Pathfinder 2E My Pathfinder 2e Post-Mortem

[Justice and Rule]

What WWN does is assume that PCs start combat at full health and provide another means of implementing attrition. Your post-combat healing is just determining what the cost in System Strain you need to pay is. My homebrew system does something similar with stress, though it also implements stress more pervasively in the system (e.g., you can gain stress to cast spells even when you are out of mp or gain stress to save versus a consequence or take the successful option when making a saving throw).

Sure, and that's what I'm talking about. It doesn't really prevent you from healing up before every encounter, but what happens with strain is that it forces the players to make a choice about how much to continue on, and puts a good limit on continuous adventuring. As a mechanic it's a great way to force players into downtime naturally, rather than creating artificial breaks. It also creates a whole new vector for new mechanics, like making wilderness camping recover strain slower compared to staying in proper accomadations, among other things. It's just a very good idea that encourages players to make interesting attrition decisions instead of trying to artficially limit them from taking the "We heal up to full before proceeding" option every time.

Pathfinder 2e has a problem of being afraid to diverge from the traditional play loop even though it provides tools in the GMG to do so effectively. The VP subsystem should have been core. It would have made the value of these things immediately apparent. In that case, trying to make a Group Impression would be a clock VP subsystem, and so would the scenarios @!DWolf outlines in his response. The benefit of the skill feat becomes immediately obvious: you skip the clock and do it in one check. I think it would have also obviated the need to specify all the degrees of success for every skill action and would have allowed for more flexibility in using skills. The normal would be clocks, and skill feats allow you to short circuit that.

I think part of the problem is that, in creating a system that covers a lot of areas for Society play, people don't make decisions that better fit their own table. Like, Make an Impression is fine as a set of guidelines that you can modify to fit your situations as needed. The VP systems are definitely good for most things, but they outright say in a lot of the more free-form parts of play like Diplomacy, Downtime, and Exploration, you are explicitly told to try and modify things to fit the desires of your players, what they provide are largely meant as guidelines to give you an idea of how things function and how they designed things.

I do think that things may have been better to be more open in how things are run and provide a book of "hard rules and answers" for PFS, but I also get that doing such a thing would be a hassle and that it's easier to design for store play outright and just let GMs go off on their own.

And yeah, I feel like a lot of the complaints about "This feat means you can only do this if you have the feat!" miss that those feats are really more about "I can skip the rigamarole and just go for it" instead of having to make multiple checks. The Dandy feat that allows one to create a rumor on a single roll fits this exactly, where creating a rumor would take multiple checks to do it successfully, but having the feat allows you to save time by just hitting it with one.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Paizo’s obviously making money doing it, so there’s obviously an audience fir it, but I think it’s a shame. The system can obviously do more, but designing to accommodate that particular audience feeds a perception that they system is just for that kind of play. Recall the conversations we had several years ago when PF2 was released, and the official adventures were put forth as the way the game was intended to be played.

I'm not sure, I didn't notice it was overly combat heavy in Malevolence, but I don't play a lot of official adventures. I think part of it is that for all we talk about changing interests in the player bases of TTRPGs, people really do consistently like fighting monsters. My group does a bunch of stuff, as you know, but my players love themselves a good fight.

 

[kenada]

I think part of the problem is that, in creating a system that covers a lot of areas for Society play, people don't make decisions that better fit their own table. Like, Make an Impression is fine as a set of guidelines that you can modify to fit your situations as needed. The VP systems are definitely good for most things, but they outright say in a lot of the more free-form parts of play like Diplomacy, Downtime, and Exploration, you are explicitly told to try and modify things to fit the desires of your players, what they provide are largely meant as guidelines to give you an idea of how things function and how they designed things.

Yeah, and I’m saying that’s a flaw in the system. If exploration and social interaction weren’t so loosey-goosey the expectations for how feats interact with those subsystems would be more consistent, and we wouldn’t have these wildly different takes depending on where the GM is on that spectrum. I also think that the VP subsystem would create opportunities for social play in PFS that the current system doesn’t support very well (due to the need for consistent adjudication from GMs).

 

[kenada]

I'm not sure, I didn't notice it was overly combat heavy in Malevolence, but I don't play a lot of official adventures. I think part of it is that for all we talk about changing interests in the player bases of TTRPGs, people really do consistently like fighting monsters. My group does a bunch of stuff, as you know, but my players love themselves a good fight.

Is that because people prefer combat or because that’s what the games offer? If there were equal support for non-combat activities, would those be more popular? Our crew in our Blades in the Dark game is quite violent (we’ve eradicated factions and killed a higher-tier NPC last session because we got word he was going to turn an ally against us), but we’ve also had some incredible social scores adventures, which were made possible by the structure of the mechanics.

This relates to my conversation with @Justice and Rule because I think those kinds of sessions are totally possible in PF2 if you bring in the VP subsystem and use it pervasively, but that’s not the default. It actually makes the game more complicated because how those social (and exploration) skill feats interact is kind of mushy instead of being well-defined. Imagine if combat worked that way, and there was no 3-action economy, and the efficacy of combat feats was up to how the group played.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yeah, and I’m saying that’s a flaw in the system. If exploration and social interaction weren’t so loosey-goosey the expectations for how feats interact with those subsystems would be more consistent, and we wouldn’t have these wildly differnet takes depending on where the GM is. I also think that the VP subsystem would create opportunities for social play in PFS that the current system doesn’t support very well (due to the need for consistent adjudication from GMs).

I want to hesitate to call it a flaw because I feel like I make those sorts of exceptions with every system, but at the same time you're definitely right that just going with the VP systems as Core would have allowed for a whole new level of utility for social skills. PF2 is like right on the edge of breaking out of old formulas, but it makes concessions to them at the last moment which really has a "Two steps forward, one step back" feeling to it. I feel this most-deeply with the rune system and potency/striking runes, where removing those allows magical weapons to focus on being different and not just the classic modifier treadmill, but they make it into runes which you can add to any weapon which... well, it does make it so that your ancestral sword can level up with you, but in the most tedious way possible.

 

[dave2008]

Some of the lauded parts of PF2 don't work as well for the GM as they do for the players, I found. The 3 action combat economy is pretty good as a player, but it makes the GM's side take longer. Even mooks get 3 actions, which slows down resolving their turns. I also hated doing the item action economy for NPCs -- keeping track of what weapons or shield or item they had in hand, if their weapon was loaded or not, etc (not to mention shield hp and hardness...). Even the players often disliked the granularity of PF2's object handling economy.

I haven't run or played PF2e yet, but one of the things I thought about porting to my 5e game was the 3 action economy. However, I never really thought about from the DM side and having to keep track of multiple monsters with multiple actions. That is a really good point and I can see how that would be burdensome.

 

[payn]

I wrote up a huge ass post and lost it.

Healing/rest mini game:
Yeap, its annoying. Designers wanted to make an encounters based game, but had to stick with legacy issues because of player base. So, it works weird as they have to hood wink players into thinking its an adventure day system.

Skill Feats:
Total agreement with OP. They take the issue with PF1 feats and spread it to every part of the game. You have oddly specific but interesting options up against boring but useful in every encounter options. Which will players choose?

GMing, three actions, conditions, 4 tier saving system, etc...
A beast to run at the table. Though, made super slick with VTT. Gotta be cool with VTT though.

Solo fights:
On one hand, solos can now live against a party long enough to be those set piece battles you always wanted. On the other, they make PCs feel like wimps as they settle for their weakest abilities, skills, and spells to be effective. You have to essentially papercut the solo to death and hope you can survive its attacks which often crit. I'm told this is tactical and if so, I'm probably just not a tactical guy (I didnt like 4E either).

Downtime:
Boring as hell in every TTRPG ever. Not just a PF2 porblem.

Exploration Mode:
I was excited for this. Found almost nothing on it. Nobody uses it (they often laugh at you if you inquire about it). Adventure modules dont seem to include it. A total afterthought?

PF2 Paizo Adventures:
I have a few theories on why they are encounter packed. First, they want to highlight the new system. Second, they are used to PF1 era where you have to toss tons of encounters at the party to challenge them and meet XP budgets. Sort of both fighting the last war, and learning the new system. Many adventure writers are not rules designers.

Special note, I'm not as down on the writers about having to jigger with the APs. I like that aspect and dont see it as a negative. However, im more of a take something and make it better type GM than I have ever been a good homebrewer. So, this is likely adventure module in general talk then anything I find problematic with PF2 specifically. YMMV.

Final Thoughts:
There are things I really want to like about PF2. The action economy is boss, and I do like the tight math, when I like it that is. I feel like its a little too tightly wound and the players dont have the ability to punch above their weight to my liking. PF2 might function better (for me) with the proficiency without level variant. Though, I'm more of a bounded accuracy guy than a level scaling one. I dont care for the narrative of a PF2 world, or the "must be this tall to ride" level limits. I also prefer the character customization of PF1, and feel like PF2 sacrificed a lot of that in order to maintain the tight system. Hybrid MC is a total disappointment (was also in 4E) for me, I might be able to stomach it with the free archetype variant. Though, you can probably see where I am going with all my desire for variants. PF2 out of the box isnt really the game for me. I do appreciate it though for folks who really dig it.

 

[payn]

I haven't run or played PF2e yet, but one of the things I thought about porting to my 5e game was the 3 action economy. However, I never really thought about from the DM side and having to keep track of multiple monsters with multiple actions. That is a really good point and I can see how that would be burdensome.

I dont think its a big deal at all. Its a breeze compared to the condition handling and multiple poisons mentioned in the OP. Since every class and monster is built around the system, there really isnt a ton you have to learn or adjust to when using it. YMMV.

 

[dave2008]

I dont think its a big deal at all. Its a breeze compared to the condition handling and multiple poisons mentioned in the OP. Since every class and monster is built around the system, there really isnt a ton you have to learn or adjust to when using it. YMMV.

I don't think I need to learn anything, but just having to make 3 decisions for each monster. That feels like a lot.

 

[payn]

I don't think I need to learn anything, but just having to make 3 decisions for each monster. That feels like a lot.

In my experience, its pretty easy. Usually some combination of move, attack, move. The monster might have some interesting extra action abilities, but smart players wont allow them a full round adjacent decision. Though, PF2 was built for it and porting it over to 5E might not be as ideal.