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

[Seramus]

1. As I mentioned earlier, there are cases where the way certain action things in the action economy do, indeed, seem overly punishing. It doesn't surprise me that this particularly felt that way with an Alchemist, because I think its generally felt that the Alchemist, particularly the bomb throwing and healing versions, were undertuned in their original version. I had somewhat similar problems when playing a two-gun Gunslinger.

Yeah, we found some classes interacted rather smoothly with the action economy, because they had minimal need for secondary actions. But the prevailing sentiment at my table, after the initial novelty and awe wore off, was... mild irritation. Part of this is my fault because I often include secondary objectives in combat challenges, so there is sometimes some climbing, button or lever pressing, jumping over obstacles, etc. Nothing like American Ninja Warrior, but more than white rooms.

It became a running gag at first how often a couple of players had to re-grip their weapons, then a dull realization set in that they didn't want to engage with the environment in fun and interesting ways because it would take so many actions. This often took the form of 1) Do fun thing 2) Regrip Weapon 3) Uh... not enough actions to run over AND smack someone. And they weren't even angry about it, just kind of blech.

There was even a discussion that went like (paraphrasing) "Why not just use a 1H weapon?" to which another player joked (again, paraphrasing) "Why not just drop the Grip action and let people have fun with big swords?"

2. I suspect you know this, but a +1 in PF2e is actually probably more to be thought of as a +2 in most D&D derivatives, because of the way crits and fumbles work. As such, while if you don't want to chase them you don't, I think it often can feel a lot meatier to be chasing those once you get a feel for the system, the same way Improved Critical in D&D3e could.

That all said, the single commonest complaint I see barring the dislike of the tightness of the math, is that people sometimes dislike the +1 to +5 attack and defense ladder. Unfortunately, when they tried to move away from doing that during the original playtest, even more people were resistant to the change from PF1e (and D&D 3e) in that regard. There is an option in the GMG to just bake that into advancement and move on, but it does alter some of the money use agendas, and the GM has to be on board it, of course.

Oh yeah, there is no doubt that the math is so tight that every +1 is genuinely impactful, and getting a couple of them to stack can result in some major swings even in more narrative areas like winning conversations to convince the King to give you aid. That's why it really is just a personal bias and not a condemnation of the system. As a player, I'm just personally inclined to want to use something like an Infiltrator's Elixir to change our faces and give us more strategic options than something like a Silvertongue Mutagen whose primary function is to give you +X on skill checks.

As for dropping the +1/+5 ladder, that's absolutely something I've considered doing. When I'm GM'ing, I can easily account for these differences in enemy stats when designing encounters, easy peasy. So it's an option in my pocket for the future. Though I'm far more inclined to pick a less restrictive system like Daggerheart to run these days. In fact, I literally went from running a PF2E game to testing out Daggerheart, got into the first combat, and was like "You can drink a potion, draw your weapons, and still just get on with your action? Holy crap!"

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, we found some classes interacted rather smoothly with the action economy, because they had minimal need for secondary actions. But the prevailing sentiment at my table, after the initial novelty and awe wore off, was... mild irritation. Part of this is my fault because I often include secondary objectives in combat challenges, so there is sometimes some climbing, button or lever pressing, jumping over obstacles, etc. Nothing like American Ninja Warrior, but more than white rooms.

Yeah, those are intrinsically sort of action-fees, and if people get focused entirely on the combat applications, its going to feel bad. And of course sometimes PF2e breaks out things into separate actions that probably should be rolled into one.

It became a running gag at first how often a couple of players had to re-grip their weapons, then a dull realization set in that they didn't want to engage with the environment in fun and interesting ways because it would take so many actions. This often took the form of 1) Do fun thing 2) Regrip Weapon 3) Uh... not enough actions to run over AND smack someone. And they weren't even angry about it, just kind of blech.

Regrip may well be the poster child for the above. (Of course I've seen that be an issue in games where it was a quick action or the equivalent; arguably it wasn't only because people actually have things to do with regular actions in PF2e and often quick actions weren't useful for much except things like regrip or equivalent).

There was even a discussion that went like (paraphrasing) "Why not just use a 1H weapon?" to which another player joked (again, paraphrasing) "Why not just drop the Grip action and let people have fun with big swords?"

Well, of course, the answer was because they wanted there to be overhead on 2H weapons or shields.

Oh yeah, there is no doubt that the math is so tight that every +1 is genuinely impactful, and getting a couple of them to stack can result in some major swings even in more narrative areas like winning conversations to convince the King to give you aid. That's why it really is just a personal bias and not a condemnation of the system. As a player, I'm just personally inclined to want to use something like an Infiltrator's Elixir to change our faces and give us more tactical options than something like a Silvertongue Mutagen whose primary function is to give you +X on skill checks.

This is one I can see kind of both sides of, though one could question whether there's an intrinsic difference between "this benefit is statistical and this one is subjective

As for dropping the +1/+5 defense ladder, that's absolutely something I've considered doing. When I'm GM'ing, I can easily account for these differences in enemy stats when designing encounters, easy peasy. So it's an option in my pocket for the future. Though I'm far more inclined to pick a less restrictive system like Daggerheart to run these days. In fact, I literally went from running a PF2E game to testing out Daggerheart, got into the first combat, and was like "You can drink a potion, draw your weapons, and still just get on with your action? Holy crap!"

Well, of course if you want something more free-flowing, you do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The issues with PF1 were much the same as the ones with 3.5e, so it makes sense that the solutions would have similarities in common but not be identical.

I don't think 4e-style mechanics and playstyle are the inevitable next step to problems with 3.5, anymore than they are to problems with 5e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think 4e-style mechanics and playstyle are the inevitable next step to problems with 3.5, anymore than they are to problems with 5e.

inevitable, no. But when addressing some of the problems, they're not an illogical one, either.

 

[Staffan]

I don't think 4e-style mechanics and playstyle are the inevitable next step to problems with 3.5, anymore than they are to problems with 5e.

Well, for one thing different people identify different problems with 3e. But there are some commonly identified.

For example, one issue with 3e is that specializing in a skill quickly gives you a much higher skill bonus than not doing so, so pretty quickly any challenge will either be aimed at the rubes and be a cakewalk for competent people, or be aimed at the specialist and be impossible for someone untrained. The obvious solution is to compress the potential values somewhat. In 4e, you get +level/2 to all skills, with an additional bonus if you're proficient and an additional potential bonus for taking the Skill Focus feat. In the playtest version of PF2, they gave you +level to all skills as well, with an additional +1/2/3/4 depending on proficiency level (in the release version, they changed those to +2/4/6/8 and removed the +level for being untrained and gave you the option of getting that via a feat). These are not exactly the same, but they're close. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Another 3e issue was that while multiclassing in general was pretty weak, there were some combinations, particularly of front-loaded classes where abilities synergized too well (e.g. rangers getting free two-weapon fighting or rapid shot which was great when combined with something like the rogue's sneak attack). So 4e removed 3e-style multiclassing and added the ability to get curated abilities from another class via feats. PF2 did... pretty much exactly the same thing. Not implemented in quite the same way, but the same structure.

A third issue was that building monsters in 3e was unnecessarily complicated, because you treated the monster type (e.g. Monstrous Humanoid or Dragon) as a class with the hit dice being levels in that class. So if you wanted a chonky monster with lots of hit points, you'd have to load it up with many hit dice, which also made it good at attacking and gave it enormous amounts of skill points. Or you could give it a very high Constitution, but that would in turn bring its Fortitude save up and create a discrepancy between an amazing Fortitude save and a crap Will save, giving most big chonky monsters a very obvious achilles heel. 4e's solution was to do away with monster types as something that had inherent meaning, making it only something that was relevant if something made it relevant (e.g. +2d6 damage vs fish). Instead monsters had one of a small number of roles, and role + level gave you what stats the monster was supposed to have, with some wiggle room. You want a level 5 brute? That'll be about 60+Con hp, AC 17, other defenses 17 (but maybe Fort 19, Ref 17, Will 15?), attack bonus +8, about 2d8+4 or something else averaging about 13 points of damage. You want a level 5 artillery instead? That's 36+Con hp, AC and other defenses 17, attack bonus +12, and dealing about 1d10+4 damage. PF2 does a similar thing, except they don't have formal roles and instead give low/medium/high ranges for most stats, and then tells you "If you want a ranged attacker you should use low AC and hp, high accuracy, and moderate damage". Again, similar solution to the problem.

 

[payn]

Well, for one thing different people identify different problems with 3e. But there are some commonly identified.

For example, one issue with 3e is that specializing in a skill quickly gives you a much higher skill bonus than not doing so, so pretty quickly any challenge will either be aimed at the rubes and be a cakewalk for competent people, or be aimed at the specialist and be impossible for someone untrained. The obvious solution is to compress the potential values somewhat. In 4e, you get +level/2 to all skills, with an additional bonus if you're proficient and an additional potential bonus for taking the Skill Focus feat. In the playtest version of PF2, they gave you +level to all skills as well, with an additional +1/2/3/4 depending on proficiency level (in the release version, they changed those to +2/4/6/8 and removed the +level for being untrained and gave you the option of getting that via a feat). These are not exactly the same, but they're close. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Another 3e issue was that while multiclassing in general was pretty weak, there were some combinations, particularly of front-loaded classes where abilities synergized too well (e.g. rangers getting free two-weapon fighting or rapid shot which was great when combined with something like the rogue's sneak attack). So 4e removed 3e-style multiclassing and added the ability to get curated abilities from another class via feats. PF2 did... pretty much exactly the same thing. Not implemented in quite the same way, but the same structure.

A third issue was that building monsters in 3e was unnecessarily complicated, because you treated the monster type (e.g. Monstrous Humanoid or Dragon) as a class with the hit dice being levels in that class. So if you wanted a chonky monster with lots of hit points, you'd have to load it up with many hit dice, which also made it good at attacking and gave it enormous amounts of skill points. Or you could give it a very high Constitution, but that would in turn bring its Fortitude save up and create a discrepancy between an amazing Fortitude save and a crap Will save, giving most big chonky monsters a very obvious achilles heel. 4e's solution was to do away with monster types as something that had inherent meaning, making it only something that was relevant if something made it relevant (e.g. +2d6 damage vs fish). Instead monsters had one of a small number of roles, and role + level gave you what stats the monster was supposed to have, with some wiggle room. You want a level 5 brute? That'll be about 60+Con hp, AC 17, other defenses 17 (but maybe Fort 19, Ref 17, Will 15?), attack bonus +8, about 2d8+4 or something else averaging about 13 points of damage. You want a level 5 artillery instead? That's 36+Con hp, AC and other defenses 17, attack bonus +12, and dealing about 1d10+4 damage. PF2 does a similar thing, except they don't have formal roles and instead give low/medium/high ranges for most stats, and then tells you "If you want a ranged attacker you should use low AC and hp, high accuracy, and moderate damage". Again, similar solution to the problem.

Keep in mind some of the PF2 designers were 4E designers so its not a surprise they took some of the same routes as 4E.

 

[BryonD]

inevitable, no. But when addressing some of the problems, they're not an illogical one, either.

exactly. I see huge differences between PF2E and 4E. But I also see a heavy reaction to the weak spots in 3.5 in both. Some go in similar directions and others different. But the "family resemblance" is there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

exactly. I see huge differences between PF2E and 4E. But I also see a heavy reaction to the weak spots in 3.5 in both. Some go in similar directions and others different. But the "family resemblance" is there.

Yeah, Staffan's post a couple up shows why looking at similar problems will often have somewhat similar approaches (Payn's not wrong either, but I suspect even if the PF2e designers didn't overlap with the D&D4e designers some of those solutions would have arrived at not-dissimilar places).

 

[DaveMage]

PF1 fixed one of biggest issues I had with 3.5 by simply using CMB/CMD. The only other major issue I have is when there are stacking bonuses at high levels (which are still there in PF1). So many bonus types....

I think my ideal D&D is somewhere between 3.5/PF1 and D&D 5E 2014 (but certainly NOT what was mostly done with 4E/PF2/D&D 2024).

 

[Micah Sweet]

PF1 fixed one of biggest issues I had with 3.5 by simply using CMB/CMD. The only other major issue I have is when there are stacking bonuses at high levels (which are still there in PF1). So many bonus types....

I think my ideal D&D is somewhere between 3.5/PF1 and D&D 5E 2014 (but certainly NOT what was mostly done with 4E/PF2/D&D 2024).

For me, A5e strikes that particular balance pretty darn well.