Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: Actual Play Experience

[Xenonnonex]

Yeah I'm a DM coming from 5e. In an effort to keep interest with my players, I switched systems to 2E.

What are your actual experiences in running the game?
I guess we have 8 sessions under our belt now. We adopted the remnants of a 5E campaign where the party TPK'd so that the players could continue the story with fresh level 1 adventurers with the plot hook that they were uncovering what happened to the advanced level'd TPK party.

What works for you in practice and why?
It's been said to death so I wont' elaborate further, but the three action economy is a godsend both for my players engagement and for my own interest in running the monsters.

Speaking of which, I really dig all the neat little abilities they give monsters in the manual. So far my favorite are the goblins and their assorted pals (like Goblin dogs). The abilities are fun and fluffy and constantly surprise the players in ways they're not used to.

Feats are huge. While I really dug (and still do dig) 5e's approach to theatrical combat, in practice people would be paralyzed by options and just attack or cantrip. Feats give things narrative flair that don't overheat my player's braincells in trying to come up with "cool attack variation a" and combat is already highly varied by level 3 with all the different abilities players switch between depending on the situation.

I really like how things are broken down into exploration activities: even though all of those options are available in other rpgs, somehow codifying it makes it easier on my players.

Experience: it's great that we know how much is needed for next level without looking up some table. Monsters/traps giving scaling xp based on threat makes sense.

Shields: my fighter players LOVE how shields take damage. As a DM, I'm not exactly sure how useful it is, but thematically its great! I would be willing to bet this depends highly on how useful your players think the Shield Block reaction is.

NotEveryoneGetsOpportunity: My players keep guessing which monsters have it, which is great fun as a DM, and my fighters like that they have something special others have to feat for. I also dig that there are different types, which is especially fun for the players. The amount of "high fives" on the table has been increasing.

Character Construction: I really liked how easy and fast it was to create a character, though I have some complaints on that below. What really sped things up was that the "boost" system made getting stats a snap. It feels fun to use to go through and, were it not for the deluge of feats, I'm sure my players would quickly roll up new characters.

Numbers: I like that we have more than just "advantage/disadvantage" but at the same time...... see below.

Three action economy: crap I mentioned that already didn't I?

Three action economy: Seriously though, I'm stealing this if we ever go back to 5e.

Something else I'm stealing for 5e:
Doing initiative based upon the skill that brought about combat. In practice, this is almost always stealth, perception, or diplomacy, but it's great that players are rolling on the ability that initiated combat!

Weapons: It's a pain to get used to their special abilities, but once you do, it's fun as hell. The thematic flair of a glaive actually having its own niche is great. All my martials, and even my wizards & friends, use different weapons and love them. That's awesome.

TLR I like a lot of things, but my players like things more.

If something isn't working for you in practice, why is that?

This might be more due to my transition from 5e, but I could swear the spell list is even more confusing than 5e's and harder to reference.

Modifiers: stacking -2 modifiers is hard to keep track of. As a DM, I have to enforce it since my players will conveniently forget when they're flat footed but will never fail to remind me that a monster is. Add on various things like "sickened" or disarmed and it becomes a nightmare to keep track of everything. I guess I could use tokens and the condition cards though... wait, did they make it like this to sell me more stuff? (Players dig it so long as I do the work).

Feats: Yeah yeah yeah, my players love this and I love that they have so much choice, but I have to look things up constantly because players often times mix things up with 5e feats or don't read things correctly. Probably solvable if you can force your players to write down their feats verbatim, but good luck with that.

Lack of Legendary Monsters/Layer Actions: I get that Pathfinder monsters have more actions on the aggregate, but I really dug how a 5e Dragon affected the very terrain it occupied in a gameplay manner.

Character Construction: Just like my players are paralyzed by choice in 5e action to the point where they just end up attacking, my players take forever to make new characters. I have the type of player who doesn't read the rules outside of the game so every new PK is at least a two hour wait while the player creates a new character. It's the fact that feats are in ancestries, skills, general, and classes. There are so many, which is awesome, but my players will NOT read that stuff outside of gametime so it's a huge time sink.

I also have some "dang this was great in 5e why isn't it here?" wishes in terms of skills. Specifically persuasion (is that just diplomacy?) and insight (is that society?).

Also, are you coming to PF2E from PF1E or 5e?
We're coming from 5e.

If so, what have you noticed are the major differences in actual play between the games?

three action economy I know I know, but seriously this is thing my players applaud most about the entire system. Players have more interesting turns, they still go quickly, and it feels like they're making real choices. I know I am with the monsters at least.

fighters and friends: wizards act like support and my martials, of which I have three out of six, feel more engaged. Their turn is never just "attack three times." It's "attack into exacting strike with my glaive oh man I hit again that's more damage!" and the table goes wild.

wizards are significantly less powerful: I'm not sure if this is a positive or a negative and my guys are still level 5. I do like that martials get a lot more spotlight.

magic items: I've caught myself giving out more magic items since there is a table with suggestions how many I should give at which levels. I've noticed that D&D official adventures tend to have next to none while I've heard that Paizo official adventures tend to have tons. Not sure how I feel about this, but my players seem to like it.

This is an important question: are you completely new to D&D style games?
No, we picked up D&D with 5e about a year and a half ago due to critical role. I wouldn't say I'm a veteran, but I'm definitely not new anymore. We've done Phandelver, Dragon Horde, Strahd, and Dragon Heist.

As an addendum, my players are deadset on making a permanent switch to Pathfinder, but honestly I want to see what Paizo adventure paths are like before I commit myself. We're diving into Rise of the Runelords converted into 2e. TBH this looks really promising, but the D&D official stuff has been phenomenal so we'll see.

Good and detailed playtest report. Cheers bruv.
Your players seem really deadset on moving to PF2 but you do not seem as keen. Why might that be?

 

[Nilbog]

So seven sessions into the PF2 campaign now. It started as what was meant to be a couple of sessions for playtesting and the players liked it that much that they've nagged me to continue. We are experienced gamers, our group has been together for over 20 years and we've been played lots of different systems, since its release 5e has been our go to system

Campaign Synopsis
Its a bit all over the place at the moment, as it wasn't originally meant to be a full blown campaign, but its evolved into a sandbox of sorts, the overview is that the group were in Skelt as the whispering tyrant rose again, and they were tasked with taking an artefact to a scholar on the island of Hermea, on the way their ship was attacked and sunk by a Kraken, they awoke on a mysterious lost island and have to fin and retrieve the item and somehow get home. Its basically a riff of the land that time forgot/isle of dread theme

The Group (all 2nd level now)
Archibald: Gnome Divine Sorcerer
Jorek: Dwarven Cleric
Joel: Human Barbarian
Bodil: Dwarven Fighter
Sam: Human Wizard
Thomas: Halfling Rogue

Sessions
They've been quite combat heavy so far, as originally i want to put the system through its paces, they've had encounters with zombies, Dinosaurs, Terror Birds, Mephits and killer plants, as we've decided to progress as a campaign, I'm going to lean more into the exploration/downtime activities.

The Good
Character creation, very intuitive and it feels less locked in than 5e, this maybe just perception, but the group agreed that they could make the characters they envisioned easier in PF2 than 5e, and that the choices were reflected at the table (not that they thought 5e was bad, just they had to do a bit more reskinning)

Three actions: amazing, allows for a lot more cinematic style actions without having to fiddle with things, we love it.

Character balance: early days but so far none of the characters has outshone any of the others on a consistent basis

Rules: also see bad below, but generally we've found they make common sense and when we have had to houserule, we've found that we are also bang on the official ruling.

Options: The players feel like that have a lot more choice both in character an in actions. 4e they had a lot of mechanical choice but it seemed to restrict improvisation, the players would only use what was on the character sheet, 5e was totally different they improvised a lot, but the end results mechanically weren't very different, PF2 so far hits the sweet spot

The Bad

Limited monster shelf life: I loved in 5e that lower level monsters were still meaningful, the range in PF2 isn't as broad, its a different play style for sure

Fiddly: a lot of modifiers and conditions, and can be quite easy to forget them or lose track of them. advantage/disadvantage was simple and elegant.

Rules: most of the relevant rules are covered, its just a lot of them seem to need a lot of cross referencing and page jumping to get to the desired result

Solo Monsters: I think this has been a problem in lots of editions but PF2 has taken a step back in comparison to 5e. Its very much just throw a high level monster at the group, which I found hasn't worked well (one was almost a TPK, the other a cakewalk) I really liked lair/legendary actions, so much so I think I'm going to add them into PF2 to try and make boss/solo encounters more interesting

Overall
A- its a great system, that fits our group very well so far, it has a few wrinkles that I hope well be ironed out over time

 

[Campbell]

@Tony Vargas

Exploration mode is essentially a modern more gamified version of the 10 minute turn for dungeon exploration in classic versions of Dungeons and Dragons. The game has a number of defined activities that have the Exploration tag which means they cannot be used in encounter mode. These have a cost in terms of minutes.

Most of these take 10 minutes which is the basic unit of time most of time in exploration mode. Examples include Treat Wounds use of Medicine, Refocus which allows you to regain a focus point to power your focus spells, Repairing a shield, etc. Some can take a shorter amount of time like Diplomacy's Make An Impression to adjust NPC attitude which requires a minute of conversation. Some can take much longer like Medicine's Treat Disease which requires 8 hours of care.

There are a specific set of mutually exclusive defined activities meant to be used while on exploring, which basically means on the move. This includes searching, avoiding notice, scouting which grants an initiative bonus if an encounter occurs, being on the defensive which means you automatically have your shield raised if an encounter occurs, investigating which allows you to use recall knowledge against anything you see along the way with a specific skill, and follow the expert which allows you to do the same activity as someone else but benefit from their expertise. These all affect the rate at which you can move through your environment

You can still use encounter mode activities in exploration mode and there is a lot of guidance on how to improvise things that are not covered. So far exploration mode feels really fluid in play. Often we set up standard activities for each character while on the move.

The last Pathfinder Society game I was in our fighter was the trap finder and medic. Our rogue mostly skulked about. My Barbarian often used Investigate since he was trained in Arcana and Society. Our Wizard also skulked about. The Druid retained a defensive posture. We changed things out from time to time as well. These activities being mutually exclusive and having an impact on moving and the advantages that transfer to encounter mode mean things still feel relatively tense outside of encounters.

So far this is my personal favorite part of Pathfinder Second Edition. It is a seriously good dungeon crawler. The amount of focus and attention paid to noncombat activities is huge in this game. This is one of the many areas where it takes a feature of classic Dungeons and Dragons and makes it more accessible to the modern audience.

 

[CapnZapp]

Spoiler: Wrapping this after seeing mod post

That is of no relevance, since it is still a D&D Wizard. You can't just keep throwing out 4e because it's inconvenient to your "5e was the first edition to fix everything" narrative that you are trying to construct.

5e retains LFQW, and people who actually knows what the term "LFQW" means have explained this to you before numerous times in the past.

Playing a 4E Wizard doesn't feel like playing a D&D Wizard, and so that "solution" is useless to me and, I suspect, to most people that liked 3E and likes 5E.

In sharp contrast, 5E manages to retain the 3E feeling of magic yet without the ridiculous balance issues.

Nobody is interested in your dictionary definitions, Aldarc. If LFQW is a crippling weakness of 3E but not in 5E, I will keep saying it is fixed, no matter how you try to twist it

On topic, I can see why "high level" isn't the same as "solo". (You don't want the BBEG to be unhittable and crit you every so often; you want the BBEG to retain the action economy and values of a regular group of monsters)

My continued playtesting has come across a potential area of confusion: sneaking past sentries and the transition between exploration and encounter.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

I think it's great people are playing so much PF2 that they have so many actual play reports to tell people about in this thread!

Oh wait...

Yep. Right there with you.

 

[GrahamWills]

(questions on my experiences)

My thread-fu is not strong, so I'll try to summarize my statement and your questions and address them; hopefully I'll be accurate:

How much is there to 'exploration mode?' Is it a structure or mechanic that engages the whole party? A shortcut to move you through to the next 'scene?'

Exploration mode is essentially a modern more gamified version of the 10 minute turn for dungeon exploration in classic versions of Dungeons and Dragons ... The amount of focus and attention paid to noncombat activities is huge in this game

No need for me to reply -- I agree with Campbell's explanation. It isn't a revolutionary system, but it's well done and functions unobtrusively and effectively. When we played it, it functioned like a set of "default assumptions" about how a character was exploring. In fact, based on being flat on back a couple of times last adventure, I'm going to let the druid do the magic detection in combat and I'll have my shield raised from now on ...


Leveling from 1 to 2 was way easier than character creation. All five of did it in 15 mins between two encounters sharing 3 books. Honestly, initial character creation is the most fiddly part of the game, throwing all kinds of terms you have to work out and requiring much look up . Second level was so much easier...
So, at 2nd, does everyone just get a feat and decide what to do with it? Or does each class get something of their own at that level, too?

You get some automatic increases just like in most editions, not specific to your class, then you get two feats -- a skill feat (can do something fun with a skill) and a class feat (can do something ... ok you can guess).

Skill feats at level 2 are not game-changing; you essentially Get a bit better at something, but because you have yet to become expert or master at any skill, you really can't do anything very special. I took: Repair (you take 1 minute to repair an item instead of 10 minutes). Not terribly sure I'll use it often, but it fits my character concept. Another choice might be "assurance" -- with a designated skill you an take a fixed result rather than rolling dice. Nice when you really, really don't want to screw up, but again, not game-changing.

Class feats are more variable. I actually took a multi class feat:

Sorcerer Dedication:​

Choose a bloodline. You become trained in the bloodline’s two skills; for each of these skills in which you were already trained, you become trained in a skill of your choice.​

​

You cast spells like a sorcerer. You gain access to the Cast a Spell activity. You gain a spell repertoire with two common cantrips from the spell list associated with your bloodline, or any other cantrips you learn or discover. You’re trained in spell attack rolls and spell DCs for your tradition’s spells. Your key spellcasting ability for sorcerer archetype spells is Charisma, and they are sorcerer spells of your bloodline’s tradition. You don’t gain any other abilities from your choice of bloodline.​

​

Special: You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the sorcerer archetype.​

My other choice could have been "turn undead" -- when I damage undead (by healing them) it might also cause them to flee. Or I could just increase my healing dice from d8 to d10.

I've been curious about the impact of an action to use a shield, since I've heard about it. I'd like to hear more about how this works out for you.

In traditional D&D a shield is a device that uses up an arm and adds armor class to you. It's not something you really think about apart from when you build your character. In D&D4E, which I played extensively, shields were mostly useful for their magic effects, plus you could take some fun feats to, for example, add their shield defense to you will defense or shield nearby allies -- that sort of thing. You might use its power daily at best. It felt ... OK, but I think it shared a slot with arm items, so it wasn't really that much different from previous versions.

In PF2, a shield is something you have to think about every round. This is both good and bad. The game is about choices, after all, so if it's a fun choice as to whether you raise it or not, that's a good thing. The big question that I cannot answer easily is: how often is worth spending an action to raise a shield? In general I'd like the answer to be "quite often" but in practice it feels more like "occasionally"

This is my extremely limited perspective, so I'd like to see other's opinions: If it causes me to lose my second attack, it doesn't seem worth it against an average foe. A +2 bonus means I will get hit 10% less time, and I can subtract off damage even if I am hit. That is really good. But if I can hit on a 16+ (which is quite often) and do ~10 damage, it feels like that is a better option. So I've been tending to use it only instead of a third action. But I rarely have that third action! I'm often moving in the round, or casting a heal spell. Even if I start face to face with an enemy, with three full actions, it's tempting to cast True Strike to get two rolls for my second attack.

My gut feeling says that because I'm playing a cleric / sorcerer who likes to self-buff in melee, I'm not exactly the poster child for a shield user. As a straight up fighter, maybe it would be more likely -- which makes sense. Or maybe if I was a zap-cleric I'd spend two actions on a ranged attack and then raise my shield. At this point, I just am not sure.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

I am addressing his post. You are trying to make it a comparison.

Have you played a wizard or other caster in PF2? In my experience with the wizard my spells do not deal enough damage. And my buffs do not last long enough. I do like my cantrips I get though. One of the strongest ways to play a caster in PF2 is to play it as a martial.
Others have posted their experiences with other casters.

This is why I started this whole thread. Actual play experience will trump spurious hypotheses and heated, non-constructive debate.

At the risk of adding fuel to the fire, having DMed AD&D2E, 3.0, 3.5 and 5e, I can say my experience is that 5e has done the best job of reigning in full spellcasters so as to not overshadow martial characters but still keeping them fun to play. Can't speak to AD&D1e. PF1E was so close to 3.5 in full caster power that I lump those two together.

More actual play experience please!

 

[Tony Vargas]

At the risk of adding fuel to the fire

S'long as you realize what yer doin' … it's your thread, if you don't mind encouraging the digressions, I don't mind digressing....

having DMed AD&D2E, 3.0, 3.5 and 5e, I can say my experience is that 5e has done the best job of reigning in full spellcasters so as to not overshadow martial characters but still keeping them fun to play.PF1E was so close to 3.5 in full caster power that I lump those two together.

3.x casters were, of course, notoriously far beyond the pale, Tier 1 v Tier 5, and all. 2e AD&D, not really a whole lot better, though it did give fighters an easy/obvious optimization path to very high DPR that put them on about the same footing relative to casters as 5e does, but, add in skills, and credit martial types with their 5e Backgrounds' perks, and it's not an unreasonable conclusion.

Can't speak to AD&D1e.

Happily, I can, having played AD&D from 1980 on and run it extensively, including a 1e-2e bridging campaign that went 10 years and 14 levels.
1e made life harder on everyone, relative to later editions, but arguably, especially at low level /even/ harder on casters in general and the magic-user, in particular, which was meant to (but never really did) 'balance,' the overwhelming dominance of casters at higher levels. It also was more, I guess 'enthusiastic' about fighter-facing magic items and weighted treasure tables to drop a lot of 'em, also in an attempt to keep them relevant at higher levels.
You also obviously can't speak to 4e, which actually /did/ bring casters & non-casters into rough parity - close enough that, though casters still clearly had the edge, they didn't generally overshadow non-casters (and when they arguably did, it was outside of exp-worthy scenes, like encounters & skill challenges).
Whether being able to consistently overshadow the next PC is required for casters to still be fun to play, notwithstanding.

 

[Xenonnonex]

S'long as you realize what yer doin' … it's your thread, if you don't mind encouraging the digressions, I don't mind digressing.... 3.x casters were, of course, notoriously far beyond the pale, Tier 1 v Tier 5, and all. 2e AD&D, not really a whole lot better, though it did give fighters an easy/obvious optimization path to very high DPR that put them on about the same footing relative to casters as 5e does, but, add in skills, and credit martial types with their 5e Backgrounds' perks, and it's not an implausible conclusion on your part. OK, still a tad implausible, unless "but still keeping them fun to play" just means "actually overshadow martial characters quite a bit, since that's the only way they can be fun to play." ;P

Happily, I can, having played AD&D from 1980 on and run it extensively, including a 1e-2e bridging campaign that went 10 years and 14 levels.
1e made life harder on everyone, relative to later editions, but arguably, especially at low level /even/ harder on casters in general and the magic-user, in particular, which was meant to (but never really did) 'balance,' the overwhelming dominance of casters at higher levels.
You also obviously can't speak to 4e, which actually /did/ bring casters & non-casters into rough parity - close enough that, though casters still clearly had the edge, they didn't generally overshadow non-casters (and when they arguably did, it was outside of exp-worthy scenes, like encounters & skill challenges).
Whether being able to consistently overshadow the next PC is required for casters to still be fun to play, notwithstanding.

This would be better served in another thread.

 

[Campbell]

This would be better served in another thread.

I have created a thread that gets at this issue, but with my own spin that is more oriented towards game play than game balance.