Pathfinder 2E PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

[Retreater]

Is a level of familiarity really required though? While its presentation doesn’t do it any favors, PF2 isn’t really doing anything substantially different from other D&D-likes. Anyway, having tried to run a few APs without success, it seems like you now know what doesn’t work for your style.

Not that I’m saying to give PF2 a third try using your own material. I’m very sympathetic towards running the game you want to run, having made that transition myself.

Yeah, I think so. I would also be better about designing adventures than I would've been before running Age of Ashes and Abomination Vaults.

Here are a couple things I learned, that aren't really taught by the CRB (esp. if you're accustomed to 3.x/PF/5e design).
1) Severe encounters are really severe. Even with good play, you can lose a character. Deadly encounters are TPK territory, easily.
2) Attrition encounters don't work, because mundane healing is so easy to come by and limitless (not true in any D&D adjacent game - even 4e). PF2 is better suited to a handful of big encounters a day - but even, then, see Point #1.

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.

Yeah, there are certainly bells and whistles I don't care about: animated battlemaps, spell effects, soundtracks, etc.

I had a nightmare moment when there was a unique creature I failed to automate in my Abomination Vaults campaign. He had comparatively high level spells (some of which were unique to that encounter), ridiculously high DCs, fast healing, resistances, several methods of dealing stacking persistent damage and bestowing a variety of conditions on the party. This was one side encounter in a 4th level adventure - and it just so happened to be the encounter that solidified the group's abandonment of the campaign and system.

This was a single creature that could do all THAT. He was easily as complex as a party member of the same level, probably moreso. Now imagine running 2-3 enemies like that, tracking HP, regeneration, spell slots, status effects, different initiative for each of them (because you have to do that, or you break the game, as I was told when I failed at running Age of Ashes).

I reiterate: this is a low level fight - a novice encounter, designed for beginning players and new GMs. I guess I'm not smart enough to run PF2 without automation.

 

[dave2008]

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).

Interesting. It seems to me you fundamentally don't understand some things about skills, ASIs, and feats in 5e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, there are certainly bells and whistles I don't care about: animated battlemaps, spell effects, soundtracks, etc.

It goes even beyond that though; a lot of people clearly expect a VTT to automate some elements of resolution, but no one asks why that's mandatory there, but you can do otherwise face to face.

I mean, I get some issues; having a die roller utility built in can at least be really desirable when playing with strangers, or for people who really like to see the die rolls as GMs.

But, while convenient, why does the VTT have to track hit points, monitor conditions, and all that? We get by fine without it face to face. But some people seem to take it as a given the VTT will do that or its unusable.

I had a nightmare moment when there was a unique creature I failed to automate in my Abomination Vaults campaign. He had comparatively high level spells (some of which were unique to that encounter), ridiculously high DCs, fast healing, resistances, several methods of dealing stacking persistent damage and bestowing a variety of conditions on the party. This was one side encounter in a 4th level adventure - and it just so happened to be the encounter that solidified the group's abandonment of the campaign and system.

This was a single creature that could do all THAT. He was easily as complex as a party member of the same level, probably moreso. Now imagine running 2-3 enemies like that, tracking HP, regeneration, spell slots, status effects, different initiative for each of them (because you have to do that, or you break the game, as I was told when I failed at running Age of Ashes).

Can I be a little blunt here?

Compared to running high level encounters in D&D 3e or some other games I can think of, that's easy. That doesn't mean it can't be more than you want to deal with (and the tendency for all D&D derived games to make every damn thing a special case is one of the things that helped develop my dislike of exception based design--people talk about how hard Hero is to run, but once you understand how the major effects operate, you've learned what you'll need to bookkeep every encounter ever, something I can't say with even some relatively simple D&D-sphere games) but again, no harder than it would be face to face, and I've run worse.

I reiterate: this is a low level fight - a novice encounter, designed for beginning players and new GMs. I guess I'm not smart enough to run PF2 without automation.

Or, more likely, don't have a good system for managing the bookkeeping to do so. Which, again, is legit, but I've seen this sort of objection from people to specifically VTT usage of games without baked in support, who would cheerfully run them fact to face, and that makes no sense to me.

 

[ruemere]

Here's to the hope that Paizo shall release PF2 Essentials [1], a hundred page corebook with streamlined content [2], single-page character sheets [3] and experience pared to stuff that advance the narrative instead of bogging it down [4].

[1] Thinking about Exalted, not 4E.
[2] No page flipping required during character creation. Read it while you make it.
[3] Self-explanatory, even wizard players should not need to carry spell books in real life.
[4] For example, turning a simple activity into a series of dice checks works for computer games, not necessarily so for RPGs. There are ways to make a single check mean much more than simple crit/success/fail/fumble scale, have a natural distribution curve as opposed to flat one, and to make one's skill more reliable. Oh, and you can achieve it with d20 - just have a look at Shadow of a Demon Lord with its boon/bane d6s.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Can I be a little blunt here?

Compared to running high level encounters in D&D 3e or some other games I can think of, that's easy.

Is that the right comparison, though? Compared to the edition of D&D from 15 years ago and which even now, is a byword for bloat and needless complexity, it is easy.

It seems that 3e was an outlier 15 years ago, and since then, most systems have gone in a more “rules-light” direction, whether we are talking about the OSR renaissance, Fate, Powered by the Apocalypse, Savage Worlds or even 5e.

I don’t have a lot of experience with CoC or Delta Green, but the few times I played, it was also easier to pick up than PF2.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Is that the right comparison, though? Compared to the edition of D&D from 15 years ago and which even now, is a byword for bloat and needless complexity, it is easy.

It seems that 3e was an outlier 15 years ago, and since then, most systems have gone in a more “rules-light” direction, whether we are talking about the OSR renaissance, Fate, Powered by the Apocalypse, Savage Worlds or even 5e.

I don’t have a lot of experience with CoC or Delta Green, but the few times I played, it was also easier to pick up than PF2.

I wouldn't put 5e in that list, in my experience its every bit as complicated, but with less pay off, you have a point in terms of the other games though-- I think their comparison was trying to drill down to the idea that retreater has experience in those other systems so this should be easier.

Personally anyway, my pf2e game is about as complicated as our 5e game ever was, but you get more for your complexity buck. Most of the 'rules systems' and such are fairly universal and intuitive in practice, so once you wrap your brain around some of it, the rest clicks pretty easy-- the game just likes to codify things so that it can callback to them in character options to give bonuses. I think the ol pathfinder reputation for complexity has a placebo effect, that or people forget how complex 5e actually is sometimes.

 

[Retreater]

Compared to running high level encounters in D&D 3e or some other games I can think of, that's easy.

It's a 4th level encounter. Fourth. Level.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Interesting. It seems to me you fundamentally don't understand some things about skills, ASIs, and feats in 5e.

No, I'm pretty sure I do, I just don't think they work particularly well.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Is that the right comparison, though? Compared to the edition of D&D from 15 years ago and which even now, is a byword for bloat and needless complexity, it is easy.

Well, it can't help but be a good comparison for me, because I'm not someone who has a low tolerance for detail in his mechanics. I really can't help but suggest that if someone does have low tolerance there, yeah, PF2e is not going to be for them and I wouldn't hold my breath were I Ruemere to wait for them to make a version that is.

Also, someone (I thought it was Retreater, but I could be confused) indicated that they'd gone back to a 3e game briefly and found it more to their liking than PF2e, so if that was the case, I think the point is salient (it also look salient, honestly, when compared to PF1e but I don't have personal experience there to be as certain there).

PF2e isn't trying to be a simple game. While its legitimate to want that, the real answer is "You've come to the wrong address". The beginner's box is about as simple as it gets, and that's because its intended to be introductory.

It seems that 3e was an outlier 15 years ago, and since then, most systems have gone in a more “rules-light” direction, whether we are talking about the OSR renaissance, Fate, Powered by the Apocalypse, Savage Worlds or even 5e.

I don’t have a lot of experience with CoC or Delta Green, but the few times I played, it was also easier to pick up than PF2.

It still doesn't follow that simpler is better. Its just different. At most, I think there's some fairness in comparing it to PF1e, and my reading doesn't suggest that 2e is more complicated there; in some ways it looks simpler (the siloing of feats for example).

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's a 4th level encounter. Fourth. Level.

Even by fourth level in 3e you could get cases where you were drowned in feats, special abilities, and spells in 3e. They were outliers, but so is the case you're talking about.