Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
My Pathfinder 2e Post-Mortem
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Justice and Rule" data-source="post: 8870081" data-attributes="member: 6778210"><p>Actually, I want to go further about some other things, particularly skill feats and skills in general.</p><p></p><p>Like, I'm a proponent of every variant that gets a PC more feats: Ancestral Paragon and Free Archetype are like absolutely mandatory for me. But what I really like about PF2 is... well...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]270600[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>So like, one of the reasons I really love PF2 is that it's modular and that things are balanced so that if someone has an extra feat or skill, things aren't completely thrown out of whack. The way the classes have been designed, feats allow players to express niches, but generally-speaking don't completely change the game or stack with each other like old feats that can create power-gaming monsters. It's not in the rules (for obvious reasons), but the system framework itself makes it <em>easy</em>, especially compared to a lot of level-based systems.</p><p></p><p>Like, one of my big problems with 5E was that it was difficult to give my players the ability to learn things over time: everything immediately goes to proficiency level, so there's no <em>learning</em> things because you are instantly at level with any skill, and giving people special skills similar to feats were things I had to create. And in fairness, I <em>did</em> do that: I had special monk techniques that were taught by masters or found on scrolls, fighter maneuvers that had to be discovered and learned that worked outside of the normal game. That stuff was immensely fun to me, even if it was incredibly difficult to balance because the system just wasn't built to add in that sort of stuff.</p><p></p><p>But Pathfinder 2E? It's done most of the work for me. Learn a new skill? Easy, you start Trained, or you can modify it to have a step lower in several different ways. Dead simple. Just add it in. Your Barbarian wants to be that breacher dude? Let him hone himself over time and maybe just <em>give </em>it to him after training and practice. Your guy is joining a secret organization that does spying? Maybe they'll just teach him <em>Glean Contents </em>so that he can be useful to them. You want to learn a Lore skill? Sure, let's go for that. Great use of extended downtime. That stuff just doesn't break the game because of the way feats were made and doled out. There's just not a magic combo to break things unless I decide to get drunk and give them anything or everything they want.</p><p></p><p>The feats, in essence, <em>are </em>free because of the framework created by the game. They just give options, niches rather than completely defining skills. Martial arts masters can now teach hidden techniques that are locked as feats, Masters of Defense can instruct fighters in special maneuvers they might not know, Archmages can teach a specialized metamagic to a Wizard if they can hunt them down... it opens up a lot of options that you as the GM can allow the players to explore. You can limit it as you like, but that the system can bear it at all kind of speaks to the system itself.</p><p></p><p>And we can call that homebrew, and I guess that isn't wrong... but it's homebrew that would be difficult to implement in other similar games because they just don't support that sort of growth idea. And as a guy who really likes level-less games, PF2 can kind of emulate that if you want it to, far more easily than you'd expect. They've done most of the work for me by making all these feats, and they've honestly made <em>making </em>feats for my players much easier because the extensive breadth of options gives me a good baseline of what to expect at most levels.</p><p></p><p>So... yeah. I've been doing that when I play. It's not exactly how the game was <em>meant </em>to be played, but it <em>is </em>kind of how the game was built.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Justice and Rule, post: 8870081, member: 6778210"] Actually, I want to go further about some other things, particularly skill feats and skills in general. Like, I'm a proponent of every variant that gets a PC more feats: Ancestral Paragon and Free Archetype are like absolutely mandatory for me. But what I really like about PF2 is... well... [ATTACH type="full" width="543px" alt="75isev.jpg"]270600[/ATTACH] So like, one of the reasons I really love PF2 is that it's modular and that things are balanced so that if someone has an extra feat or skill, things aren't completely thrown out of whack. The way the classes have been designed, feats allow players to express niches, but generally-speaking don't completely change the game or stack with each other like old feats that can create power-gaming monsters. It's not in the rules (for obvious reasons), but the system framework itself makes it [I]easy[/I], especially compared to a lot of level-based systems. Like, one of my big problems with 5E was that it was difficult to give my players the ability to learn things over time: everything immediately goes to proficiency level, so there's no [I]learning[/I] things because you are instantly at level with any skill, and giving people special skills similar to feats were things I had to create. And in fairness, I [I]did[/I] do that: I had special monk techniques that were taught by masters or found on scrolls, fighter maneuvers that had to be discovered and learned that worked outside of the normal game. That stuff was immensely fun to me, even if it was incredibly difficult to balance because the system just wasn't built to add in that sort of stuff. But Pathfinder 2E? It's done most of the work for me. Learn a new skill? Easy, you start Trained, or you can modify it to have a step lower in several different ways. Dead simple. Just add it in. Your Barbarian wants to be that breacher dude? Let him hone himself over time and maybe just [I]give [/I]it to him after training and practice. Your guy is joining a secret organization that does spying? Maybe they'll just teach him [I]Glean Contents [/I]so that he can be useful to them. You want to learn a Lore skill? Sure, let's go for that. Great use of extended downtime. That stuff just doesn't break the game because of the way feats were made and doled out. There's just not a magic combo to break things unless I decide to get drunk and give them anything or everything they want. The feats, in essence, [I]are [/I]free because of the framework created by the game. They just give options, niches rather than completely defining skills. Martial arts masters can now teach hidden techniques that are locked as feats, Masters of Defense can instruct fighters in special maneuvers they might not know, Archmages can teach a specialized metamagic to a Wizard if they can hunt them down... it opens up a lot of options that you as the GM can allow the players to explore. You can limit it as you like, but that the system can bear it at all kind of speaks to the system itself. And we can call that homebrew, and I guess that isn't wrong... but it's homebrew that would be difficult to implement in other similar games because they just don't support that sort of growth idea. And as a guy who really likes level-less games, PF2 can kind of emulate that if you want it to, far more easily than you'd expect. They've done most of the work for me by making all these feats, and they've honestly made [I]making [/I]feats for my players much easier because the extensive breadth of options gives me a good baseline of what to expect at most levels. So... yeah. I've been doing that when I play. It's not exactly how the game was [I]meant [/I]to be played, but it [I]is [/I]kind of how the game was built. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
My Pathfinder 2e Post-Mortem
Top