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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Justice and Rule" data-source="post: 9848705" data-attributes="member: 6778210">I've not experienced Pathfinder 1E specifically, but I have a decent amount of experience across the variety of 3.X games, and honestly I'm amazed that this is a conversation. I feel like some people may have played enough 3.X games that they just don't see the complexity the same way a new player might, and having been on both ends, I just don't see how something like PF1 couldn't be the more complicated game.I mean, this is just a difference of presentation, and I'm not even sure if it's really true.Like, it's profoundly easy to immediately understand what someone's skill/save/attack is because it's all derived through the exact same process: Skill + Level + Attribute. You can add magic weapons or situational combat modifiers (Which I also think PF2 is less complicated on), but ultimately it's all the same. I don't have to memorize a BAB or know that the progression of saves is (Attribute+2+1/2 level) or (Attribute+1/3 level) for the off-saves. You have a bunch of bespoke systems governing these things that naturally make them more complex. DCs are the same way, which helps standardize things rather than trying to achieve realism with bespoke systems.I would say CMD would be one of these things. We have a whole separately-derived Save only for Combat Maneuvers, while PF2 uses saves and DCs that would get regular use in the same way you would regularly use skills outside of combat: Feint is Deception against Perception DC, Grapple is Athletics against Fortitude DC, Demoralize is Intimidate against Will DC. There is a standardized way of doing things that makes players more likely to use these things because they'll be more familiar far more quickly.Similarly, PF2 has a lot of "Take a class and skill feat" while 3.X here is "Get a bonus feat", and I would say that siloing those off is a massive decrease in complexity because not only are you avoiding the nightmare of trying to balance someone only taking skill feats or racial feats or whatever at any given level, you are also focusing players in smaller groupings instead of just having anything open.I'm sorry, but this argument is so incredibly unintuitive. You don't always "need to think about it" because you instantly know if you can do it or not: it's an action unless you have something that modifies it, and you'll know if you have that. Creating a single weird rule around something that only occurs for certain classes at a specific level is absolutely way more complicated because it's weirdly bespoke.But more than that, the nature of the action system in PF2 makes it less complex. Things are all either 1 action, 2 actions, or 3 actions. There's no argument over why drawing a sword is a "Move Action" instead of a "Swift" action or something. You don't need to have an entire debate around whether something not covered in the book is a certain kind of action or what sort of corner cases you need to figure out when you can just say "It's fast, so 1 Action".I mean, this isn't even true at all.For Shelyn's sake, look at the chart on <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/Gamemastering/Combat/#Table-Actions-in-Combat" target="_blank">"What provokes an attack of opportunity" </a>from the SRD you are linking for the Fighter. This sort of chart is why they went to things like keywords, which I'll get to in the next post.There are plenty of triggers in PF1, the difference is that you can more easily see what could provoke a reaction given the keywords, which is why I love them: I can instantly know what will effect this. Concentrate Keyword? Okay, well the Barbarian won't be doing those in a Rage. Manipulate? That could provoke a Reaction Attack. It also helps the players find out: If I got a reaction that keys off Manipulate. This creates clarity because the player can easily figure out what things are affected versus having to adjudicate it with the GM.</blockquote>

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