Pathfinder 2E Here's A Pathfinder 2E Goblin

Paizo has shared part of its upcoming Bestiary for Pathfinder 2nd Edition with a quick look at the goblin entry.

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How does this differ from the playtest version? Let's take a look! Generally the layout is much the same with some minor tweaks; the differences appear to be under the hood as various numbers change.

• It's gone from CREATURE 0 to CREATURE -1.
• Perception has increased from +1 to +2.
• Skills no longer have an initial 'blanket' entry; in the playtest goblin skills were "–2; Acrobatics +3, Athletics +3, Stealth +5"; now they're "Acrobaitcs +5, Athletics +2, Nature +1, Stealth +5".
• Con has increased to +1
• AC has gone from 14 to 16, TAC is gone, Fort, Ref, and Will have all increased significantly
• Dogslicer attack has gone from +6 to +8 and now has finesse added
• Shortbow attack has gone from +6 to +8, and various additional info added in parenthesis

 

[MockingBird]

I wonder how many new PF1e gamers, who got on board after the 4e/3.5e transition, are moving to PF2e? These gamers may have no idea what 4e is or how it plays so they are oblivious to some of its similarities. I wonder how many hardcore PF1e/3.5e players who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e? Also how many 4e gamers who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e?

 

[Redbadge]

Then your not looking very hard. Both the Paizo forums and reddit have people (who aren't me) making the comparison.

Multiple threads even! It’s been one of the major topics for the last year. But not everyone sees the 4e similarities as a bad thing like John Lynch. I kind of like it. Not sure about the ratio of positive reactions to negative reactions on this development just yet, but as some have said on the Paizo forums, PF2 will attract all those 4e fans that felt disenfranchised during the D&D Next Playtest and that perhaps want to try something beyond 13th Age or other similar systems.

But Celtavian, not only are you blowing in the wind with your opinion, consensus seems to be solidifying in the venues I frequent, both online and in person, for better or worse. Square pegs in round holes indeed.

 

[Jer]

I wonder how many new PF1e gamers, who got on board after the 4e/3.5e transition, are moving to PF2e? These gamers may have no idea what 4e is or how it plays so they are oblivious to some of its similarities. I wonder how many hardcore PF1e/3.5e players who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e? Also how many 4e gamers who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e?

I wonder how many of them will just stick with PF1.

I know a group that still plays only D&D 3.5. Not Pathfinder - 3.5. They have so many books in their libraries they will never need to buy a new book again if they don't want it. The DM has told me his players still haven't tried all of the different combos of classes that they want to try for characters, and he has plenty of material to work with, so why switch?

PF1 has even more material available for it than 3.5 does. I'd think you could run campaigns for decades and never need to buy another book if you had even half of the books for PF1 on your shelf and wanted to stick with PF1 instead of going anywhere.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I wonder how many new PF1e gamers, who got on board after the 4e/3.5e transition, are moving to PF2e? These gamers may have no idea what 4e is or how it plays so they are oblivious to some of its similarities.

I doubt there are many of those, you usually got to PF1 by defecting from (or rejecting out of hand) 4e, typically because you didn't like the changes it made from 3.5 - that was the point if PF1, being 3.75 D&D.
If you come to D&D with no preconceptions, and don't care for it, the naive conclusion is RPGing just isn't for you, not that you should look for something else kinda like it.

Of course, there's always a few random players who luck into a non-D&D game their first time out or get recruited by a fan of some other system, and don't follow the stereotype - and they /do/ love chiming into threads.

I wonder how many hardcore PF1e/3.5e players who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e?

Where else're they gonna go?

Well to whomever rips the SRD to make 3.875, first, I suppose.

Also how many 4e gamers who rejected 5e are moving to PF2e?

There wasn't a lot if rejection of 5e - disappointment, sure, but virtually no edition warring, no pointedly lining up to wallet-vote for the first remotely credible 4.75 (13A is as close as it came).
Most D&D fans turned out not to be quite so single-ed-insistent as all that, and fans of 4e, in particular, were necessarily drawn from those most willing to give a new ed a chance.

5es succeeded in being acceptable to loyal fans of D&D. Maybe not always beloved - but nothing theyd want to burn to the ground.

 

[Zardnaar]

I imagine you will have a few Pathfinder Grognards. They don't need to go anywhere.

2E through 4E and Pathfinder have enough material to last a lifetime.

Only real advantage to a new system is player recruitment and playing in your flgs.

 

[doctorhook]

I imagine you will have a few Pathfinder Grognards. They don't need to go anywhere.

2E through 4E and Pathfinder have enough material to last a lifetime.

Only real advantage to a new system is player recruitment and playing in your flgs.

Yep, this. And Pathfinder has been big enough and successful enough that Paizo is sitting on some valuable IP these days; PF will not disappear into the wallpaper like so many other retroclones and spin-offs.

 

[Staffan]

Where else're they gonna go?

Well to whomever rips the SRD to make 3.875, first, I suppose.

You're never going to get a repeat of the Pathfinder phenomenon. The particular alchemical soup of:

• A reasonably established company, who
• to a large degree consisted of people with extensive D&D experience and game credits,
• had until recently been involved with creating pretty solid official D&D material,
• including highly acclaimed serialized adventures,
• and had a setup that gave them a pretty big audience that was accustomed to game subscriptions

is never going to happen again.

 

[CapnZapp]

You're never going to get a repeat of the Pathfinder phenomenon. The particular alchemical soup of:

• A reasonably established company, who
• to a large degree consisted of people with extensive D&D experience and game credits,
• had until recently been involved with creating pretty solid official D&D material,
• including highly acclaimed serialized adventures,
• and had a setup that gave them a pretty big audience that was accustomed to game subscriptions

is never going to happen again.

This does in no way even address the question of how Paizo should have approached a new edition of Pathfinder...

 

[Tony Vargas]

This does in no way even address the question of how Paizo should have approached a new edition of Pathfinder...

It does: they shouldn't have. Rather, they should have returned to supporting D&D as a 3pp.

 

[Parmandur]

Then your not looking very hard. Both the Paizo forums and reddit have people (who aren't me) making the comparison.

I did try to warn Paizo during the playtest that it looked too similar to 4e. I was shouted down in the playtest forums by those invested enough to playtest. Now that the game is getting released more and more people are seeing the similarities I pointed out.

For those who rejected 4e, it wont necessarily matter how dissimilar PF2e is from 4e. Enough of a similarity will be enough to get them to dismiss it out of hand.

I still plan to check out PF2e. Not as a successor game to PF1e. I think they have rejected 3.5 so hard as to make it a brand new game. I plan to check it out as it's own thing. Ultimately though I may decide to just house rule some of PF1e and not switch.

Lol. My old gaming group had a quick look at the playtest, saw 4e and then promptly moved on. They didn't stick around long enough to point out the similarities to people on online forums. They simply saw it and silently moved on.

Hopefully my old gaming group was the exception. But those who I notice mention the similarities typically aren't sticking around long enough to argue the case. Simply observe and move on.

Yeah, I've seen both PF1 fans and 4E fans point this out in multiple forums since the playtest dropped..