Pathfinder 2E Taking20 -"I'm Quitting Pathfinder 2e Because of This Issue"

[The-Magic-Sword]

So you guys are telling me that you regularly use encounter distances of 100+ feet in dungeons, through winding corridors, closed doors, limited illumination, etc?
If nothing else, your limit is 60 ft with darkvision while in a large, unlit room.
I'm aware encounters can be overland, outside on a clear day with miles of visibility. I'm aware that dungeons can have massive rooms of 300+ feet with their own illumination. But if we're honest, none of those examples are assumed to be the norm by the encounter design of published adventures by WotC, Paizo, or even TSR back in the day.
If you're running a game like that, you are definitely going against the design philosophy of the system. Standard encounters are probably on a maximum 50 x 50 ft area. They are probably in a dungeon or other closed adventure site.
Having run the first two books of Age of Ashes (like Cody did), I can say that they use fairly small encounter areas (except for an encampment in the second book, which isn't intended so much as a single encounter area but several zones).

Here's a sample of some maps I used in the last leg of my recent campaign, over the course of 2 levels, and from summer to the end of the campaign in November (I forget the date of our last level skip.)

67 Squares means it has a length of 335 feet, they fought a bunch of Gashadokuro and a Graveknight here at the gates of the familial castle of one character.

52 Squares means it has a length of 260 feet, they fought 3 adult dragons, followed by an ancient shadow dragon here.

48 squares means it has a length of 240 feet, this was the map for my final boss, a powerful Ravener, and her Graveknight minions.

40 squares means it has a width of 200 feet, and 30 squares means it has a length of 120 feet, this is where they encountered the Black Dragons they cut a deal with, but it was prepped for if things go south.

That isn't even all my examples, since my home-made maps aren't available to me at my desk at work, whereas the ones I saved from reddit to use are. I have smaller maps too that fit more into what you're thinking of, but the point is, its not exactly uncommon in my campaign to end up with these massive sight lines.

 

[Yardiff]

This is my potential 5th lv PF2e Ranger. We're using the GMG option for free archetypes.
Human Heritage: Half-Elf, Elf Atavism (cavern elf grants Dark Vision)
Stats at 5th lv 18, 18, 16, 10, 14, 10.
Hunters Edge: Flurry
1st lv:
Class Feat: Hunted Shot
Skill: Medicine
2nd lv:
Class Feat: Twin Takedown
Free Archetype: Archer Dedication
Skill Feat: Battle Medicine
3rd lv:
General Feat: Godless Healing
4th lv:
Skill Feat: Hefty Hauler
Free Archetype: Point Blank Shot (removes Valley penalty if no valley trait get +2 damage at 30' or less.
Class Feat: Gravity Weapon
5th lv:
Ancestry Feat: Nimble Elf

Composite Long Bow: Damage3-10
Composite Short Bow: Damage 3-8, at 30' or less damage increases to 5-10

A little more info, at 5th lv Rangers upgrade to expert in simple and martial weapons. Archer Archetype grants weapon specialization bows.
With that on critical hit the target can be pinned to a surface and need to take spend an action (DC 10 Athletics) to become unpinned.
Hatchet: damage 5-10
Light Hammer: damage 5-10

 

[tetrasodium]

Here's a sample of some maps I used in the last leg of my recent campaign, over the course of 2 levels, and from summer to the end of the campaign in November (I forget the date of our last level skip.)

67 Squares means it has a length of 335 feet, they fought a bunch of Gashadokuro and a Graveknight here at the gates of the familial castle of one character.

52 Squares means it has a length of 260 feet, they fought 3 adult dragons, followed by an ancient shadow dragon here.

48 squares means it has a length of 240 feet, this was the map for my final boss, a powerful Ravener, and her Graveknight minions.

40 squares means it has a width of 200 feet, and 30 squares means it has a length of 120 feet, this is where they encountered the Black Dragons they cut a deal with, but it was prepped for if things go south.

That isn't even all my examples, since my home-made maps aren't available to me at my desk at work, whereas the ones I saved from reddit to use are. I have smaller maps too that fit more into what you're thinking of, but the point is, its not exactly uncommon in my campaign to end up with these massive sight lines.

"conveniently" for 5e all it takes is one player to notice that sharpshooter allows 600ft longbow\320ft shorbow\320ft light xbow\400ft heavy xbow shooting without disadvantage and ignores half/three quarters cover to make sure nearly all of the ranged weapons can hit any point on those maps from anywhere not completely blocked. I guess it's our own fault for engaging in badwrongfun instead of strictly limiting our campaigns to consist only of the goodrightfun of "winding corridors, closed doors, limited illumination, etc" that @Retreater noted we should do.

Of course at that point it's only a matter of time before a second player says "I want to approach from the other side" & you are immediately confronted by your huge maps needing to be 2-3x larger.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I guess it's our own fault for engaging in badwrongfun instead of strictly limiting our campaigns to consist only of the goodrightfun of "winding corridors, closed doors, limited illumination, etc" that @Retreater noted we should do.

Hey now, I don't think @Retreater is all that off-base with a lot of people's experiences, because while I know I've used large spaces before, I also have played games that simply don't: in particular, some people really focus on the dungeon part of D&D, and that carries into the fantasy genre. Some people don't have the time make or simple the space to support large maps in their gaming areas, and some people just don't do long-distance engagements.

Like, I have, but I also understand that I also game with wargamers, thus I've bought a lot of miniatures (because if we're playing something, the first question is "Why aren't we using miniatures?") and I have access to large tables and a lot of terrain. And when I don't, I bought an incredibly large wet-erase map to draw out dungeons. So in my circumstances I have players who are more inclined to do things outside of dungeons compared to others who might not be interested in that stuff. More recently, I've started do some big maps in VTTs as well, largely because the canvas is huge and I have access to a lot of cool stuff in that regard (and why wouldn't I use what I got?).

So I think it's wrong to characterize @Retreater as trying to "one true way" anything here, but just describe what a lot of players see in their own games. And I think that's understandable.

 

[tetrasodium]

Hey now, I don't think @Retreater is all that off-base with a lot of people's experiences, because while I know I've used large spaces before, I also have played games that simply don't: in particular, some people really focus on the dungeon part of D&D, and that carries into the fantasy genre. Some people don't have the time make or simple the space to support large maps in their gaming areas, and some people just don't do long-distance engagements.

Like, I have, but I also understand that I also game with wargamers, thus I've bought a lot of miniatures (because if we're playing something, the first question is "Why aren't we using miniatures?") and I have access to large tables and a lot of terrain. And when I don't, I bought an incredibly large wet-erase map to draw out dungeons. So in my circumstances I have players who are more inclined to do things outside of dungeons compared to others who might not be interested in that stuff. More recently, I've started do some big maps in VTTs as well, largely because the canvas is huge and I have access to a lot of cool stuff in that regard (and why wouldn't I use what I got?).

So I think it's wrong to characterize @Retreater as trying to "one true way" anything here, but just describe what a lot of players see in their own games. And I think that's understandable.

more how wotc wrote the rules themselves than retreater, he just helpfully happened to point at the one true way 5e is written to ensure. Even without large open spaces you only need to do the unthinkable & move the action inside the buildings of a town/city or castle (even ones with big but believable rooms) & it goes back to the illusion of choice for something other then move away & shoot for a character like that ranger. Even wotc's own castles & such for 5e alone are conspicuously rather absent of winding corridors just as nearly every building build for human(oid)s to live & work in. Closed doors aren't an issue for the character waiting in the rear for someone like the fighter/rogue to open & backing through them doesn't require an action or provoke an AoO to open them just like many other things that once took to actions and provoked an AoO

With nearly every race in 5e having darkvision & lighting being easy enough to handle that limited illumination is of limited value I made it a point to play up the limited illumination at one point in 5e & it worked until the players realized that arrows are an object no larger than ten feet in any direction suitable for giving the light cantrip a 150/600 foot reach if they didn't want to just spend a few coins & put continual flame on everyone's weapon/decorative bracelet/etc... Playing up poor lighting in 5e doesn't work like in past editions because light is almost irrelivnt to everyone with the ubiquity of darkvision60' & there are so many ways to trivially nullify it that doing so might as well be describing an obvious trap to players & expecting them to not react accordingly even if it's just dark.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I agree with Justice, I don't think Retreater was doing anything particularly wrong, I was just sharing the way my experience differs from their expectations.

 

[Retreater]

I guess it's our own fault for engaging in badwrongfun instead of strictly limiting our campaigns to consist only of the goodrightfun of "winding corridors, closed doors, limited illumination, etc" that @Retreater noted we should do.

I'm not saying anything about badwrongfun. I'm saying if you look at practically any published RPG content from the past four decades, it's mostly dungeon focused adventures. That's simply the default assumption of the designers and writers for combat encounters. Breaking out of that assumption is great, but it's not the default example of how the game is played - which is what Cody was demonstrating in his examples.
Don't believe me? Look at D&D adventures. How many large open areas are in Curse of Strahd, for example? Even the ones I can think of have descriptions of thick fog, elevation changes, etc, that will greatly limit how far characters can see. Or look at every AP produced for PF2.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not saying anything about badwrongfun. I'm saying if you look at practically any published RPG content from the past four decades, it's mostly dungeon focused adventures. That's simply the default assumption of the designers and writers for combat encounters. Breaking out of that assumption is great, but it's not the default example of how the game is played - which is what Cody was demonstrating in his examples.
Don't believe me? Look at D&D adventures. How many large open areas are in Curse of Strahd, for example? Even the ones I can think of have descriptions of thick fog, elevation changes, etc, that will greatly limit how far characters can see. Or look at every AP produced for PF2.

The videos talk about the system forcing one choice and giving the "illusion of choice" & I already said that it wasn' you saying badwrongfun so much as pointing to the boundaries of goodrightfun the system defines to put everything else in the badwrongfun bucket that the system pretends you are just as free to do as the narrow scope of goodrightfun even though that badwrongfun is heavily discouraged with layers of rules/powers deigned to thwart it or a complete void of realistically viable components needed to do that... sure you can do it some other way, buuut.... the videos go into it nicely. Take those winding corridors you mentioned, not only are they out of place in nearly any manmade structure but they also tend to be lacking in places like castles even if you limit your scope to just 5e stuff. Even if you say for the sake of argument that winding corridors or some analog are common it makes the decision to present 150/600 ft longbows with a feat that makes them 600ftlongbows that ignore half & three quarters cover all the more mindboggling simply because the assumption at that point is that such a situation should almost never happen but now the monsters involved are sure to be thwarted by the system itself if someone does take that illusory path without contrivances like lots of total cover or excessive use of things like the darkness spell that only truesight & devils sight can see in.

 

[Henry]

I watched the video, and agree with some of his points, but for me the illusion of choice wasn't with the combat or encounters -- those seemed to work relatively fine - but for me the illusion was with the feats and magic items. I honestly did not feel any stake between one feat and another -- they all felt pretty uninspiring, much like feats from 4E D&D, where you gain a +1 to something if under full moonlight on a Tuesday. (I'm exaggerating, yes, but the conditionals did not feel like they offered a whole lot to me.). Same thing with the Magic items - until you got to levels 7 to 10 or higher, the magic items, from consumables on down, did not feel very important.

I did play PF2 all the way through the playtesting and on into the initial release for about 4 or 5 sessions, but eventually we let it go because there just wasn't a lot of desire to keep it going -- we were pretty deep into D&D 5e at the time, and it offered the D&D feel without the extra math. I don't think the system is bad, but it was missing a lot of the feel and flavor of PF1 for me. I may eventually give it a try again as my "Crunch >>> Flavor >>> Crunch" cycle circles back to Crunch again eventually.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I watched the video, and agree with some of his points, but for me the illusion of choice wasn't with the combat or encounters -- those seemed to work relatively fine - but for me the illusion was with the feats and magic items. I honestly did not feel any stake between one feat and another -- they all felt pretty uninspiring, much like feats from 4E D&D, where you gain a +1 to something if under full moonlight on a Tuesday. (I'm exaggerating, yes, but the conditionals did not feel like they offered a whole lot to me.). Same thing with the Magic items - until you got to levels 7 to 10 or higher, the magic items, from consumables on down, did not feel very important.

I did play PF2 all the way through the playtesting and on into the initial release for about 4 or 5 sessions, but eventually we let it go because there just wasn't a lot of desire to keep it going -- we were pretty deep into D&D 5e at the time, and it offered the D&D feel without the extra math. I don't think the system is bad, but it was missing a lot of the feel and flavor of PF1 for me. I may eventually give it a try again as my "Crunch >>> Flavor >>> Crunch" cycle circles back to Crunch again eventually.

I feel like after you get tired of 5E, you'll probably have a better time coming back to this, especially since I think the new system is closer to 5E than 3.X in overall design. When I was looking at this system, I was in the process of basically homebrewing all the stuff that I found in this system, from doing a magically Ranger, a maneuver focused Fighter, to doing weapons with more distinct traits.