Pathfinder 2 Playtest Preorders, Podcasts, & "Pathfinder 1.5"

In today's Pathfinder 2nd Edition news roundup, the playtest book preorders go live, Bulmahn and Radney-McFarland appear on a podcast, and what it would take to make "Pathfinder 1.5". As always this information will be added to the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Compiled Info Page!

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• The Pathfinder Playtest book preorders are now open! You can per-order your playtest book, adventure, and flip-mat between now and May 1st. Of course, you'll b able to grab them for free in August as PDFs if you don't want the physical playtest books.
• At Gary Con, Jason Bulmahn and Stephen Radney-McFarland hosted a seminar about Pathfinder 2nd Edition. You can listen to it on the Plot Points Podcast. The podcast is about 90 minutes long.
• In response to how much information the Paizo preview blogs contain -- "The blogs are not going to be dropping huge excerpts of the book. There is a very simple reason for this... it is still in edit, and layout. Then it needs to be copy fit and go through a few more rounds of edit. To top it off, we are still making changes and will, much to our publishers chagrin, continue to do so until the very last moment. That said... we also had to announce it if we were going to let retailers and stores have a chance to participate in the release. Thats just how the distribution system works. So... the best we can do right now is to give everyone an idea of how things work. We've already leaked things that have been changed and I am trying to keep that to a minimum so that the game we are talking about is the game you are going to get to playtest. It's not ideal... but it is the best we can do right now. I hope that helps understand where we are at." (Bulmahn)
• Vic Wertz talks a little about what it would take for a third party publisher to use the OGL to produce a "Pathfinder 1.5" (or "D&D 3.85") -- "There's an inherent difficulty in that concept, though. If you've been reading playtest feedback—or even if you haven't, but you just know a bunch of gamers—you will know that there's a spectrum of desire here. On one end, there are players want no changes whatsoever; on the other, there are players who want changes to anything and everything to be considered. Most people are somewhere in between. Paizo has staked out a spot on that spectrum. Playtest feedback might move us one way or the other a little bit, but as far as broad strokes go, the playtest will show you where we stand. (In our opinion, it's not all that far from 1st Edition.) Any "3.85" concept has to have SOME changes—otherwise, it's just First Edition, and there's no point republishing that, because we're keeping it in print in softcover and PDF. So 3.85 cannot capture the "no changes" audience. A successful 3.85 publisher would therefore need to capture a viable number of people who think 1E needs to change, but who also think that 2E is changing too much. Are there enough of those to form a viable audience for your work? Even if there are enough, here's where it gets really challenging: By definition, that group of people has strong opinions about what they want. But they will not be of a single mind—that is, even if they generally agree on how much things should change, they won't necessarily agree on what should change, or on how each of those things should be changed. There's not some magic set of precise changes you can make to capture them all. Some of the choices you make will lose some of them. Can you make enough of the right decisions to keep enough of them (assuming there were even enough of them to start with)?"
• Mark Seifter on "flipping" enemy criticals -- "The best part comes when you're cruising along doing pretty well with your combo and punishing enemy crits (maybe even with a paladin buddy to also hit and debuff when they crit your druid), only to come across an opponent who does something extra and really nasty on a critical hit! Flips it back around for a double flip. Jason was the main designer of these kinds of flips, where you punish an enemy critical."
• Seifter talks some more about rules language and terminology -- "We want language that can both be quite precise, with rules terms used consistently, but also sound plain, natural, and elegant rather than clunky. We think we've figured out a way to have our cake and eat it though, thanks to Logan's masterstroke of making certain rules elements act as nouns, certain rules elements (like actions) act as verbs, and certain rules elements act as adjectives and then allow natural language usage. So for instance, the blog mentions the Stride action, so we can say "whenever you Stride, you ignore difficult terrain" or "While Striding, you gain concealment against any reactions" or "Whenever an enemy in your reach Strides" or any other form of the verb. Like many of these wording-based decisions, this is the kind of thing that might seem like it could be "obvious" in hindsight but still takes inspiration to realize."
• Seifter comments on the rogue's Instant Opening ability -- "Instant Opening might not seem as cool as it actually is because it might be easy to assume that it requires some kind of check (or a failed save, or a roll of some kind) in order to work. But it actually works automatically. So one action from you equals two rounds of AC debuffs and all your sneak attack-related favorites. And it's not flanking, so all-around vision-type abilities won't help them."
• 30-40 class feats to choose from? "Compared to '3 or 4' class feats, the fighter alone has more than 10 times that number (not going to be more specific because, as Jason has said, we aren't through with copyfitting, so we don't know how many are going to fit)." (Seifter)

 

[Charlaquin]

Lol... any game put out by Hasbro is "design by popular vote" or do you think 4e was designed by a lone indie developer whose creative input and identity were allowed to flourish unbridled in his creation of this particular edition...

You just happened to like this committee designed game more than the next edition.

4e may have been designed by a committee, but it was a committee of professional game designers, who had clear design goals and rationale for everything. 5e wasnt even designed by a committee, it was designed by focus testers. The designers were only the source of ideas, the ultimate arbiter of which ideas got developed and which ones got scrapped was the player satisfaction polls. Anyone who followed the D&D Next Playtest could easily see WotC had no idea what would work and what wouldn’t, they just threw anything and everything at the wall. Whatever stuck went into the game, whatever didn’t either went back for further iterations, or scrapped depending on how poorly it did in the polls. And that’s how they’re still designing new content for it, that’s why nothing gets added to the game without getting approved by the community in Unearthed Arcana first. The result is a very popular game that takes no risks and challenges no expectations, which is fine if you want that, but I’m personally not interested.

Do you play 5e... serious question. A Battlemaster Fighter, a Frenzy Barbarian and a Swashbuckler Rogue are doing very different things each round... Of course anyone playing those classes can choose to attack over and over again but that's not a design issue.

Yes, I play 5e. Frenzy Barbarian: Round 1, Bonus Action to rage and frenzy, action to attack. Every round after, Action to attack, Bonus Action to attack again. If you can’t take the exhaustion, do the same thing without the Bonus Action attacks. Swashbuckler Rogue: Every round, Action to attack, Bonus Action to attack with your off-hand weapon. Prioritize targets that are adjacent to allies. Wow, the difference is stunning. Battlemaster Fighter is a little more different with Action Surge and Superiority dice. It’s probably the least boring non-caster in the game. Still very simplistic and unengaging though.

Never really had that complaint about 4e, (though honestly I probably didn't play it long enough to discern if that was true or not, wasn't really a fan)... My greatest complaint about 4e was the slog that it's combat always managed to become (along with the inordinate amount of the game time we had to devote to a single combat) which is why 5e was a breath of fresh air with it's much more streamlined gameplay, especially in combat while keeping it's rules easy enough to modify foir a higher level of complexity if I wanted it for certain combats.

Combats dragging on too long was definitely one of 4e’s flaws. Personally, I would rather that than the short but unengaging combat of 5e, but I understand why many prefer the opposite. To each their own.

you seem to buy into the notion that a large number of small impact feats is better than less feats that cover more ground... eh, I guess i can understand that but at a certain point it's overkill for me (and becomes a monster to keep even a semblance of balance going between these numerous discrete pieces... but to each his own.

Not necessarily better. Preferable for me, but both approaches are valid, both have advantages and disadvantages, and each appeals to different sorts of players.

But then this seems to go back to your reasons for wanting PF vs. D&D... without those endless splats you loose out on that ton of customization that seems to be the impetus for choosing it... or are you saying the corebook would be enough?

To be clear, I don’t play PF1. While I’m less than satisfied with 5e, I prefer it over PF1. When I say I want more options, I don’t mean more books full of classes, subclasses, feats, spells, and whatever else. The core book is plenty for me in that regard. What I want is more decision points in the process of leveling a character to 20, and more decision points on any given turn of combat. I don’t necessarily want more Feats to exist, I want characters to get to pick more than 5 of them. I don’t necessarily want more subclasses to exist, I want subclass to be more than just a choice I make once at 3rd level and get a handful of locked-in benefits from at certain levels. I don’t necessarily want more spells and maneuvers to choose from, I want more meaningful choices to make for what to do on my turn.

 

[Imaro]

4e may have been designed by a committee, but it was a committee of professional game designers, who had clear design goals and rationale for everything. 5e wasnt even designed by a committee, it was designed by focus testers. The designers were only the source of ideas, the ultimate arbiter of which ideas got developed and which ones got scrapped was the player satisfaction polls. Anyone who followed the D&D Next Playtest could easily see WotC had no idea what would work and what wouldn’t, they just threw anything and everything at the wall. Whatever stuck went into the game, whatever didn’t either went back for further iterations, or scrapped depending on how poorly it did in the polls. And that’s how they’re still designing new content for it, that’s why nothing gets added to the game without getting approved by the community in Unearthed Arcana first. The result is a very popular game that takes no risks and challenges no expectations, which is fine if you want that, but I’m personally not interested.

Allright so since this is leaning towards bashing 5e as opposed to hyping your game up on it's own merits...here we go...

Basically you're saying that the consumers got very close to or exactly the game they wanted, through the developers actually engaging with them and letting them have a say in the design... and yet somehow you're trying to spin this as both...

a. not a challenging thing (Because letting direct fan feedback influence development had been done...well let's see... I guess never in the history of D&D. Yep, nothing challenging there whatsoever )

b. and involving no risk (because fans are all known for their ability to come together as a whole on what they want, while communicating that clearly, along with the fact that the previous edition had done wonders to solidify an abundance of resources for this editions development... wait no, that's not right )

Again your biases for a particular system are showing. You can like 4e more than 5e but claiming that the design of 5e didn't involve taking risks and challenges is just constructing a silly argument. Now whether you personally liked the fruit of said risks and challenges is another thing entirely and not what you are stating or what I am arguing against.

Yes, I play 5e. Frenzy Barbarian: Round 1, Bonus Action to rage and frenzy, action to attack. Every round after, Action to attack, Bonus Action to attack again. If you can’t take the exhaustion, do the same thing without the Bonus Action attacks. Swashbuckler Rogue: Every round, Action to attack, Bonus Action to attack with your off-hand weapon. Prioritize targets that are adjacent to allies. Wow, the difference is stunning. Battlemaster Fighter is a little more different with Action Surge and Superiority dice. It’s probably the least boring non-caster in the game. Still very simplistic and unengaging though.

And the rogue in turn performs different actions from either of those two... so basically your claim that they all do the same thing and they can only move and attack are both provably false. thanks for that and I'll assume we can move forward from that ridiculous argument.

Combats dragging on too long was definitely one of 4e’s flaws. Personally, I would rather that than the short but unengaging combat of 5e, but I understand why many prefer the opposite. To each their own.

Now we're getting somewhere, see you stated this as an opinion and even admitted it boils down to preference.

Not necessarily better. Preferable for me, but both approaches are valid, both have advantages and disadvantages, and each appeals to different sorts of players.

That's understandable but then it doesn't boil down to amount of customization as much as it boils down to your preference for a certain type of (more granular?) customization. Again I have no problem with an argument stated in that way.

To be clear, I don’t play PF1. While I’m less than satisfied with 5e, I prefer it over PF1. When I say I want more options, I don’t mean more books full of classes, subclasses, feats, spells, and whatever else. The core book is plenty for me in that regard. What I want is more decision points in the process of leveling a character to 20, and more decision points on any given turn of combat. I don’t necessarily want more Feats to exist, I want characters to get to pick more than 5 of them. I don’t necessarily want more subclasses to exist, I want subclass to be more than just a choice I make once at 3rd level and get a handful of locked-in benefits from at certain levels. I don’t necessarily want more spells and maneuvers to choose from, I want more meaningful choices to make for what to do on my turn.

Yes but isn't the point for those options to be meaningful... or do you just want to make choices irregardless of the actual impact they have. In Pathfinder 1 you receive more feats but is a single feat a meaningful choice, does it have a meaningful impact on your character? I think that's why 5e feats are multifaceted (for breadth and meaning) and with the constraints of Bounded Accuracy (where necessary) provide meaningful choice number wise. I can't say for sure in Pathfinder 2 if it will be the same as 1 but it seems logical to assume that when handing out a multitude of a particular resource a singular instance of said resource will by necessity be constrained in how meaningful it can be in isolation...

In other words I can't fault you for wanting a more granular system of choice, it's personal preference, but I can fault your earlier arguments and their fallacious statements claiming there isn't real choice or difference in the options presented in 5e.

 

[Charlaquin]

Allright so since this is leaning towards bashing 5e as opposed to hyping your game up on it's own merits...here we go...

Basically you're saying that the consumers got very close to or exactly the game they wanted, through the developers actually engaging with them and letting them have a say in the design... and yet somehow you're trying to spin this as both...

a. not a challenging thing (Because letting direct fan feedback influence development had been done...well let's see... I guess never in the history of D&D. Yep, nothing challenging there whatsoever )

Just because it’s a different process than that which has been followed for designing previous editions doesn’t mean the design itself challenges player expectations regarding the design. People like what they’re familiar with. When you design by popular vote, you end up with a greatest hits mix of previous iterations, which is exactly what 5e is. And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s incredibly popular and with good reason. Just because I prefer more experimental design doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the tried and true.

b. and involving no risk (because fans are all known for their ability to come together as a whole on what they want, while communicating that clearly, along with the fact that the previous edition had done wonders to solidify an abundance of resources for this editions development... wait no, that's not right )

The whole point of using a popular vote is that it finds you what the majority wants without requiring you to establish a consensus. There is no risk in doing what the majority of your fan base says they want and tossing out anything the majority says they don’t want. Risk comes from trying something you don’t already know will be popular. And the small number of new (to D&D) ideas that did make it into the game, like Advantage and Disadvantage, involved no risk to include, because they already performed well in the polls. They were already a sure bet. Had they not been, they wouldn’t have made it in. With Did/Advantage in particular, they specifically said they were “ready to shoot their baby” if it hadn’t polled well.

Again, its fine that they played it safe. They ended up with a good product that they knew the majority of their target audience would like. That’s smart business practice, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I would have preferred they broke more ground at the risk of not being as popular, but I don’t fault them for not doing so after the risks they took with 4e ended up not paying off.

Again your biases for a particular system are showing. You can like 4e more than 5e but claiming that the design of 5e didn't involve taking risks and challenges is just constructing a silly argument. Now whether you personally liked the fruit of said risks and challenges is another thing entirely and not what you are stating or what I am arguing against.

You haven’t convinced me that anything about 5e was risky or challenging.

Actually, they did take one risk, and that was killing 4e for the amount of time it took them to focus test 5e to their satisfaction. They probably lost a lot of money from that decision that they couldn’t guarantee they’d make back. But that’s not a design risk, that’s a purely business risk. And I’m glad it payed off for them! 5e is a great game, and the competition it’s driving from Paizo is healthy for the industry.

And the rogue in turn performs different actions from either of those two... so basically your claim that they all do the same thing and they can only move and attack are both provably false. thanks for that and I'll assume we can move forward from that ridiculous argument.

There is very, very little that any non-caster class does other than move and attack the majority of the time. There are some other options, but they are infrequently relevant, and more often than not it comes down to a math problem rather than a meaning decision. It’s very easy to figure out the optimal play on any given turn, and I personally find that uninteresting.

Now we're getting somewhere, see you stated this as an opinion and even admitted it boils down to preference.

I have at no point in this conversation attempted to claim otherwise. This entire conversation is about personal preference, and if you are reading any other intent into my posts, I can assure you that it is not mine.

That's understandable but then it doesn't boil down to amount of customization as much as it boils down to your preference for a certain type of (more granular?) customization. Again I have no problem with an argument stated in that way.

I’d phrase it as customizability. The ability to customize depends on amount and granularity of options, yes, but it depends as much of not moreso on number of decision points. If I can choose from a million colors for my car but get no other choices to make, it is far less customizable than if I can choose from only a few colors, but also get to choose from a few body types, a few engine options, a few interior materials, a few sound systems, etc. etc.

Yes but isn't the point for those options to be meaningful... or do you just want to make choices irregardless of the actual impact they have. In Pathfinder 1 you receive more feats but is a single feat a meaningful choice, does it have a meaningful impact on your character?

PF1 Feats are a little hit and miss. Some of them have a pretty big impact on how your character behaves, others have next to none. Feats in 5e generally have very little effect on how the character behaves, at best offering a small statistical bonus and one or two actual new options for what to do on your turn. Better than the average PF1 Feat offers, but you get to choose so few of them that it’s a wash at best.

I think that's why 5e feats are multifaceted (for breadth and meaning) and with the constraints of Bounded Accuracy (where necessary) provide meaningful choice number wise. I can't say for sure in Pathfinder 2 if it will be the same as 1 but it seems logical to assume that when handing out a multitude of a particular resource a singular instance of said resource will by necessity be constrained in how meaningful it can be in isolation...

Most of the Feats they’ve shown so far seem to offer about as many actual new decision pints as your average 5e Feat. Look at Power Attack as compared to Great Weapon Master. Or Charger as compared to Charger.

In other words I can't fault you for wanting a more granular system of choice, it's personal preference, but I can fault your earlier arguments and their fallacious statements claiming there isn't real choice or difference in the options presented in 5e.

There is little meaningful choice for a non-caster to make on a turn to turn basis. Some, but far less than I would prefer. It is, however, a matter of preference if the available choices are sufficient for your desired level of engagement in combat. You haven’t demonstrated any fallacy in my argument, only that you disagree with me about what constitutes a meaningful decision in combat.

 

[Imaro]

Just because it’s a different process than that which has been followed for designing previous editions doesn’t mean the design itself challenges player expectations regarding the design. People like what they’re familiar with. When you design by popular vote, you end up with a greatest hits mix of previous iterations, which is exactly what 5e is. And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s incredibly popular and with good reason. Just because I prefer more experimental design doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the tried and true.

But designing through engagement with your player base isn't "tried and true" that's what you're missing. Tell me another game that's been designed this way, much less an edition of D&D. If it was tried and true it would have been tested and it's success guaranteed through previous examples... it wasn't. I mean honestly if this is a tried and true way to success... why doesn't every company create their products in this way... oh yeah because sometimes you get the "New Coke" effect where your customer base says they want a particular thing but then end up disliking or even totally rejecting it. Just off the top of my head... bounded accuracy, advantage/disadvantage, universal proficiency bonus, sub classes, and quite a few other things are new... they haven't appeared in previous editions.

The whole point of using a popular vote is that it finds you what the majority wants without requiring you to establish a consensus. There is no risk in doing what the majority of your fan base says they want and tossing out anything the majority says they don’t want. Risk comes from trying something you don’t already know will be popular. And the small number of new (to D&D) ideas that did make it into the game, like Advantage and Disadvantage, involved no risk to include, because they already performed well in the polls. They were already a sure bet. Had they not been, they wouldn’t have made it in. With Did/Advantage in particular, they specifically said they were “ready to shoot their baby” if it hadn’t polled well.

First...them polling well still doesn't take away from the fact that they are innovative mechanics that hadn't appeared in D&D before.

Now to touch on this "no risk" theory you keep throwing out there... the majority of the fanbase wanted the problems in 3.x fixed... WotC/Hasbro knew this and yet...something went wrong when they gave them what they wanted. The truth is after the fiasco with the previous edition they didn't know whether the the new mechanics I listed above would be popular or not until the game was published, a poll doesn't guarantee that...Again I'll go to New Coke... it polled extremely high in taste tests... and yet it failed. According to your logic there's no way it could have failed and yet it did.

Again, its fine that they played it safe. They ended up with a good product that they knew the majority of their target audience would like. That’s smart business practice, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I would have preferred they broke more ground at the risk of not being as popular, but I don’t fault them for not doing so after the risks they took with 4e ended up not paying off.

See that's the key though, it was still a risk from the goodwill they had lost with 4e to polling not being an exact science... there was risk. You're making these general broad statements again just as you did earlier about 5e martial characters but when looked at logically they aren't true. Did they play it safe (I prefer to call it doing your due diligence) but ok sure. Was there no risk... absolutely false there was plenty.

You haven’t convinced me that anything about 5e was risky or challenging.

Well that's probably because you've already made up your mind and aren't open to that preconceived idea being challenged.

Actually, they did take one risk, and that was killing 4e for the amount of time it took them to focus test 5e to their satisfaction. They probably lost a lot of money from that decision that they couldn’t guarantee they’d make back. But that’s not a design risk, that’s a purely business risk. And I’m glad it payed off for them! 5e is a great game, and the competition it’s driving from Paizo is healthy for the industry.

Lol... now to me this wasn't a risk, Pathfinder had already become top dog on ICV2 before they shut it down (somewhere around summer 2011) and with Hasbro over them now, 2nd tier just wasn't an option for D&D... so it wasn't a risk it was a non-choice.

There is very, very little that any non-caster class does other than move and attack the majority of the time. There are some other options, but they are infrequently relevant, and more often than not it comes down to a math problem rather than a meaning decision. It’s very easy to figure out the optimal play on any given turn, and I personally find that uninteresting.

Emphasis mine: The Rogue's Cunning Action already makes this statement absurd (I also see we've shifted the goalposts from "never does anything but" to "majority of the time". A good rogue is going to be making tactical choices with that ability alone nearly every round. But now that I'm thinking about it I'm confused on what type of binary options spellcasters have that don't boil down to attack and move once you go to a high level... an attack spell is still just that, an attack. Martial choices come into play with multiple attacks, the ability to move between attacks, the utilization of their bonus action, attacks of opportunities, etc.

As for it boiling down to a math problem... that sounds like a problem with encounter design as opposed to a lack of choices. Even 4e with it's wide range of powers couldn't overcome uninspired encounter design, same with 5e.

I have at no point in this conversation attempted to claim otherwise. This entire conversation is about personal preference, and if you are reading any other intent into my posts, I can assure you that it is not mine.

But you have made broad sweeping generalizations (such as martials in 5e don't do anything but move and attack) as if they were fact when they are in fact untrue.

I’d phrase it as customizability. The ability to customize depends on amount and granularity of options, yes, but it depends as much of not moreso on number of decision points. If I can choose from a million colors for my car but get no other choices to make, it is far less customizable than if I can choose from only a few colors, but also get to choose from a few body types, a few engine options, a few interior materials, a few sound systems, etc. etc.

See my biggest problem with this thinking is it doesn't take into consideration how meaningful those choices are. If there's one body type that provides a better appearance, speed, protection, etc. Is that more customizable since the other body types all kind of suck compared to it?

PF1 Feats are a little hit and miss. Some of them have a pretty big impact on how your character behaves, others have next to none. Feats in 5e generally have very little effect on how the character behaves, at best offering a small statistical bonus and one or two actual new options for what to do on your turn. Better than the average PF1 Feat offers, but you get to choose so few of them that it’s a wash at best.

Hmmm...Not sure I'd agree with that. There are feats in 5e that up your combat prowess and there are feats that up your breadth... i feel like you are only talking about combat prowess based feats. Something like Dungeon Delver (a non-combat feat) gives you
-Advantage on Wisdom (Perception checks) & Intelligenece(Investigation checks) to find secret doors
- Advantage on saving throws made to avoid or resist traps
- resistance to damage dealt by traps
-Search for traps traveling at a normal pace instead of only at a slow pace

To me this is a meaningful feat... this feat has made you highly capable (even without high attributes or having levels in the rogue class) in detecting, avoiding and shrugging off the damage of traps. it's meaningful in how it defines the character.

Most of the Feats they’ve shown so far seem to offer about as many actual new decision pints as your average 5e Feat. Look at Power Attack as compared to Great Weapon Master. Or Charger as compared to Charger.

Okay let me clarify this now are we only talking about combat?

There is little meaningful choice for a non-caster to make on a turn to turn basis. Some, but far less than I would prefer. It is, however, a matter of preference if the available choices are sufficient for your desired level of engagement in combat. You haven’t demonstrated any fallacy in my argument, only that you disagree with me about what constitutes a meaningful decision in combat.

I'm still confused by what choices a caster gets outside of attack and move (using spells instead of different weapons of course) when looked at from such a high level without context. So please enlighten me on what these meaningful decisions they get are in 5e?

 

[Charlaquin]

But designing through engagement with your player base isn't "tried and true" that's what you're missing. Tell me another game that's been designed this way, much less an edition of D&D. If it was tried and true it would have been tested and it's success guaranteed through previous examples... it wasn't.

No, the process wasn't tried and true, the design of the game is. The mechanics of d&d 5e break no new ground a challenge no expectations. They are very much a greatest hits mix of D&D. That's one of the edition's major selling points.

I mean honestly if this is a tried and true way to success... why doesn't every company create their products in this way...

Because most designers have their own artistic visions and goals.

oh yeah because sometimes you get the "New Coke" effect where your customer base says they want a particular thing but then end up disliking or even totally rejecting it.

Funny thing about New Coke, it actually sold better than Coke, Diet Coke, and Pepsi at first. It was a small but vocal group of Coke fans who were so opposed to the idea of changing the formula of coke who eventually managed to sink New Coke by creating a lot of bad publicity for it. Check it out

Just off the top of my head... bounded accuracy, advantage/disadvantage, universal proficiency bonus, sub classes, and quite a few other things are new... they haven't appeared in previous editions.

Advantage and Disadvantage are actually not new. There are several class features in 4th edition that allowed the player to roll twice and take the better result, such as the Avenger's Oath of Emnity was I think the first example of this in D&D. And while it was relatively new to D&D, it's far from a new mechanic. Other game systems had been using dice pool mechanics for decades by the time D&D finally adopted them. Universal proficiency bonus, that's from 4e too, and it was a tiny step from 3e where there were three different BaB progressions a class could have. Subclasses first showed up in AD&D, so I don't know what you're talking about with that one. Bounded Accuracy is kind of new to D&D, but again, it's far from a new idea, and it was a tiny step from +half level to everything in 4e.

First...them polling well still doesn't take away from the fact that they are innovative mechanics that hadn't appeared in D&D before.

The vast majority of the mechanics in 5e had appeared in D&D before. A few were new to D&D, but old ideas in RPG gaming. And none of the new-to-D&D mechanics were particularly innovative. All of them were small steps from ideas that had been around for a long time, and none of them were a risk to include, because they had already proved popular.

Now to touch on this "no risk" theory you keep throwing out there... the majority of the fanbase wanted the problems in 3.x fixed... WotC/Hasbro knew this and yet...something went wrong when they gave them what they wanted.

Because 4e took a lot of risks. It changed significantly from the previous edition and brought a lot of new ideas to the table. Evidently, too much for the majority of the fanbase. 4e didn't fail because it fixed the failings of 3e. It failed because it was too much change for the existing fanbase. It was actually quite popular with new players, but in Tabletop RPGs, existing players are the main way new players are brought into the game, so 4e didn't reach as many new players as it could have due to alienating the existing fanbase too much.

The truth is after the fiasco with the previous edition they didn't know whether the the new mechanics I listed above would be popular or not until the game was published, a poll doesn't guarantee that...Again I'll go to New Coke... it polled extremely high in taste tests... and yet it failed. According to your logic there's no way it could have failed and yet it did.

The New Coke analogy doesn't actually help your argument because New Coke wasn't a calculated risk. By all accounts, it was projected to do incredibly well, and its failure was due to a freak happenstance of poor marketing. It could maybe have been predicted based on the extremely negative reactions of a tiny portion of their focus testers, but for the most part, no one could have seen it coming. And if 5e had failed, no one would have seen it coming either. Advantage wasn't a calculated risk. Bounded Accuracy wasn't a calculated risk. All of it was projected to do well with the fan base. As with New Coke, no one in their right minds was predicting 5e failing, least of all Wizards of the Coast.

See that's the key though, it was still a risk from the goodwill they had lost with 4e to polling not being an exact science... there was risk.

The lost goodwill was the primary reason they designed 5e by mass polling and focus testing. Because that's a safe design process. They knew they couldn't afford to take risks, so they went with the safest approach possible. It would have been insane not to.

You're making these general broad statements again just as you did earlier about 5e martial characters but when looked at logically they aren't true. Did they play it safe (I prefer to call it doing your due diligence) but ok sure. Was there no risk... absolutely false there was plenty.

Yes, anything that involves an investment of money involves some degree of risk. Ever heard of common parlance? My point is, 5e prioritized safe design practices and seeking audience goodwill over strong design rationale and creative vision. Which again, isn't a bad thing. It's just not what I would have preferred.

Well that's probably because you've already made up your mind and aren't open to that preconceived idea being challenged.

I'm open to the idea of being proven wrong, but I haven't been presented with any sound arguments or evidence to the contrary.

Lol... now to me this wasn't a risk, Pathfinder had already become top dog on ICV2 before they shut it down (somewhere around summer 2011) and with Hasbro over them now, 2nd tier just wasn't an option for D&D... so it wasn't a risk it was a non-choice.

It was absolutely a risk. They could have developed 5e entirely in-house in a fraction of the time, and continued selling 4e in the meantime. Instead, they opted to sacrifice practically any sales for the next 2 years in favor of getting player approval at every step of the process. That's a short-term financial risk for what they thought would be a greater long-term gain. Turns out that not only were they right, but they made out far better than they had predicted.

Emphasis mine: The Rogue's Cunning Action already makes this statement absurd (I also see we've shifted the goalposts from "never does anything but" to "majority of the time".

Again, have you never heard of common parlance? I didn't think I'd have to spell out that I didn't literally mean no non-caster character ever does anything other than move and attack. My point is, there is very little else worth doing the majority of the time.

A good rogue is going to be making tactical choices with that ability alone nearly every round.

Cunning Action is usually not worth giving up your off-hand attack for, and when it is, it's obvious what the optimal choice is. There are very few meaningful decisions for non-casting characters to make on a turn by turn basis.

But now that I'm thinking about it I'm confused on what type of binary options spellcasters have that don't boil down to attack and move once you go to a high level... an attack spell is still just that, an attack. Martial choices come into play with multiple attacks, the ability to move between attacks, the utilization of their bonus action, attacks of opportunities, etc.

A first level wizard has three cantrips and [int mod + 1] prepared 1st level spells to chose from. That's as many as 7 possible "attacks" they could choose from on any given turn, not including a weapon attack, since that's not really a meaningful option, given that it'll be worse than a cantrip. That gets cut down to three when they run out of 1st level spell slots. Compared the Fighter who can attack with a weapon or... Nothing else, they have no other meaningful options for how to use their action. They have one available bonus action the Wizard doesn't have. Whoopdeedoo!

As for it boiling down to a math problem... that sounds like a problem with encounter design as opposed to a lack of choices. Even 4e with it's wide range of powers couldn't overcome uninspired encounter design, same with 5e.

No, it's primarily a problem with the design of the available options. If you design an encounter for either edition and convert it to the other, the 4e characters will always have more meaningful choices to make on a given turn.

But you have made broad sweeping generalizations (such as martials in 5e don't do anything but move and attack) as if they were fact when they are in fact untrue.

You've still failed to demonstrate this.

See my biggest problem with this thinking is it doesn't take into consideration how meaningful those choices are. If there's one body type that provides a better appearance, speed, protection, etc. Is that more customizable since the other body types all kind of suck compared to it?

That's not the point of the metaphor. More options for fewer decision points creates less customizablility than more options for fewer decision points.

Hmmm...Not sure I'd agree with that. There are feats in 5e that up your combat prowess and there are feats that up your breadth... i feel like you are only talking about combat prowess based feats. Something like Dungeon Delver (a non-combat feat) gives you
-Advantage on Wisdom (Perception checks) & Intelligenece(Investigation checks) to find secret doors

Not a decision point.

- Advantage on saving throws made to avoid or resist traps

Not a decision point.

- resistance to damage dealt by traps

Not a decision point.

-Search for traps traveling at a normal pace instead of only at a slow pace

Not a decision point.

This feat provides absolutely no meaningful options for the player to choose from.

To me this is a meaningful feat... this feat has made you highly capable (even without high attributes or having levels in the rogue class) in detecting, avoiding and shrugging off the damage of traps. it's meaningful in how it defines the character.

To me this is a textbook example of a "decide where your bonuses come from" Feat.

Okay let me clarify this now are we only talking about combat?

I'm talking about MEANINGFUL DECISION POINTS. Combat is merely the mode of play where characters have the most such decision points most often.

I'm still confused by what choices a caster gets outside of attack and move (using spells instead of different weapons of course) when looked at from such a high level without context. So please enlighten me on what these meaningful decisions they get are in 5e?

Sssssssssspppppppppeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllsssssssssss

 

[ssvegeta555]

I'm hoping PF2 is crunchy enough for players during play in all modes like combat and exploration, and meaningful decisions for character growth, but light for the DM to run. I love DMing 5e, it runs smooth, but as a player I don't feel like there's much decision points. But the inverse is true for PF1. Although I find PF1 is too heavy on the crunch.

Ideally I would love to have PF2 be the middle ground between 5e lightness and PF1 crunchiness. The best of both. Essentially, Player Crunch, DM Smooth.

 

[Imaro]

No, the process wasn't tried and true, the design of the game is. The mechanics of d&d 5e break no new ground a challenge no expectations. They are very much a greatest hits mix of D&D. That's one of the edition's major selling points.

The design of the game wasn't tried and true. As an example outside of TTRPG's many videogames combine gameplay aspects of other successful videogames games but don't succeed... combining past mechanics of disaparate games (including a n edition that didn't in and of itself do well) is a risky design proposition not a guarantee for success. It's not the same as say taking a popular system with an established fanbase and putting a fresh coat of pain on it with a few minor tweaks like Pathfinder 1 did.

Funny thing about New Coke, it actually sold better than Coke, Diet Coke, and Pepsi at first. It was a small but vocal group of Coke fans who were so opposed to the idea of changing the formula of coke who eventually managed to sink New Coke by creating a lot of bad publicity for it. Check it out

But if the formula for success was to give the people what they wanted this shouldn't have been able to happen... that's my point. It doesn't matter how it happened if you're claiming there's no risk involved it just shouldn't have been possible.

Because 4e took a lot of risks. It changed significantly from the previous edition and brought a lot of new ideas to the table. Evidently, too much for the majority of the fanbase. 4e didn't fail because it fixed the failings of 3e. It failed because it was too much change for the existing fanbase. It was actually quite popular with new players, but in Tabletop RPGs, existing players are the main way new players are brought into the game, so 4e didn't reach as many new players as it could have due to alienating the existing fanbase too much.

What were these new ideas, and lets hold this to the same standard you seem to be holding 5e to where it can't be an iteration on an idea from a previous edition and it also cannot have appeared in another roleplaying game?

The New Coke analogy doesn't actually help your argument because New Coke wasn't a calculated risk. By all accounts, it was projected to do incredibly well, and its failure was due to a freak happenstance of poor marketing. It could maybe have been predicted based on the extremely negative reactions of a tiny portion of their focus testers, but for the most part, no one could have seen it coming. And if 5e had failed, no one would have seen it coming either. Advantage wasn't a calculated risk. Bounded Accuracy wasn't a calculated risk. All of it was projected to do well with the fan base. As with New Coke, no one in their right minds was predicting 5e failing, least of all Wizards of the Coast.

I'm not claiming they predicted 5e would fail... I'm arguing against the claim that no risk was involved...

The lost goodwill was the primary reason they designed 5e by mass polling and focus testing. Because that's a safe design process. They knew they couldn't afford to take risks, so they went with the safest approach possible. It would have been insane not to.

With the split state of the fanbase it wasn't a safe design process. At the time of it's design the fanbase was all over the place. Some were playing OSR games, some stuck with 4e... others with Pathfinder and some had abandoned D&D for other rpg's... taking all of those groups and designing a game that satisfied the majority of them, even with the ability to poll the online portion of the community (which for the most part is not representative of the D&D community as a whole) along with a design that has pulled in a multitude of new players was a big risk. Creating a successful whole out of those separate pieces (along with the new mechanics that were introduced) that spoke to their fanbase just as well as their potential market was creative genius. Again it may not speak to you personally but that's neither here nor there.

Yes, anything that involves an investment of money involves some degree of risk. Ever heard of common parlance? My point is, 5e prioritized safe design practices and seeking audience goodwill over strong design rationale and creative vision. Which again, isn't a bad thing. It's just not what I would have preferred.

And this is where we diverge in our opinion, IMO creating a game that has speaks to all the disparate D&D groups and is able to pull in a significant new player base takes creativity and risk... otherwise someone using the OGL would have done it long before now. It seems to you this was safe, entailed no risk and took no creativity... it was the lowest bar and yet it hadn't been met by any company even when D&D dropped off the scene to create 5e.

I'm open to the idea of being proven wrong, but I haven't been presented with any sound arguments or evidence to the contrary.

You keep saying this... but...

Again, have you never heard of common parlance? I didn't think I'd have to spell out that I didn't literally mean no non-caster character ever does anything other than move and attack. My point is, there is very little else worth doing the majority of the time.

Cunning Action is usually not worth giving up your off-hand attack for, and when it is, it's obvious what the optimal choice is. There are very few meaningful decisions for non-casting characters to make on a turn by turn basis.

So hyperbole, got it. I'd say loose it, it makes your argument unclear and doesn't really help support your claims only make them seem silly and overblown.

I disagree the rogues I've seen in actual play are trying to avoid getting hit and use Cunning Action extensively... again maybe it's encounter design on your part that you only see move and attack.

A first level wizard has three cantrips and [int mod + 1] prepared 1st level spells to chose from. That's as many as 7 possible "attacks" they could choose from on any given turn, not including a weapon attack, since that's not really a meaningful option, given that it'll be worse than a cantrip. That gets cut down to three when they run out of 1st level spell slots. Compared the Fighter who can attack with a weapon or... Nothing else, they have no other meaningful options for how to use their action. They have one available bonus action the Wizard doesn't have. Whoopdeedoo!

And yet unless the creature is fire resistant... guess what that wizard is going to attack with because it does the most damage?? Meaningful choice remember??

No, it's primarily a problem with the design of the available options. If you design an encounter for either edition and convert it to the other, the 4e characters will always have more meaningful choices to make on a given turn.

Will they? You seem to think cantrips all offer the same amount of meaningful choice when in fact they don't...

You've still failed to demonstrate this.

And we're back to the hyperbole... I'll ignore it this time around.

That's not the point of the metaphor. More options for fewer decision points creates less customizablility than more options for fewer decision points.


Not a decision point.

Not a decision point.


Not a decision point.


Not a decision point.

This feat provides absolutely no meaningful options for the player to choose from.


To me this is a textbook example of a "decide where your bonuses come from" Feat.

How haven't these created decision points?
You now have a better chance to locate traps and secret doors successfully... so you now have the decision to search for these things and succeed in harder circumstances?
You now have the ability to resist damage from traps... you now have the decision point to risk taking the damage from a trap since you can shrug a portion of it off?
You now have the ability to better avoid traps... do you risk setting it off since you now have a better chance of avoiding it?

See your problem is you see a bonus and don't recognize that with 5e's philosophy of everything falls under checks and it's set DC's that bonuses work as an enabler of new decision points.

This feat provides absolutely no meaningful options for the player to choose from.

Ah, I see... by new options you seem to be talking about "powers". I don't see powers as the only enabler of new decision points so we'll just have to agree to disagree here.

I'm talking about MEANINGFUL DECISION POINTS. Combat is merely the mode of play where characters have the most such decision points most often.

No because if you were anything that made a skill succeed at higher DC's, that enabled you to take risks you wouldn't before and so on would fall under this as they open up meaningful decisions... instead you seem to be specifically talking about powers.

Sssssssssspppppppppeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllsssssssssss

I thought you meant meaningful decisions? Again see my cantrip example above... Firebolt 90% of the time is not all that meaningful of a choice.

 

[Imaro]

Ideally I would love to have PF2 be the middle ground between 5e lightness and PF1 crunchiness. The best of both. Essentially, Player Crunch, DM Smooth.

For those that want this ratio I'm hoping PF2 meets their needs as well.

 

[TwoSix]

Sssssssssspppppppppeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllsssssssssss

Lol. Yea, there's simply no comparison between the menu of options that a spellcaster has (even a half caster like Paladin or Ranger), and a Fighter or Barbarian or Rogue build. Trying to make up for it by stunting with skill checks and permissive DM narration is fine if that's what you're into, but doesn't work for me personally.

That being said, it's fortunate that there are very few non-casters in the game, and some of the subclasses do provide some meaningful options. I'm not a big fan of playing pure Fighter or pure Rogue, but they multiclass together nicely into an interesting build in Battlemaster is involved.

 

[Imaro]

Lol. Yea, there's simply no comparison between the menu of options that a spellcaster has (even a half caster like Paladin or Ranger), and a Fighter or Barbarian or Rogue build. Trying to make up for it by stunting with skill checks and permissive DM narration is fine if that's what you're into, but doesn't work for me personally.

That being said, it's fortunate that there are very few non-casters in the game, and some of the subclasses do provide some meaningful options. I'm not a big fan of playing pure Fighter or pure Rogue, but they multiclass together nicely into an interesting build in Battlemaster is involved.

I don't think anyone was arguing that the options were equal... but when you make the claim that all martials in 5e do is move and attack... well you should expect some push back on the veracity of said claim. Backpedaling into arguments of "common parlance" and shifting goalposts into "mostly that's what they do", IMO, just means your original argument was overblown.