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

[payn]

Yeah, I'm kind of having an argument with someone on the Paizo board about this, because my experience with 3e was just what you say; if you hadn't baked a cake during character generation and advancement, there were very few things that were actually worth doing other than slugging away. One thing I will argue strenuously about in regard to PF2e is most character builds actually have some real decisions to make about what to do with their third action that actually matter (which doesn't mean you can't have, say, a sword-and-board fighter who just does Hit-Hit-Raise Shield and have it work, but that at least some of the time one of those actions can be usefully used other ways).

Yeap, I have a handful of stickler issues about PF2, but the three action economy isnt one of them. Its my favorite thing because it simplified the overly complicated action type of PF1, and opened a lot of design space to allow characters to do more in combat.

 

[CapnZapp]

This just continues the tradition from 3E/PF1.

I have DMd both and feel the difference is profound.

PF2 is full of artificial limits there mostly to add a need for lots of feats that relax those limits. "There's a feat for that" covers just about everything imaginable, making it impossible to just be generous and allow something, since that would probably invalidate a feat or three.

 

[CapnZapp]

Eh. Most feats just make things you can already do more efficient, or let you swap around rules components to your convenience as a player.

With thousand of feats, this is not pertinent.

(Just because 1500+ feats aren't targeted by this criticism does not mean the remaining 50 or 100 hidden throughout twenty levels of more than dozen classes spread over a dozen sourcebooks aren't problematic)

 

[CapnZapp]

If you use the rules in the skills chapter there's no real danger of a feat overriding the rulings you have to make. If you are ignoring the skills chapter not sure why you care about the feats chapter.

You will have to exemplify that claim.

(Please don't suggest I am basing my criticism on ignoring core rules, it is unbecoming)

 

[CapnZapp]

I mean, they didn't, but we've already had this battle a thousand times. The existence of COMBAT CLIMBER~! doesn't remove anything. Rather, it forces different situations on people so that they can have different ways of dealing with said situations. Every time we go at this, you refuse to get into specifics because all you have on the topic are vague generalities because that's all you can argue.

What are you talking about?

If you are fine with taking feats with your precious feat slots even though another player can simply get their benefits through sweet-talking the GM, this discussion is not applicable to you.

 

[CapnZapp]

In fairness, not all of those are feats. With the Waterfall, there's an Athletics check to do so. If you can beat a DC40 Athletics check, you can indeed start swimming up a waterfall.

But really, those things are player-facing powers, where the player has to know it more than the GM. You don't get damaged from stuff based on smell? Well, that's on you to tell me. Though I think these examples aren't great. Why not go with:

"Oh, I have Smell as an imprecise sense, which means I can actually move an undetected creature to hidden just based on smell!"

(That sounds complicated, but it's just that while other people might notice a bad smell in a room, you can basically narrow down where that bad smell is likely coming from. The big thing is that, at close range, you can potentially identify hidden creatures with your nose, even if they are invisible.)



The only one I can think of that got discussed in one of the previous discussions was the opening feat from the Dandy archetype about being able to, as an individual, spend a day to influence a rumor as a downtime activity. I don't see that as a huge deal, to be honest, but it's the one feat that I feel like even resembles what is being talked about.

Instead, most feats are, indeed, exception-based: they create exceptions for the player, whether it be through specialized actions, less restrictions for certain actions, etc. I always bring up COMBAT CLIMBER~! because I think it's actually a really good example of a small but neat little feat.

Unlike 5E, where beyond movement speed climbing is largely about rulings in what you can and can't do, there are specifics to PF2's climbing. There are checks for speed, but also you have to have both hands free and you're flatfooted while climbing, unless you have a climbing speed. This tells your players two things:

1. If you climb, you're going to be extra vulnerable, since you won't be able to have weapons or shields at the ready, as well as having an effective -2 to your AC.
2. Having a climb speed is a huge advantage. Spider Climb and things that can grant Climbing Speeds are a real boon to strategy.

To me, these are big things. Not only do the players have a solid idea of what I'm going to tell them before they attempt climbing something (instead of having a discussion and hashing out how I'd rule), but there are avenues in which their individual feats can start to come into play. COMBAT CLIMBER~! obviously allows a player to be able to climb with a weapon in-hand and also are no longer flatfooted. Someone with Quick-draw can pull out their weapon on their turn to fight back and only lose one action putting it back to continue climbing. Someone with Reactive Shield can pull out their shield as a Reaction while they're climbing to get extra defense.

These all influence what people can do in that situation, and give them unique ways to interact as such. It makes for interesting plans and such if you are going to go far up a cliffside as to who can do what and such: who is on defense, how you are going to climb, etc. You start with a basic set of restrictions, and the player's unique abilities attempt to get around the problem in different ways. My immediate thought is something like COMBAT CLIMBER~! is especially valuable to people who have good reactions, like Champions.

Now if you find that restrictive, that's your taste. I personally like having players have not only the knowledge of what a challenge is likely to look like, but defined unique ways to interact with them. To me, that's a feature, not a bug.

There are far too many such rules.

If you say "sure you're a high level fighter of course you can climb with a weapon in hand" you're shafted by the rules design.

If the general rule allowed you to try stuff; though you needed to make a level-appropriate skill check to pull it off (and being untrained gave you a reduced rather than a non-existent chance), then and only then would feats like Combat Climber make sense.

Then the benefit wouldn't be "you can do something not even a level 20 hero or monster can do". Instead it would be "you get to skip a very specific check where everybody else stands a risk of failure".

I believe I have discussed Cloud Jump. It is inexcusable to me to add a feat where any long-jumping contest is an automatic win for a hero with the feat. Monsters can't have feats so monsters simply cannot compete. Such discrete instances really plague the rules.

 

[CapnZapp]

Another important thing about Combat Climber is it does not prevent you from still allowing the PC to try it with a (suitably challenging) roll. Combat Climber allows it without a cost, so why would ruling it can be attempted with a cost be prohibited? That makes no sense.

You are clearly playing the game in your own style, Kenada.

But please do not dismiss my criticism based on me not adopting your playing style. Just because something makes sense to you doesn't mean it is so, and that we can't criticize the rules.

I am sure a hypothetical game that ships a copy of you along with every purchase will be infinitely better than anything else on the market.

 

[Justice and Rule]

There are far too many such rules.

If you say "sure you're a high level fighter of course you can climb with a weapon in hand" you're shafted by the rules design.

Why? Why are you shafted by the rules design? You can just do what @kenada said and give a penalty. It's that simple. There's nothing that says you can't.

If the general rule allowed you to try stuff; though you needed to make a level-appropriate skill check to pull it off (and being untrained gave you a reduced rather than a non-existent chance), then and only then would feats like Combat Climber make sense.

Then the benefit wouldn't be "you can do something not even a level 20 hero or monster can do". Instead it would be "you get to skip a very specific check where everybody else stands a risk of failure".

I mean, there's nothing that says you can't do that currently in the rules, as @kenada points out. But taking your suggestion, you're just adding a bunch of complexity and rules because now you probably need to create a bunch of DCs to remember and possibly skill levels to gate these abilities at. You can't make this argument about there being too many rules and then proposing a huge expansion of abilities, checks, and DCs. It's incoherent.

I believe I have discussed Cloud Jump. It is inexcusable to me to add a feat where any long-jumping contest is an automatic win for a hero with the feat. Monsters can't have feats so monsters simply cannot compete. Such discrete instances really plague the rules.

This argument is absurd. Why is it inexcusable to add a feat where a player can win a contest against a monster because they invested in that feature? That's something that should be encouraged, not removed. If you're dedicated to making it so that the monster makes it a contest, then give them something similar. This is not a system problem, this is a weird problem about you not wanting to have to change something because you have a certain encounter in mind.

 

[CapnZapp]

Yeah, I've never understood the idea that just because there's a feat that lets you automatically do something or do it with an easy roll, that somehow implies you can't do it otherwise without that feat.

How can we ever criticize any ruleset if we are required to add a layer of Shey common sense first?

Since the rules do not accommodate or recognize the notion that "yes you paid for that feat, but you shouldn't bitch when I talk myself into it at the table for free", why aren't I allowed to point to the inhibiting consequence as a drawback of the system?

Especially since so many other games give you D&Dish goodness without this ever being such a prevalent problem?

The core issue I see with PF2, after all, is how Paizo again and again chooses the needlessly complicated - and complicating - approach to every little rule.

For no apparent benefit as far as I can see, except creating a void for splat books they can then fill.

 

[CapnZapp]

It goes further back than 3e. It’s been that way since the thief was introduced to OD&D. As soon as classes have differentiation, people assume others are locked out of even attempting those activities.

And it is up to rules to set up mechanisms to regulate it.

A game that lets a trained medium-level hero succeed at medium-level challenges and untrained high-level heroes as well satisfies this criteria. (Setting various Athletics DCs for various ways to climb a cliff, for instance)

PF2 fails in two ways:

Primarily through not offering such a framework (instead making feats out of it).

Secondarily through proficiency with level; ensuring any DC based scheme would still fail even if it was introduced.