Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: is it RAW or RAI to always take 10 minutes and heal between encounters?

[Justice and Rule]

Maybe the game language oriented and uniform presentation of powers, plus the uniform recovery and acquisition rate of powers.

4E basically pulled back the curtain too much for its era. I feel like if it were released 5-6 years later, it'd be much better accepted... then again, maybe it wouldn't be if it hadn't come first.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe the game language oriented and uniform presentation of powers, plus the uniform recovery and acquisition rate of powers.

I don't think so. One of the things I'm usually not super-enthused about is exception-based design, and many of the games I've used extensively over the years were effect-based.

 

[CapnZapp]

As others have said, in practice PF2e has moved away from hit point attrition on a strategic level being relevant as a default. I also do agree that its perhaps a bit obscured, but its too obvious once you go down the rabbit-hole of looking at how Medicine works for it to be reasonably viewed any other way.

A better game would have told you up front, though.

 

[Retreater]

A better game would have told you up front, though.

That would've turned off their existing core audience of 3.x/PF players from the start. Which I think is sort of what has happened anyway, IME. But at least they got some of them to try the system before tossing it aside in favor of PF1 or 5e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Eh. If I gave up on every game with unstated assumptions, I'd have been out of the hobby long since.

 

[JThursby]

What is the best way to ensure that narratively, it makes sense that the PCs have the ten minutes to brace themselves between fights?

As a PF2e GM, I have the players rooting thought and looting any enemies take about ten minutes to search, secure and distribute treasure and items. That gives everyone else time to do something else, like repair, refocus or treat wounds. Just have the players look through the list of exploration activities and pick one, or have them make up their own if they have something particular in mind: Activities - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database

 

[CapnZapp]

The Stamina rules don’t seem as bad as the usual wounds/vitality system. They (more or less) split your hit points in half, and that’s it. There’s no extra punishment for taking a critical hit. It’s just a way to change the pacing of recovery. Resolve pools are optional, so groups can decide whether or not they want attrition in their games.

Yes.

It's a remarkably long-winded and clunky way of saying "half is hp and half is sp" though.

I recommend to simply junk all them rules and just say half is hp and half is sp which replenish automatically after a rest.

Paizo always uses a hundred words when just five would suffice, though.

 

[CapnZapp]

Those are interesting in limiting the short-term, but again I'm more about long-term attrition. With those, you might have trouble with a running fight because you won't be easily able to heal up to full, but a day of downtime and you'll be just like new. I like the idea of having to spend a week or two recovering. I feel like 5E encouraged my players go just break-neck around the place, even with "gritty" healing on.

In this case, I like having multiple options to heal. But I also want some limiting factor so that you don't just recover in a single day. Looking over the mechanic, Strain seems like a fantastic way of managing that: typically speaking a PF2 party isn't for lack of healing (especially with Fonts for Clerics), but I want them to have to manage that in some way. Having so much means that long-term healing isn't really something that happens... unless you put in a limit. Strain... that looks like it could do it.

The only situation I'd say that you might be able to heal from without Strain is from 0 hitpoints (which is fine, since the Wounded condition means you're not going to get much out of that edge case). In fact, you could probably do something about having levels of Wounded limiting how much strain you can recover until the condition is gone. Lot of potential in adding in that limit, just like Healing Surges were meant to do in 4E.

Conditions fill that role/need (attrition).

Instead of being asked to keep on adventuring down some hit points, you're asked to keep on adventuring while Clumsy or Drained or the like.

 

[CapnZapp]

Talking to my wife last night, we were discussing about how 4e might actually be the superior version of PF2 (except being out of print and not being on VTT). That's probably a topic for another thread, but something I'm interested in talking about.

I didn't like 4E and the parts of PF2 I like the most, are the parts of PF2 that is more like 3/5E than 4E.

 

[CapnZapp]

I can see the argument, but I think in a number of areas 4e just felt A Bridge Too Far for me, where PF2e stays on the right side of that, but that can't be but a subjective feeling.

I agree that in most aspects PF2 stays on the right side (even though it is laden down with an extreme amount of ultimately meaningless detail) where 4E did not.