Pathfinder 2E Is this a fair review of PF2?

[Philip Benz]

You call it commendable. I call it a cop out. I say that the PF2 system fails to work because it doesn't address the necessary minutiae of combat - such as whether or not an arrow actually hits its target!

So the fundamental problem for you seems to be the commingling of two concepts: meat/body/blood points on one hand, and fatigue/morale/gumption points on the other.

I hear you, and have been there. The argument goes: "if an arrow hits its target, there should be blood, not fatigue or morale loss."

Carried to its extreme, this argument gives you games like the old Arms Law/ICE/MERP system with pages of really nasty critical hit tables that very quickly lead all but the luckiest adventurers into debilitating, mutilating or fatal wounds.

There are levels of abstraction in games. Chess has few combat mechanics, yet it is based on warfare. Fantasy RPGs are certainly more "detailed" than chess, but they have so many varying levels of abstraction that it's hard (really meaning: "impossible") to find a solution that satisfies everyone.

 

[nevin]

If any of us is doing that it is you. In every edition of D&D going back to 1974, you could lose dozen or hundreds of hitpoints, be reduced to one, and be absolutely fine with nothing more that a night's sleep. The number of nights varied by edition (and sometimes by level), but nothing more was ever required. Magic & and/or medical attention helped speed things up, but were never necessary if you had time. That alone kills "hp are meet points".



_
glass.

Ive been mostly avoiding this because I see it as pointless. The DM can run it however they want but.....

1st ED AD&D that I played in 1974 if you didn't use magic required weeks to get those hundreds of hit pts back. ( though if you played by the rules it would take many years of weekly play to get to hundreds of hitpts) (and D&D basic was roughly twice as slow)

A full days rest

For game purposes it is absolutely necessary that the character rest in order to recuperate, i.e. any combat, spell using, or similar activity does not constitute rest, so no hit points can be regained. For each day of rest a character will regain 1 hit point, up to and including 7 days. However a character with a penalty for poor constitution must deduct weekly the penalty score from his or her days of healing, i.e., a -2 for a person means that 5 hit points healing per week is maximum, and the first two days of rest will restore no hit points. After the first week of continuous rest, characters with a bonus for high constitution add the bonus score to the number of hit points they recover due to resting, i.e., the second week of rest will restore 11 (7 + 4) hit points to a fighter character with an 18 constitution. Regardless of the number of hit points a character has, 4 weeks of continuous rest will restore any character to full strength. (DMG, p. 82)


It got steadily faster till 3.5

when

The 3.5 rules accelerate this further:

Natural Healing: With a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night.

If you undergo complete bed rest for an entire day and night, you recover twice your character level in hit points. (3.5 SRD)

note however that there is no 4 weeks heals everything so if you have a lot of hitpts in theory it could take longer.

It was not until 4th edition we got this idea that healing should be like a video game. My suggestion to anyone that doesn't like it. Use older rules for rest and recuperation.

for those that like the Video Gamey feel do it that way. Quit worrying about what everyone else does and just play the way you like.

 

[glass]

-specifics (& a bit of edition warring at the end)-

Did you think you were telling me something I did not already know, or somehow rebutting anything in my post that you quoted? Because if so, you were not on either count.

EDIT: And you did not play 1e in 1974 unless you had a time machine.

_
glass.

 

[Philip Benz]

I'm sure he was simply refering to "original" D&D, I think now we just abbreviate it as "OD&D". I started in 1974 too. IIRC, we generally leaned a lot on our cleric, or, failing that, on an NPC cleric who could cast all his spells each day to bring us back from near death.

Although whatever tenuous link this discussion had with the original thread title is long gone, I still maintain that the PF2 hit points, wounds and healing system is acceptably treated, even if it goes overboard into unnecessarily complex minigames at times.

 

[willrali]

This is demonstrably not the case. After our less-than-stellar experience with PF2, I DMed them in 5e (2 of them had no prior experience with 5e). They didn't suddenly turn into model players who knew all the rules, but gameplay was a lot smoother and a lot quicker.

Interesting. I've found, over 24 years of gaming, that it demonstrably is the case, and has been for every iteration of every game I've played.

Sorry P2 didn't work out for you.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I don't want to seem like I am always down on PF2. PF2 has a FANTASTIC case to make to RPG players, both new and old.

• Greater customization. You can tweak a character so it is exactly what you want.
• More tactical depth. Tons of options for both martial characters and spellcasters within combat, and tactics can be dynamic based on what you are facing.
• Fun and flavourful subclasses. You can play a Strength monk, there are 8 sorcerer bloodlines, the barbarian options are new and interesting.
• High pace of publication. Some people want much more character options than 5e offers, even after 6 years. PF2 definitely scratches that itch.
• Tons of archetypes. Paizo comes up with a lot of archetypes to customize your characters even more.
• Golarion. Golarion is a fun, cool setting that in my opinion does a better job of integrating different cultures and races than the Forgotten Realms.
• Responsive Authors and Designers. On the Pathfinder forums (and even to a lesser extent on ENWorld), the Paizo designers and authors frequently post and comment. Often, this offers an insider view of some of the decisions that were taken, and with adventures, provides free designer notes.
• Small Upstart vs Huge Monolith. Paizo does not stress this aspect a lot, but it is absolutely true.

(There may be others).

The first five elements that I have highlighted can absolutely be a positive, but they add to the complexity of the game.* It is up to each player to decide for themselves these advantages are worth the extra complexity they bring.

The review that kicked off this thread pointed out the positives and also pointed out the complexity. It did so using the example of a theoretical dual-wielding ranger at the upper level of complexity. The ranger had multiple dual-wielding class feats (pretty standard for a dual-wielding ranger), was wielding weapons with very different keywords (unlikely in my experience unless the ranger had claimed a magical weapon that was found and didn't have a pair) and weapons that used different stats (Dex or Str, very unlikely in my experience).

Some of the responses to this review seemed to deny that there was a considerable difference in complexity between PF2 and 5e. This is baffling to me. (I had to make 20 decisions in character creation? I didn't notice. I was too busy having fun.) Both in character construction and combat, greater complexity is one of the selling points of the game. In PF2, you can make a sorcerer who can intimidate 4 people with a single glance but who couldn't lie to save his life and is terrible at persuasion. In 5e, even if the sorcerer doesn't take proficiency in Persuasion, he is still likely to be the 2nd best at it (depending on how many other Cha classes are in the party). A fighter can overcome a "meh" intelligence by taking the Arcana skill to legendary, if he wants to be a specialist in magic.

*This isn't to say that there aren't some rule missteps complexity-wise. Game designers are human (until proven otherwise). Even 2e had them ("cough" weapon speeds "cough").

 

[Ancalagon]

Actually, if that bothers you, consider them synonyms to keep it simple.

Per the official SRD at Nethys, there are 2126 feats today, roughly one year after the game's release. The Core Rulebook alone comes with 801 feats.

Feat Filter - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database (it takes several minutes to complete a search with no filters)

that's... too many feats.

I would actually would like to hear what you meant by the two (complex vs complicated)

 

[BluejayJunior]

that's... too many feats.

I would actually would like to hear what you meant by the two (complex vs complicated)

Listing that number on it's own is somewhat misleading. Each ancestry (race) has it's own set of feats and you choose one each at levels 1, 5, 9, 13, and 17. Each class has it's own set of feats which are choses one each at level 1 then all even levels. And then there are skill/general feats that everyone can take at each even level.
So while there are a lot of feats, each character only has access to a limited number of them.

 

[Philip Benz]

Which is exactly what I was saying earlier. Although the total number of feats is quite large, you're only ever choosing from a far smaller palette of feats that you have access to because of your level, the category of feat, and the prerequisites necessary. I really like the customizable aspect of the wide selection of feats, and even though the palette gets wider with each new PF2 book published, it's still manageable.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I hear you, and have been there. The argument goes: "if an arrow hits its target, there should be blood, not fatigue or morale loss."

Carried to its extreme, this argument gives you games like the old Arms Law/ICE/MERP system with pages of really nasty critical hit tables that very quickly lead all but the luckiest adventurers into debilitating, mutilating or fatal wounds.

Okay, so... don't take it to the extreme. There are significant diminishing returns as you seek out further and further levels of details, but that first level of details - whether or not the arrow actually hits - is fantastically important to the narrative.

If you try to shoot someone with an arrow, and the resolution mechanic for shooting arrows can't even tell us whether you hit, then that's a worthless resolution mechanic.