Pathfinder 2E Taking20 -"I'm Quitting Pathfinder 2e Because of This Issue"

[Justice and Rule]

Pathfinder 2 easily has much more clutter re: conditions than 5E. You frequently need to remember a lot of little rules (to deduct -1 there, to make this save here, and conditions frequently end for different reasons at different times).

There's just no contest.

I mean, these are really bad reasons. There are more buffs and debuffs, but for the most part it's because they are specifically defined before going to a spell or a monster's statblock. You need to remember the debuff itself? Well, that's not hard given that all the lowered ability ones are specifically tied to the number you get. And the idea that "they have different save conditions with different triggers" doesn't work when it's individualized to every spell and monster in 5E.

Seriously, there are no specific rules for any Poison save: it can be done at the end of a turn, end of a minute, whatever. You can't just say "Okay, take an action to make a Fortitude Save" like Sickened or "Drop the number by 1" with Frightened or that Drained is lowered by a full night's rest in 5E; each effect can potentially have a different trigger and a different end condition, and while most of them might be similar, that doesn't mean any specific save condition will apply.

But here's the thing: that works for 5E because that's how 5E is built.

When it comes to broad, overarching systems, 5E really doesn't have many: classes are built to be almost completely unique to one another, and mechanics (while not necessarily unique) are generally individualized to monsters, spells, special actions, etc. It's basically a complete mishmash of ideas tossed into a pot, and that's what makes 5E both appealing and unappealing: that approach can make balance difficult for certain classes, spells, or monsters... but it also feels D&D as all hell, while still not being completely impenetrable as previous editions. That is the success of 5E.

It's also why all these conditions don't really feel cluttered in PF2 while, if they were in 5E, they might: PF2 is a much more refined system, with a lot more focus on creating overarching mechanical systems that don't exist in 5E. You might not need a Slow condition in 5E because its effect there is harder to apply broadly because of the Action system. In PF2, though? Slowed slips in perfectly for a variety of things, largely because the Action system is built around being able to modify what you do in a way you can't in 5E. Doomed and Wounded don't make sense in 5E, whereas they are critical to giving a different feel to how PF2 combat and tactics work. And it's why certain 5E conditions wouldn't work in PF2, and why they need more specific effects: Poisoned in 5E wouldn't really work in PF2, because the debuff is so broad.

This is the exact same argument as to why hundreds of feats might feel cluttered in a game like 5E, but most people here would say they feel just fine for PF2: the integration of feats (like conditions) into the game itself is very different between systems, meaning that direct comparisons of just numbers don't really work.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is the exact same argument as to why hundreds of feats might feel cluttered in a game like 5E, but most people here would say they feel just fine for PF2: the integration of feats (like conditions) into the game itself is very different between systems, meaning that direct comparisons of just numbers don't really work.

Well, it also doesn't hurt that getting fixated on the total number of feats in PF2e is ignoring the fact that most characters never care about the vast majority of them and their players never even need to look at them; you need to look at the General and some of the Skill Feats, and your specific ancestry class feats and that's the number a fair number of characters will ever need to pay attention to the majority of class, ancestry and discipline feats because they're both irrelevant and unavailable. And they're clearly siloed off so you can tell the difference.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Well, it also doesn't hurt that getting fixated on the total number of feats in PF2e is ignoring the fact that most characters never care about the vast majority of them and their players never even need to look at them; you need to look at the General and some of the Skill Feats, and your specific ancestry class feats and that's the number a fair number of characters will ever need to pay attention to the majority of class, ancestry and discipline feats because they're both irrelevant and unavailable. And they're clearly siloed off so you can tell the difference.

Yeah. Again, it's one of those things that varies from system to system, and has to be taken with the system itself. PF2 having more feats or conditions doesn't really make it more cluttered because, by design, they are integrated into frameworks in a way that makes them fairly accessible and important, in the same way 5E has fewer feats and keeps effects largely individualized.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah. Again, it's one of those things that varies from system to system, and has to be taken with the system itself. PF2 having more feats or conditions doesn't really make it more cluttered because, by design, they are integrated into frameworks in a way that makes them fairly accessible and important, in the same way 5E has fewer feats and keeps effects largely individualized.

You can absolutely make an argument that PF2e is more complicated than some D&D derivatives, because the whole point of those feats is to provide, essentially, class and ancestry options rather than lockstepping those. And there's no way to do that sort of thing without some increase in complexity. But to talk about them all like they're one big pool of 3e D&D era feats is to be, at best, missing the point, and at worst pretty deceptive.

 

[dave2008]

Well, it also doesn't hurt that getting fixated on the total number of feats in PF2e is ignoring the fact that most characters never care about the vast majority of them and their players never even need to look at them; you need to look at the General and some of the Skill Feats, and your specific ancestry class feats and that's the number a fair number of characters will ever need to pay attention to the majority of class, ancestry and discipline feats because they're both irrelevant and unavailable. And they're clearly siloed off so you can tell the difference.

Well that view is biased by ones perspective. PF2 has a lot more feats than 5e (good or bad), that is just a fact.

5e has only 70+/- feats and a good portion of those are race specific or really class specific. This is after 7 years of the game being out. (PS, it had only 42 in the PHB and of course these are 100% optional)

On day one PF had about 127 general / skill feats and 50 +/- class feats (rogue has 51) and 30+/- race feats (32 for the dwarf). That is over 200 feats each character might need to consider. Additionally, I'm not sure how many have been added since, but I think it is quite a few.

 

[ronaldsf]

It's interesting: different strokes for different folks and all.

I GM PF2E and D&D 5e. Perhaps it's how my brain works, but I generally find it harder to sort out the various effects in 5e as compared to 2e. Like, I often forget that Web doesn't call for an immediate Dexterity save (the monsters save at the start of their turns). Exhaustion is a track that does something different at each level; what's more, each level's effect is cumulative.. Whereas 2e's Drained condition gives me a simple number, and what it applies to is logical to my brain (everything associated with Constitution). My brain also finds it hard to sort out which conditions impose disadvantage on attack rolls as opposed to those which impose disadvantage to attack rolls AND ability checks, which ones additionally give advantage to enemy attack rolls and which ones that don't, etc. I find myself looking up Conditions to make sure I know how they operate more in 5e than in 2e, which defeats the purpose of defining Conditions in the first place.

By collecting everything into Advantage and Disadvantage, a lot of buffs and debuffs become extremely powerful in 5e, and sometimes there are weird interactions. Like the fact that one of the more effective ways to debuff wolves who have Pack Attack is to cast Darkness on them.

It's interesting about Feats in 5e as well: when building a character in 2e, I just skim for feat names that suit my concept. I have zero fear that choosing a given feat will gimp my character, whereas in 5e, I'm sure as hell glad that I read Polearm Master at level 1 and therefore reskinned my concept to be a Variant Human so I could take it at Level 1 for my reach weapon fighter, or else I would've missed out on a bunch of free attacks and battlefield control. There is very little advantage that Reach weapons give you in 5e by themselves. Whereas the way AoOs work in 2e, having a reach weapon automatically gave me a free attack when most monsters run up to me. And when making this 5e fighter I felt compelled to look at the feats in splatbooks to make sure I didn't miss something. YMMV

 

[Justice and Rule]

Well that view is biased by ones perspective. PF2 has a lot more feats than 5e (good or bad), that is just a fact.

5e has only 70+/- feats and a good portion of those are race specific or really class specific. This is after 7 years of the game being out. (PS, it had only 42 in the PHB and of course these are 100% optional)

On day one PF had about 127 general / skill feats and 50 +/- class feats (rogue has 51) and 30+/- race feats (32 for the dwarf). That is over 200 feats each character might need to consider. Additionally, I'm not sure how many have been added since, but I think it is quite a few.

The problem there is that PF2 Feats include a lot of things that would largely just be racial features and subclass features in 5E. Comparing them directly just because they share the same term misses how their implementation is distinctly different.

 

[dave2008]

The problem there is that PF2 Feats include a lot of things that would largely just be racial features and subclass features in 5E. Comparing them directly just because they share the same term misses how their implementation is distinctly different.

I'm guessing you are not very familiar with 5e then. A 5e dwarf gets 5 features that it doesn't share with the PF2 dwarf and the PF2 dwarf gets one that it doesn't share with 5e. The 5e dwarf has 1 racial feat, the PF2 dwarf has 32. That is a net 28 more feats/features for the PF2 version.

Also, it is important for this argument that 32 of those items are choices. When comparing simplicity it is relevant that all but 3 of the dwarf features come from selecting the race. 2 more come from a subrace and then one from a feat. Basically, after selecting your race/subrace you have one more choice of whether or not to take a racial feat (or any other feat or ASI).

To be clear, I am not saying the 5e way is correct or that PF2 is correct. In fact, I think they are both correct for what they are trying to accomplish. I am just saying there is a large difference between the two. To suggest otherwise is just irresponsible IMO.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well that view is biased by ones perspective. PF2 has a lot more feats than 5e (good or bad), that is just a fact.

Only if you consider all of them the same thing. Its also got implications when phrased as you do that are simply not true; that number doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. Its like talking about all the spells present in either game, when the truth is most people only have to (or even can) deal with a subset of them because they're not all available to all casters.

Siloing matters. To act like it doesn't is misrepresenting the practical situation.

5e has only 70+/- feats and a good portion of those are race specific or really class specific. This is after 7 years of the game being out. (PS, it had only 42 in the PHB and of course these are 100% optional)

On day one PF had about 127 general / skill feats and 50 +/- class feats (rogue has 51) and 30+/- race feats (32 for the dwarf). That is over 200 feats each character might need to consider. Additionally, I'm not sure how many have been added since, but I think it is quite a few.

A fair bit. But again, most of those aren't ones a character is going to consider (outside possibly a rogue); taking skill feats for skills you don't have training in is a waste of time from the get-go, so no one is liable to give those a second look. This means outside of the rogue, through most of most characters careers they're going to pay attention to their class feats, their ancestry feats, the short list of true general feats, and the skill feats for the skills they actually invested in. Once you also factor that many feats are, effectively, level relevant (its not impossible for someone to take a class feat lower than the ones specifically gated at their level, but its not going to happen very often and when it does someone will likely have decided long before they needed to) the number of feats anyone has to actually pay attention to at any given time is much smaller than the gross number suggests.

 

[dave2008]

Only if you consider all of them the same thing. Its also got implications when phrased as you do that are simply not true; that number doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. Its like talking about all the spells present in either game, when the truth is most people only have to (or even can) deal with a subset of them because they're not all available to all casters.

Siloing matters. To act like it doesn't is misrepresenting the practical situation.

Agreed, that is why I took one silo: the dwarf rogue. There are more silos within that, but is not like the 5e feat don't have silos too.

A fair bit. But again, most of those aren't ones a character is going to consider (outside possibly a rogue); taking skill feats for skills you don't have training in is a waste of time from the get-go, so no one is liable to give those a second look. This means outside of the rogue, through most of most characters careers they're going to pay attention to their class feats, their ancestry feats, the short list of true general feats, and the skill feats for the skills they actually invested in.

Yes, but that list is more than the 5e player ever has to consider. A 5e rogue has to consider as few as 0 and at most 6 feat choices. A PF2 rogue has to consider 40 feat choices (general, skill, racial, and class feats). These are not even close to the same thing.

There are simply a lot more chances to make choices and a lot more to choose in PF2 vs 5e. This is a strength of PF2, why are you try to say it is barely different from 5e?