Pathfinder 2E Here's A Pathfinder 2E Goblin

Paizo has shared part of its upcoming Bestiary for Pathfinder 2nd Edition with a quick look at the goblin entry.

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How does this differ from the playtest version? Let's take a look! Generally the layout is much the same with some minor tweaks; the differences appear to be under the hood as various numbers change.

• It's gone from CREATURE 0 to CREATURE -1.
• Perception has increased from +1 to +2.
• Skills no longer have an initial 'blanket' entry; in the playtest goblin skills were "–2; Acrobatics +3, Athletics +3, Stealth +5"; now they're "Acrobaitcs +5, Athletics +2, Nature +1, Stealth +5".
• Con has increased to +1
• AC has gone from 14 to 16, TAC is gone, Fort, Ref, and Will have all increased significantly
• Dogslicer attack has gone from +6 to +8 and now has finesse added
• Shortbow attack has gone from +6 to +8, and various additional info added in parenthesis

 

[Zardnaar]

Rogue's can get Dex to damage, but other Dex based classes need to rely on other abilities to boost their damage (like the Ranger's Hunter's Quarry... I mean Hunt Prey ). At any rate, a lot of a martial character's damage comes from their powers dealing multiple weapon dice worth of damage at higher levels.

I kind of like that idea. Dex is super stat in 5E and they have OP strength based feats to compensate.

Or you just use handcrossbows plus sharpshooter and laugh at the strength characters.

After 5 years there's enough in 5E that's starting to get annoying. Dex to damage, the encounter rules expectations, copious healing, armor rules, archetypes as the prestige classes, unbalanced feats. Even 3pp bloat, not using what I have bought already so just stopped buying it.

In another 5 years be ready for replacement, but if PF2 is good it's something to play occasional ly. The big problem would be getting people to play it though.

5E just killed Pathfinder locally. There was a PFS here not anymore.

 

[D1Tremere]

Having played the PF Playtest, there were not any movement based abilities like that, at least not that any of my players used. The knockbacks and pulls of 4E were not used in the playtest. I recall the 4E positioning abilities of the controller classes and the tanks, I did not see those in the playtest. Not as an option and not in use.

Most of the caster spells were damaging cantrips. The martial abilities were mostly some static bonus with an attack, not a condition or movement. The abilities were very much similar to what a PF player is accustomed to, but weaker. There is no 4E character paradigm.

I'm not sure if you are serious, but I will give a few examples from my playtest deluxe copy.

Elf - Nimble - Additionally, when you use the stride action, you can ignore difficult terrain in one square during that move (P.27). (One square ? That is some very tactical combat mechanics).

Fighter - Attack of Opportunity Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it is using (P.87). (AoOs are so full of conditions and key words it feels like Final Fantasy Tactics instead of a tabletop RPG).

Paladin - Retributive Strike (uses a ton of conditions and requires position tracking, and don't get me started on the whole hardness and dents tracking for shields) (P.106).

Shove - (Forced movement/space).

Exploration Mode and Fatigue (Requires micromanaging actions, conditions, tactical games states, Etc.) ((P.36)

Turning to the Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary we see Goblins have the same scuttle ability, Gnolls are even worse with their pack tactics rules.

PF2 not only has an extremely detailed rule for everything like 3.5 did (Hazard rules for a slamming door? Seriously?), but it also adds in a glossary of terms, triggers, abbreviations, and key words to make them all feel very mechanical and unavoidable like 4E. I'm not saying any of this makes it a bad game, but for me it is the opposite of the design direction I prefer.

Rogue: "My attack action triggers double debilitation, inflicting both entangled and enfeebled 1" DM: "Did you remember that your movement provoked an attack from the targets ally in 5ft that inflicted slow 1 to you?" Rogue: That is only because I got a single success on my last sabotage action, inflicting a dent on his weapon instead of destroying it."

 

[Ancalagon]

So I haven't been following this very closely, but ...

are ability scores gone? Is it just bonuses now?

 

[Noir le Lotus]

PCs still have ability scores ; on the other hand, for monsters, only the modifier is given it seems.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm not sure if you are serious, but I will give a few examples from my playtest deluxe copy.

Elf - Nimble - Additionally, when you use the stride action, you can ignore difficult terrain in one square during that move (P.27). (One square ? That is some very tactical combat mechanics).

Fighter - Attack of Opportunity Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it is using (P.87). (AoOs are so full of conditions and key words it feels like Final Fantasy Tactics instead of a tabletop RPG).

Paladin - Retributive Strike (uses a ton of conditions and requires position tracking, and don't get me started on the whole hardness and dents tracking for shields) (P.106).

Shove - (Forced movement/space).

Exploration Mode and Fatigue (Requires micromanaging actions, conditions, tactical games states, Etc.) ((P.36)

Turning to the Pathfinder Playtest Bestiary we see Goblins have the same scuttle ability, Gnolls are even worse with their pack tactics rules.

PF2 not only has an extremely detailed rule for everything like 3.5 did (Hazard rules for a slamming door? Seriously?), but it also adds in a glossary of terms, triggers, abbreviations, and key words to make them all feel very mechanical and unavoidable like 4E. I'm not saying any of this makes it a bad game, but for me it is the opposite of the design direction I prefer.

Rogue: "My attack action triggers double debilitation, inflicting both entangled and enfeebled 1" DM: "Did you remember that your movement provoked an attack from the targets ally in 5ft that inflicted slow 1 to you?" Rogue: That is only because I got a single success on my last sabotage action, inflicting a dent on his weapon instead of destroying it."

None of those were remotely like the 4E push and pull abilities. Those are more like already existing PF mechanics. What game are you coming from? Most of what you listed already existed in the PF rules. Pack tactics is a 5E ability.

In 4E controllers and tanks had move the target abilities that worked automatically to move the target into a favorable space. You listed a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with that other than shove which is like the overrun or trip ability of PF.

So yes, i was being serious because I played 4E and know what a controller push or pull ability plays like.

 

[Celtavian]

Just wanted to provide a couple more examples at a lower mechanical level as mentioned above:

Pathfinder characters used Disable Device to disarm traps and open locks; 4e and PF2 Characters use Thievery (in general both 4e and PF2 consolidated skills down to the same similar package, and you don't use Skill points, rather you select certain skills to be trained in and add a fixed bonus plus level-based scaling. PF2 of course added even higher levels of proficiency).

5E consolidated skills as well. Consolidating skills is not a 4Eism. It's smarter game game design that needed to be done for a while.

Moving to a proficiency modifier based on level with some variation due to variation proficiency modifier is a PF2 concept. Don't remember this from 4E or 5E. Pretty much a new, unique PF2 mechanic unless some other game system uses it I don't know about.

Pathfinder had the concept of a 5' step (inherited from 3e) as part of a full round action to avoid attacks of opportunities and reposition your character. 4e simplified this concept to the "Shift", a keyword (move) action that your character could take as part of his three action economy round to move 5' without provoking. PF2 introduces us to "Step", a keyworded action that your character can take as part of his three action economy round to move 5' without provoking.

Pathfinder/3E actions were all coded. Step is a 5' step. Removing the 5' doesn't change what it is. It was there in 3E/Pathfinder before 4E. Not sure why you see this as keywords when any PF player would see it as one of many actions you can do same as before.

I think I'll stop here, but I hope you can see why someone *might* see how 4e and PF2 seem to be similarly inspired (and I think that PF2 is certainly its own game, with many improvements over both Pathfinder and 4e, but I can't agree that PF2 is more similar to 5e than 4e).

The evidence is clear it is more like 5E than 4E. I think any objective analysis of all three editions by an uninvolved third party would see that.

The key elements that made 4E were the powers: at will, encounter, and daily and the specific class roles controller, tank, striker. Neither 5E nor PF2 are structured that way.

 

[CapnZapp]

like fitting a square pet into a round hole

Ouch.

Other than that, yes, about the only reason to bring up 4E I can see is because it trolls some of us so very very strongly

 

[FowlJ]

What about PF2's Brutish Shove, which is a 1st-level At-Will power for the PF2 fighter that deals 1[W] damage plus pushes the target back 5 feet (and unlike the Playtest version, doesn't give the target a choice)? There seems to be numerous positioning powers throughout the ability lists of both martials and casters, and fighters in particular have these types of options at nearly every level.

Oh man guys I can't believe that Pathfinder 1st edition was a 4e clone this whole time.

 

[Zardnaar]

5E consolidated skills as well. Consolidating skills is not a 4Eism. It's smarter game game design that needed to be done for a while.

Moving to a proficiency modifier based on level with some variation due to variation proficiency modifier is a PF2 concept. Don't remember this from 4E or 5E. Pretty much a new, unique PF2 mechanic unless some other game system uses it I don't know about.





Pathfinder/3E actions were all coded. Step is a 5' step. Removing the 5' doesn't change what it is. It was there in 3E/Pathfinder before 4E. Not sure why you see this as keywords when any PF player would see it as one of many actions you can do same as before.



The evidence is clear it is more like 5E than 4E. I think any objective analysis of all three editions by an uninvolved third party would see that.

The key elements that made 4E were the powers: at will, encounter, and daily and the specific class roles controller, tank, striker. Neither 5E nor PF2 are structured that way.

Castles and Crusades uses level to ability checks, not to attack rolls.

There's some 4Eisms in PF2, big whoop I used them in my Homebrew.

The classes are the important part IMHO. If anything is self inflicted (vs 5E being 5E) it will be there. Goblin Warrior is fine, less of a fan of the commando mostly because of the name. Stat block reminds me of 5E if anything.

Thread got mentioned over in the Paizo forums.

 

[Redbadge]

Oh man guys I can't believe that Pathfinder 1st edition was a 4e clone this whole time.

My post was a response to the claim that there was no push powers in PF2, not that this ability wasn’t in PF. At any rate, the access to this specific weapon damage plus push ability in PF is far more niche than the first level fighter power available in 4e and PF2. It isn’t that the certain abilities weren’t retained when moving from PF1 to PF2, it is that Paizo decided to format and keyword them to demonstrate how they fit in the new class and action economy, add levels to the power blocks, and sort and silo them by class and level. It also helps that options for power/feat selection available at each level include a diverse list a player can choose from, involving either proliferation of keyworded conditions like immobilized or slowed, the granting of combat advantage, the ability to reposition foes or allies, extra damage dice, stances, non-magical self healing, or even damage on a miss (see the PF2 power Certain Strike).