Pathfinder 2 Release

[malloc]

Pathfinder 2 was released yesterday, and all the materials are hosted for free online, with the publisher's blessing.

You can find all the relevant information here:

http://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx

Here's a good summary of the basic overview of the system (not my work):

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/ck985d/how_is_pf2_different_from_5e/

While the comparison is from 5e to PF2, I think it highlights most of the core features of the system that I've read through so far.

I've gone through most of the rules so far, and I'm loving it. In particular, I'm a fan of action point systems, of which this is one; multi-layered hit-points (HP and "wounds", which act as a sort of counter for how many times you run out of HP); and the more flexible 'multiclassing' options they've brought in.

I haven't made it through the classes or spell lists yet, but so far it looks super promising.

[stack]

My first impression is that the framework seems solid and has a lot of interesting design space to work in (3-action system, condition tracts, etc.), but so many of the individual abilities you get to fill in a character look minor/trivial. I have not really encountered many feats of any type that make me want to build for them. Spend a focus point to increase healing to a creature by a small amount. Heal yourself 1 HP/spell level when healing someone else. Medicine to heal someone in combat, 1/day per target. Lots of small bonuses and level gating.

[NomGarret]

My first impression is that the framework seems solid and has a lot of interesting design space to work in (3-action system, condition tracts, etc.), but so many of the individual abilities you get to fill in a character look minor/trivial. I have not really encountered many feats of any type that make me want to build for them. Spend a focus point to increase healing to a creature by a small amount. Heal yourself 1 HP/spell level when healing someone else. Medicine to heal someone in combat, 1/day per target. Lots of small bonuses and level gating.

My thoughts exactly. While plenty of things changed over the course of the play test, (resonance, proficiency scaling, etc) the one thing I really wanted was abilities that were ... cool. And a lot of the level-gating and somewhat arbitrary niche protection pushes things in the opposite direction. I haven’t had a chance to look too deeply at the finished product, but that’s where I want to see improvement over what we were shown before. Otherwise I’ll wait until other products realize the potential the system really has.

[Divine Susuryu]

... so many of the individual abilities you get to fill in a character look minor/trivial.


... a lot of the level-gating and somewhat arbitrary niche protection...

That was my impression during the playtest too, although the playtest was in a much worse position in terms of how little the Untrained/Trained/Expert/Master/Legendary levels were differentiated numerically. Generally, I see no use case for this game over any other - not even 5e, which was my previous "no use case game". I also don't agree it's somewhat arbitrary - I think it's entirely arbitrary. Niche protection is something that should be done at the table level, not the system level.

[ThatMoonGuy]

I can see some good third party taking this system and making something interesting with it. As it is, however, I don't think there's much point to 2e. Sure, you need to make a lot of choices when creating your character but those choices aren't exactly what I'd call 'good'. Most skill and general feats aren't exactly great and the class feats, while arguably better, are given out at a very sparse progression. It also doesn't help that multiclassing is very feat intensive.

[StevenC21]

I personally don't much like the new action system. I understand the flexibility, but I still prefer the d20 style.

[Eldonauran]

I remain critical of the new system until I have had a chance to really play it. However, starting from the point of just viewing it as a new game system, it is quite good. Everything seems fairly clean cut and, even with the mutliclass archetypes, every class has something going for it that makes it fun to play. I especially LOVE that the sorcerer can access either of the four casting spell lists. Bard = occult, Cleric = divine, Druid = primal, Wizard = Arcane, ... Sorcerer = um, you pick!

I've already reviewed most of the classes in detail and the spell lists. I havent run too much into the pure combat mechanics and status effects, but I've already seen quite a few interesting combination of abilities that get my attention as a player who enjoys being versatile.

As for races, I kind of like what they did with each of them. Don't like the goblin being a starting race but that's just personal preference, so I won't judge the system based on that at all.

[Kurald Galain]

My first impression is that the framework seems solid and has a lot of interesting design space to work in (3-action system, condition tracts, etc.), but so many of the individual abilities you get to fill in a character look minor/trivial.
While that is certainly true, bear in mind that it is also the case for 5E, 4E, and even 3E. Yes, an expert forum like this knows where to find the non-trivial 3E abilities, but frankly most of 3E's feats are pretty minor/trivial too.

Overall I'd say it looks fairly solid; I like the three-action and crit/fumble system, and there are some standout abilities like how dwarves push people around, halflings heal faster by eating food, and paladins get to counterattack each time an ally is attacked. I probably won't be playing this any time soon because none of my groups have an interest in switching, but yeah, there's a lot of tactical depth here and the gameplay appears faster.

[Segev]

The "the power choices are all kind-of lackluster" complaint puts me in mind of what I dislike about d20 modern. Is that a valid comparison? d20 modern is...bland.

One of the big strengths of 5e, I think, is that they were unafraid to make some really cool, powerful-seeming abilities that were handed to various subclasses. Malleable Illusions, the Conjuror's item-creation, Telepathy from Awakened Mind, the Zealot's ability to be Raised without expensive material components... all of these and more give ideas around which cool character builds can be constructed that feel like they have unique tricks that are actually worth investing in.

How well does PF2 stand up in that regard?

[stack]

Well, a level 20 monk gets three new feat options. One gives you an extra action for movement stuff (extra actions don't stack, so hope you didn't have another source that overlaps too much). Once lets you use a reaction to reroll a save or force an enemy to reroll an attack. One lets you use two [stance] abilities at the same time...which means you have to have previously spent feats to gain multiple stances that you couldn't use at once.

Whirlwind attack is locked to barbarian and fighter and required 14th level.

These are just examples I've noticed in the last few minutes.

On the other hand, barbarians at 20 can cast earthquake with a single action every ten minutes by stomping, so at least that is cool.

[johnbragg]

While that is certainly true, bear in mind that it is also the case for 5E, 4E, and even 3E. Yes, an expert forum like this knows where to find the non-trivial 3E abilities, but frankly most of 3E's feats are pretty minor/trivial too.


But 3E came into a very different environment. 3E let you customize your character in ways that earlier editions never dreamed of. (2E Skills and Powers and Players Options and Complete X Kits pointed the way, but 3E systematized it all). We're looking at what feats are as good as Power Attack--when 3E came out, the fact that your Fighter 1 had Power Attack and Cleave and mine had TWF and Dodge was revolutionary for D&D.

4E was "More Balanced Than 3E." Nobody argued that the classes weren't balanced. Pathfinder was "3E, and more of it.", which was a great selling point against 4E. 5E was "More Streamlined than 3X, and Actually D&D unlike 4th".

I have the Playtest trade paperback, and I really don't know what the one-sentence pitch for PF2 is. If I were running Paizo, I'd have just gone through the supplements and released a Greatest Hits book with 8-12 new Core classes (the Unchained versions of some, swap out various others), and 500 pages of the best stuff they've done over the last 10 years. Longtime paizo fans would have a single volume to lend to their relative-noob players, instead of them shuffling through 4 borrowed splatbooks.

[MisterKaws]

I think pf2 discussions should be in the 5e forum, seeing as it's based on the 5e srd.

[StevenC21]

I find that unlikely.

Source?

[Segev]

I think pf2 discussions should be in the 5e forum, seeing as it's based on the 5e srd.

I think that'd be more technically off-topic, there, since the 5e forum isn't a mixed system forum, while pathfinder talk is for this forum, and until we get a PF 2e forum, PF 2e is still a pathfinder system and fits here. Plus, more people are likely to look here for PF2e discussion since they'll be branching from PF 1e.

Having glanced through the "What's different?" link from the OP, is it weird that I think cribbing the proficiency levels from 5e for skills was a mistake for PF, specifically? I get it in 5e, but it feels like the customizability of skill points is not something a crunchy system like PF should really be losing.

[Kurald Galain]

I have the Playtest trade paperback, and I really don't know what the one-sentence pitch for PF2 is.
Hm, that's an interesting one. How about "Fast and consistent rules, highly customizable characters"?

I think that's what they're aiming for; by contrast, 3E has way too many complexities and subsystems to be "fast and consistent", whereas 5E characters really aren't all that customizable (as the article in the top post points out).


all of these and more give ideas around which cool character builds can be constructed that feel like they have unique tricks that are actually worth investing in.
At a first reading, it strikes me that P2 has substantially more mechanically different unique tricks than 5E does.


Having glanced through the "What's different?" link from the OP, is it weird that I think cribbing the proficiency levels from 5e for skills was a mistake for PF, specifically?
Did they, though? In 5E you're either trained or you're not, except that two classes (and only those two) can be experts, and equipment explicitly doesn't stack with training. P2 has untrained / trained / expert / master / legend, plus equipment, plus assurance (aka "take 10 even under stress"). So that's three dimensions of growth instead of just one...

[Segev]

Did they, though? In 5E you're either trained or you're not, except that two classes (and only those two) can be experts, and equipment explicitly doesn't stack with training. P2 has untrained / trained / expert / master / legend, plus equipment, plus assurance (aka "take 10 even under stress"). So that's three dimensions of growth instead of just one...

In terms of granularity in which there's an actual choice, you've got untrained, trained, expert, master, and legend. Equipment I'll leave aside. That's better than 5e's "proficient or not," but I don't count "you're level 3, so that's 2 higher than the guy who's only level 1."

Compare to 3e/PF, where you actually decide just how dedicated you want to be to a finer degree.

Now, that said...neither PF nor 3e ever really explored much in the way of alternate ways to use SP, so maybe the simplification still is for the best. 3e tried briefly in Complete Scoundrel with skill tricks, but that never went very far.

Eh, I just often find myself, in 5e and in some of the experimental off-shoot d20 systems that use a variation on "trained or not," feeling like I lack options for customizing just what my PC is good at. Or am fixed in them. (I do like 5e's training rules for downtime - spend gold for new proficiencies - in Xanathar's. Maybe PF2e cribs something from that.)

[Morty]

I haven't really dug into it yet, but apparently the "shield block" reaction that lets you absorb damage with your shield as a reaction if you've raised it is a general feat now, that fighters and paladins champions get for free. This feels like a really roundabout way of doing it and doesn't bode well.

[stack]

They don't get shield block for free, they get it as part of the chassis. If it wasn't included, they would presumably get a different option. If you want to play a fighter, paladin, or warpriest cleric and not use a shield, you get a wasted ability. Cleric of gorum, warpriest doctrine, you get saddled with shield block (gorum grants greatsword proficiency, which uses two hands) and martial weapon proficiency (fine as an option, but you don't get to opt out).

[Rynjin]

Hm, that's an interesting one. How about "Fast and consistent rules, highly customizable characters"?

When I asked on the Paizo forums months back, the general consensus seemed to be "to make life easier for Pathfinder Society GMs and Adventure Path designers".

That's mainly what the new ruleset accomplishes. Much like 5e it pigeonholes every class into 3 distinct roles with very little (if any) wiggle room out of them. You can have a TWF Ranger, an Archer Ranger, or a Trapper (lol) Ranger. You can have a Blaster Druid, a Summoner Druid, or a Wild Shape Druid. Etc., etc. for every class.

This makes it easy for them to design adventures and modules because each class is easily predictable in what challenges it can overcome, and for the same reason makes it easy to run said adventures.

[MisterKaws]

I think that'd be more technically off-topic, there, since the 5e forum isn't a mixed system forum, while pathfinder talk is for this forum, and until we get a PF 2e forum, PF 2e is still a pathfinder system and fits here. Plus, more people are likely to look here for PF2e discussion since they'll be branching from PF 1e.

Having glanced through the "What's different?" link from the OP, is it weird that I think cribbing the proficiency levels from 5e for skills was a mistake for PF, specifically? I get it in 5e, but it feels like the customizability of skill points is not something a crunchy system like PF should really be losing.

Fair enough. Still, I think the system is different enough from 3.x to warrant a different place for it. We'll have to see what the mods decide to do.

[Segev]

Fair enough. Still, I think the system is different enough from 3.x to warrant a different place for it. We'll have to see what the mods decide to do.

I suspect it will eventually get its own subforum. For now, the 3e/Pathfinder forum is the best fit. Maybe the general RP forum.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
When I asked on the Paizo forums months back, the general consensus seemed to be "to make life easier for Pathfinder Society GMs and Adventure Path designers".

Was this the consensus from the devs themselves, or just general forumites?

I haven’t been following the 2E development process very closely, just wondering if this is something the devs have acknowledged, or if it’s been presumed on their behalf.

One thing I find interesting about the Paizo forums is that developers and other staff are fairly frequent posters, which is an interesting dynamic. The downside is that sometimes Paizo staff don't mind letting you know just how disinterested in your feedback they really are.

[Rynjin]

Was this the consensus from the devs themselves, or just general forumites?

I haven’t been following the 2E development process very closely, just wondering if this is something the devs have acknowledged, or if it’s been presumed on their behalf.

One thing I find interesting about the Paizo forums is that developers and other staff are fairly frequent posters, which is an interesting dynamic. The downside is that sometimes Paizo staff don't mind letting you know just how disinterested in your feedback they really are.

No, it's not from the devs themselves. They stopped actively participating in playtests years ago, and there was little to no dev feedback to the playtest this time at all (they were at GenCon for the critical first week, and "recovering" for the week after that). It was kind of a ****show.

There were actually quite a few threads asking what the basic design philosophy for the system was/who it was made for, but there was never a real response and they started just locking any thread about it.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Has anyone given these rules a go yet? It appears at a glance that they've ironed out a lot of what I didn't like about the playtest and the fundamental math looks structurally sound on the surface. But at 640 pages for a PHB, learning it enough to GM it seems incredibly daunting without having some faith in the system first.

I just have a few big questions. Like, how often do you end up searching for obscure rules? How long does that take on average when it happens? How's the balance feel at the table? What sort of adventure does it lend best to? Is there a good example?

[Morty]

Unless the SRD linked up there isn't up to date with the final version, rather than the playtest, the Monster Hunter feat for 1st level rangers is still... not worth taking ever.

[Kurald Galain]

Unless the SRD linked up there isn't up to date with the final version, rather than the playtest, the Monster Hunter feat for 1st level rangers is still... not worth taking ever.
Why not? Recall Knowledge is normally an action that reveals useful information about an enemy. This feat lets you do it for free whenever you activate your Prey ability. Generally speaking, in any game with an action economy, any ability that gives you actions for free is at least worth considering.

[Segev]

A quick hot take: A lot of the grab-bag of relatively weak benefits that dwarves got as racial perks in PF1 (and 3.5 D&D, etc.) are now feats...and you only get to pick one of them. This feels like a not-so-stealth nerf of an already lackluster race. Am I missing something?

I'm noticing a lot of stripping out of cruft that's being re-assigned as feats to races, but the net effect isn't buffing the races or leaving them on par, but rather nerfing them to heck and making them pick one of the ribbons they would have otherwise had. In some cases, the ribbons are competing with real useful looking choices; in others, they're just all...lackluster.

[stack]

Feats are weak across the board, but I suppose that is a form of balance. Takes a bit to reset expectations.

As someone who is working on a big 5e 3pp project, PF2 has almost made me weep for joy by having clearly defined globally tagged properties for things.

[pabelfly]

globally tagged properties for things.

Mind explaining what you mean by this?

[Elkad]

Am I just blind, or are there no rules for generating ability scores?

[stack]

Mind explaining what you mean by this?
All kinds of abilities have traits in little boxes. Each trait has rules governing what it means. As a designer, it is much more precise to be able to refer to them and having rule elements clearly defined is easier in general. At a table, you can have a GM wing it, but I don't like forcing them too as a designer.


Am I just blind, or are there no rules for generating ability scores?
There are. Character creation section I believe. You get two bonuses from race (or three and a penalty), two from background. One from class. Four free at level 1, then more at 5 and later levels.

[Rynjin]

Am I just blind, or are there no rules for generating ability scores?

I recall rules for ability scores being one of the few things I liked from the playtest, so they definitely exist.

Ah, here:


Each ability score starts at 10, representing human average, but as you make character choices, you’ll adjust these scores by applying ability boosts, which increase a score, and ability flaws, which decrease a score. As you build your character, remember to apply ability score adjustments when making the following decisions.

Ancestry: Each ancestry provides ability boosts, and sometimes an ability flaw. If you are taking any voluntary flaws, apply them in this step (see the sidebar on page 24).

Background: Your character’s background provides two ability boosts.

Class: Your character’s class provides an ability boost to the ability score most important to your class, called your key ability score.

Determine Scores: After the other steps, you apply four more ability boosts of your choice. Then, determine your ability modifiers based on those scores.

A "boost" is a +2 and a "flaw" is a -2, as defined later.

So essentially you get 4 boosts of your choice, and a number of freebies based on class, race, and background.

The main issues with this are the increase in pigeonholing to roles based on class (you wanna play a Dex based Barbarian for whatever reason? Tough noogies, your class gives you Stronk), and the issue of needing to essentially optimize your character's backstory for mechanical advantages, which is icky, but it's pretty elegant when you get used to it.

[pabelfly]

Feats are weak across the board, but I suppose that is a form of balance. Takes a bit to reset expectations.

Reading up on this, it looks like you get a lot more feats though to balance how weak they are.

You get feats based on your race at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th
You get class feats at 1st level and every even level.
You get skill feats at every level, and an extra skill feat based on your character's background at 1st.
You get general feats at 3rd, 7th, 11th 15th, and 19th

I haven't had the chance to play P2E, but I don't mind this setup from how it's presented thus far.

[Rynjin]

Reading up on this, it looks like you get a lot more feats though to balance how weak they are.

You get feats based on your race at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th
You get class feats at 1st level and every even level.
You get skill feats at every level, and an extra skill feat based on your character's background at 1st.
You get general feats at 3rd, 7th, 11th 15th, and 19th

I haven't had the chance to play P2E, but I don't mind this setup from how it's presented thus far.
It looks like that, but it's not accurate.

Race Feats replace your basic racial traits everybody used to get. No gain there (and even some loss, actually).

Class Feats were already in the game for most classes, they were just called "Talents" or "Arcana". Except in PF 2e you lose a lot of BASIC CLASS FEATURES and have to regain them via Class Feats. So again a loss.

Skill Feats are new (-ish, they're basically Skill unlocks) but trash.

General Feats are now less frequent.

So of the "good" Feats everybody used to get, you get LESS Regular feats and the same number of Class Feats (in the best case; in bad cases you need to rebuy stuf you used to get for free), and then a bunch of nothingburgers, most of which consist of what people used to get for free. Any illusion of having more options is just that: an illusion.

[Psyren]

It does look much more interesting than the playtest - proof once again that my philosophy of sitting back while others do the hard work continues to pay off :smallbiggrin:

Some of the fundamental design elements that I particularly like:

- No (or at least wider) bounded accuracy - they want high level characters to feel more like superheroes compared to low level ones. Legendary Proficiency being 8+level is far larger than 5e's bonuses, and far beyond what somebody untrained can do, making for a larger gap.

- Typeless actions (and casting taking multiple actions most of the time) - I find this more elegant overall, and it helps to balance spellcasting against other actions more easily.

- Degrees of Success - I love that this is baked into the system baseline. Not only is it just fun in general to get extra effects for something you're really good (or really bad!) at, it combines perfectly with PF2's greater emphasis (at least compared to 5e) on tracking bonuses.

- Bulk instead of Encumbrance - this was one of my favorite rules changes in Starfinder and I'm glad they brought it here. It makes tracking carrying capacity so easy, which in turn means people will do it more and get more immersed. Bulk is also great for planar or space travel.

One part I'm worried about though is the paucity of Fortune/Misfortune compared to 5e. Though I found 5e's implementation of advantage/disadvantage for everything to be a bit too simplistic (1 instance of advantage can cancel out 10 sources of disadvantage and vice-versa), I can't deny its benefits for speeding up play and attracting players that want to spend more time living through their characters and less time doing math. On paper I prefer PF using myriad bonuses more often than advantage, but it has the potential to bog down combat again just like it did in 3.5 and P1.


I think pf2 discussions should be in the 5e forum, seeing as it's based on the 5e srd.

As a d20 system without a dedicated subforum, it likely belongs here until/unless the mods choose to split it off. Also the Pathfinder connection.

[Kurald Galain]

Race Feats replace your basic racial traits everybody used to get. No gain there (and even some loss, actually).
You should check that section again. Racial feats go way beyod those basic racial traits that everybody used to forget about.

For instance, 3E elves get +2 to save against enchantment, and +2 to some perception skills; which are useful abilities, but also things you write down once and then forget about. Indeed, an issue with 3E is that during gameplay, it's pretty hard to notice mechanically what race anyone is playing.

Whereas P2 elves can indeed pick useless ribbon abilities if they want, but they can also take options like "evasion" against emotion effects (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=15), higher movement (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=16), at-will magic even if you're not a spellcaster (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=17), 10' step instead of 5' step (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=21), or a floating skill that you can change each day (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=12). Those are both stronger and more noticeable in gameplay than anything a 3E elf gets.

[StevenC21]

As a d20 system without a dedicated subforum, it likely belongs here until/unless the mods choose to split it off. Also the Pathfinder connection.

It's... Barely d20 at this point.

You don't even have hit Dice.

I think we should make a sub forum for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder. They're the two most similar systems to each other.

[Rynjin]

You should check that section again. Racial feats go way beyod those basic racial traits that everybody used to forget about.

For instance, 3E elves get +2 to save against enchantment, and +2 to some perception skills; which are useful abilities, but also things you write down once and then forget about. Indeed, an issue with 3E is that during gameplay, it's pretty hard to notice mechanically what race anyone is playing.

Whereas P2 elves can indeed pick useless ribbon abilities if they want, but they can also take options like "evasion" against emotion effects (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=15), higher movement (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=16), at-will magic even if you're not a spellcaster (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=17), 10' step instead of 5' step (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=21), or a floating skill that you can change each day (https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=12). Those are both stronger and more noticeable in gameplay than anything a 3E elf gets.

But most of them are similar in power (if not identical to) to Alternate Racial Abilities the Elf gets in Pathfinder, which is not 3e. Elves in PF get, by default: immunity to sleep effects, a +2 against Enchantment, low-light vision, +2 Perception, +2 caster level to overcome spell resistance, +2 Spellcraft to identify magic items, and free Proficiency in 3-6 good weapons. If you find those boring, trade them in for stuff like constant Detect Magic (at the cost of your +2 spell penetration), the Run Feat and a +2 Initiative for the cost of your Perception bonus and weapon proficiencies (usually redundant with most classes), or one of another 50 (literally) abilities that replace various other stuff you may not care about.

And for every good Elf ability in 2e there's three trash Dwarf abilities. Dwarves even outright LOSE their best racial trait (Hardy. +2 to saves against ALL spells, SLAs, and poison, upped to +4 by a Feat if you wanted it) and get nothing that even comes close to replacing it. A bunch of the other races are in a similar boat.

I'll reiterate: Pathfinder is not 3e, and Pathfinder 2 shouldn't be compared to much else besides Pathfinder and maybe 5th Edition, since those are the markets they want to tap.

[Morty]

A quick hot take: A lot of the grab-bag of relatively weak benefits that dwarves got as racial perks in PF1 (and 3.5 D&D, etc.) are now feats...and you only get to pick one of them. This feels like a not-so-stealth nerf of an already lackluster race. Am I missing something?

I'm noticing a lot of stripping out of cruft that's being re-assigned as feats to races, but the net effect isn't buffing the races or leaving them on par, but rather nerfing them to heck and making them pick one of the ribbons they would have otherwise had. In some cases, the ribbons are competing with real useful looking choices; in others, they're just all...lackluster.

That's more or less the impression I got. The racial feats run the gamut from solid to pretty questionable. Racial feats aren't a bad idea as such, but making almost all racial features into feats and making major abilities and "ribbons" cost the same... is just weird.

[stack]

The ancestry set-up has a major plus that can fix something that has bugged me for awhile. It should be very easy to make generic planetouched heritages that can be accessed by many different ancestries, so a dwarf aasimar, and elf aasimar, and an orc aasimar are actually different. Going further, you could break it down into the sub groups, so you can have the different descents represented across all the races. There is no need for aasimar, tiefling, etc. ancestries, they can all be added to others.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by stack
There is no need for aasimar, tiefling, etc. ancestries, they can all be added to others.

Are you saying that instead of aasimar and tiefling as separate races, you’d have essentially a planetouched template for dwarfs, orcs, etc?

And is this something that PF2 has done, or just a tweak you’d like to do within the PF2 framework?

[NomGarret]

Are you saying that instead of aasimar and tiefling as separate races, you’d have essentially a planetouched template for dwarfs, orcs, etc?

And is this something that PF2 has done, or just a tweak you’d like to do within the PF2 framework?

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

[Calthropstu]

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

personally, I'd prefer a aasimar race with a simple "you qualify for another racechain, must be taken first level" option.

[Segev]

Knowing the nature of power creep and tendencies for poor design choices in early days to be hammered at all edition, I bet race feats will be things that keep coming out in increasingly potent amounts for most of PF2’s shelf life. I don’t know if they’ll try to salvage the ribbon features by combining them or not. But I suspect most of them just won’t see play except as trap options as the edition progresses.

[Morty]

It's part of what I see as a broader flaw with making too many things into feats. Feats are each worth exactly the same - the only thing that changes their value is prerequisites. It's fine for an ancestry to have features that are largely useless but add character, but when you turn them into feats, they have to compete with the rest of them. And given the way levels work, once you've taken one ancestry feat but not the other, that's it until level 5, when you get another one. Unless you can spend general feat slots on ancestry feat, which I don't remember if it's possible.

[Particle_Man]

It sounds like this is getting closer to GURPS advantages, except that they all cost the same and they are grouped in various categories and sometimes level gates. Is that the case?

[Ilorin Lorati]

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

Well, there is the sidebar in the human section that says playing a non-human half-elf/orc is possible, even giving specific examples and suggesting to ask your GM if you want to do that. It's not quite there, but I think it might just be them being afraid of jumping into the deep end with the CRB.



By default, half-elves and half-orcs descend from humans, but your GM might allow you to be the offspring of an elf, orc, or different ancestry. In these cases, the GM will let you select the half-elf or half-orc heritage as the heritage for this other ancestry. The most likely other parent of a half-elf are gnomes and halflings, and the most likely parents of a half-orc are goblins, halflings, and dwarves.

[Palanan]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

[JNAProductions]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

It's a feature that's not so powerful, mechanically, but adds character and is fun.

[Remuko]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

i assumed like a real ribbon it was something thats pretty but functionally (almost) useless.

[Psyren]

It's... Barely d20 at this point.

...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.


I think we should make a sub forum for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder. They're the two most similar systems to each other.

Report the OP then. Until then I'll keep talking in here, thanks.

What I like about the Ancestries is that it gives us a potential framework to mechanically answer some of the questions that continually crop up around half-races, such as "what happens if an orc and a dwarf get together" or "what happens if a blue half-dragon mates with a red one."

[Morty]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.


It's a feature that's not so powerful, mechanically, but adds character and is fun.

I, personally, say it to mean an ability that's there for decoration, rather than a practical purpose. Whether it's good or bad depends on the context, as usual. Racial "ribbons" are perfectly fine on their own.


...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

I continue to be bemused by the things that people will declare make a game not d20/D&D anymore.


What I like about the Ancestries is that it gives us a potential framework to mechanically answer some of the questions that continually crop up around half-races, such as "what happens if an orc and a dwarf get together" or "what happens if a blue half-dragon mates with a red one."

That is a good thing about them, certainly. Like templates, only less clunky and without weakening a character through LA. I think the issue is that they overshot with them by turning all ancestry features into feats.

[NomGarret]

My gut reaction is that an extra Ancestry feat at lvl 1 (and maybe an extra couple sprinkled through higher levels) would go a long way.

[Crake]

...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

So is 5e, but the "D20" system is characterised as the 3rd edition OGL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System). Something being/not being d20 is irrelevant of what the core mechanical dice is. "d20" is basically the genra neutral term for "dnd 3rd edition". Where dnd is fantasy, d20 modern is modern, d20 stargate is stargate, etc etc, it's all based on 3.5. Pathfinder 2e is barely reminiscent of 3.5 at all, and pretty much the only thing left to really compare the two is the use of the term "feats", the ability scoring system (kinda), and yes, the main dice being a d20. Hence, I'd say it's quite a valid thing to say that "It's... Barely d20 at this point."

[Biguds]

So, as PF2e uses the OGL, it's a d20 System.

[StevenC21]

Then 5e is a d20 game, just like 3e.

Do you really, truly believe that?

[Crake]

So, as PF2e uses the OGL, it's a d20 System.

The assertion wasn't that it wasn't a d20 system, it's that it's barely a d20 system. The base system differs so drastically from the 3.5 OGL, that, while maybe yes it's based loosely on it, it's barely reminiscent of the 3.5 OGL to the point where the two systems seem almost unrelated. And I'd say that's quite a well founded assertion, many of the core mechanics of the system have been changed, the way xp works, the way ability scores are both generated and advanced over levels, the way critical strikes scale, the way magic weapons scale, the way skills work, the way feats and races work, the entire action economy... I mean, when the system has more things that are different than the same... can you really call it being that system? Honestly, aside from some of the names of certain abilities, creatures and classes, most things are different.

[Psyren]

So is 5e,


Then 5e is a d20 game, just like 3e.

Do you really, truly believe that?

Yes, I do! The difference is that 5e already has its own subforum. If it didn't, this would be the place to talk about it - just like it was before the mods created it. Get it?

[StevenC21]

I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System

"The d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, originally developed for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons."

This ties the d20 system to 3e. Not 5e.

"Much of the d20 System was released as the System Reference Document (SRD) under the Open Game License (OGL)"

This shows that d20 system and OGL licensed are not interchangeable. The OGL is just a license.

5e is not a d20 game.

[Crake]

Yes, I do! The difference is that 5e already has its own subforum. If it didn't, this would be the place to talk about it - just like it was before the mods created it. Get it?

I mean, 5e is decidedly not based on the 3.5 OGL, thus is is objectively not a d20 game. The fact that it uses a d20 as the main dice is entirely irrelevant. 1e, 2e and 4e dnd all also used a d20 as their main dice, and none of them are a d20 system game.

[Roadie]

That is a good thing about them, certainly. Like templates, only less clunky and without weakening a character through LA. I think the issue is that they overshot with them by turning all ancestry features into feats.

A PF2 feat is not a 3.x feat. A PF2 feat is a siloed slot for abilities, which can range from static bonuses all the way up to "walk through walls at will" (one of the Rogue class feats).


Skill Feats are new (-ish, they're basically Skill unlocks) but trash.
Effects of skill feats in the book scale up to things like "never take fall damage", "climb at your full land speed", "create a full disguise in one turn", and "Intimidate-based save or die". They're way better than skill unlocks ever were.

[Pex]

The website doesn't show the spells. I hoped they fixed my issue with them. Some spells didn't do what you wanted them to do unless and only unless the target critically failed the saving throw. Other spells as the target even if you make the saving throw you still suffer from it. You have to critically succeed to be unaffected. That is frustrating as a player in my opinion.

They kept the background ability score generation. Sure you'll have the occasional player who won't, but for the most part everyone will have an 18 in their prime and likely no 8. Even with a flaw a player can find a +2 to throw at it to make it 10. This isn't a bad thing but more like a compromise between the bad arrays & too good arrays anti-Dice Rollers complain about and the zero-sum punished for having a good score anti-Point Buys complain about. Considering the generous ASIs you get every 5 levels, Pathfinder is making the choice players like high numbers and balance the game around that. The success of that balance is to be determined, but that's my take on it.

[Segev]

A "ribbon" ability is generally for flavor rather than real mechanical benefit. The monk's timeless body in 3e, for instance, had little mechanical impact in real game play but gave a sense of the perfection their ki mastery lent their bodies.

Most of the "junk" racial features in 3e are ribbons because they're just there to speak to some aspect of the flavor of, say, being an elf. The minor bonus to hit and damage against giants/orcs/whatever that gnomes and dwarves got was rarely useful, and was often not game-changing even when it was, but spoke to historical enmities.

The reason this is a problem with PF2 is that they've not only made all of those ribbon features into individual feats, but they've made it so that you take at most 1 at level 1. So now these already-not-terribly-useful features take a resource to get and you can only get one of them.

What I like about the Ancestries is that it gives us a potential framework to mechanically answer some of the questions that continually crop up around half-races, such as "what happens if an orc and a dwarf get together" or "what happens if a blue half-dragon mates with a red one."
That's definitely a plus; that aspect of the mechanic is one of the most creative and innovative ones I've seen in a long time in races.

[Kurald Galain]

The reason this is a problem with PF2 is that they've not only made all of those ribbon features into individual feats, but they've made it so that you take at most 1 at level 1. So now these already-not-terribly-useful features take a resource to get and you can only get one of them.
Since ribbons only rarely or never impact gameplay, why is it a problem to not have them? Nothing is stopping your dwarf from hating orcs if he doesn't get a +1 to hit against them.

More to the point, dwarves can now choose to pick a better ability instead of a ribbon, if they like. I fail to see how this is a problem.

[Crake]

Since ribbons only rarely or never impact gameplay, why is it a problem to not have them? Nothing is stopping your dwarf from hating orcs if he doesn't get a +1 to hit against them.

More to the point, dwarves can now choose to pick a better ability instead of a ribbon, if they like. I fail to see how this is a problem.

Generally speaking, the balance around ribbons was non-existant. You didn't get a ribbon ability instead of something else, you got it in addition to everything else. So now, it's not that you're getting a better ability instead of a ribbon, you're getting an ability you would normally have, and no ribbon alongside it for free.

Ultimately, it has little to no effect on mechanics, but it does just lend toward races feeling less interesting.

[Kurald Galain]

Generally speaking, the balance around ribbons was non-existant. You didn't get a ribbon ability instead of something else, you got it in addition to everything else. So now, it's not that you're getting a better ability instead of a ribbon, you're getting an ability you would normally have, and no ribbon alongside it for free.
Well, you're getting an ability you normally would not have. For instance, P2 elves can 10'-step (instead of 5'-step) for a racial feat; I'm pretty sure 3E elves cannot do that ever. Personally I prefer this ability over any ribbon 3E elves get.

[Crake]

Well, you're getting an ability you normally would not have. For instance, P2 elves can 10'-step (instead of 5'-step) for a racial feat; I'm pretty sure 3E elves cannot do that ever. Personally I prefer this ability over any ribbon 3E elves get.

Well, i mean anyone in 3.5e can do it with that one training dummy, but that's not the point. You're also missing the point by directly comparing 3.5 elves to pf2 elves. The point was the weight of each ability when being balanced together. So a race would have a set of abilities, and for any single crunchy ability, you could have a slew of ribbon abilities, almost to the point where they are being tacked on for free. Pathfinder 2 handles this poorly, because the ribbon abilities are weighted equally to the crunchy ones. So, what you would have essentially gotten for free in previous editions, you now need to spend a feat for in pf2, ergo, what you were once getting for free, you're no longer getting at all, because nobody's gonna spend a feat on fluff.

[Sir Chuckles]

Since ribbons only rarely or never impact gameplay, why is it a problem to not have them? Nothing is stopping your dwarf from hating orcs if he doesn't get a +1 to hit against them.

More to the point, dwarves can now choose to pick a better ability instead of a ribbon, if they like. I fail to see how this is a problem.

That is sorta the problem though: It's not really a choice if option A does little to nothing and option B is invaluable to almost any character. Trap options are not actually options. They're traps.

I shouldn't have to choose to take something better. Just give me the ribbon and let me be pretty instead of asking me to compromise my integrity with it.

[NomGarret]

Well, you're getting an ability you normally would not have. For instance, P2 elves can 10'-step (instead of 5'-step) for a racial feat; I'm pretty sure 3E elves cannot do that ever. Personally I prefer this ability over any ribbon 3E elves get.

That’s a 9th-level feat. I don’t recall it being in previous editions, either, but that hardly helps it set the tone for your starting adventurer.

[Divine Susuryu]

That’s a 9th-level feat. I don’t recall it being in previous editions, either, but that hardly helps it set the tone for your starting adventurer.

You could do it, (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/outslug-sprint-combat/) but the prereqs were silly.

[Kurald Galain]

So, what you would have essentially gotten for free in previous editions, you now need to spend a feat for in pf2, ergo, what you were once getting for free, you're no longer getting at all, because nobody's gonna spend a feat on fluff.You're missing that PF2 characters get many, many more feats than in 3E.

So in 3E, you get a weak ability for free; whereas in P2, you get a number of extra feats that you can spend either on that weak ability or on something else. That's a clear improvement.


That is sorta the problem though: It's not really a choice if option A does little to nothing and option B is invaluable to almost any character. Trap options are not actually options. They're traps.On the other hand: yes, it is definitely a problem if certain feats are much better than certain other feats. I suppose someone ought to make a list for one of the races or classes and rate/compare them.

[Morty]

You're missing that PF2 characters get many, many more feats than in 3E.

So in 3E, you get a weak ability for free; whereas in P2, you get a number of extra feats that you can spend either on that weak ability or on something else. That's a clear improvement.


If we're talking about ancestry feats specifically, you get five of them across your character's whole career. For most players (who don't get past level 10), that will be two or three.

[Divine Susuryu]

You're missing that PF2 characters get many, many more feats than in 3E.

That's a bit misleading, as these are not from one general pool. Class feats, skill feats, ancestry feats, and general feats are all different categories. Really, each of these should have a different name than "feat" so as to prevent confusion. Class talents, skill unlocks, ancestry features, and make the word "feat" apply only to what are now "general feats". Much clearer and more understandable.

Also, a lot of these feats are very low impact, so more doesn't really mean much from my perspective.

[Crake]

You're missing that PF2 characters get many, many more feats than in 3E.

So in 3E, you get a weak ability for free; whereas in P2, you get a number of extra feats that you can spend either on that weak ability or on something else. That's a clear improvement.

As others have said, that's a tad disingenuous to say, as those "feats" replace things you would normally have already gotten, like class features, or racial features, so in most cases you're "buying back" things you used to already have. Thus the increased number of feats really means little, and ultimately while yes you can get something weak, in practise, people won't get something weak when they could instead not get something weak.

[Kurald Galain]

while yes you can get something weak, in practise, people won't get something weak when they could instead not get something weak.

So why is it a problem if players choose to not get something weak?

[Castilonium]

Let's talk about charisma.

It seems that charisma is still a dump stat in this system. It's only used for deception, diplomacy, intimidation, and performance. It's not used for handling animals anymore. Paladins (AKA champions) don't get cha-to-saves anymore, oracles with cha-to-AC don't exist, and neither do any other cha-to-X abilities.

The following is an exhaustive list of every Champion feat and class feature that uses charisma: Litany against Wrath (level 6 feat, increase DC), Divine Smite (level 9 class feature, more damage), Litany against Sloth (level 10 feat, increase DC), and Wyrmbane Aura (level 14 feat, increase resistance). That's it. Four abilities, three of which can be skipped.

Intelligence gives you more skill proficiencies. Wisdom improves your will saves and perception, which is also used for rolling initiative. Both of them govern a lot of knowledge skills. Charisma doesn't help with knowledge at all. There are no skill feats that allow charisma-based skills to help in those regards. However, skill feats like Courtly Graces, Streetwise, and Connections let you effectively use intelligence for almost all of your social needs.

I'm really hoping there's something I'm missing. PF 2e looks better than I expected, but it'd be real nice for a modern system to not have charisma as a dump stat, for a change.

Edit: Divine Smite, not Divine Smile. I'm not smiling right now.

[Divine Susuryu]

So why is it a problem if players choose to not get something weak?

When the ribbon abilities are deliberately designed to be weaker (often much weaker) than other choices, why even put them in the book?

[Eldonauran]

When the ribbon abilities are deliberately designed to be weaker (often much weaker) than other choices, why even put them in the book?
Well, it might be a little known fact, but some people play the types of games where they use "ribbon" abilities and feats. I can't argue as to why some are perceived to be weaker or actually are weaker, but there is a player base that makes use of them. They just don't usually go onto the web to complain about them... often.

[Divine Susuryu]

Well, it might be a little known fact, but some people play the types of games where they use "ribbon" abilities and feats. I can't argue as to why some are perceived to be weaker or actually are weaker, but there is a player base that makes use of them. They just don't usually go onto the web to complain about them... often.

The fact that things that are deliberately designed to be bad choices are still used is not a defence of deliberately designing things to be bad choices.

[toapat]

When the ribbon abilities are deliberately designed to be weaker (often much weaker) than other choices, why even put them in the book?

This depends on why youre putting the ribbons into the class. Look at 5E ranger, you probably already implicitly know what a ranger is, does, and wants to do, which is be a wilderness hunter.

Now remove Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, and Primeval Awareness, and make Foeslayer effect anything hit by Hunter's mark rather then FE.

Now you have a generic combatant with fluffy archery or a pet or who really likes dueling things.

Ribbons are there to make you feel like youre playing something specific, rather then playing a pile of Granola.


HOWEVER, if a Developer is shoveling ribbons as major features, or throwing in features "because we need more", they need to step back and think about why theyre actually doing what theyre doing. Giving a class something "More" because it looks like it needs more, is not equivalent to giving them something because it needs that something to feel appropriate to the intended purpose of the design.

Like, i did work years ago in homebrew. It is really easy to make a pile of features, it is hard to make a compelling experience out of a random pile of features. But reading through the topic and it sounds like Pazio did what they did after the original PF Open Beta, and stopped listening to the players to design as they please, ignoring all good sense and the principle of "Less is more"

[Particle_Man]

I guess eventually each set of feats will have a handbook treatment where they are rated by colour.

I imagine giving some or all ribbon feats for free could become a popular house rule. Extra flavour to the pcs and no significant increase in power for the dm to worry about. It’s win-win!

[Rynjin]

Effects of skill feats in the book scale up to things like "never take fall damage", "climb at your full land speed", "create a full disguise in one turn", and "Intimidate-based save or die". They're way better than skill unlocks ever were.

Almost all of these things are achievable with skill unlocks or cheap magic items, save the interesting Intimidate save or die. They kind of share the same problem though: they require Legendary Proficiency (same as Skill Unlocks requiring 15 to 20 ranks to get the good stuff).

Some are class specific abilities as well, but come online MUCH earlier. Vigilantes get the "disguise in a turn" ability at like level 6 IIRC.

Besides the numbers tweaks, nothing in this release fixes my issues with the playtest, and my biggest issue the Playtest presented was giving zero compelling reason to switch besides the better action economy system.

[Psyren]

5e is not a d20 game.

Still disagree. {scrubbed}


Well, you're getting an ability you normally would not have. For instance, P2 elves can 10'-step (instead of 5'-step) for a racial feat; I'm pretty sure 3E elves cannot do that ever. Personally I prefer this ability over any ribbon 3E elves get.

Indeed.


The fact that things that are deliberately designed to be bad choices are still used is not a defence of deliberately designing things to be bad choices.

"Why put weak options in the book" is a question you can ask of literally every edition, even 5e. Possibly every system.

Part of the problem is endemic to TTRPGs themselves, whereby they cannot be "patched" easily and so weak options stay weak.

[Divine Susuryu]

Besides the numbers tweaks, nothing in this release fixes my issues with the playtest, and my biggest issue the Playtest presented was giving zero compelling reason to switch besides the better action economy system.

The action economy system that essentially premiered in Unchained, it bears mentioning. So even if it's a really attractive feature, it mostly exists in PF1e already. Tweak that one a bit and you're golden.

[Rynjin]

The action economy system that essentially premiered in Unchained, it bears mentioning. So even if it's a really attractive feature, it mostly exists in PF1e already. Tweak that one a bit and you're golden.

Well, the main thing that makes it better in PF2 is the system is built from the ground up to take advantage of it, where it feels kinda janky to backport it to PF1. Maybe that's just perception and not reality though.

[Divine Susuryu]

Well, the main thing that makes it better in PF2 is the system is built from the ground up to take advantage of it, where it feels kinda janky to backport it to PF1. Maybe that's just perception and not reality though.

Janky as it may or may not be to backport, I'd rather that than play PF2.

[Roadie]

The fact that things that are deliberately designed to be bad choices are still used is not a defence of deliberately designing things to be bad choices.

You keep talking about these things being bad choices, but I don't see how they are. Even the fluffiest Dwarf feat, for example, Vengeful Hatred, is still a general +1 to +4 to damage against any enemy who's critically hit you in the past minute, on top of its enemy-type-specific effect, and +4 damage across several attacks is actually a pretty big benefit in this edition.


That's a bit misleading, as these are not from one general pool. Class feats, skill feats, ancestry feats, and general feats are all different categories. Really, each of these should have a different name than "feat" so as to prevent confusion. Class talents, skill unlocks, ancestry features, and make the word "feat" apply only to what are now "general feats". Much clearer and more understandable.
"Feat" is the name for a generic talent slot now.

[Segev]

Since ribbons only rarely or never impact gameplay, why is it a problem to not have them? Nothing is stopping your dwarf from hating orcs if he doesn't get a +1 to hit against them.

More to the point, dwarves can now choose to pick a better ability instead of a ribbon, if they like. I fail to see how this is a problem.

They can't that I've seen; the dwarf feats are pretty much just the list of ribbon abilities from older editions.

But the reason it's eye-roll-worthy is that it's such a nerf of already-weak abilities. Instead of this list of features that weren't all that impressive, you now can have only one of them! And that makes you have more options, you see, because now you're making a choice between them.

Before, you could have a cable service that would give you three dozen channels! Now, however, for the same price, you can pick any one of those three dozen channels! Isn't this an improvement in customer choice? Wonderful, no?

Sure, those three dozen channels all showed boring stuff you probably wouldn't watch anyway, so you might not care that you get only one instead of all of them, but it's definitely not an improvement.

[Sir Chuckles]

Ribbons are there to make you feel like youre playing something specific, rather then playing a pile of Granola.

And that is the ultimate problem with tying both the ribbon feats and the useful feats to the same resource pool. You end up having to choose between having granola or having the packaging.

PF2 is inadvertently making role vs. roll baked into the system. I can already see people in the future making annoyed comments that their players only ever choose <race option A>.

[Akal Saris]

How's the balance between spellcasters and non-casters in PF2?

[toapat]

And that is the ultimate problem with tying both the ribbon feats and the useful feats to the same resource pool. You end up having to choose between having granola or having the packaging.

PF2 is inadvertently making role vs. roll baked into the system. I can already see people in the future making annoyed comments that their players only ever choose <race option A>.

Honestly, PF2, while i havent read it, sounds like the final product of several spoiled developers who didnt step back and ask what each of their decisions contributed to a character.

I fundamentally agree with the idea that in a fantasy game, your race and background should evolve as your class does. Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica is the first step on the path to DnD 5E being capable of evolving into DnD 6E with the intentional expansion of the background system for Ravnican guilds. An Orc should need to balance their nature as a sentient being focused on cooperation in their evolution, with the siren song of the primal, and slowly either claim or reject their civilized nature over the course of 20 levels.

But all this topic has done is convince me that PF2, by the time its actually a system of even comparable merit to core-only 3.5, will barely even still be PF2.

[Roadie]

I'm still waiting to see anything to actually justify the claims that any of the ancestry feats are "just ribbon abilities" in the first place.


Honestly, PF2, while i havent read it, sounds like the final product of several spoiled developers who didnt step back and ask what each of their decisions contributed to a character.
"I didn't actually (read/watch) (thing), but I say it sucks, based entirely on the surface-level opinions of other people who say it sucks" is the kind of comment that adds negative value to a thread, even for the people who are sharing their surface-level opinions from having actually watched or read (thing).

[Crake]

I'm still waiting to see anything to actually justify the claims that any of the ancestry feats are "just ribbon abilities" in the first place.


"I didn't actually (read/watch) (thing), but I say it sucks, based entirely on the surface-level opinions of other people who say it sucks" is the kind of comment that adds negative value to a thread, even for the people who are sharing their surface-level opinions from having actually watched or read (thing).

I mean, saying "I've heard bad things about X" does add value to a conversation. This isn't a court of law where hearsay is forbidden, and especially so in marketing, word of mouth is a huge factor, so if you've heard bad things about something, there's often merit to it.

[toapat]

"I didn't actually (read/watch) (thing), but I say it sucks, based entirely on the surface-level opinions of other people who say it sucks" is the kind of comment that adds negative value to a thread, even for the people who are sharing their surface-level opinions from having actually watched or read (thing).

Im saying that what this topic says is that PF2 is bad because what it ended up becoming is the result of the same level of immaturity Pazio began to display towards the tail end of the original PF development. It has ideas but those ideas were never checked by a simple "Does this add to the experience i am developing"

And i am not making a blanket statement that it sucks. PF2 is not 4e dnd in terms of fundamental lack of understanding that the developers were designing "A game, to be played by people who have finite free time, in a limited allocation of time", or any other situation where the game is so esoterically complex in actual mechanics that it cannot be played as a casually enjoyable experience.

[Kurald Galain]

Im saying that what this topic says is that PF2 is bad because what it ended up becoming is the result of the same level of immaturity Pazio began to display towards the tail end of the original PF development.
For blanket statements like that, it really helps if you could cite some evidence. Especially since nobody outside the GITP forums appears to share this opinion :smallamused:

[toapat]

For blanket statements like that, it really helps if you could cite some evidence. Especially since nobody outside the GITP forums appears to share this opinion :smallamused:

I dont keep a detailed archive of conversations ive read. Ive heard this stated on both r/DnD and r/Dndnext, as well as on both the 3.5 and 5E forums here, and from people playing DDO back when i still played that, and accidentally crashed into it once on the ENworld forums.

It might be hearsay, but considering how often i was hearing it in 2014, im not sure its not true.

[pabelfly]

I dont keep a detailed archive of conversations ive read. Ive heard this stated on both r/DnD and r/Dndnext, as well as on both the 3.5 and 5E forums here, and from people playing DDO back when i still played that, and accidentally crashed into it once on the ENworld forums.

It might be hearsay, but considering how often i was hearing it in 2014, im not sure its not true.

It could well be due to the uneven selection of online people you're chatting with. People that like what Paizo is doing are on Paizo forums and chatrooms, people that don't are on DnD forums for 3.5 and 5E.

[Kurald Galain]

It might be hearsay, but considering how often i was hearing it in 2014, im not sure its not true.

Regardless of whether or not it's true, it is four years before the start of the P2 Playtest, so it doesn't strike me as particularly relevant to P2.

[toapat]

Regardless of whether or not it's true, it is four years before the start of the P2 Playtest, so it doesn't strike me as particularly relevant to P2.

except the "ignoring or actively suppressing currently meritorious topics of discussion in development" was the primary path of attack on pazio as a company in these conversations, and was brought up earlier in this thread.

[Kurald Galain]

except the "ignoring or actively suppressing currently meritorious topics of discussion in development" was the primary path of attack on pazio as a company in these conversations, and was brought up earlier in this thread.

Sure, and things like this are pretty easy to check. The playtest forums (https://paizo.com/community/forums/archive/pathfinder/playtests/playtest/general) show (1) a ton of responses from the developers, and (2) little or no locked threads, and even (3) whole subsystems from the playtest being scrapped because of player feedback. So whatever was the case four years ago is prima facie not the case in P2 any more.

[Psyren]

Yes, let's rehash a bunch of unproven hearsay from the P1 playtest and pre-emptively decide to hate a game we haven't played based on that hearsay.

Look, if you've already decided to hate P2, fine, nobody's stopping you. There are plenty of other threads to post in on this board. Some of us actually want to discuss the game, not dump all over those who do, and certainly not dredge up moldy baggage from the past. So can we not?

[Morty]

My opinion about PF2E isn't high so far, but to call the arguments against Paizo on this page flimsy would be giving them too much credit.

[Segev]

I'm still waiting to see anything to actually justify the claims that any of the ancestry feats are "just ribbon abilities" in the first place.Don't take my word for it. Go read the ancestry feats for dwarves, then read the PF1 dwarf race and its list of abilities. You may disagree with me on what constitutes a useful vs. "ribbon" ability/feature. But you cannot deny that the PF1 (and 3.5, and 2e, and 1e) dwarf got a list of features from the start of being a character that the PF2 dwarf gets to pick one and only one of at level 1.


Look, if you've already decided to hate P2, fine, nobody's stopping you. There are plenty of other threads to post in on this board. Some of us actually want to discuss the game, not dump all over those who do, and certainly not dredge up moldy baggage from the past. So can we not?

I do like that the ancestries have a nice and neat framework for handling both subraces AND half-races. I also like that races "advance" as you level, too, if only by virtue of feats. I'm ambivalent on the way stats are generated; I fear they'll be too same-y, but at the same time, they'll almost certainly provide you with the build you want and aren't nearly as complicated as point-buy systems always were. And they make racial mods more important without unbalancing things, which is also pretty clever.

I think they started down an interesting road with Backgrounds, but then stepped back from it by making feats that Backgrounds get...lackluster enough to be forgettable. It's a similar mistake that Exalted 3e made: too much fiddling with mechanics, not enough cool "toys."

If Paizo shows the same innovation-over-time they did with PF1, PF2 will probably eventually be a really cool system, but it isn't as strong out the gate as 5e was, in my opinion. Seeing what Dreamscarred Press, Drop Dead Studios, and other strong 3PPs do with it will also be interesting.

[Seerow]

I do find some of the dysfunctions I've been hearing about the interact action to be amusing. ie basically any action that involves using an item is being classified as an Interact action, and Interact actions provoke Attacks of Opportunity. This leads to a strict RAW reading making things like using the parry property of your weapon, or using the Iaijutsu Strike feat provoking AoOs.

Other than that I'm having a hard time putting a finger on why I don't like it. A lot of the core design philosophy I enjoy. I prefer the 3 actions system to what we have had in the past. I like the idea of more feats and more customization for any given character. I feel like it's the specific details every time I try to drill down that throw me off. Like in response to getting more feats, every feat is now much weaker to compensate... but they replaced class features with feats, so now I'm looking at long lists of watered down class features instead of just getting to do the fun stuff I am used to. For right now I am not in a hurry to switch systems, but who knows this is very easily something that can change as the system matures so I'll be keeping an eye out.


As an aside, I actually really liked the concept of the resonance system originally in the playtest and am kind of sad that got scrapped rather than reworked slightly to be more of a useful tool. Yes things like spending a resonance for a healing potion or every time you wanted to open a bag of holding was dumb. And having both resonance and 2/day items was a bad idea. But I'd have rather had items that cost a resonance to activate and get rid of all daily limitations on items than the other way around.

[Kurald Galain]

Don't take my word for it. Go read the ancestry feats for dwarves, then read the PF1 dwarf race and its list of abilities. You may disagree with me on what constitutes a useful vs. "ribbon" ability/feature. But you cannot deny that the PF1 (and 3.5, and 2e, and 1e) dwarf got a list of features from the start of being a character that the PF2 dwarf gets to pick one and only one of at level 1.
What you're missing is that
Most of the 3.5 dwarf's abilities are ribbons. Seriously now, +2 to craft/appraise stone is exceedingly unlikely to come up, +1 to hit goblins is not relevant beyond level two, and you get proficiency in two weapons that almost no character will want to use.
The P2 list contains numerous abilities not found on, and better than, those 3.5 ribbons. E.g. P2's "hatred" ability also applies to anyone who crits you; and P2 dwarves can take fire resistance instead of a ribbon.
You in fact get two of these abilities in P2, plus more as you level up. That's not "one and only one".
And finally, the 3.5 dwarf is an atypical example because it has a HUGE list of extra abilities that other races do not. It's kind of silly to throw out a system just because one race may have gotten nerfed.

[Segev]

What you're missing is that
Most of the 3.5 dwarf's abilities are ribbons. Seriously now, +2 to craft/appraise stone is exceedingly unlikely to come up, +1 to hit goblins is not relevant beyond level two, and you get proficiency in two weapons that almost no character will want to use.
The P2 list contains numerous abilities not found on, and better than, those 3.5 ribbons. E.g. P2's "hatred" ability also applies to anyone who crits you; and P2 dwarves can take fire resistance instead of a ribbon.
You in fact get two of these abilities in P2, plus more as you level up. That's not "one and only one".
And finally, the 3.5 dwarf is an atypical example because it has a HUGE list of extra abilities that other races do not. It's kind of silly to throw out a system just because one race may have gotten nerfed.


Dwarf was just the first and best example.

The fact that the "ribbon" features are competing with actually useful ones is, in some ways, even worse: now they won't even be chosen.

I am glad that the Hatred one has been upgraded to some degree, though I question how useful that degree is. Also, "you crited me! That makes me angry!" seems more orc than dwarf, to me, but I suppose they were groping about for SOMETHING to buff it with, and I do applaud that effort.

I thought you got one at level one, and then more as you leveled. 2 is better, but still...they need to be WORTH IT, and putting things that are not worth it in the same list with things that are all but removes the former from the game.

And the 3.5 gnome is VERY similar to the dwarf in this respect, as is the elf and half-elf. The half-orc is mostly notable for having a dearth of such features because +2 Str was considered just so overpowered. While that's not "every race," that's 3 BIG, classic ones.

But hey, if my impression is wrong, that's great. I'm not looking to dislike PF2; this aspect just seems like something that they were about to do something cool with, and then somebody held up his arms to either side to stop people from charging forward. "Wait, wait, no, that might be unbalanced. Let's err on the side of boring and potentially too weak rather than exciting and potentially overpowered." And cool toys are always a gamble if you don't have lots of playtesting, as far as unintended consequences go.

[Kurald Galain]

they need to be WORTH IT, and putting things that are not worth it in the same list with things that are all but removes the former from the game.
That is true: if a list contains some feats that are much stronger than other feats, then that is a problem.

That said, if no dwarf in my game takes "+2 to appraise stone", then I won't miss that (nor the gnome's +1 vs kobolds, nor the half-elf's immunity to the severely-HD-capped Sleep spell). That was such a pointlessly situational ability that most players wouldn't notice it in the first place. Ribbons shouldn't be considered sacred cows.

[Segev]

That is true: if a list contains some feats that are much stronger than other feats, then that is a problem.

That said, if no dwarf in my game takes "+2 to appraise stone", then I won't miss that (nor the gnome's +1 vs kobolds, nor the half-elf's immunity to the severely-HD-capped Sleep spell). That was such a pointlessly situational ability that most players wouldn't notice it in the first place. Ribbons shouldn't be considered sacred cows.

I actually agree, but it's weird to put them in as entire feats if you're going to include them at all. If nothing else, it takes up space that could be used by better things.

Like I said, I think there's potential here for nice expansion. I fully expect later splatbooks to be "essential" for well-built characters because they'll get more comfortable with a balance-point that is higher than the existing standard, both due to the inevitability of power creep and because they started way too low on the curve (at least to my first assessment of things). And this means races will grow in power and versatility with the growth of the system.

I wish 5e exploited a bit more of this, actually; they could have done interesting things with superiority dice mechanics if they'd ever let it grow out of one subclass.

[Particle_Man]

So if I played a half elf rogue (thief) and maxed out dex and left str at 10, then at level nine took multitalented as a racial feat and got the champion dedication, and then on all subsequent even levels took champion feats and abilities (somewhat weaker than a full champion would have) instead of rogue feats, but did not bother with the versatile armour one since my dex was so high, would the resulting character be crippled and a drag on the party or would it still be as viable as a champion without any multiclass archetype or as a rogue without a multi-class archetype?


I wish 5e exploited a bit more of this, actually; they could have done interesting things with superiority dice mechanics if they'd ever let it grow out of one subclass.

I thought 5e did that in the core book with a feat that anybody could take at level 4 and that variant humans could take at level 1.

[Pex]

"Why put weak options in the book" is a question you can ask of literally every edition, even 5e. Possibly every system.

Part of the problem is endemic to TTRPGs themselves, whereby they cannot be "patched" easily and so weak options stay weak.

Also not everyone agrees on what makes something weak.


Don't take my word for it. Go read the ancestry feats for dwarves, then read the PF1 dwarf race and its list of abilities. You may disagree with me on what constitutes a useful vs. "ribbon" ability/feature. But you cannot deny that the PF1 (and 3.5, and 2e, and 1e) dwarf got a list of features from the start of being a character that the PF2 dwarf gets to pick one and only one of at level 1.


With my own bias I'm torn whether I actually like this or not.

I sympathize with your point of view of not liking what you used to get for free now you have to pay for and not even get everything. It's a sense of unfairness as a toy is taken away from you when you did nothing wrong. There are instances in real life of things that used to be free suddenly costing money, and it caused uproar. While not so dramatic I think the analogy explains it.

However, the part of me that's not bothered by this is an old bias from my 2E days that 3E/Pathfinder patched but 5E brought back unless playing Variant Human. Humans get bupkis for race abilities while everyone else gets all the cool things - darkvision, bonuses to various rolls, minor magic, etc. In Pathfinder 2E that's no longer the case. A non-human is not just given lots of toys/ribbons. The player has to pick and choose and not get them all at once. Human gets his own choices.

One could say it would have been better for Human to be given his own free toys and ribbons instead of taking them away from everyone else. That's where the bonus Feat & Skills come in for 3E/Pathfinder/5E Variant Human. I can agree with that preference, but I can only shed a tear instead of outright cry that non-humans no longer get free stuff.

[Sir Chuckles]

What you're missing is that
Most of the 3.5 dwarf's abilities are ribbons. Seriously now, +2 to craft/appraise stone is exceedingly unlikely to come up, +1 to hit goblins is not relevant beyond level two, and you get proficiency in two weapons that almost no character will want to use.
The P2 list contains numerous abilities not found on, and better than, those 3.5 ribbons. E.g. P2's "hatred" ability also applies to anyone who crits you; and P2 dwarves can take fire resistance instead of a ribbon.
You in fact get two of these abilities in P2, plus more as you level up. That's not "one and only one".
And finally, the 3.5 dwarf is an atypical example because it has a HUGE list of extra abilities that other races do not. It's kind of silly to throw out a system just because one race may have gotten nerfed.


I still don't understand why you insist on comparing PF2 to 3.5e instead of comparing it to PF1.

[Psyren]

I actually agree, but it's weird to put them in as entire feats if you're going to include them at all. If nothing else, it takes up space that could be used by better things.

Again, no game with feats has avoided all the turkeys, I don't think P2 is particularly special in that regard. Even 5e has relative jank like Durable and Keen Mind.

[Segev]

I thought 5e did that in the core book with a feat that anybody could take at level 4 and that variant humans could take at level 1.They tried, a little, there. But that's all they did with it: one feat. No new techniques in other books or web supplements. No new subclasses that use a similar mechanic. It was, I think, their attempt at bringing ToB into 5e, but, like ToB, they never expanded on it.

ToB had the excuse of being late in the game.

Imagine with me, though, if the Swordsage and the Warblade were in the core 3.5 handbook alongside the other base classes. There's a section in the book with the Maneuvers just like there's a Spells section. Throughout 3.5's tenure, every new splat that had spells also tended to have maneuvers, with a few exceptions (C. Arcane might've just had spells, but C. Warrior would've just had maneuvers). The Crusader, perhaps, comes out in C. Warrior. Or maybe the Paladin in the 3.5 core book had maneuvers instead of spells, as did the Ranger. And Unearthed Arcana had variant rules for spell-using Paladins and Rangers.

Heck, maybe the Fighter and Warblade were merged as one Fighter class.

They had the opportunity to expand from the Battle Master in this fashion in 5e, but they didn't. And it feels like an immense missed opportunity.


With my own bias I'm torn whether I actually like this or not.

I sympathize with your point of view of not liking what you used to get for free now you have to pay for and not even get everything. It's a sense of unfairness as a toy is taken away from you when you did nothing wrong. There are instances in real life of things that used to be free suddenly costing money, and it caused uproar. While not so dramatic I think the analogy explains it.

However, the part of me that's not bothered by this is an old bias from my 2E days that 3E/Pathfinder patched but 5E brought back unless playing Variant Human. Humans get bupkis for race abilities while everyone else gets all the cool things - darkvision, bonuses to various rolls, minor magic, etc. In Pathfinder 2E that's no longer the case. A non-human is not just given lots of toys/ribbons. The player has to pick and choose and not get them all at once. Human gets his own choices.

One could say it would have been better for Human to be given his own free toys and ribbons instead of taking them away from everyone else. That's where the bonus Feat & Skills come in for 3E/Pathfinder/5E Variant Human. I can agree with that preference, but I can only shed a tear instead of outright cry that non-humans no longer get free stuff.In truth? I don't really care about the dwarven ribbon abilities. But breaking them up into multiple feats and making somebody pick one is just a waste of printing space and chargen time. Or at least of printing space, if there are actually worthwhile things to pick.

I'd agree that there might be some "entitlement" attitude to "why are you taking away my toys?!" if I actually cared about those particular toys. (You'll get me fighting a lot harder against "nerf spellcasters!" threads.) But I don't. For one, the ribbon features really are decoration. They do so very, very little that they almost don't matter. Stripping them away completely wouldn't bother me nearly as much as treating each individual one as if it were worth a feat! I probably wouldn't even have noticed them missing, for the most part.

I'd also be okay with the move if each of them had been beefed up to the point that you could center a minor aspect of your character around them. If they'd genuinely influence how a character was played. But it doesn't seem like they did. And that's a shame.


Again, no game with feats has avoided all the turkeys, I don't think P2 is particularly special in that regard. Even 5e has relative jank like Durable and Keen Mind.It's a matter of degree. "1 in 1000 of these cars is a lemon, so that makes this other kind of car with 5 in 7 cars being lemons nothing special in the 'having lemons' department."

I might be exaggerating, but not by much: these racial feats all utterly fail to excite me. I don't find myself torn over picking this one or that one so much as trying to figure out how I pick one when I just am bored by the options.

This is...somewhat speculative; I haven't actually tried to build a character.

[Rynjin]

Sure, and things like this are pretty easy to check. The playtest forums (https://paizo.com/community/forums/archive/pathfinder/playtests/playtest/general) show (1) a ton of responses from the developers, and (2) little or no locked threads

Define "a ton", because peoples' perspectives might be different on this. I dipped out of the PF2 playtest after 3 weeks, at which point the devs had been mum almost that entire time (that's almost the entire first round playtest). I see scattered responses from Buhlman here and there on that forum, but not NEAR to the level Paizo used to participate. The Advanced Class Guide and Occult Adventures playtests are good ones to look at for what I would consider a TON of responses, where the dev for any given class kept a very close eye on their thread and responded often within minutes to an hour of a question being asked.

That may be the disconnect, a difference of expectations.

As for "locked" threads, it's annoying how effective Paizo's "delete without warning" mod policy is to discuss off the forum because it just makes you look like a conspiracy theorist to mention it as a criticism, which I imagine is entirely the intent.

I really like how this forum's modding is done, by comparison.


(3) whole subsystems from the playtest being scrapped because of player feedback. So whatever was the case four years ago is prima facie not the case in P2 any more.

Which subsystems are these? The only one I've noticed missing is Resonance, but it's obviously been close to a year since I cracked open the playtest.


What you're missing is that[list]
Most of the 3.5 dwarf's abilities are ribbons. Seriously now, +2 to craft/appraise stone is exceedingly unlikely to come up, +1 to hit goblins is not relevant beyond level two, and you get proficiency in two weapons that almost no character will want to use.
The P2 list contains numerous abilities not found on, and better than, those 3.5 ribbons. E.g. P2's "hatred" ability also applies to anyone who crits you; and P2 dwarves can take fire resistance instead of a ribbon.
You in fact get two of these abilities in P2, plus more as you level up. That's not "one and only one".


For the final time, 3.5 and Pathfinder are not the same game. In this case most of the abilities are identical, but that is not always or even usually the case.

But I'd dispute about numerous of the PF2 ones being better. Again, ignoring Alternate Racial Abilities alone is being willfully obtuse.


And finally, the 3.5 dwarf is an atypical example because it has a HUGE list of extra abilities that other races do not. It's kind of silly to throw out a system just because one race may have gotten nerfed.


A.) It's not just one race, and B.) it's pretty indicative of the flaw with the Ancestry system and how it's laid out when one of Pathfinder's strongest races becomes one of the weakest.

If you want another big example, Half-Orcs also suffer quite a lot, losing two of their best alt. racials, and losing out on most of the things they enjoyed at first level. Getting Darkvision and Orc Ferocity alone back takes 5 levels.

[Psyren]

It's a matter of degree. "1 in 1000 of these cars is a lemon, so that makes this other kind of car with 5 in 7 cars being lemons nothing special in the 'having lemons' department."

I might be exaggerating, but not by much: these racial feats all utterly fail to excite me. I don't find myself torn over picking this one or that one so much as trying to figure out how I pick one when I just am bored by the options.

This is...somewhat speculative; I haven't actually tried to build a character.

The latter example is probably closer to 5e than the former - there are far fewer feats there (only ~40, fractions of 3.5/P1/P2's loadout), and they're all furthermore competing for build space with ASIs.

Which isn't to say that I'd be unhappy if the feats contained no situational, niche, or weak choices at all. I just think there are better places for the devs to spend their time than perfectly balancing ~120 feats against each other.

[Divine Susuryu]

First off, is Rynjin's post breaking anyone else's CSS, or is it just me? Even writing this reply is tricky, it's a bit nuts.

Anyway, on topic, I don't think it's helpful to use the Paizo forums to indicate people's opinions of PF2. Firstly, it doesn't matter which places speak positively and which places speak negatively, nor really the numbers of either. Quality isn't a matter of popular vote, after all. Secondly, like Rynjin I dipped out of the playtest pretty early on specifically because we were getting no dev answers or feedback on criticism. Indeed, things such as heritages I can also back up on moderation being pretty harsh and arbitrary - unlike the mods here, who lock threads and give a post as to why, threads would often vanish entirely with no explanation there.

[HamaYumi]

To be fair, world building is akin to creating the best and the worst that has to offer. NPCs deserve extreme situational specialization. It shouldn't be all about an "MC's" experience is what I am trying to say.

[Rynjin]

First off, is Rynjin's post breaking anyone else's CSS, or is it just me? Even writing this reply is tricky, it's a bit nuts.

I fixed it, looks like. Apparently leaving a [./list] tag floating in a quote breaks formatting, which is weird.

[Psyren]

To be fair, world building is akin to creating the best and the worst that has to offer. NPCs deserve extreme situational specialization. It shouldn't be all about an "MC's" experience is what I am trying to say.

Agreed - Unseat is probably too situational a feat for any PC, but the NPC knight-errant who is happily using it to unhorse every bandit he comes across (and possibly the PCs if they're too slow to identify themselves) will be pretty memorable.

[Segev]

The latter example is probably closer to 5e than the former - there are far fewer feats there (only ~40, fractions of 3.5/P1/P2's loadout), and they're all furthermore competing for build space with ASIs.

Which isn't to say that I'd be unhappy if the feats contained no situational, niche, or weak choices at all. I just think there are better places for the devs to spend their time than perfectly balancing ~120 feats against each other.

5e feats are actually largely Bigger and Better than 3e feats. PF2 feats seem to have gone, in majority, the other direction.

Now, your second paragraph is right, but I'd prefer more erring on the side of "do something cool" than I am seeing in the PF2 feats. I at least FEEL like I get that from 5e feats, which, as you say, have to compete with ASIs.

Then again, I actually really LIKE Keen Mind, so my subjective analysis may be somewhat skew from yours in terms of judgment criteria.




A.) It's not just one race, and B.) it's pretty indicative of the flaw with the Ancestry system and how it's laid out when one of Pathfinder's strongest races becomes one of the weakest.

If you want another big example, Half-Orcs also suffer quite a lot, losing two of their best alt. racials, and losing out on most of the things they enjoyed at first level. Getting Darkvision and Orc Ferocity alone back takes 5 levels.I was going to say that the strength of the Ancestry structure is that the half-orcs might get back their stronger alt-features in later feat releases, but to learn they can't even have DARKVISION before level 5 is...buh?

Okay, I get it: there's a running gag at this point that darkvision is so common (in 5e, but also in 3e and PF) that humans and halflings are actually DISABLED for lacking it, rather than the other creature types having a special ability by having it. This does make that shift back, since now nobody has it before 5th level, and only a subset of orcs above 5th level will have it. Cool, sure, fine.

But...yeesh.

[Gnaeus]

A.) It's not just one race, and B.) it's pretty indicative of the flaw with the Ancestry system and how it's laid out when one of Pathfinder's strongest races becomes one of the weakest.

If you want another big example, Half-Orcs also suffer quite a lot, losing two of their best alt. racials, and losing out on most of the things they enjoyed at first level. Getting Darkvision and Orc Ferocity alone back takes 5 levels.

This does seem like a huge flaw in the ancestry system, but it’s not why I dislike it. Like so much of PF2, the point seems to be to give the illusion of options while actually limiting them.

Let’s say I want to play a gnoll in 3.pf. Well, first off I just can. It has an LA, and a sidebar about gnolls as characters in the SRD. I can play practically any creature in 3.5 just by checking the LA threads on this forum. If I want a half dragon centaur Barbarian it’s just a matter of crunching numbers. But if I wanted to build a LA 0 gnoll I just determine appropriate stats and the reasonable racial qualities. PF1 has a whole system for it. It’s abusable as hell but it’s an attempt. In PF2 I need to write a dozen gnoll, or pseudodragon or kitsune or whatever feats. And then spread out their basic racial qualities over their entire career. Farthest from being a boon to character diversity, it is a locked gate. It adds extra steps to home brewing races. It makes it wildly unlikely that the kind of racial options that exist in 3.5 or PF1 will ever exist. And I’m reasonably sure that’s why they did it.

[Rynjin]

I don't think that's why they did it, but it does present a problem I hadn't thought of now you mention it.

But the reasoning behind doing it is sound, i think, just flawed in execution. Paizo looooooves their "Feat-like Non-Feats" as I inelegantly put it in my homebrew Freeform system for Pathfinder. Talents, Arcana, Discoveries, etc. being so ubiquitous is probably the biggest difference between Pathfinder and D&D, and leaning into that distinct "Pick and mix" design philosophy to every aspect of the game actually makes sense at a top level.

The issue is they should have implemented more "packages" into both classes and races. The Class Feats (Talents) and Racial Feats should be of smaller number but higher impact than PF1 variants BECAUSE every class has them, and has a dearth of "free" abilities to go with it.

Sure, make Druids pay for Wild Shape...but don't make them pay separately for every individual KIND of Wild Shape, that's just asinine.

It's SO CLOSE to being an inherent improvement over the old archetype design, where I find myself going hunting for archetypes that trade out features I don't like (like the Preacher archetype for Inquisitor), but hilariously misses the mark by a huge margin.

[stack]

Regarding ancestries, keep in mine the state of PF1 races. Major races all have alternate racial option lists longer than my arm, leading to players scoring the lists to swap out weak options to find something worth writing down. Breaking them out into feats makes more sense in light of this. I haven't gone deep enough into the feats to give an opinion on how good a job they have done, but I can see why they did it.

[Gnaeus]

I don't think that's why they did it, but it does present a problem I hadn't thought of now you mention it.

Oh I absolutely do. The design goal of PF2 is all about AP design. The farther you get from elf wizard, half orc Barbarian, the bigger the chance that someones combo will short circuit your AP. Limit races. Limit items. Limit multiclassing. Rein in outliers wherever possible. Now 5e does that also, but 5e’s goal seems to be simplifying the system and making a modern system that plays like older editions. And we have 5e for that. PF2’s goal is to limit perceived munchkinry from the view of the game designers. And given that the only reason most of us switched to PF1 was to continue in the traditions of 3.5, it only feels like a betrayal to me.

[EldritchWeaver]

Oh I absolutely do. The design goal of PF2 is all about AP design. The farther you get from elf wizard, half orc Barbarian, the bigger the chance that someones combo will short circuit your AP. Limit races. Limit items. Limit multiclassing. Rein in outliers wherever possible. Now 5e does that also, but 5e’s goal seems to be simplifying the system and making a modern system that plays like older editions. And we have 5e for that. PF2’s goal is to limit perceived munchkinry from the view of the game designers. And given that the only reason most of us switched to PF1 was to continue in the traditions of 3.5, it only feels like a betrayal to me.

Considering they stated that they wanted to keep the customization of PF1, it is a betrayal. Ironically, the overall structure of PF2 is great - the concepts, I mean. But the execution... Paizo went into a direction I am uncomfortable with. Creating playtest characters has soured me quite well. For a scout character I checked the backgrounds and the only two fitting had one, which allows to scrounge food from the land - nice, but how often are you broke enough to make this matter - and one which allowed you to determine what kind of animals are running around in that area. Really flavorful for sure, but I can't even think of how to integrate that into an adventure. Why can't that be just a Survival use? All in all, I have to agree that currently there is not much good stuff and the good stuff is basically "I am not excited about it, but it might be useful".

[Mehangel]

I like ribbon features, provided that they are without cost. However, having ribbon ancestry feats compete with real ancestry feats is a bad move in my opinion. All you have done is created trap options for players who don't possess the system mastery to know better.

If you are going to make ribbon features as a selectable option, they should only compete with other ribbons.

[Particle_Man]

I do like that Paizo finally allowed chaotic good paladin equivalents.

[Blackhawk748]

Oh I absolutely do. The design goal of PF2 is all about AP design. The farther you get from elf wizard, half orc Barbarian, the bigger the chance that someones combo will short circuit your AP. Limit races. Limit items. Limit multiclassing. Rein in outliers wherever possible. Now 5e does that also, but 5e’s goal seems to be simplifying the system and making a modern system that plays like older editions. And we have 5e for that. PF2’s goal is to limit perceived munchkinry from the view of the game designers. And given that the only reason most of us switched to PF1 was to continue in the traditions of 3.5, it only feels like a betrayal to me.

And other systems have done this without killing people's options for fun. Savage Worlds comes to mind. Yes the system is immensely more simplistic, but its a good system to look at for keeping options open but making even "meh" mechanical abilities worth taking. The Snake oil Salesman Edge from Deadlands is one of those as it lets you do a Test of Wills with your Persuasion, thus allowing you to play a purely non-combat character, but still help in combat.

Is it as good as First Strike or Quick? No but its good for that specific character type and I'd be hard pressed to think of an Edge that is actually worthless. Paizo needs to learn this lesson it seems


Considering they stated that they wanted to keep the customization of PF1, it is a betrayal. Ironically, the overall structure of PF2 is great - the concepts, I mean. But the execution... Paizo went into a direction I am uncomfortable with. Creating playtest characters has soured me quite well. For a scout character I checked the backgrounds and the only two fitting had one, which allows to scrounge food from the land - nice, but how often are you broke enough to make this matter - and one which allowed you to determine what kind of animals are running around in that area. Really flavorful for sure, but I can't even think of how to integrate that into an adventure. Why can't that be just a Survival use? All in all, I have to agree that currently there is not much good stuff and the good stuff is basically "I am not excited about it, but it might be useful".

Thats dumb and seems like a continuation of the old joke of Paizo making a 4 feat chain for going to the bathroom. Also, it reminds me of Scion 2e that I saw at Gen Con in which they made a skill called Culture. In the game Culture does several things;

1. It lets you know about standard cultural practices
2. it lets you blend in with a culture
3. This applies to ALL cultures

Now, ignoring Scions ungodly lazy and overall terrible world-building, the rest of the game is a general improvement over 1e from what I saw, except this skill. This skill just doesn't work on several levels as its A) trying to cover too many things (as it lets you understand Mexican culture as well as Japanese Culture) and B) allows the most Irish Irishman blend in perfectly with Venezuelans, and no Magical BS isn't in effect.

Basically, this skill doesn't do anything that a Specialty in Academics, Persuasion or Subterfuge would do but it also opens up a host of random issues that don't need to be there. Basiclaly the skill is a waste of space and was just terribly thought out. Paizo seems to have done something similar with several of the Ancestry Feats as well as with turning all Class features into just a feat chain that the class takes.

It may have seemed like a good idea, but someone needed to sit down and really think of the implications.

[Pex]

Basically, this skill doesn't do anything that a Specialty in Academics, Persuasion or Subterfuge would do but it also opens up a host of random issues that don't need to be there. Basiclaly the skill is a waste of space and was just terribly thought out. Paizo seems to have done something similar with several of the Ancestry Feats as well as with turning all Class features into just a feat chain that the class takes.

It may have seemed like a good idea, but someone needed to sit down and really think of the implications.

I think the idea was to let players choose their own class abilities. There's an inherent bias of knowing what the class abilities were, so to go back to an earlier thought it feels unfair to buy what you used to get for free. To use a Pathfinder analogy, instead of archetypes replacing class features with something else players choose the class features they want from the get go. There's nothing to replace, just fill in the slot. Two players playing the same class in the same party could be completely different by each choosing different class features. Maybe not totally different since in some cases there would be uniformity such as spellcasting, i.e. spell list, spell slots, etc., but the intent of differences is there. You can choose the class features that existed before if you want them, but here are other things for those who want some difference.

[Blackhawk748]

I think the idea was to let players choose their own class abilities. There's an inherent bias of knowing what the class abilities were, so to go back to an earlier thought it feels unfair to buy what you used to get for free. To use a Pathfinder analogy, instead of archetypes replacing class features with something else players choose the class features they want from the get go. There's nothing to replace, just fill in the slot. Two players playing the same class in the same party could be completely different by each choosing different class features. Maybe not totally different since in some cases there would be uniformity such as spellcasting, i.e. spell list, spell slots, etc., but the intent of differences is there. You can choose the class features that existed before if you want them, but here are other things for those who want some difference.

The issue with that is, why do you have so many classes? Fighters and Champions are still the same basic chasis so why not just roll them into one class and have their primary differences be the features? Same with Clerics and Druids. Basically it seems like they kept some things that they really didn't need to keep if they were just doing Build A Class.

Also I have a feeling that there is going to be a very 'correct' way of playing a Champion or Barbarian if what I recall seeing was anything to go by.

[Crake]

I think the idea was to let players choose their own class abilities. There's an inherent bias of knowing what the class abilities were, so to go back to an earlier thought it feels unfair to buy what you used to get for free. To use a Pathfinder analogy, instead of archetypes replacing class features with something else players choose the class features they want from the get go. There's nothing to replace, just fill in the slot. Two players playing the same class in the same party could be completely different by each choosing different class features. Maybe not totally different since in some cases there would be uniformity such as spellcasting, i.e. spell list, spell slots, etc., but the intent of differences is there. You can choose the class features that existed before if you want them, but here are other things for those who want some difference.

The issue with this is that pf1 already had that in things like magus arcana, rogue talents, or alchemist discoveries, IN ADDITION to standard class features and archetypes to play around with. Now sure, pf2 classes have SOME basic class features that you get, but it feels like they merged two forms of choice into one, leaving you feeling like you have less choice overall.

[Silvercrys]

PF2’s goal is to limit perceived munchkinry from the view of the game designers. And given that the only reason most of us switched to PF1 was to continue in the traditions of 3.5, it only feels like a betrayal to me.
Having dug into the system and tried to build a few characters, I absolutely agree with this.

I'll start by saying there are some cool improvements here; exploration having codified actions, bulk instead of encumbrance, the death of x/day abilities other than spells (especially Rage), Skill Feats so you don't need to fit class levels that grant Hide in Plain Sight on your stealth character, the proficiency system being broadly applicable to skills and attacks and spells and such. Cribbing the kinds of things we got in 4e powers and maneuvers from the Tome of Battle and making them martial Feats is a nice touch, too.

But the multiclassing showcases what makes the system feel viscerally wrong the best, for me.

There is a huge amount of niche protection built in here so that the Ranger is always different from the Barbarian... not merely because the Ranger is a woodsmen and the Barbarian is strong because RAGE! but in the fundamental fighting style and weapon choices they have available. The Barbarian can never be a competent dual-wielder. The Ranger can never be a competent wielder of two-handed weapons. Not even with multiclassing. Not compared to the classes who actually have support for that weapon style, anyway.

The multiclassing fails at a fundamental level because it's even worse than original DnD 4e multiclassing, pre-hybrid classes. You're restricted to taking powers Feats as if your level in the multiclass is 1/2 your character level rather than getting access to a limited number of their Feats at your full character level.. And you don't have Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies to give you even more of that class's stuff on top of your original chassis.

Combine that with the massive overlap in fighting style feats (Fighter and Ranger share most of the lower level two-weapon fighting feats) and you just don't get much out of multiclassing at all. You can splash some low level spells onto your character to recreate the original Ranger casting with the Druid or Bard multiclass feat and a bunch of other feats on top to get spell slots, or get something like the Rage feature by going to Barbarian (but basically never improve it except through feats tied to your Instinct), and that's pretty much it. You can get Sneak Attack by going to Rogue but it caps at 1d6, and the only feat that really improves it just allows you to deal the damage even if the foe isn't flat-footed... which the regular rogue gets at level 8, so you can get it at level 16! There is definitely some cool stuff you can do, but it just reminds me of the other cool stuff I could do if the multiclassing wasn't so restrictive.

They managed to simultaneously put the training wheels on the spellcasters by forcing them to learn the highest level spells from their base class while dramatically reversing the effectiveness of multiclassing martials together, making it almost universally a bad idea.

The lone exception I've found is that, if you want your character to be an archer on the side, you can multiclass Fighter and take Double Shot at level 8 and Triple Shot at level 12. The Fighter archer has been doing this since level 6, but it gives you 3 attacks at a -4 multiattack penalty instead of one at your full attack bonus, one at -5, and one at -10... and you can still take another action on top, though if you attack again it's at the full -10 penalty. And even here, the Ranger is just better off taking the Flurry Hunter's Edge and taking their three regular attacks at -0/-3/-6 instead of spending three feats to do that... Especially since they also have a level 1 feat that allows them to attack twice in a single action with a bow, so they can get 4 attacks from level 1 at -0/-3/-6/-6. It's probably best for a Shuriken Rogue of some kind since it gives them a bunch of sneak attacks, but it's probably good for Cleric Archer concepts and such as well.

My other main complaint is that the action economy is a bit. Unfocused. Spell casters are basically playing with the old 3.5 action economy; you move up to your speed, cast a spell, then end your turn. Martials have to give up an attack if they want to move up to their speed, though. And that's mostly fine since they're losing their lowest bonus attack that rarely hits anyway. Except then there are a bunch of feats that let you move and attack in one action anyway. Just feels like it would've been easier to have the 5e action economy, or at least make Charge a default action to move in a straight line and make an attack at the end so the move+attack Feats aren't basically a Feat Tax. And get rid of the multiattack penalty, it serves basically no purpose except to make it really, really hard for martials to actually deal damage unless their name is Ranger.

It's a shame, but it seems they've abandoned system designs with the sort of character building exercises that kept me playing Pathfinder in the first place. There is some room for char op here, but the dials you have access to are extremely limited and they've excised basically any synergy between feats/class features you could combine by giving all the good ones the "Flourish" trait or even just by making them distinct actions that can't be combined with other actions, like what happened to Far Shot.

It's a cool system. Most groups won't have any problems playing and running it. It's even vastly improved in many ways from its predecessors. It just isn't my system.

More's the pity, because my playgroup is almost certainly going to adopt it and I'll have to suck it up if I want to play with my friends. And really, I'll probably even have fun actually sitting down and playing the game. I'm sure the game runs great at the table, especially since my playgroup has pretty dim view of multiclassing in general and none of them like playing casters so I end up playing the CoDzilla for them.

The system just doesn't really inspire me to create character concepts and char op the crap out of them, is all, and I really kind of need that in my class-based systems. Paizo was hopefully going to continue to deliver on that niche. Now that they've abandoned it, I'll have to hope another 3rd party picks up where Pathfinder 1e left off, or else try to houserule Pathfinder 2e into something resembling what it could have been.

Maybe I'll just crib the improvements from 2e, like Bulk and unified proficiencies, and backport them to 1e somehow. It'd be a bit of work, but I'm no stranger to ripping systems apart and I'd be happier with the end result, especially with Dreamscarred Press stuff involved (which I love and always allow when DMing but rarely get to use as a player).

[Kurald Galain]

Things I like,
Critical hit effects. Whenever you crit with a bow, and there is a wall or tree behind your target, you pin him to the wall with your arrow. That's pretty cool.
The new crit rules mean that you can really go to town on mooks; a mid-level character can take down a squad of enemies with ease. You actually become much stronger after a couple levels.
The math also means that a +1 to hit / AC / saves actually does more than in earlier editions, because it affects the chance for a regular hit as well as the chance to crit or fumble. I'm still not a fan of +1 modifiers, but at least they're more meaningful now.
The Champion class is a good solution to the perennial paladin debate.
You automatically learn more skills as you level up; it has always bothered me that this is the case in neither 4E nor 5E.


Things I don't like,
The class pages use a lot of words to basically say "at level X you get +2 to this, at level Y you get +2 to that". Those aren't class features, and a table could show it more succinctly and clearer.
"Legendary" options come online so late that most campaigns will never see them, and most "legendary" feats just aren't that impressive.
No gish class, and the list of the next four upcoming classes doesn't have it either.



I was going to say that the strength of the Ancestry structure is that the half-orcs might get back their stronger alt-features in later feat releases, but to learn they can't even have DARKVISION before level 5 is...buh?At level one, you get one heritage and one ancestry feat. Half-orc is a heritage, darkvision is a feat. So yes, you can get that at level one.


one which allowed you to determine what kind of animals are running around in that area. Really flavorful for sure, but I can't even think of how to integrate that into an adventure. Why can't that be just a Survival use?That is a survival use. Anything you gain from your background, you can also take as a skill feat.


The farther you get from elf wizard, half orc Barbarian, the bigger the chance that someones combo will short circuit your AP.Yeah, I don't buy that. The classes most likely to break any AP are still the full casters from the PHB1.


And get rid of the multiattack penalty, it serves basically no purpose except to make it really, really hard for martials to actually deal damage unless their name is Ranger.The designers have done and shown their math on this (shocking, I know!) and turns out martials do fine. For instance, because several options or magic weapons let you double or triple your damage dice. And any crit is automatic double damage.

[Serafina]

My main issue is that the system makes me feel it's missed opportunities all over the place.

Take the multiclassing system.
In theory, it's exactly my jam - I loved 4E multiclassing/hybrid classes. The way it allowed you to blend two classes together to create a very specific character, and you mostly get powers out of it that will stay relevant for your entire career? PF/3.5 could never really accomplish that, very few classes could give you that with a short dip, mostly they just gave you abilities that petered out or powered up your main class, rather than being representative on their own.

And then PF 2E doesn't really deliver on that because what you can do with Dedication feats is pick class feats that will have lost most if not all of their significance by the time you can pick them. If only they had allowed you to pick same-level feats - they almost had it right!


Or take the proficiency system.
They could have done a lot of that, and demarked clear tiers of play with it. Which they do a little bit here and there. But mostly, they really lose out on giving out cool stuff to Master- and Legendary proficiency, especially with Skills and Weapons. Yes, they put some truly supernatural stuff into Legendary Skills - but a lot more could have been done, and every time I look at it I still think "okay, where's that but for weapons?"


And I could go on like this for so many more things. Yes, a lot of that is probably just change resistance or the system not being what I'd have hoped or wanted. But that shouldn't be the case - I didn't have those problems with 4E or 5E (or with alternate PF systems), I just approached those as new systems, and PF 2E is a new system too. So why would this system induce change resistance when the others didn't?
And that right there is a major issue that I don't really have an answer for.

[Segev]

Oh I absolutely do. The design goal of PF2 is all about AP design. The farther you get from elf wizard, half orc Barbarian, the bigger the chance that someones combo will short circuit your AP. Limit races. Limit items. Limit multiclassing. Rein in outliers wherever possible. Now 5e does that also, but 5e’s goal seems to be simplifying the system and making a modern system that plays like older editions. And we have 5e for that. PF2’s goal is to limit perceived munchkinry from the view of the game designers. And given that the only reason most of us switched to PF1 was to continue in the traditions of 3.5, it only feels like a betrayal to me.Yeah, I have to say, "limiting perceived munchkinry" on a Pathfinder edition as a primary goal is a little...off. Not because it's a bad idea, inherently, but because that was never Pathfinder's selling point. "A bit more balanced than it's D&D competitor" was fine in 3.5/PF parity, because PF was trying to solve some of the perceived gross imbalances by beefing everything up (while ideally keeping the majority of the buffs to the non-casters), but they still tended to (as somebody else points out with the joke about a 4-feat chain for bathroom usage) be a little over-cautious.

As PF1 advanced, the archetypes instead of PrCs and the proliferation of Talents/Discoveries/Arcana/etc. to general class design was pretty good. A better simplifier would have been to make Talents a slightly more generic not-quite-feat set, and have them get written up the way spells do, with lists of what classes can take them at what minimum level. It would allow for more simplification of lists where there's similarity without having to print "and you can take this list of rogue talents as one of your nottarogue techniques" in every rogue-ish class. PF2 could even have used the labels they like a lot in the system as printed to provide more mechanical hooks on them.

Maybe you can argue that "class feats" are exactly this! But the flaw I'm seeing here is that they're too bland. They don't do enough to be exciting, whereas picking a Focus Power, or an Investigator Talent, or an Arcanist Exploit, or a Magus Arcana... those were hard choices because they were all interesting, flavorful, and felt very worth having.

It's not like Paizo didn't know how to make interesting powers!


Considering they stated that they wanted to keep the customization of PF1, it is a betrayal. Ironically, the overall structure of PF2 is great - the concepts, I mean. But the execution... Paizo went into a direction I am uncomfortable with. Creating playtest characters has soured me quite well. For a scout character I checked the backgrounds and the only two fitting had one, which allows to scrounge food from the land - nice, but how often are you broke enough to make this matter - and one which allowed you to determine what kind of animals are running around in that area. Really flavorful for sure, but I can't even think of how to integrate that into an adventure. Why can't that be just a Survival use? All in all, I have to agree that currently there is not much good stuff and the good stuff is basically "I am not excited about it, but it might be useful".Yeah. I'm hopeful that they'll get more comfortable and power creep their way into interesting feats. Sure, it'll make the core stuff garbage in comparison, but it already is unexciting.

There's an irony to the core concepts being good but the execution being flawed: this was exactly my problem with 4e D&D. Well, half of my problem with it. The other half is that the WAY they botched execution made all the classes feel like martial adepts; PF2 seems to have kept the concept of different subsystems for different classes that do different things on a conceptual level. So there's more room for PF2 to recover, I think.


I like ribbon features, provided that they are without cost. However, having ribbon ancestry feats compete with real ancestry feats is a bad move in my opinion. All you have done is created trap options for players who don't possess the system mastery to know better.

If you are going to make ribbon features as a selectable option, they should only compete with other ribbons.Or just be handed out freely, even, if they're as weak as some are.

Though if you want to make them appreciated, you can make them STRONGER, then let them compete with each other and "real" powers because they've become real powers.


My main issue is that the system makes me feel it's missed opportunities all over the place.

Take the multiclassing system.
In theory, it's exactly my jam - I loved 4E multiclassing/hybrid classes. The way it allowed you to blend two classes together to create a very specific character, and you mostly get powers out of it that will stay relevant for your entire career? PF/3.5 could never really accomplish that, very few classes could give you that with a short dip, mostly they just gave you abilities that petered out or powered up your main class, rather than being representative on their own.

And then PF 2E doesn't really deliver on that because what you can do with Dedication feats is pick class feats that will have lost most if not all of their significance by the time you can pick them. If only they had allowed you to pick same-level feats - they almost had it right!


Or take the proficiency system.
They could have done a lot of that, and demarked clear tiers of play with it. Which they do a little bit here and there. But mostly, they really lose out on giving out cool stuff to Master- and Legendary proficiency, especially with Skills and Weapons. Yes, they put some truly supernatural stuff into Legendary Skills - but a lot more could have been done, and every time I look at it I still think "okay, where's that but for weapons?"


And I could go on like this for so many more things. Yes, a lot of that is probably just change resistance or the system not being what I'd have hoped or wanted. But that shouldn't be the case - I didn't have those problems with 4E or 5E (or with alternate PF systems), I just approached those as new systems, and PF 2E is a new system too. So why would this system induce change resistance when the others didn't?
And that right there is a major issue that I don't really have an answer for.
I did not like anything about 4e's class system, but I am with you on the rest of this.

A while back, I started, but never completed, a homebrew project to make weapon proficiency levels (proficiency, weapon focus, weapon specialization, greater etc.) open up "slots" to learn techniques with weapons, and the higher-tier things were pretty spectacular and often supernatural. The idea was to make every weapon different by having a number of ways to customize how YOUR character's mastery of the weapon manifested. It was a LOT of work; I got maybe 2/3 done before the fact that I was straining for ideas and liking what I was coming up with less and less made me lose interest in completing it. (It was designed for compatibility with PF or 3.5, though by the end I was leaning more towards PF.)

Something that made every weapon uniquely upgradable based on mastery would solve a lot of the "man, weapons are indistinguishable, or some are just weaker than others all around" problems, and would have opened doors for non-casters to do some pretty spectacular things with greater flexibility just by mastering different weapons.

[Ilorin Lorati]

*SNIP*

Things I don't like,
No gish class, and the list of the next four upcoming classes doesn't have it either.

*SNIP*


At the very least, we're likely to get a gish archetype before then, because one of the new companions in the updated Kingmaker is a Magus and it would be really weird to have him be a Sorcerer/Fighter (Edit: He's an Eldritch Scion, apparently) with a sign around his neck that says "eh, good enough"

Honestly, I don't expect to see a Magus class again ever with how later classes took that same base and used it as well. I wouldn't be surprised if we simply get one Archetype that covers the base and before they move on to other things.

[Silvercrys]

The designers have done and shown their math on this (shocking, I know!) and turns out martials do fine. For instance, because several options or magic weapons let you double or triple your damage dice. And any crit is automatic double damage.I think we're talking about two different things here.

I would certainly hope they did accuracy/average damage math and determined that Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers without the Flurry feature, Monks, Rogues, and Champions deal the expected amount of damage with the multiattack penalty included.

And I can't say for sure that this is what happened, as I haven't seen the designer math you're talking about, but obviously if you balance enemy ACs around being hit 50% of the time with the -5 penalty attack, your first attack hits 75% of the time and your third attack hits 25% of the time, and it's perfectly possible to balance the enemies around this... but this is the minimum we should expect from a modern game, that the combat math was actually done by the designers and doesn't need to be houseruled out of the gate.

I'm not saying martials are too weak because they have a multiattack penalty and that they need to be rebalanced or have the penalty removed for combat to work.

I'm saying that the game should have been designed without the multiattack penalty in the first place, and if they needed to increase monster ACs or decrease proficiency bonuses or something to make the math work they should have done that. Because it affects martials very lopsidedly, and they let one of them (the Ranger) basically ignore it anyway with the Flurry Hunter's Edge.

There just isn't any real reason for it to exist. It's extra fiddly modifiers with no clear design purpose for existing other than "multiple attacks get penalties, see, it's just like Pathfinder 1e/DnD 3.5 iterative attacks!"

It might have incentivized moving with one of your actions but there are so many feats (like the Barbarian's No Escape) that allow you to move with your opponent to keep you "sticky" or to move+attack with one action that there isn't much incentive to actually do that over spending the feats to keep making that third attack... Particularly due to the critical rules you mentioned since getting an additional chance to get a critical effect is pretty strong.

Like I said, I'm sure it's a solid game that plays and runs well at the table. But between the multiattack penalty, the seemingly pointless multiclass restrictions, and the direction they've decided to take design with these super clearly defined classes that have minimal conceptual overlap and don't have "real multiclassing"... I don't know. It isn't in the same spirit as DnD 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, and that's a real shame to me.

[Morty]

The issue with that is, why do you have so many classes? Fighters and Champions are still the same basic chasis so why not just roll them into one class and have their primary differences be the features? Same with Clerics and Druids. Basically it seems like they kept some things that they really didn't need to keep if they were just doing Build A Class.

Also I have a feeling that there is going to be a very 'correct' way of playing a Champion or Barbarian if what I recall seeing was anything to go by.

Yeah, it really feels like weirdly straddling the fence. All features are optional... but within level-specific pre-packaged lists of feats divided among the traditional set of classes. The goal to be customizable is a little self-defeating if you're going to stick with a class/level system that considerably narrows a player's choices. Especially if you reduce the variety that existed in the previous edition by axing every possible sub-system except spells.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm saying that the game should have been designed without the multiattack penalty in the first place, and if they needed to increase monster ACs or decrease proficiency bonuses or something to make the math work they should have done that. Because it affects martials very lopsidedly, and they let one of them (the Ranger) basically ignore it anyway with the Flurry Hunter's Edge. There just isn't any real reason for it to exist.
Personally I like that classes are affected differently; this makes classes feel more diverse (and insufficient diversity was a common complaint about 4E, after all).

And they do have a reason to exist: you don't want the best option for martials to be triple-attacking every single turn. Indeed, that is a common complaint about 3E and P1.


Maybe you can argue that "class feats" are exactly this! But the flaw I'm seeing here is that they're too bland. They don't do enough to be exciting, whereas picking a Focus Power, or an Investigator Talent, or an Arcanist Exploit, or a Magus Arcana... those were hard choices because they were all interesting, flavorful, and felt very worth having.I strongly disagree that all talents, exploits, arcana and so forth are interesting. For instance, my PF1 Magus guide ranks 40% of all arcana as trap options to avoid (yes, 40%; they are that bad); and my experience with PF1 rogue talents is that most of them are decent at level 2, but there's barely any worthwhile picks for level 6 or 8, compared to what other classes get at that level. And at level 2 it's most of them, far from all.

That strikes me as part of the problem: Paizo does not have a good track record when it comes to making interesting powers.


Honestly, I don't expect to see a Magus class again ever with how later classes took that same base and used it as well. I wouldn't be surprised if we simply get one Archetype that covers the base and before they move on to other things.The main thing a Magus needs are one-action spells, and a couple feats to enchant his weapon and channel spells through it. It could conceivably be an archetype; but frankly "gish" is so different in concept that it deserves a full class more than the oracle or swashbuckler (which are confirmed for next year's book). I'm just disappointed because gish classes have been undersupported in every edition of D&D except P1.

[Psyren]

I strongly disagree that all talents, exploits, arcana and so forth are interesting. For instance, my PF1 Magus guide ranks 40% of all arcana as trap options to avoid; and my experience with PF1 rogue talents is that most of them are decent at level 2, but there's barely any worthwhile picks for level 6 or 8, compared to what other classes get at that level.

That strikes me as part of the problem: Paizo does not have a good track record when it comes to making interesting powers.

I'd argue that they do. Quantity is not the most important factor here, I don't see the value in saying "40% of the powers for a given class are situational or traps therefore Paizo don't know how to design interesting powers" (which would be an attempt at refuting what Segev actually said.) Rather, I think they do know how, but then due to Sturgeon's Law and publishing realities (testing time, pagecount etc) and NPC design and other factors a bunch of subpar ones make it into the final book, and there isn't much value in going through the labyrinthine process to buff any of them so they all stay more or less where they're at.

[Silvercrys]

Except, like I said, full attacking is still the best option and the ability to move with your opponent and full attack is built into the "strikers" (Barbarians, Fighters, Rogues, Rangers) anyway, and if it wasn't then ranged combat just becomes clearly superior for dealing damage.

If the final attack has any chance to hit, even if it's only the 5% chance to crit, taking it is always the superior option when available. And if it cannot hit, then it's a trap. Increasing the attack bonus on the final attacks makes them more important to the overall damage calculation, but it gives fewer fiddly bonuses to track on the fly and, more importantly, makes martials feel actually competent because they aren't missing half of their attacks. And it doesn't put the Ranger head and shoulders above everyone else at high level damage dealing because they can attack six times without missing while everyone else is stuck at four attacks at most and taking massive to hit penalties.

You can differentiate the classes in ways other than how they are affected by the multiattack penalty... Especially since you have to take a specific Ranger option so it isn't even core to the Ranger's identity. They could have changed Flurry to a +1/+2 to hit bonus when you make more than one attack as part of an activity or something.

[Ilorin Lorati]

The main thing a Magus needs are one-action spells, and a couple feats to enchant his weapon and channel spells through it. It could conceivably be an archetype; but frankly "gish" is so different in concept that it deserves a full class more than the oracle or swashbuckler (which are confirmed for next year's book). I'm just disappointed because gish classes have been undersupported in every edition of D&D except P1.

As a general fan of gishes, I don't disagree with any of this. Unfortunately, we're not likely to see a full gish class any time in the next few years so we can only hope for something usable in the time being.

As far as what's likely to happen, the way combining actions seems to work in 2e suggests any version of spell combat we might get will be a variable action ability that both Strikes and Casts a Spell (using the spell's action cost), then counts twice for the Multi Attack Penalty. That covers the basic combination, then you can add different additions on top like 2e's versions of Spellstrike or Fervor.

[upho]

I decided to stay out of this discussion I had read up on as much of the rules to feel confident I've gained a clear enough picture of how things actually play out. And now that I'm done:


My main issue is that the system makes me feel it's missed opportunities all over the place.

Excellent examples and points cut for brevity.So much this.

So much that I've started to view the PF2 CRB as having the subtitle: "A Compilation of Great TTRPG Rules Design Concepts Poorly Implemented".

Another related thing which has kept bugging me when reading up on a lot of options is their low relative mechanical impact. For example, the fighter feats are mostly a huge pile of stuff with an impact comparable to that of 3.5/PF1's feat taxes/traps inherited from 3.0 (Dodge, Combat Expertise, Mobility, Weapon Focus etc). Meaning they suffer from one or more of the following issues:

Provide a too small numerical bonus relative the result span of a d20 roll. While the critical success/failure rules help mitigate this issue, it's also exacerbated by PF2's general lack of stacking bonus types.
Overly circumstantial/situational benefit.
Too great action cost in relation to the benefit.

On top of this, on the whole the fighter feats - just as the martial combat feats in general - suffer just as much as those in the playtest rules from an insufficient number of output parameters. Most notably an overwhelmingly large majority of them ultimately only affect the hp damage output or input of weapon attacks, while the few which don't still only affect a small number of existing combat parameters and then only in relatively minor ways (like basic positioning, Reflex saves, fear and prone conditions).

And I don't think the fighter feats category stands out as collection of build options particularly rife with these problems, as for example a few other feat categories are significantly worse IMO.

To me, it appears the main underlying reason for the many issues is a poorly defined and/or split purpose for the system as a whole. For example, I see many posters here have made comparisons to 5e, a system which has considerably fewer and less complex player options and rules mechanics than PF2, and is very much in line with the overall intended purpose of providing easier access and a greater focus on game elements other than mechanics (in comparison to previous editions). At least from a player perspective, PF2 on the other hand seems to have a purpose of combining "mechanics-heavy with lots of options" and "mechanics-light with few options", but ends up with a system straddling the fence in a very awkward way instead of providing the best of both worlds.

So ultimately, from a player perspective PF2 feels like an attempt to answer the question:

"Just how many mechanically different player options and situational rules elements can be made with a minimal impact on a system's preset core mechanics and assumed balance?"

This isn't terribly surprising if the actual primary purpose of the system is to provide stable predictable mechanics for adventure design. But if so, the multitude of player options feel even more like window-dressing, an illusion to obfuscate the lack build choices with any real mechanical impact.

[Kurald Galain]

If the final attack has any chance to hit, even if it's only the 5% chance to crit, taking it is always the superior option when available.
Superior to moving. Not superior to the plethora of other things you could do with your action.

[Blackhawk748]

Yeah, it really feels like weirdly straddling the fence. All features are optional... but within level-specific pre-packaged lists of feats divided among the traditional set of classes. The goal to be customizable is a little self-defeating if you're going to stick with a class/level system that considerably narrows a player's choices. Especially if you reduce the variety that existed in the previous edition by axing every possible sub-system except spells.

It really does. When I looked it over at Gen Con I just kept thinking of the 3 Generic classes from UA and wondered why they didn't just add a 4th, call it Priest and be done with it.

[Pex]

The issue with that is, why do you have so many classes? Fighters and Champions are still the same basic chasis so why not just roll them into one class and have their primary differences be the features? Same with Clerics and Druids. Basically it seems like they kept some things that they really didn't need to keep if they were just doing Build A Class.

Also I have a feeling that there is going to be a very 'correct' way of playing a Champion or Barbarian if what I recall seeing was anything to go by.

Legacy

They've been separate classes for so long now people expect them. They each have a distinct theme, and the abilities given reflect that. Complex as the game is, there still needs to be some organization of class abilities. It's easier to group thematic similarities within classes rather than have one warrior class or one spellcaster class and provide every possible Thing to do. The game is still a class based system, not a generic point buy, but they're allowing for more customization.


The issue with this is that pf1 already had that in things like magus arcana, rogue talents, or alchemist discoveries, IN ADDITION to standard class features and archetypes to play around with. Now sure, pf2 classes have SOME basic class features that you get, but it feels like they merged two forms of choice into one, leaving you feeling like you have less choice overall.

They made the choice to have less standard class features and go with letting the player choose among a list. That's the point. It only feels a less of choice because you have to buy the standard class features you are familiar with leaving subjective little room for other things if you want those features. The idea is to have fun in the act of making a choice, but for some players familiarity doesn't lead to new discovery so it's boring having to choose what you already know.

[Segev]

Psyren addressed the "40% were trap options" point pretty well, but I will also point out that PF1 seemed to have even the trap options at least seem interesting. No, not always, but more than one might expect. From a mechanical standpoint, that's a problem, because trap options ARE traps and making them more alluring is bad. But in a given home game, it's likely that they're still more FUN than trap options that are also boring (e.g. feat-tax-level +1s to niche circumstances).

On the up side, as I feel I need to keep saying because I worry it gets lost in the (valid) complaints about the current state, this is a system that is imminently moddable by bite-sized additions. New feats can and will come out, and they'll probably eventually be worth taking.

[darkdragoon]

It's a little cleaner than before but still not very interesting.

[Rynjin]

Psyren addressed the "40% were trap options" point pretty well, but I will also point out that PF1 seemed to have even the trap options at least seem interesting. No, not always, but more than one might expect. From a mechanical standpoint, that's a problem, because trap options ARE traps and making them more alluring is bad. But in a given home game, it's likely that they're still more FUN than trap options that are also boring (e.g. feat-tax-level +1s to niche circumstances).

Most Talent-likes aren't traps in the traditional sense in any case, barring Rogue Talents (which ARE almost universally trash...there's a reason it's a class they printed a straight upgraded version of).

Many Talent-likes are SITUATIONAL, certainly, but do have a niche where they're very strong in some kinds of campaigns.

Defoliant Bomb (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/half-elf/bramble-brewer-alchemist-half-elf/defoliant-bomb) is generally trash, for example, but is the kind of Discovery that would be a legitimate pick in some published adventures (like Kingmaker or Serpent's Skull) and similar styles of homebrew game.

That is not the same as a true trap option, which is at best trash in almost all situations (like Vital Strike), or even actively makes your character worse (like the whole chain of Feats coming off of Vital Strike).

[EldritchWeaver]

That is a survival use. Anything you gain from your background, you can also take as a skill feat.

You misunderstand. I'm not complaining why compiling wildlife statistics is dependent on Survival, I'm complaining why this is a skill feat and not just part of Survival? I managed to think up one scenario for that feat: Help out a druid doing a survey. But that is one scenario. And I don't think there is another one different enough to be not a boring repeat.


And I could go on like this for so many more things. Yes, a lot of that is probably just change resistance or the system not being what I'd have hoped or wanted. But that shouldn't be the case - I didn't have those problems with 4E or 5E (or with alternate PF systems), I just approached those as new systems, and PF 2E is a new system too. So why would this system induce change resistance when the others didn't?
And that right there is a major issue that I don't really have an answer for.

Maybe the marketing induced "streamlined PF1, but customizable". Maybe you are a poweruser and run immediately into walls, where there where none before. Maybe the execution of the alluring concepts is simply poor.

I for one feel, for me apply all three.

In other news, I made a thread on Paizo to ask the devs about their design goals: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42ol4?PF-2-design-goals#1 In case you don't know, they didn't want to part with their list, for us knowing it would influence the feedback. Of course it would influence it. Then we would have known if what you do is actually what you want and not just waver about the things, not knowing if a certain change is good or bad. But what my primary interest is - because I doubt the devs will answer - how long the thread survives their moderation.

[Rynjin]

Y

In other news, I made a thread on Paizo to ask the devs about their design goals: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42ol4?PF-2-design-goals#1 In case you don't know, they didn't want to part with their list, for us knowing it would influence the feedback. Of course it would influence it. Then we would have known if what you do is actually what you want and not just waver about the things, not knowing if a certain change is good or bad. But what my primary interest is - because I doubt the devs will answer - how long the thread survives their moderation.

I also made that thread a while back. (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs428u9?What-Is-The-Goal-Of-This-Game#1)

They aren't likely to lock or delete it at this stage, merely ignore it. It's a question they have no interest in answering.

I legitimately miss the days SKR would berate people on the forums, because at least he gave useful information and valuable insights while haranguing forumites.

[Divine Susuryu]

I also made that thread a while back. (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs428u9?What-Is-The-Goal-Of-This-Game#1)

They aren't likely to lock or delete it at this stage, merely ignore it. It's a question they have no interest in answering.

I legitimately miss the days SKR would berate people on the forums, because at least he gave useful information and valuable insights while haranguing forumites.

I recognise that thread! The only answer we really ever got was some sort of marketing "well we want a game everyone can play, easy to learn hard to master, streamlined and still complex" that meant literally nothing concrete or measurable in any way. There's not really any evidence that there's any concrete goal for the game other than "we believe that changing market conditions require a new product launch".

[Blackhawk748]

I recognise that thread! The only answer we really ever got was some sort of marketing "well we want a game everyone can play, easy to learn hard to master, streamlined and still complex" that meant literally nothing concrete or measurable in any way. There's not really any evidence that there's any concrete goal for the game other than "we believe that changing market conditions require a new product launch".

That's...that's the design goal of Kings of War. As in, the Mantic designers said exactly the same thing, minus the "everyone can play" thing, because its a War Game, not everyone wants to play a wargame.

Except Kings of War did that, by and large, while PF2E doesn't look like it did that. I mean, sure its simple, but mastering this doesn't seem terribly difficult or even worth it.

[Particle_Man]

That is not the same as a true trap option, which is at best trash in almost all situations (like Vital Strike), or even actively makes your character worse (like the whole chain of Feats coming off of Vital Strike).

Although Mythic Vital Strike makes up for it. :smallbiggrin:

I guess I am confused by 2e. If they want to silo abilities and have niche protection, I guess I can see it. But I don’t get what the rationale is for the particular abilities that get silo’d. I mean, take the rogue (thief) being the only one to get dex to damage. Is that more iconic than sneak attack, which one can do a little of with a feat? In 1e yes the unchained rogue had the dex to damage thing at level three, but there was also another way to do it via a feat chain. 3.5 had a way to do it with three feats (or one, plus a single level of swordsage).

I see neither the simplicity of D&D 5e nor the breadth of customizable chargen choices of D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e. It seems to be marketed towards people that divide “iconic class abilities that need niche protection” in exactly the way the game developers do and, well, people vary on that. I am beginning to think that they should have either simplified greatly or gone all-in on the customization, perhaps assigning points to abilities a la GURPS and then providing suggested templates for classes.

[Pex]

Most Talent-likes aren't traps in the traditional sense in any case, barring Rogue Talents (which ARE almost universally trash...there's a reason it's a class they printed a straight upgraded version of).

Many Talent-likes are SITUATIONAL, certainly, but do have a niche where they're very strong in some kinds of campaigns.

Defoliant Bomb (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/core-races/half-elf/bramble-brewer-alchemist-half-elf/defoliant-bomb) is generally trash, for example, but is the kind of Discovery that would be a legitimate pick in some published adventures (like Kingmaker or Serpent's Skull) and similar styles of homebrew game.

That is not the same as a true trap option, which is at best trash in almost all situations (like Vital Strike), or even actively makes your character worse (like the whole chain of Feats coming off of Vital Strike).

Here's an example of not everyone agreeing on what is weak. I do not think Vital Strike is trash. Of course you don't use it when you can make a full attack, but if you're only getting one attack for your action anyway, such as because you moved, use the feat and get in a bit more damage.

[EldritchWeaver]

In SoM, Vital Strike has far more mileage now, too.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
I legitimately miss the days SKR would berate people on the forums….

A few days ago I posted a question about SKR on the Paizo forums, since there had been a reference upthread that I didn’t understand.

My question and the preceding reference were deleted in minutes. Followed by commentary from an employee to the effect that I was in the wrong to raise the question at all.


Originally Posted by Particle_Man
I guess I am confused by 2e.…. I see neither the simplicity of D&D 5e nor the breadth of customizable chargen choices of D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e.

I’m certainly baffled by some of the design choices I’m reading about in this thread. They seem to range from mildly wonky to actively counterproductive, and I can’t really see myself spending the time and effort necessary to understand and work with those changes.

Fact is, this thread has convinced me like no other that PF2 is not for me. It seems to be a radical overhaul for the sake of making a radical overhaul, which may be job security for the developers, but hardly enticing to me as a prospective player. I'll spend that money filling in the gaps in my 1E collection.

[Rynjin]

Here's an example of not everyone agreeing on what is weak. I do not think Vital Strike is trash. Of course you don't use it when you can make a full attack, but if you're only getting one attack for your action anyway, such as because you moved, use the feat and get in a bit more damage.

The issue with Vital Strike is that mathematically the payoff is weak for what you're paying, and only gets weaker as you level.

It is theoretically worthwhile for Fighters, who can grab it at 6 and then retrain it at 10th (when it starts to really show its age) but to keep for your whole character's lifespan?

The only people it's worth it AT ALL on are big 2H fighter bois, who can eke out an extra 2d6 damage from it.

We can easily use the conversion that the system math is based on that 3 damage is equal to 1 attack bonus. You are getting an extra +7 damage on average out of it.

By the math why not just use Furious Focus (another Feat that still isn't super great, actually)? While at 6th level it only gets you +2 attack (worth 6 damage, making Vital Strike MARGINALLY better), by 8th level it's giving you +3 (worth 9 damage), and continues to get better from there. And ALSO works when you do get to Full Attack, not just when you can't.

That's why Vital Strike is a trap; it looks good on paper but even when you factor out its drawbacks and wonky action usage meaning it doesn't combo with ANYTHING, it is statistically worse than another already questionable Feat that comes online 5-6 levels earlier, except in the very specific corner case circumstance you've finagled your Gm into letting you play a Large character or are going that goofy Ooze Druid build, since 3d8 or higher damage dice does out-value Furious Focus' bonus at every level.


A few days ago I posted a question about SKR on the Paizo forums, since there had been a reference upthread that I didn’t understand.

My question and the preceding reference were deleted in minutes. Followed by commentary from an employee to the effect that I was in the wrong to raise the question at all.

Was it "water balloons" or "Rolf the Dhampir"?

[Blackhawk748]

A few days ago I posted a question about SKR on the Paizo forums, since there had been a reference upthread that I didn’t understand.

My question and the preceding reference were deleted in minutes. Followed by commentary from an employee to the effect that I was in the wrong to raise the question at all.

That sort of stuff, the intense hatred for Gunslinger's and Barbarians doing high damage (y'know the one thing they are good at), and the Devs seeming to make of all their decisions based off of feedback from people who have an extremely tenuous grasp of optimization is why I refuse to be on the Paizo forums

I do not to well with threads being silently offed without explanation and in some cases refusal tk even admit the thread existed

[Divine Susuryu]

...people who have an extremely tenuous grasp of optimization...

It's endemic to RPG communities of all stripes to a certain extent. There seems to be a belief that the actual "game" aspect of an RPG doesn't and shouldn't matter. I'd argue it's less about having a tenuous grasp of it than an abject refusal to even consider it. There's a reason that RAW is not the default mode of discussion. It's frustrating because that sort of attitude just leads to much worse game design in the long run.

[Blackhawk748]

It's endemic to RPG communities of all stripes to a certain extent. There seems to be a belief that the actual "game" aspect of an RPG doesn't and shouldn't matter. I'd argue it's less about having a tenuous grasp of it than an abject refusal to even consider it. There's a reason that RAW is not the default mode of discussion. It's frustrating because that sort of attitude just leads to much worse game design in the long run.

But games for that exist! Apocalypse World and Fate immediately spring to mind, and they do it fairly well. This is a class based system which is definitely on the crunchier end of the spectrum. In fact it's part of why I play them.

I'm not even asking for high end OP just realizing that Gunslinger's do LITERALLY ONE THING and getting angry at them for that is unreasonable. God it's the Lore Warden all over again

[Divine Susuryu]

But games for that exist! Apocalypse World and Fate immediately spring to mind, and they do it fairly well. This is a class based system which is definitely on the crunchier end of the spectrum. In fact it's part of why I play them.

I'm not even asking for high end OP just realizing that Gunslinger's do LITERALLY ONE THING and getting angry at them for that is unreasonable. God it's the Lore Warden all over again

Games for that exist, but they aren't D&D or to a lesser extent Pathfinder, and hence don't really have the brand power, so a lot of people haven't heard of them. Even ignoring that, people are loyal to their preffered game to a fault, and will try and hammer that square peg into a round hole for a long long time.

AW I'm not a huge fan of, as it seems too conducive to misery-fests (and has dumb stuff like a "success at a cost" for doing something unseen being "you're seen"), but FATE and derivative systems I will endlessly recommend.

[Mehangel]

The issue with Vital Strike is that mathematically the payoff is weak for what you're paying, and only gets weaker as you level.

I just wanted to reiterate that Vital Strike (and the rest of the feat chain) isn't necessarily a "trap option" for characters built off of the attack action, like those using Spheres of Might.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Rynjin
Was it "water balloons" or "Rolf the Dhampir"?

Neither. I don’t recall the exact words now, just a reference to something SKR had said.


Originally Posted by Divine Susuryu
…people are loyal to their preffered game to a fault….

To be fair, there are other factors besides loyalty. One reason I never really looked at 5E is that I simply do not have the free time available to learn an entirely new system. I’m still learning all the fine differences between 3.5 and Pathfinder.

Given that I’m relatively new to Pathfinder, I feel a bit like the rug’s been pulled out from under me. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “betrayal,” but it’s definitely annoying, and I can't deny the feeling of a door being shut in my face. I liked the idea that new content was coming out, however hit or miss it might have been, and that I could bring whatever I liked directly into my game.

So I will stick with 1E because that’s the system I know, and I will gently tap various pegs into various holes as needed to run the game that my players and I enjoy. Is this “optimal”? Probably not. But I have no time, money or emotional energy to pick through PF2, much less other game systems I’ve barely even heard of. Some other system may have the perfect blend of secret gaming sauces, but I’ll stick with the working man’s buffet that’s served me well thus far.

[Blackhawk748]

Games for that exist, but they aren't D&D or to a lesser extent Pathfinder, and hence don't really have the brand power, so a lot of people haven't heard of them. Even ignoring that, people are loyal to their preffered game to a fault, and will try and hammer that square peg into a round hole for a long long time.

AW I'm not a huge fan of, as it seems too conducive to misery-fests (and has dumb stuff like a "success at a cost" for doing something unseen being "you're seen"), but FATE and derivative systems I will endlessly recommend.

I mean, yes, its why I hung onto 3.5 for so long, but I do venture out into Savage Worlds if I want a simpler game or a lower powered one.

AW is what it is, it was designed with that in mind and so I don't hold it against the system. They are fairly upfront about what they intend and I appreciate that. That being said, I do prefer Fate if I wanna go super light,and I just don't understand why PF 2E decided to go as soft as they did. There is a not small group of gamers who like mechanical complexity to their game and the big companies constantly pushing this "easier to understand" game is annoying.

If I wanted that I'd be playing Savage Worlds, which does it much better.

[Rynjin]

I just wanted to reiterate that Vital Strike (and the rest of the feat chain) isn't necessarily a "trap option" for characters built off of the attack action, like those using Spheres of Might.

There's not really any point in discussing 3rd party options when speaking about any particular combat option as it exists in the base game.

[upho]

That's why Vital Strike is a trap; it looks good on paper but even when you factor out its drawbacks and wonky action usage meaning it doesn't combo with ANYTHING, it is statistically worse than another already questionable Feat that comes online 5-6 levels earlier, except in the very specific corner case circumstance you've finagled your Gm into letting you play a Large character or are going that goofy Ooze Druid build, since 3d8 or higher damage dice does out-value Furious Focus' bonus at every level.Slightly OT, but VS has actually got quite a few good supporting options during the last two or three years or so, and can definitely be made really powerful without the need of GM convincing or goofy slime druids. Aside from the fact that the Improved and Greater versions do exist, check out for example Divine Fighting Technique (Gorum's Swordmanship) (https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Divine%20Fighting%20Tech nique) and especially Cerberus Crush (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/cerberus-crush-combat/) (and keep in mind that this can definitely be effectively used by say enlarged Titan Mauler barbs swinging strong jaw-ed Huge butchering axes for up to at least a 48d6 damage die at 16th). Of course, making VS competitive with the stronger full attack combos does of course require a lot of specific investments, but so does virtually any combat style than can be made powerful. And while Furious Focus doesn't have quite the same great potential as the Vital Strike chain, it isn't nearly as weak as it may first appear either, especially for AoO styles (note that it's limited to the first attack made in every turn, not that of every round).

More on topic, I think the above is a quite good example of how comparably little impact PF2's player options have. The numbers, and perhaps even more the number of possible viable adventuring tools available to a PC and a party, are all strictly limited to a preset narrow level-dependent span, allowing for very little meaningful mechanical diversification or specialization. Especially within each class.


Was it "water balloons" or "Rolf the Dhampir"?:smallbiggrin: Just thinking about these make me laugh out loud, while it simultaneously makes me kinda sad. And worried about SKR's blood pressure...


That sort of stuff, the intense hatred for Gunslinger's and Barbarians doing high damage (y'know the one thing they are good at), and the Devs seeming to make of all their decisions based off of feedback from people who have an extremely tenuous grasp of optimization is why I refuse to be on the Paizo forums
It's endemic to RPG communities of all stripes to a certain extent. There seems to be a belief that the actual "game" aspect of an RPG doesn't and shouldn't matter. I'd argue it's less about having a tenuous grasp of it than an abject refusal to even consider it. There's a reason that RAW is not the default mode of discussion. It's frustrating because that sort of attitude just leads to much worse game design in the long run.This is unfortunately something which I also believe has at least indirectly negatively affected PF2. And I believe the one big elephant in the room to blame for a large majority of the issues I'm having with PF2 is PFS. Or rather Paizo's focus on PFS, having them sacrifice far too much of the game's attractiveness to facilitate a smooth running of their primary marketing vehicle.

[Divine Susuryu]

More on topic, I think the above is a quite good example of how comparably little impact PF2's player options have. The numbers, and perhaps even more the number of possible viable adventuring tools available to a PC and a party, are all strictly limited to a preset narrow level-dependent span, allowing for very little meaningful mechanical diversification or specialization. Especially within each class.

<snip>

This is unfortunately something which I also believe has at least indirectly negatively affected PF2. And I believe the one big elephant in the room to blame for a large majority of the issues I'm having with PF2 is PFS. Or rather Paizo's focus on PFS, having them sacrifice far too much of the game's attractiveness to facilitate a smooth running of their primary marketing vehicle.

Add in AP design considerations and your second point explains your first. It's a lot easier to run PFS and design APs if you know that all possible characters will have their bonuses in a very small range, for one. For another, if all the abilities are low impact and have very little ability to change the flow of a narrative, then linear stories become much easier to tell.

[Particle_Man]

This is making me nervous that a metaplot is in the offing.

[Silvercrys]

This is making me nervous that a metaplot is in the offing.Not in the offing, it's basically already here.

PF 2e's setting is the same as PF 1e's (Golarion) and is "updated" or "timeskipped" forward from Pathfinder 1e's setting, and assumes that all adventure paths were successfully completed as if they were actually driving some larger meta-narrative forward.

I tend to stick to homebrew "kitchen-sink" settings so I tend to ignore metaplot stuff, particularly for Golarion because my "default" deities are still Greyhawk ones, but they certainly seem intent on advancing the clock forward as adventure paths are released (and played by PFS members, presumably).

[Ilorin Lorati]

That's been the case since the original Pathfinder launch. One year in the real world means a one year time adjustment for the setting; all the previous adventures, etc. are considered completed, though they tend to be only vaguely mentioned (presumably because not everyone does adventures in order).

[upho]

Add in AP design considerations and your second point explains your first. It's a lot easier to run PFS and design APs if you know that all possible characters will have their bonuses in a very small range, for one. For another, if all the abilities are low impact and have very little ability to change the flow of a narrative, then linear stories become much easier to tell.Indeed. And maybe this turns out to be a net positive for people who mostly or only play PFS, as their sessions and character mechanics won't be plagued by nearly as much table variance or need for checking up PFS houserules, while most modules will at least be more consistently decently challenging regardless of the other random party members participating. But I very much doubt even PFS players will find these potential gains to be worth the sacrifices.

For those who don't play PFS, like myself, these design goals unfortunately have a distinctly negative impact on the game. I guess the thing that really irks me is that this didn't have to be the case, because the whole premise that the quality of PFS is so dependent on having a minimum of mechanical variation and maximum predictability appears to be very poorly researched, while the considerable drawbacks those design properties come with seem to have been largely ignored. It reeks of knee-jerk reactions to the fact that related issues have been so common in PFS using PF1.


This is making me nervous that a metaplot is in the offing.There is. I've heard from reliable inside sources that Paizo's next step is to replace all GMs in PFS with a special AI they've co-developed with Google, and PF3 is already being planned to be sold exclusively as an online subscription service including said AI. Naturally it'll sport micro-transactions for cool magic items, more powerful options, detailed combat maps and full player control of character building, plus more substantial fees for access to new APs or for making your virtual GM sound less like a greasy Speak & Spell from 1979. All accompanied by a ton of personalized advertising presented by an innovative piece of content management software able to sense excitement levels so as to interrupt the most intense moments and receive maximum attention, of course. The expected release of the "Deluxe VR LARP" version is 2030 btw... :smallamused:

(Seriously though, I wouldn't be surprised if an actual metaplot is "in the offing"...)

[Pex]

The issue with Vital Strike is that mathematically the payoff is weak for what you're paying, and only gets weaker as you level.

It is theoretically worthwhile for Fighters, who can grab it at 6 and then retrain it at 10th (when it starts to really show its age) but to keep for your whole character's lifespan?

The only people it's worth it AT ALL on are big 2H fighter bois, who can eke out an extra 2d6 damage from it.

We can easily use the conversion that the system math is based on that 3 damage is equal to 1 attack bonus. You are getting an extra +7 damage on average out of it.

By the math why not just use Furious Focus (another Feat that still isn't super great, actually)? While at 6th level it only gets you +2 attack (worth 6 damage, making Vital Strike MARGINALLY better), by 8th level it's giving you +3 (worth 9 damage), and continues to get better from there. And ALSO works when you do get to Full Attack, not just when you can't.

That's why Vital Strike is a trap; it looks good on paper but even when you factor out its drawbacks and wonky action usage meaning it doesn't combo with ANYTHING, it is statistically worse than another already questionable Feat that comes online 5-6 levels earlier, except in the very specific corner case circumstance you've finagled your Gm into letting you play a Large character or are going that goofy Ooze Druid build, since 3d8 or higher damage dice does out-value Furious Focus' bonus at every level.



Or you have Furious Focus and Vital Strike and get the benefits of both. It's fine with me if Vital Strike is more valuable to two-handed weapon users than others. I don't need a feat to be universally awesome for everyone in all occasions to consider taking it when it suits me.

Personally I find Furious Focus to be more valuable to 2/3 BAB classes since it enables them to benefit from Power Attack easier. The downside is how long it takes to get it and Power Attack, so a cleric will have to wait a bit. The trick is to have a class that gets bonus feats. With bias I'm playing in a new game as a War Priest, so I can get both at 3rd level. Certainly later on when these classes get multiple attacks they are unlikely to hit with their iterative attacks, but that was true even without Power Attack if percentage less so. It doesn't hurt to try and go for the luck, but because of the odds there is incentive not to rely on it and use the flexibility of moving or doing move-equivalent actions. Since you're only doing one attack anyway Vital Strike becomes attractive as well to get in a bit extra damage you weren't having missing with the iterative attacks.

[Rynjin]

Or you have Furious Focus and Vital Strike and get the benefits of both.

Opportunity cost is a big thing. Every feat you spend on Vital Strike is one you don't spend on Hurtful, or something similarly nuts. Or just interesting Feats instead of +numbers, which is basically what Vital Strike is.

That's what makes it a "trap". Except in verrrrrrry niche circumstances it's worse than almost any other option, even though it LOOKS okay on paper.

[Pex]

Opportunity cost is a big thing. Every feat you spend on Vital Strike is one you don't spend on Hurtful, or something similarly nuts. Or just interesting Feats instead of +numbers, which is basically what Vital Strike is.

That's what makes it a "trap". Except in verrrrrrry niche circumstances it's worse than almost any other option, even though it LOOKS okay on paper.

Except when someone disagrees with you and finds spending a feat on Vital Strike to be worth the cost, not caring what other Feat exists.

[Rynjin]

Except when someone disagrees with you and finds spending a feat on Vital Strike to be worth the cost, not caring what other Feat exists.

That...doesn't matter. You can prefer a crap option (I love Monks, for example), but we're talking about how good the Feat is by objective measures; numbers and relative impact compared to other options. We're talking about game design, not personal preferences.

[Tom Kalbfus]

Mostly a new game system gives you something new to learn, the actual improvements are marginal at best. I never had much to complain about in the old system. Why do game designers like to write new core rulebooks all the time? New editions take time to learn, when you play the game, you find yourself unfamiliar with the new rules and unsure when in the books to look for them.

I'd much rather they'd write new adventures than new editions of the core rules. But I guess they saturated the market with their first edition, so they had to write new core rules so they can sell new rulebooks. I'm sticking with 3.5, and it has D20 Modern which is mostly compatible with it, the new edition doesn't have d20 Modern, i'd say the same thing about D&D 4th edition and 5th edition.

[Psyren]

That...doesn't matter. You can prefer a crap option (I love Monks, for example), but we're talking about how good the Feat is by objective measures; numbers and relative impact compared to other options. We're talking about game design, not personal preferences.

Objectively, Vital Strike is inferior to full attacking, but it's also objectively superior to standard action attacks. Full-attacking every round isn't always an option. And making your attacks larger (or count as being larger) doesn't take that much "finagling."

[Rynjin]

Objectively, Vital Strike is inferior to full attacking, but it's also objectively superior to standard action attacks. Full-attacking every round isn't always an option. And making your attacks larger (or count as being larger) doesn't take that much "finagling."

We, uh, went over that already.


The issue with Vital Strike is that mathematically the payoff is weak for what you're paying, and only gets weaker as you level.

It is theoretically worthwhile for Fighters, who can grab it at 6 and then retrain it at 10th (when it starts to really show its age) but to keep for your whole character's lifespan?

The only people it's worth it AT ALL on are big 2H fighter bois, who can eke out an extra 2d6 damage from it.

We can easily use the conversion that the system math is based on that 3 damage is equal to 1 attack bonus. You are getting an extra +7 damage on average out of it.

By the math why not just use Furious Focus (another Feat that still isn't super great, actually)? While at 6th level it only gets you +2 attack (worth 6 damage, making Vital Strike MARGINALLY better), by 8th level it's giving you +3 (worth 9 damage), and continues to get better from there. And ALSO works when you do get to Full Attack, not just when you can't.

That's why Vital Strike is a trap; it looks good on paper but even when you factor out its drawbacks and wonky action usage meaning it doesn't combo with ANYTHING, it is statistically worse than another already questionable Feat that comes online 5-6 levels earlier, except in the very specific corner case circumstance you've finagled your Gm into letting you play a Large character or are going that goofy Ooze Druid build, since 3d8 or higher damage dice does out-value Furious Focus' bonus at every level.


Opportunity cost is a big thing. Every feat you spend on Vital Strike is one you don't spend on Hurtful, or something similarly nuts. Or just interesting Feats instead of +numbers, which is basically what Vital Strike is.

That's what makes it a "trap". Except in verrrrrrry niche circumstances it's worse than almost any other option, even though it LOOKS okay on paper.

[Psyren]

We, uh, went over that already.

Right, even in your own post you mention situations/level-ranges where VS is mathematically superior; not every feat is made for optimized level 20 builds.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Reading the Reddit post made me hyped, as it essentially reads as "here's how we fixed 5e".

But the thread has poured a bucket of cold water over it.

At least it seems easily fixable, but "this just needs some good ol' power creep" is just far too funny.

[Kurald Galain]

Add in AP design considerations and your second point explains your first. It's a lot easier to run PFS and design APs if you know that all possible characters will have their bonuses in a very small range, for one. For another, if all the abilities are low impact and have very little ability to change the flow of a narrative, then linear stories become much easier to tell.
Bear in mind that PFS and Adventure Paths are exceedingly popular (and not all of them are linear, either). Plus there is the fact that the most popular RPG on the market (i.e. 5E) has a much smaller range of bonuses and modifiers than P2 does. I can hardly blame Paizo for catering to what's popular, even though my personal tastes are different from that.


You misunderstand. I'm not complaining why compiling wildlife statistics is dependent on Survival, I'm complaining why this is a skill feat and not just part of Survival? I managed to think up one scenario for that feat: Help out a druid doing a survey. But that is one scenario. And I don't think there is another one different enough to be not a boring repeat.
Fair enough, I thought your question was why not everybody could learn how to do that.

I think the general design philosophy is good, i.e. that "skill feats" allow you to do things with a skill that most people cannot. I'd agree that this particular example (counting animals) shouldn't have been a skill feat. Rather, I'd take a leaf out of Exalted and make survival skill feats like
(Expert) You can find food for up to ten creatures in one hour, in any terrain on the prime material
(Master) You can track swimming creatures under water. No, I don't know how that works either, you're just that awesome.
(Legendary) You can survive without food and drink indefinitely, and are immune to fatigue and exhaustion.

[Gnaeus]

Plus there is the fact that the most popular RPG on the market (i.e. 5E) has a much smaller range of bonuses and modifiers than P2 does. I can hardly blame Paizo for catering to what's popular, even though my personal tastes are different from that.]

Goddess! Why on earth not? That’s the “all restaurants are Taco Bell” theory of game marketing. It doesn’t matter if Taco Bell is popular, if I want it I’ll go to Taco Bell. The last thing I want is for Teds to look at Taco Bell and market low end burritos rather than bison steak.

Metaphor aside, I think it is absolutely fair to blame them for “follow the market leader” when their entire success model was supporting disaffected fans of that same brand. Even if PF2 were as good at being 5e as 5e, which it isn’t, it still would sell copy by not being 5e. They should be offering a game system which addresses different fans, or the same fans when they want to play something with different design goals.

[Kurald Galain]

Metaphor aside, I think it is absolutely fair to blame them for “follow the market leader” when their entire success model was supporting disaffected fans of that same brand.
Yes. And they're not following the market leader. 5E firmly believes in rulings-not-rules, and in almost no decisions on your build after level one, and in the notion that every PC can do every task by just rolling well. P2 is clearly in the opposite camp on all of these.

[Gnaeus]

Yes. And they're not following the market leader. 5E firmly believes in rulings-not-rules, and in almost no decisions on your build after level one, and in the notion that every PC can do every task by just rolling well. P2 is clearly in the opposite camp on all of these.

5e has an actual multiclassing system. Every single level in 5e gives more options than PF2 gets in their entire career. PF2 is 5es clone after a dog urinated in the cloning tank.

[Kurald Galain]

Metaphor aside, I think it is absolutely fair to blame them for “follow the market leader” when their entire success model was supporting disaffected fans of that same brand.

5e has an actual multiclassing system. Every single level in 5e gives more options than PF2 gets in their entire career. PF2 is 5es clone after a dog urinated in the cloning tank.
I don't follow you. You appear to dislike that P2 makes some of the same choices as 5E (e.g. PC damage output falls in a certain range) and also dislike that P2 makes certain choices differently (e.g. feats every level instead of buffet-style multiclassing). If being similar to 5E is wrong and being different from 5E is also wrong... that appears rather contradictory.

[Crake]

I don't follow you. You appear to dislike that P2 makes some of the same choices as 5E (e.g. PC damage output falls in a certain range) and also dislike that P2 makes certain choices differently (e.g. feats every level instead of buffet-style multiclassing). If being similar to 5E is wrong and being different from 5E is also wrong... that appears rather contradictory.

It's almost like 5e is an imperfect system, and certain parts are good (the parts pf2 didn't copy) and other parts are bad (the parts that pf2 did copy), at least in Gnaeus' opinion.

[Asmotherion]

i still have a neutral oppinion on PF2. Seems interesting as a system but it's a lot diferent than 3/3.5/PF.

i'd highly suggest a different category to be made for it instead of discussing it in the 3.X category.

Overall i'd be willing to give it a try if i found a group for it but 3.5/PF are still more to my taste.

[stack]

It's a big toolbox for developers and has lots of content that isn't very exciting, so as a 3pp author I am pleased.:smallbiggrin:

[upho]

Yes. And they're not following the market leader. 5E firmly believes in rulings-not-rules, and in almost no decisions on your build after level one, and in the notion that every PC can do every task by just rolling well. P2 is clearly in the opposite camp on all of these.
5e has an actual multiclassing system. Every single level in 5e gives more options than PF2 gets in their entire career. PF2 is 5es clone after a dog urinated in the cloning tank.While I wouldn't yet rate PF2 as harshly as Gnaeus, he undeniably has a very valid point. I'm writing for 5e, and while I certainly struggle sometimes to bring meaningful differentiation between player options while remaining in the system's limited mechanical design space (especially when it comes to martial combat), that limited space and the relatively few PC build options in the system are both distinctly different and far less as problematic than the issues created by the superficially similar designs in PF2. The primary reasons for this are:

1. 5e has far fewer but generally also more mechanically meaningful options and in-game choices than PF2's huge pile of counterparts of negligible impact. For example, many of PF's class feats resemble 5e feats split into three and offered in a no-brainer chain, with the actually meaningful benefits too often found in the final third feat gated behind previous investments and a relatively high level. The same is too often true also when adding class abilities to the mix. I doubt the melee combat versatility of even a high level PF2 fighter can notably exceed that of a same level 5e Battle Master, despite the former having easily more than three times as many related options to choose from and easily more than three times as many opportunities to do so from 1st to 20th.

2. More importantly, one of the PDT's official design "goals" for PF2 was "maintaining the depth of character and adventure options that has always defined Pathfinder", which has at least two important implications. First, it implies that the game was intended for the same playstyle as that of PF1, which has a several magnitudes greater focus on the mechanical bits than 5e has. So while 5e's few and relatively simple player options are pretty perfectly matched with its intended playstyle, PF2's relative lack of mechanically meaningful player options certainly don't match the above design goal. (Hence much of the critique in this thread.) Second, this design goal implies that PF2 was intended to compete in the same "mechanics-heavy meaningful player options" market niche (in addition to other market niches) as PF1 did, and consequently the system's inability to meet this goal may very well result in a marketing mismatch issue serious enough to cause PF2 to flop. In contrast, 5e had no similar design goal, but instead clearly prioritized other market niches, and WoTC made damn sure the system could compete in those niches through years of carefully revised and refined design and very extensive playtests.

TL/DR: 5e has few but relatively meaningful options while PF2 has tons of relatively meaningless options, and far too many are nothing more than thinly disguised automatic progressions. 5e's system is very well designed for its intended playstyle, while PF2's system has far too much in common with 5e's to meet the stated design goal.

[Serafina]

It's a big toolbox for developers and has lots of content that isn't very exciting, so as a 3pp author I am pleased.:smallbiggrin:I'd probably be quite excited about a proper Martial System for PF 2E.
After all, it can slot in right there into the TEML Proficiency system, the abundancy of class feats reminds of Spheres of Might, Master and Legendary are perfect for the truly epic effects, and the Dedication-system allows you to craft subclasses that have access to more supernatural effects à la Path of War.

Something like that, together with some actually interesting classes? Well yes, that could be quite pleasing.

[Blackhawk748]

It's a big toolbox for developers and has lots of content that isn't very exciting, so as a 3pp author I am pleased.:smallbiggrin:

I mean, that will be great for you as all you have to do is make something that looks vaguely interesting and is made competent mechanically. They made this real easy for you guys.



1. 5e has far fewer but generally also more mechanically meaningful options and in-game choices than PF2's huge pile of counterparts of negligible impact. For example, many of PF's class feats resemble 5e feats split into three and offered in a no-brainer chain, with the actually meaningful benefits too often found in the final third feat gated behind previous investments and a relatively high level. The same is too often true also when adding class abilities to the mix. I doubt the melee combat versatility of even a high level PF2 fighter can notably exceed that of a same level 5e Battle Master, despite the former having easily more than three times as many related options to choose from and easily more than three times as many opportunities to do so from 1st to 20th.


This seems like a continuing issue from PF1E, which may have given more feats, but then made the Feat Chains longer, so we wound up more or less back in the same square.


2. More importantly, one of the PDT's official design "goals" for PF2 was "maintaining the depth of character and adventure options that has always defined Pathfinder", which has at least two important implications. First, it implies that the game was intended for the same playstyle as that of PF1, which has a several magnitudes greater focus on the mechanical bits than 5e has. So while 5e's few and relatively simple player options are pretty perfectly matched with its intended playstyle, PF2's relative lack of mechanically meaningful player options certainly don't match the above design goal. (Hence much of the critique in this thread.) Second, this design goal implies that PF2 was intended to compete in the same "mechanics-heavy meaningful player options" market niche (in addition to other market niches) as PF1 did, and consequently the system's inability to meet this goal may very well result in a marketing mismatch issue serious enough to cause PF2 to flop. In contrast, 5e had no similar design goal, but instead clearly prioritized other market niches, and WoTC made damn sure the system could compete in those niches through years of carefully revised and refined design and very extensive playtests.

This is the biggest issue in my mind here. If PF2E was billed as "Our version of 5e" then this wouldn't be quite so bad, but we were promised "PF1E but better" and this certainly doesn't seem to be the case.

[malloc]

That's...that's the design goal of Kings of War. As in, the Mantic designers said exactly the same thing, minus the "everyone can play" thing, because its a War Game, not everyone wants to play a wargame.

Except Kings of War did that, by and large, while PF2E doesn't look like it did that. I mean, sure its simple, but mastering this doesn't seem terribly difficult or even worth it.

No game has 3.5's depth of customization on release...3.5 has YEARS of splat. The important part, to my eyes, is that PF2 has the potential to give more customization than 3.5 with analogous splat support.

Haven't hit the spell lists yet; that's going to be the goal this weekend.

I've been through the classes and for the most part, I have to disagree with people here: while the options are certainly on the "safe" side of balance, I think that there are things in multiple classes that I find interesting, both on a flavor and a mechanics axis. No, the options aren't as potent as 3.5's...is that necessarily a bad thing? Because a 7th level character from 3.5 could beat up a 7th level character from PF2?

PF2 feels a lot more like E6 (again, haven't read the spells so...build strength and martial/caster parody could be HILARIOUSLY out of whack if the spell lists are good) in that characters feel a little more capped in terms of "scaling", and instead advance through feat selection. If you like E6, this seems like a great system.

Will this replace 3.5's place in my heart? No, but it doesn't have to be one or the other--I can like them both for their own merits. From what I can see, PF2 will require a fair bit of homebrew until some splat starts coming out. Once it's sitting at about the content level of 5e (2 additional books released with class features, or there about), I could see PF2 being an incredibly interesting system to play and, if they go for a few more adventurous feat options, to build for.

PF2 feels like it's in a strange place in the market, however. I don't think it really caters to 3.PF players, specifically, nor does it have the mass-appeal (read: ease) of 5e. It's at this strange place where it's very complex with moderate crunch, and requires a lot of setup for a payoff that doesn't feel as extensive as 3.PF (again, I think a function of the respective amount of splat, but that's what it's up against). But I have to say, I think on a game design framework, this is my favorite chassis system I've ever read. My roommate and I were building a system that is very similar in design to this; I think we're just going to scrap and instead homebrew some PF2 materials, which would save a lot of time on an official rules writeup. The one big difference between our system and PF2's is that instead of giving loot as rewards, we were essentially giving background/ancestry feats as rewards. If I run a PF2 campaign, I may consider including that feature, as in the design process it was one of the elements that had us the most excited.

[Segev]

To speak just design theory, and not directly to PF2, I'd like to address the concept of meaningful choices and breadth of options in-play. This touches on both the points made above about how a 5e Battle Master has wider varieties of options in play than an equivalent-level PF2 character, and on one of the things that bugs me about the Ancestries vs. the classic races in PF1.

Let's say that there are two online music stores that sell customized playlists. Albumaker has a system wherein they offer a small list of "genre albums" that you can purchase. When you buy one, you get a matrix of songs, and select one song from each row of the matrix to make a playlist. You can change which song in each row you've selected any time you want, and the music will play row after row and then cycle back. They have 10 choices of albums you can buy.

Musichoice decries the lack of options, and has thousands of choices to choose from for what you want to buy. But each choice is exactly one playlist, fixed and unchangeable. You want a different song in one spot? You have to buy an entirely different playlist with the song switched out.

If PF1's version of a race automatically gets Features A, B, C, and D, and PF2's version of a race gets the choice between any one of A, B, C, and D, PF2 has more choices! ...at character generation. Not more in play.

And I think a lot of the complaints about PF2 center around this: it feels like they decreased choices IN PLAY by increasing choices at character generation through the means of taking things that used to be complete packages and saying, "Now, you can have only ONE of these on any given character. It's so customizable!"

And that's not always a bad design decision. Limitations are part of what make characters interesting. On the opposite extreme, a wizard who can cast any spell in the game at will is more boring than a wizard with the kinds of built-in limitations that most D&D editions impose. All wizards that can cast any spell in the game are mechanically identical, and that's boring. But it's possible to go too far the other direction. Very, very possible.

[Gnaeus]

It's almost like 5e is an imperfect system, and certain parts are good (the parts pf2 didn't copy) and other parts are bad (the parts that pf2 did copy), at least in Gnaeus' opinion.

I do agree with that, but it’s more than that.

If I want to run Scourge of the Slave Lords/Against the Giants, and I don’t want to worry about planar binding or permanent flight or uberchargers or Christmas trees of items, 5e or PF2 will get me there. Better than 3.5. Now 5e would do it cleaner but PF2 has similar game concepts.

But if I want to play an open world sandbox with my high op group with a Daevic/swashbuckler/swordsage and a dhampir with a vampiric praying mantis mount and a dragon, 3.PF will handle that and 5e or PF2 won’t. I want a steak, and 5e offers me a taco, and PF2 also offers me a taco, but with rat meat, and no market leader is selling the steak. Yeah, I’m mad about the rat meat, but if their taco was just as good I’d still be upset.

[Blackhawk748]

I do agree with that, but it’s more than that.

If I want to run Scourge of the Slave Lords/Against the Giants, and I don’t want to worry about planar binding or permanent flight or uberchargers or Christmas trees of items, 5e or PF2 will get me there. Better than 3.5. Now 5e would do it cleaner but PF2 has similar game concepts.

But if I want to play an open world sandbox with my high op group with a Daevic/swashbuckler/swordsage and a dhampir with a vampiric praying mantis mount and a dragon, 3.PF will handle that and 5e or PF2 won’t. I want a steak, and 5e offers me a taco, and PF2 also offers me a taco, but with rat meat, and no market leader is selling the steak.

I mean this is a bit hyperbolic but this is how I feel. The top two gaming studios are fightting over the same market while the people who like complex mechanics are over here going "So all we really have is GURPS or Exalted?"

I mean, both systems are fine, but they aren't in that sort of weird sweet spot 3.5/PF was in with being crunchy, but not taking literal hours to make a character at the low end. And farnkly, that annoys me. They keep trying to get all of these New People to come into the hobby, and thats great, but what about those of us that are already here? What, do they think that I'm just gonna buy it because Paizo or WotC is slapped on it?

This is why I buy stuff from Savage Worlds, they give me a great many options but they never forget what their main goal always was or who their main audience is.

[exelsisxax]

I wonder if anyone tried to pitch a "pathfinder, but based on Unchained and streamlined with the chaff thrown out" in any of the early brainstorming meetings. That's literally the kind of thinking that brought their company into existence, just coming from 3.5 rather than their own game. I wonder what kind of nonsense had to happen to get them to completely abandon their foundational strategy in favor of getting somehow creative enough to make 200 ****ty feats without coming up with anything new or interesting for the game as a whole.

[NomGarret]

There's not really any point in discussing 3rd party options when speaking about any particular combat option as it exists in the base game.

It’s helpful when you’re trying to figure out how to make a certain option or mechanic work when you’re designing a new system for it. If the development had drawn a bit more from 3pp, they might have avoided some of the troubles it ran into. Continuing the Spheres comparison, we see bonus talents at first level, letting you start off with a wider variety of tricks or at least a slightly better developed trick. How much would P2 benefit from an additional class feat and an ancestry feat at 1st level?

[Particle_Man]

I am beginning to wonder if a new company will arise to offer a game like Pathfinder 1e, just like Pathfinder was a game like 3.5.

Also, there is a d20 game that offers tons of choices while being fairly simple mechanically - Mutants and Masterminds. A GM can work for a certain theme (there are splatbooks like Warriors and Warlocks for those that want a Fantasy Feel, especially since many powers can be tagged as "magic" and others as basically Training and/or Big Damn Hero) and can ban certain options or power levels that wouldn't fit their game. They can even have suggested templates for ways to spend points that fit iconic patterns in the theme. So you don't even have to go as far as GURPS or Exalted (not to knock those games, but some people in a d20 mode might not want to learn a whole new system but rather learn a fairly adjacent system).

[upho]

It's a big toolbox for developers and has lots of content that isn't very exciting, so as a 3pp author I am pleased.:smallbiggrin:
I'd probably be quite excited about a proper Martial System for PF 2E.
After all, it can slot in right there into the TEML Proficiency system, the abundancy of class feats reminds of Spheres of Might, Master and Legendary are perfect for the truly epic effects, and the Dedication-system allows you to craft subclasses that have access to more supernatural effects à la Path of War.
I mean, that will be great for you as all you have to do is make something that looks vaguely interesting and is made competent mechanically. They made this real easy for you guys.It's a big toolbox for developers able and willing to ignore the very narrow power/versatility spans the 1PP material and much of the base system is based on. But those who aren't will unfortunately also find it virtually impossible to design any options significantly more meaningful than those in the CRB. There's certainly not nearly enough room for adding anything remotely as mechanically diversified and meaningful as PoW or Spheres without also making a large majority of the 1PP material incompatible. And I'd assume a 3PP interested in creating such options would unfortunately also be stuck between a need for dropping any pretenses of 1PP compatibility on one hand, and the possibly serious problems of creating their own and potentially competing version of the system on the other.

So at least for the time being I'm actually feeling relieved to be a 3PP author of 5e material which "only" has to be reasonably aligned with WoTC's, and not PF2 material which has to be aligned with Paizo's .


This seems like a continuing issue from PF1E, which may have given more feats, but then made the Feat Chains longer, so we wound up more or less back in the same square.Nah, a lot of people greatly exaggerated that issue even when only the CRB existed, likely because they hadn't (yet) grasped the many differences between most of the PF feat benefits and those of their assumed 3.5 predecessors (Improved Trip being IIRC the sole example of this critique being well-founded). In truth, for example most of the "Greater" combat maneuver feats in the CRB grant more substantial benefits than 3.5's "Improved" versions. Looking at the feats existing in PF today, regardless of whether PF has far more numerous and typically longer PF feat chains than 3.5, the idea that this would somehow make PF feats in general less powerful than 3.5 feats is comical. And ironically enough, this is especially true in the case of combat feats, the very category which has been - and still often is - claimed to be weaker in PF and frequently mentioned as an example of how PF has exacerbated 3.5's D/MC issues.

The weakness of the individual feats in PF2 is what stands out to me, and that also happens to runs counter to the general development of especially combat feats when looking at the entirety of PF1's lifetime. This development is not rarely obvious enough experienced players can often make very good guesses of how old a feat or martial class options is, simply by looking at how potent it is and how much it directly affects hp damage given or taken in attacks. It's sad to see the devs decided to go back to square one and start all over with weak one-dimensional hp damage feats and martial class options again, seemingly blind to the huge positive effect the different and more powerful PF1 combat feats and martial options had on the game.


This is the biggest issue in my mind here. If PF2E was billed as "Our version of 5e" then this wouldn't be quite so bad, but we were promised "PF1E but better" and this certainly doesn't seem to be the case.Precisely. And even should I personally remain uninterested in having PF2 replace any of the systems I play or work with, and as least as long as there are no other believable D&D-style TTRPG alternatives to WoTC's latest editions, I'd really like to see PF2 succeed.

[Gnaeus]

I am beginning to wonder if a new company will arise to offer a game like Pathfinder 1e, just like Pathfinder was a game like 3.5.

Also, there is a d20 game that offers tons of choices while being fairly simple mechanically - Mutants and Masterminds. A GM can work for a certain theme (there are splatbooks like Warriors and Warlocks for those that want a Fantasy Feel, especially since many powers can be tagged as "magic" and others as basically Training and/or Big Damn Hero) and can ban certain options or power levels that wouldn't fit their game. They can even have suggested templates for ways to spend points that fit iconic patterns in the theme. So you don't even have to go as far as GURPS or Exalted (not to knock those games, but some people in a d20 mode might not want to learn a whole new system but rather learn a fairly adjacent system).

I hope so.

And I appreciate and will investigate the suggestion. GURPS is a great system, and I will be using it for my next campaign, but it doesn’t closely match D&D like any of the other systems. I love it for chargen but it isn’t a good tactical combat game. It’s one of those systems where avoiding combat is better. And Exalted? Admittedly it’s been years, and it is also a thing I enjoyed, but I remember it being largely being a Rock Paper Scissors game about whose unblockable attack matches up against whose unstoppable defense. Nothing but respect for either, and I like both better than PF2, but I wouldn’t use either for a 3.pf style dungeon crawl. I’ll look at M&M

[Mehangel]

I am beginning to wonder if a new company will arise to offer a game like Pathfinder 1e, just like Pathfinder was a game like 3.5.

Obviously, you have not heard about Porphyra RPG? (https://www.porphyraroleplayinggame.com/p/frequently-asked-questions-feedback.html?m=1)

[exelsisxax]

Obviously, you have not heard about Porphyra RPG? (https://www.porphyraroleplayinggame.com/p/frequently-asked-questions-feedback.html?m=1)

Has anyone seen movement there in recent months? It looks like it died to me. But hopefully they can actually do a good job and not just shove out a 3.p clone with nothing fixed.

[Divine Susuryu]

Has anyone seen movement there in recent months? It looks like it died to me. But hopefully they can actually do a good job and not just shove out a 3.p clone with nothing fixed.

Even then, good luck trying to get people to agree on what should and shouldn't be fixed. Opinions will range from people like myself with "bring the power to T3 at minimum" to people who think that T3 is far too powerful in the first place, and more in both directions. Once you get past that, then there'll be the players who want very low complexity options vs the players who want high complexity, and so on and so forth.

[Blackhawk748]

Even then, good luck trying to get people to agree on what should and shouldn't be fixed. Opinions will range from people like myself with "bring the power to T3 at minimum" to people who think that T3 is far too powerful in the first place, and more in both directions. Once you get past that, then there'll be the players who want very low complexity options vs the players who want high complexity, and so on and so forth.

Considering the point here is to keep the complexity on the higher end of 3.5, you'd focus on that. So classes would idealy be around Tier 3-4 to allow for some level of niche protection (not that that is necessarily a huge deal, its just a nice bonus) as well as maximum individuality per class. On top of that it still allows for rather simple classes for those who want lower complexity while not forcing everyone to play simple things

[Kurald Galain]

If PF1's version of a race automatically gets Features A, B, C, and D, and PF2's version of a race gets the choice between any one of A, B, C, and D, PF2 has more choices! ...at character generation. Not more in play.
But wait, only activated abilities offer a choice in gameplay. Getting a static +2 to e.g. perception does not offer a choice in gameplay. An issue with 3E races is that almost none of their features offer any choice in gameplay.

...not that P2 fixes that, though. But for races/ancestries it's not so much "more build choice, less play choice" as "more build choice, same lack of play choice".

[Gnaeus]

But wait, only activated abilities offer a choice in gameplay. Getting a static +2 to e.g. perception does not offer a choice in gameplay. An issue with 3E races is that almost none of their features offer any choice in gameplay.

...not that P2 fixes that, though. But for races/ancestries it's not so much "more build choice, less play choice" as "more build choice, same lack of play choice".

Assuming that you were set on dwarf/elf/human to begin with. If you want a marrulurk or a dragon it’s less build choice/same lack of play choice.

And I’m not sure why we are comparing them to 3e rather than PF1. PF1 offered lots of choices in racial abilities, all available at first level.

[NomGarret]

Comparing CRB to CRB, P2 has more racial/ancestry choices out of the gate. P1 didn't really hit the same quantity until APG, so let's be fair before falling into "one book vs. entire run of content" comparisons. As to choices in play, I'm tempted to agree with Kurald that the racial abilities rarely make gameplay choices. A bonus to this or that check might shift you up in the party ranking of "who makes this check?", but realistically we're comparing the options that grant SLAs. I haven't delved deep enough to get a feel for how much staying power cantrips will really have as you level up, but I think that's where the difference will lie.

4e, IMO, did a pretty good job of this. Whether it was the Eladrin choosing when to teleport, the Dragonborn choosing when to use their breath weapon, or even the races like Half-orc or Deva whose ability was just a bonus, there was an in-game choice of when to use it.

[Segev]

Comparing CRB to CRB, P2 has more racial/ancestry choices out of the gate. P1 didn't really hit the same quantity until APG, so let's be fair before falling into "one book vs. entire run of content" comparisons.Like I've been saying, there's potential for this to be fixed within the established structure with later books.


As to choices in play, I'm tempted to agree with Kurald that the racial abilities rarely make gameplay choices. A bonus to this or that check might shift you up in the party ranking of "who makes this check?", but realistically we're comparing the options that grant SLAs. I haven't delved deep enough to get a feel for how much staying power cantrips will really have as you level up, but I think that's where the difference will lie.That's fair. It just remains my position that the things they reduced from "all of the above" to "one or two of the above" weren't worth much to begin with, so making me waste time picking one of them rather than giving me all of them or just removing them entirely is almost an insult. It's a nerf to which attention is being called, and it's pretending it's a boon instead of a nerf in the process. It bothers me because it feels scammy. I know it's not, not really, but it's either really silly design, or it's dishonestly trying to pretend more cleverness went into the design than did. And because marketing always tries to talk up things, it amplifies the "I'm being sold a bill of goods" sense one gets from any sort of marketing.


4e, IMO, did a pretty good job of this. Whether it was the Eladrin choosing when to teleport, the Dragonborn choosing when to use their breath weapon, or even the races like Half-orc or Deva whose ability was just a bonus, there was an in-game choice of when to use it.This, I can agree with. I dislike a lot about 4e, but the races and the core structure were actually improvements on 3e.

[Gnaeus]

Comparing CRB to CRB, P2 has more racial/ancestry choices out of the gate. P1 didn't really hit the same quantity until APG, so let's be fair before falling into "one book vs. entire run of content" comparisons. As to choices in play, I'm tempted to agree with Kurald that the racial abilities rarely make gameplay choices. A bonus to this or that check might shift you up in the party ranking of "who makes this check?", but realistically we're comparing the options that grant SLAs. I haven't delved deep enough to get a feel for how much staying power cantrips will really have as you level up, but I think that's where the difference will lie.

Still no. P1 had dozens, if not hundreds more playable options the moment they printed the beastiary. Core beastiary p313.

[Kurald Galain]

4e, IMO, did a pretty good job of this. Whether it was the Eladrin choosing when to teleport, the Dragonborn choosing when to use their breath weapon, or even the races like Half-orc or Deva whose ability was just a bonus, there was an in-game choice of when to use it.
Yes, I concur. In 4E it is immediately obvious from gameplay which race a PC has; this is really not the case in 3E or P1.


That's fair. It just remains my position that the things they reduced from "all of the above" to "one or two of the above" weren't worth much to begin with
Looking more closely, it turns out that some races DO get an active racial ability that adds a choice in gameplay and distinguishes them from other races, right from level one.
Elves can gain an SLA, or a floating skill slot, or +5' to movement.
Gnomes can gain an SLA or a familiar, even if you're not a caster.
Halflings can hide behind larger party members, or gain a reroll each day.


But yes, these are among half a dozen of dross abilities, and it would be nice if the other races also got one.

[HeraldOfExius]

While it isn't fair to expect everything from a system that only just came out, the way it's designed leads me to believe that we won't have much support for playing as anything other than mostly generic humanoids. Things like Wyrwoods would be difficult to handle without making them (even more) broken, since their only real feature was "Type: Construct." Are you just supposed to gain more of the benefits of being a construct as you level up? Obviously Wyrwoods fell into "get GM approval to play as one," but that's still more support than "homebrew it yourself, because it doesn't fit into the acceptable power range for PFS."

[Pex]

While it isn't fair to expect everything from a system that only just came out, the way it's designed leads me to believe that we won't have much support for playing as anything other than mostly generic humanoids. Things like Wyrwoods would be difficult to handle without making them (even more) broken, since their only real feature was "Type: Construct." Are you just supposed to gain more of the benefits of being a construct as you level up? Obviously Wyrwoods fell into "get GM approval to play as one," but that's still more support than "homebrew it yourself, because it doesn't fit into the acceptable power range for PFS."

I literally have never heard of wyrwood until just now reading what you wrote.

There are players who want to play these obscure races of high fantasy, to bring in a bit of cosplay (my word) in the game, but it is niche. That isn't and shouldn't be Paizo's priority and undeserving of blame for not supporting it. For now they need to be generic and familiar enough to get their new system running. If it proves successful and there's a market for obscure high fantasy races then they can publish material for it for those people who want it. Maybe they'll let a third party publisher do it. For players and DM who are ok with it they can use that without a problem.

[HeraldOfExius]

I literally have never heard of wyrwood until just now reading what you wrote.

There are players who want to play these obscure races of high fantasy, to bring in a bit of cosplay (my word) in the game, but it is niche. That isn't and shouldn't be Paizo's priority and undeserving of blame for not supporting it. For now they need to be generic and familiar enough to get their new system running. If it proves successful and there's a market for obscure high fantasy races then they can publish material for it for those people who want it. Maybe they'll let a third party publisher do it. For players and DM who are ok with it they can use that without a problem.

I don't expect the system to be filled with all the obscure options of the past 10 years right out of the gate, but I'm just noting that the system has an inherent role that at level X, what you are has Y impact on what you can do, and there is no inherent support for being anything which would have more than Y impact at level X. Essentially, there is an upper limit to what your ancestry can give you, which makes this fundamentally different from 3.PF, where your race, templates, etc could change things substantially.

[Rynjin]

Comparing CRB to CRB, P2 has more racial/ancestry choices out of the gate. P1 didn't really hit the same quantity until APG, so let's be fair before falling into "one book vs. entire run of content" comparisons.

I'd argue this is the MOST relevant comparison.

A new edition needs to provide a compelling reason to switch games. If it cannot compete on options, it needs to compete in every other arena. Fewer, but more interesting options, perhaps. Or just a really good chassis for a game of a certain style to be built off of. Or some other selling point, like being very easy to setup and play.

These are things PF2 does not do. The options are both fewer AND less interesting for the most part. The chassis is fine, but not good enough to compel existing players to switch, and has its own flaws. It's not particularly easy to setup (make characters) or play, being your standard mid-crunch game. And it doesn't have any other kind of "killer app" function that acts as some kind of draw.

Compare/contrast 5e, which is another game I don't like, for the record, but it has a clear and focused design philosophy. It provides less options, but far fewer traps, and every choice you make feels significant (where it stumbles is you make VERY few of them in the character building arena). The chassis is interesting and well built, facilitating ease of play and GMing, but still providing a lot of minute to minute options.

5e is clearly built on the philosophy of creating a simplified, user friendly game, and its lower power level compared to 3.5 (and presumably 4e...I didn't play enough of it to make a judgment) is a natural function of that.

PF2 meanwhile seems to have seen that and decided to work it backwards, starting the game with the concept of "people like lower power levels, let's work with that" and failing to understand why it works in the game they're partially aping.

So you're left with this weird mishmash of a game that does not compel many people to swap to from the old game, is unlikely to draw players from 5e, and doesn't compare well to other rules medium games either (like Savage Worlds).

It is perfectly fair to compare it to Pathfinder with all the years of content because that is one of its main competitors.

[NomGarret]

Oh, don't get me wrong, there are certainly times to make such a comparison. It's a perfectly valid basis for answering "should I play this now instead of what I already have?" My point is that it's not appropriate for "is this a good system?"

[CasualViking]

Add in AP design considerations and your second point explains your first. It's a lot easier to run PFS and design APs if you know that all possible characters will have their bonuses in a very small range, for one. For another, if all the abilities are low impact and have very little ability to change the flow of a narrative, then linear stories become much easier to tell.

Yes. That becomes much easier.

What becomes harder is justifying why I should play this instead of a computer RPG.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

[EldritchWeaver]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

Any particular examples?

[Rynjin]

Any particular examples?

The saving throw system in general is what does it if anything does. Everything is arranged in degrees of failure, so some spells really get hit hard by needing a Critical Failure to do what used to be their effect on a simple fail.

I think it actually works out for most spells now, as a LOT have been fixed from uselessness from in the playtest (the AoE classics like Fireball, EX, used to do like half damage on a save, and 1/4 damage for a critical success) and some spells are actually buffed (Paralyze replaces the entire Hold X line, and they don't get to save every turn any more, and are stunned on a simple success).

Maybe TotallyNotEvil is working on Playtest knowledge, or I just haven't read enough spells yet?

[Particle_Man]

Yes. That becomes much easier.

What becomes harder is justifying why I should play this instead of a computer RPG.

And don't they have a Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for this sort of thing (Totally balanced PFS games, etc.) anyhow? It is completely controlled, and you won't get power imbalances. And the Adventure Path for the PACG runs on rails.

Although now I am wondering (with the talk of cantrips and 2e multiclassing) how far one could go as a half-elf multiclass cantrip-mancer, getting as many of them from as many sources as possible.

[Kurald Galain]

I did a quick look through some classic spells... And man, they were merciless.

Nerfed into the ground.

That appears to be the case, yes.
Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.


Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

[Gnaeus]

Any particular examples?

Haste and slow single target
Mage Armor is 1 AC
Gate is a travel spell only
All the summons and Polymorph nerfed
Lesser restoration takes a minute
Teleport higher level, 10 minute casting time
Fly higher level, worse speed
Glibness is a +4 bonus
Lots of spells have a sustained duration requiring constant action expenditure.
Fireball less damage, lower range

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

[Segev]

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?

[EldritchWeaver]

Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?

So both the spells were nerfed (as examples show, on several axes even), requiring more spells to be cast to compete with the PF 1 version (if possible), and the number of spell slots has been reduced. This is a nerf a enormous proportions. At some point you kill the usability of classes. Can the casters only compete, because the martials were nerfed, too? Or in other words, if you transplant the PF2 spells and magic classes into PF1, how well would they hold up to the rest of the game (excluding magic stuff)? And the most important part: Are wizards still fun to play?

[Divine Susuryu]

So both the spells were nerfed (as examples show, on several axes even), requiring more spells to be cast to compete with the PF 1 version (if possible), and the number of spell slots has been reduced. This is a nerf a enormous proportions. At some point you kill the usability of classes. Can the casters only compete, because the martials were nerfed, too? Or in other words, if you transplant the PF2 spells and magic classes into PF1, how well would they hold up to the rest of the game (excluding magic stuff)? And the most important part: Are wizards still fun to play?

You've actually just caused me to realise that the changes between systems are troublesome for fluff too, given that PF2 and PF1 are supposed to be the same world. Magic, at least, is easy to justify because of some cataclysmic event. It might be a copout, but at least it's a copout that keeps the lore consistent. But in Golarion of however long ago, there were people that could attack six times in a round, everyone could make attacks of opportunity, dropping a hand or putting it back on a 2 handed weapon didn't allow for attacks of opportunity, shields just protected you rather than having to be repaired all the time, and so on.

This could have been averted by a full reboot of Golarion, but then you run into issues with the Runelords and other powerful casters. Given how non-impactful magic is now, there's no way you could justify the Runelords or similar having the in-world power they did. So you'd either have to rewrite everything to do with them or just give them only arbitrary personal powers that there is never any way for PCs to access, which on a humanoid boss feels a bit cheap.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.

Not to mention that PF2 uses the incredibly, incredibly stupid heightening mechanic from 5e (though at least they actually call it heightening, instead of not defining it and having players come up with silly terms like "upcasting" to describe it).

Spell levels are exponential*! The qualitative and quantitative difference between a 7th- and a 5th-level spell is not the same as the difference between a 3rd- and a 1st-level spell! A naive "1st-level spell = 1 spell point, 9th-level spell = 9 spell points" setup doesn't work, and people have known that since at least 2004 when UA and XPH came out! So why in Boccob's name do 5e and now PF 2e insist on making you spend entire spell levels on piddly linear improvements?

And not only that, but blasting spells have been on the weaker side since 3e due to XdY/level damage not keeping up with (XdY+X*Z)/level hit points, and this whole heightening setup just makes them even worse! Figuring out appropriate amounts of damage by caster level and/or spell level is literally the simplest spell effect determination because it's essentially pure arithmetic, yet (A) both 5e and PF don't even have the decency to make all spells of a given level deal the same damage (e.g. in PF2, lightning bolt heightened to 6th deals 7d12, chain lightning deals 8d12, entirely aside from the latter's area being strictly superior) and (B) PF2 gives you more HP overall than 5e and PF1 do with the ancestry HP at 1st, yet most blasting spells deal less damage than their PF1 and/or 5e counterparts.

I just don't understand why the 5e and PF2 devs were so scared of letting spells scale "for free," by caster level or otherwise; it makes some sense in 5e if you squint, but so many things in PF2 scale linearly with character level that sticking with CL and having spells do the same would be so much better and more logical.

* Even the sad nerfed versions of spells in 5e and PF 2e are exponential, they're just e.g. 0.5x1.5 instead of 4x2 now.

[Blackhawk748]

But in Golarion of however long ago, there were people that could attack six times in a round, everyone could make attacks of opportunity, dropping a hand or putting it back on a 2 handed weapon didn't allow for attacks of opportunity, shields just protected you rather than having to be repaired all the time, and so on.

Wait...what? Thats insane. That is straight-up insane. Taking a hand off a weapon shouldn't do that and why do sheilds take damage?! WHY?!?!

[Divine Susuryu]

Wait...what? Thats insane. That is straight-up insane. Taking a hand off a weapon shouldn't do that and why do sheilds take damage?! WHY?!?!

Manipulate actions (https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=104) trigger some reactions, and release (https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=83) has the manipulate tag. Raising a shield (https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=98) takes an action, of course, can't just have a shield protect passively, but I was a bit inaccurate on that. You can have your shield take damage through a feat to block blows. Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

[stack]

In 5e, blasts not scaling is not as big of a deal since weak enemies stay effective for much longer due to the very limited attack and AC scaling. A low level fireball can still clear mooks. With PF2 adding level to everything, that is less true.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Divine Susuryu
Given how non-impactful magic is now, there's no way you could justify the Runelords or similar having the in-world power they did. So you'd either have to rewrite everything to do with them or just give them only arbitrary personal powers that there is never any way for PCs to access, which on a humanoid boss feels a bit cheap.

It does seem like they've written themselves into a corner here. I'm assuming this has been raised on the Paizo forums, and duly ignored.


Originally Posted by Divine Susuryu
Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

This does sound nuts. Just...plain nuts.

Now I'm waiting to hear how many feats it takes to hit the bathroom. Several, I'm sure.

[Blackhawk748]

Manipulate actions (https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=104) trigger some reactions, and release (https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=83) has the manipulate tag. Raising a shield (https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=98) takes an action, of course, can't just have a shield protect passively, but I was a bit inaccurate on that. You can have your shield take damage through a feat to block blows. Given that this takes an action, damages your shield, and might break it and damage you, I'm not sure how useful it is.

Ok, that's dumb, and that sounds like they've never actually held onto a shield. You don't have to 'raise' it for it to work, you just move it with your sword. Do I have to use an action to 'raise' my sword? No? Then why do I do that with my shield?

Also, that just sucks. I am not breaking my gear.

[Greg_S]

That appears to be the case, yes.
Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.


Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

There's also a keyword possessed by ~25 spells called "incapacitation". Basically, a spell with this keyword is less effective against creatures of over 2x the spell slot's level. As an example, a sorcerer learns baleful polymorph at level 11. Baleful polymorph's effects:

Critical success: no effect
Success: enemy takes a -1 penalty on skill checks and its DCs until it uses an action to save vs. being sickened
Failure: target gets polymorphed for a minute but can make a will save on its turn to recover
Crit fail: target is actually affected by baleful polymorph, becoming an animal permanently


But because this is an incapacitation spell, using it on a level 13 creature or higher now ups the enemy's save result to the next tier. Your best outcome on a foe 2 levels higher than you is that the enemy loses one or more turns trying to save (it's not clear in my reading if the subsequent saves they make against the imposed conditions also get upped to the next success tier), and it's more likely you just chucked your highest slot to apply a small penalty and one lost action. So spells with this keyword have really limited lifespans! You're level 11 at the earliest, and I think level +/- 2 is the expected enemy range for most fights?

Can you heighten the spell to increase the potential targets to higher level does? Prepared casters can, but a spontaneous caster would have to spend another spell known at a higher spell level to do so unless they chose it as a signature spell.

I get that save-or-lose is a powerful effect but it sure looks like they went overboard with the incapacitation keyword.

[Pex]

That appears to be the case, yes.
Web only immobilizes on a fumbled save (a failed save reduces your speed), its area is halved, and its range reduced to 30'.
Slow only staggers on a fumbled save (a failed save gives you 2 actions instead of 3), and only affects one creature.
Stinking Cloud only staggers on a fumbled save (as per Slow), and no longer lingers after leaving the cloud.
Glitterdust only blinds on a fumbled save, and then only for one round.
Sound Burst doesn't stun any more, it just reduces your actions to 2, and then only on a fumbled save.


Well, that sucks.

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there. Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.

Ugh, so they kept having spells be useless from the playtest. This is the deal breaker making me not want to play the game. Yell all you want spellcasters were too powerful in 3E or Pathfinder. They're still entitled to have spells work. I'm not happy with all of how 5E nerfed spellcasting, but at least the spells do what they're supposed to do within 5E parameters you have fun casting them. They're powerful within 5E if lower powered than previous incarnations, subjective to taste.

[Raven777]

Did they axe Shadow Evocation and Shadow Conjuration? :smallfrown:

[137beth]

I read the early blogs that came out before the playtest. However, I avoided the playtest itself, and didn't read the preview blogs this year. Since this is a Paizo product, I'm going to wait until there have been one or two rounds of errata before I really dive into the system, so I don't yet have any opinion on whether I actually like the rules. I do, however, have a complaint about the naming of the Core Rulebook. To explain what my complaint is, I'm going to ramble about the PF1 Core Rulebook for a bit.

I think that the "core rules" of a game should be self-contained, without references to rules in another book. If the "core rules" require the use of rules in another book, then that book should also be part of the core rules.

D&D 3.5 is pretty clear about this. There are three core rulebooks. All three make references to the other two, but you can use all of them without having to refer to any rules outside of those three books. Some other, simpler systems manage with just one core rulebook which is entirely self contained.

Pathfinder 1e has two core books. The issue is that the name of one of the two core rulebooks is a lie. The name "the" Core Rulebook makes it sound like that one book contains the full core rules of Pathfinder, with everything you need to play included. Except, it isn't actually self-contained. The so-called "core rulebook" includes the druid class, which gets an animal companion. But where are the stats for animal companions? They are in another book. If you want to play a druid in Pathfinder, you either need the bestiary, or you need to refer to the online rules. Either way, the so-called "Core Rulebook" isn't a self-contained set of rules.

There are other examples. The Summon Monster spells are in the Core Rulebook, but the stats for all the creatures you can summon are in the Bestiary. With calling spells it is even worse: not only does the CRB not give stats for the outsiders you can call with Planar Binding, it doesn't even provide a list of what you can call in the first place. That, too, requires referencing the bestiary or another source with the same information.

The misinformation was not limited to the title of the book. Paizo's store used to assert that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play, while "GMs" will also want the Bestiary. This was also a lie, since "players" will want to know the stats of their summoned monsters, familiars, and animal companions. Over on the Paizo forums, it was somewhat common for Paizo employees to repeat the assertion that the Core Rulebook is all you need to play, often in response to complaints about "bloat."

Again, I don't have a problem with a game system having two core rulebooks. If Paizo had called the Core Rulebook something else, and if they had made it clear up front that there were two core books that you needed to play Pathfinder, then I wouldn't have had any complaint about it.

For Pathfinder 2, Paizo has again opted to have books with the titles "Core Rulebook" and "Bestiary." I tried to figure out, based on AoN, whether the title of the new "core rulebook" is misleading like the 1e version. I.e., is the 2e Core Rulebook actually self-contained, or does it refer to rules in the Bestiary (or some other book)?

While there may be some discrepencies between the website and the actual books, it appears to me that 2e has the same issue as 1e. The 2e Core Rulebook contains summoning spells, including Summon Animal (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=316). The new PRD seems to indicate that the Core Rulebook doesn't even include a list of what animals are summonable, let alone their stats. The Paizo store page for the Bestiary also says that it contains stats for summonable monsters.

I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised, that Paizo went with a misleading title again. On the other hand, the website no longer makes the claim that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play (or if it does than I don't see it), so that's an improvement. And again, I don't yet have an opinion on the rules themselves.

[Divine Susuryu]

The misinformation was not limited to the title of the book. Paizo's store used to assert that "players" only need the Core Rulebook to play, while "GMs" will also want the Bestiary. This was also a lie, since "players" will want to know the stats of their summoned monsters, familiars, and animal companions. Over on the Paizo forums, it was somewhat common for Paizo employees to repeat the assertion that the Core Rulebook is all you need to play, often in response to complaints about "bloat."


I really want to zoom in on the part I emphasised here. What is bloat in a tabletop game? Given that it's trivially easy for a GM to say "Okay guys, we're playing with books X, Y, and Z only" in any individual game, cries of bloat have always puzzled me. Yes, there may be more material than certain people want to deal with... but if it's their game, make it a precondition to stick to what they're comfortable with. Trying to change "I don't like how much content there is" to "the system is bloated" is equivocation. The sort of person who complains about it has it entirely in their power to avoid.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, that's dumb, and that sounds like they've never actually held onto a shield. You don't have to 'raise' it for it to work, you just move it with your sword. Do I have to use an action to 'raise' my sword?
Yes, it's called the "attack" action. I really like the idea of being able to spend an action on your shield for extra defense benefits; this makes using a shield an active choice in gameplay (as opposed to a flat AC bonus that you write down and forget about).

No comment on this particular execution, though. Having shield usage provoke OAs is ridiculous.


I really want to zoom in on the part I emphasised here. What is bloat in a tabletop game? Given that it's trivially easy for a GM to say "Okay guys, we're playing with books X, Y, and Z only" in any individual game,
Is it, though? Seems to me that there's a pretty big stigma against banning books.

[upho]

You can make a case for crowd control spells being too strong in 3E/PF. Not saying I fully agree, but you can make a case for some nerfing there.Maybe. Aside from maybe large scale BFC stuff like walls, I honestly don't think it would be a particularly strong one though, considering that at least most P1 control spells targeting creatures were (usually rightfully) nerfed from 3.5. Even if mostly indirectly through far more limited spell DC boost options and spell resistance being a greater problem. And also because related effective combat stuff (like serious debuffing and action denial effects) was made accessible to non-casters in P1, and therefore less of a C/MD balance issue than in 3.5.


Even so, this is seriously overdoing it.I agree. But I unfortunately have to say that at least AFAICT it's also more balanced to martial abilities, if in a needlessly skewed way (see below). So I think it's more a case of the system overall seriously overdoing it, making build option and action choices in general far less meaningful.


Given the gripes about spellcasters outshining non-casters all over the place, does this nerf make it so that they will not? If so, does it make it so that nonspellcasters will outshine spellcasters everywhere?Yes and no, I think. Yes insofar that casters probably have an overall power far closer to non-casters. No insofar that casters still have a considerably greater general adventuring toolbox and range of combat action output parameters (effects, targets etc). IOW, it appears to me that at least on paper spells still give casters far more numerous and varied options than non-casters have, while each spell is much weaker and often has fewer possible uses than before. Kinda the opposite of what SoP does in P1.

The net effect on class balance is awkward, and it seems there's a greater risk of casters ending up rather useless in combat against enemies above their level. Which is extra annoying due to the fact that this risk should've been quite easily fixed through the added degrees of success/failure. An example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.


Pretty much every spell I look at is higher level, slower cast, less effective, or some combination.True. I would've greatly preferred if they'd brought caster power down by reducing versatility. Or - much better - if they'd decided on a higher overall power floor and a far greater variety of PC abilities, bringing the versatility of non-casters more in line with that of casters instead.


Spell levels are exponential*!
/snip/
I just don't understand why the 5e and PF2 devs were so scared of letting spells scale "for free," by caster level or otherwise; it makes some sense in 5e if you squint, but so many things in PF2 scale linearly with character level that sticking with CL and having spells do the same would be so much better and more logical..Yep, I agree this is another issue, and AFAICT so far, much more so in P2 than in 5e. And it's yet another example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.

[Kurald Galain]

Maybe. Aside from maybe large scale BFC stuff like walls, I honestly don't think it would be a particularly strong one though, considering that at least most P1 control spells targeting creatures were (usually rightfully) nerfed from 3.5. Even if mostly indirectly through far more limited spell DC boost options and spell resistance being a greater problem. And also because related effective combat stuff (like serious debuffing and action denial effects) was made accessible to non-casters in P1, and therefore less of a C/MD balance issue than in 3.5.
Agreed. It is not my experience in P1 that caster/martial balance is a serious problem, at least at levels 1 through 10 (and people rarely play above that anyway).


And it's yet another example of a potentially great design concept poorly implemented.
That seems like a fair summary of the thread so far. I still really like the ideas of the three-action system, the four success levels, TEML, and feat-based racial abilities (and I wouldn't miss the ribbons); but find the implementation rather lacking.
That's the opposite how I feel about 5E: there, I strongly dislike the idea of bounded accuracy, but I find its implementation fairly solid.
In both cases that just means I'll stick with P1 for the foreseeable future :smallcool:

[Segev]

On effects which have a normal failure on the save result in, say, being affected for 1 minute with a new save to end every turn, and the critical failure being actually fully affected by the spell, do the new saves, on a crit fail, result in the full effect of the spell?

Because that actually would be a cool way to handle making a middle ground between SoD and "recoverability."

You fail the save, okay, it sucks, but you still have a chance to work out of it...or to succomb completely.

[Pex]

Is it, though? Seems to me that there's a pretty big stigma against banning books.

I figure it's because it's the same splat book(s) getting banned that players want to use. Some books are more controversial than others.

[Morty]

Yes, it's called the "attack" action. I really like the idea of being able to spend an action on your shield for extra defense benefits; this makes using a shield an active choice in gameplay (as opposed to a flat AC bonus that you write down and forget about).

That's more or less where I am as well. Having shield usage be more active is good in principle. It gives characters more ways to spend their actions without requiring special abilities and feats. But in practice it ends up warded with a lot of caveats. Shields are flimsy and now using them to block damage even requires a feat. And other fighting styles don't get any equivalent built-in ways of using actions.


No comment on this particular execution, though. Having shield usage provoke OAs is ridiculous.

It does? The Raise a shield action doesn't seem to have the Manipulate keyword, so it shouldn't provoke them.

As far as spells so, I'm generally in favor of weakening "battlefield control" ones, because they've been a dominant tactics in D&D for years, except for 4E. 5E takes steps to weaken them, but a well-placed Web is still devastating. That being said, it's entirely possible that PF2E went overboard with it. I'd have to dig in and compare them a bit.

[Crake]

As far as spells so, I'm generally in favor of weakening "battlefield control" ones, because they've been a dominant tactics in D&D for years, except for 4E. 5E takes steps to weaken them, but a well-placed Web is still devastating. That being said, it's entirely possible that PF2E went overboard with it. I'd have to dig in and compare them a bit.

Battlefield control is a dominant tactic in the real world too, being able to control the circumstances of a fight, divide your enemies, put yourself in a position of power, those are all legitimate tactics, and whether players do it through spells, or have to find some other, more tedious way to do it, theyll still figure out a way. Or they wont, and itll just be a slugfest until one side dies. BFC spells add variety to combat that would otherwise just be “i attack 3 times, my turns done”

[Silvercrys]

Most of the spells I've seen don't force recurring saves, if you fail the initial save you're affected by the spell for a full minute and if you critically fail the save you get affected by it longer or harsher. Some of them you still get affected for 1 round with a smaller effect even if you succeed but it mostly just means the caster didn't totally waste their action since so many are single target. Biggest exception is Enchantments like Charm and friends.

Some spells are still very good, though.

Black Tentacles gives you a spell attack against their Fort DC rather than allowing a save (not quite sure how good or bad that is, yet) and inflicts the Grappled condition (which is Immobilized + Flat-footed) while dealing 3d6 damage, and affects creatures in a 20-ft burst. The tentacles have an AC equal to your Spell DC and 12 HP, but if they spend all their actions breaking the tentacle, another one tries to grab them when they end their turn in the effect. They can also attempt an escape against your Spell DC, of course.

Resilient Sphere traps creatures in a 10-ft burst for 1 minute or until they break it (AC 5, Hardness 10, 40 HP). If you're an unwilling target you're still trapped even if you succeed at your Reflex save, but the HP of the dome is reduced to 10. At minimum it wastes most of their turn (if you center the globe on them they have to move to the edge then spend another action breaking the globe, and that's assuming they can overcome the globe's hardness).

Blindness lasts for 1 minute even on a successful save and Blinded is still a pretty strong condition (turns all terrain into difficult terrain, for starters).

Regardless of your tradition, there are generally one or two powerful combat or crowd control spells at each spell level with effects that are either still strong if they succeed on their save or have good area denial effects (Solid Fog makes the area difficult terrain and creates concealment with no save, Black Tentacles as mentioned, Wall of Stone has no listed save and you can fully enclose non-flying creatures with it, etc.) mixed in with the "casters can bypass/ignore some encounters" utility stuff like Pest Form, Fly, Planeshift, Teleport, and, of course, Knock.

Speaking of, Knock still obviates the Rogue, just not automatically. It gives you a Thievery check with a +4 bonus to unlock the lock, and if you're untrained you get a bonus to the check equal to your caster level. If you actually have a Rogue you can also just cast it and let the Rogue unlock it with the +4 bonus, but if not, Knock makes you essentially the same as a Rogue with Expert proficiency when opening locks.

[Gallowglass]

Battlefield control is a dominant tactic in the real world too, being able to control the circumstances of a fight, divide your enemies, put yourself in a position of power, those are all legitimate tactics, and whether players do it through spells, or have to find some other, more tedious way to do it, theyll still figure out a way. Or they wont, and itll just be a slugfest until one side dies. BFC spells add variety to combat that would otherwise just be “i attack 3 times, my turns done”

There is no problem with battlefield control. To many, the tactical aspect of controlling the battlefield is the only real enjoyment in the combat scenario. As you said, infinitely more enjoyable that "I attack 3 times, my turn's done."

However, there is arguably something wrong with an assortment of spells that turn battlefield control into 'easy' mode. Which so simplify the tactical options to make them no longer a worthwhile part of the game. And there is a long history of such spells in the myriad editions of D&D/PF

And it can destroy the enjoyment of the "many" players.

P1: "Okay, let's see. There is a chokepoint here and here. So Randolfo, you put your dwarf here and go full defense which should put your AC out of reach and I'll stand in the square behind you and attack over with my reach weapon.

p2: "We'll need to keep them from circling behind us so Mikhail go spray down those squares with your caltrops so we can slow them down if they try that.

p3: "Great, I'll hide here with my bow ready and if they hit those caltrops I'll start peppering them and call out to let you know."

p4: "Lol, Nah. I spray them with a web spell and go clean my nails. You guys can just walk up and spear them to death now."

Personally, in my games, there tends to be a lot of joint tactical planning so that the 1 superpower player doesn't end up feeling like they are the only ones that matter, but I've certainly heard from many, many, many players on this board that tend to the "I don't need to work with you, you should've made a wizard if you didn't want to be useless" personality that I thankfully don't actually play with in real life.

[Kurald Galain]

Most of the spells I've seen don't force recurring saves, if you fail the initial save you're affected by the spell for a full minute and if you critically fail the save you get affected by it longer or harsher.
See the list above. Spells like web or slow only get their 1E/2E/3E effect on a crit-fail.

Let's go over your examples, shall we?
Black Tentacles got its level increased to 5, takes a full round to cast, doesn't grab creatures entering the area (unless they end their turn there), no longer prevents held creatures from attacking, and you can attempt to escape three times per round (instead of once).
Resilient Sphere still traps ONE creature, not creatures; I have no idea why you think a victim has to move to hit the sphere; and of course a 10-hp sphere goes down in one hit (whereas its 1E/2E/3E version is immune to most attacks, because that's the whole point). It also has its duration reduced, and no longer works on huge creatures.
Blindness has its level increased to 3, its range severely reduced, and the "+10 to all saves" keyword.
Solid Fog takes a full round to cast, has a much shorter duration, and no longer negates missile attacks (although it does give concealment).


Regardless of how these compare to earlier editions, the only one I'd consider using is Black Tentacles.

[MrSandman]

I remember from the playtest that I liked a 10th-level spell that turned the caster and its buddies into mammoths. That's about all I liked in it, though...

[Storyteller_Arc]

... Who was it that said most of the Pathfinder fans would probably be on the Pathfinder forums, rather than places like here?

Because reading through this thread. It seriously feels like to be true.

Feels like everyone's ignoring all of the upsides to Pathfinder 2.0 to **** on its flaws... even if their actually positives and not negatives.

[Segev]

... Who was it that said most of the Pathfinder fans would probably be on the Pathfinder forums, rather than places like here?

Because reading through this thread. It seriously feels like to be true.

Feels like everyone's ignoring all of the upsides to Pathfinder 2.0 to **** on its flaws... even if their actually positives and not negatives.

While you will likely get pushback, I invite you to discuss these upsides; maybe you'll convince some of us that it's better than we think. I, for one, hope to come to like it; I'd love there to be a D&D-esq system that eventually can replace 3.PF1 the way 3e replaced 2e for me. 5e is great for what it does, but I still go back to 3.PF1 for certain kinds of games; I wouldn't consider doing so for 1e or 2e.

So, what does PF2 do that we're ignoring? I'd love to hear about it, and find something more than "it will likely improve with more splat books, due to good bones for building off of" to be excited about.