Pathfinder 2E What Would You Want from PF2?

Retreater · Apr 13, 2019

I've read a number of negative discussions about the 2nd edition playtest of Pathfinder (and honestly, I've participated in a few myself). So I'm curious, what would you have wanted in a revised Pathfinder/new edition? Maybe it's a streamlined Pathfinder 1E (similar to Unchained)? Maybe it's an edition of Pathfinder that's compatible with 5E D&D?

I'd also be curious to know what relationship you currently have with Pathfinder (currently play/GM it, used to play/GM it, etc.)?

DammitVictor · Apr 14, 2019

Reasonably, I would hope for something between Pathfinder Unchained and 5e (leaning toward the former) with Archetypes in Core.

Less reasonably, replacing Archetypes with Rogue Genius Games' Guide to the Talented series and removing as many threeisms as possible. Especially the multiclassing.

MockingBird · Apr 14, 2019

Let's see, I would like something in between PF1e and 5e but I'm not entirely sure I would even leave 5e at this time or the near future. I'd really like 5e compatible APs and setting book honestly.

My relationship with PF1e was player only. My casual style of DMing doesnt mesh well with PF/3.5 or 4e.

pogre · Apr 14, 2019

My version of PF2E would look a lot like 5e. However, as we already have 5E that makes zero sense for the market. Simplifying towards 5e and moving more towards a GM-judgment game is already a niche massively occupied by D&D 5e.

PF2E should embrace the complexity and customization available from their PF1e catalog. Smooth out the edges and clarify, but it seems to be the customization possibilities that PF fans love.

I have run a fair amount of PF1e. I ran it specifically for a couple of their APs a few years ago.

Zardnaar · Apr 14, 2019

Overhauled math and a bit of simplification from 3.X with more crunch than 5E.

ccs · Apr 14, 2019

Something easily compatible with all of our PF1e stuff.

If that doesn't come to pass then it'd better be a far & above improvement over PF1e or I know the group I play with won't switch.
And even if it is it'll still be a year + before we'd switch as we're only nearing 3rd lv in our current campaign. At the rate we go we'll only be 5th lv come launch. So only mid way through book two of the AP we're playing.

GreyLord · Apr 14, 2019

I think what I would want as a 5e player, and what Pathfinder 1e fans would want are two different things.

For the actual players of Pathfinder I think the following would have been more to their liking...

A Cleaned up version of PF1e. What I mean is that all the current classes (or most of them, especially those out of the APG and probably the ACG, UC, UM, and Occult adventures) are found in a core rulebook. Most of the GOOD Feats are kept and many of the trap feats are tossed. The rules are slightly streamlined (so, perhaps the 3 action round type idea that PF2e floats), but for the most part it remains a LOT like PF1e.

They don't go the route they did with PF2e (or appear to be going at least) that they took. They make PF2e a PF1e cleaned up and streamlined a little, but for the most part almost exactly like PF1e with added classes, feats, and equipment.

Don't toss out the baby with the bathwater, build on the system you already have and make it better with what you've already created. Simplify a few things, but overall have the exact same system for PF2e as you do for PF1e. Make it more of a AD&D 1e to AD&D 2e type transition than a D&D 3e to D&D 4e type transition.

For a 5e player who isn't all that much into Pathfinder....

Simplify...simplify...simplify.

Reduce the number of feats. Reduce the number of skills. Make it easier to figure out Attack Bonus so that it basically goes with a +1 every 2 levels (so 1/2 level = BAB). You have a higher number than 5e as your base, but it's low enough to keep things more in perspective. Keep classes clean. If you do need to have more than the number of classes in the first core, keep it limited to the PHB and APG classes. Make the classes themselves more simple and easier to figure out bonuses and numbers.

OR...simply make adventures for 5e and drop the entire PF2e thing.

MNblockhead · Apr 14, 2019

I'm a 5e player who came back to TTRPGs have a decades long hiatus. I had played OD&D and 1e in the 80s as well as a number of non-D&D games. I own and occasionally run one-offs for Paranoia, the Expanse, ICRPG, InSPECTres, and some other more obscure games. Mostly, though, its 5e.

I played PF2 at a convention recently and enjoyed it, but it felt just like D&D with variant rules. It didn't feel all that more crunchy than 5e.

I've tried to think what PF2 would need to get me to buy the core rule books. I came to the conclusion that nothing would. I'm already years and many hundreds of dollars invested into D&D 5e. I'm still enjoying it and have enough material to last me for years. I can't see what Paizo could do to draw me away from 5e to Pathfinder. When I want an alternative to D&D, there are so many other games I would like to try that offer much different play styles, mechanics, and flavor.

Not sure I understand the business model for PF2. It seems to have divided PF's hard-core fans and I don't see it drawing many new players from D&D.

trancejeremy · Apr 14, 2019

Personally, I would not want a PF2e, so much as a Pathfinder Light. I would like to see a Pathfinder more akin to older editions D&D. While 5e does hearken back in some ways, it radically changes things that even 3e didn't, like the range for armor class and to hit (ie, the whole bounded accuracy thing).

I have back converted a number of PF classes and monsters to AD&D 1e, but I would like not to have to do that.

And honestly, since that won't ever happen, that annoys me the most about PF 2e is that it means there will be less new content, it will be just a regurgitation of PF 1e content for the new 10 years, with only a trickle of actual new content.