D&D 2E Is 5e Basically Becoming Pathfinder 2e?

[Earth2Carnifex]

These are the general scopes of play as I see it, pick the one you like the best and play.

Basic: At its most basic level, 5th edition is a fairly simple game, the only allowed rules are those presented in the free downloadable basic PDF. Only 4 classes and 4 races are allowed along with a very narrow field of additional background crunch. Characters are easy to roll up and virtually all of depth is provided by the players.

Intermediary: This type of game uses only the core three hardbound books. There are 9 races and 12 classes available, along with several customization options for each class. Character generation is more difficult and the different niches can be filled in interesting ways by a couple of different classes.

High: This game includes, in addition to the core books, the Players Companion, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide and Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Basically everything published by Wizards of the Coast as a D&D supplement is fair game, including Unearthed Arcana articles. The options available to players and DM’s is mind boggling. The first two levels are static and never change, at this level, something new is available every couple of months. The only things not allowed are rules produced by 3rd parties.

Very High: This is where things go nuclear. This type of game can include virtually anything available from the DM’s Guild. All manner of classes and races are available and I doubt any group could or would even want to allow all of it, but it is in the realm of possibility. Niches are almost non existent at this level as virtually any class can fill any niche with just a little customization. DM’s have to be very careful at this level as to not allow anything unbalancing or disruptive to play. Of course at this level, it probably does not matter if something is unbalancing or disruptive, because everyone will have access to things that are unbalancing or disruptive. The problem with this level of play is, it is difficult to move characters from one campaign to another.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

First, a 90-10 xp split doesn't give a 9-1 level split in any edition, as the xp required for each level j-curves upward. I think in the specific case of a 90-10 F-MU (which one of my players ran, a long time ago) the level split I remember was 8-3 or 8-4 by the time her career ended.

Doesn't that go back to the previous point, though? About AD&D-style multi-classing giving you way more than it costs you? Level 2 spells are nothing to sneeze at, especially compared to one level of fighter.

And second, to do anything like this in the 3e system just doesn't work; again because of j-curving xp per level. If you go 9 levels of Fighter and then drop in one level of Wizard that one level is going to cost you way more xp than if you had done it after just one level of Fighter or used the optional 0-0 rules. I know this from experience because with the first 3e character I ever played I was trying to do exactly this - a 90-10 F-MU based mechanically on the same character I referenced above - and it didn't work well at all, as I learned the hard way over several years of play.

Third edition had a lot of balance issues, so it's hard to say where to place the blame in this case. It could just be that single-classed spellcasters scaled too well, such that any levels of Fighter were only holding you back. It could be how they re-vamped ability scores, so you needed an incredibly high stat in anything you wanted to do (you couldn't get by with having twelves in Strength and Int, like you could in AD&D, because everyone else had 20+ in their main stat).

I'm sure some of it was that they realized a multi-class 8/4 was stronger than a single-class 10, so they wanted you to actually pay for the levels you had. They just neglected to account for the above issues with exponential spellcaster growth. (A Fighter 8/ Rogue 4 actually is pretty comparable to a Fighter 12 or Rogue 12.)

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't that go back to the previous point, though? About AD&D-style multi-classing giving you way more than it costs you? Level 2 spells are nothing to sneeze at, especially compared to one level of fighter.

Perhaps, though she'd have to take off all her armour before casting; this made her a fighter during the day and a magic-user sometimes around the campfire.

Third edition had a lot of balance issues, so it's hard to say where to place the blame in this case. It could just be that single-classed spellcasters scaled too well, such that any levels of Fighter were only holding you back.

In my case it was the other way around: the 1 level of Wizard hosed my Fighter.

It could be how they re-vamped ability scores, so you needed an incredibly high stat in anything you wanted to do (you couldn't get by with having twelves in Strength and Int, like you could in AD&D, because everyone else had 20+ in their main stat).

Stats weren't my problem - I rolled hella good for this guy. Lowest stat was 12. Didn't help.

I'm sure some of it was that they realized a multi-class 8/4 was stronger than a single-class 10, so they wanted you to actually pay for the levels you had. They just neglected to account for the above issues with exponential spellcaster growth. (A Fighter 8/ Rogue 4 actually is pretty comparable to a Fighter 12 or Rogue 12.)

They were also trying to make prestige classes work, something earlier editions didn't have to worry about, notwithstanding the RAW 1e Bard.

Lanefan

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Without huge mistakes being made, 5e is in no risk at all of becoming Pathfinder/3e. And it's not the amount of content, though the slow release schedule does help.

Third Edition was broken from the start, and 3.5 did not fix it.

Playing 3e with just the Player's Handbook, and a nonzero number of optimizers at the table, was already a mess. Druid was vastly overpowered, Fighter was terrible, and past fifth level (third level with the right group), the game turned into a series of rocket tag matches where the difference between a character's high saves and low saves was large enough that the GM had to carefully choose not to kill characters at will when running supposedly balanced encounters.

THAT was the core problem with 3e, and Pathfinder didn't really get at it at all. 5e's power gap between the best class and its worse was far smaller, the high-to-low-saves difference is smaller, and there's less instant kill on both sides of the screen. 5e works, ground-up, in a way 3e/Pathfinder never can.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

THAT was the core problem with 3e, and Pathfinder didn't really get at it at all. 5e's power gap between the best class and its worse was far smaller, the high-to-low-saves difference is smaller, and there's less instant kill on both sides of the screen. 5e works, ground-up, in a way 3e/Pathfinder never can.

To be fair, 5E still has a lot of problems, and it fundamentally fails in ways that Pathfinder does not. To wit, halflings and half-orcs have the same potential for physical Strength, and you can sleep off the ill-effects of swimming in a Kraken's stomach acid in about an hour.

And both games do still suffer from the same problem with their player base, which is that a significant number of players have a severe aversion to house rules in any capacity, regardless of how each game wishes they would approach the topic.

 

[Parmandur]

To be fair, 5E still has a lot of problems, and it fundamentally fails in ways that Pathfinder does not. To wit, halflings and half-orcs have the same potential for physical Strength, and you can sleep off the ill-effects of swimming in a Kraken's stomach acid in about an hour.

And both games do still suffer from the same problem with their player base, which is that a significant number of players have a severe aversion to house rules in any capacity, regardless of how each game wishes they would approach the topic.

Your bigs are other folks features.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Taken some time off from this site and gaming in general. Back to find 5E and I've waited a bit before posting as I wanted to at least read the PHB.

I guess my take on the "Is 5e Pathfinder 2e?" question is "No, it's D&D 5e." When Pathfinder does a refresh we'll have to see what it is. However, if you approach 5e like it's Pathfinder then of course you're going to be disappointed.

As to finding and keeping players, it's less about using what I'll erroneously call splat book options and more about making sure that you're on point regarding what makes your game cool. If you come out and tell people they can't do things then no one is going to waste their time on you if they don't know you first. If you come out and hit the new player with a well developed campaign setting that tells them the cool things that can do with you that aren't in the books and give them the opportunity to see your work, if it's good then they will play.

If you ask people you don't know for faith because "you've gamed forever and know stuff" then they're going to go find another game. There are way too many of us that have played "since red box" to make that worth anything unto itself.

2cp.

-The boots.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Without huge mistakes being made, 5e is in no risk at all of becoming Pathfinder/3e. And it's not the amount of content, though the slow release schedule does help.

It's primarily the amount of content & slow pace of release. Fundamentally, 5e & 3.x/PF are pretty similar. They both standardize resolution on the d20, have all classes advancing on the same table, getting HD every level, give fighter-types more attacks as they level up, have full casters using 1st-9th level spells, cover levels 1-20, pass out stat bumps & feats, and use 'modular' MCing.

5e is just turned down from 11. Release a book-a-month for a couple years and it'd collapse just as badly.

Third Edition was broken from the start, and 3.5 did not fix it. Playing 3e with just the Player's Handbook, and a nonzero number of optimizers at the table, was already a mess. Druid was vastly overpowered, Fighter was terrible, and past fifth level, the game turned into a series of rocket tag

If anything 3.5 - and the community, itself - made it worse. When my old group started playing 3.0, it did not seem that bad. There were no CoDzillas or WoCLW or SoD rocket tag out of the gate, in part because no one played a Wizard (or Druid, but there was a Sorcerer) and the two Clerics both multi-classed. Keeping the lid on was a testimony to brinksmanship and player restraint, but it never really went that far off the rails, even under 3.5, until we hit about level 12 or 13. The campaign wrapped at 14th.

But, over in the broader community, and almost every time I stepped into a 3.5 game at a convention, things were just going nuts.

THAT was the core problem with 3e, and Pathfinder didn't really get at it at all.

The whole point of PF was to preserve all that 'broken' in the face of 4e butchering sacred cows to fix it all. No small part of the point of 5e was to get back to it, and it has. Turned down from 11, but back.

5e's power gap between the best class and its worse was far smaller, the high-to-low-saves difference is smaller, and there's less instant kill on both sides of the screen. 5e works, ground-up, in a way 3e/Pathfinder never can.

5e went back to a similar design paradigm as 2e & 3e. It's muted, a bit, by BA, but it's all still there. You have good and bad saves, only now instead of one or two good and two or one bad, it's two good and four bad - and, as in 3e, DCs are based on casters' best stat while the save bonus can easily come from your worst. Instead of Good BAB & itterative attacks you have Extra Attack. Instead of bad BAB but touch attacks, casters just attack AC with their best stat & proficiency, like everyone else. 5e even has it's own, different cracks, like in 3e, save DCs got crazy but they were based on spell level so only a few spells/day could have that highest DC, in 5e, DCs are all based on character level, so every spell, 1st or 9th or whatever, same DC.
The gap between the prepped casters and fighter in 5e is Tier 1 to Tier 4 instead of the 1-to-5 gulf it was in 3.5. There's probably more classes in Tier 2 & 3, relative to 4-6, other than that, as well.

As far as 'ground-up,' if 'ground' is 1st level, I think 3.5, or at least 3.0, probably worked a shade better than 5e. From 3rd or 5th or so on, though, 5e can't hold a candle to the brokenness of 3.x, I mean, there's a reason 3.5 got the 'E6' treatment, because it started blowing up so badly right at 7th with Polymorph. 5e at least waits to the low double digits.

Really, that's just the 'sweet spot.' 3.x, it was 1 to 6 maybe up to 10 if you banned certain tricks; 5e it starts at 3-5 and goes up to 10 or so. The neat thing is that the exp tables show some awareness of the sweet spot, they're very quick the first two levels, slowing substantially after 4th, and speeding up again after 11th.

 

[RotGrub]

You're probably fortunate they don't want to play in your game. You should feel good that you're weeding them out. They clearly have a play-style that is not the same as yours. Advertise for players who are new to the game and see if that helps.

Even if WoC didn't publish extra options it's likely those players would not be interested in 5e at all. You would still be looking for players.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I think there are factors pushing 5e and Pathfinder in similar directions (importance of organized play, revised/unchained options not replacing original options [summoner aside for organized play], and focus on 1-2 campaign worlds [and vocal splits on whether it is time for next editions among gamers]).

The biggest difference is that 5e came out when "rules lite" was more popular among game designers, and Pathfinder is built around the "there is a rule for everything, and for everything a rule" of 3x (and I suspect it is why they have been better able to absorb some 4e-ism [like the monster roles in the unchained book] than 5e has been). Since I don't see "rules lite" going away (it is less onerous and people can point to the success of 5e to justify doing it), if there ever is a PF 2.0, it will probably be more "rules medium" (being "rules lite" might be a bridge to far) than the current edition is.

 

[dco]

They want to sell books and power creep and options helps that.
We play the vanilla game in my group and only buy adventures, for options we already have Fantasy Hero, one book will give far more options than 30 from D&D or Pathfinder. As I said long ago I think the designers should have gone the way of True20, using class powers like the feats of D&D 5e.

 

[redrick]

[MENTION=20005]Matthan[/MENTION]'s advice is the best I see here. Your ad, as it stands, is very generic. To follow that up with a bunch of restrictions could definitely play as a turn-off, even for players who might otherwise fit your play-style. Having read a lot of pitches for campaigns on Roll20 and similar, I've found that the best ads are the ones that pitch a specific kind of game, with the restrictions, alternate rules and house-rules that are put in place to support that.

I imagine two very different pitches:

"We like to play a stripped down game, with simpler mechanical options, because we find it focuses the attention on at the table creativity and story-telling, as opposed to carefully constructed character builds." (Some people will find that appealing and some will pass.)

"I like to run a my-way-or-the-highway game, so I've restricted most of the mechanical options from chapters of the PHB that I can't be bothered to read, and if you bring any ideas you got from anywhere else, I will definitely not be allowing those at MY table." (I think most people would pass on this, though I guess a case could be made...)

I think it's also great to note that you are building off a playstyle that you've reached with other players in your group. In my mind, that is a good sign, because it indicates that you are able to work with players to find a game you all want to play, as opposed to deciding unilaterally about a very specific game you want and looking for players who are willing to subject themselves to your personalized version of D&D.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I think there are factors pushing 5e and Pathfinder in similar directions (importance of organized play, revised/unchained options not replacing original options [summoner aside for organized play], and focus on 1-2 campaign worlds [and vocal splits on whether it is time for next editions among gamers]).

The biggest difference is that 5e came out when "rules lite" was more popular among game designers, and Pathfinder is built around the "there is a rule for everything, and for everything a rule" of 3x (and I suspect it is why they have been better able to absorb some 4e-ism [like the monster roles in the unchained book] than 5e has been). Since I don't see "rules lite" going away (it is less onerous and people can point to the success of 5e to justify doing it), if there ever is a PF 2.0, it will probably be more "rules medium" (being "rules lite" might be a bridge to far) than the current edition is.

I think you see a little of this with Starfinder. The rules are much more stripped down, though not as lite as 5e.

 

[S'mon]

I have not found difficulty getting players despite restrictions.

 

[Lanefan]

I have not found difficulty getting players despite restrictions.

You do have one small advantage...

Population of London: something like 8 million
Population of Whitehorse: something like 23,000.

 

[S'mon]

You do have one small advantage...

Population of London: something like 8 million
Population of Whitehorse: something like 23,000.

Yup (9 million now!) - and lots more would-be players than would-be GMs.
That said, I couldn't just declare I was going to run Chivalry & Sorcery and expect to have a bunch of players; there are limits.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

The problem with this level of play is, it is difficult to move characters from one campaign to another.

Just commenting on this - Is this really an issue? Anecdotes are not data and such, but in my 40 years of gaming (given not a lot of groups, but a fair number) I have never met a GM that let anyone just bring a character into a game. They could reroll/rebuild for the new GM game and build a "native" version of the character, following the tone, theme and house-rules of that campaign, but never just brought in. Does that actually happen?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just commenting on this - Is this really an issue? Anecdotes are not data and such, but in my 40 years of gaming (given not a lot of groups, but a fair number) I have never met a GM that let anyone just bring a character into a game. ... Does that actually happen?

It was common practice in my area in the 80s - though not without revue & restrictions, and flat-out denial if the character was somehow unacceptable.

Of curse, it's perfectly normal in organized play.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

It was common practice in my area in the 80s - though not without revue & restrictions, and flat-out denial if the character was somehow unacceptable.

Of curse, it's perfectly normal in organized play.

Well yeah, that is sort of the point of organized play.

 

[Lanefan]

Just commenting on this - Is this really an issue? Anecdotes are not data and such, but in my 40 years of gaming (given not a lot of groups, but a fair number) I have never met a GM that let anyone just bring a character into a game. They could reroll/rebuild for the new GM game and build a "native" version of the character, following the tone, theme and house-rules of that campaign, but never just brought in. Does that actually happen?

When the home campaigns share a rule-set etc. we transfer characters between them all the time. But brought in from outside? Nearly never.