Pathfinder 2E's New Death & Dying Rules; More on Resonance

It's another day, and that means another round of Pathfinder 2nd Edition News! Today's menu includes more discussion on resonance, followed by the main course -- the new rules for death & dying! All added, as ever, to the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Compiled Info Page!

Photo by Paizo

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• There are Pathfinder Playtest pro-order posters at the GAMA trade show. See above! And below...
• Gnome Stew reported on the Future of Pathfinder seminar at Gary Con. Mainly stuff we've heard before, but there are some new tidbits:
  • Shadow of the Demon Lord, white-box D&D, Magic: the Gathering, Tales from the Loop, and Star Trek Adventures were all referenced during development.
  • The item (shield) damage system has a name -- it's called "dented".
  • Some "signature gear" can level up with your character.
  • "Background will grant a specific Lore, which is similar to a specialized knowledge skill, such as Lore—Alcohol being granted to a character with barkeep as a background".
• Resonance proved divisive yesterday.
  • Jason Bulmahn weighed in on the heated discussion -- "Hey there all! Let's all just take a breath here before things get too heated. Resonance is a system that we knew was going to come with some controversy. It's really hard to give you a full sense of what the system allows us to do with the design space without going on a deep dive on magic items. This is a topic we are going to hit soon, so hang in there. I will say this before I go to run more demos at GAMA. Players have rarely run out of resonance in our games, and there is a lot more healing to go around than you might think."
  • Class features don't use Resonance -- "We avoided making class features that use Resonance Points unless they're directly tied to items. Resonance is a resource for items thematically and specifically. If you have abilities from a bloodline, you'll have to pay for those some other way..." (Bonner)
  • "...we've had some delightful occultist-based thought experiments based on some of these ideas as the "kings of resonance."[FONT=&amp] (Seifter)[/FONT]
  • Bulmahn commented -- "Hmm... I keep seeing posts that tracking one pool of points is too fiddly. It's odd, considering that it's meant to replace a system where everything had its own personal system of usage with times per day, total charges, and time based limits. Of course, I have plenty of reservations about this particular mechanic. We're definitely pushing the envelope here, but fiddly is not the complaint I expected to see so frequently."
• New Dying Rules! "RumpinRufus" reported on how they worked in the live streamed game at the GAMA trade show:
  • There are no negative hit points - if you take damage equal or greater than your HP, you go down to 0 HP and get the Dying 1 condition.
  • If a crit knocks you to 0, you gain Dying 2 instead of Dying 1.
  • Each round, you must make a save to stabilize. The save DC is based off the enemy - a boss may have a higher death DC than a mook, so you are more likely to be killed by bosses.
  • If you reach Dying 4, then you are dead.
  • If you make the stabilize check, you gain a hit point, but are still Dying. If you make another save at 1 HP, you are no longer Dying, and you regain consciousness.
  • If an ally heals you while you are Dying, you still have the Dying condition, even though you have positive HP. You still need to make a stabilize check to regain consciousness. But, once your HP is positive, you are no longer at danger of death from failing your checks - failing a stabilize check just means you stay unconscious.
  • The Stabilize cantrip puts you at 1 HP.
  • Mark Seifter further added -- "If you get well and truly annihilated by an attack, you die instantly. Even a 1st PC could probably insta-kill a kobold grandmother, even if the GM chose for full tracking of unconscious and dying NPCs."
• Erik Mona on monster books again, and how self-contained stat blocks will be -- "I don't think we've fully committed one way or the other yet. The playtest monster book is going to be mega stat block dump without a lot of description of what, say, a skeleton looks like or eats. As for special abilities and how they're formatted, while I know the design team has been hard at work on this stuff, I haven't interacted with it too much yet (I just finished going through magic items last night!)."
• Both Erik Mona and James Jacobs feel strongly about the presence of more outsider types on the summoning lists -- "No, actually, James Jacobs and I also feel very strongly about this. Very strongly."
• Logan Bonner comments on complexity, options, and the 'cognitive load' -- "We're keeping it in mind for sure. That's one reason we've rejiggered the number of bonus types, altered the action economy to make choice clearer, and (at least mostly) made it so you have options for static feats instead of only giving options to expand your list of actions. We'll see in the playtest whether that mix is right."
• Logan Bonner informs us that coffee and tea have been added to the Playtest Rulebook.
• Mark Seifter on how corruption could work "...gaining a corruption could unlock a new set of ancestry feats, as your fundamental nature has shifted."

Photo by Paizo
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[Shasarak]

No, I use house rules to fix the Bard and Paladin by making their magic more reliant on Intelligence and Wisdom respectively. Just because they're being consistent, it doesn't mean I necessarily agree with every decision.

Consistency is a very important part of game design. That they're following through on their established premise is more important than whether I agree with that premise.

The whole idea of PF2 is to fix the problems not to double down.

Powered by social magnetism indeed.

 

[Lanefan]

Charisma doesn’t represent physical beauty. It represents social magnetism.

It's historically always been seen as a bit of both, irregardless of how PF in particular might define it now.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The whole idea of PF2 is to fix the problems not to double down.

Powered by social magnetism indeed.

If you're arguing that we should replace the Charisma stat with something like a Magic stat, then I'm all on board for that! In the meantime, it's already been established that inherent magic falls under Charisma (for whatever reason), so that's the only logical and consistent place to tie Resonance.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's historically always been seen as a bit of both, irregardless of how PF in particular might define it now.

If you base you’re assessment of the game’s internal consistency on how its terms have historically been defined instead of how the game actually defines them, you’re naturally going to find it less internally consistent than it is written.

 

[Shasarak]

Just like perception is powered by common sense, damage with bows is powered by hand-eye coordination, melee weapon accuracy is powered by muscle mass.... None of the Ability Scores have made a lick of sense since 2nd Edition, and even then they were pretty abstract.

You know I have never really had a problem with the idea that being stronger means you hit harder and being more deleterious means that you are more accurate. To my perception that just makes common sense.

 

[Charlaquin]

You know I have never really had a problem with the idea that being stronger means you hit harder and being more deleterious means that you are more accurate. To my perception that just makes common sense.

Being stronger makes you hit harder makes plenty of sense. Being stronger makes you more accurate doesn’t. Likewise, being more dexterous makes you more accurate makes sense. Being more dexterous makes your arrows hit harder doesn’t. Perception being based on common sense doesn’t make any sense. Plenty of people with 20/20 vision who have no common sense, and plenty of blind people with tons of it.

Really, it helps to just admit that the ability scores are arbitrary. Having high charisma means nothing more and nothing less than that you are good at the things that Charisma adds to. Primarily, that’s social skill rolls and inherent (as opposed to learned or granted) magic.

 

[Shasarak]

Being stronger makes you hit harder makes plenty of sense. Being stronger makes you more accurate doesn’t. Likewise, being more dexterous makes you more accurate makes sense. Being more dexterous makes your arrows hit harder doesn’t. Perception being based on common sense doesn’t make any sense. Plenty of people with 20/20 vision who have no common sense, and plenty of blind people with tons of it.

Then I guess it is lucky that being stronger does not make you more accurate and being dexterous does not make your arrows hit harder then.

I dont know about having 20/20 vision though. I can not remember any of my characters having their eye sight measured although certainly none of them needed glasses or anything like that.

Really, it helps to just admit that the ability scores are arbitrary. Having high charisma means nothing more and nothing less than that you are good at the things that Charisma adds to. Primarily, that’s social skill rolls and inherent (as opposed to learned or granted) magic.

That would make sense if you believed that ability scores were arbitrary. Personally I do not see any evidence of that except for the obvious example of magical items being powered by your personality.

 

[Charlaquin]

Then I guess it is lucky that being stronger does not make you more accurate and being dexterous does not make your arrows hit harder then.

Really? Then why am I more likely to hit with a longsword with 18 Strength than 8 Strength? Why do my bow attacks do more damage with 18 Dexterity than 8?

I dont know about having 20/20 vision though. I can not remember any of my characters having their eye sight measured although certainly none of them needed glasses or anything like that.

But yet your characters that had high wisdom were all better at seeing things than your characters with low wisdom. And they were also better at surviving in the wilderness. And at handling animals. And at first aid. And at resisting magical mental influence. And would have been better at Druidic magic. Seemingly all arbitrary correlations.

That would make sense if you believed that ability scores were arbitrary. Personally I do not see any evidence of that except for the obvious example of magical items being powered by your personality.

There are all sorts of weird correlations, born from the fact that the six ability scores were not invented to be able to handle any and every action a character might conceivably take. You may have grown used to many of these arbitrary correlations, but they’re there.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm not concerned with resonance limits because I bet they'll be plenty of feats/class features that will alter/bypass it.

 

[Shasarak]

Really? Then why am I more likely to hit with a longsword with 18 Strength than 8 Strength? Why do my bow attacks do more damage with 18 Dexterity than 8?

Because having higher strength means your blade does not just bounce off that armour you just hit. Its just simple physics. I am not sure why your bow attacks do more damage with an 18 Dex though. Do you add your dex bonus to damage for some reason?

But yet your characters that had high wisdom were all better at seeing things than your characters with low wisdom. And they were also better at surviving in the wilderness. And at handling animals. And at first aid. And at resisting magical mental influence. And would have been better at Druidic magic. Seemingly all arbitrary correlations.

You have certainly made it clear that you believe attributes are arbitrary so I am not sure if it is useful for me to explain why it makes sense to me that someone who has higher Wisdom is better at understanding the mysteries of Druidic magic while at the same time being better able to perceive the world around themselves.

There are all sorts of weird correlations, born from the fact that the six ability scores were not invented to be able to handle any and every action a character might conceivably take. You may have grown used to many of these arbitrary correlations, but they’re there.

I remember the worst correlation i have seen until now was a character class that hit people with its constitution. Making these types of arbitrary correlations just makes for worse stories.