Pathfinder 2E I played my first PF2e game this week. Here's why I'm less inclined to play again.

[Thomas Shey]

nods

For instance, while the Abomination Vaults AP has a bit of a meatgrinder reputation, even it appears to avoid PL+3 enemies until the party is expected to be at level 3; and one of those encounters is fairly notorious for its danger, I believe. There are PL+2 encounters earlier than that, and again, there's a specific first-floor PL+2 encounter that is a bit infamous.

There were a couple in Age of Ashes that were a bit brusk too, but I only recall one being because of single-opponent problems (there was a bargues at one point who laid out my Champion/Bard hybrid right quick).

 

[Thomas Shey]

So long as it can still happen in the game, just as it can happen in the setting logic, that's fine with me. Frequency is less a concern to me than allowing for the possibilities. Every story to mind is one example of a chain of events that happened in a particular way, but could have happened in any number of different ways in the setting, If different choices were made or random chance presented a different outcome. I always want any logically possible outcome to be potentially available through the rules of whatever game I'm playing.

That post was more explaining why using statistical averages in output is, at best, an incomplete model to assessing things, and only really works well in systems where combats tend to go on long enough for the averaging result to start to show. Otherwise, dice swings have too much impact for it to tell you much. And PF2e has, for various reasons, somewhat shorter combat durations than is typical in the D&D-adjacent sphere.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It might have been that AP that ran me off PF2. My GM tossed PL+3 at us on the regular and it sucked.

You'd not be the only one. When Retreater was running into problems with PF2e, that was at least a big part of it.

As I've commented before, early adventures for new editions of games tend to be mistuned pretty regularly. I've seen it with both D&D 3e and 4e and PF2e now, and tend to blame it on "fighting the last war" (i.e. designing encounters the way you would have in the prior edition, even though various balance factors and other issue have changed).

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

As I've commented before, early adventures for new editions of games tend to be mistuned pretty regularly. I've seen it with both D&D 3e and 4e and PF2e now, and tend to blame it on "fighting the last war" (i.e. designing encounters the way you would have in the prior edition, even though various balance factors and other issue have changed).

Especially rough for PF2 since, as I understand it, they were writing a number of those early APs before the rules were even finalized. The game changed a lot between Pathfinder Playtest 1.0 and the final corebook.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Failing is part of life, even fantasy life. Without the real threat of failure, on the micro and macro level, why bother? Just "tell the story" of how you "won".

Sounds a bit like you're constructing a strawman - not being happy with success rates is not the same as having a 100 % success rate.

There is a level of failure rate for dice rolls that is fun, and there is one that isn't to me.
You could even fail in combat even if every single attack is a hit, because you spread around your attacks, attack the wrong targets at the wrong time, waste a lot of time not attacking because you make the wrong moves, provoke opportunity attacks or otherwise open yourself up to needless attacks without getting something in return.

And it's not like Pathfinder is not built around its attack chances. Basically it's a game where a lot of failed attacks (or saves succeeded by the enemies) still ensure a good chance of winning the final fight. So I could exaggerate that as Pathfinder 2E being a game where you "figure out how many failed rolls you can tank until you won as expected."

Well, I'm going to bluntly suggest as I did above, that if you can't deal with luck being a significant factor, a game running on a D20 is probably not somewhere you should be. I'm not unsympathetic to the feeling (my ability to roll nothing above a 6 multiple hits in a row is legendary), but to a large extent its the price of the die resolution in D20 games.[

Maybe it helps to understand that my favorite RPG basically has been D&D 4E. And that uses a d20, too. The problem isn't that there is luck at all, and even the range of possible results of a d20 is fine. of course you can always roll 3 sixes in a row and whiff all your attacks over several turns possibly. But Pathfinder can get situations where rolling several points better than and you still miss, or even though you put a lot of effort into buffing/debuffing via team work and special options and so even though you did everything right, those 6s are still misses. The "math" accounts for the low probabilities and it all works out in the end - but it doesn't feel as satisfying to me.

Failing frequently is necessary to balance out the benefits of having up to 4 times as many actions as your enemy(s). It is extremely difficult to mitigate the advantage that comes from simply being able to take more actions than the other side.

This might be true, which is why I think it's the wrong approach for me and a fundamental flaw in the system.

Pathfinder2E, D&D 3E and DnD Next all give you more attacks per round as you grow in level. 4E didn't, at least not like that. Many encounters and dailies still have only one attack, and if they have multiple attacks, they are - most of the time - some kind of area attack, so you spread your attacks around.
(Mind you, in character optimziation, people were often looking to stack on minor action attacks and immediate action attacks so they actually could get more than 1 attack on a single target to stack damage. Which might have sometimes balance problems, but it still has one advantage: your attack roll pretty much stayed the same)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sounds a bit like you're constructing a strawman - not being happy with success rates is not the same as having a 100 % success rate at all.

There is a level of failure rate for dice rolls that is fun, and there is one that isn't to me.
You could even fail in combat even if every single attack is a hit, because you spread around your attacks, attack the wrong targets at the wrong time, waste a lot of time not attacking because you make the wrong moves, provoke opportunity attacks or otherwise open yourself up to needless attacks without getting something in return.

And it's not like Pathfinder is not built around its attack chances. Basically it's a game where a lot of failed attacks (or saves succeeded by the enemies) still ensure a good chance of winning the final fight. So I could exaggerate that as Pathfinder 2E being a game where you "figure out how many failed rolls you can tank until you won as expected."


Maybe it helps to understand that my favorite RPG basically has been D&D 4E. And that uses a d20, too. The problem isn't that there is luck at all, and even the range of possible results of a d20 is fine. of course you can always roll 3 sixes in a row and whiff all your attacks over several turns possibly. But Pathfinder can get situations where rolling several points better than and you still miss, or even though you put a lot of effort into buffing/debuffing via team work and special options and so even though you did everything right, those 6s are still misses. The "math" accounts for the low probabilities and it all works out in the end - but it doesn't feel as satisfying to me.

I'm speaking about success and failure in general terms because a) I've only barely played PF2 and don't have the math memorized, b) the game PF2 most resembles is 4e, my least favorite D&D by far, and c) what's important to me is setting logic and verisimilitude/realism, and everything I know and have heard about PF2 tells me that's not a high priority.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

what's important to me is setting logic and verisimilitude/realism, and everything I know and have heard about PF2 tells me that's not a high priority.

Yeah, you are pretty much doomed looking for verisimilitude in D&D games. It's too easy when you have a rules-forward game to have unrealistic cases. D&D4E straight gave up on the attempt, but I'd actually set PF2 as one of the more realistic flavors of D&D -- low bar, true, but I don't find players doing odd things in-game because the rules make it a good choice in PF2 as much as I see in other versions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, you are pretty much doomed looking for verisimilitude in D&D games. It's too easy when you have a rules-forward game to have unrealistic cases. D&D4E straight gave up on the attempt, but I'd actually set PF2 as one of the more realistic flavors of D&D -- low bar, true, but I don't find players doing odd things in-game because the rules make it a good choice in PF2 as much as I see in other versions.

WotC 5e (less so 5.5) are at least somewhat more verisimilitudinous than 4e IMO, as was just about every other version of the official game, because the fiction generally came before the mechanics. The version of 5e I run, Level Up, is more interested in verisimilitude, and I add more to make it more so. The other games I favor, most of whom are derived from some version of D&D, also lean toward setting logic over mechanical balance and "elegance".

 

[Tigris]

This is one of the problems with dealing with dangerous enemies, really - every tool that you really need to use against them to beat them works worse. Sure, you can beat the diffiulty check of an enemy 3 levels below you easily - but chances are you don't need to, it's 3 levels below you. An enemy 3 levels above you however? They are more likely to crit, all your control options are weakened, you hit them less likely and are less likely to crit, and you are less likely to find their weaknesses.

Pathfinder 2e could really benefit from having Elite/Solo monsters rules, too, because "bosses" as high level foes tend to be rather unfun to play against. I think it might appeal to some players because it can create a feeling of a dire threat if you see your attacks whiffingn but the enemy repeatedly critting and hitting - but it feels too much like all my options that are most important for this depend more on luck than clever choices to work.

Oh yeah this is for me also just bad/lazy design.

Not implementing elites, mobs and solos and instead just use different level enemies and name that still "elite" etc. To give the illusion that pf2 feature different enemy types. (And then people arguing "what do you mean pf2 has elites and mooks"...)


This leads to "mobs" aka many enemies not being really relevant since they sre low level and dont hit much (and dont crit) anyway and boss enemies just being frustrating.


And if you have a "boss" they naturally are more often "unique" which makes the chance to (crit) fail knowledge checks even higher. And if you crit fail a knowledge check you will then attack the strongest save instead of the weakest which lower your chances to hit by 10% or more in addition....

 

[S'mon]

To be fair, its not particularly difficult to acquire a striking rune if you make it a priority at 3rd (my barbarian just acquired one). If someone wants to make an argument that a typical Fighter at 3rd would be averaging 13 damage with a hit, I'd buy that. When people assume they're using a two-handed weapon, they lose me however.

Yeah, Valeros IMC (just hit 4th) could have got a Striking rune early if he'd sold his partially-finished Lion Shield for 65gp. But he'd rather save up and get the shield completed, probably around 5th level, for another 130gp.