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

[Justice and Rule]

If it doesn't already exist it will likely exist by a year from now. But don't get hung up on the example. The point is that having exception-based rules design with a thousand exceptions to choose from (feats) where within a party you can easily have dozens to remember makes the game more difficult to run.

The vast majority of those feats aren't going to do that, though, and most of them are exceptions on what the player can do, not what the GM has to remember.

A lot of abilities are this way. Maybe I'm thinking about charm abilities (which saves against are counted as one step better if you're higher level than the enemy).

I think you are thinking about how you get a +4 bonus to save against Charm if they attacked or acted hostile to you previously.

Or the flaming sphere that allows a basic save that means no damage on a success (and not merely on a critical success like every other basic save spell).

Edit: Huh, no, it's a regular basic, but it's in the spell description versus the stat block.

 

[Retreater]

I think you are thinking about how you get a +4 bonus to save against Charm if they attacked or acted hostile to you previously.

No. I'm thinking about how a ghoul's paralysis doesn't affect higher level characters. Only a crit fail can be a regular fail. This is something a GM just has to remember - a special exception for these types of powers. And trust me, I've run plenty of ghouls in Abomination Vaults.

Edit: Huh, no, it's a regular basic, but it's in the spell description versus

Not sure what you're saying here, but the spell description was very specific in "this spell can't do partial damage." I had one character who was pretty hamstrung by this rule.

 

[Justice and Rule]

No. I'm thinking about how a ghoul's paralysis doesn't affect higher level characters. Only a crit fail can be a regular fail. This is something a GM just has to remember - a special exception for these types of powers. And trust me, I've run plenty of ghouls in Abomination Vaults.

I mean, this is the entirety of 5E for me. There's no consistent rules for anything, so you just have to remember everything. Generally speaking I find having the universal systems with some exceptions way easier to get the hang of.

Not sure what you're saying here, but the spell description was very specific in "this spell can't do partial damage." I had one character who was pretty hamstrung by this rule.

Go to Archive of Nethys, where it lists it as a "Reflex Save" versus a "Basic Reflex", but has it in the spell description.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Also, the Ghoul thing isn't an exception: it just has the Incapacitation trait.

 

[kenada]

It's little senseless exceptions like these and others that make me feel like the game is over-designed. At least for my taste.

This seems more like an editing problem than a rules design problem. As written, there’s not enough space to enumerate the degrees of success. If they did, it would impact the layout of the rest of the book. However, they could make a few small tweaks to get it to fit (moving the damage from the description to the degrees of success would be the most obvious), but they didn’t.

 

[Retreater]

Also, the Ghoul thing isn't an exception: it just has the Incapacitation trait.

Yes, the incapacitation trait is the exception. Even keeping up with that is too much fiddling for me.
It's like "all other traits save the same, but we gotta call out this one trait, and you have to look at every similar ability and spell to see if it's a special exception because it could be incapacitation."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Frankly, if that's the price of avoiding some of the more egregious save-or-suck in the system, seems like a small price to pay, but YMMV.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yes, the incapacitation trait is the exception. Even keeping up with that is too much fiddling for me.
It's like "all other traits save the same, but we gotta call out this one trait, and you have to look at every similar ability and spell to see if it's a special exception because it could be incapacitation."

If you go broad, I suppose you could call it an "exception", but the Incapacitation trait is closer to a straight-up rule. When I think "exception", I think individually, not broadly.

Frankly, if that's the price of avoiding some of the more egregious save-or-suck in the system, seems like a small price to pay, but YMMV.

Yeah. I've seen complaints about it, but honestly it's a pretty good fix for what it is. It also helps that it works both ways, so you don't have a 10th level Mage getting messed up by a few ghouls who keep slapping him over and over to get him to fail Con Saves before they slowly eat him piece by piece.

Not that I've done that sort of thing before.

 

[glass]

If it doesn't already exist it will likely exist by a year from now. But don't get hung up on the example. The point is that having exception-based rules design with a thousand exceptions to choose from (feats) where within a party you can easily have dozens to remember makes the game more difficult to run.

I am sure if a PC has such an ability, they will tell you about it when it becomes relevant. No need for the GM to keep track of that kind of thing (with a partial exception for newer players).

_
glass.

 

[Retreater]

I am sure if a PC has such an ability, they will tell you about it when it becomes relevant. No need for the GM to keep track of that kind of thing (with a partial exception for newer players).

_
glass.

Oh, I agree. I was referencing an earlier statement about how the design of PF2 is sometimes antithetical to the fiction a GM tries to present. There are so many individual facets to characters that it is difficult to present something that can be challenging or even descriptive for the players.
"Oh, I can't be damaged by smelling stuff."
"Oh, I can climb up a waterfall."
"Oh, I can detect how many pebbles are in this room."
Granted these aren't necessarily real examples, but they're not far off.