Pathfinder 2E Do you think 1st or 2nd edition is more complicated?

I never played PF1E. However, if Starfinder 1E is anything like PF 1E in design and mechanics, then in my opinion, PF1E is more complicated than 2E.

I said 1e, but I want to unpack it a little for fairness:

1. I am not directly very familiar with PF1e, but I was familiar with D&D 3 and 3.5 and nothing I've been told suggests they're different in any significant way in complexity as such;

2. I consider the more special casing something has the more complex it is, and I actually think that weighs in as much more more than actual complexity in general mechanics.

Thomas Shey said:

I said 1e, but I want to unpack it a little for fairness:

1. I am not directly very familiar with PF1e, but I was familiar with D&D 3 and 3.5 and nothing I've been told suggests they're different in any significant way in complexity as such;

2. I consider the more special casing something has the more complex it is, and I actually think that weighs in as much more more than actual complexity in general mechanics.

Click to expand...

I would say PF1 is a bit more streamlined than 3.5 in general. Especially it has a quite good online srd: d20PFSRD

When you look at that and at classes like a fighter: Fighter – d20PFSRD then the base classes are normally easy to understand (not truenamer strange things), but it also has many advanced options etc. (which make the classes long like the advanced weapon feats).

Tigris said:

I would say PF1 is a bit more streamlined than 3.5 in general. Especially it has a quite good online srd: d20PFSRD

When you look at that and at classes like a fighter: Fighter – d20PFSRD then the base classes are normally easy to understand (not truenamer strange things), but it also has many advanced options etc. (which make the classes long like the advanced weapon feats).

Click to expand...

I don't find the presence of online tools changes my opinion about the complexity of a system however, and PF1e still has the general tendency toward special casing. At best it tends to be a little less prone for every new add-on to show no relationship to prior ones, but its still far more than with PF2e in part because its constrained more by its systemic ancestry.

Corinnguard said:

What made PF1 easier for me to read and understand was that it was a continuation of 3e D&D. As a result, it didn't seem that complicated. The rules between 3e and PF1 were roughly the same. Character generation was pretty much the same. Everything in PF1 didn't require a feat.

Featfinder (aka PF2) required a feat for almost everything. I thought people hated bloat in their RPGs.

Click to expand...

well the feats in pathfinder are all +1 to something. If you forget they are called feats then they look suspiciously like someone took 3rd edition advancement and squished it WOW style to make the numbers stay lower and easier to control. It's mathematically far better, but the way they implemented it enhanced pathfinders 1e focus on tactical focus instead of 2e's strategic focus making combat very much like an old school chainmail game. Very controlled with a very predictable set of options every time.

PF2 has more up-front complexity, because you need to familiarize yourself with a whole bunch of keywords and choose feats and sub-classes and such. But once you get past that hurdle, it gets a fair bit easier because everything works off the same principles. You also have various character options neatly siloed off – yes, there are a lot of feats, but in most cases when you're choosing a feat you get to choose from like 5-10 of them of the appropriate category/level combination (skill feats being the main exception).

PF1 on the other hand has less complexity up front, but more down the line. It does not have the robust keywords of PF2, so there are many more ad-hoc things going on. Multi-classing is more open, and kind of expected. You have many different bonus types for various things, and things can interact in many different ways. For example, in one of our campaigns one of our players played a druid. This was a very intelligent player, but she had a really hard time wrapping her head around how wild shape worked and what the actual effects were, to the point where I wrote up a 9-page document laying out everything across various levels. I'll include the example I wrote for calculating attack bonuses:
"So, let’s say our 8th level druid above wants to turn into a lion (a Large animal). Her normal melee attack bonus is +6, and she doesn’t have a Strength bonus, so the melee attack bonus is also +6. She gets +4 Strength (so +2 Strength bonus), but a -1 penalty to attack for being Large, for a total of +1 (as shown in the table as well), so her melee attack bonus in lion form is +7. A lion has two sets of primary attacks: a bite, and 2 claws. Since these are both primary attacks, she will have a +7 attack bonus with them. A lion’s bite normally deals 1d8+5 damage, but we are only interested in the 1d8 part. Since our lion-shaped druid has Strength 14, she deals 1d8+2 damage with her bite (and 1d4+2 with each claw). Since an 8th level druid’s wild shape acts as beast shape III, she also gets to use the lion’s pounce, grab, and rake special attacks, although she would use her own modified CMB of +9 for the grab, and each rake would attack at +7 for 1d4+2 damage."

By comparison, the PF2 version would use the animal form spell, which says (right in the book, with no need to cross-reference a bunch):

• AC = 16 + your level. Ignore your armor's check penalty and Speed reduction.
• 5 temporary Hit Points.
• Low-light vision and imprecise scent 30 feet.
• One or more unarmed melee attacks specific to your battle form, which are the only attacks you can Strike with. You're trained with them. Your attack modifier is +9, and your damage bonus is +1. These attacks are Strength based (for the purpose of the enfeebled condition, for example). If your unarmed attack bonus is higher, you can use it instead.
• Athletics modifier of +9, unless your own is higher.

The PF2 version is clearly a lot easier to deal with for the player, and does not require the player to know the various animals around in order to pick one with advantageous traits. Everything you need to know is right there in the spell description.