Pathfinder 2 and the game Paizo should have made

[Acolyte of Zothique]

I gotta say, I intensely disagree with the notion that PF2 has no audience. Much of the original Pathfinder audience will no doubt find PF2 satisfactory, and that number will increase with time as more options become available, and people finish old campaigns and transition to new content.

And then there is the group that was interested in a crunchier, more detailed game than 5e, but found PF1 clunky, inconsistent, and at times intimidating. How is it not a good options for a more considered complex option than 5e?

More than that, I find you incredibly disingenuous, CapnZapp. I find PF2 as a rules engine to be genuinely better written then 5e, with a few exceptions that don't noticeably detract from the whole, imo. You state that



Which is not only false, but is actually more true of 5e!

You talk a ton of naughty word on PF2 with little proof to back it up. To say that Chargen is inflexible, especially when compared to the likes of 5e, is laughable at best, and slander at worst. Your class has a lot of identity, but that identity is incredibly flexible and allows for quite a lot of variation, even at level 1. With the exception of the Alchemist, which they kind of bungled imo, most of your feat choices matter and give you wider breadth of abilities, or improve in areas on which you want to focus. Not window dressing in the slightest, but build choices of which there are not clear best choices. Induvidually, they offer smaller but important bonuses or abilities that add up to make your character far more distinct from each other than 5e could ever even dream of.

I'd like to cover your points bit by bit, but I'm at work and don't have the time to do so, but rest assured I find your criticism against the feats and "fiddly bits" to be shallow and unsubstantive, and misleading to any souls who wonder onto this topic.

It sounds like you either never looked at the rules in-depth, or are intentionally misrepresenting the rules because you have a clear bone to pick with PF2 not just being 5.5e. 5e has many problems, and after DMing it for basically the whole time it's been available, they are grinding on me, and I find the system uninspiring, at this point.

Well it sounds like you are seriously biased against 5e because it doesn't work for you. This doesn't help your argument for PF2E; how does attacking 5e in your response above help in any way? A poster has stated his issues with PF2E; can they not be addressed without dragging in adversarial views on 5e? Addressing someone else's opinions by naughty word talking another game they play and you don't like? Really?

Honestly, why can't people make their points about one game without resorting to attacking/denigrating another?

 

[MockingBird]

The OP clearly gave a trigger warning in their post. Didnt take long for someone to totally ignore it haha.


To the OP. I agree with you mostly. I dont see who PF2e is for. The exclusion of some form of easy backwards compatibility blew my mind. That is a huge gamble for Paizo to make. Years of building a fan base and you make a newer version of your game that nullifies all your back catalog. I dont get it Big Dan.

I agree that Paizo seemed to ignore the success of 5e. Another mind blower in my opinion. Honestly I was hoping they would produce a crunchy 5e. I believe the two could have coexisted perfectly. 5e introduces new players, new players move on to PF2e. I dunno, maybe they just made a game they wanted and didnt really care what came of it? I doubt that but the choices made are mind boggling.

 

[Xenonnonex]

It would be interesting to see how popular the 5e conversion of Kingmaker would be. And if it would mean Paizo might need to devote some time for 5e.

 

[MockingBird]

It would be interesting to see how popular the 5e conversion of Kingmaker would be. And if it would mean Paizo might need to devote some time for 5e.

I really hope they support their back catalog of APs with 5e conversions. I'd throw money at hardcover collections in a heartbeat.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I really hope they support their back catalog of APs with 5e conversions. I'd throw money at hardcover collections in a heartbeat.

Reprinting their AP backlog with 5e may be a license to print money.

 

[S'mon]

Reprinting their AP backlog with 5e may be a license to print money.

I'd definitely be up for some PF2 & 5e dual-statted hardbacks of stuff like Reign of Winter! I've seen some poor PF APs in recent years (Giantslayer #5 was a personal nadir), but they have a ton of good ones especially from the first 5 years or so.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I'd definitely be up for some PF2 & 5e dual-statted hardbacks of stuff like Reign of Winter! I've seen some poor PF APs in recent years (Giantslayer #5 was a personal nadir), but they have a ton of good ones especially from the first 5 years or so.

Selfishly I just want the 5e conversions. Our group does not play 5e but they will not play PF2.

If they could open it up to a vote that would be best. But surely they know about which ones are hits and which ones are duds comparatively. Yeah also did not like Giantslayer. But APs like Rise of the Runelords, Strange Aeons, Reign of Winter, Serpent Skull, and some others would be quite good.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

It would be interesting to see how popular the 5e conversion of Kingmaker would be. And if it would mean Paizo might need to devote some time for 5e.

We'll see. But not sure the data paizo will end up with will be representative for the true 5e interest. The buy in for the 5e version is much higher than for the PF2 version, possibly making it seem 5e interest is much lower than it really is. For "true" data, they should have offered a hardcover 5e version at the same cost as the PF2 version (and maybe let someone who does proper conversions - that is, not Legendary Games - do the work).

 

[Nebulous]

Honestly I was hoping they would produce a crunchy 5e. I believe the two could have coexisted perfectly. 5e introduces new players, new players move on to PF2e. I dunno, maybe they just made a game they wanted and didnt really care what came of it? I doubt that but the choices made are mind boggling.

That's exactly what I was hoping for too, a crunchier version of 5e that I could switch over to. But no, that's not happening, I've played PF2 and it doesn't appeal to me.

 

[5ekyu]

Warning, this post is less about PF2 than broader rpg patterns. It just fits in this thread to me.

Traditionally, accessible game hits big and you always have a quick push for a more crunch version. They usually do ok. There's always a faction who wsbpnr more cruch or even "we scratch the itches that big boy left" follow-up.

But as I looked at PF2 and sawxegst it was (which is a right fine system) it occured to me that the "hit big" from 5e was more bringing new folks in. A lot of folks are now being drawn in by stream, youtube, etc.

So it occurs to me that the "hook the 5e hoard" direction to go might actually be a less-crunch, more stream-story friendly, quick start-up style game. Maybe borrow some easier to traxk-by-descriptives mechanics like damage saves vs HP, maybe more stunt driven active play than chargen build system, much more "language" than "njmbers" at the heart of its play.

I think if things I borrow from other games in my own play like "put an adjective to plusses" so that say every ability score above 13 on a character gets an adjective that plays into descriptions, above 15 two, etc.

Just pondering.

Obvioudly PF2 did not go this way, which is not a slam on it. It was designed another way to fit other goals.