Xenonnonex
Hero
All the best.Xenonnonex, ignored.
All the best.Xenonnonex, ignored.
Rather, the vast majority of what defines a 5E PC is divorced from mechanics, and resides in personality and background detail. The mechanics bits are Race, Class, Subclass and Background (Feats, if you like that optional rule: I personally dislike Feats and prefer to never use them). The use of broad archetypes for the mechanical aspect allows for freedom on the narrative side.
Gamer Motivation Profile said:Fantasy (92%): Gamers who score high on Fantasy want their gaming experiences to allow them to become someone else, somewhere else. They enjoy the sense of being immersed in an alter ego in a believable alternate world, and enjoy exploring a game world just for the sake of exploring it. These gamers enjoy games like Skyrim, Fallout, and Mass Effect for their fully imagined alternate settings.
Design (90%): Gamers who score high on this component want to actively express their individuality in the game worlds they find themselves in. In games like Mass Effect, they put a lot of time and effort in the character creation process. In city-building games or space strategy games, they take the time to design and customize exactly how their city or spaceships look. To this end, they prefer games that provide the tools and assets necessary to make this possible and easy to do.
There was a lot of bandwagon-jumping as open-source d20 recaptured market & headspace leadership in the early oughts, so I suppose that's not entirely unfair. The hobby, though, once you start looking beyond D&D and whatever challenger is had at the time, has long been quite fragmented & very 'niche.' There's absolutely a niche out there for PF2, and it's unlikely to be a small one (relative to non-D&D RPGs, relative to D&D, of course, they're all small). Of course, PF1 /was/ D&D for a few years, there, so that 5e has reclaimed the D&D mantle might be an adjustment...As to the question of market fragmentation. I don't think the issue is, "Is the market MORE fragmented than it was when 4e was introduced." I think the issue is "Is the market more fragmented than when 3.5 was prominent," and 5e notwithstanding, I think the answer is clearly yes, and there is a market segment that will be attracted to PF2.
The basic three ways to be a rogue - sneaky DPR, sneaky DPR & half-caster, and … OK, IDK, what you consider the third one (Thief & Assassin don't /seem/ that different, Mastermind is helpful DPR, I guess... there are other sub-classes out there). But, whatever the three flavors of Rogue 5e has goin', what are some additional ones PF2 offers?As to the relative virtues of 5e vs. PF2, I have to say that I find 5e to be really anemic with regard to class and character options. Every character is pretty much a minor variation on a core, with little opportunity for customization. What I like about PF2 is that it offers me lots more genuine options for customization right out of the box. There are LOTS of ways to be a rogue, whereas in 5e there are three or so. I like that.
….replace 'Paizo' with WotC...And my point was that Paizo overcorrected their wizards. To the point where you are having more fun emulating a martial.
The traditional wizard has been overshadowed by martials and casters trying to be martial lites.
...we could be discussing 4e in Sept 2008.Arcane casters used to be on top of the caster hierarchy with spells that were demonstrably better than what other casters could provide. With the new curated spell lists that is no longer the case. Bards are now full casters who have access to some of the arcane caster's best stuff when it comes to buffs, debuffs, and disabling mental effects. Druids now have access to the same elemental spells that wizards have. I think the arcane casters are fine, but they are no longer top dogs.
Xenonnonex, ignored.
They were absolutely right though, it's pretty screwy to refer to a game as options-anemic when you ignore major sources of options.
And just for the record: I still disagree. The way that options are parsed in 5e feels paltry to me even when you take account of supplementary sources. Meanwhile, I think that Paizo's options are robust right out of the box, without me having to go out and invest in supplementary sources just to have the kind of flexibility in character creation that should be baseline.
And, I'll also add that when we discussed this around my 5e table, everyone agreed. You basically get three flavors of every kind of character with 5e. With PF2, the default provides many more options.
Some people prefer it one way, some the other, but it's a genuine issue, not "disingenuous" to express. I've never said anyone should do anything other than play the game they prefer. And PF2 certainly has a ready market in those of us who are less than fulfilled by 5e's approach.
Having played the game bi-weekly for several years now, and having created dozens of characters, and having watched the other players in my game create dozens of characters, and having seen, repeatedly, the same three flavors of every class, with only the occasional exception, I stand by my statement.
Hey no one can argue with how you feel about the options in 5e... the issue is when you start making definite statements like the "3 flavors" comment and it's demonstrably false. thief, assassin, swashbuckler, mastermind, spellthief, etc are all different archetypes that play differently and feel differently in the game. That's the issue some are having with your statements (which you restated in the above post), the fact that they are outright false.
EDIT: Well that and the fact that you chose to ignore option sources while making a general statement about the lack of options in the game.