Pathfinder 2E What Would You Want from PF2?

Jester David · Apr 18, 2019

the Jester said:
My recollection is that it was sold on the premise that a lot of gamers want to keep using 3e, so let's keep it in print with a new coat of paint.

That tracks with several of Bulhman’s interviews on Know Direction. They favoured backwards compatibility whenever possible.
The Pathfinder RPG wasn’t published so much to “fix” the rules as provide an in-print game system for their adventures. The APs were initially the priority. (But that kinda faded away as the ruleset took off.)

doctorbadwolf · Apr 18, 2019

CapnZapp said:
Thank you. Excerpts from your post make for a brilliant illustration of my points!

Unfortunately it appears as if Paizo is designing the complete opposite of that... :-/

Yeah, and an even more accelerated math treadmill, IIRC, compared to 4e. And the treadmill was one of the things about 4e that bothered me. Mostly because the math ended up being wrong, and they had the gall to introduce feats to fix it, instead of just fixing it, but the steady inflation of all the numbers is just...lame?

I wouldn’t go back to playing a dnd that has different BaB tracks, or a hundred different types of bonuses that all stack, etc. I just was a game with simple math, and a lot of abilities. If I had the time and it was OGL so I could share my work with a wider audience, I’d gut the 4e math and replace it with something like 5e’s, replace most bonuses with “reroll but take the second result no matter what” and “reroll and take the better”, with the occasional “reroll any result lower than X until the die is X or higher”, and these benefits would never stack with themselves. The two flat rerolls wouldn’t stack(two sources of the lesser benefit would just give you the greater benefit instead), but the die result floor mechanic would. That would be the entire system of situation bonuses. Any penalty would just be 5e disadvantage. Maybe a “reroll natural 20s, taking the second result” you can impose with some powers.

The goal would be math that is quick and easy to check, with no loss in depth of character building choices. Then I’d see about making powers work more like 5e spell slots, except you can use X Heroic Powers, Y Paragon Powers, and Z Epic powers, in a given encounter or day.

There are other tweaks, but that describes the basic shape of a dnd I want to see. I’m tired of complexity of distinct options and tactical choices always being paired with unecessarily intrusive math.

Staffan said:
Speaking of which, I was really stunned by the encounter building guidelines and XP rewards in the PF2 playtest. Essentially, they went back to 3e by having XP rewards depending on the difference between party level and monster level (so a monster one level below the party is worth 30 XP) while still having XP-based encounter budgets. I get why they did it that way (because they wanted a fixed amount of XP to level up), but it still feels like an unnecessary step in encounter building.

Taliar · Apr 18, 2019

The ability to easily convert my older Pathfinder adventure paths...

CapnZapp · Apr 19, 2019

Jester David said:
Resonance was mostly to stop people dropping 750gp every adventure for a wand of cure light wounds that is applied after every battle. And to stop mid to high level parties from buying a dozen small, low-power but useful magic items.

This is painful to watch from a 5E angle since you know that the obvious solution is to simply not have wands of CLW.

My high-level players obviously have enough money to buy lots of low-level items.

But 5E is so well designed there is few things to abuse. Almost everything you really want as a high-level character is attunement. Potions are examples of exceptions, since obviating Concentration remains useful even for low-level effects.

CapnZapp · Apr 19, 2019

Jester David said:
That tracks with several of Bulhman’s interviews on Know Direction. They favoured backwards compatibility whenever possible.

Except it still changed a thousand little things.

Just like 3.5 vs 3.0

Compared to how 5E really changes 3E it all feels like uselessly faffing about with the details while completely missing the larger picture...

Green Onceler · Apr 19, 2019

CapnZapp said:
The existence of 5E marks a watershed in the hobby. There is a before and an after regarding LFQW and NPCs, and I don't think D&D gamers will stand for a game that doesn't offer the 5E baseline.

You seem pretty sold on the idea of 5e being some kind of gaming panacea that all companies are obliged to mimic going forward. Perhaps you should stay in the D&D forum and begin agitating for 5.5e, rather than insisting other game companies adopt WotC's mechanics?

Morrus · Apr 19, 2019

Man, I can only see about half the posts in this thread. Somebody I’ve blocked must be really invested in it! I won’t guess who.

Jason Bulmahn · Apr 19, 2019

Hey there all,

While there are too many, and in some cases contradictory, ideas in here for me to address directly, I felt like it might be useful to point out a few things about where we are at and the process that got us here.

- A couple of folks have brought up issues that arose during the playtest, calling them deal breakers, I think of almost all the ones mentioned, they have been addressed in the final version. After all, we used the playtest to look at some pretty radical departures from 1st ed, and while some of those we kept, others were discarded. That is why we playtest.

- Folks are right to identify the tricky spot we are in as a game in the current market and we went into this with our eyes wide open.

- Too that end, we looked to our core strengths as a game engine when making the final version of 2nd ed, while also trying to smooth out the rough spots. We want to make sure that you can use 2nd to tell the same stories that we told in 1st, but we want a game that is smoother to run and easier to learn. A lot of that comes from finding better ways to manage characters (smoother, intuitive leveling) and lightening the load on GMs (easy monster and NPC design, robust encounter building tools), but we also wanted to make sure that the game has a deep amount of customization. Some of this came to light in the playtest, but it did not get the level of polish I wanted until the final version. I am very happy with where we are right now.

I look forward to folks getting a chance to take a closer look at the game to see if we lived up to our goals as we get closer to release. Until then, you can watch us play the game and judge for yourself.

Jester David · Apr 20, 2019

I’ll probably check out the PDF for review purposes and will cross my fingers that the game is something I want to play.

It would have been doable to tweak the rules between the playtest.

Removing magic items from the math is a big one. Letting magic items be a bonus. As would pulling back the assumed crafting and prevelance of magic item shops, so people have an excuse to keep rate items and non-standard rewards (like keeps and boats). And so the game doesn’t have to invent new currencies and minigames to handle the maintinence of those.

Pulling back the bonuses should be easy. Rather than adding your level to checks it could be 1/2 level, or even 1/4 of your level. Adding 1/4 of your level plus training and ability scores still gives a nice difference between low and high level. But doesn’t quite get to the ridiculousness of 1d20+20 to checks at mid levels. And you don’t get the silliness of a level 5 barbarian being “smarter” than a level 1 wizard.

I’d like to see assumed builds. Basically assumed default paths for characters. So people who dislike character building (aka homework before playing) can just sit down and roll dice. But with options that you can swap out for different options.

But hopefully still less than what Pathfinder 1 could have with archetypes and feats and talents. Because that level of option creep just shatters balance.
Even if each option only alters your character’s balance by +/-0.25%, if there is a choice each level then by level 10 an optimized character is 2% more powerful than the baseline, and 5% more powerful than an inoptimal character.
(I had a player in my PF1 game who could solo encounters. That’s just problematic for everyone. In the final module of that AP I had to have the final three encounters pretty much go off all at the same time to challenge the party.)

Some focus on story manipulation and plot points would be lovely as well. Most modern games with systems created this decade have some roleplaying mechanic. 5e’s inspiration, Star Trek’s Momentum, FATE’s Fate Points, Star Wars’ Force Points, Doctor Who’s plot points, etc. Heck, arguably Resolve in Strafinder could be houserules to work in that capacity. Plus the drama of aspects in 13th Age and Duty/Obligation in Star Wars.
Some way of letting the players tweak the plot or play with the odds. And potentially a reward for roleplaying.

Zardnaar · Apr 20, 2019

Jason thanks for the reply. I just want to see wands of clw gone that's a big one. As late as 2014 I played in a group that didn't use them, it's not like these a big sign in the PFRPG book saying to use them.