For more information see: Damage Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/RatgKc3s7ZU/v-deo.html Damage Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/maZBOi4VuU4/v-deo.html Death Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/h-PK0RQy8Fs/v-deo.html Death Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/HK2aRJhVZV0/v-deo.html Does the Heal Spell Heal Enemies Too?: ua-cam.com/video/5161qIyuMnM/v-deo.html Massive Damage Rules: ua-cam.com/video/vWFa1m1aApQ/v-deo.html
Excellent topic. When Gygax and friends converted Chainmail TT wargame into D&D. Gygax discussed HP as encompassing heath, stamina, skill, luck, etc that contributes to the cut, block, thrust, parry, riposte, etc of combat. PF2e's stamina rule can represent more than exhaustion level. It can represent self confidence and luck as well.
Excellent video as always man! Slight correction with resolve points, however! The ability for players to use their resolve points to stabilize is, itself, an optional rule. You can run the stamina rule system with resolve points only being to heal and hero points being able to still stabilize.
I like the variant, and my players are much happier with this way of handling damage. If only because they typically run without a healer, and that meant in the past that Medicine (and it's feats, skill bonuses, ect) become multiple PC 'Must-Haves'. Plus, now we can have other classes (like Bards, Int. Fighters, etc..) help with the healing (if stamina only). Lastly, I let the PC's choose to apply Con boost to one or the other. We also boost Rally similar to Nonat1s suggestion; DC raised with level, Success gets all Stamina back, and a Crit result negates the RP cost.
Primarily I see the Stamina rules as overly favoring Con as a "critical" attribute. It does add role play. But over all it's greatest strength requires some slight re-thinking of some classes. Classic "healer" classes heal HP, however, Rallying type rules should be applied to certain classes like paladin and various fighter archetypes. Even more Priest should also gain a rally ability (raising your spirits as it were), and Alchemists should be "stamina healers". This makes the much odd-ball Alchemist a more interesting add with droughts to boost or recover stamina quickly. Rally can give temporary stamina "boosts" that allow characters to "rise above" the situation but they disappear like 'bonus hitpoints" normal rules, which means you can "fall" to zero (exhausted) state after being rallied for one last go. From a narrative perspective this is good, if adding slightly to complexity. PF2 and SF are not the only ones to do this with many games having dual-pool design, like the differentiation between subduel and mortal damage in older Shadowrun editions (Have not looked at newer editions so I dont know if that is still there). Old Palladium system had SDC and HP, with SDC being like stamina, easily recovered and representing scrapes and bruises of heroic characters as well as their "endurance to adversity", while HP was serious injury. This was expanded in various rules sets from Palladium such as the Ninjas and Super-spys and Modern Combat Rules (which made combat extremely deadly and complex, getting shot was extremely serious injury with all kinds of penalties, like really getting shot, was crazy).
When I start running a PF2e game I am probably going to use this as I love it in Starfinder. I think it is the best answer for how to handle short rests in a dungeon/exploration game as it encourages people to push forward with out that constant bickering about needing to rest due to HP concerns.
Each world in my games runs on different rules, and the Shadowfell uses this particular one. It's loosely inspired by RWBY, as the plane is so antithetical to life that your very soul must shield your flesh, and the few times people have visited the plane, they've enjoyed this change in pace. Also, this is basically the default for Starfinder. If you like using this rule, you may want to give it a try!
For minor fall damage, an easy way to justify damage going to stamina is that you use your energy to land better, such as rolling into it or potentially using magic to lessen the impact. You might still split the damage, especially for moderate fall damage, by saying 'you land as well as possible, but can't avoid still being scratched up.' An entirely separate note, allowing stamina to be regained via normal healing methods is a really nice way to not screw over your healing characters, or alternatively giving healing characters alternative abilities to regenerate stamina. Personally, I find just narrating normal hp as to encompass stamina, luck, skill, and every other aspect that would help you avoid being hurt to be as good a solution unless you have specific reasons to prefer using the RAW(with potential alterations) stamina system.
Healing between Battles shouldn't be hard though. Regaining Focus Points for Lay on Hands and using Treat Wounds costs a lot of time however, so if you want to limit that, limit the Party's available time. Have some kind of urgency factor that makes it feel like it's a risk to sit down for like an hour to patch everyone up with Treat Wounds.
So it's armor from divinity original sin 2, but you're limited on how many times you can recover it and it scales with your level rather than the items you have equipped
I agree that there should be a distinction between damage that represents fatigue and that which represents wounds, but I think it should be simpler, so we don’t need to reference or memorize a chart. If this were in a CRPG or a VTT was handling the referencing and math, then the system as published is fine. Maybe your ancestral HP and CON mod HP represent actual physical injury, or ‘wounds’ and the HP you gain from class levels represents your capacity for physical exertion, or ‘stamina’.
Hey Dave! I'm glad that you made this video, because I really want to use Stamina in my games, but I'm really scared of the restricted in combat healing will result in my players TPK. How it's been for your? Do you have any advice for that? An non related question. Do you think the Hallowed Necromancer archetype has a typo in it's requirements? Expert as level 2 seems a bit weird, or do you think this is intentional? How would you rule it in your table?
I think the Rally action is used by some character at least once in every episode of The Rings of Power: The problem being that no one to whom they're proselytizing, except the viewers, has usually lost any Stamina, and they roll Critical Failure every single time.
True, but how often does the party only have 1 minute between encounters? I think it's a rare situation where they wouldn't have 10 minutes, and if a player wants to role-play giving a rousing speech as they steel themselves for the coming battle, I'm more than happy to let a player get their Stamina back.
Would you be able to make a video on Proficiency Without Level? I'm thinking about running an open world style campaign and being able to design a lot of adventure without worrying when the party encounters it is appealing.
PF2E stamina rules are underwhelming. The Strain and Injury system described on the Paizo forums (PF1E) did a much better job of this. The Wound and Vigor system, although more cumbersome to implement, was also better.
The same as normal. Take it off temporary HP first, then Stamina Points, and then Hit Points. If the blow that reduces the target to zero HP is nonlethal, then they fall unconscious but not dying.
What's the goal of this system? From my perspective it bogs down the game with additional superfluous mechanics and makes recovery harder. And if you give anyone the ability to target HP before stamina, then you're just reducing player survivability by a wide margin. And on the note of flavor, are we really going to say that magical powers channeling the RAW ESSENCE OF LIFE into you are capable of repairing muscle and organ tissue instantly as well as refilling lost blood, but can't relieve stressed lungs or muscle strains?
As an alternative, I've used reserve HP in the past. Each player has an extra health reserve equal to their total HP (can be adjusted as you see fit). Players can transfer points from the health reserve to their HP when they are given an opportunity to pause and catch their breathe (again the details can be determined by you. The resolve point and take a breather actions would work fine with this). Health reserve is refilled when players are able to rest properly. This functions to let players recover HP quickly between an enounter of two, no rolls required and doesn't complicate the round to round mathematics of combat. No need to calculate two pools of health, and no risk of players getting nuked by some obscure ability that targets HP exclusively. Also players max HP isn't being nerfed arbitrarily for combats.
It makes recovery easier and faster. You can't target just HP before Stamina for a reason. Stamina works very great with low magic settings/campaigns. It also makes combat a bit deadlier, since healing won't increase your Stamina, so you can't battlemedicine someone to near full with a crit. Though there are feats to heal stamina mid combat and elixir of healing just become so so much better, so it's only deadlier till you get the stamina feats. The 1 action heal would also see much more use lol, since the HP pool is halved. I really like it and plan to use it in the future.
@@coolboy9979 as to not being able to target HP directly: then why is there a rule that says you can go unconscious even if you have stamina remaining? either its a superfluous rule or something can lower your hp when you have stamina.
@@yurisonovab3892 just clarification. It says that you go unconscious at 0 HP. The rules also say that you ALWAYS lose stamina before you lose HP. So either it's just a clarification for if your drained value gets too high (which only effects HP and is more deadly than usually), which is the only thing I can think off that targets HP without taking damage. Or they did it as a foundation if they ever want to add something, or players want to add something, like stamina potions
How has this changed your upper level play? In the 12-15 lvl range, it was common for our party’s Rogue to take more than 75% 😊of his total HP from a single attacker’s turn. Maybe apply the extra damage from crits to HP, thereby allowing magical healing to apply? Perhaps alchemy restores Stamina?
For more information see:
Damage Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/RatgKc3s7ZU/v-deo.html
Damage Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/maZBOi4VuU4/v-deo.html
Death Part 1: ua-cam.com/video/h-PK0RQy8Fs/v-deo.html
Death Part 2: ua-cam.com/video/HK2aRJhVZV0/v-deo.html
Does the Heal Spell Heal Enemies Too?: ua-cam.com/video/5161qIyuMnM/v-deo.html
Massive Damage Rules: ua-cam.com/video/vWFa1m1aApQ/v-deo.html
Excellent topic.
When Gygax and friends converted Chainmail TT wargame into D&D. Gygax discussed HP as encompassing heath, stamina, skill, luck, etc that contributes to the cut, block, thrust, parry, riposte, etc of combat.
PF2e's stamina rule can represent more than exhaustion level. It can represent self confidence and luck as well.
Cure Light Wounds showed this was not heard by the rest of the design teams thereafter.
@@davewilson13can you elaborate on thus further?
Excellent video as always man! Slight correction with resolve points, however! The ability for players to use their resolve points to stabilize is, itself, an optional rule. You can run the stamina rule system with resolve points only being to heal and hero points being able to still stabilize.
I like the variant, and my players are much happier with this way of handling damage. If only because they typically run without a healer, and that meant in the past that Medicine (and it's feats, skill bonuses, ect) become multiple PC 'Must-Haves'. Plus, now we can have other classes (like Bards, Int. Fighters, etc..) help with the healing (if stamina only). Lastly, I let the PC's choose to apply Con boost to one or the other. We also boost Rally similar to Nonat1s suggestion; DC raised with level, Success gets all Stamina back, and a Crit result negates the RP cost.
Primarily I see the Stamina rules as overly favoring Con as a "critical" attribute. It does add role play. But over all it's greatest strength requires some slight re-thinking of some classes. Classic "healer" classes heal HP, however, Rallying type rules should be applied to certain classes like paladin and various fighter archetypes. Even more Priest should also gain a rally ability (raising your spirits as it were), and Alchemists should be "stamina healers". This makes the much odd-ball Alchemist a more interesting add with droughts to boost or recover stamina quickly. Rally can give temporary stamina "boosts" that allow characters to "rise above" the situation but they disappear like 'bonus hitpoints" normal rules, which means you can "fall" to zero (exhausted) state after being rallied for one last go. From a narrative perspective this is good, if adding slightly to complexity.
PF2 and SF are not the only ones to do this with many games having dual-pool design, like the differentiation between subduel and mortal damage in older Shadowrun editions (Have not looked at newer editions so I dont know if that is still there).
Old Palladium system had SDC and HP, with SDC being like stamina, easily recovered and representing scrapes and bruises of heroic characters as well as their "endurance to adversity", while HP was serious injury. This was expanded in various rules sets from Palladium such as the Ninjas and Super-spys and Modern Combat Rules (which made combat extremely deadly and complex, getting shot was extremely serious injury with all kinds of penalties, like really getting shot, was crazy).
When I start running a PF2e game I am probably going to use this as I love it in Starfinder. I think it is the best answer for how to handle short rests in a dungeon/exploration game as it encourages people to push forward with out that constant bickering about needing to rest due to HP concerns.
Each world in my games runs on different rules, and the Shadowfell uses this particular one. It's loosely inspired by RWBY, as the plane is so antithetical to life that your very soul must shield your flesh, and the few times people have visited the plane, they've enjoyed this change in pace.
Also, this is basically the default for Starfinder. If you like using this rule, you may want to give it a try!
I wish I had the stamina to put out so many rules videos
It's really more of an issue of Resolve than Stamina. :)
For minor fall damage, an easy way to justify damage going to stamina is that you use your energy to land better, such as rolling into it or potentially using magic to lessen the impact. You might still split the damage, especially for moderate fall damage, by saying 'you land as well as possible, but can't avoid still being scratched up.'
An entirely separate note, allowing stamina to be regained via normal healing methods is a really nice way to not screw over your healing characters, or alternatively giving healing characters alternative abilities to regenerate stamina. Personally, I find just narrating normal hp as to encompass stamina, luck, skill, and every other aspect that would help you avoid being hurt to be as good a solution unless you have specific reasons to prefer using the RAW(with potential alterations) stamina system.
The Stamina variant really shines imo by allowing parties to not *need* to take a healer/Medicine character.
@@MidnightSt4r Fair, and that's definitely a good part of it, but it'd be nice if it worked with a healer as well.
Thank you for the video! This probably still not fixes how easy Lay on hands and Treat wounds are. But very interesting nonetheless.
Healing between Battles shouldn't be hard though. Regaining Focus Points for Lay on Hands and using Treat Wounds costs a lot of time however, so if you want to limit that, limit the Party's available time. Have some kind of urgency factor that makes it feel like it's a risk to sit down for like an hour to patch everyone up with Treat Wounds.
So it's armor from divinity original sin 2, but you're limited on how many times you can recover it and it scales with your level rather than the items you have equipped
I agree that there should be a distinction between damage that represents fatigue and that which represents wounds, but I think it should be simpler, so we don’t need to reference or memorize a chart. If this were in a CRPG or a VTT was handling the referencing and math, then the system as published is fine.
Maybe your ancestral HP and CON mod HP represent actual physical injury, or ‘wounds’ and the HP you gain from class levels represents your capacity for physical exertion, or ‘stamina’.
Hey Dave! I'm glad that you made this video, because I really want to use Stamina in my games, but I'm really scared of the restricted in combat healing will result in my players TPK. How it's been for your? Do you have any advice for that?
An non related question. Do you think the Hallowed Necromancer archetype has a typo in it's requirements? Expert as level 2 seems a bit weird, or do you think this is intentional? How would you rule it in your table?
This is how Starfinder does things by default. This might be useful for converting those players to Pathfinder 2e
I think the Rally action is used by some character at least once in every episode of The Rings of Power: The problem being that no one to whom they're proselytizing, except the viewers, has usually lost any Stamina, and they roll Critical Failure every single time.
I have some doubts about Rally being a fixed DC 15, this very quickly makes it trivial to recover stamina in 1 minute of rest
True, but how often does the party only have 1 minute between encounters? I think it's a rare situation where they wouldn't have 10 minutes, and if a player wants to role-play giving a rousing speech as they steel themselves for the coming battle, I'm more than happy to let a player get their Stamina back.
@@HowItsPlayed very true.
Would you be able to make a video on Proficiency Without Level? I'm thinking about running an open world style campaign and being able to design a lot of adventure without worrying when the party encounters it is appealing.
Basically, the starfinder stamina system
PF2E stamina rules are underwhelming. The Strain and Injury system described on the Paizo forums (PF1E) did a much better job of this. The Wound and Vigor system, although more cumbersome to implement, was also better.
So how should we run non-lethal damage with stamina?
The same as normal. Take it off temporary HP first, then Stamina Points, and then Hit Points. If the blow that reduces the target to zero HP is nonlethal, then they fall unconscious but not dying.
Would a stamina potion be too unbalanced?
Upon drinking the yellow liquid, you start hallucinating voices cheering you up, increasing your will to fight.
@@iron1164 Lol. Yep. I mean how different is that from the bottle of the red liquid that seals up your wounds and stitches your bones.
@@justinstarr9504 It's basically Gatorade.
As a proud healbot, the stamina rules offend me 😤
Interesting they made a variant rule that is how Starfinder works hahaha
When I was playing Starfinder before the release of 2nd edition, I was hoping 2e would use that system too.
What's the goal of this system? From my perspective it bogs down the game with additional superfluous mechanics and makes recovery harder. And if you give anyone the ability to target HP before stamina, then you're just reducing player survivability by a wide margin.
And on the note of flavor, are we really going to say that magical powers channeling the RAW ESSENCE OF LIFE into you are capable of repairing muscle and organ tissue instantly as well as refilling lost blood, but can't relieve stressed lungs or muscle strains?
As an alternative, I've used reserve HP in the past. Each player has an extra health reserve equal to their total HP (can be adjusted as you see fit). Players can transfer points from the health reserve to their HP when they are given an opportunity to pause and catch their breathe (again the details can be determined by you. The resolve point and take a breather actions would work fine with this). Health reserve is refilled when players are able to rest properly.
This functions to let players recover HP quickly between an enounter of two, no rolls required and doesn't complicate the round to round mathematics of combat. No need to calculate two pools of health, and no risk of players getting nuked by some obscure ability that targets HP exclusively. Also players max HP isn't being nerfed arbitrarily for combats.
It makes recovery easier and faster. You can't target just HP before Stamina for a reason.
Stamina works very great with low magic settings/campaigns. It also makes combat a bit deadlier, since healing won't increase your Stamina, so you can't battlemedicine someone to near full with a crit. Though there are feats to heal stamina mid combat and elixir of healing just become so so much better, so it's only deadlier till you get the stamina feats. The 1 action heal would also see much more use lol, since the HP pool is halved.
I really like it and plan to use it in the future.
@@coolboy9979 as to not being able to target HP directly: then why is there a rule that says you can go unconscious even if you have stamina remaining? either its a superfluous rule or something can lower your hp when you have stamina.
@@yurisonovab3892 just clarification. It says that you go unconscious at 0 HP.
The rules also say that you ALWAYS lose stamina before you lose HP.
So either it's just a clarification for if your drained value gets too high (which only effects HP and is more deadly than usually), which is the only thing I can think off that targets HP without taking damage.
Or they did it as a foundation if they ever want to add something, or players want to add something, like stamina potions
How has this changed your upper level play?
In the 12-15 lvl range, it was common for our party’s Rogue to take more than 75% 😊of his total HP from a single attacker’s turn.
Maybe apply the extra damage from crits to HP, thereby allowing magical healing to apply?
Perhaps alchemy restores Stamina?
So far, it hasn't been a major issue. Although my players are 11th level, so we haven't hit the range you're referring to quite yet.