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

[Thomas Shey]

“Massive anticlimax” suggests some sort of boss fight. Let’s take that as a basis. Suppose that after 3-4 sessions, the party gets to the boss, and due to DM error or miscalculation, the boss goes down like a chump after 2 rounds having only done scratch damage to the party.

As a DM, this isn’t that big a deal. Figure out what went wrong. Compensate. Next fight will be harder. Like I said, I have infinite villains.

I kind of disagree that's not a big deal on on both sides. That was why I said I can't follow you there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If they kill a villain too easily, I find it almost universal that most players get suspicious instantly. "Was he the real villain? Was he a lackey? Did we kill an illusionary duplicate? Did he escape and trick us?"
The anti-climax becomes a stepping stone to a greater climax, setting up a more amazing story down the road.

Whereas I've seen people go either "Was that it?" or "After all this, that was all?"

But the death of a beloved character during a rote encounter? A TPK midway through the dungeon? That's infinitely worse than an anti-climax. In my experience, more campaigns have ended due to character death than any other factor.

Again, I spent my early days in games like OD&D and RQ; both of those could lose you characters, and not infrequently. Yet somehow people soldiered on, and often remembered the campaigns involved fondly.
This doesn't mean a TPK isn't a whole different class of problem, but the occasional random character death? (And I should note, that's actually not particularly easy to get in PF2e even against dangerous opponents; its probably easier to theoretically get a TPK than an individual death except against specific kinds of opponents).

 

[Teemu]

I think they just use too many party level +2 and +3 enemies in the APs. But they do it because you need a certain number of encounters in so many pages, and you need to make sure the fights support the Paizo flip mat battlemap stuff, which are pretty small spaces, so fewer enemies is easier, which leads to preferring stronger individual creatures… I don’t like APs and their structure.

 

[payn]

I think they just use too many party level +2 and +3 enemies in the APs. But they do it because you need a certain number of encounters in so many pages, and you need to make sure the fights support the Paizo flip mat battlemap stuff, which are pretty small spaces, so fewer enemies is easier, which leads to preferring stronger individual creatures… I don’t like APs and their structure.

That makes some sense. The only reason I want to play PF2 at all is because I love the APs. At least the classic PF1 era ones.

 

[Retreater]

I don't really believe this because this is the only place where I see this happening. You say that this is what PF2's design encourages, but I have not seen people continually complaining about multiple TPKs within the system anywhere but here. If I google it, the first result is people asking about the TPK module, and then all these threads here on this board. I want to engage with this, but I just don't have a frame of reference in which to do so.

It could be just in my limited experience and with people I've talked to about the system (in PFS and other online games). It could also be confirmation bias that makes it seem more common to me than it actually is.
It could be also that there isn't a lot of discussion about it. I don't think a lot of GMs like to admit they've had TPKs. Or at least I don't, and I do it primarily from a place of anonymity.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, there's no question that at least AoA and a couple the other early APs are overtuned in part. I've played through most of AoA at this point (we're level 15) and I can definitely see some spots that would be really rough for a normal, four character party; there were parts that were hard for our party of four hybrids.

But that seems less to do with PF2e per se, than those adventures. There were plenty of other encounters that we handled without too much problem and we're not always entirely on our game; while being hybrids made it a little easier, I don't have any doubt our other character group (cleric, monk, sorcerer and fighter) could have handled those with alacrity (though the monk's tendency to get too damn far in front of the rest of us might have got him in trouble).

I will note, as I have before, however that there are artifacts of PF2e that make me think that, proportionately (and note the qualification because its important) a TPK is more likely than individual deaths (because its actually pretty hard for a PF2e character to die barring some extremely specific enemies who can drain your death checks or whatever they're called). But honestly, it still seems less a risk to me than it did back in the OD&D or 3e, because you're more likely to just be able to run away (in the case of 3e, the fact that few things comparatively have AoOs makes a big difference here).

 

[CapnZapp]

I find this slightly misleading, though I do understand why no additional qualifiers have been added.
my experience - granted, its anecdotal, of being a player in 1 PF2 game (with a 1st time PF2 GM), and being the GM in 3 is while its true that beginner "players" can make "wrong" decisions that "will" lead to a TPK, its just as likely that new players and GMs, can make a "wrong" decision that will significantly "weaken the encounter" as well.

you forget to apply a condition. things get easier
you forget to apply a resistance or immunity.. same
you forget to synergize a foe's 3rd action by use of aid..
you outright forget to use their skills like demoralize, stealth, trip, grab, because they are not printed on the stat block "in your face"
you stand there and attack 3 times...
you cast the "wrong" spells that target the PC's high save
etc. etc. etc.

IME, its just as likely that new (and not-so-new) players and GMs can make mistakes that go both ways - makes encounters tougher by giving the opposing side openings, and easier, by not exploiting obvious combat tools available to you.. IME, things end up even.

inexperience is not only a one-way march towards player death

Cheers,

J.

FrozenNorth wasn't talking about any of that.

He was talking about, I think, mistakes with potentially much harsher consequences, in particular a GM being ever so slightly careless when building an encounter for his or her (naturally) low-level party.

If you come from... pretty much any other edition of D&D you're not used to the guidelines being "do exactly this or the PCs die" type of non-negotiable conditions to follow.

You might add in a couple of mooks because it makes sense. Or upgrade a monster to make it more cool. Or make the mistake of having a nearby monster hear the commotion and go investigate.

Even a small increase in encounter difficulty can kill a PF2 PC, especially at low level. Even the official introductory mini-scenario for some utterly unfathomable reason features a foe that can one-shot ANY hero (as in "take a front-line Fighter from full health to irrevocably dead in ONE hit"). And that's not just a one-in-a-blue-moon shot either but maybe (I don't remember) one in ten or some other horrifically probable number...

And if anyone goes "that's nothing new, low-level PCs have always been squishy in D&D" you know nothing, as Ygritte would have said. Just trust me. Or go play the game and find out for yourself...!

 

[CapnZapp]

But that seems less to do with PF2e per se, than those adventures.

It has absolutely everything to do with the game, the core, and not just some wayward or inexperienced scenario writer.

The encounter guidelines exist in the CRB and in the GMG.

The part that is about numbers just completely misses the fact that at the lowest levels, the entire difficulty categorization needs to be shifted a whole step (so what the CRB calls a Moderate encounter should be handled like it was Severe).

And that at higher levels (certainly at 15th and above) the game would probably be better off by doing the same thing in reverse (so an encounter the rules call Extreme will be handled as "only" Severe). But this is much less of an issue, since "too easy" just isn't nearly as problematic as "too hard". That's why this is written in gray.

The other parts, that discuss ways to handle encounters more descriptively, is just bad. It reads as if the writer is discussing Pathfinder 1, and completely misses crucially fundamental facts like "you simply can't combine two encounters, unless you know precisely what you're doing". If those passages of text actually stated this, and proceeded to explain to you what you need to do, it would be fine. But they don't. Instead the GMG prattles on about how you infiltrate a castle full of guards just like a level 7 party might have done in 3E, completely clueless of how stupendously mind-bogglingly off-the-chart-triple-Extreme dangerous PF2 makes ending up with two roomfuls of guards (even bog-standard regular off-the-shelf guards) at the same time.


So no, this is not something that can be swept under the "it's only the odd bad adventure" rug.

Regards,
Zapp

 

[Thomas Shey]

It has absolutely everything to do with the game, the core, and not just some wayward or inexperienced scenario writer.

Except, as has been noted before, many people don't seem to have this problem outside those specific APS. So unless you'd like to explain how that's true if its an intrinsic issue with the core, I think I'm standing by my opinion.

 

[JThursby]

That makes some sense. The only reason I want to play PF2 at all is because I love the APs. At least the classic PF1 era ones.

Abomination Vaults is very good, I recommend it. It's written by a Paizo and industry veteran and it shows.

It has absolutely everything to do with the game, the core, and not just some wayward or inexperienced scenario writer.

I don't know of any official game manual that provides the correct answer to any and every conceivable scenario within it's system. Either there is no published system that meets your exceedingly harsh standards of quality or for some reason you've concluded the CRB and GMG are substantially more misleading and useless than most other GM oriented material in all other systems. I don't agree with either take.