Pathfinder 2E PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

[Philip Benz]

If, for you, APs seem like a staightjacket, that means (IMHO) that you are focusing too much on the railroad, and not enough on the initiatives and goals of the players.

For me, any published material is simply a toolbox that I dip into when setting things up and presenting situations to the players. Then, the adventure inevitably goes "off the rails" and, the railroad be damned, I follow the players' intitiatives off the rails and invent other things on the fly, taking things wherever they may lead.

Now sure, that's more easily said than done. But I always try to focus on a few plotlines of my own, and the mountain of world lore that has built up around the Golarion setting to make interesting and thought-provoking situations on the margin of any published material I may be using.

For instance, I'm currently adapting material from book 4 of Serpent's Skull, a Paizo AP that came out some years ago, in the middle of the PF1 era, to PF2. The AP gives me the bare bones of the groups present in the locale, and some of their motivations and goals, but then I twist it to make something intensely personal and different. This AP is a great toolbox, and my players are always coming up with harebrained ideas that require me, as DM, to think outside the box and move the story foreward, while following the threads the players build, interacting with the situations I've presented them with.

PF2 has a lot going for it in terms of managing out-of-combat situations. But inevitably we get into sticky combat situations, and that works fine too. For those familiar with PF2's Building Encounters system, I avoid +3 or +4-level adversaries like the plague, and serve up a greater number of lesser adversaries instead. Most of the time.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Does anyone run Pathfinder 2E creating their own content aside from me? I find the modules for pF (both 1E and 2E) to generally be tedious affairs. As an example to the OP, if I'm going to sink a few hours into designing NPCs and maps for a VTT, I would rather do my own stuff than tediously translate someone else's work. That said....I am very low impact in VTT, and make sure my players know I have no interest in competing with the GMs who are good at finding time and skill to make elaborate maps with lighting effects; I run it like a narrative story, just like I do at the tabletop, and keep the maps to a necessary minimum.

I'll be honest: there are very few APs in any system that I've ever really wanted to run out of the box besides stuff written for Delta Green. Give me a setting book and I can make up a ton of stuff around it (Helloooooooo Freeport!), but give me a simple adventure and I find myself straining against it. For me I feel like I'm messing up if I'm not keeping them on task, which I hate and makes the whole thing even more of a job. It's just so much easier to let the players figure out what they want to do and then adjust to that, rather than trying to continually nudge them back on track.

Anyway....I've been running PF2E using my own homebrew scenarios and campaign since it came out and quite enjoy it, though I feel its tight focus on balance as well as the eternal "trap" of burning too many actions to get a third attack that will almost certainly sink you with a fumble is a problem in the design. I actually went back to D&D 3.5 for one of my campaigns to contrast it, and find myself enjoying the old Big Dog original more simply because it feels a little more gonzo and liberating than what PF1E and 2E offer.

I mean, isn't the point to not have to do 3 Attacks, but to encourage other stuff?

That said....I also still continue to enjoy D&D 5E a lot, and also prefer how skills are handled in 5E (and 3.5) over PF2E.....so I can't say I am exactly providing a ringing endorsement for PF2E at this point, either.

Oof, I gotta disagree here. 3.X skills are honestly godawful, being fiddly as hell as the distribution of skill points is just never good. Plus the skill list is just terrible.

5E is better in some ways, but worse in others. In 5E there's no point to going outside of your best attributes because it'll take way too long to advance in a way that you aren't outshone by someone who specializes in the attribute, which I call the Ranger/Paladin Dilemma: generally speaking you would expect the Ranger to be better with animals given that the class is meant to be focused on being with nature. However because Charisma is not a stat they use, they'll almost certainly be outshone by your average Paladin in Animal Handling for quite a while because the Paladin is focused on improving their Charisma. The whole thing stifles going out of your lane with skills, to the point that I came up with a system to try and make having the skill more worthwhile than having the stats. Plus while the proficiency modifier is a good idea, attaching it only level growth was a mistake. Also the skill list could be done a whole lot better.

This was one of the huge things that got me into PF2: a solidly done skill list, classes getting important skills off the bat (Oh my god, the 5E Ranger just gets shanked by not having Nature and Survival off the bat), giving everyone Perception via class, and a system that rewards people for investing in skills rather than just attributes. Now you can have someone who isn't great in an attribute but make up for it by being rather skilled at it.

 

[payn]

If, for you, APs seem like a staightjacket, that means (IMHO) that you are focusing too much on the railroad, and not enough on the initiatives and goals of the players.

Agreed. One of the things I love about using the APs is the themes are highlighted in campaign setting books and players guide. My players can pull from that well as much as they want and it will help me focus the AP around their desires. If the players dont care about that, or the GM doesnt pull from any of that, the AP will fall flat.

PF2 has a lot going for it in terms of managing out-of-combat situations. But inevitably we get into sticky combat situations, and that works fine too. For those familiar with PF2's Building Encounters system, I avoid +3 or +4-level adversaries like the plague, and serve up a greater number of lesser adversaries instead. Most of the time.

Also Agree here. I think id enjoy PF2 much more if +3/4 was occasional, instead of expected.

 

[payn]

This was one of the huge things that got me into PF2: a solidly done skill list, classes getting important skills off the bat (Oh my god, the 5E Ranger just gets shanked by not having Nature and Survival off the bat), giving everyone Perception via class, and a system that rewards people for investing in skills rather than just attributes. Now you can have someone who isn't great in an attribute but make up for it by being rather skilled at it.

I didnt like how few skills most classes get in PF2 with exception of the rogue and bard obviously. I also wanted more ability to improve and expand at skills. The feats I thought I would like, but they are not balanced around usefulness. There are some pretty cool concepts in skill feats that are just junk compared to others that are more useful mechanically. Something they didnt need to move forward from 3E/PF1, imo.

 

[JmanTheDM]

Couple of quick comments, as I jump into this thread WAAAAY too late.

1. I just had 1 of my 2 PF2 games implode and end. not due to PF2, per say, but due to the fact that the CRB of PF2 does not do a good enough job describing the "default" play style that is expected out of the rules. I 100% agree that the game can be played using different styles (eg, hex crawls, etc.), but as someone who was GM'ing PF2 for the first time and had never played or ran D&D 3.5 or PF1. I took the CRB's advise to heart that you can "do anything" within the game to literally. I didn't have enough experience to try "advanced mode" PF2, while also learning the rules and the adventures etc. too bad, it was a fun game - and the details are not important here. suffice it to say, if some space was dedicated to describing how organized play and AP's are designed (maybe not explicitly, but in the GM section for example), that would have really helped me calibrate my own game expectations with the rules.

2. reading the CRB, and the sheer levels of prescriptive rules. I was a) awestruck at having guidance like this, b) awestruck at the task of trying to learn it all, c) amused. mostly c. why? because it honestly read to me like many sections of the CRB were written as a FAQ, to address years of edge cases that crop up in organized play, where convention leaders would be summoned to a table with a situation, they would mull it over, and certain ones would repeat each convention and over the years. so, Paizo decided that instead of leaving these ambiguities, they'd address them from the get. to me, these subsystems/rules/complexity makes a kind of sense, because of #1 above - that there is a default mode, which as a total Newb, to me feels catered mostly towards AP subscription sales and organized play support.

3. Hero points were the one area that I house ruled. of the 5 house rules I have added to my game, 3 were around hero points, 1 surprise and initiative and 1 for recall knowledge on monsters. none have broke the game. all were more tweaks than outright replacements. and for the hero points, it pushed the responsibility directly into the hands of the PC's to manage and monitor - which for me - was a win!

I have learned a lot about the 3 different PF2 games I've been a part of (1 as player, 2 as GM), and especially with the implosion. The implosion would not have happened had I played 5e or OSR D&D, and it was not because of bad rules, but more so bad assumptions on the type of game those rules are most suited for.

PF2 remains my most favourite version of D&D, but now I know, like TV shows that make you think vs. those that you can just let wash over you, not ever story in TV is equally well suited for both types of shows.

Cheers,

J.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I didnt like how few skills most classes get in PF2 with exception of the rogue and bard obviously.

Hey, I'm always up for giving players more skills.

But more importantly, I think mechanically the skill system is at its best in PF2 compared to the others. For example, you can learn a skill more easily late in your career (Not having to spend a valuable ASI on a Feat like in 5E, or try to catch up with skill points in 3.X), but also hits a good middle ground where you are actually useful at that point (Which, given how skill points are handled, is not likely in 3.X) but you're not going to completely catch up to those who have invested in that area (Which you can totally do in 5E instantly).

I also wanted more ability to improve and expand at skills. The feats I thought I would like, but they are not balanced around usefulness. There are some pretty cool concepts in skill feats that are just junk compared to others that are more useful mechanically. Something they didnt need to move forward from 3E/PF1, imo.

Yeah, not all skill feats are equal, though I think conceptually they are better than the straight-up bonuses that were in a lot of 3.X feats. There are some fixes that could be made, but I think that the system itself is easily the best out of the d20 systems I've looked at.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is probably why there is so much written about hacking 5e adventures versus comparatively little for PF2. The audience for 5e is huge, so the smart thing to do as a creator is put out 5e stuff.

Yeah. I sometimes sigh tiredly at the number of 5e based games and the like out there, but that doesn't mean I don't understand why they exist; its a lingua franca of for the hobby, like it or not (and I don't much).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The amount of work it takes to put together a VTT game, especially when a system isn’t one of the popular ones with all the work done for you, is one of the reasons why I loath using a VTT. I also thinks it pushes you towards a battlemap-focused style of play or to provide lots of props and feelies. I don’t really have the time or inclination to put together stuff like the fancy landing pages like I saw get shared in the Foundry subreddit.

Well, if you don't like using a battlemap I'm not sure a VTT serves any basic purpose you couldn't do with just a Discord channel. Even for those of us that do like battlemaps, a VTT doesn't have to be onerous though; a lot of that comes form people who expect more automation or more sophisticated presentation than we'd do face to face, which isn't necessary. I've been using Maptool for years now, and other than my obsession with finding the right tokens (which often becomes less and less as a campaign goes on because I've got a decent library for general use), its not harder to put together than a FTF game to me, and can actually be faster during the game (because I can do map prep in advance rather than having to do it on the fly).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hey, I'm always up for giving players more skills.

But more importantly, I think mechanically the skill system is at its best in PF2 compared to the others. For example, you can learn a skill more easily late in your career (Not having to spend a valuable ASI on a Feat like in 5E, or try to catch up with skill points in 3.X), but also hits a good middle ground where you are actually useful at that point (Which, given how skill points are handled, is not likely in 3.X) but you're not going to completely catch up to those who have invested in that area (Which you can totally do in 5E instantly).

I also am a little puzzled by someone feeling PF2e characters are skill-starved; maybe this is a consequences of playing a Fighter and a Champion, when 3e era D&D was notorious stingy with skills for Fighters and Paladins, but I felt I had a pretty reasonable number of skills there (partly, as you say, because picking up one along the way doesn't turn into an exercise in futility). Its possible that could feel that way for things like a Wizard who got a lot of skill points because of Int in earlier versions, but I'm kind of hard pressed to see it with any of the others.

 

[cmad1977]

I think part of my disconnect with PF2 has been the APs. They feel like a straightjacket in a lot of ways (so do some of the 5e mega-campaigns to me too). I do better running my own material that I can tailor to my players' interest in a dynamic, living world. With PF2 I feel it's a new system that relies on balance. My safeguard against messing it up is to use the official adventures, and I don't like straying from the specific tracks placed by the designers because that defeats the point of using them and gives me just another way of messing it up.
I've run successful Call of Cthulhu campaigns, as well as adventures in OSR systems that require a lot of exploration to survive.
The Pathfinder 2E APs that I've seen so far (Age of Ashes and Abomination Vaults) just don't utilize that exploration pillar well enough.

With any AP I’ve learned that they need to used more like sourcebooks than roadmaps.