Is Pathfinder 2 Paizo's 4E?

[CapnZapp]

Ah, I think

Interesting. Insightful, even!

 

[TwoSix]

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

I....didn't say it was simple? I just said that some of my players understand that the ability to move has a net-positive value, and so if they don't have to move they want to try to extract some value from an otherwise unused resource. I understand and agree with your premise, but I also can't fault their psychology in trying to get as much as use out of their turn as possible, since that's the very heart of good combat play in every version of D&D.

I do quibble with the point that "liberal use of move means dynamic exciting cinematic battles". The best way for that to happen is for the encounter to have a sense of place, with each area of the encounter having obvious tactical advantages and disadvantages. Then the liberal use of move allows the battle to mutate as those advantages and disadvantages become part of the encounter. Movement doesn't do much in battle in a 30' by 30' locked room with 4 orcs.

 

[pogre]

PFS is hanging tough here despite an uptick in 5e play. My observations from a recent convention I helped run last week:
PF1 tables were not filled, but had enough to play. The PF2 (playtest) table had to cancel one and had trouble filling the other tables. All of the Starfinder tables were completely filled. Very local and pretty small convention, but it was interesting to see.

 

[MockingBird]

I feel like Paizo should have made a gradual shift to support 5e. They could have kept starfinder and PF1e and double down on designing great APs double stated for 1e and 5e. Maybe even making an "advanced" rules option for 5e for the ones who like heavy math. PF2e just feels desperate but this is just my opinion on what little i have read and seen so far. Am i correct to believe some 4e designers took part in designing PF2e? Interesting if so because they are back to the same task they had for 4e. By what some are saying in these forums PF2e is leaning in a tactical way. Definitely staying tuned to see how this turns out.

 

[JesterOC]

§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).

I would say
1) Location / placement in combat should have advantages and disadvantages which encourage you to use movement.
2) Movement should not be free as doing leads to no true choices, if you are at a disadvantage you would be foolish to not move, if you are at an advantage you would be foolish to move.

Having a cost to movement does two things
1) Forces you to weigh the cost vs the gain in advantage
2) Allows you to consider if you could force this cost on to your opponent.

In 5e with attacks of opportunity and free movement, once a player is near the average monster, the only movement I see players do is to orbit them. Mainly so they avoid an attack of opportunity, and to hopefully get a flanking bonus (which is an optional rule!).
Stepping into combat hitting and moving back is almost never done, because you have a potential to be hit on the way back and since movement towards the creature is free it looses nothing when it approaches you.

However if you take a look at PF2. A normal creature has no attack of opportunity this allows for more movement.

PC's fighting creatures have exhibited the following strategies.

The traditional move to get into flank

The use of a move to get out of flank is more common (due to lack of op attacks)

If the one side outnumbers the other, if the outnumbered members will often step away from the horde after attacking. Because it will force the greater number of creatures to waste actions on movement that could have been used for attacks. For instance if a PC was being swarmed by lets say 3 creatures, one action step action by the PC, removing 3 actions from the monsters side.

If an opponent has a shield and the attacker does not. Stepping away after attacking a shield user will force the shield user must decide between a second attack and using the shield.

 

[CapnZapp]

I feel like Paizo should have made a gradual shift to support 5e.

This

 

[Parmandur]

I feel like Paizo should have made a gradual shift to support 5e. They could have kept starfinder and PF1e and double down on designing great APs double stated for 1e and 5e. Maybe even making an "advanced" rules option for 5e for the ones who like heavy math. PF2e just feels desperate but this is just my opinion on what little i have read and seen so far. Am i correct to believe some 4e designers took part in designing PF2e? Interesting if so because they are back to the same task they had for 4e. By what some are saying in these forums PF2e is leaning in a tactical way. Definitely staying tuned to see how this turns out.

Well, they are putting out a 5E version of Kingmaker now, so that might be Plan B: focus in-house developmentefforts on the very successful adventure card game, and make Adventure material for a variety of games (to fit their subscription model). Kobold Press might have beaten them to the niche, though.

 

[wakedown]

This

I ask myself -- What is "Paizo"?

Is it the guys who penned great stuff like Age of Worms back in the days of Dungeon? And then great stuff like Rise of the Runelords?

If it's the actual human being with the creative idea, and the stat blocks to implement it... take some of the parts of Age of Worms:

Three Faces of Evil - Mike Mearls
Blackwall Keep - Sean K Reynolds
A Gathering of Winds - Wolfgang Bauer
Prince of Redhand - Richard Pett
Library of Last Resort - Nick Logue
Kings of the Rift - Greg Vaughan

Then you realize most of the "Old Paizo Guard" that has decades of GM experience has done just that and is penning plenty of 5E stuff these days. I'm a big fan of almost all the Wes Schneider stuff and he's on the 5E bandwagon too.

Most notably missing? James Jacobs. He'd be fantastic if he would independently publish material outside of Paizo... with his creativity he could make a killing in the current Kickstarter age.

 

[Aldarc]

I feel like Paizo should have made a gradual shift to support 5e. They could have kept starfinder and PF1e and double down on designing great APs double stated for 1e and 5e. Maybe even making an "advanced" rules option for 5e for the ones who like heavy math. PF2e just feels desperate but this is just my opinion on what little i have read and seen so far. Am i correct to believe some 4e designers took part in designing PF2e? Interesting if so because they are back to the same task they had for 4e. By what some are saying in these forums PF2e is leaning in a tactical way. Definitely staying tuned to see how this turns out.

God no. I already feel that the over abundance of 5e everything on the market has been a huge turn off for me and has increasingly soured me to 5e, with some people slobbering over it as if it farts rainbows and potpourri. I like that there are alternate systems out there for D&D style fantasy. I want to see gaming companies do non-5e things successfully. I want to see healthy competition in the market. I know a lot of people who played 5e and increasingly find it stale and have moved on. Paizo being another sheep in the flock does nothing to address that.

 

[chunkosauruswrex]

God no. I already feel that the over abundance of 5e everything on the market has been a huge turn off for me and has increasingly soured me to 5e, with some people slobbering over it as if it farts rainbows and potpourri. I like that there are alternate systems out there for D&D style fantasy. I want to see gaming companies do non-5e things successfully. I want to see healthy competition in the market. I know a lot of people who played 5e and increasingly find it stale and have moved on. Paizo being another sheep in the flock does nothing to address that.

I wholeheartedly agree as much as I enjoy 5e, I'm really a person who likes a little more crunch and a few more options. 5e past level 3 you make so few meaningful character choices unless you multiclass that fundamentally by the time level 5 or 6 comes around who your character is doesn't change very much outside of a few classes(Bard and warlock and now the artificer which coincidentally are some of my favorite classes for that reason). Then compounding this issue of so little choice is the glacially slow pace of content release, so I notice the lack of options even more. Also Wizards is really ticking me off with how they are doing releases now with 1 or two subclasses in books instead of larger rules and PC and DM books. I don't want to be nickeled and dimed like that. Then there are the digital offerings like D&D Beyond which I refuse to ever pay for because if that company goes under all "my" content goes away with it which means it wasn't mine to begin with.