default header

Ultimate Edition

UE Healing Dying Characters (PF1)

Moderator: JC Denton

UE Healing Dying Characters (PF1)

Unread postby icycalm » 19 Sep 2021 19:18

Image

I have a problem with this rule from the PF1 Core Rulebook:

Paizo wrote:Healing that raises the dying character's hit points to 0 makes him conscious and disabled. Healing that raises his hit points to 1 or more makes him fully functional again, just as if he'd never been reduced to 0 or lower.


That is a VERY softcore rule. In 2E, a 30-year-old game, getting healed from negative to positive still left you incapacitated, until you had some sleep iirc.

Pathfinder can be strange. 99% of its stuff is super-complex and at the cutting edge of complexity, but now and again you find a softcore rule that was too soft even for games back in the '80s. It's as if the designers said, enough, let's cut the players some slack for once. But precisely because of the extreme complexity they put into everything, these occasional softcore rules stand out all the more glaringly. This kind of rule would hardly have raised an eyebrow in 2E—at least as the game was at launch—but in PF it immediately attracts my attention and feels completely out of place, like some house rule of a bunch of casuals.

Problem is, without this rule the Curse group might have got wiped earlier today. dinopoke's paladin was reduced to -1 or -2 iirc, and then was healed to +2 and went on killing people as if nothing had happened. He killed the half-orc, and that was the tankiest opponent. Who knows what would have happened with the 2E version of the rule; it could have easily led to TPK. So I don't know.

You see, any kind of relaxed reviving mechanic tends to disproportionately benefit players, because the opponents—who are overwhelmingly the villains in campaigns—are far less likely to bother reviving each other, especially if they are monsters, which at least half the time they are. And the other half they are cutthroats.

I am conflicted about what to do about this. I just wanted to make the thread to register my displeasure while I keep thinking about it. Most likely I will stick with the softcore rule for the foreseeable future, until the groups have become proficient in the system. And then we'll likely revert to 2E rules on this just as we did for firing into melee: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=7348
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Re: Healing dying characters

Unread postby icycalm » 19 Sep 2021 19:28

It MIGHT have something to do with the generally smaller PF parties. In a 4P PF party, getting revived is harder than in a 6P 2E party, let alone an 8P 1E party... There just tend to be more people around in the older systems. Of course there are more enemies around too, so you'd think it would cancel the effect out... but I don't know.

I just don't want to suddenly change this rule now and get every party wiped, so I'll keep thinking about it while learning the system better and observing how it's balanced.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands


Return to Ultimate Edition

cron