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

[Matthan]

RPG'ers are actually fairly 'common', actually. However, they tend to be in close nit groups who rarely venture out into the wild. Also, because it's still small'ish in numbers, people/groups tend to get a "reputation"; basically, styles of play. Me and my group enjoy generally "unforgiving" campaigns (think Olde Skool), and there aren't many other folks who enjoy it. Those that do...well, they have their own groups. So finding others who are willing to "give old skool a try" tend to be...rare.

I'm not an 'old school' gamer, but I think I would question whether a highly deadly game and allowing player options are mutually exclusive ideals. If you guys need players for your group and you have a small population to draw from, then I would encourage you to boil your game down to its essential component and market that. From what you're saying, I think you run a very lethal game. I would market that.

Past that, I would encourage you to try and reconsider your perspective on player options. When you allow a player to play a certain race or archetype that isn't in the PHB, you are not allowing every other published option to enter your world. You're allowing that one option. Just like you would with a homebrew. Have a conversation with the player and figure out why they want to play a particular option.

Maybe they want to play a goliath because they love the idea of this hulking brute and like that the mechanics help reinforce that concept. They may not be interested in the nomadic giant-kin angle. If your world doesn't have goliaths as a race, then you can offer him the mechanics as an altered human (7th son of a 7th son? Magical tomfoolery?). Make a hook of it.

If it's the flavor of the wandering tribe and the mechanics don't matter to him, then offer a similar option to him within your world. Maybe there's a tribe of nomads who serve some stone giants in the northern mountains of your world.

Or, you can go the easiest route and just say that there are a small minority of goliaths that exist in distant areas. Maybe this guy is the only one that's been seen in these lands. That's a pretty interesting hook.

But, allowing goliaths doesn't mean that you're also introducing Firbolgs, Aaracockra, Duergar, Tabaxi, etc... You're expanding your world to make sure that your player can find his place, his fantasy, in it.

A D&D group is about relationships, right? The best groups like each other and work together to make sure that everyone is having fun. When you're looking for new players, be abundantly clear about your group's identity (highly deadly), but past that, make sure there is room for their fantasy within that identity. Ideally, you're going to be the DM for these players. You want a good relationship with them. Work with them and build that relationship. If they're a good player, they'll be willing to compromise with you too. A good player doesn't want to join a game and upset everything. However, every player wants to express himself through his character and play something that engages his imagination for whatever reason. There's room to meet in the middle.

I recognize that advice is more work than laying out a long list of what you want and that it may involve some compromise on your part. However, if you're in an environment where players are scarce then you may need to be more flexible in some areas to grow your group. I believe you can do that without sacrificing the core identity of your group. If you were in a high population area (or playing online), then you might be able to get that group of ideal players. If you're on the internet advertising, you might be able to find the five other people in the world who always wanted to run an all gnome bard party in the whole world, right? But, if your potential playerbase is much smaller, then you have to cast a wider net to get what you want.

 

[Mistwell]

I remember going to that theater. I had to go down to that neighborhood yesterday. It, and everything along the boulevard to what was once the community Sepulveda (now named North Hills) was practically unrecognizable.

Indeed. My little street is like a pocket from the 1940s and 1950s in a sea of stuff that's been torn down and rebuilt over the past 15 years or so. Which is a shame. Burbank in my opinion had the right idea - renovate, don't rip down. A town loses a lot of character when it's constantly being torn town and rebuilt with the latest trend.

 

[Fleetwood C. DeVille]

5th Edition will never be Pathfinder until:

1. A stat block for a high-level BBEG in an adventure takes up an entire page not counting backstory/personality stuff.

2. You can't have a campaign reach 3rd level with only a single magic item without riots.

3. The term "nerf" is used at least four times when discussing every supplement/rules clarification.

4. You hear "feat-chain" or "feat tax".

5. You are told of (another) way of crafting "foo" for next to nothing (using all available crafting feats and classes) and selling them at book value for "infinite money".

6. The modifiers in combat look like the formulas used to land astronauts on the moon.

7. (Corollary to #6) A player has a class/PrC combo so modifier intensive that they program it into their tablet otherwise they wouldn't be able to play. (Champion of Irori /Cleric (Crusader)/Monk /Paladin (Hospitaler))

8. Every negative/restrictive aspect of something can be negated by taking a feat, splashing a class, or obtaining a magic item.

9. The Tyrannosaurus Rex has a perception of +37.

10. The two sides in a battle stare at each other, refusing to move to attack the other group because then they could not "full-attack".

 

[Tony Vargas]

5th Edition will never be Pathfinder until:.

You forgot every discussion being restricted to "The RAW."

Yeah... I actually like seeing some of the new sub-classes. Sub-classes are a low impact means of adding options, since they are a 'bolt-on' to the class framework and are designed as a single rules element. They add breadth instead of depth.

And because they can't cross-pollinate within the class, unless the bring some other rules element with them - like new spells or new uses for CS dice...

I also appreciate that 5E took the direction of having characters have less feats that are each more powerful. It avoided the feat chains and the smaller mix and match 'micro' feats. One feat in 5E is closer to a complete chain of feats in other editions.

Nod. I have mixed feelings about it. More feats did mean more customization, but 'feat taxes' and feat chains could end up reducing that apparent freedom. Feat chains could relegate a defining or even foundational ability to comparatively high level (the human & fighter 1st-level bonus feats could pull that in). 5e's 'big' feats can sometimes have a similar effect (though the variant human's bonus feat at 1st level really pulls it in, the fighter's at 6th, not so much).

Pretty sure Pathfinder has more official rule material published in a six month timeframe than 5E has in three and a half years, so...nope.

True, Paizo does put out a lot of material to its subscribers...

Something that worries me is the knowledge that gamers who want more and more materials aren't necessarily those who actually play the game more regularly. MHO the majority are people who don't play the game at all, and need to compensate that with talking endlessly about it, which requires new material to analyze and criticize all the time, more than is needed by those who are actually busy playing the game.

That's a stereotype, sure. IDK if it's as prevalent as all that, but, as long as they have the money to buy it, hey, it's a demand, there's profit to be made filling it! ;P

Some of them are probably people who play so much, that they feel they are running out of options, and want something new to try out.

Another reason to want more material is if the current material doesn't yet enable the things you want to run or play (or even could just stand to do so better). That may also be behind a minority of calls for new material, but it's still a very legitimate reason.

 

[Elderbrain]

Don't want to get into the "is this good or bad" argument, but I counted the number of sub-classes now available in the hardcover books, and there are 80 of them. That's a lot of sub-classes. Now, four of them are special cases. Battlerager and Bladesinger are designated for Dwarves and Elves only, respectively, Oathbreaker required you break your previous Paladin Oath to take it, and Purple Dragon Knight is FR-specific (though you can use it elsewhere under the "Banneret" name). Has anybody counted the number of PC races now available in the books?

Edit: I counted up all the racial options in the hardcover books, and counting each variant as a separate "race" (i.e. Base Human is one, variant Human is two, etc.) there were (I believe) 51 options.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Bottom line...well, yes. Kinda-sorta.

HOWEVER, I don't see it as being "my fault" entirely simply because if you go back to the day the PHB was released, I, and anyone else, could have showed up at virtually ANYONE'S game and know what to expect. Anything above and beyond what the PHB had was "extra" or "unique". However, the more and more choices that show up, the more and more they become ingrained in the collective as "normal 5e game stuff". When a person shows up to a game and suddenly is presented with none of the "additional" stuff (re: SA, books, UA, etc)...they tend to think "Oh, this game is going to suck. If I can't make a genasai Deep Walker Ranger with Feats, then what's the point?". Because 5e is training them to do the same stuff that 3.x did; If you have an idea for a character...go get it from someone else. IMNSHO, 5e should be training people to do what 5e's base premise was in the first place: If it's not there...make it up!

That was what I was getting at. That more "official choices" doesn't, in my mind, increase the base premise of 5e's "create what you want for your own game and go for it". It does the opposite. It decreases that premise because players and DM's are now expected to be using "the same rules" for, say, an "underground ranger archtype"...even though they are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL! A DM may have created his/her own, specific to his/her world...but players who are familiar with the Deep Walker Ranger (or whatever it was called) are going to be confused, annoyed or even outright upset. Their "expectations of play" have been changed. All because there was an optional archtype that was written up by WotC and now 'everyone' who hears 'underground ranger' will assume this is what is used. The DM isn't "giving them a new archtype to play"...the DM is now "taking away the fun choices".

Hope that clears it up a bit.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

(a) The two biggest things you are disallowing -- multiclassing and feats -- are in the PHB and have been since the day it was released.

(b) You keep referring to Sage Advice as if it were a source of new player options. It is not. This makes you look like you're complaining about stuff from a position of ignorance, which is never a good place to be.

(c) If you have your own version of underground ranger archetype, don't lead off your pitch with "You can't play Deep Stalkers!" That's just bad marketing. Sell the player on why your version is better. (It shouldn't be hard; the Deep Stalker is kind of "meh".) And if the player disagrees that your version is better, would it kill you to let them play the Deep Stalker as a substitute? After all, you've already made it quite clear that there's a place for underground rangers in your world. Do the exact mechanics matter so much? It's not as if the characters in-universe are going to realize, "Oh, hey, I learned Underdark Scout at 3rd level but you learned something else! What gives?"

I've got my own version of the ranger class. Not just a subclass -- the whole thing. I think mine is better than WotC's. And my players happen to agree. But if one of them wanted to play the WotC ranger, I'd let them play the WotC ranger. Because... why wouldn't I?

 

[Krachek]

5ed is the only solution for a PF players who wants something new.
So in a sense 5ed is PF 2.0!

 

[cbwjm]

(a) The two biggest things you are disallowing -- multiclassing and feats -- are in the PHB and have been since the day it was released.

(b) You keep referring to Sage Advice as if it were a source of new player options. It is not. This makes you look like you're complaining about stuff from a position of ignorance, which is never a good place to be.

(c) If you have your own version of underground ranger archetype, don't lead off your pitch with "You can't play Deep Stalkers!" That's just bad marketing. Sell the player on why your version is better. (It shouldn't be hard; the Deep Stalker is kind of "meh".) And if the player disagrees that your version is better, would it kill you to let them play the Deep Stalker as a substitute? After all, you've already made it quite clear that there's a place for underground rangers in your world. Do the exact mechanics matter so much? It's not as if the characters in-universe are going to realize, "Oh, hey, I learned Underdark Scout at 3rd level but you learned something else! What gives?"

I've got my own version of the ranger class. Not just a subclass -- the whole thing. I think mine is better than WotC's. And my players happen to agree. But if one of them wanted to play the WotC ranger, I'd let them play the WotC ranger. Because... why wouldn't I?

Have you shared your ranger version? I'd be interested in taking a look.

 

[Bacon Bits]

9. The Tyrannosaurus Rex has a perception of +37.

I'll admit, I thought you were exaggerating with this one.

 

[Hussar]

I'm glad that you had a group together that long, but all of this sounds absolutely so foreign to me. I have never been involved in gaming groups that required ads, interviews, or red tape procedures. All my groups have involved friends, mutual friends, and reputable friends. My current group, for example, is just me, my fiance, her best friend/roommate, and another couple who are our friends. Before that, my group was composed of grad student buddies. Our gaming rules typically boil down to "friendship and basic human deceny required."

I tend to agree, though I also pine for character options that I once had in the game (e.g. artificer, psion, warlord, races, dragonmarks, etc.).

Well, it's mostly a real life issue for me. I've moved a rather lot in my 20's and 30's including several countries before finally landing in a small town in Japan where there is a decided lack of anyone to game with. So, virtual tabletop was the way to go. But, even before that, I was playing in FLGS groups and my university's Gaming Club. So, it really wasn't that huge of a shift for me.

I haven't gamed with friends since high school.