Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: Actual Play Experience

[Doctor Futurity]

I have three games going, one with 14 sessions in (hitting level 6 now), one with about 8 sessions in (hitting level 4 in that group) and a third group playing starting at level 12 and about 3 sessions in (no advancement yet). My top five takes so far as the GM:

1. CR -4/+4 to party level is significant. A Level 3 party against a CR 8 foe is a TPK waiting to happen. In the levl 12 case, opponents of CR 7 or less are probably best resolved as an out-of-encounter event or just describe it as "And then you kicked their asses." For opponents of too high a level, best to give them fair warning through some lore checks that they may be over their heads in deep trouble.

2. The fumble/crit range of 10 higher or lower is an amazing mechanic but can be brutal on the PCs. If you use the crit and fumble decks, agree on the way you apply them, and consider the consequences of the more lethal applications when designing encounters.

3. The game favors downtime when possible. Players may not catch on, or may not realize they need to seek downtime occasionally. Bake options for downtime into your scenario/plot so they can recover and craft and stuff.

4. I have been following the cash/gear reward rules as rigorously as possible. It works well but seems to distribute less loot than they are used to from other experiences. I am fine with this, but just be aware it may be a thing. Be a tiny bit more liberal in handing out the consumable items at low levels, it will offset the sting a bit.

5. As GM, pay close attention to the skill feats so you don't get tripped up on who can do what in play. Read the skill rules; they are precise in how they apply, and some function in ways that they didn't used to having absorbed certain skills (for example, linguistics is folded in to society). Don't be afraid to let PCs use skill checks in odd ways....just be aware when they ask for an effect that is "good enough" to qualify for a skill feat instead. A basic example that will trip you up: searching for tracks is a skill check; identifying the types and natures of the animals that made the tracks requires a skill feat, however.

 

[Kaodi]

The swinginess of combat makes me wonder how dependable characters that are min-maxed to not die actually are. Like I made a concept for a ancient-blooded dwarf fighter that starts with str 12 dex 18 con 16 int 10 wis 14 cha 8 and focuses on shield feats (but with power attack at level 1). If you do not worry about having odd ability scores too much that can get you str 18 dex 22 con 20 int 12 wis 20 cha 8 at 20, or if you prefer to get the most out of your ability boosts over the whole campaign, end at str 18 dex 20 con 20 int 18 wis 18 cha 12. Will will probably still be a weakish save for most of the game, but your AC, Fort, Ref, Block, and HP (with toughness and mountain's stoutness) should make you hard to crit and kill, right?

 

[Philip Benz]

Bonjour, y'all.
I've run 3 PF2 sessions since its release, and wrote up the first one on my blog, Dragontooth Grognard.

Now that we have three sessions under our belts, I have to say we're all thrilled to have made the switch from PF1 to PF2. The three-action system is far simpler to the old mess of action types, and the way the game handles things like stealth, perception and diplomacy is far more streamlined (and less susceptible to broken exploits) than in the past.

My players have just gone from 1st to 2nd level, and they're thrilled with their new feats. One of them chose a multiclass wizard dedication (bolted on to an alchemist character) and he was getting great mileage out of unlimited cantrips to supplement his alchemist bombs and potions. Another character, and Elf druid, was getting great use of his panther familiar, and peppering enemies with bowfire at the same time. A third character is a rogue, and he's playing like a daring Erol Flynn knockoff, running up mooring lines to attack enemy pirates on a ship and similar swashbuckling antics.

Frankly, their characters feel more like 5th-level than 2nd-level with all they seem able to accomplish.

So far it's been mostly a city adventure (using Green Ronin's great Freeport setting) but our next game should see them on a tropical island searching for burried treasure. Good times!

 

[CubicsRube]

I just wanted to say as someone who was turned off PF1, all the experiences in this thread are making me really want to play PF2!

 

[Philip Benz]

I just wanted to say as someone who was turned off PF1, all the experiences in this thread are making me really want to play PF2!

In our group in central France, we continued playing DD3.5 for some 4-5 years after Pathfinder came out. We just didn't see any major reason to change. So I totally get those people unwilling to jump into PF2, for whatever reason, even if it's just out of inertia.

But I have to say that our experience playing PF2 these last couple months, with 1st and then 2nd-level characters, has been eye-opening. Maneuvering figures around the terrain and engaging in combat has been so much more intuitive, quick and fun. The rules for non-magical healing work very well, and brought two characters back from the brink of death.

But don't let someone like me convince you one way or the other. Get settled around a gaming table for a few evenings before you make up your mind.

 

[dungeonHamster]

My players have finally hit level 9 so I thought I'd come back and answer some questions that was brought up about how mid level play was going. Just to recap what I said earlier in the thread, our group has been playing D&D 5e for about a year and a half so we're not "new," per say. We made the transition to pathfinder 2e back in August because my players heard (apparently correctly) that there was more character options at higher levels and wanted to try it out. We meet three nights a week now (it started at one in August).

For our campaign, we transitioned to Rise of the Runelords converted for pathfinder 2e. My players are currently at the end of Hook Mountain Massacre (3rd part of the AP). This is my first Paizo AP since previously all I've ever done is homebrew and 5e campaign books (which I have found to be near universally excellent for both players and DM).

Re-focusing on actual play experience.

With regard to arcane spellcaster balance, has anyone tried playing/running PF2E at, say, level 9+. This is the level range where problems usually start to manifest especially with regard to Quadratic Wizards Vs linear martials.

Do spellcasters at this higher level range still feel undercooked or are they O.K./overpowered compared to martials?

So I have three casters and three martials. Four are level 10 with one level 9 and a level 8 (You only get xp if you're there). At first, I was worried that cantrips would outclass martials given how heightening works combined with class attack modifiers stacking onto damage rolls (that's a +19 to damage in one instance).

What I didn't account for is how much treasure Pathfinder tells the DM to divy out. Since I had to convert from Rise of the Runelords, that means I was using the tables in the Game Mastering section to hand out level appropriate loot.

Martials do incredible amounts of damage, especially if they have a weapon (like a Glaive) which grants bonus damage effects. As a caveat to this, that means runes of striking/potency are necessary for them to do this damage, but given how generous Pathfinder 2e is with handing these out, I think it's safe to say most parties will have access to these for their martials.

My casters do significant damage as well, but they are often only doing one or two attacks a turn depending on their build. What I find really nice is that they pick their cantrips based on what they think they're fighting.

Example: "This ogre looks really slow. Electric arc is the best shot here." <-- gained from noticing my descriptions of how they slowly trudged or "barely" dodged an attack on account of being too lumbering.
Example: "Ah ha! Zombies eh? Slashing damage will do the trick! Telekenetic projectile on some bits of wood for slashing damage!" <--- Knowing that slashing did extra damage was gained from recall knowledge about about that type of zombie which was very cool.

What I really like is that the decision to use a spell slot is agonizing for these casters.
Example:"Area effect? Do I save it for a possible horde fight later or do I blow it now on these three?"

What makes this more interesting is that cantrips do so much damage. They are still outperformed by rune-bearing martials, but it's more consistent and less spikey because they add their class proficiency to the damage.

This means that my casters are always preparing utility spells and are expending their slots on social encounters, which makes them heroes to the party in and out of combat.

I don't get the feeling that they feel they don't do enough damage, but in my estimation they definitely aren't hitting as hard as the martials.

Nothing prevents from you as GM, say having a dragon or a lich casts spells on its lair before hand or build traps. There's examples in the 3E Draconomicon and Libris Mortis, I think.



Kingmaker is being officially converted to 2E and has a lot of great reviews. You might take a look at that. I'd love to see an official conversion of Rise of the Runelords.

That's true, but I liked it codified in the monster manual entry and I miss that. Beholders, for example, would make everyone in a three(?) mile radius feel like they were being watched. I loved little things like that.

Regarding Kingmaker, I absolutely late pledged that once I got a taste for Pathfinder APs. Rise of the Runelords has been downright creepy and the players feel like incredible heroes for doing what they've accomplished thus far. The amount of prep it forces on a DM is insane though; you can't wing it for these APs: you absolutely have to read through everything and then write notes. My critique that Pathfinder is DM-involvement heavy isn't mitigated by AP's making things easier (then again, I'm running a conversion from a 1e AP to 2e rules).

I actually just picked up Age of Ashes (the new AP that starts with Hellknight Hill) and I'm excited to see howan adventure that was made specifically for Pathfinder 2E performs against my shoddy conversion of Rise of the Runelords.

The swinginess of combat makes me wonder how dependable characters that are min-maxed to not die actually are. Like I made a concept for a ancient-blooded dwarf fighter that starts with str 12 dex 18 con 16 int 10 wis 14 cha 8 and focuses on shield feats (but with power attack at level 1). If you do not worry about having odd ability scores too much that can get you str 18 dex 22 con 20 int 12 wis 20 cha 8 at 20, or if you prefer to get the most out of your ability boosts over the whole campaign, end at str 18 dex 20 con 20 int 18 wis 18 cha 12. Will will probably still be a weakish save for most of the game, but your AC, Fort, Ref, Block, and HP (with toughness and mountain's stoutness) should make you hard to crit and kill, right?

This is the critique of the system that I simply don't get. My experience has been that it's much harder for players to die in pathfinder. Maybe we didn't play 5e right? Maybe homebrew 5e is a lot easier than campaign book 5e. Comparing, say, Lost Mines in D&D to Burnt Offerings in Pathfinder 2e, I feel like my players risk TPK far less.

That said, they absolutely take advantage of every modifier they can get. Casters focus on spells that give out buffs to allies and minus penalties to creatures and everyone never fails to flank. Maybe that helps? Then again, I'm also running a conversion of Rise of the Runelords to 2e, but I've used the encounter building rules to use level appropriate monsters... I'll have to make sure I'm building encounters correctly. "Deadly" encounters do last far longer than in D&D 5e for sure though. If I run "smart" monsters ("target the guy healing everyone boys!") then the deadliness skyrockets, but my players are still smart about positioning to ward those situations off. In fact, using the healers as bait was a pretty good tactic.

One last thing on feats:
I printed them out on small cardstock cards and that makes life a lot easier. I'm a believer now and I look forward to the day 5e has a similar system. Watching a guy titan wrestle a giant and pin him to the ground so that everyone else can finish the job was a scene I'll never forget. The fact that players get tons of those feats makes the variety of actions players take in practice truly fun for a DM to witness.

 

[Philip Benz]

DH, thanks for the mid-level feedback. My players are still 2nd level, but then again we're lucky if we get one game in per month. You're descriptions are spot on for what I've been feeling about the advancement of PF2.

One of the problems I had with PF1 was that once players get past, say, 10th or 12th level, the slightest combat takes all night to resolve. I'm looking forward to the 3-action system radically speeding things up, especially once higher levels are reached.

I really enjoyed RotRL. If you'd like some DM suggestions for what happens once you get past the Storval Steps, just ask. One question: how did you depict Black Magga on the tabletop? Here's my Black Magga. Only one octopus and one plesiosaur (from Schleicht) had to die to make it:

 

[kenada]

The amount of prep it forces on a DM is insane though; you can't wing it for these APs: you absolutely have to read through everything and then write notes. My critique that Pathfinder is DM-involvement heavy isn't mitigated by AP's making things easier (then again, I'm running a conversion from a 1e AP to 2e rules).

That’s just it. APs don’t make things easier. It’s the opposite. They’re often badly keyed and poorly organized. The priority is on the reading experience instead of making them easy to use at the table. I ran APs for years (including a complete Kingmaker campaign), and I now run my own material, which I find much easier and less time-consuming than when I ran APs.

I actually just picked up Age of Ashes (the new AP that starts with Hellknight Hill) and I'm excited to see howan adventure that was made specifically for Pathfinder 2E performs against my shoddy conversion of Rise of the Runelords.

This is the critique of the system that I simply don't get. My experience has been that it's much harder for players to die in pathfinder. Maybe we didn't play 5e right? Maybe homebrew 5e is a lot easier than campaign book 5e. Comparing, say, Lost Mines in D&D to Burnt Offerings in Pathfinder 2e, I feel like my players risk TPK far less.

That said, they absolutely take advantage of every modifier they can get. Casters focus on spells that give out buffs to allies and minus penalties to creatures and everyone never fails to flank. Maybe that helps? Then again, I'm also running a conversion of Rise of the Runelords to 2e, but I've used the encounter building rules to use level appropriate monsters... I'll have to make sure I'm building encounters correctly. "Deadly" encounters do last far longer than in D&D 5e for sure though. If I run "smart" monsters ("target the guy healing everyone boys!") then the deadliness skyrockets, but my players are still smart about positioning to ward those situations off. In fact, using the healers as bait was a pretty good tactic.

Your players sound pretty tactically savvy. If they weren’t, they’d be getting destroyed by harder encounters. PF2 is very unforgiving of bad tactics against moderate or worse threats.

I printed them out on small cardstock cards and that makes life a lot easier. I'm a believer now and I look forward to the day 5e has a similar system. Watching a guy titan wrestle a giant and pin him to the ground so that everyone else can finish the job was a scene I'll never forget. The fact that players get tons of those feats makes the variety of actions players take in practice truly fun for a DM to witness.

I have thought about doing something like this, but I am wary of giving my players flashbacks to 4e.

 

[CubicsRube]

In our group in central France, we continued playing DD3.5 for some 4-5 years after Pathfinder came out. We just didn't see any major reason to change. So I totally get those people unwilling to jump into PF2, for whatever reason, even if it's just out of inertia.

But I have to say that our experience playing PF2 these last couple months, with 1st and then 2nd-level characters, has been eye-opening. Maneuvering figures around the terrain and engaging in combat has been so much more intuitive, quick and fun. The rules for non-magical healing work very well, and brought two characters back from the brink of death.

But don't let someone like me convince you one way or the other. Get settled around a gaming table for a few evenings before you make up your mind.

View attachment 115735

Where in central france do you play? I used to live in Lyon.

I love the terrain! Is it all dwarven forge? The furniture?

 

[Philip Benz]

Where in central france do you play? I used to live in Lyon. I love the terrain! Is it all dwarven forge? The furniture?

No, we're further west, between Châteauroux and Tours. And lately, we've had trouble getting together enough guys for a game. Real life, families and jobs and such pesky annoyances to the true gamer. <g>

Much of my terrain is Dwarven Forge, but a lot is scratchbuilt or kitbashed as well. I've been using it as art for my first two published PF2 scenarios. For example, in the pic here, the house is from Tabletop Basement, but all thye interior details were scratchbuilt.


But we were talking about PF2.
I really like the way skills work now, with four degrees of success. It makes things like stealth and diplomacy more nuanced in play.