Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2 and support for other playing styles/subgenres

[CapnZapp]

“Rocks fall, you die” isn’t particularly fun if you have absolutely no way of knowing the rocks are coming. That’s why it’s important to make traps interesting.

Actually, that reminded me I have yet another grievance to add to my list. But I'll start a new post since this has nothing to do with you Kenada.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm talking about the fact that many Pathfinder 2 traps do not in any way shape or form explain how heroes find out about them, let alone how they realize what to do to disable them.

For a simple trapdoor, we obviously can see the picture play out. But many PF2 traps are what I'd call abstract game constructs, literally the result of the designer going "what if we require different skills than Perception and Thievery?"

At least, I have not found a better way of telling the player he must roll Religion, say, than... "you must use Religion here", which I find deeply meta (the GM telling the player rather than the GM describing the world so the character understands what must be done) and thus unsatisfying.

Here's my current list of things wrong with PF2. Unfortunately, it never seems to stop growing...

Again, "PF2 isn't going well" is kind of the premise of the thread.

Maybe a better way to phrase the OPs question would be:

Let's assume Paizo decided to do a PF 2.5 - what changes would you make?
(completely sidestepping the "but is it doing poorly?" question)

Myself, I would:

• lighten the restrictions on the core structure of a character. I want a way to increase my character's Fortitude save at the expense of her Will save. Or maybe AC. Or Perception. Instead of just saying "no, you can't do it" make it happen even if you balance it conservatively.
• scrap the current thinking "let's reserve every last little bit of design space for the feats we sell". Having a high level character that still can't crawl reasonably fast, or can't climb and fight at the same time, or can't make decent jumps even though you're Legendary in Athletics... (because you didn't take the feats Quick Crawler, Combat Climber, or Cloud Jumper) It's just so much more natural (intuitive and fun) if these basic improvements come with higher proficiency levels for free. Every hero that's legendary in Acrobatics should be able to pull off cool stunts without having to remember to take a whole slew of obscure low-level feats!
• In fact, the entire "let's turn on the fire-hose spewing feats faster than anyone can play them" idea is deeply unsatisfactory, so each and every feat should be scrutinized: if there are three or five feats doing nearly exactly the same thing, just with minute variations, then combine them into one single feat (so you don't need to remember slightly different rules just because you're playing this class instead of that class). Paizo likes to brag about how they have cleaned up the rules mess that was PF1, but nobody seems to realize PF2 is nearly as bad, with load and LOADS of little niggly rules differences between feats and abilities that should have worked identically because they should all have referenced one and the same thing! First assignment: scrap HALF of the over 2,000 feats that currently exist. (I am absolutely certain the game would be better off if there were just 500 feats - as if that's a low number - but that selection might be actually hard so let's start with something simple like just erasing every other feat...)
• Next item on the agenda: little niggly conditionals. Getting a +1 is too mathy for 5th Edition, but that in itself is okay for Pathfinder 2. But the problem is, there are loads and loads of items and abilities that only give you that +1 on a Saturday, or when you dress in yellow but not in green. Get rid of all the conditionals no sane player will ever bother with. Don't assume the game is played by veritable living computers! Magic items are especially egregious culprits here.
• So let's discuss PF2 magic items. Simply but, they're boring as hell. In fact, they remind me of 4E magic items, and boy, is that not a flattering comparison. I remember when DMing 4E I tried combining two supposedly-awesome items into one, and they were still forgotten by the players. Getting a +1 is noice if you can record it on your character sheet and forget about it. Getting a +1 that only works if you're Expert in this skill, and have taken this specific action just prior, and you can only use it once a day, and then only with this or that restriction...? Hell no, just drop that like a hot turd. Remembering the specific conditions for half a dozen items because they only give their bonus at exactly the right time? Yeah, if that bonus is awesome! For a +1 that likely won't matter in the slightest? No. Just no.
• So the entire roster of magic items in PF2 needs to be deleted, and Paizo needs to bring in a designer of 3E or 5E items where getting the item actually matters. Where players actually care to remember to use them (often because there's nothing to remember, you just get an awesome power or bonus!)
• While you're at it, the idea to keep fundamental runes as items needs to die. It feels wonky as hell. Magic items works best when players are happily surprised when they get 'em. Not when they feel not having them is a curse and getting them is an obligation. Anything the system expects the heroes to have it should give them automatically.
• And while you're at this, the idea to have every desirable item as a trivially transferred rune needs to be restricted to a variant. It's no fun when you continuously see your players strip every cool item you give them for their runes, which they immediately transfer to their existing weapons. I understand that for PFS (tournament play) purposes, this is almost a necessity, but for home campaigns, "free runes" should never have been the default rule. Instead, the wisdom is: don't make abilities that are specific to individual weapons. The 5E devs learned this early in that game's lifespan when they made an UA with feats like "+1 to Hammers" and the response was overwhelmingly negative. Don't force the Fighter to specialize in, "swords" or "polearms"! This only makes it impossible to hand out a magic axe, since the Fighter will not want to use it! If there ever was a character class whose feature should be "can use ALL weapons" it should be the Fighter. And Paizo even markets the class as such, but then immediately shot themselves in the foot by not giving the class "can switch specialization overnight" (until very high level I believe).
• Shields suffer another baffling implementation. It's far from immediately clear, but careful scrutiny reveals you have to choose: either pick a magic shield too frail to actually use (as a shield) or choose a shield sturdy enough to function as a shield (but then this sturdiness will be the shield's only "magical power")... Let me put it like this: if you describe shields with magical abilities as religious icons or amulets instead, fragile items you present to the enemy, everything falls into place as it now makes perfect sense why you need to hold them using one hand but still can't use them to shield you from incoming damage. (This example was intended to make you see how wonky the PF2 shield implementation really is)
• There are several rules subsystems that just are incredibly subpar. Medicine and Earn Income is each super complicated for no reason. (Or rather, they were written by a designer who mistake clutter for quality). Crafting and Recall Knowledge are two subsystems that are just broken-as-frak. (I've written entire threads about these and won't repeat that here) We've already mentioned how restrictive the three-action system is in practical play when you can't just wing it, and everything is locked down by a feat.
• Talismans deserves a special shoutout for being a rules system that actively fill me with rage. Yes, it's uniquely infuriating. It combines the worst tendencies of PF2 rules design in a single package. (No, nobody will ever bother spending that much time and attention on getting a minuscule bonus on a very specific action only once, and that often only to the character in the party that needs the bonus the least...)
• Consumables are horribly overpriced. The intent seems to be "giving one-time bonuses is unbalancing so players should only be given the consumables we place as loot"... and that's exactly the result when playing. You basically never purchase a one-time bonus when you can purchase a permanent upgrade for just four times the price. Healing potions are a joke. Spend two actions and a lot of gold on getting an entirely inadequate amount of healing? Yeah, no. In combat, use a Cleric. Out of combat, use Medicine. This is a perfect example of where it feels like one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. The healing potions feel like they're written up by a designer completely unaware of what the Medicine skill designer is doing.
• Slotted spells are just too weak at low level. (Playing a Wizard becomes truly fun at around level 11...)
• If you routinely need to rest for 30-60 minutes between encounters, the supposedly fun minigame of choosing your ten-minute activities ("should I repair my shield or regain a Focus point") just never becomes relevant since you always go "I'll do all of 'em".
• Cantrips are bewilderingly badly balanced. On one hand you have Electric Arc which deals half damage on a miss and can very often target two people. On the other hand you have a slew of attack spells where you often miss (low level casters are shite at hitting things. And since their cantrips are ranged attacks they can't benefit from extremely vital low-level bonuses like flanking) and do nothing. What were they thinking...?
• That individual classes and abilities can be bad is not something I'll dock the game points for. Every game has that. Still, attack spells and Alchemists deserve a do-over in a Pathfinder 2.5... In fact, in order to polish the spell list here's what I'd do. I'd read the internet guides on spells (Wizard Guide, Cleric Guide and so on) that fans have created for the game. Then I'd list every spell that three guides list as red (the color used for spells everybody agree are useless traps), and upgrade that spell. Instantly you'd easily have 20% more spells to choose from! (I'd do that with orange or purple spells too, the colors commonly used for subpar or special-use spells, but with a little more care obvs)
• I really recommend Paizo to find a replacement for Incapacitation. There are sooo many spells that are just rendered useless for player characters by having Incapacitation. (They're still great for BBEGs!) The tendency to "fix" it by adding spells that have useful outcomes even on a failure is a nuisance, since they make it impossible to just remove Incapacitation. But since this is a new revision of the game, Paizo can pay a designer to come up with a fix that doesn't come across as so incredibly heavy-handed. Basically the game needs to offer - at least as a variant - a way to select "protected" NPCs by narrative needs and not strictly by level or other game stats. (Akin to how in 5E you can elect to make any monster "Legendary" if you wish)
• Paizo really needs to offer official support for people wishing to use the game for traditional games where resource attrition is a thing. That is there should be a variant detailing all the changes you need to make (beginning with nerfing free healing aka Medicine), and maybe doubling everybody's health by calling Hit Points Wounds and adding an equal amount of easily-regained Vitality. (Btw, the current Wounds and Vitality variant in the GMG? Yep, over-engineered and cluttery just as usual...)
• Paizo really needs to recognize the unique difficulties presented to new GMs when it comes to encounter balancing, and specifically rebalancing on the spot. Very much unlike 5th Edition, you simply can't have two groups of monsters unite for safety from the pesky heroes - that's a given TPK in the making. But Paizo so far pretends encounter-building works much like in PF1, which simply is untrue. I find the selection of variant rules deeply unsatisfactory since they don't really allow for playing the game in new (or old) modes. It's all too focused on PFS and AP play.

So there you have it. A long list I know. It should not obscure the truly great things about the game: the three action combat system actually works (as long as you focus on combat and not things like opening doors or fighting on cliff sides...), the quality of monsters and their abilities is far superior to 5E, and... well, that's it, but since combat against monsters is the bread and butter for games in the Gygax family, that's alright.

Zapp

To this we now add:

• Next to zero customizability
• Magical heroes vs Martial monsters
• Abstract traps

 

[Justice and Rule]

I think you are better off making your point in the supplied thread.

I think I'm fine making it here because we're talking in this thread and I don't see the need to necro a thread that is over a year old.

I'm talking about the fact that many Pathfinder 2 traps do not in any way shape or form explain how heroes find out about them, let alone how they realize what to do to disable them.

I mean, that's totally not true. Every Trap either has a Perception DC or a Stealth skill (for which you just add 10 to to find the Perception DC).

For a simple trapdoor, we obviously can see the picture play out. But many PF2 traps are what I'd call abstract game constructs, literally the result of the designer going "what if we require different skills than Perception and Thievery?"

At least, I have not found a better way of telling the player he must roll Religion, say, than... "you must use Religion here", which I find deeply meta (the GM telling the player rather than the GM describing the world so the character understands what must be done) and thus unsatisfying.

This doesn't make any sense when I actually look at Hazards on Archive of Nethys. I'm not sure what the hell you are actually talking about here given that most traps given descriptions and why certain things will work on them versus others. Are you confused by the fact that "Hazards" encompass more than just traps, like hazardous conditions or haunts?

Here's my current list of things wrong with PF2. Unfortunately, it never seems to stop growing...

 

[CapnZapp]

With that level of argumentation, it doesn't matter where you post; I will still ignore you. Shrug

 

[Justice and Rule]

With that level of argumentation, it doesn't matter where you post; I will still ignore you. Shrug

I only play to the level of my competition.

 

[kenada]

I'm talking about the fact that many Pathfinder 2 traps do not in any way shape or form explain how heroes find out about them, let alone how they realize what to do to disable them.

For a simple trapdoor, we obviously can see the picture play out. But many PF2 traps are what I'd call abstract game constructs, literally the result of the designer going "what if we require different skills than Perception and Thievery?"

At least, I have not found a better way of telling the player he must roll Religion, say, than... "you must use Religion here", which I find deeply meta (the GM telling the player rather than the GM describing the world so the character understands what must be done) and thus unsatisfying.

Here's my current list of things wrong with PF2. Unfortunately, it never seems to stop growing...


To this we now add:

• Next to zero customizability
• Magical heroes vs Martial monsters
• Abstract traps

I sounds like you’re talking about haunts, and I agree. I haven’t liked haunts in any edition of Pathfinder. I suppose they’re slightly less bad in PF2 in that you’re not expected to channel positive energy into them (because obviously everyone knows that you can cast cure light wounds on things to neutralize them), but they’re still pretty bad. The sample haunts in the GMG are so prescriptive of how you go about dealing with them, and the disable procedures sometimes don’t make sense. It’s egregiously game-y.

Take Plummeting Doom. It’s a haunt that tries to fling PCs off a cliff. You can disable it by not being thrown off the cliff so hard that you scare it. Wot. However, it attacks your Fortitude DC, so you have to understand what is happening and opt to make an Athletics check. I’d love to see how this is expected to play out at the table. Do we switch to video game mode? Boop beep, I’m going to fling your PCs off the cliff. Succeed at the QTE to avoid having your sheets ripped up! (Athletics flashes, Tim fails his check, and he gets flung into the abyss.)

 

[CapnZapp]

The sample haunts in the GMG are so prescriptive of how you go about dealing with them, and the disable procedures sometimes don’t make sense. It’s egregiously game-y.

Thank you

(I did not know this subcategory of hazards existed before PF2)

 

[Justice and Rule]

I sounds like you’re talking about haunts, and I agree. I haven’t liked haunts in any edition of Pathfinder. I suppose they’re slightly less bad in PF2 in that you’re not expected to channel positive energy into them (because obviously everyone knows that you can cast cure light wounds on things to neutralize them), but they’re still pretty bad. The sample haunts in the GMG are so prescriptive of how you go about dealing with them, and the disable procedures sometimes don’t make sense. It’s egregiously game-y.

Take Plummeting Doom. It’s a haunt that tries to fling PCs off a cliff. You can disable it by not being thrown off the cliff so hard that you scare it. Wot. However, it attacks your Fortitude DC, so you have to understand what is happening and opt to make an Athletics check. I’d love to see how this is expected to play out at the table. Do we switch to video game mode? Boop beep, I’m going to fling your PCs off the cliff. Succeed at the QTE to avoid having your sheets ripped up! (Athletics flashes, Tim fails his check, and he gets flung into the abyss.)

So we're not actually talking about all hazards, but a sub-genre of hazards geared towards the spectral and spiritual? Because that is not exactly what was being sold. As it stands, I like the Haunts that use Religion for an exorcism or Diplomacy to talk the spirit down, but there are some bad ones (I would have gone with Confounding Betrayal myself).

 

[Zardnaar]

Pathfinder 2 existing seems to offend you lol.

 

[JmanTheDM]

confounding betrayal is a strange one . but I like the experimentation in the design space this type of hazard exposes. I created a new hazard for a boss fight in The Slithering (to make it harder. yeah! that's right! I'm that guy!), and without the examples given in the CRB and the GMG, including the tables to build my own - I don't think I would've had the confidence to simply create something from scratch. I've really latched onto the whole notion that hazards can and should be used as a kind of Lair action, thus having non-deadly hazards and hazards that are kinda there to make things more difficult in other ways (and requiring more diverse skills to disable/overcome) really resonates with me

I totally approve trying to come up with innovative ways to use other skills or abilities in challenges like hazards. though admittedly, some may suffer from feeling forced in their use of different skills. you win some, you lose some, but that doesn't mean the systems itself is fundamentally broken

Cheers,

J.