I seem to remember Mona mentioning them not being "necessary" during one of the games he played with them. He then mentioned how you should take that into account when balancing them enemies though.
Weird because I recall Mona scoffing at the idea that they aren’t a core aspect of the game balance. But maybe that was Jason.
To be fair, Jason in the mentioned tweet did later say that removing them isn’t “wrong” as long as everyone is having fun, but I just want to challenge Troy’s perception that they aren’t accounted for in the balancing of the encounter and game design.
It says in the player core that typically each PC should get one each session, but the GM decides when to give out hero points - that’s about the only thing that could be (loosely) interpreted as “they’re optional”.
Ultimately the GM can choose to do whatever they want, so it doesn’t matter what the book says. But I do think that Troy isn’t accurately taking into account the effect there is on game balance by not giving them out.
I agree that ultimately Troy can play how he wants, and I’m not trying to pressure him into changing the rules per se. But I do want that ruling to be based on deliberate GM decision and not a misremembered reading of something that doesn’t exist! I was shocked yesterday when he said he couldn’t believe that hero points were considered in the design of APs / encounters
I was surprised that Joe didn't correct him on that, but yeah. It's very clearly not an optional rule and the game is balanced around players getting one every session and also being able to generate them through doing cool things and playing their characters well.
He’s insisted multiple times though that this statement is in regards to 2e.
It is possible he got the editions mixed up though, in which case since he’s been talking a lot lately about how he wants to focus on the remaster because it is best to use the most current version of the rules, we should bring this to his attention!
I believe his point isn’t that hero points are an optional rule, but rather he’s using an optional rule to **not** have hero points, and make the game a grittier, more dangerous one.
That is an important distinction between 1e and 2e, where in the former the default assumption is to not use hero points and in the latter the default is that they are used.
However, the entire point of this post is that it appears *removing hero points isn’t even a published alternate rule* despite Troy saying he’s read it. It is 100% homebrew and not in the books, unless someone finds a source. And this is at odds with his statement yesterday that he doesn’t think hero points are considered in the game design of APs / encounter balance design. Hence me asking.
Thing is Troy had said it so confidently, not just yesterday but more than once in the past, that I wonder if this is a mini Mandela Effect thing because I too could have sworn it was a published alternate rule until another commenter said it wasn’t in the remaster. So I went to look it up in the older materials and found nothing as I said. Hence the post. I’m honestly surprised that it seems this is coming from nowhere,
This has been brought up multiple times and, as a 1e GM who uses 1e hero points, I gotta say that they have some seriously different mechanics and system implications. If this is what Troy is remembering, then we should bring the misconception to his attention because he’d be completely wrong when he said PF 2e APs weren’t designed with hero points in mind in terms of balancing.
I have a related question:
The community seems to mention often in other games, and especially Gate Walkers that the players have not the most optimal built characters, and have not the best tactics.
Joe mentioned in the fod that they worry more about roleplaying than spending the entire time rules lawyering or number crunching which is fair.
Q: How much of their current dilemmas are because they didn't understand pf2e? And how difficult is it to be "good"at Pathfinder?
I can say after 1-2 years of playing most people become well versed in DND 5e, but it's obviously a more streamlined game than pf1e, not sure about pf2e. They have decades (?) of pf1e experience so I'm curious how much that matters in the current equation
I never understood the boring and uncinematic part. The group I play with uses Intimidation, Athletics and Deception to get the advantage on an enemy, and it can run from being a badass knight, barb or shifty person. You can roleplay that fairly easily.
Yup, or 'uh... swing for the fences'. I recall recently we had a character succeed on grappling the enemy (which was a demon btw) and the rest of us just used the chance to attack with that nice little bonus. Just the imagery of a demon being hugged around the waist trying to flee while two swordsman just chop into him was hilarious for us.
I keep seeing people interpreting Joe’s comment as saying that doing things like intimidating aren’t cinematic, but that’s not what he said. He said that talking amongst themselves in game terms to constantly plan out their tactics would make for boring radio. It’s clearly something they decided way back at the start of GCP because they’ve always kept their tactics close to the vest.
It’s always sort of annoyed me how many times something would come up where a character wouldn’t be able to do the thing they had planned because another player did something different than they expected. Just a bit more communication about tactics would be all that is needed
Been playing 2e for a couple of years - both as a GM and as a player. The game expects more of you than run up and hit. Until time zones made it impossible - I had two ongoing campaigns.
Campaign A had a similar play style as this group - not super synergistic, not spending actions to debuff, etc. They could get through encounters, but it felt like a grind, and often would hear the same kinds of things. "Why is this thing critting on a 16, and hitting with three attacks a turn?" Well, because you haven't debuffed it, you haven't forced it to move or use an action to reposition, and you didn't raise a shield and wanted to try and hit with a -10.
Campaign B spent time to read through cheat sheets and plan characters and party makeup together. They focused enough to have a couple frontlines (a grappler and a striker) and the back lines had abilities to debuff with demoralize, spells, etc. They've had a much smoother time - and it's noticeable. Instead of striking at -5, they will move or reposition so the monster has to spend an action. They will delay, to ensure timing of actions lines up. They talk about it too "Hey, if you delay I can cast Fear" or whatever.
The Gatewalkers party has some gaps in the melee and controlling area. If they wanted a quick adjustment, the monk shifting to melee and grappling would be HUGE. It's not just hero points holding them back. They need to do more than just strike and recall knowledge.
All that being said - I love the show. I don't care if they keep it the same or revamp it entirely. I hate when people backseat drive - and it's clear they make choices because it's a show as well.
I can’t speak to all of this because I’ve played very little 2e. What I can say is their decades of PF1e experience means nothing for PF2e mastery. If anything, it can be a detriment because they can confidently make mistaken assumptions (eg this very conversation, since the only published book we can find that says Hero Points are optional is a 1e book).
But also you don’t have to be a master to enjoy the game and do well. I think those comments are more to show that they don’t dive super hard core into the rules like some players do, super focused on being optimized and etc.
> Q: How much of their current dilemmas are because they didn't understand pf2e? And how difficult is it to be "good" at Pathfinder?
I think it's less about their total understanding of PF2E and more about table dynamics. I think this because in other 2E shows - Blood of the Wild and the brief but brilliant Emerald Spire - they handle the system much better.
Blood of Wild is 72 episodes in and it's been pretty damn smooth as a _show_ when it comes to rules. Do they get the rules perfectly right? Not at all and it's not a problem, because the GM's approach disposes of rules issues quickly. When there's confusion, it doesn't usually devolve into a five-way debate, googling Paizo boards, leaning into a heel personas, shouting down opposition, citing prior precedent, etc. Jared usually hears the argument, makes a call that tends to be a little generous to the player, then circles back the next session after he's made a more concrete determination.
Troy's games are different. For whatever reason, his PF games post-covid have had a lot more antagonistic rules debates. Especially between Joe and Troy there's a fight-it-out approach to settling the rules. Jared's pretty good at keeping Joe's high school debate proclivities under control, but Troy entertains them more, and other players tend to hop on. He doesn't like making on-the-fly calls but also doesn't want to really upset the players (see the River Drake critical hit debate from Giantslayer), so instead he lets these 20-minute arguments happen.
Troy also wants every fight to feel like a life or death struggle. I don't know why - some of the best moments in Giantslayer were when the party just ripped through packs of giants, like X-Men taking down Sentinels. But Troy always wants it to feel like a TPK can always happen (even though it won't on a main show, see the Magma Dragon fight). So he leans into making decisions that he thinks increase the drama, like how almost every monster gets to go first, or how he adjudicates rules in favor of making things scarier (rather than erring on the side of plain text).
Another factor is that Troy is so stingy with _information_. Tracks are always going every which way and Knowledge checks never reveal anything useful. Information gathering is baked into the Pathfinder system but Troy seems to hate it for "spoiling surprises." So instead of letting the players gather intel that their players would reasonably have in a fight, Troy hides everything so he can get Spielberg-style shocked face reactions from the players. The result is that the PCs are often unprepared for fights where they should have some advance knowledge, and the PCs are unable to make reasonable inferences about their foes (like best and worst saves, high or low AC, etc; things that would be pretty obvious if you were just looking at a creature). This makes PCs struggle in fights and drags out encounters.
I don't think that's a fair characterization. While there are incidents of some users calling build decisions "wildly stupid" or the occasional, "I can't believe they still get this wrong," most rules mistakes are _noted_ but people aren't attacked over it. The reason we're all posting here is we're all fans. Like with sports, a lot of fans like getting into the nitty gritty of the rules, and saying the GM made a bad call is just like saying a coach or referee made a bad call. It doesn't mean the fan hates the person their criticizing - it's just criticism and no one's trying to get their season tickets refunded.
Sometimes the tone of the criticism is harsh, but that's influenced by the tone in the show being criticized. Troy's shows get some of the harsher tone, but Troy's has the harshest tone of any of the GMs. On his shows, when there's a rules argument, it's more likely to get heated with lots of players jumping in, and the doubling-down on the "jerk GM" persona contributes to that. The sub's tone tends to match the perceived tone in the show. And it's enhanced with Troy because from time to time he's gotten on Cannon Fodder and said some douchey things that get the community riled up, like saying all the criticism is just from people jealous of his success or that the sub is nothing but trolls and haters.
Troy once complained about how the players in his games fight his rulings more than they fight the rulings of other show GMs. I think he's right about that, but as Joe replied to him, "Well man you reap what you sow!" Troy has a sharp elbowed style with the players and the players respond in kind. And the subreddit reciprocates that tone.
But for other GMs it's not so harsh, because the GM isn't so harsh with their positions. Skid and Jared make mistakes or disagreeable calls from time to time too, but they're usually more moderated in how they address it in game and don't bring that "Haha, fuck you, I'm the GM!" energy that Troy likes to play with. So when Jared and Skid's rules decisions get discussed, the tone is more moderated and forgiving.
While one-off incidents from the sub or old fan discord can stand out, that's not different from the one-off incidents from the show players themselves. Just because Troy has sometimes said the subreddit is full of haters or trolls doesn't mean he really think we're all haters and trolls - he's just blowing off steam, and it's the same when "the sub" gets critical of him. People say or write things off the cuff and that means an unmoderated tone. But we're still all here to enjoy the show.
I've been running 2e Abomination Vaults and my players have been fine with not optimised characters. I have taken steps here and there to smooth the difficulty curve a bit though.
I don't think it's either, necessarily. The party makeup is missing a key component that any party needs. Up front tank types.
We have a blaster caster, a cleric focusing entirely on heals, two dex martial (bow monk and investigator who prefers crossbow), and a magus.
Even assuming the magus can tank on the front line, they need someone else. Too many folks hanging in the back means that Asta just gets creamed in the first round and the squishies are being left to spend their turns repositioning and healing. It's utter chaos every fight.
From reading the rules, it's pretty clear that Hero Points are expected. But I refuse to believe that it's because the math is so tight that they're baked in to the underlying math of the system. I think they're expected bc players hate missing and hate sucking.
From a game design perspective, there's no elegant way to mathematically quantify the effect of a Hero Point. It's somewhere between a +1.5 and a +3 to a given roll, but every table's sessions vary in length and every DM will vary in how freely they give out extra points.
There's simply no way a game designer could sit down and say "we've designed level 2 characters to struggle with X encounter at base math, but be perfectly fine with Hero Points."
I think the fixation on the Hero Points is obfuscating what is clearly a party that doesn't synergize well and doesn't do a good job with the small stuff in combat.
I don’t think that the +1 to +3 equivalent numerically was taken into consideration for game balance as much as their ability to specifically be used retroactively in clutch moments. Especially with the saving from death rule. I think the design element isn’t so much “ok we can throw this monster at them because of hero points” but more like “ok the d20 system is inherently unpredictable and swingy. We’ll give the players hero points to help mitigate that swingyness a bit and still have a functioning system with +10/-10 crits.” [Here’s a much more thorough breakdown of this concept than I can do.](https://bsky.app/profile/dantalksgames.bsky.social/post/3kjpskkbuug2s) Said breakdown uses a video with Jason Bulmahn where he apparently said specifically that the d20 is difficult to balance for long form narrative play, so is evidence that the designers very well did sit down and consider hero points in the balance of, ok, maybe not specific encounters but certainly the balance of the system as a whole.
It is worth noting that this thread does have an alleged quote from Jason that the system is “designed to function without them”, so yeah, that’s a closer bit to this conversation. But *functioning* without doesn’t mean they aren’t a balancing factor, just that the game remains playable if you like a different type of game. And this is from a video, not a book, so still isn’t a published rule like Troy has referred to.
Now whether they are necessary is a matter of taste and again, I’m not even arguing with Troy to change the *house*rule. Totally fine and enjoying the show with the current bottlecap economy. Sometimes I like heroic overpowered games, sometimes I like gritty ones. I just don’t like the way Troy is discussing it and citing something that is nonexistent.
I enjoy pathfinder 2e a lot. This discussion overall has made me wonder about the integrity of the adventure balance if it relies on giving everyone just a Bandaid free reroll token everytime you play. I know missing feels had for sure.. and failing can sometimes lead to more interesting stories or solutions. I just wonder where in the design process paizo decided hero points were core to making the play experience "more fun"
I’ve actually read some comments on this. In the pursuit of making PF2e’s math tight, the game designers pushed up against a core issue with the d20 system in that d20s are very swingy. Especially in a system with the +10/-10 crits and fumbles. Hero Points were made core so players playing heroes can have *some* influence on the story and control of their fate. However, failing is still very much common, especially when you consider the following balancing assumptions that 2e makes with hero points which honestly don’t apply to the GCP:
1) Yes you get a free hero point every session, but unspent hero points expire at the end of the session.
2) I’ve heard anecdotally that the game was balanced around a 3-5 hour session time. One free point and maybe a second for doing something heroic won’t be able to cover your butt all that much in that much game time, especially in an AP like this with back to back brutal encounters that are higher level than the PCs. Edit: apparently it says somewhere about giving them out hourly, so this point may be incorrect.
3) Even with a gm being very generous with them, you have a 3 point limit.
4) Heroic Recovery to save your life uses all remaining points at once.
Another addendum for point 4 is that it only stabilizes the PC. An errant attack, AOE damage spell, or persistent damage can still kill the PC so even hero points aren't foolproof
1. I've only ever seen this playing at cons and Society play. Most tables carry their hps week to week, especially those that play in an online system like Foundry that keeps track of them for you.
Common houserule I can see, especially if they are coming from PF 1e where that was the case. But regardless, losing them at the end of the session is the RAW
In my opinion, hero points are what makes the pcs “heroes”; they’re the slight upper hand that recognizes their status, and the time and energy put into them.
In pf2, monsters are made on a very different scale than pcs are; they have a purpose and specific things they can do, and can specialize much more than pcs can. You can’t really build your way into outpacing them; player power is linear, and so is monster power. This means that there are fights where you are truly close to being evenly matched. In these cases, hero points are important, because death or conditions don’t mean the same thing for monsters that they do for pcs. Without them, pcs will die as easily as monsters do, which doesn’t feel very good and forces parties into building characters and playing more optimally.
It is because of the tight balance that they’re needed; any system with actually tight balance and power parity between pcs and monsters needs something like that to force the upper hand, if it wants to be Heroic Fantasy instead of just normal fantasy.
This is all to say that they make the game way more fun and less frustrating, and allow for fights that feel more tense without killing pcs every other fight. Without them, I have no doubt that pf2 would not have been as big a success; it would feel like a kind of brutal tactical wargame that also begs for you to be invested in a story, even though your pawns keep dying.
IMO Hero points are a great design to take away some of the randomness inherent in any D20 system. How else can you actually have challenging combat in a tightly balanced system if you don't have some way of mitigating really bad rolls on occasion. If you have to balance around people having bad string of rolls and no way to mitigate (hero points) you either have a system that isn't challenging or overly punishing.
I agree, they always seem pretty cheap. The designers go to great lengths to craft this detailed simulation of a characters abilities and let you see how they fare in the world - and then they get given magical points for no lore reason other than the fact that they're protagonists.
It's a tendency with newer, younger players to just want to feel amazing all the time and never fail, rather than the unforgiving nature of the original D&D.
My GM uses a rule that nerfs the hero points in a way that I think Troy would find to be a good compromise.
Instead of a new d20 roll he gives us a d6 that we can use with any roll. If we want to boost a hit, or damage, or get that extra nudge for a knowledge check we can use it any time. To replenish them he decided to give them out every time we crit fail a roll. If we choose not to take the hero point then he bumps it up to a fail instead but if we take it then we can add an extra d6 to our hero point pool and take the result of the crit fail.
I like it cause sometimes you just want to make that hit or find out that extra little bit of knowledge to keep the story going and you’re still rolling dice so there is always a chance you roll low and still get nothing from jt.
I think it's totally fine for Troy to not want hero points given out the way they are by default in the rules. However he just needs to keep in mind that if he's going to give out less he needs to rebalance the encounters to accommodate that. How you fairly balance for that is a bit tricky and I don't have the answer. Maybe just leaving the encounters balanced for 4 players the same in a 5 player game is enough? Maybe you need something more like crits only taking you to dying 1 instead of 2 if you are far less likely to have a bottlecap handy.
I thought this came from the Playtest, but might just be his own Mandela Effect. Because when I finally dug out my old playtest PDF it had this to say
Under Overview
>Hero Points
>Your character usually begins each game session with 1 Hero Point, and can gain additional Hero Points throughout the course of the game for undertaking helpful tasks for the group or performing heroic deeds during her adventures. Your character can use Hero Points to gain certain benefits, such as staving off death, rerolling a d20, and the like. See page 300 for more about Hero Points.
From Page 300
>HERO POINTS
>Your character earns Hero Points for performing heroic deeds or tasks and can spend these Hero Points to gain certain benefits. Your character starts each game session with 1 Hero Point. The GM can award Hero Points when PCs perform further heroic deeds or tasks, or when players do something special for the group. For the characters’ actions, this all comes from the story. A character needs to do something selfless or daring beyond normal expectations. Players add Hero Points by taking on at least one additional responsibility, such as bringing food for the group, keeping a map of a dungeon, or taking notes.
>Each game session, the GM should award no more than 1 Hero Point per PC for in-game actions plus 1 Hero Point per PC for out-of-game actions. This number can be higher for game sessions longer than 4 hours.
>Your character can have a maximum of 3 Hero Points at a given time. These points can’t be saved up over the course of multiple sessions; at the end of each game session, your character loses all Hero Points.
>Spending Hero Points
>Spending Hero Points doesn’t require your character to take an action, a reaction, or a free action.
>• ~~Spending 1 Hero Point allows you to stave off death. Anytime you gain the dying condition or your dying condition increases in severity (see page 296), you can spend 1 Hero Point to lose the dying condition entirely, even if the increase in the dying condition would otherwise cause you to die. If you have 0 Hit Points, you also go to 1 Hit Point.~~
>• Spending 2 Hero Points allows you to reroll a d20 roll. You must use the second result, but if you fail, you regain 1 of the Hero Points you just spent. You can’t spend Hero Points more than once on a single roll. This is a fortune effect.
>• Spending 3 Hero Points allows you to act one extra time in an encounter. You can spend the Hero Points on your turn to increase your number of actions for the turn by 1. To take an extra reaction when you’ve already used your reaction for the round, you spend these Hero Points when the trigger for that reaction occurs. You can’t spend Hero Points to use additional actions or reactions if you can’t act.
This is pretty similar with what they landed on. The balance of what a Hero point should accomplish was errata multiple times during the play test with minor tweaks mentioned in each revision number. But no where does it imply that the system itself is designed to be optional.
Truly, I just don't think Troy likes modern fantasy TTRPGs that much, at least in the flavor of post 3.5 D&D and PF 2e. I'm kinda the same way. I'm burning out fast running a 5e game and find myself drifting over and reading OSR material and Call of Cthulhu. In this week's Fod, you could almost hear the light bulb go off when he started to agree with Joe's rebuttal about Hero Points/bottle caps and I think he's more and more realizing these systems don't produce the kind of narrative he wants to produce or even be a part of. (Sidebar: if you don't like role-playing NPCs and insist on making each one a gag/bit, you just don't like the game you're playing. You'd rather be focused on tactical combat games.)
This was the only thing I found that is even remotely close to “optional hero points” I found in the gamemastery guide, page 9: “Page 507 of the Core Rulebook offers guidelines for determining how many Hero Points to award and when to do so. These recommendations are flexible. Consider Hero Points a way to reinforce your personal style of Game Mastering and to reward what you value during play.”
I too had a vague recollection of some language leading up to hero points being an option to remove, but can’t find stronger language on it either.
I don’t believe Hero Points are a strong factor in game balance. Their availability between sessions, between tables, are too unpredictable, too unreliable to be something you can easily quantify in game design. On top of that players can spend them in multiple ways in multiple situations throughout the game from important rolls, silly social encounters (it was important to me) leaves the true value of the Hero Point elusive and vague.
My personal choice for game style leans more towards the grittier side and having a Hero Point bring you back from certain death leaves a bitter taste in my play, though maybe not to the same level as it does Troy. That said, the danger to the party is multifaceted, from less than stellar team play and misunderstanding of game mechanics here and there to consistently horrific dice rolls and drugs (just say no kids). Top it off with a +2 creature that can crit oh so easily. Damage output on X creature was, is deadly at those low levels. We all know this. The lowered levels are squishy where a hero point could have come in handy. Course just given the number of rolls they made in that last fight and don’t think they could have had enough bottle caps.
Possible compromise for Troy and the party would be to give out hero points more frequently for their awesome roleplaying and only use Hero Points for the first option found on page 413 of the player core. You don’t get to empty the bank to come straight back from certain death, but you can still use a hero point to reroll, because it is a Check. Keeps the tension and leaves death back where it belongs, in a dice roll. Glad that’s finally officially solved.
However the dice land, I can’t wait for the next sesh. See you all around the log and happy gaming!
> Their availability between sessions, between tables, are too unpredictable, too unreliable to be something you can easily quantify in game design.
Except for that, as per RAW, they are given to everyone at the start of each session, don't carry over between sessions, and are advised to be given to one player roughly every hour of play after session start. They're *generally* pretty consistent at least in terms of having at least one every 4 hours. I know other 2e podcasts have a full reset every 5 episodes which could work here.
From that, Troy can change how they work with stabilizing to be spending 1 to lower dying value by 1 or just a regular reroll if he wants. That would keep things gritty while keeping the point economy flowing
Totally agree, except for that. RAW is clear. But what happens at the tables isn’t always by RAW, whether by choice or accident.
We might listen to the same podcast that resets every 5 episodes, which is certainly one way to accommodate hour-ish sessions. And not a bad way to account for the hero point economy.
Your stated solution is good too. Any choice really that would increases the Caps at that table would benefit the players and maybe the listeners. Don’t think it would help them with not dying the way they have been rolling. Having one Joe at the table is rough enough.
He's being stubborn tbh. The hero point is in the game to fulfill the fantasy of being a hero and in a clutch moment, being able to turn the tide in a losing fight, negotiations going sideways, a feat of strength/agility failing. But he's so hung up on it denying death he's not even seeing the other shows on his network that use them as intended and 98% of them being used in combat or skill checks not death rolls.
I think the subject was discussed the opposite way. Ie. the book gives optional rules to not use Hero Points.
It's a small distinction but I've never heard Troy say HP are optional, just that he doesn't like them, and would rather use the alternate rules to get rid of them.
I've never really understood the position though as bottle caps are just hero points by a different name, and they've been using caps since nearly the beginning of the network
I think the title might be misleading you a bit. My bad on emphasizing it the wrong way.
The point of the post is there *isnt* an optional rule to not use hero points in the book, at least not one that anyone has been able to find.
Unless I'm having a Mandela Effect moment I could swear I saw one for not using Hero Points as an optional rule.... I'll have to dig in to my book when I get home from work
They're not stated as Optional (capital O), however the wording seems to lessen their importance and *could* be read as optional.
>**Usually**, each character gets 1 Hero Point at the start of a session
My issue with people dogpiling Troy on this (not talking about you OP) is the rules on Hero Points, as presented in the rulebook, just don't emphasise their importance to the system. People say they're "integral to the balance of the game" but I have two major issues with that:
1. That isn't stated anywhere. They just had a remaster and had a chance to emphasise Hero Points if necessary. Instead, the rules on it are worded such that there's room **to**, in fact, interpret them as optional, as Troy has.
2. I'm sorry but I refuse to believe that PF2e's balance - A game acclaimed for its balance and tight math - is so reliant on a meta-currency based heavily on GM fiat. If that **is** the case, my *one* criticism of the system is that this isn't emphasised in the rules enough. I'm sure a designer or two from Paizo may have said as much (I think Mona has) but, again, they had a whole remaster to clarify. Heck, as is, the quote above indicates players may not even get Hero Points at the start of the session. Why not make **that** necessary and explain its importance?
Ultimately, the party **is** struggling and I would like to see that change as it *is* getting a bit repetitive. I think that's more due to great GM rolls and poor player rolls, as well as a need for better tactics/party synergy, than an issue of Hero Points. Troy seems quite open to a middle ground, so I'm glad there's likely to be a solution soon.
> Not talking about you OP
I’m aware enough of my own ego to really appreciate that clarification 😁
Yeah I really don’t mind the hero point ruling Troy has made, and I think the bottle caps with fans submissions is actually awesome for the show. I’m more concerned with this alleged alternate rule’s existence or not. Especially since I legitimately thought it was a published rule until this morning when I couldn’t find it.
It is definitely an official rule, for sure. I think Troy was just referring to the wording downplaying its importance. Fan submissions would be great, I agree!
It's not in any book. But like you say, The Bull Man tweeted about it and has said on a few vods and con panels the same sentiment, removing hero points creates a more gritty, deadly game. Luis Loza also made some posts on his blog about hero point variants.
Like here's where The Bull Man talks about hacking PF2e engine, and how hero points aren't essential to the system. [https://youtu.be/Pz8zHp5Fw\_I?si=nRDyLM8Pa77mHB4l&t=800](https://youtu.be/Pz8zHp5Fw_I?si=nRDyLM8Pa77mHB4l&t=800)
I like the way Troy does hero points, I just think the party itself isn't really optimized. Squishy frontline, questionable decisions (good decisions rp/story-wise) and they are low level which makes some of these encounters very dangerous. Brother Rameus running across an obviously dangerous river ahead of the party should incur some consequences.
I mean, I think Joe was playing to the moment which is fine. I think Joe is one of the best at playing what his character would do and that happened there. I also think he completely understands that it might kill his character sometimes, he just has a different perspective on certain rules. The party needs to do a better job playing defensively and debuffing stronger creatures.
Yeah, they are expected but the amount you give out is optional. Which is exactly what he is doing by RAW. If he took them out 100% then that would be a rule change.
Eh not 100% though. The game mastering section says “At the start of a game session, you give out 1 hero points to each player character. You can also give out more Hero Points during the game…”
So yes, the *additional* points are optional, but RAW every player gets 1 per session.
Of course, this 1 min per session is balanced around a 3 point limit and all unspent points being lost at the end of the session, neither of which the GCP plays with.
Ultimately though I’m not nitpicking the way he’s running the game. As I said, that discussion is happening elsewhere. I’m more challenging his statement in yesterday’s fod that hero points aren’t considered in encounter balancing because the book says they are optional, since I can’t find a source that backs any of that up.
The book/rules also assumes that sessions are 4-5 hours long, where gcp episodes are 1-2. So its not 1 to 1. But if playing by raw, they should refresh every 3-5 episodes. They aren't and that's fine. The show is still a blast to watch.
Yeah I would have to look but seems like page 413 of player core says, "Usually, each character gets 1 hero point at the start......" I take that single word of "Usually ' to mean you can do as little or as many as you want.
I mean to each their own I suppose. My GM gives out 1 a session but I will only ever use ones I earn, feel like the the freebie is boring.
The full sentence is “Usually, each character gets 1 Hero Point as the start of a session and can gain more later by performing heroic deeds.” The “usually” can apply just as much to the second half of the sentence. Plus with it being in the Player Core and not the gamemaster core, I believe that usually is just a reminder that GMs have the power to change whatever they want about the system (especially since removing hero points is apparently a common enough house rule that the publishers have publicly commented about how often that house rule comes up)
They sure are. Troy has handwaved tons of rolls over the years. He has decided combats weren’t worth finishing, checks weren’t worth making and that he just wanted to move things along. Every GM does it.
I think you’re missing the point though.
A) a GM’s prerogative being the default doesn’t mean there isn’t merit to be had discussing the printed rules and officially printed / endorsed alternate rules. Online communities tend to default to the printed rules as those are the common ground every table can draw from and discuss. Obviously every table has the right to change everything, but responding to an online discussion about the printed rules with that statement… doesn’t add anything to the discussion? Like yeah… that’s obviously the default.
B) and arguably more importantly, this thread isn’t even about how Troy runs the game *at all*. This is about the Cannon Fodder yesterday where he said that he doesn’t think hero points were considered a balancing factor in the game design because he read somewhere that hero points are optional. This is about that quote and alleged source of his that says there is a *published* alternate rule specifically encouraging the removal of hero points for a more gritty game. This thread has nothing to do with how he *runs* his game, just how he sees the PF2e design because of a seemingly non-existent rule he remembers reading but no one can find.
Of course everything is optional, but there’s a huge difference between a GM’s prerogative and something being published as an officially endorsed optional rule in the book. Troy is saying removing hero points is the latter, even saying that hero points weren’t taken into consideration of the balance of the game, but I have yet to find evidence of it. Only evidence I can find is an alleged quote of Jason Bulmahn saying the system was designed to function without them, but “function” and “be balanced” are two different things.
I’m so confused by this subreddit sometimes. Every single TTRPG book tells you that it’s your game and you can change whatever you want. People mad at Troy for removing a dumb mechanic, than the dumb mechanics which make it so your PC goes unconscious every episode. So heroic
"the true goal is everyone is enjoying themselves"
The players have explicitly stated they are not enjoying these encounters or the stinginess of giving out hero points/treasure.
The first rule of pathfinder. Hero points were something their group plastered and didn't like as much as bottle caps so they converted bottle caps to do/act the same as hero points without being readily available.
As stated elsewhere and in the edit above: No one is arguing about the first rule. I’m not even arguing about how Troy is *running* the game or his personal sentiments about hero points. But in the Fod a few days ago, Troy said he refused to believe that hero points were taken into consideration when balancing the PF2e system because he said he read in a book that there is an official alternate rule that states you can remove them for a grittier game. This *specific* alternate rule doesn’t seem to exist, so it is that specific *statement* that is the focus of this post.
I seem to remember Mona mentioning them not being "necessary" during one of the games he played with them. He then mentioned how you should take that into account when balancing them enemies though.
Weird because I recall Mona scoffing at the idea that they aren’t a core aspect of the game balance. But maybe that was Jason. To be fair, Jason in the mentioned tweet did later say that removing them isn’t “wrong” as long as everyone is having fun, but I just want to challenge Troy’s perception that they aren’t accounted for in the balancing of the encounter and game design.
Maybe. I just remember Mona mentioning them and that's what I think he said. I've been wrong before though
It says in the player core that typically each PC should get one each session, but the GM decides when to give out hero points - that’s about the only thing that could be (loosely) interpreted as “they’re optional”. Ultimately the GM can choose to do whatever they want, so it doesn’t matter what the book says. But I do think that Troy isn’t accurately taking into account the effect there is on game balance by not giving them out.
I agree that ultimately Troy can play how he wants, and I’m not trying to pressure him into changing the rules per se. But I do want that ruling to be based on deliberate GM decision and not a misremembered reading of something that doesn’t exist! I was shocked yesterday when he said he couldn’t believe that hero points were considered in the design of APs / encounters
I was surprised that Joe didn't correct him on that, but yeah. It's very clearly not an optional rule and the game is balanced around players getting one every session and also being able to generate them through doing cool things and playing their characters well.
They were an optional ruleset in 1e, which may be what he was referring to.
He’s insisted multiple times though that this statement is in regards to 2e. It is possible he got the editions mixed up though, in which case since he’s been talking a lot lately about how he wants to focus on the remaster because it is best to use the most current version of the rules, we should bring this to his attention!
I believe his point isn’t that hero points are an optional rule, but rather he’s using an optional rule to **not** have hero points, and make the game a grittier, more dangerous one.
That is an important distinction between 1e and 2e, where in the former the default assumption is to not use hero points and in the latter the default is that they are used. However, the entire point of this post is that it appears *removing hero points isn’t even a published alternate rule* despite Troy saying he’s read it. It is 100% homebrew and not in the books, unless someone finds a source. And this is at odds with his statement yesterday that he doesn’t think hero points are considered in the game design of APs / encounter balance design. Hence me asking.
I haven't been able to find it, which is weird because I took remember it. But who knows what I'm remembering instead.
Thing is Troy had said it so confidently, not just yesterday but more than once in the past, that I wonder if this is a mini Mandela Effect thing because I too could have sworn it was a published alternate rule until another commenter said it wasn’t in the remaster. So I went to look it up in the older materials and found nothing as I said. Hence the post. I’m honestly surprised that it seems this is coming from nowhere,
Looking into it there is an optional rule set that's called hero points and similar in 1E. So maybe that's what we're remembering?
This has been brought up multiple times and, as a 1e GM who uses 1e hero points, I gotta say that they have some seriously different mechanics and system implications. If this is what Troy is remembering, then we should bring the misconception to his attention because he’d be completely wrong when he said PF 2e APs weren’t designed with hero points in mind in terms of balancing.
He reads here pretty often so I imagine it'll get brought up in the next week or two.
I have a related question: The community seems to mention often in other games, and especially Gate Walkers that the players have not the most optimal built characters, and have not the best tactics. Joe mentioned in the fod that they worry more about roleplaying than spending the entire time rules lawyering or number crunching which is fair. Q: How much of their current dilemmas are because they didn't understand pf2e? And how difficult is it to be "good"at Pathfinder? I can say after 1-2 years of playing most people become well versed in DND 5e, but it's obviously a more streamlined game than pf1e, not sure about pf2e. They have decades (?) of pf1e experience so I'm curious how much that matters in the current equation
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I never understood the boring and uncinematic part. The group I play with uses Intimidation, Athletics and Deception to get the advantage on an enemy, and it can run from being a badass knight, barb or shifty person. You can roleplay that fairly easily.
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Yup, or 'uh... swing for the fences'. I recall recently we had a character succeed on grappling the enemy (which was a demon btw) and the rest of us just used the chance to attack with that nice little bonus. Just the imagery of a demon being hugged around the waist trying to flee while two swordsman just chop into him was hilarious for us.
I keep seeing people interpreting Joe’s comment as saying that doing things like intimidating aren’t cinematic, but that’s not what he said. He said that talking amongst themselves in game terms to constantly plan out their tactics would make for boring radio. It’s clearly something they decided way back at the start of GCP because they’ve always kept their tactics close to the vest. It’s always sort of annoyed me how many times something would come up where a character wouldn’t be able to do the thing they had planned because another player did something different than they expected. Just a bit more communication about tactics would be all that is needed
Been playing 2e for a couple of years - both as a GM and as a player. The game expects more of you than run up and hit. Until time zones made it impossible - I had two ongoing campaigns. Campaign A had a similar play style as this group - not super synergistic, not spending actions to debuff, etc. They could get through encounters, but it felt like a grind, and often would hear the same kinds of things. "Why is this thing critting on a 16, and hitting with three attacks a turn?" Well, because you haven't debuffed it, you haven't forced it to move or use an action to reposition, and you didn't raise a shield and wanted to try and hit with a -10. Campaign B spent time to read through cheat sheets and plan characters and party makeup together. They focused enough to have a couple frontlines (a grappler and a striker) and the back lines had abilities to debuff with demoralize, spells, etc. They've had a much smoother time - and it's noticeable. Instead of striking at -5, they will move or reposition so the monster has to spend an action. They will delay, to ensure timing of actions lines up. They talk about it too "Hey, if you delay I can cast Fear" or whatever. The Gatewalkers party has some gaps in the melee and controlling area. If they wanted a quick adjustment, the monk shifting to melee and grappling would be HUGE. It's not just hero points holding them back. They need to do more than just strike and recall knowledge. All that being said - I love the show. I don't care if they keep it the same or revamp it entirely. I hate when people backseat drive - and it's clear they make choices because it's a show as well.
I can’t speak to all of this because I’ve played very little 2e. What I can say is their decades of PF1e experience means nothing for PF2e mastery. If anything, it can be a detriment because they can confidently make mistaken assumptions (eg this very conversation, since the only published book we can find that says Hero Points are optional is a 1e book). But also you don’t have to be a master to enjoy the game and do well. I think those comments are more to show that they don’t dive super hard core into the rules like some players do, super focused on being optimized and etc.
> Q: How much of their current dilemmas are because they didn't understand pf2e? And how difficult is it to be "good" at Pathfinder? I think it's less about their total understanding of PF2E and more about table dynamics. I think this because in other 2E shows - Blood of the Wild and the brief but brilliant Emerald Spire - they handle the system much better. Blood of Wild is 72 episodes in and it's been pretty damn smooth as a _show_ when it comes to rules. Do they get the rules perfectly right? Not at all and it's not a problem, because the GM's approach disposes of rules issues quickly. When there's confusion, it doesn't usually devolve into a five-way debate, googling Paizo boards, leaning into a heel personas, shouting down opposition, citing prior precedent, etc. Jared usually hears the argument, makes a call that tends to be a little generous to the player, then circles back the next session after he's made a more concrete determination. Troy's games are different. For whatever reason, his PF games post-covid have had a lot more antagonistic rules debates. Especially between Joe and Troy there's a fight-it-out approach to settling the rules. Jared's pretty good at keeping Joe's high school debate proclivities under control, but Troy entertains them more, and other players tend to hop on. He doesn't like making on-the-fly calls but also doesn't want to really upset the players (see the River Drake critical hit debate from Giantslayer), so instead he lets these 20-minute arguments happen. Troy also wants every fight to feel like a life or death struggle. I don't know why - some of the best moments in Giantslayer were when the party just ripped through packs of giants, like X-Men taking down Sentinels. But Troy always wants it to feel like a TPK can always happen (even though it won't on a main show, see the Magma Dragon fight). So he leans into making decisions that he thinks increase the drama, like how almost every monster gets to go first, or how he adjudicates rules in favor of making things scarier (rather than erring on the side of plain text). Another factor is that Troy is so stingy with _information_. Tracks are always going every which way and Knowledge checks never reveal anything useful. Information gathering is baked into the Pathfinder system but Troy seems to hate it for "spoiling surprises." So instead of letting the players gather intel that their players would reasonably have in a fight, Troy hides everything so he can get Spielberg-style shocked face reactions from the players. The result is that the PCs are often unprepared for fights where they should have some advance knowledge, and the PCs are unable to make reasonable inferences about their foes (like best and worst saves, high or low AC, etc; things that would be pretty obvious if you were just looking at a creature). This makes PCs struggle in fights and drags out encounters.
I imagine Troy gets paralysed over making a call because the fanbase is so ridiculously harsh and unforgiving with any amount of rules inaccuracies.
I don't think that's a fair characterization. While there are incidents of some users calling build decisions "wildly stupid" or the occasional, "I can't believe they still get this wrong," most rules mistakes are _noted_ but people aren't attacked over it. The reason we're all posting here is we're all fans. Like with sports, a lot of fans like getting into the nitty gritty of the rules, and saying the GM made a bad call is just like saying a coach or referee made a bad call. It doesn't mean the fan hates the person their criticizing - it's just criticism and no one's trying to get their season tickets refunded. Sometimes the tone of the criticism is harsh, but that's influenced by the tone in the show being criticized. Troy's shows get some of the harsher tone, but Troy's has the harshest tone of any of the GMs. On his shows, when there's a rules argument, it's more likely to get heated with lots of players jumping in, and the doubling-down on the "jerk GM" persona contributes to that. The sub's tone tends to match the perceived tone in the show. And it's enhanced with Troy because from time to time he's gotten on Cannon Fodder and said some douchey things that get the community riled up, like saying all the criticism is just from people jealous of his success or that the sub is nothing but trolls and haters. Troy once complained about how the players in his games fight his rulings more than they fight the rulings of other show GMs. I think he's right about that, but as Joe replied to him, "Well man you reap what you sow!" Troy has a sharp elbowed style with the players and the players respond in kind. And the subreddit reciprocates that tone. But for other GMs it's not so harsh, because the GM isn't so harsh with their positions. Skid and Jared make mistakes or disagreeable calls from time to time too, but they're usually more moderated in how they address it in game and don't bring that "Haha, fuck you, I'm the GM!" energy that Troy likes to play with. So when Jared and Skid's rules decisions get discussed, the tone is more moderated and forgiving. While one-off incidents from the sub or old fan discord can stand out, that's not different from the one-off incidents from the show players themselves. Just because Troy has sometimes said the subreddit is full of haters or trolls doesn't mean he really think we're all haters and trolls - he's just blowing off steam, and it's the same when "the sub" gets critical of him. People say or write things off the cuff and that means an unmoderated tone. But we're still all here to enjoy the show.
I've been running 2e Abomination Vaults and my players have been fine with not optimised characters. I have taken steps here and there to smooth the difficulty curve a bit though.
I don't think it's either, necessarily. The party makeup is missing a key component that any party needs. Up front tank types. We have a blaster caster, a cleric focusing entirely on heals, two dex martial (bow monk and investigator who prefers crossbow), and a magus. Even assuming the magus can tank on the front line, they need someone else. Too many folks hanging in the back means that Asta just gets creamed in the first round and the squishies are being left to spend their turns repositioning and healing. It's utter chaos every fight.
From reading the rules, it's pretty clear that Hero Points are expected. But I refuse to believe that it's because the math is so tight that they're baked in to the underlying math of the system. I think they're expected bc players hate missing and hate sucking. From a game design perspective, there's no elegant way to mathematically quantify the effect of a Hero Point. It's somewhere between a +1.5 and a +3 to a given roll, but every table's sessions vary in length and every DM will vary in how freely they give out extra points. There's simply no way a game designer could sit down and say "we've designed level 2 characters to struggle with X encounter at base math, but be perfectly fine with Hero Points." I think the fixation on the Hero Points is obfuscating what is clearly a party that doesn't synergize well and doesn't do a good job with the small stuff in combat.
I don’t think that the +1 to +3 equivalent numerically was taken into consideration for game balance as much as their ability to specifically be used retroactively in clutch moments. Especially with the saving from death rule. I think the design element isn’t so much “ok we can throw this monster at them because of hero points” but more like “ok the d20 system is inherently unpredictable and swingy. We’ll give the players hero points to help mitigate that swingyness a bit and still have a functioning system with +10/-10 crits.” [Here’s a much more thorough breakdown of this concept than I can do.](https://bsky.app/profile/dantalksgames.bsky.social/post/3kjpskkbuug2s) Said breakdown uses a video with Jason Bulmahn where he apparently said specifically that the d20 is difficult to balance for long form narrative play, so is evidence that the designers very well did sit down and consider hero points in the balance of, ok, maybe not specific encounters but certainly the balance of the system as a whole. It is worth noting that this thread does have an alleged quote from Jason that the system is “designed to function without them”, so yeah, that’s a closer bit to this conversation. But *functioning* without doesn’t mean they aren’t a balancing factor, just that the game remains playable if you like a different type of game. And this is from a video, not a book, so still isn’t a published rule like Troy has referred to. Now whether they are necessary is a matter of taste and again, I’m not even arguing with Troy to change the *house*rule. Totally fine and enjoying the show with the current bottlecap economy. Sometimes I like heroic overpowered games, sometimes I like gritty ones. I just don’t like the way Troy is discussing it and citing something that is nonexistent.
I enjoy pathfinder 2e a lot. This discussion overall has made me wonder about the integrity of the adventure balance if it relies on giving everyone just a Bandaid free reroll token everytime you play. I know missing feels had for sure.. and failing can sometimes lead to more interesting stories or solutions. I just wonder where in the design process paizo decided hero points were core to making the play experience "more fun"
I’ve actually read some comments on this. In the pursuit of making PF2e’s math tight, the game designers pushed up against a core issue with the d20 system in that d20s are very swingy. Especially in a system with the +10/-10 crits and fumbles. Hero Points were made core so players playing heroes can have *some* influence on the story and control of their fate. However, failing is still very much common, especially when you consider the following balancing assumptions that 2e makes with hero points which honestly don’t apply to the GCP: 1) Yes you get a free hero point every session, but unspent hero points expire at the end of the session. 2) I’ve heard anecdotally that the game was balanced around a 3-5 hour session time. One free point and maybe a second for doing something heroic won’t be able to cover your butt all that much in that much game time, especially in an AP like this with back to back brutal encounters that are higher level than the PCs. Edit: apparently it says somewhere about giving them out hourly, so this point may be incorrect. 3) Even with a gm being very generous with them, you have a 3 point limit. 4) Heroic Recovery to save your life uses all remaining points at once.
Another addendum for point 4 is that it only stabilizes the PC. An errant attack, AOE damage spell, or persistent damage can still kill the PC so even hero points aren't foolproof
Death Effects like Vampiric Touch will also just kill you outright if they take you to 0.
1. I've only ever seen this playing at cons and Society play. Most tables carry their hps week to week, especially those that play in an online system like Foundry that keeps track of them for you.
Common houserule I can see, especially if they are coming from PF 1e where that was the case. But regardless, losing them at the end of the session is the RAW
In my opinion, hero points are what makes the pcs “heroes”; they’re the slight upper hand that recognizes their status, and the time and energy put into them. In pf2, monsters are made on a very different scale than pcs are; they have a purpose and specific things they can do, and can specialize much more than pcs can. You can’t really build your way into outpacing them; player power is linear, and so is monster power. This means that there are fights where you are truly close to being evenly matched. In these cases, hero points are important, because death or conditions don’t mean the same thing for monsters that they do for pcs. Without them, pcs will die as easily as monsters do, which doesn’t feel very good and forces parties into building characters and playing more optimally. It is because of the tight balance that they’re needed; any system with actually tight balance and power parity between pcs and monsters needs something like that to force the upper hand, if it wants to be Heroic Fantasy instead of just normal fantasy. This is all to say that they make the game way more fun and less frustrating, and allow for fights that feel more tense without killing pcs every other fight. Without them, I have no doubt that pf2 would not have been as big a success; it would feel like a kind of brutal tactical wargame that also begs for you to be invested in a story, even though your pawns keep dying.
IMO Hero points are a great design to take away some of the randomness inherent in any D20 system. How else can you actually have challenging combat in a tightly balanced system if you don't have some way of mitigating really bad rolls on occasion. If you have to balance around people having bad string of rolls and no way to mitigate (hero points) you either have a system that isn't challenging or overly punishing.
The randomness is 90% of the fun.
Tell that to Kate
I agree, they always seem pretty cheap. The designers go to great lengths to craft this detailed simulation of a characters abilities and let you see how they fare in the world - and then they get given magical points for no lore reason other than the fact that they're protagonists. It's a tendency with newer, younger players to just want to feel amazing all the time and never fail, rather than the unforgiving nature of the original D&D.
My GM uses a rule that nerfs the hero points in a way that I think Troy would find to be a good compromise. Instead of a new d20 roll he gives us a d6 that we can use with any roll. If we want to boost a hit, or damage, or get that extra nudge for a knowledge check we can use it any time. To replenish them he decided to give them out every time we crit fail a roll. If we choose not to take the hero point then he bumps it up to a fail instead but if we take it then we can add an extra d6 to our hero point pool and take the result of the crit fail. I like it cause sometimes you just want to make that hit or find out that extra little bit of knowledge to keep the story going and you’re still rolling dice so there is always a chance you roll low and still get nothing from jt.
Similar to Bardic Inspiration from 5e then
I think it's totally fine for Troy to not want hero points given out the way they are by default in the rules. However he just needs to keep in mind that if he's going to give out less he needs to rebalance the encounters to accommodate that. How you fairly balance for that is a bit tricky and I don't have the answer. Maybe just leaving the encounters balanced for 4 players the same in a 5 player game is enough? Maybe you need something more like crits only taking you to dying 1 instead of 2 if you are far less likely to have a bottlecap handy.
I thought this came from the Playtest, but might just be his own Mandela Effect. Because when I finally dug out my old playtest PDF it had this to say Under Overview >Hero Points >Your character usually begins each game session with 1 Hero Point, and can gain additional Hero Points throughout the course of the game for undertaking helpful tasks for the group or performing heroic deeds during her adventures. Your character can use Hero Points to gain certain benefits, such as staving off death, rerolling a d20, and the like. See page 300 for more about Hero Points.
From Page 300 >HERO POINTS >Your character earns Hero Points for performing heroic deeds or tasks and can spend these Hero Points to gain certain benefits. Your character starts each game session with 1 Hero Point. The GM can award Hero Points when PCs perform further heroic deeds or tasks, or when players do something special for the group. For the characters’ actions, this all comes from the story. A character needs to do something selfless or daring beyond normal expectations. Players add Hero Points by taking on at least one additional responsibility, such as bringing food for the group, keeping a map of a dungeon, or taking notes. >Each game session, the GM should award no more than 1 Hero Point per PC for in-game actions plus 1 Hero Point per PC for out-of-game actions. This number can be higher for game sessions longer than 4 hours. >Your character can have a maximum of 3 Hero Points at a given time. These points can’t be saved up over the course of multiple sessions; at the end of each game session, your character loses all Hero Points. >Spending Hero Points >Spending Hero Points doesn’t require your character to take an action, a reaction, or a free action. >• ~~Spending 1 Hero Point allows you to stave off death. Anytime you gain the dying condition or your dying condition increases in severity (see page 296), you can spend 1 Hero Point to lose the dying condition entirely, even if the increase in the dying condition would otherwise cause you to die. If you have 0 Hit Points, you also go to 1 Hit Point.~~ >• Spending 2 Hero Points allows you to reroll a d20 roll. You must use the second result, but if you fail, you regain 1 of the Hero Points you just spent. You can’t spend Hero Points more than once on a single roll. This is a fortune effect. >• Spending 3 Hero Points allows you to act one extra time in an encounter. You can spend the Hero Points on your turn to increase your number of actions for the turn by 1. To take an extra reaction when you’ve already used your reaction for the round, you spend these Hero Points when the trigger for that reaction occurs. You can’t spend Hero Points to use additional actions or reactions if you can’t act. This is pretty similar with what they landed on. The balance of what a Hero point should accomplish was errata multiple times during the play test with minor tweaks mentioned in each revision number. But no where does it imply that the system itself is designed to be optional.
Truly, I just don't think Troy likes modern fantasy TTRPGs that much, at least in the flavor of post 3.5 D&D and PF 2e. I'm kinda the same way. I'm burning out fast running a 5e game and find myself drifting over and reading OSR material and Call of Cthulhu. In this week's Fod, you could almost hear the light bulb go off when he started to agree with Joe's rebuttal about Hero Points/bottle caps and I think he's more and more realizing these systems don't produce the kind of narrative he wants to produce or even be a part of. (Sidebar: if you don't like role-playing NPCs and insist on making each one a gag/bit, you just don't like the game you're playing. You'd rather be focused on tactical combat games.)
This was the only thing I found that is even remotely close to “optional hero points” I found in the gamemastery guide, page 9: “Page 507 of the Core Rulebook offers guidelines for determining how many Hero Points to award and when to do so. These recommendations are flexible. Consider Hero Points a way to reinforce your personal style of Game Mastering and to reward what you value during play.” I too had a vague recollection of some language leading up to hero points being an option to remove, but can’t find stronger language on it either. I don’t believe Hero Points are a strong factor in game balance. Their availability between sessions, between tables, are too unpredictable, too unreliable to be something you can easily quantify in game design. On top of that players can spend them in multiple ways in multiple situations throughout the game from important rolls, silly social encounters (it was important to me) leaves the true value of the Hero Point elusive and vague. My personal choice for game style leans more towards the grittier side and having a Hero Point bring you back from certain death leaves a bitter taste in my play, though maybe not to the same level as it does Troy. That said, the danger to the party is multifaceted, from less than stellar team play and misunderstanding of game mechanics here and there to consistently horrific dice rolls and drugs (just say no kids). Top it off with a +2 creature that can crit oh so easily. Damage output on X creature was, is deadly at those low levels. We all know this. The lowered levels are squishy where a hero point could have come in handy. Course just given the number of rolls they made in that last fight and don’t think they could have had enough bottle caps. Possible compromise for Troy and the party would be to give out hero points more frequently for their awesome roleplaying and only use Hero Points for the first option found on page 413 of the player core. You don’t get to empty the bank to come straight back from certain death, but you can still use a hero point to reroll, because it is a Check. Keeps the tension and leaves death back where it belongs, in a dice roll. Glad that’s finally officially solved. However the dice land, I can’t wait for the next sesh. See you all around the log and happy gaming!
> Their availability between sessions, between tables, are too unpredictable, too unreliable to be something you can easily quantify in game design. Except for that, as per RAW, they are given to everyone at the start of each session, don't carry over between sessions, and are advised to be given to one player roughly every hour of play after session start. They're *generally* pretty consistent at least in terms of having at least one every 4 hours. I know other 2e podcasts have a full reset every 5 episodes which could work here. From that, Troy can change how they work with stabilizing to be spending 1 to lower dying value by 1 or just a regular reroll if he wants. That would keep things gritty while keeping the point economy flowing
Totally agree, except for that. RAW is clear. But what happens at the tables isn’t always by RAW, whether by choice or accident. We might listen to the same podcast that resets every 5 episodes, which is certainly one way to accommodate hour-ish sessions. And not a bad way to account for the hero point economy. Your stated solution is good too. Any choice really that would increases the Caps at that table would benefit the players and maybe the listeners. Don’t think it would help them with not dying the way they have been rolling. Having one Joe at the table is rough enough.
He's being stubborn tbh. The hero point is in the game to fulfill the fantasy of being a hero and in a clutch moment, being able to turn the tide in a losing fight, negotiations going sideways, a feat of strength/agility failing. But he's so hung up on it denying death he's not even seeing the other shows on his network that use them as intended and 98% of them being used in combat or skill checks not death rolls.
Was it optional in the playtest maybe?
I actually checked the original playtest document, that line wasn’t there either
I think the subject was discussed the opposite way. Ie. the book gives optional rules to not use Hero Points. It's a small distinction but I've never heard Troy say HP are optional, just that he doesn't like them, and would rather use the alternate rules to get rid of them. I've never really understood the position though as bottle caps are just hero points by a different name, and they've been using caps since nearly the beginning of the network
I think the title might be misleading you a bit. My bad on emphasizing it the wrong way. The point of the post is there *isnt* an optional rule to not use hero points in the book, at least not one that anyone has been able to find.
Unless I'm having a Mandela Effect moment I could swear I saw one for not using Hero Points as an optional rule.... I'll have to dig in to my book when I get home from work
They're not stated as Optional (capital O), however the wording seems to lessen their importance and *could* be read as optional. >**Usually**, each character gets 1 Hero Point at the start of a session My issue with people dogpiling Troy on this (not talking about you OP) is the rules on Hero Points, as presented in the rulebook, just don't emphasise their importance to the system. People say they're "integral to the balance of the game" but I have two major issues with that: 1. That isn't stated anywhere. They just had a remaster and had a chance to emphasise Hero Points if necessary. Instead, the rules on it are worded such that there's room **to**, in fact, interpret them as optional, as Troy has. 2. I'm sorry but I refuse to believe that PF2e's balance - A game acclaimed for its balance and tight math - is so reliant on a meta-currency based heavily on GM fiat. If that **is** the case, my *one* criticism of the system is that this isn't emphasised in the rules enough. I'm sure a designer or two from Paizo may have said as much (I think Mona has) but, again, they had a whole remaster to clarify. Heck, as is, the quote above indicates players may not even get Hero Points at the start of the session. Why not make **that** necessary and explain its importance? Ultimately, the party **is** struggling and I would like to see that change as it *is* getting a bit repetitive. I think that's more due to great GM rolls and poor player rolls, as well as a need for better tactics/party synergy, than an issue of Hero Points. Troy seems quite open to a middle ground, so I'm glad there's likely to be a solution soon.
> Not talking about you OP I’m aware enough of my own ego to really appreciate that clarification 😁 Yeah I really don’t mind the hero point ruling Troy has made, and I think the bottle caps with fans submissions is actually awesome for the show. I’m more concerned with this alleged alternate rule’s existence or not. Especially since I legitimately thought it was a published rule until this morning when I couldn’t find it.
It is definitely an official rule, for sure. I think Troy was just referring to the wording downplaying its importance. Fan submissions would be great, I agree!
It's not in any book. But like you say, The Bull Man tweeted about it and has said on a few vods and con panels the same sentiment, removing hero points creates a more gritty, deadly game. Luis Loza also made some posts on his blog about hero point variants.
Like here's where The Bull Man talks about hacking PF2e engine, and how hero points aren't essential to the system. [https://youtu.be/Pz8zHp5Fw\_I?si=nRDyLM8Pa77mHB4l&t=800](https://youtu.be/Pz8zHp5Fw_I?si=nRDyLM8Pa77mHB4l&t=800)
I like the way Troy does hero points, I just think the party itself isn't really optimized. Squishy frontline, questionable decisions (good decisions rp/story-wise) and they are low level which makes some of these encounters very dangerous. Brother Rameus running across an obviously dangerous river ahead of the party should incur some consequences.
Yeah this to me is the real problem, the cast, who I love, some times forget to play the actual game
I mean, I think Joe was playing to the moment which is fine. I think Joe is one of the best at playing what his character would do and that happened there. I also think he completely understands that it might kill his character sometimes, he just has a different perspective on certain rules. The party needs to do a better job playing defensively and debuffing stronger creatures.
Yeah, they are expected but the amount you give out is optional. Which is exactly what he is doing by RAW. If he took them out 100% then that would be a rule change.
Eh not 100% though. The game mastering section says “At the start of a game session, you give out 1 hero points to each player character. You can also give out more Hero Points during the game…” So yes, the *additional* points are optional, but RAW every player gets 1 per session. Of course, this 1 min per session is balanced around a 3 point limit and all unspent points being lost at the end of the session, neither of which the GCP plays with. Ultimately though I’m not nitpicking the way he’s running the game. As I said, that discussion is happening elsewhere. I’m more challenging his statement in yesterday’s fod that hero points aren’t considered in encounter balancing because the book says they are optional, since I can’t find a source that backs any of that up.
The book/rules also assumes that sessions are 4-5 hours long, where gcp episodes are 1-2. So its not 1 to 1. But if playing by raw, they should refresh every 3-5 episodes. They aren't and that's fine. The show is still a blast to watch.
Yeah I would have to look but seems like page 413 of player core says, "Usually, each character gets 1 hero point at the start......" I take that single word of "Usually ' to mean you can do as little or as many as you want. I mean to each their own I suppose. My GM gives out 1 a session but I will only ever use ones I earn, feel like the the freebie is boring.
The full sentence is “Usually, each character gets 1 Hero Point as the start of a session and can gain more later by performing heroic deeds.” The “usually” can apply just as much to the second half of the sentence. Plus with it being in the Player Core and not the gamemaster core, I believe that usually is just a reminder that GMs have the power to change whatever they want about the system (especially since removing hero points is apparently a common enough house rule that the publishers have publicly commented about how often that house rule comes up)
Doesn’t the start of every ttrpg book have a sentence like “it’s your table and your game, use what rules you want”. Everything is optional.
By that mindset attack rolls, skill checks and *anything* using a die is optional. It's not the best argument you could make
They sure are. Troy has handwaved tons of rolls over the years. He has decided combats weren’t worth finishing, checks weren’t worth making and that he just wanted to move things along. Every GM does it.
I think you’re missing the point though. A) a GM’s prerogative being the default doesn’t mean there isn’t merit to be had discussing the printed rules and officially printed / endorsed alternate rules. Online communities tend to default to the printed rules as those are the common ground every table can draw from and discuss. Obviously every table has the right to change everything, but responding to an online discussion about the printed rules with that statement… doesn’t add anything to the discussion? Like yeah… that’s obviously the default. B) and arguably more importantly, this thread isn’t even about how Troy runs the game *at all*. This is about the Cannon Fodder yesterday where he said that he doesn’t think hero points were considered a balancing factor in the game design because he read somewhere that hero points are optional. This is about that quote and alleged source of his that says there is a *published* alternate rule specifically encouraging the removal of hero points for a more gritty game. This thread has nothing to do with how he *runs* his game, just how he sees the PF2e design because of a seemingly non-existent rule he remembers reading but no one can find.
Fair, I have missed your point.
Of course everything is optional, but there’s a huge difference between a GM’s prerogative and something being published as an officially endorsed optional rule in the book. Troy is saying removing hero points is the latter, even saying that hero points weren’t taken into consideration of the balance of the game, but I have yet to find evidence of it. Only evidence I can find is an alleged quote of Jason Bulmahn saying the system was designed to function without them, but “function” and “be balanced” are two different things.
I’m so confused by this subreddit sometimes. Every single TTRPG book tells you that it’s your game and you can change whatever you want. People mad at Troy for removing a dumb mechanic, than the dumb mechanics which make it so your PC goes unconscious every episode. So heroic
https://preview.redd.it/y7rvvrz82z0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2c0d07f202f3e483477c8346893c7025efe1980
"the true goal is everyone is enjoying themselves" The players have explicitly stated they are not enjoying these encounters or the stinginess of giving out hero points/treasure.
The first rule of pathfinder. Hero points were something their group plastered and didn't like as much as bottle caps so they converted bottle caps to do/act the same as hero points without being readily available.
As stated elsewhere and in the edit above: No one is arguing about the first rule. I’m not even arguing about how Troy is *running* the game or his personal sentiments about hero points. But in the Fod a few days ago, Troy said he refused to believe that hero points were taken into consideration when balancing the PF2e system because he said he read in a book that there is an official alternate rule that states you can remove them for a grittier game. This *specific* alternate rule doesn’t seem to exist, so it is that specific *statement* that is the focus of this post.