Pathfinder 2E Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

[Justice and Rule]

So question: as someone who doesn't really do adventure paths, I was curious about this. I seem to remember in one of the other threads, @kenada pointed out the mitigation factors in certain encounters. I wonder: are some of these encounters meant to have real mitigation of some sort (whether through diplomacy, allies, etc) and that's why there's such a glut of extreme challenges later in APs? The idea is that you're supposed to have some sort of extra piece or other route that isn't picked up by the CR, but also maybe the AP is not making as evident as it needs to be for the players to properly use it?

 

[kenada]

And I'm just trying to postulate the math itself is robust, except miscalibrated for the low levels.

Yeah, but when someone necros this thread in fifteen years to point out the math is broken because of some wacky combination or supplement, my post will have aged well.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

I’m not sure how much it’s GM variance or style variance, but I think there is some truth to this. The groups that seem to have the most trouble are the ones running things the most “by the book”.

Is it a fair assumption that your group isn’t just kicking in the door and fighting what’s on the other side? That is, you’re engaging in exploration mode holistically, and the encounters that happen are influenced by and follow from those activities?

I talked to our GM about this and had a bit of a think. From the GM point of view, he has been running encounters as-is mostly, but has upped the difficulty level occasionally and added extra elements. For example (mild EC spoiler), while running a series of rolling combats in a tower, there was apparently a flavor effect of environmental conditions. Our GM made that into a hazard that penalized us taking 10 minute rests. I think from what he told me that was not the case in the module (or maybe it had a different reason for limiting rests and he just added the hazard ?) in AoA, especially toward the end, he felt that many of the under-level fights were boring and consumed zero resources, so replaced them with higher-difficulty combats.

Our group does tend to be pretty interested in non-combat activity, so we do probably more research and look for non-combat solutions when possible, but my understanding is that we have only avoided combat or made combat easier when the module explicitly allows that.

For the last few sessions of EC, though, it’s been pretty much kick in the door and attack (or, more accurately, roll low for stealth and then immediately roll initiative ...).

 

[kenada]

That, of course, is never a good look for a game...

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, D&D-likes generally expect the GM to react and adapt to what the PCs are doing. Even if GMs aren’t running dynamic complexes or anything “fancy”, they probably shouldn’t be passively engaging with the adventure. I think there’s an expectation that you are just as much an active participant in the adventure (beyond setting up the encounters and running the bad guys) as the PCs. On the other, PF2 tries to have it both ways. It wants to say: this is how PF2 goes, but it’s always couched in qualifiers.

Look at the first rule of PF2 and their discussion of published adventures. They say you can change things, which I take to mean that “by the book” isn’t intended, but it’s couched in qualifiers (“if your group agrees”) or as a way to tie things to the players’ characters. However, I’ll concede that it can also be read to mean that doing so is optional, and that can be a trap depending on how the group actually plays (e.g., a newbie group that happens to pick up tactics quickly probably won’t notice issues versus one that gets killed repeatedly).

I’m also reminded of the exploration mode rules, which want to structure things but are really non-committal about it. It’s not like the exploration procedure in e.g., OSE, which is very specific about what you do when. It’s like they want to take the system in a certain direction, but they don’t want the system to say anything about how it should be run. Consequently, experiences are varying pretty widely based on the group. That’s definitely not good. Even if I think PF2 is better suited towards old-school style play, it’s sure as hell not going to get any traction in that community, and that’s not how Paizo designs their adventures.

Coming back to your statement, I more or less agree. It’s a problem that PF2 doesn’t seem to understand its audience and say what the game is about. It’s okay if it’s not for “by the book” groups, but that should be clear. No one would mistake a game like OSE as that kind of game, but one can mistake PF2 for various kinds of games. That’s a definite mistake, and the system suffers for it.

 

[kenada]

So question: as someone who doesn't really do adventure paths, I was curious about this. I seem to remember in one of the other threads, @kenada pointed out the mitigation factors in certain encounters. I wonder: are some of these encounters meant to have real mitigation of some sort (whether through diplomacy, allies, etc) and that's why there's such a glut of extreme challenges later in APs? The idea is that you're supposed to have some sort of extra piece or other route that isn't picked up by the CR, but also maybe the AP is not making as evident as it needs to be for the players to properly use it?

I think it was @!DWolf who dug into the adventures some about that. From what I recall and understand, Age of Ashes provides ways to get help (allies, etc) for some of the tougher encounters in the first book. I don’t know about later ones. I’m running “Winter’s Daughter” today, which is the first adventure I’ve run in quite a while, and it’s an OSE one I converted to PF2 (which should be hilarious because I preserved its non-effort towards balance).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm sure Mr Shey shares the rather more default view of D&D as the premiere tabletop game of loot.

Well, as I said, its hard to read the traditional treasure tables in the main line of D&D much differently.

If anything, I'd argue that the fact it was possible to play it without all the magical gewgaws just meant that in cases where the stuff was showing up the way the treasure tables implied, you were probably needing to turn up the volume as it were on the other side. But then, to use game balance in reference to older versions of D&D is largely a joke, so...

 

[kenada]

I talked to our GM about this and had a bit of a think. From the GM point of view, he has been running encounters as-is mostly, but has upped the difficulty level occasionally and added extra elements. For example (mild EC spoiler), while running a series of rolling combats in a tower, there was apparently a flavor effect of environmental conditions. Our GM made that into a hazard that penalized us taking 10 minute rests. I think from what he told me that was not the case in the module (or maybe it had a different reason for limiting rests and he just added the hazard ?) in AoA, especially toward the end, he felt that many of the under-level fights were boring and consumed zero resources, so replaced them with higher-difficulty combats.

Our group does tend to be pretty interested in non-combat activity, so we do probably more research and look for non-combat solutions when possible, but my understanding is that we have only avoided combat or made combat easier when the module explicitly allows that.

For the last few sessions of EC, though, it’s been pretty much kick in the door and attack (or, more accurately, roll low for stealth and then immediately roll initiative ...).

Thanks for talking to your GM and getting more information on how he’s been running it. It had seemed that there was a trend of groups sticking closely to the modules having problems, but that seems more or less what yours is doing, and the GM is actually upping the difficultly occasionally. I’m at a loss to explain the difference.

If Paizo had done its job correctly during the playtest, this is the type of feedback they should have solicited. You’ve got groups doing the same content and having wildly different experiences. Instead, they focused on that idiotic benchmark module because they wanted to stress test the game mechanics instead. They should have taken more a cue from 5e’s playtest methodology and focused on how things felt versus how the numbers worked out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To me PF2 adventure paths come across as incredibly consistent, as if their writers have had a clear vision/mandate of what they wanted to accomplish. I have zero indication the writers aren't accurately following the written guidelines in the CRB.

You asked me where I'm drawing this from. I explained. The fact that the problems I've heard expressed about the first two (and that I can see somewhat in AoA since I'm playing in it) have not been expressed in any consistent way about the later ones reinforces my postulate to me. If that doesn't fit your feeling, well, that's as it is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So question: as someone who doesn't really do adventure paths, I was curious about this. I seem to remember in one of the other threads, @kenada pointed out the mitigation factors in certain encounters. I wonder: are some of these encounters meant to have real mitigation of some sort (whether through diplomacy, allies, etc) and that's why there's such a glut of extreme challenges later in APs? The idea is that you're supposed to have some sort of extra piece or other route that isn't picked up by the CR, but also maybe the AP is not making as evident as it needs to be for the players to properly use it?

Well, as I commented, there's one encounter that looks to me like it'd have been pretty rough hitting it blind that we handled pretty well when we handled warning from exploration activities. Take of that what you will.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Look at the first rule of PF2 and their discussion of published adventures. They say you can change things, which I take to mean that “by the book” isn’t intended, but it’s couched in qualifiers (“if your group agrees”) or as a way to tie things to the players’ characters. However, I’ll concede that it can also be read to mean that doing so is optional, and that can be a trap depending on how the group actually plays (e.g., a newbie group that happens to pick up tactics quickly probably won’t notice issues versus one that gets killed repeatedly).

It also seems to be possibly addressing some artifacts that can occur because of character design choice where the individual designs are mostly reasonable but end up making the group kind of sub-par when viewed as a whole; I can see things coming up where people got it into their heads to do a ranger, a druid, a primal sorcerer, a wild theme witch, and a churigeon alchemist being a little less able to deal with certain problems than most groups might be between being so combat-light and having nothing but primal magic. The GM had better be ready to do some adjustments for that group.

I’m also reminded of the exploration mode rules, which want to structure things but are really non-committal about it. It’s not like the exploration procedure in e.g., OSE, which is very specific about what you do when. It’s like they want to take the system in a certain direction, but they don’t want the system to say anything about how it should be run. Consequently, experiences are varying pretty widely based on the group. That’s definitely not good. Even if I think PF2 is better suited towards old-school style play, it’s sure as hell not going to get any traction in that community, and that’s not how Paizo designs their adventures.

Yeah, people like me who have some old-style sensibilities in some areas but really want a game with solid mechanical support and options are probably not a huge group.