Pathfinder 2E Are you moving from 5E to PF2?


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RSIxidor

Adventurer
I'll grant you Magic, but can you name some popular contemporary board games that are as complex as PF2?

I'm not sure if any specifically could be argued at the same level of complexity as things like character creation usually don't have analogues in most board games and there's also the aspect of whether players should have knowledge of the contents of the Bestiary.

Just to grab a quick list, I took boardgamegeek's advanced search and filtered by weights of 4-5, with at least 300 weight ratings, and at least 300 user ratings, and released since 2010. Results. In addition to those, I personally think Root, Scythe, and Gloomhaven are decently complex as well. And there are games that are closer analogues to the RPG experience, like Gloomhaven, as well as other dungeon crawlers like Descent and Swords and Sorcery, though their complexity varies and their focus is usually much more narrow than what we get in an RPG. There's also the entire board game subgenre of wargames which individually might not be hugely popular but there are a lot of people playing them, and they are generally at least medium complexity (ranging from simpler to absolute nightmares like Campaign for North Africa, though that's certainly not contemporary).

That said, I don't know that I'd argue that any of those are as complex as PF2. Board games and card games as well tend to have narrow scopes to their rules. RPGs need to have rules for things that will never come up in play for some groups but will come up often for other groups, because of the nature of RPGs. PF2 does have a lot of rules like that, and some of those specific rules are quite complex, in addition to the rules that are at the core of many RPGS (combat) being complex to start with.

I don't think we can actually argue any board games are as complex as PF2. Maybe not even as complex as 5E.

I also feel like I spent way too much time on this comment just to basically say, "I don't think any are."
 

On another note - are any of you 5e DMs planning to import some PF2 rules into your 5e games? I'm thinking about stealing the way criticals from magic weapons work, but am unsure about the impact.

Actually, I'm thinking about switching magic items and equipment (and economy) more or less wholesale, as as find 5e treasure (and equipment) boring. Would also give something to spend all that gold on.
 

Campbell

Relaxed Intensity
I'll grant you Magic, but can you name some popular contemporary board games that are as complex as PF2?

Sure. No board game is as individually complex as any mainstream roleplaying game that I know of, but dedicated board gamers tend to play a lot of different games with very different rules. Many of these games utilize a design language which is pretty similar to Magic and Pathfinder 2. I'm thinking of games like Battle for Rokugan, Dice Hospital, Villainous, Smashup, Thornwatch, and Enchanters.

I think what's important here is design language. I think some people have trouble parsing the more technical design language of Pathfinder where to someone like me the natural language and verbosity seen in parts of Fifth Edition make a really good game a lot harder to use. I think people use to the more technical design language seen in most board games with clear templates and the like might have an easier time parsing Pathfinder than Fifth Edition.
 

RSIxidor

Adventurer
On another note - are any of you 5e DMs planning to import some PF2 rules into your 5e games? I'm thinking about stealing the way criticals from magic weapons work, but am unsure about the impact.

Actually, I'm thinking about switching magic items and equipment (and economy) more or less wholesale, as as find 5e treasure (and equipment) boring. Would also give something to spend all that gold on.

I'm having a lot of thoughts about how the three-action system could be ported to 5E, or modified as a two-action+move system. Some things would need considerable changes but I personally love that system for combat. I also sort of like the proficiency system (minus the level bonus), on a similar note I actually miss skill ranks a bit in 5E but not because I particularly liked the way they worked. What I liked about both of these features is the player choosing what they got better at over time rather than having a static set of nice skills or only getting more proficient because you got levels (for this, I'd probably just make Expertise everyone gets some of at certain levels). Really, what I want is bounded accuracy and advantage with PF2E's action system and level of character options.
 

fjw70

Adventurer
On another note - are any of you 5e DMs planning to import some PF2 rules into your 5e games? I'm thinking about stealing the way criticals from magic weapons work, but am unsure about the impact.

Actually, I'm thinking about switching magic items and equipment (and economy) more or less wholesale, as as find 5e treasure (and equipment) boring. Would also give something to spend all that gold on.

I would like to implement the ability score system for character creation. That is a neat way to create characters.

I am thinking something like this:
Step 1) Start with 10 in each stat
Step 2) Background - two boosts (will probably lift the P2 backgrounds)
Step 3) Race - As normal 5e rules
Step 4) Class - 4 boosts (two the same as the save profs and two free ones)

As in the P2 rules, no stat may be boosted more than once per step.
 
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FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
I would like to implement the ability score system for character creation. That is a neat way to create characters.

I will be looking through the books to see what else I can steal.

It's significantly helped by diminishing returns on ASI's after having a score of 18. It's also significantly helped by getting so many ASI's to use on level up. I don't see it panning out to well in 5e. Unless you want all your fighters to be soldiers or sailors, all your mages to hermits, all your clerics to be acolytes etc...

Pathfinder 2e seems to do a good job of not penalizing you for not choosing a fully optimal race and background setup. I'm not sure that same thing could be achieved in 5e without changing a lot more about stat allocation at character creation
 

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
I would like to implement the ability score system for character creation. That is a neat way to create characters.

I am thinking something like this:
Step 1) Start with 10 in each stat
Step 2) Background - two boosts (will probably lift the P2 backgrounds)
Step 3) Race - As normal 5e rules
Step 4) Class - 4 boosts (two the same as the save profs and two free ones)

As in the P2 rules, no stat may be boosted more than once per step.

That limits you with most races to a single 16, a single 15, two 12's and the rest 10's....

With standard array in current 5e it looks more like, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10 , 8
 


fjw70

Adventurer
It's significantly helped by diminishing returns on ASI's after having a score of 18. It's also significantly helped by getting so many ASI's to use on level up. I don't see it panning out to well in 5e. Unless you want all your fighters to be soldiers or sailors, all your mages to hermits, all your clerics to be acolytes etc...

Pathfinder 2e seems to do a good job of not penalizing you for not choosing a fully optimal race and background setup. I'm not sure that same thing could be achieved in 5e without changing a lot more about stat allocation at character creation
The backgrounds give you one free boost so the background choose shouldn’t limit your class choice.
 

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