Is Pathfinder 2 Paizo's 4E?

[TwoSix]

5E & 1E/2E do not allow a player to trade a "move action" for something else that could be more optimal. You move or don't. Casual players like moving. In fact, I'd say most 3E players, even those who read the rules a first pass, thought you could attack mid-move until they were illuminated that such antics were limited to the protected realms of Spring Attackers.

Even in 2019, most of my players who played 3e/PF for a long time still look for ways to cash in their movement for some other benefit, usually for some extra item interaction or stunting. The preference for trading in your move definitely seems to be a mindset thing where people prefer one approach or the other.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

It does not sound like you played 4E from your description. There was no optimizing for a 3 action round or anything of the kind.

Of course there was. Did you play 4E?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Of course there was. Did you play 4E?

To be fair, most of that came from later supplements. The PHB didn't really have all that many minor-action powers.

I am of the understanding that the game eventually got to the point where you could throw out a minor-action attack almost every round, but that definitely wasn't my experience with 4E, shortly after release. (I still wanted to optimize my use of the action economy, of course, but I couldn't really push it very far with just the tools available at the time.)

 

[Celtavian]

Of course there was. Did you play 4E?

Yes. And the rounds were nothing like PF2 in the original release version. If some change came later, then it was nothing I experienced. The original game was move, use one of your powers, and perhaps a minor action. If that's what you mean by three actions, then every single game system since 3E has had a three action around.

PF2 is a three action round with each action being equal and flexible not even requiring you move at any time if you don't have a need to. PF2 action system is very different when we're talking about a 3 action paradigm.

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't think Paizo are making their business decisions out of pride and resentment, and I'm surprised you would suggest they are.

Thank you for asking!

When I ask myself "why on earth would they ever go with a brand new system with no easy ties into either their previous system or the current edition of D&D" (where 99% of customers are at) I repeatedly get the reply Paizo wants to avoid getting burned again as they were when Wizards yanked their Dragon/Dungeon license and created 4E inside a walled garden.

Since I am convinced the only location where Paizo can thrive to the extent necessary to maintain the scale of current operations is in close orbit to the 500 ft gorilla, I conclude deciding to do otherwise must be rooted in pride and resentment.

Pride in thinking the Pathfinder brand is (much) stronger than it really is. Every dndish game that isn't D&D quickly ends up on dusty shelves. (Note: Pathfinder was not it's own game, it WAS D&D)

Resentment in harboring a grudge for WotC when the coldly rational choice would be to realize your nature as a parasite, essentially, and forget about past bad treatment and stay close to the host organism that nourishes you.

I hope that answers your question

 

[CapnZapp]

Even in 2019, most of my players who played 3e/PF for a long time still look for ways to cash in their movement for some other benefit, usually for some extra item interaction or stunting. The preference for trading in your move definitely seems to be a mindset thing where people prefer one approach or the other.

It's easy to mistake 5E's approach as a "simplified" one. At first, I made that mistake too.

But 5E's approach isn't simple. I mean, yes it is, but more importantly it's the correct approach.

That is, I have come to the conclusion the approach where move is "just extra" is the correct one:

§1 Liberal use of move means dynamic exciting cinematic battles.
§1b Not moving around means static boring battles.

§2 Move needs to be free to be used liberally.

§3 The only way for movement to stay free is if there is zero ways to "cash it in" for something more minmaxed (like even a single extra point of damage, or healing, or attack or defense).

Ergo, it is not merely "simple" to offer no ways to spend your move on other things than positioning. It is good game design.

 

[Aldarc]

Since I am convinced the only location where Paizo can thrive to the extent necessary to maintain the scale of current operations is in close orbit to the 500 ft gorilla, I conclude deciding to do otherwise must be rooted in pride and resentment.

Pride in thinking the Pathfinder brand is (much) stronger than it really is. Every dndish game that isn't D&D quickly ends up on dusty shelves. (Note: Pathfinder was not it's own game, it WAS D&D)

Resentment in harboring a grudge for WotC when the coldly rational choice would be to realize your nature as a parasite, essentially, and forget about past bad treatment and stay close to the host organism that nourishes you.

I hope that answers your question

And every time you post this, I point out that this is ridiculous to think that pride and resentment are the most plausible explanations, and how this further requires building upon your massive assumption in the first sentence that you have convinced yourself to be true.

 

[CapnZapp]

...

Let me just remind you I wasn't talking to you. I was answering a direct question from Amethal.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's easy to mistake 5E's approach as a "simplified" one. At first, I made that mistake too.

But 5E's approach isn't simple. I mean, yes it is, but more importantly it's the correct approach.

That's a bold assertion, but I can't actually disagree with it.

On a similar note, I would say that a point-buy game the separates combat and non-combat abilities into different point pools is also the correct approach (for a combat-based game). A choice between something interesting and something useful is not really a choice, unless you expect people to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of style.

 

[wakedown]

Resentment in harboring a grudge for WotC when the coldly rational choice would be to realize..

Ah, I think this reads into the current state of Paizo too much. Paizo's lost a ton of their talented creative personnel who helped them reach their peak - Wes Schneider, James Sutter, Sean K Reynolds, Crystal Frasier, etc. Outside of Jacobs and Bulmahn they lost most of their folks who had over a decade of GM experience. Even their old guard AP contributors have mostly moved on besides an occasional Pett AP chapter. The general sentiment I've picked up is folks like Stevens and Mona are more managerial than ever so there's really a lot of the day to day being thought upon now by fairly new folks to the industry. A lot of their own content is penned by GMs who often just have "1 GM star" in their own organized play campaign, and if I recall correctly Seifter was more of a player than a GM, and ultimately was mostly a single-system gamer so didn't have a broad background in "other games".

So I suspect it's really just mostly junior personnel in the halls while the senior folks are tackling financial matters (like deciding to use GameOn for the Kingmaker campaign in order to generate immediate cash to use for covering Core 2e production costs as a management level decision).

From what I understand they were at the 2e crossroads long prior to Starfinder and kind of passively aggressively kicking the can down the road to make a decision as far as they could. Why worry today about what you could hopefully worry about tomorrow?

Thus 2e is really as by-product of a fatigued Bulhman, a 4e contributing Bonner, McFarland and power-gaming build-aficionado Seifter who probably had little framework outside of "get something out in the next year" since the financials show we passed the point of criticality. 2e isn't really a by-product of a veteran team with ungodly behind-the-screen-GM experience but a lot of contributors from the post-MMO era who got their wings in the Pathfinder 1E character builds era and I honestly don't think have gone much outside of that room.

PF2e really seems this way from a rules perspective. Internally they probably don't see the 3-action system as much different than today's standard/move/swift system. They probably feel like the Dedication system is better for curtailing the cheese from build dips that led to abusing the power curve in 1E PFS play (which thus then requires gating feats behind classes). One point I come back to often is how they left a spell like Endure Elements in the system (whereas 5e removed it). Or how they kept Barkskin in as an always useful get-DR spell (whereas 5e it's just get up to AC17 if you aren't already). There's still all the fiddly bits to "win" the metagame system by ensuring you have the right scrolls or spells. In that sense, PF2E swims close to PF1E in that folks who like to make builds get their candy, and folks who like the IWIN button in solving things that used to be real story points in 1E-2E (and returned to the realm of possibility in 5E).

TLDR: I think they just postponed 2E too long, lost all their experienced people, and the folks there really don't see 2E as that much different than 1E and grudgingly it's a compromise-design-by-committee system primarily oriented at plugging some organized play abuse points.