Pathfinder 2E PF2: Second Attempt Post Mortem

[Retreater]

I expect that once your wife establishes some baseline proficiency with carpentry, her skills will transfer over to new projects. The same is true of RPGs. You’ve run D&D and similar games before. Pathfinder 2e is just another D&D game. Your skills should transfer over. It’s not like it’s a PbtA or FitD game where those skills could get in your way of running the game properly.

Yes, I suppose I can build off my decades of GMing experience to figure out how to write an adventure and run a game using this 600+ page rulebook, but I struggle despite all that experience. I can't imagine how intimidating it would be to a new player or GM.
So I would want to see just a single solid adventure to show me what PF2 should look like in play. I didn't see it with the first two books of Age of Ashes, any of the three Abomination Vaults modules, Plaguestone, or the Slithering (or the other PDFs I got in the Humble Bundles).
Maybe the others will be better? Maybe the Beginner Box fixes the experience? But at this point, I've tried running three adventures with it, which is more of a chance than I'd give any other system. I don't know if the core experience is worth saving (for me).
Which this really is a shame. I loved parts of 4e, just wanted it scaled back a little closer to 3e, and obviously something in print. If they could've simplified PF2, streamlined it a bit, it would probably be my favorite system out there. And I guess that's why I gave it three tries.
I'm sure I could "fix" it - but at that point, we're not even playing PF2 anymore.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's true that high level 3E/PF1 gets wonky in which characters that don't have high ranks in skills will be terribly ineffective. Though, in PF2 I feel that way at 4th level...

Eh. I can see not loving the fumble chance, but a Trained skill is succeeding on a 13 at that level with no attribute behind it. That's probably as good as you're going to get out of that situation given a game that does weigh in attributes.

With D&D3/PF1e might have been a tiny bit better at the bottom, but if fell off pretty fast, to the point where if you actually wanted to use a skill at middle to upper levels at all, you really had to keep throwing skill points at it, and that was awfully damn limited at least for a fighter or paladin.

 

[payn]

Eh. I can see not loving the fumble chance, but a Trained skill is succeeding on a 13 at that level with no attribute behind it. That's probably as good as you're going to get out of that situation given a game that does weigh in attributes.

With D&D3/PF1e might have been a tiny bit better at the bottom, but if fell off pretty fast, to the point where if you actually wanted to use a skill at middle to upper levels at all, you really had to keep throwing skill points at it, and that was awfully damn limited at least for a fighter or paladin.

Not in combat actions like recall knowledge, intimidate, stealth, etc... that 13 wont work.

In 3E you could at least put resources towards being good at a skill. You could get ahead of the curve through investment. In PF2 you have no choice but to keep up, or just give up.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

My experience of the skills situation is that along with monsters, it benefits from taking the time to mentally reset your expectations in regard to how you set level. There are plenty of skillchecks a non-specialist can pass that are considered by the game rules to be viable content for your group, but if your reference point on DCs (or Paizo adventure writer's reference point, I would advocate homebrew anyway but hopefully we see their adventures continue to improve-- Malevolence seemed well tuned to me when I was running it) is level or above, you're more or less stacking the deck against them-- they're functionally 'boss' skill checks in terms of the way systemic math works. So if you do include 'lesser' checks, suddenly your players actual rate of success on checks overall will go up, and the hard ones won't feel so bad.

This dovetails with combat actions as well, its going to be harder to hit the dragon BBEG of the adventure four levels above you with demoralize than to hit the dude on your level, or the guy two levels below, and take it from me, a bunch of guys a level or two below the party still needs to be taken seriously when their exp total is still severe or extreme.

 

[Staffan]

My experience of the skills situation is that along with monsters, it benefits from taking the time to mentally reset your expectations in regard to how you set level. There are plenty of skillchecks a non-specialist can pass that are considered by the game rules to be viable content for your group, but if your reference point on DCs (or Paizo adventure writer's reference point, I would advocate homebrew anyway but hopefully we see their adventures continue to improve-- Malevolence seemed well tuned to me when I was running it) is level or above, you're more or less stacking the deck against them-- they're functionally 'boss' skill checks in terms of the way systemic math works. So if you do include 'lesser' checks, suddenly your players actual rate of success on checks overall will go up, and the hard ones won't feel so bad.

The problem I mainly have is with the "funneling" of skill competency. Take a ranger, for example. A 1st level ranger is trained in 7 skills + Int modifier, plus a lore from their background. Assuming a +1 Int modifier, that's 8 skills, or fully half the skill list, where my skill modifier is in the +3 to +7 range, and an on-level/"mini-boss" skill challenge is DC 15. All in all, I feel reasonably competent. A wall? Yeah, I feel good about climbing it. No rations? I'll hunt for my dinner. A wild animal? I can probably figure out what's going on with it. A guard? I might be able to sneak by them, and I can probably tell by their uniform who they're working for.

Now move up to level 8. At this point I probably have one skill at Expert (+12+stat), one at Master (+14+stat), and the rest at Trained (+10+stat). I figure it's likely that my Expert and Master skills probably use my better stats, so I'm going to assume either a +4 stat or a +3 stat aided by +1 item, so call them +16 and +18. My trained skills are a bit more spread around but likely not a 0, so they're maybe +11 to +14. But now the challenge that's supposedly the same, relative to me, is DC 24. With my best skill, I'm better off than at level 1 (I'm assuming it was a +7 then) – I've moved from 65% to 75%. With my second-best skill, I'm in roughly the same spot (say it was a +6 and now +16), I've moved from 60% to 65%. But all my other skills have fallen behind. My average skill had a 55% chance (+5 vs 15), and now my average skill has a 45-50% chance (+12 or +13 vs 24). Did I put my increases in Nature and Survival? Well, then I can forget about sneaking past a level-appropriate foe (because monster Perception goes up even faster than normal DCs). What's up with those giants? I don't know, I'm not good enough at Society to know.

I'm considering adding a general feat that can upgrade a skill to Expert and possibly Master. That would allow for a way to expand your competence without multiclassing into rogue, and would also provide a neat thing to do with general feats which is otherwise something of an afterthought – it would be nice to have something other than Fleet, Toughness, or Canny Acumen as "power" options.

 

[kenada]

Yes, I suppose I can build off my decades of GMing experience to figure out how to write an adventure and run a game using this 600+ page rulebook, but I struggle despite all that experience.

Take Winter’s Daughter, swap out the monsters for PF2 equivalents, build hazards and traps per the GMG, and run it the exact same way you would run it in OSE or 5e. The game won’t break or have problems, and everyone can have the crunchy PF2 stuff they (presumably) like.

What I’m saying is that if you are already comfortable putting together something for other D&D games, you can do basically the same thing in PF2. If you write an OSR-style adventure, you can’t just murderhobo everything, but you couldn’t do that in OSR games either. If it’s something more trad, then at least you have tools that actually work.

If you want to learn from official adventures, the I agree the situation kind of sucks. Some will tell me I’m wrong, but I’ve always felt like they were overtuned a bit (assuming a party built with the standard point buy in PF1, which is only 15 points). They also have way too much combat.

I can't imagine how intimidating it would be to a new player or GM.

From what I’ve read, new players have an easier time picking up PF2 than experienced ones do. I think they aren’t as prone to making tactical decisions that work other games but can be unhelpful in PF2 (or something like that). I don’t know about new GMs. I agree the size of the CRB seems like it would be intimidating, and Paizo doesn’t do enough to teach you how to run the game, but PF2 isn’t alone in that.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

The problem I mainly have is with the "funneling" of skill competency. Take a ranger, for example. A 1st level ranger is trained in 7 skills + Int modifier, plus a lore from their background. Assuming a +1 Int modifier, that's 8 skills, or fully half the skill list, where my skill modifier is in the +3 to +7 range, and an on-level/"mini-boss" skill challenge is DC 15. All in all, I feel reasonably competent. A wall? Yeah, I feel good about climbing it. No rations? I'll hunt for my dinner. A wild animal? I can probably figure out what's going on with it. A guard? I might be able to sneak by them, and I can probably tell by their uniform who they're working for.

Now move up to level 8. At this point I probably have one skill at Expert (+12+stat), one at Master (+14+stat), and the rest at Trained (+10+stat). I figure it's likely that my Expert and Master skills probably use my better stats, so I'm going to assume either a +4 stat or a +3 stat aided by +1 item, so call them +16 and +18. My trained skills are a bit more spread around but likely not a 0, so they're maybe +11 to +14. But now the challenge that's supposedly the same, relative to me, is DC 24. With my best skill, I'm better off than at level 1 (I'm assuming it was a +7 then) – I've moved from 65% to 75%. With my second-best skill, I'm in roughly the same spot (say it was a +6 and now +16), I've moved from 60% to 65%. But all my other skills have fallen behind. My average skill had a 55% chance (+5 vs 15), and now my average skill has a 45-50% chance (+12 or +13 vs 24). Did I put my increases in Nature and Survival? Well, then I can forget about sneaking past a level-appropriate foe (because monster Perception goes up even faster than normal DCs). What's up with those giants? I don't know, I'm not good enough at Society to know.

I'm considering adding a general feat that can upgrade a skill to Expert and possibly Master. That would allow for a way to expand your competence without multiclassing into rogue, and would also provide a neat thing to do with general feats which is otherwise something of an afterthought – it would be nice to have something other than Fleet, Toughness, or Canny Acumen as "power" options.

That's what I mean though, take your level 8 example, your 45-50% chance is against a level 8 DC, but not all the DCs you face at that level should be level 8 or above, some should be as far down as level 4 or 5, which you have a much better shot at passing (DC 20 at 5, DC 22 at 6, DC 23 at 7.) A 50/50 shot for an at level skill check sounds about right to me if you aren't specializing it, it leaves room for the specialists to have a good chance of succeeding, but still have a chance of failure.

 

[Justice and Rule]

That's what I mean though, take your level 8 example, your 45-50% chance is against a level 8 DC, but not all the DCs you face at that level should be level 8 or above, some should be as far down as level 4 or 5, which you have a much better shot at passing (DC 20 at 5, DC 22 at 6, DC 23 at 7.) A 50/50 shot for an at level skill check sounds about right to me if you aren't specializing it, it leaves room for the specialists to have a good chance of succeeding, but still have a chance of failure.

Along with this, don't forget that there are things like equipment bonuses and ASIs that will further boost the character a bit. Even skills you don't care too much about will get a boost from an ASI. Though if one wanted to give more skill boosts, you might just adapt the Skill Potency idea from Automatic Progression Bonus.

 

[kenada]

This discussion of skill DCs makes me glad I used the Proficiency Without Level variant with the Skill Points variant. At-level DCs still go up, but they never become impossible. Skill points give allow you to trade off for more proficiencies if you want them, which is viable because DCs don’t become impossible.

 

[payn]

Along with this, don't forget that there are things like equipment bonuses and ASIs that will further boost the character a bit. Even skills you don't care too much about will get a boost from an ASI. Though if one wanted to give more skill boosts, you might just adapt the Skill Potency idea from Automatic Progression Bonus.

The ASI's just keep up with the +/lvl treadmill math. They dont get you ahead or even back in the game really. Just make sure you keep being good at 1-2 things.

I thought they were trying to move away from +x items? If you are expected to twink out in gear that improves your +s, that might explain why my experience sucked so bad.