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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[Charlaquin]

Potions work exactly like all other magic items in this system, in that they are devices which allow an individual to channel their own personal reservoir of magical energy in a specific way. Everybody is like a walking battery, and magic items interface directly with that energy, and you can choose how you want to spend your energy before it runs out. You can either channel it through a staff to let the staff do its thing, or channel it into the runes on your sword to make it sharper for the day, or channel it into a potion in order to convert its ingredients into a healing effect. In every case, the user is the power source and the device is what shapes that power. At least, as I understand it.

Yeah, I get that. I just feel like potions feel a little “one of these things is not like the others” in that explanation. The others you’re using your magical reserves to power an object imbued with a specific, repeatable magical effect. In the case of potions, you’re using it to catalyze an alchemical reaction. Which, I guess is reasonable. There’s no reason that couldn’t be the way potions work in Golarion. Personally though, it rubs me the wrong way. I like potions to sit a bit closer to the chemistry side of the fence rather than the magic object side. It’s weird to me that a consumable solution is “activated” the same way that an enchanted suit of armor is. But, I could get used to it. Like I said, I want to see how they present it in the fiction before coming to any conclusions about it.

That all said, I’m a gameplay > usability > verisimilitude kind of person, so it’s not game breaking for me if the explanation isn’t perfect.

 

[Shasarak]

"Hey, here's a rule to prevent abuses, which luckily are rare."

Except Blue that it does not actually prevent "abuses" (if infact we agree that healing yourself is some type of "abuse") it just shifts the abuse to the 5MWD. I should not have shot so many firebolts from my sword because now I can not heal, time to go home and rest up I guess.

"O.M.G. That's the worst rule in Pathfinder. I speak for everyone, so it's a common complaint."

Really? Maybe see what the rule in context and play before starting hyperbole that it's the Worst Thang Evar(tm).

If it makes you feel any better then you can mentally add things like "out of all the rules previewed so far" or "IMHO" in front of this is the Worst Thang Evar.

The stabilising rules look pretty hokey too.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Except Blue that it does not actually prevent "abuses" (if infact we agree that healing yourself is some type of "abuse") it just shifts the abuse to the 5MWD. I should not have shot so many firebolts from my sword because now I can not heal, time to go home and rest up I guess.

Except, they're saying that doesn't happen in practice. Since the fighter knows how many item uses the have in the day, they avoid shooting firebolts because they want to be able to heal later.

Kind of like how the five-minute work-day has never actually been a problem at most tables. Most players are pretty good about pacing themselves.

The stabilising rules look pretty hokey too.

Agreed.

 

[Shasarak]

Kind of like how the five-minute work-day has never actually been a problem at most tables. Most players are pretty good about pacing themselves.

Yeah, just like how spamming wands of cure has never actually been a problem at most tables.

The fact remains, if most people are not using a rule then why have the rule? Especially if it just makes games bad for those who do use it?

Agreed

It just occurred to me that by making it more difficult to stabilise from Boss damage that just starts a death spiral. Meaning that you are probably more likely to be knocked unconscious by a Boss and then it is more difficult to recover from being knocked unconscious. It just seems counter intuitive.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yeah, just like how spamming wands of cure has never actually been a problem at most tables.

In my observation, spamming wands is a problem in PF1, so I'm relieved that it's not going to be a problem in PF2. I guess their observations matched mine? I don't know how much data they're working from, but it's potentially quite a bit.

The fact remains, if most people are not using a rule then why have the rule? Especially if it just makes games bad for those who do use it?

The players are using the rule, by making decisions in such a way as to avoid hitting the limit. If they weren't using the rule - if they ignored the limit to how many times you could use a wand in a day - then everyone would just use their one wand and heal up to full after every fight; damage would be meaningless, and nobody would care about getting hurt at all.

In order for damage to matter at all, there needs to be a limitation on how easily you can heal, and this rule fixes the bug from PF1 where high-level parties could heal after every fight with only a trivial cost. If they didn't use this rule, then there would need to be some other rule which did the same thing, in order to prevent the gameplay from degenerating in such a manner.

 

[Shasarak]

In my observation, spamming wands is a problem in PF1, so I'm relieved that it's not going to be a problem in PF2. I guess their observations matched mine? I don't know how much data they're working from, but it's potentially quite a bit.

Equally anecdotally, my group has played a lot of 3e and Pathfinder without actually using Wands of Healing at all. So i guess my observations run counter to theirs.

The players are using the rule, by making decisions in such a way as to avoid hitting the limit. If they weren't using the rule - if they ignored the limit to how many times you could use a wand in a day - then everyone would just use their one wand and heal up to full after every fight; damage would be meaningless, and nobody would care about getting hurt at all.

In order for damage to matter at all, there needs to be a limitation on how easily you can heal, and this rule fixes the bug from PF1 where high-level parties could heal after every fight with only a trivial cost. If they didn't use this rule, then there would need to be some other rule which did the same thing, in order to prevent the gameplay from degenerating in such a manner.

That is only if you accept that "healing to full" is a bug rather then a feature. In my experience most fights deal out plenty of damage so if I was unable to heal between fights then I would be less willing to push on. Especially with the new stabilisation rules, going into a Boss fight already half dead seems irresponsible.

Without having seen the monster stats, I would imagine that a Dragon still has a breath weapon that most likely does gobs of damage and probably has a great attack bonus which (because of the crit on a +10 rule) could be doing crit damage more often then not especially to the low AC party members. No, sorry you have not convinced me that this solution is not much much worse then the supposed problem that it was meant to fix.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That is only if you accept that "healing to full" is a bug rather then a feature. In my experience most fights deal out plenty of damage so if I was unable to heal between fights then I would be less willing to push on. Especially with the new stabilisation rules, going into a Boss fight already half dead seems irresponsible.

Can you at least see how infinite free healing between fights runs counter to the attrition model, as presented by daily limits on spells? Some games, like early D&D, are designed around an attrition model where you slowly run out of resources (HP and spells) over the course of the day. Other games, like 4E, are designed around the encounter model where you're more-or-less at full strength going into each new encounter.

If HP worked on the encounter model, then it would be counterproductive for spells to work on the attrition model.

 

[Blue]

Except Blue that it does not actually prevent "abuses" (if infact we agree that healing yourself is some type of "abuse") it just shifts the abuse to the 5MWD. I should not have shot so many firebolts from my sword because now I can not heal, time to go home and rest up I guess.

Cool story bro, now try actually reading what they posted.

You're not running out from healing, as you already commented on that they aren't running out at all in normal play. What they did run out was a high level party trying to abuse cheap wands of cure light wounds to heal all the way up.

For someone who's so quick to throw around that most people are already agreeing Resonance is the worst rule ever, let's get to something that people actually do agree on - that spamming through cheap wands of cure light wounds after every combat is cheesy.

In other words, yes, it's abuse. Thanks for playing.

 

[Charlaquin]

That is only if you accept that "healing to full" is a bug rather then a feature. In my experience most fights deal out plenty of damage so if I was unable to heal between fights then I would be less willing to push on. Especially with the new stabilisation rules, going into a Boss fight already half dead seems irresponsible.

Yes, healing to full before every fight is a feature. But god forbid you be able to do it overnight without the use of magic, amiright?

 

[Shasarak]

Cool story bro, now try actually reading what they posted.

You're not running out from healing, as you already commented on that they aren't running out at all in normal play. What they did run out was a high level party trying to abuse cheap wands of cure light wounds to heal all the way up.

For someone who's so quick to throw around that most people are already agreeing Resonance is the worst rule ever, let's get to something that people actually do agree on - that spamming through cheap wands of cure light wounds after every combat is cheesy.

In other words, yes, it's abuse. Thanks for playing.

If you think that wand healing is cheesy then I just have to assume you have a very limited experience with cheese.