Pathfinder 2E Fighter Class Preview For Pathfinder 2nd Edition!

There is precious little as to what a fighter can do *outside* of combat...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Curious why this blog would do that. All they released here was a few class feat options for the fighter and they all seem reasonable. I can understand being upset about resonance or proficiency, but this seems pretty tame.

This level of additional specific detail could well be sufficient to convince someone, if they had previously suspected, that there would indeed be a lot of fiddly little bits.

Personally, I was optimistic before, and now I am significantly less optimistic. It looks more and more as though Pathfinder 2E will fall into the same trap that Pathfinder 1E did, where it primarily became a game about how to build a character.

 

[Arakasius]

Well of course a big part of it is about building the character. That was pretty obvious both from PF1 and from the leveling blog last week. You're getting a feat (whether class, skill or general) every level. Why would you think before reading the fighter blog that building the character isn't a big part of the game? If you want to play a game where you choose a character and then don't get much choices, pick 5e. I don't see PF2 going that way though. (it would be against the biggest tenant of PF1, which is allowing anyone to build the exact character they want. They do seem to be flattening the math and taking out "must haves" along with feat taxes and such, so that's all good things)

Still leaves my question which others shared, all this blog did was give 5 or more actions you can do to enhance yourself in combat. Whether it was shield warden, sudden charge, power attack or so on. They all seemed useful and they all seemed to have points where you'd want to use them. And none of them seemed to fall trap to PF1's issue of just wanting to do one thing over and over to the exclusion of all else.

 

[Charlaquin]

This level of additional specific detail could well be sufficient to convince someone, if they had previously suspected, that there would indeed be a lot of fiddly little bits.

Personally, I was optimistic before, and now I am significantly less optimistic. It looks more and more as though Pathfinder 2E will fall into the same trap that Pathfinder 1E did, where it primarily became a game about how to build a character.

It seems from what we've seen so far that, while character building will be a significant part of the game, it probably won't be as all-consuming in this edition. So far, the build choices we're seeing are:

- Ability Score Assignment at character creation
- Ancestry, Background, and Class choice at character creation
- Proficiency assignment at character creation
- Feat choice at character creation
- Spell choice at character creation
- Ability Score increases at certain levels (presumably)
- Proficiency increases at certain levels
- Feat choices at each level
- Spell choices at each level (presumably)

Bolded are character build options either not present in 5e, or that are made more frequently in PF2 than in 5e. That doesn't seem too bad to me. Lack of ways to customize a character after level 3 is one of the major critiques of 5e, and PF2 doesn't seem to be adding that much more. If anything (and sorry to be the guy who keeps doing this, but...) it seems about on par with 4e in terms of character building. Which in my book is a great thing. 4e had a fantastic balance of customizability and usability in terms of character building, in my opinion.

What really made 3.5 and PF1 a nightmare of build planning, in my opinion, was absurdly long Feat chains (which they've said they are removing), skill points/ranks (which are being streamlined with the new Proficiency system), and Prestige Classes and their prerequisites. Prestige Classes being the worst offender, because you pretty much had to plan out your whole build from 1st level until the level you could finally start taking levels in the Prestige Class you actually wanted. And woe unto thee if you wanted to take levels in more than one prestige class.

We haven't seen yet how PF2 will handle Prestige Classes (if at all), so for me at least, it's too early to say for sure if this edition will be as much of a character building simulator as PF1 was, but the steps they've taken to streamline Feats and Proficiencies give me hope. Of course, the amount of character customization I want may be too much for some. Or too little for others. It's a tough tightrope to walk, but PF2 will probably have to err on the side of too much, since character customization is a big part of their brand identity.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Bolded are character build options either not present in 5e, or that are made more frequently in PF2 than in 5e. That doesn't seem too bad to me. Lack of ways to customize a character after level 3 is one of the major critiques of 5e, and PF2 doesn't seem to be adding that much more.

One of the other major critiques of 5E is that the so-called "optional" rules for feats and multi-classing are automatically assumed by default unless the DM goes out of their way to gather a group of players who are apathetic on the issue. Most players expect those to be available, and are critical of attempts to play without them.

Pathfinder 2 already looks to be more complex baseline than 5E is under the most extreme of circumstances, and there's no easy way to turn off those options since they're so deeply ingrained into the core class mechanics.

 

[Charlaquin]

One of the other major critiques of 5E is that the so-called "optional" rules for feats and multi-classing are automatically assumed by default unless the DM goes out of their way to gather a group of players who are apathetic on the issue. Most players expect those to be available, and are critical of attempts to play without them.

Probably because 5e has almost no character customization and players like character customization. So, they insist on including optional rules that give them more avenues for customization. Players also tend to feel entitled to options that are written in the Players’ handbook. Go figure they would insist the DM not disallow options from the only book that’s explicitly for their use. But we’re getting off topic. Whether or not Feats should be allowed in 5e really has no bearing on PF2.

Pathfinder 2 already looks to be more complex baseline than 5E is under the most extreme of circumstances, and there's no easy way to turn off those options since they're so deeply ingrained into the core class mechanics.

As well it should. There’s demand for a game with more depth of character building than 5e, and increased depth comes at the cost of increased complexity. Currently, PF1 is the go-to D&D clone for folks who want that addional depth. Unfortunately, PF1 has a really unbalanced depth to complexity ratio. The hope is that PF2 will give folks who want deep character creation in a D&D clone but don’t want as much complexity as PF1 has. And so far, it seems to be on track for that. It might be too complex for you. It might not be deep enough for some diehard PF1 fans. It’ll probably strike a good balance for many others on both sides of the fence.

 

[Ancalagon]

Is there something listed for the fighter that would prevent you from role playing?

Of course not. Thank you for the deep insight. I guess we don't need those stealth bonuses for rogues, rangers and monks, they can just roleplay that. Charm spells, divination? Useless, let's roleplay that too! That druid changing himself into a fish? Totally can roleplay that.

etc etc

Do you catch my drift? Of course a first level peasant can roleplay! But some classes have special powers, skills and abilities that the fighter has been, historically speaking, quite limited in his access to.

Thankfully, it seems that, based on other posts (thank you [MENTION=6944960]Arakasius[/MENTION] ) the fighter will be better rounded outside of combat in this edition of pathfinder.

 

[Ancalagon]

This level of additional specific detail could well be sufficient to convince someone, if they had previously suspected, that there would indeed be a lot of fiddly little bits.

Personally, I was optimistic before, and now I am significantly less optimistic. It looks more and more as though Pathfinder 2E will fall into the same trap that Pathfinder 1E did, where it primarily became a game about how to build a character.

I agree with you, in part. It does indeed appear that Pathfinder will remain a game with a lot of fiddly bits and a lot of effort on system mastery and character building. This isn't surprising, I think it's what the fans of the game want.

BUT

I do still have some hope that it will be *less* fiddly than PF1. I don't think we have enough information to conclude that it will be worse that PF1!

 

[RangerWickett]

I find it an odd style choice to 'let' the Fighter get an Attack of Opportunity before other classes. Shouldn't everyone have an AoO from the gate? Also, you take a penalty to hit for even trying? I'm not a fan of negative numbers, period.

Everything else looks juicy enough, especially the OPTION to drop two attacks in favour of one big hit.

Fighters fight. It's always been their job.

Attacks of opportunity are ridiculous narratively. I'd be fine if there was an action called "Hold the Line" that let you make OAs, and for a feat (which fighters get for free) that has the ability always on.

But, ugh, c'mon. You and I are dueling, and someone sprints past me, so I swing at him? How does that not have bad consequences for me in our duel?

If someone goes to drink a potion, they provoke, but why? Because their guard is down? Does that mean I can just get a free attack against any person who's guard is down, like if they're sleeping or unconscious or I'm hidden or if they're actually an inanimate object that can't have their guard up?

OAs also make combat more static and boring. Please, Paizo, do whatever you can to make people move around more. The fewer OAs, the better.

 

[Ancalagon]

It seems from what we've seen so far that, while character building will be a significant part of the game, it probably won't be as all-consuming in this edition. So far, the build choices we're seeing are:

- Ability Score Assignment at character creation
- Ancestry, Background, and Class choice at character creation
- Proficiency assignment at character creation
- Feat choice at character creation
- Spell choice at character creation
- Ability Score increases at certain levels (presumably)
- Proficiency increases at certain levels
- Feat choices at each level
- Spell choices at each level (presumably)

Bolded are character build options either not present in 5e, or that are made more frequently in PF2 than in 5e. That doesn't seem too bad to me. Lack of ways to customize a character after level 3 is one of the major critiques of 5e, and PF2 doesn't seem to be adding that much more. If anything (and sorry to be the guy who keeps doing this, but...) it seems about on par with 4e in terms of character building. Which in my book is a great thing. 4e had a fantastic balance of customizability and usability in terms of character building, in my opinion.

There are still archetypes, which are somewhat similar to subclasses but are *far* more complex IMO. There may also be traits. Also, there will be ancestry choices - each race will be somewhat customizable.

What really made 3.5 and PF1 a nightmare of build planning, in my opinion, was absurdly long Feat chains (which they've said they are removing), skill points/ranks (which are being streamlined with the new Proficiency system), and Prestige Classes and their prerequisites. Prestige Classes being the worst offender, because you pretty much had to plan out your whole build from 1st level until the level you could finally start taking levels in the Prestige Class you actually wanted. And woe unto thee if you wanted to take levels in more than one prestige class.

In my somewhat limited experience, Prestige classes are somewhat avoided in PF1...

EDIT: lost my train of thought it seems - I DO agree with you that the feat chains were a major problem

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I do still have some hope that it will be *less* fiddly than PF1. I don't think we have enough information to conclude that it will be worse that PF1!

It has more moving parts, but it will start out with fewer sources to pull those parts from. If nothing else, it will reset the splat creep back to just the one book. I'm fairly confident that it will exceed the complexity of the original within a few years, unless it flops entirely.