Meet Pathfinder 2's Cleric; Plus Spellcasting Basics!

On the Paizo comments a lot of people are annoyed that classes get less than PF1, less class features and have to pay feats to get them back. The counter argument is that you get those feats instead of class features, just meaning you can chose how you want your class - rather than stuck with what is written. The same applies to races/ancestries. Either argument aside it does seem that all classes and races are nerfed, you don't have enough feats at level 1 in PF2 to get all the features to equal level 1 PF1. We haven't seen what backgrounds and Archetypes exactly do yet tho. I think this is a good thing, spread the power - but people don't like having things taken away I guess.

Secondly a lot of comments about only getting, max, 3 spells memorised per spell level. Another good thing IMO, to lower the power of casters vs mundanes; and also casters won;t have the spell to do automatically what other classes roll skills etc for all the time. There is the concern about 15 min adventure day tho, but that is partially offset by scaling cantrips.

These things mostly look good to me, as a DM normally I don't care about PC's having less than PF1. As long as they are better balanced against each other and opponents, it's irrelevant - but there is a lot of the Endowment Effect going on

Very interested to see the entire Playtest tho, very hard to get a feel with these tiny titbits - not that it hasn't released the rage on Paizo!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Depends which version. It’s not far off from some of the later playtest packets. The earliest ones look pretty different in some ways, but you can see the start of a lot of the ideas that made it through to the end. I think the ones that were most different from the final were the awkward middle stages where everyone used maneuver dice for everything.

The last few were certainly getting closer, but it still seemed quite different, to me - different enough that a bad impression of part or even all the playtest shouldn't rule out giving 5e a fair shot.

I'm sure part of it, for me, was that I kept trying to run a whole Encounters season with the same rules, so I'd start with a playtest doc, have to ignore the next few, then start up with whatever was current the next time. I'd check 'em out, but the ones I actually ran obviously left more of an impression.

 

[mellored]

My experience with Pathfinder was that players who really enjoyed it liked having lots of features and options, such as extra spell slots, lots of metamagic feats, the talent trees and other features that give them lots and lots of fiddly bits. The new system is very appealing (to me), but almost every hardcore Pathfinder fan I know is expressing a lot of angst over the implied and outlined design decisions, which feel to them like the game is moving closer to 5E design structure and away from the more articulated design that system mastery as a design concept supports.

I'm still seeing plenty of fiddly bits. They are just divided up into different resource pools.


27 always-useful spell slots + 10(?) always-useful healing spells + 5(?) always-useful cantrips + 10(?) always useful spell points + 10 class feats + a 5(?) ancestory feats

= 67 options. More than 3 fiddly bits per level.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I'm still seeing plenty of fiddly bits. They are just divided up into different resource pools.


27 always-useful spell slots + 10(?) always-useful healing spells + 5(?) always-useful cantrips + 10(?) always useful spell points + 10 class feats + a 5(?) ancestory feats

= 67 options. More than 3 fiddly bits per level.

I absolutely agree, but the guys I know who don't appear to dislike the changes being made.

 

[mellored]

Look, I'm not trying to predict PF2s failure.

I'm saying there's a risk
1) they're completely overestimating their own importance

While

2) severely underestimating the fundamental improvements brought on by 5th edition.

Sure you could dismiss that game as child's play and too shallow - and TBH reading my own posts might give that impression.

But that would be a grave mistake. The changes to casters improve the game on a fundamental level. The abandonment of monsters using PC build rules immensely improve my DMing experience.

Futzing about with four spell lists, three actions to me suggests a design team unable to lift up their collective head to see what's needed to compete with 5E.

PF won't beat 5e at being 5e. The only way for them to stay relevant is to be different than 5e.
And since 5e is "shallow", then PF needs to go "deep".

Also, PF went very much the same direction as 5e did with the spellcasters. Nearly identical number of spells, spell progressions, a diety specific spell to casts, and stat + character level scaling DC's.
I don't see any issue reducing the 8 spell schools to 4.
Nor anything big about simplifying action/move/minor/reaction into 3 actions/reaction. It just makes things more flexible.


If you took 5e and gave out 3 times more backgrounds, 3 times as many feats, 3 times more weapon and armor properties...

So yea... PF2 is looking a lot like 5e, with 3 times as many fiddly bits.

 

[Tony Vargas]

2) severely underestimating the fundamental improvements brought on by 5th edition.

One thing I've found myself debating since 5e came out has been whether, overall, it's a bit better or a bit worse than 3.5...

 

[CapnZapp]

One thing I've found myself debating since 5e came out has been whether, overall, it's a bit better or a bit worse than 3.5...

It's generally far superior to 3E imo since it actually solves its issues the way 3.5 and PF purported to do but never actually came close to doing.

That does not mean it's perfect. The main issue is how softball everything is in 5E, with essentially no support for high level games with veteran gamers getting the most out of the options given by the PHB.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's generally far superior to 3E imo since it actually solves its issues the way 3.5 and PF purported to do but never actually came close to doing.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'solves its issues?' The issues of the immediately-preceding half-ed? If so, I'm afraid that's not a lot clearer to me, because I also found it hard to tell if 3.5 was really an improvement, overall, compared to 3.0 - initially it couldn't help but be, as it removed, for practical purposes, the little bit of bloat that had already begun to afflict 3.0, but obviously, that didn't last long. Some 3.5 changes did seem like improvements, by themselves, others quite the opposite, and, overall, it made some arguable problems with 3.0 worse. It took a long while of playing 3.5 before I had to admit that 3.0 was actually the slightly better edition, especially as some of the things 3.5 'fixed' were more issues of interpretation that, were it not for the 3.x/PF community's reverence for RAW, could've been handled by the DM.

5e relatively to 3.5 I find similar. It /is/ a greater departure from 3.5 than 3.5 was from 3.0, of course, but it still mixes some details that look like clear improvements in isolation, while being less clearly so overall, with some countervailing new issues of its own.

But, mainly, the huge glaring difference between 3.5 and 5e is one of attitude. The natural-language presentation, frequent invocation of DM rulings by the 'RAW,' limited player options, and slow pace of supplementation of 5e all conspire to support it's mandate of DM Empowerment, putting a burden on the DM as onerous as that of 3.5 but, IMHO much more engaging & rewarding. In contrast, 3.5's wealth of options and its community's sanctification of RAW made it a very player-Empowering edition.
If I had only every played, it'd be easy to conclude that 3.5 is the better of the two. If I had only ever DMed, it'd be easy to say that 5e is, especially if I was sick of the 'player entitlement' of the WotC era to that point.

The main issue is how softball everything is in 5E, with essentially no support for high level games with veteran gamers getting the most out of the options given by the PHB.

It's part of the tightrope-walking WotC did to make 5e acceptable to those veteran gamers and their ilk, while still keeping it accessible to new & returning players. It seems to have worked really well: 'warring' against 5e is vanishingly slight, so it must be at least minimally acceptable to the critical minority of fans willing to go to such extremes to register their disapproval; the number of players is growing rapidly, so it's presentation is not intimidating or disconcerting enough to keep new/returning players from trying it, at all. The result is very good for the brand.

But, the resulting system is really kinda ill-defined and "softballed,' yeah. It's up to the DM to choose a shape for his 5e campaign, remove from or add to 5e until it fits that mold, and polish it to the spedific luster preferred by his group....

3.5, OTOH, is what it is, by the RAW ('Rule 0' notwithstanding), love it or grudgingly respect it.

 

[Aldarc]

I think capnzapp is on the money with an advanced 5e. Whether or not pathfinder will be the ones to do it, there seems to be plenty of demand for those that like the base of 5e, but want more customisation and crunch

One of the core problems, IMHO, is that 5E failed on delivering on the degree of modularity it promised in its initial pitch. And the uneven class structures has been one of the greatest impediments to modularity, customization, and balance in the game, despite the improvements that it did make.

I don't see any issue reducing the 8 spell schools to 4.

From what I can tell, the 8 schools of magic are still around. Paizo is only really using the whole 4 Essences thing to give more rhyme and reason to the physics of magic and class spell lists. But I also suspect that even then it may be something of an incoherent mess when it comes to assigning new or more coherent spell lists due to the persistent baggage of tradition.

 

[TwoSix]

One of the core problems, IMHO, is that 5E failed on delivering on the degree of modularity it promised in its initial pitch. And the uneven class structures has been one of the greatest impediments to modularity, customization, and balance in the game, despite the improvements that it did make.

Unfortunately, 4e managed to turn the community view of a unified class progression into a bug, not a feature. Which is a shame, if the 5e class progression was more unified you could actually port subclass features between classes with a minimum of fuss.

 

[CapnZapp]

Unfortunately, 4e managed to turn the community view of a unified class progression into a bug, not a feature. Which is a shame, if the 5e class progression was more unified you could actually port subclass features between classes with a minimum of fuss.

Have you tried starting a campaign at 3rd level?

You should be able to switch out subclasses there.

You'd still have to resolve specifics, but you already knew that. At least it no longer matters whether you got your subclass at level 2 or not.