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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8236185" data-attributes="member: 70468"><p>I think it’s more subtle than that. It’s like those old-school traps that kill PCs on a failed saving throw. “Rocks fall, you die” isn’t particularly fun if you have absolutely no way of knowing the rocks are coming. That’s why it’s important to <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps" target="_blank">make traps interesting</a>. For encounters, that’s why the <a href="https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Encounters#Encounter_Sequence" target="_blank">encounter procedure</a> is so important. If the PCs have a way of deescalating or negotiating, and if everything is not automatically hostile, then killer encounters become less so.</p><p></p><p>Someone here discussed running surprise in PF2. I think maybe it was [USER=6791902]@JmanTheDM[/USER] (but correct me if I’m wrong). The approach was to handle it similarly to the old-school encounter procedure. When you get to the encounter, don’t immediately start the fight. For surprise, you have the PCs continue sneaking around (using the appropriate actions) until everyone is in position. The same can go for negotiations (e.g., using the <a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201" target="_blank">influence subsystem</a>) and evasion (using the <a href="https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1210" target="_blank">chase subsystem</a>).</p><p></p><p>I also think morale is important to help prevent every fight from being a fight to the death. If you can target an obvious leader, you can focus on breaking the opposition’s morale instead of just slugging it out with everyone. PF2 doesn’t have any good subsystems to suggest. My preference is just the B/X method of 2d6 versus a morale score because it’s easy, and I don’t have to look anything up. We’ve discussed it here before, and others have suggested ways to do it using Will saving throws, but I can’t recall them offhand.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenada, post: 8236185, member: 70468"] I think it’s more subtle than that. It’s like those old-school traps that kill PCs on a failed saving throw. “Rocks fall, you die” isn’t particularly fun if you have absolutely no way of knowing the rocks are coming. That’s why it’s important to [URL='https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/45020/roleplaying-games/rulings-in-practice-traps']make traps interesting[/URL]. For encounters, that’s why the [URL='https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Encounters#Encounter_Sequence']encounter procedure[/URL] is so important. If the PCs have a way of deescalating or negotiating, and if everything is not automatically hostile, then killer encounters become less so. Someone here discussed running surprise in PF2. I think maybe it was [USER=6791902]@JmanTheDM[/USER] (but correct me if I’m wrong). The approach was to handle it similarly to the old-school encounter procedure. When you get to the encounter, don’t immediately start the fight. For surprise, you have the PCs continue sneaking around (using the appropriate actions) until everyone is in position. The same can go for negotiations (e.g., using the [URL='https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1201']influence subsystem[/URL]) and evasion (using the [URL='https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1210']chase subsystem[/URL]). I also think morale is important to help prevent every fight from being a fight to the death. If you can target an obvious leader, you can focus on breaking the opposition’s morale instead of just slugging it out with everyone. PF2 doesn’t have any good subsystems to suggest. My preference is just the B/X method of 2d6 versus a morale score because it’s easy, and I don’t have to look anything up. We’ve discussed it here before, and others have suggested ways to do it using Will saving throws, but I can’t recall them offhand. [/QUOTE]
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