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

[Zardnaar]

Yeah if you still have people playing 1E locally that's an incentive to stick with it. In my area of the woods I know of at least five GMs who moved to 2E (including myself) and as a result there are lots of 2E groups and no one plays 1E anymore.

Every now and then I get nostalgic for my 3E/PF1E days and crack open the books. One look at a monster stat block reminds me of just how much the game improved in terms of respecting the GM's time. I used to joke that for every 45 minutes of gameplay I invested in one hour of prep time but it was basically true. With PF2E I can spend about 1-2 hours prepping and have enough material for 5-10 hours of play, easily. As a result, once learned, it is incredibly hard to go back to 1E no matter how much I enjoy reminiscing.

Same.

'Ive got my prep time down to a 1-4 ratio with 5.5. Probably less prep i did this week did t get used still using previous session prep.

3.5 it was close to 1-1.

 

[nevin]

Given how D&D 3e was to run, I really have trouble picturing learning PF2e as a GM not being worth it. If you don't find PF1e middlin' tedious to run you might not feel that way about it however.

I found PF2 just as tedious. The problem isn't the power creep its the fact it's built like a board game. The math is tighter and it's all small numbers but it's the same kind of min max get all your bonuses just right to be effective. In fact the tighter math encourages even more of the min maxing/play your role style of gaming that broke 3e and PF1e for so many. The whole game is very anti theatre of the mind and very strategic/tactical use the battlemap and make sure you end each round facing the right direction with the correct party members in the correct spots for the next turn. I'd just as soon play a board game as PF2e

 

[Thomas Shey]

I found PF2 just as tedious. The problem isn't the power creep its the fact it's built like a board game. The math is tighter and it's all small numbers but it's the same kind of min max get all your bonuses just right to be effective. In fact the tighter math encourages even more of the min maxing/play your role style of gaming that broke 3e and PF1e for so many. The whole game is very anti theatre of the mind and very strategic/tactical use the battlemap and make sure you end each round facing the right direction with the correct party members in the correct spots for the next turn. I'd just as soon play a board game as PF2e

That's your choice, but I still stand by my opinion that the coherence and consistency of PF2e would be massively more preferable to me than PF1e or D&D3e if I was going to use something as exception based as most of the the D&D sphere. I don't consider tactical focus particularly a flaw, so any negatives others get from that is not a downside, and PF2e didn't do as broad strokes in non-combat areas as something like D&D 4e.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I found PF2 just as tedious. The problem isn't the power creep its the fact it's built like a board game. The math is tighter and it's all small numbers but it's the same kind of min max get all your bonuses just right to be effective. In fact the tighter math encourages even more of the min maxing/play your role style of gaming that broke 3e and PF1e for so many. The whole game is very anti theatre of the mind and very strategic/tactical use the battlemap and make sure you end each round facing the right direction with the correct party members in the correct spots for the next turn. I'd just as soon play a board game as PF2e

Pathfinder doesn't have facing.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

I am inclined to say that P1 is more complicated game. Both from a players and a GMs perspective.

 

[jeffh]

I've [run] Pathfinder 1 with new players, and even with levels in the double digits, most of them needed some help levelling up.

Did you say "even" when you meant "especially"?

The issue my players always had with this is that, despite the implied greater experience with the system as levels increase, there just get to be too many moving parts, and they interact in ways that aren't obvious or intuitive except to people who think in a certain very specific way. Basically the complexity increases faster than experience can make up for, especially if you don't level that often.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Did you say "even" when you meant "especially"?

The issue my players always had with this is that, despite the implied greater experience with the system as levels increase, there just get to be too many moving parts, and they interact in ways that aren't obvious or intuitive except to people who think in a certain very specific way. Basically the complexity increases faster than experience can make up for, especially if you don't level that often.

Like the other poster, I'm assuming that "especially" was supposed to be "except".

(That said, there is some validity to this, but I've had it with a number of games including Shadow of the Demon Lord. As long as you get new tools over time, the number of them can defeat you with time.)

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

Yeah if you still have people playing 1E locally that's an incentive to stick with it. In my area of the woods I know of at least five GMs who moved to 2E (including myself) and as a result there are lots of 2E groups and no one plays 1E anymore.

Every now and then I get nostalgic for my 3E/PF1E days and crack open the books. One look at a monster stat block reminds me of just how much the game improved in terms of respecting the GM's time. I used to joke that for every 45 minutes of gameplay I invested in one hour of prep time but it was basically true. With PF2E I can spend about 1-2 hours prepping and have enough material for 5-10 hours of play, easily. As a result, once learned, it is incredibly hard to go back to 1E no matter how much I enjoy reminiscing.

I really wish that I could do that. I have to put in oodles of time compared to the time that my games run to have a fully fun and functional game.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I really wish that I could do that. I have to put in oodles of time compared to the time that my games run to have a fully fun and functional game.

One of my secrets is to game every week, document, keep a consistent campaign world, never throw anything away.as you can always come back to use it in the future. I have a hundred pounds of campaign material sitting on my shelf I can pull from! This makes the only speed bump updating to a new system and its complexity level.

 

[jolt]

The more content that comes out for a game, the harder it is to balance with everything else that's already been created. For a new player, PF1 was way more complicated. Not only was there way more content, but a lot of that content were trap choices or things that no one ever took. For experienced players it wasn't such a big deal, but it became a nightmare for newer players. And the more stuff came out, the longer it took for someone to get experienced with the game. PF2, even when it achieves the same amount of content PF1 had, will still be easier because the math is easier. That doesn't necessarily make it a better game, but it's less prone to numbers bloat with fewer traps choices that you have to learn to avoid.

I agree that PF2 is very poor when in comes to theatre of the mind play, but if that's the style I'm shooting for, I'm not playing PF at all.