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

[kenada]

I think the kingmaker 2e hardcover will probably show it either way how well or badly sandbox works in 2e.

(I honestly can't tell, I imagine in homebrew it works fine, but in published adventure not sure)

I thought it was just a conversion? I ran the original Kingmaker for PF1, and it was not a sandbox campaign. Wilderness exploration was treated as an outdoor dungeon (more or less). That you can possibly do encounters in a different order isn’t sufficient to make a sandbox campaign.

 

[kenada]

I honestly think that PF2 can do sandbox fine, but I feel like everyone has their own idea of what sandboxing really is. Like, is sandboxing being able to do anything, run into anything, and having the possibility to win regardless? Or is it that you can potentially run into unwinnable stuff and have to extricate yourself from the situation? How much signposting do you want? Do you feel like your players should do research/recon on a place they are going beforehand? Like most of the RPG space, these are generally very individualized answers.

I’d define a sandbox game as one where the PCs decide what happens next. If there are plot beats you need to hit, it’s not much of a sandbox. That gives quite a bit of room for how to go about doing the sandbox. I would consider an exploration-driven hexcrawl, an adventure-focused campaign like Worlds Without Number prescribes, and Scum and Villainy all different takes on sandbox games. I think Pathfinder 2e can do most of those. If you want to run core (i.e., not using Proficiency without Level), you probably want to be mindful with how you’re populating monsters, but I think it’s still doable.

 

[payn]

I thought it was just a conversion? I ran the original Kingmaker for PF1, and it was not a sandbox campaign. Wilderness exploration was treated as an outdoor dungeon (more or less). That you can possibly do encounters in a different order isn’t sufficient to make a sandbox campaign.

Thinking about it, I think PF2 could handle Kingmaker quite well. You are correct in that it isn't a traditional sandbox, but a hexcrawl exploration campaign.

edit; ninja'd

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its a guideline instead of a hard fast rule. That doesn't sit well with some folks, and others are quite comfortable with it.

It doesn't even seem a useful guideline if it fails as often as not, as was the case with 3e D&D at least (I'm not qualified to say about PF1e, though the general indicators seem to be the same). You can argue it doesn't need to be as tight as PF2e in that regard, but it should still be an indicator of the default case, and I'm not convinced at medium to highish levels it was even that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’d define a sandbox game as one where the PCs decide what happens next. If there are plot beats you need to hit, it’s not much of a sandbox. That gives quite a bit of room for how to go about doing the sandbox. I would consider an exploration-driven hexcrawl, an adventure-focused campaign like Worlds Without Number prescribes, and Scum and Villainy all different takes on sandbox games. I think Pathfinder 2e can do most of those. If you want to run core (i.e., not using Proficiency without Level), you probably want to be mindful with how you’re populating monsters, but I think it’s still doable.

Like I said, you'd need to examine two things, one operational, one at least semi-rules based:

1. Operational: You need to really think about signs of problems that can be encountered before the problems are. Some of the PF2e Exploration Actions probably help here, but you're going to need to strongly avoid potential blind surprise situations (where its unlikely that the PCs can reasonably detect the problem before they trigger it). You also need to make it blindingly clear that they need to do those Exploration Actions and pay attention to them.
2. Semi-Rules Based: As with most editions of D&D (there are a few I don't know well enough to overgeneralize about), its not self-evident in all cases that trying to flee when things go wrong is particularly going to go well unless the only purpose of an opponent is to drive you off. When you have relatively low level creatures that can generate 40' moves and/or fly, trying to run away with a 25' move is, on the face of it, not a winner. You probably need to develop general evasion procedures beyond what the game currently has, and ones that tend to favor those fleeing. Otherwise the first time someone runs into, say, a dire boar (that's not what they're called in PF2e, but that's basically what they are) they might as well fight to the death because running away is a loser.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Personally, I'm not sure there's overly much point in have 20 levels of progression if, say, the difference between an 8th level opponent and a 12th level one isn't pretty stark. At that point I'd just go with ten levels like they do in 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Like I said, you'd need to examine two things, one operational, one at least semi-rules based:

1. Operational: You need to really think about signs of problems that can be encountered before the problems are. Some of the PF2e Exploration Actions probably help here, but you're going to need to strongly avoid potential blind surprise situations (where its unlikely that the PCs can reasonably detect the problem before they trigger it). You also need to make it blindingly clear that they need to do those Exploration Actions and pay attention to them.
2. Semi-Rules Based: As with most editions of D&D (there are a few I don't know well enough to overgeneralize about), its not self-evident in all cases that trying to flee when things go wrong is particularly going to go well unless the only purpose of an opponent is to drive you off. When you have relatively low level creatures that can generate 40' moves and/or fly, trying to run away with a 25' move is, on the face of it, not a winner. You probably need to develop general evasion procedures beyond what the game currently has, and ones that tend to favor those fleeing. Otherwise the first time someone runs into, say, a dire boar (that's not what they're called in PF2e, but that's basically what they are) they might as well fight to the death because running away is a loser.

The second one of those, speaking from experience, is well handled by the chase procedure in the GMG, I'm still getting used to improvising them, but they work pretty well and aren't especially cumbersome.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I’d define a sandbox game as one where the PCs decide what happens next. If there are plot beats you need to hit, it’s not much of a sandbox. That gives quite a bit of room for how to go about doing the sandbox. I would consider an exploration-driven hexcrawl, an adventure-focused campaign like Worlds Without Number prescribes, and Scum and Villainy all different takes on sandbox games. I think Pathfinder 2e can do most of those. If you want to run core (i.e., not using Proficiency without Level), you probably want to be mindful with how you’re populating monsters, but I think it’s still doable.

As an example, we use a zone structure, where a group of hexes (in our case a substantial group, due to how we scaled our map) have a designated level, we go above and below that level for pockets of danger and such and telegraph them accordingly. (For instance my 'level 2' dungeon they're in, has a level 6 wraith in a room that exudes menace and is covered in sealing spell tags the players would have to break to challenge it.) The overall zones are pretty obvious from shifts in terrain, and I'm not above video game title splashes when they enter a new zone or dungeon sometimes.

 

[payn]

It doesn't even seem a useful guideline if it fails as often as not, as was the case with 3e D&D at least (I'm not qualified to say about PF1e, though the general indicators seem to be the same). You can argue it doesn't need to be as tight as PF2e in that regard, but it should still be an indicator of the default case, and I'm not convinced at medium to highish levels it was even that.

Knock it all you want, but the best gaming I've ever had is right out of the 3E/PF1 CR. Not saying its always roses, but once you get a feel for it you can have some real fun encounters. PF2 was all samey to me. I didn't really really enjoy it at most encounter levels. I'm curious how PWL opens it up?

 

[dave2008]

Personally, I'm not sure there's overly much point in have 20 levels of progression if, say, the difference between an 8th level opponent and a 12th level one isn't pretty stark. At that point I'd just go with ten levels like they do in 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord.

I personally I do not want much difference between a lvl 8 and a lvl 12. Some difference, but not an insurmountable difference IMO. We like slow, modest progress across levels. At least for PCs. Traditionally CR is different than level (I'm guessing that is why PF2 uses levels for everything) and there can and possibly should be more difference between a CR8 and a CR 12 monster.