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

[CapnZapp]

I think this is where a lot of my trouble with PF2 comes from. Its one foot in 3E design and another foot in 4E design. The presentation manages to seem familiar to 3E style and feel, but it comes out 4E in the wash. Thats likely a goldilocks area for some folks.

The presentation is very much like 4E. The book is a catalog more than a book of recipes (rules). I would add "imho" except I don't see how that's controversial - just open any page, and you're likely met with a list. Everything except the skeleton of a class is found in the powers. And so on. Just like 4E.

However, in practical play the game runs more like 3/5E than 4E which in the end is the deciding factor.

 

[CapnZapp]

The beginner's box is as close as you'll likely get. 5E is the streamlined D&D and Pathfinder's way to differentiate is to be the more complex D&D in the market. What will really be interesting is to see how level up shakes things up? It might give folks that 5E feel with the crunch they want from PF2 without PF2s design choices.

If LU turns out good, I am going to wish it retroactively came out 3-5 years ago

 

[CapnZapp]

I played in a reasonably long 4e campaign, and there were things I both liked and even more I respected about the design.

But somehow the overall effect left a bad taste in my mouth, and I write it off to the degree of stylization. I don't think I can post at anything in particular or specific though, it was just the overall feeling.

In my case it was the realization the tactical nuance of 4E combat made us find playing it fast and loose was uninteresting... but playing it seriously with total focus was far too time-consuming, leaving no time for roleplay.

4E definitely is not a board game. But you can have fun like with a board game with it's tactical grid-based combat. But you can't combine that fun with the fun of a roleplaying session where combat is just part of the experience.

There just isn't time for both.

In the end we just stopped. The only way to play it like a proper ttrpg was to sacrifice the "quality of our moves" during combat, and doing that is un-fun.

 

[CapnZapp]

I hear you on Advantage/disadvantage its an over simplification and too common. Though, bounded accuracy was a breath of fresh air. I hope it never leaves D&D.

Seconded!

 

[CapnZapp]

I feel healing (and crafting) are the fly's in the ointment for PF2E (stealth took me a while to get used to, but now I have I think it works). Luckily both systems I find are fairly easily house ruled and neither have impacted on our enjoyment of the game.
Like a few others have mentioned I just tend to allow the group to fully heal between encounters unless circumstances would prevent it

You will find me pointing out plenty flies in the ointment if you peruse the threads I have started in this thread.

Healing and crafting are absolutely two such topics!

Happy reading

 

[CapnZapp]

I do agree that it's fairly easy to houserule these to get to wherever you want to be for a game.

I believe it is a mistake to think it is easy at all.

At least if you care about disturbing the myriad of character options that depend on your house rules in various ways.

I would instead say Pathfinder 2 is actively hostile to house rules, since you WILL encounter a feat or other option that your house rule has impacted in unintentional ways...

Sure you can simply say something and expect your players to cope.

But that's not the same as being able to fully integrate your house rule in the rules.

Paizo is spewing out a mind boggling amount of special little powers and they give zero amount of thought to how you might want to customize it all yourself. This is definitely a game where you are expected to go with the program.

 

[Justice and Rule]

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.

No no no. You're mistaking my point. I'm not talking about dungeon attrition, but something more long-term. You're right that conditions can totally do that, but that's short-term stuff like Vitality. I'm not as interested in that stuff, to be honest.

What I'm talking about is stuff that would keep players in place and resting, giving them a reason to actually have downtime when they might not necessarily want to. Like, real healing time. Strain in Worlds Without Number nails exactly what I'm talking about: it puts a limit on healing by making it so that you get a pool of healing equal to your Constitution, and that it recovers only once a day (potentially). To me, that's the attrition I'm looking for: you can run into some real s**** and you're unlikely to use all your heals in a single day. However, it might get dicey to continue pushing too hard. It creates a limit on both medicine and stuff like Cure Wounds spam and forces the party to actually recuperate.

Does that clear up what I'm talking about a bit?

 

[kenada]

I believe it is a mistake to think it is easy at all.

At least if you care about disturbing the myriad of character options that depend on your house rules in various ways.

I would instead say Pathfinder 2 is actively hostile to house rules, since you WILL encounter a feat or other option that your house rule has impacted in unintentional ways...

Sure you can simply say something and expect your players to cope.

But that's not the same as being able to fully integrate your house rule in the rules.

Paizo is spewing out a mind boggling amount of special little powers and they give zero amount of thought to how you might want to customize it all yourself. This is definitely a game where you are expected to go with the program.

If one is already implementing house rules, then the occasional conflict with options (particularly new ones) doesn’t seem like it should be a problem in practice. Just change the conflicting option or ban it. That’s how things typically go once one starts making substantive changes to a game. That strikes me less as a problem and more working as intended.

 

[Nilbog]

I believe it is a mistake to think it is easy at all.

At least if you care about disturbing the myriad of character options that depend on your house rules in various ways.

I would instead say Pathfinder 2 is actively hostile to house rules, since you WILL encounter a feat or other option that your house rule has impacted in unintentional ways...

Sure you can simply say something and expect your players to cope.

But that's not the same as being able to fully integrate your house rule in the rules.

Paizo is spewing out a mind boggling amount of special little powers and they give zero amount of thought to how you might want to customize it all yourself. This is definitely a game where you are expected to go with the program.

Yep I get that you have a passionate dislike for the game. Your posts almost turned me off playing it, I'm glad I stuck with the courage of my convictions and kept at it, as despite a few things I don't like, and a couple of little wrinkles I'm a bit meh about, I'm enjoying DM'ing it more than I have any system in the past 30 years of gaming.

Just shows that one persons trash is another's treasure eh?

 

[JmanTheDM]

I've seen a lot of references to the game being designed around HP being only, say, a resource in fights, not between fights; [...snip...] Essentially, that characters should pretty much always take between 10 and 30 minutes to heal up [...snip...]. And I already knew that the game is pretty different from 5e [snip]. I have not found an actual page, paragraph or reference to the text of the core rulebooks that explain this. Where is it written in the CRB or Gamemastry Guide that it is generally expected that the players be full or close to full HP between encounters?

sorry about the heavy edits. I hope I maintained the intent of your question. Jason Bulmahn in one of his Gencon presentations - I think it was his "ask paizo anything" panel, found on Youtube. in it, he was asked why he creates such hard adventures. laughter ensues, evil laughter.. but in it he does mention that if you come at PF2 with a PF1 mindset, you will run into trouble. one concrete example he gives is in the expected healing between encounters. he was explicit in saying the system expects full healing between encounters. So, I'd say this is fully Rules as Intended, but maybe not as clearly expressed as need be.

Cheers,
J.