Pathfinder 2E How is Pathfinder doing?

[ReshiIRE]

Somewhat off topic as this applies to systems beyond Pathfinder 2e, but it does seem a lot of adventures published by system creators ignore advise given to GMs by the actual system books, which seems inadvisable. Or is that too presumptious?

 

[payn]

Somewhat off topic as this applies to systems beyond Pathfinder 2e, but it does seem a lot of adventures published by system creators ignore advise given to GMs by the actual system books, which seems inadvisable. Or is that too presumptious?

I think some of it is old habits dying hard. They have not quite gotten out of the rhythm of writing for the last edition.

 

[Staffan]

Thanks. Wow. That is a lot less than what the CRB suggests the GM should be handing out. I assume if you followed its advice anyway, the PCs would be well beyond the adventure’s expectations.

Probably. I went with story-based leveling and just had them level up after each chapter. I mean, there's no way I'm going to throw in extra encounters just to keep up with XP.

Session-based XP is a bit iffy as a concept too, as sometimes a session is maybe two hours long and other times it's eight or ten.

If you do story-based leveling, the equivalent speed is three or four sessions per level. I assume this rate is meant to be equivalent to the rate of advancement with XP. If you give out accomplishments at the expected rate, that is around 60~170 XP per session from accomplishments (assuming three minor, one to two moderate, and a major every few sessions), or 135 XP on average. Over three to four sessions, that is 405~540 XP, or about half a level on average.

I think that's highballing it a little, but not by much. By my calculations:
3 minor: 30 XP
Average 1.5 moderate: 45 XP
Average 1/4 major: 20 XP

So round off to 100 per session or 400 per four sessions. So a little under half.

I think, at least in the early days, there was a fear at Paizo that if they didn't pump their adventures full of encounters, their customers wouldn't feel they were getting their money's worth out of them. I'm pretty sure I saw one of the designers post something to that effect, but it was a couple of years ago.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That 3-4 sessions is about what our AoA GM did, and as far as I can tell he was doing straight Milestones.

 

[Staffan]

Somewhat off topic as this applies to systems beyond Pathfinder 2e, but it does seem a lot of adventures published by system creators ignore advise given to GMs by the actual system books, which seems inadvisable. Or is that too presumptious?

As Thomas Shey pointed out upthread, just like generals always prepare for the last war, game designers often write for the last edition. This is especially true when it comes to early material, because it's mostly written concurrently with the actual rules, and in many cases before the softer aspects of the game are finalized.

That's also the reason behind the Law of Conservation of Bestiary Utility. Generally speaking, the first Bestiary/Monster Manual will (a) have a high proportion of "classic" monsters, and (b) have a low proportion of well-designed monsters, simply because the designers haven't yet figured out what actually works and what doesn't. Pathfinder 2 suffers a little less from this because they actually have pretty solid (if maybe overtuned) creature design guidelines (no CR 3 dryads with 14 hp and +7 ranged attack dealing d8 damage just because they have a 1/day suggestion).

 

[Retreater]

The final test for PF2 for me will be to see if I can write an original adventure, using what I think are appropriate encounters - on large enough maps for tactical movement, roleplaying opportunities catered to my players, etc. I've given up on trying to run the pre-written stuff - my tastes diverge too much from Paizo's design goals. (That's okay, I had the same issue during 4e too.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

The final test for PF2 for me will be to see if I can write an original adventure, using what I think are appropriate encounters - on large enough maps for tactical movement, roleplaying opportunities catered to my players, etc. I've given up on trying to run the pre-written stuff - my tastes diverge too much from Paizo's design goals. (That's okay, I had the same issue during 4e too.)

Seems reasonable. Just be cautious about making the maps too big and open; that can end up overly favoring archers and longer ranged spellcasters (and really fast movers like monks) over shorter range attackers (the final battle in Age of Ashes would have been nearly impossible for my Champion/Bard if he didn't have Dimension Door).

 

[thullgrim]

I’ve run PF2 three separate times up to 5th level. My experiences are with converted AP volumes form PF1. I enjoyed the game and my players seemed to like it. However the math is really, really tight and there are a couple of places where the rules are way to procedural for me (I’m looking at you stealth).

I found myself frequently fighting with the system, whether because of my 4e and 3.x/PF1 experiences or the nature of the game I’m not sure.

My thought is that if I were to try it again it would be as a PFS home game. Those scenarios are written pretty closely to the five room dungeon paradigm and would lend themselves with some editing to fewer, bigger fights. I think I’d also use a static 3 sessions per level.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’ve run PF2 three separate times up to 5th level. My experiences are with converted AP volumes form PF1. I enjoyed the game and my players seemed to like it. However the math is really, really tight and there are a couple of places where the rules are way to procedural for me (I’m looking at you stealth).

I found myself frequently fighting with the system, whether because of my 4e and 3.x/PF1 experiences or the nature of the game I’m not sure.

Its interesting, because in some ways (and the irony of this is not lost on me), I find PF2e the closest to 4e of the various D&D offshoots I've played. I'd have no trouble believing 3e experience could get in the way, because there's some fundamental difference in assumption baked in between those two.

 

[Staffan]

Its interesting, because in some ways (and the irony of this is not lost on me), I find PF2e the closest to 4e of the various D&D offshoots I've played. I'd have no trouble believing 3e experience could get in the way, because there's some fundamental difference in assumption baked in between those two.

I'd say that 13th age is closer to 4e than PF2 is, but you can definitely see some 4e stuff in PF2. I think this is primarily a case of convergent evolution. PF1 is basically 3.5e with More Stuff, so the problems of PF1 are basically the same as 3.5e. So it makes sense that in some cases they would come to similar solutions.

Take monster design, for example. 3e used, at least in theory, "organic" rules for designing monsters. Each monster type was basically the same as a (bad) PC class, so HD translated into not only hit points but also attack, save, and skill bonuses. Then stat bonuses and equipment/natural armor was added on top of that, and eventually some actual "runtime" numbers emerged, and in theory you used those plus special abilities to assign a CR to the monster. Except (a) that was really complicated, and left a lot of room for error, and (b) it would often get you monsters with either ridiculous peaks or glaring weaknesses, which was part of what made the CR system a joke (hello Mr. CR 9 frost giant with Will +6). In practice, good designers would have an intuition or if they're lucky formal benchmarks regarding what final stats are appropriate at various CRs, and then massage the stats appropriately. But that could sometimes lead to weirdness like boosting Dex to get a decent Reflex save, and as a consequence ending up with Initiative +8 or something. Plus, there was no formal guidance on what stats were appropriate, just trial and error. And there's very little material around for the public discussing the issue (the one product I can think of is Trailblazer, which was a 3rd party product released near the release of 4e that basically tried to backport a lot of the 4e ideas into 3e).

The obvious solution was of course to start with CR (or level), and set stats based on benchmarks instead. Now, the two systems diverge somewhat on the details (4e has monster roles that set these benchmarks, while PF2 has level provide a range and its up to the designer to make sure that the creature has strengths and weaknesses within those level-based bounds), but they're based on the same principle.

And of course it doesn't hurt that Paizo has one of the more prolific 4e designers, Logan Bonner, on staff. But if I were to hazard a guess, it would be that his role would be to guide away from how things were done in 4e when they didn't work, and perhaps come up with a better solution with hindsight. That is, not to go "Oh, in 4e we solved that problem in this way, so let's copy that" and instead more "In 4e we solved that problem like this, but that in turn caused these issues, so what if we try that way instead?"