can do in it, roleplaying games in general are the wrong answer. Try trivial pursuit.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Nonsense. 4e did nothing of the sort (you are "bloodied" when you have half hitpoints or fewer). 4e declared that hit points were not soley physical injury but also incorprated luck, stamina, willpower, and confidence, and that any physical injuries are not severe enough to significantly hinder you. Just like every single edition of D&D back to 1974.

You seem to be confusing the actual rules of the game, with what the books said the rules of the game were. They've always said that HP incorporated luck and divine favor and whatnot, but the actual rules defined HP as a product of purely physical sources. For example, there are plenty of ways to invoke luck and divine favor within the game, but none of them ever modify your HP total; instead, the modify your attack rolls and saving throws. Moreover, it doesn't take a week of bed rest to recover from being tired. There are just too many ways that the rules don't look the way we would expect them to, if luck was actually a component of HP. That's how we know that their description of the rules was completely out of line with the reality of the rules. The reality of the rules had always been consisted with HP being purely physical, and with every hit in combat representing an impact against the body.

What 4E changed, and what both 5E and PF2 blindly adopted, was the radical notion that the original description of HP might actually be right.