@Campbell is their a good way to find a pathfinder society group in my area? I did a quick google search and didn't get any good info. My PF google-fu must be bad.
I actually looked there and couldn't find anything in my area. I will keep checking.Generally you are going to want to find the website for your local chapter. Here is the website for the Ohio Pathfinder Society.
I just wanted to mention that the 4e 5 min short rest is not always guaranteed. Just some time ago the group in my 4e game was assaulting an enemy keep. They had to fight 3 full encounters without a short rest in between since their rests were interrupted by enemies coming down from upper levels. It’s definitely true that most of the time you’re going to get a 5 min breather after an encounter, but it’s not always true.I don't mind short rest abilities. Abilities that charge per discrete encounter are not short rest abilities in my opinion. They are recharged per encounter, not via a short rest which is easy to play with as a DM. You seem to implying that encounter powers recharged per short rest, which they did not in my experience. You literally had access to them every discrete encounter after waiting what...5 minutes to go to the next room if that? That's an encounter power, not a short rest power. And as you just stated, once you blow it off it is done for the encounter regardless of how long the encounter takes which can also negatively impact story-telling. If I'm in a story and the PC in question uses his big attack against a group of kobolds and he wins, then looks fine. IF he is in battle with a group of giants in a big old fight and he blows off his encounter power, but can't do it again even though it is still needed to achieve victory then the story reader starts to go, "Why doesn't he just do that power again? Why can he only do it once whether the battle is 12 seconds against a kobold group or 30 minutes against a group of giants?" Different animal in my experience.
I can already tell we're never going to agree on encounter powers or at will powers. So I'll make it my last post on the subject and accept the differing viewpoints.
It was the fact they recharged per encounter.
In other editions of D&D, you don't know if you're going to need that fireball on a watch at night when the BBEG sends his minions or a big encounter might happen.
That's why mechanics that don't recharge by encounter are important to give the DM the ability to breed fear in the PCs,
I just wanted to mention that the 4e 5 min short rest is not always guaranteed. Just some time ago the group in my 4e game was assaulting an enemy keep. They had to fight 3 full encounters without a short rest in between since their rests were interrupted by enemies coming down from upper levels. It’s definitely true that most of the time you’re going to get a 5 min breather after an encounter, but it’s not always true.
They didn't. They recharged with a short rest. They were called encounter powers and normally the players had them every encounter - but the actual recharge mechanic was the short rest. Of course it could have been presented better rather than being a sentence a paragraph and a half in to the short rest rules, but if you interrupted PCs half way through a short rest they would not have their encounter powers back.
4e worked the way 5e works here - and lead to the same protection but not hoarding of short-rest based resources when this was very occasionally enforced. It was just one of the all too many things that should have been presented better in the 4e PHB (don't get me started on skill challenges; they are a great improv tool, but the presentation looks like someone trying to present how to do improv simply took down the results).
They turned things that should not have been encounter powers into encounter powers in 4E.
That was another aspect of encounter powers I did not like and made no sense. If something is a fighting maneuver, it needs to be a fighting maneuver you can use endlessly as long the fighter is standing.
I know you don't agree with me, as we have had this discussion before, but to me this perspective makes no sense. It is extremely gamey, and just breaks my immersion. Only in a video game can a fighter do the same "maneuver" over and over without fail. It is just not realistic.If something is a fighting maneuver, it needs to be a fighting maneuver you can use endlessly as long the fighter is standing.
Well, some of us are capable of both agreeing 4E doesn't play like 4E and seeing clear similarities in how several core subsystems are built.I think some people want to shoehorn PF2 into the idea of being like 4E. As someone that played both, it doesn't feel anything like 4E. It's far more flexible and powers feel more like maneuvers and appropriate parts of class abilities.
Funny that.I know you don't agree with me, as we have had this discussion before, but to me this perspective makes no sense. It is extremely gamey, and just breaks my immersion. Only in a video game can a fighter do the same "maneuver" over and over without fail. It is just not realistic
To clarify I was not trying to suggest D&D of any version got it right. However, I can use a house rule in conjunction with the default encounter or short rest mechanic (of 4e & 5e) that feels just right to me and is easier than having to add that mechanic to a game that doesn't have it built in.Funny that.
All he means is how unrealistic it feels when you can't make a particular swipe or feint more than, say, 3 times during the day.
In other words, you're talking about different things. Both implementations can feel extremely gamey, even to one and the same player.
PS. The solution, of course, is to play a game where you need to make an opposed skill check of some sort to pull off a certain maneuver. That way, you might end up successfully pulling it off zero times one day, and ten times the next. (The former much more likely against a veteran adversary; the latter much more likely against greenhorn rookies)
PPS. And of course, the real takeaway here is that "3 uses/day" is an abstraction that cuts down on all them die rolls. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't mean you can pull it off only three times a day. It doesn't even mean a foe is supposed to fall for the same trick three combat rounds in a row. What it means is your character has the narrative power to say "I'm successful" three times a day, so use it when you really need it.
PPPS. The really real takeaway here is that you're both wrong![]()
That’s not true. If you design a series of separate fights, then yes, that should be considered a single encounter so that you can gauge the difficulty properly. But if the players decide to push on without resting, or something prevents it, those are separate encounters. There’s a sidebar discussing this in the DM’s Book.In 4e, RAW, if you interrupt the short rest with another encounter, then it isn't a second encounter - it's an extension of the first encounter. Your XP budget should be deducted from whatever you spent to create the first encounter. Otherwise, you're breaking the resource economy of the game, and likely going to have a boring time with characters forced to rely on At-Will powers to slog through a fight. And 4e doesn't like it when you mess with its design principles.
Ohh, I’ve never seen that happen in 4e or 5e, what edition are you talking about? Or are you taking about PF1 or PF2? I think I would like to try that.Eh, my personal experience with that is replace awesome with "broken or invincible to standard enemies".
Like I admit, I like mooks actually being good at their intended role in 2eIts kinda hard to feel awesome when you wash the floor with all enemies in every room.
4e doesn't like it when you mess with its design principles.
This is actually not my experience with 4E. I've run. lot of various versions of D&D, and I think I'd argue that 4E is the easiest to mess with. I think the reason is that the design is consistent and well-defined. That means that when you mess with it, you have a good idea what will happen.
I have not experienced this - not in any degree more than I did with PF1. But since I have seen a little of it with PF1, I can certainly see how that could persist and the players who were like that with PF1 being at least as likely, if not more likely, to behave the same way in PF2.In 5e they've at least given the outward words that everyone is welcome no matter what system or idea they enjoyed.
Paizo actually has said similar things with PF2e and tried to welcome all players, old and new, but my experience with some of the fans of PF2e seems to do the opposite.
There are some that are welcoming (and I thank all those who are welcoming others to the game), but there are several that are very unwelcoming when I venture into the PF2e wilderness of players. Probably half the reason I'm still on the fence on whether I'm going to give it another shot or not.