Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e: Actual Play Experience

[FrozenNorth]

I don't like that type of game design. I much prefer a type of game design where you can pick a fighting style or character type that is a relative power level where you do things differently, but not sub-optimally. If the two-weapon fighter and the two-hander fighter do roughly the same amount of damage with maybe the two-hander guy getting a higher weapon die while two-weapon guy gets an additional attack, then we have much closer balance and less of a feeling of the two-weapon guy being mathematically less valuable than the two-hander guy in nearly every circumstance.

Here’s something funny. I played 8 levels as a sword and board Dex-based Eldritch Knight. I never felt sub-optimal (and I had several utility spells).

Same group, PF2, I was begging my DM to allow my wizard to retrain out of Ray of Frost for Electric Arc after 3 sessions. When I took Ray of Frost I didn’t think it would bother me that it was sub-optimal but it did.

So what was the difference? In PF2, I didn’t just feel sub-optimal, I felt useless. The other characters were dealing 10+ per hit, and regularly hitting twice in a round, whereas I was doing 7 points of damage (with a high of 9).

When I first started PF2, I was concerned that that I had 3 AC less than the champion, because I was afraid that a monster would sidestep the champion and drop me in one turn. This fear was overblown, because it simply wasn’t worth the monster’s action to move around the champion and drop me.

 

[CapnZapp]

Now, I'll repeat my position that PF2E is UNLIKE 4E in a lot more ways than it is LIKE 4E. In my opinion, it is a weak analysis to say that PF2E is like 4E.

Happily I am not providing such a weak analysis

I have quite emphatically stated that PF2 is not 4E and does not play like 4E.

I have also said I see clear design similarities between PF2 and 4E, and I have detailed in which specific areas my comparison applies.

I therefore trust you weren't talking about me even though it was me you quoted

 

[CapnZapp]

Same group, PF2, I was begging my DM to allow my wizard to retrain out of Ray of Frost for Electric Arc after 3 sessions. When I took Ray of Frost I didn’t think it would bother me that it was sub-optimal but it did.

Both my casters (one Wizard, one Cleric) uses Electric Arc almost exclusively (amongst their cantrips). Not only does it avoid having to make spell attack (where a miss means zero damage and not half damage), it also targets two creatures, not one. So the fire or cold cantrips deal three or four times as much damage, right? No - they deal comparable damage!

That said...

Even though the cantrip situation is a clear and unequivocal bungle on Paizo's side I wouldn't draw too big conclusions on that. Celt is right that PF2 is overall the (by far) more balanced game.

 

[Porridge]

Exactly my point when I question the launch of PF2 in a world where 5E has already achieved mega success.

PF2 does have definite merit, but did it have to come across as so clueless about two things?
a) the success and popularity of 5E
b) pretty much the exact opposite for 4E

FWIW, I think the developers stated that they weren't aiming to have PF2 be a 5e competitor, but rather a game that appealed to people who didn't like 5e because they wanted a crunchier ruleset. (Though, of course, PF2 is still streamlined and less crunchy than PF1/3.5e, so they were clearly aware of the general market trend toward simpler games.)

So I don't think PF2 was designed in ignorance of 5e. Rather, I think it was designed with 5e firmly in mind, and with the intention to not be a 5e clone that was fighting for the very same customers.

(Now, of course, whether this is what they should have done, and whether they should have developed the game this way versus some other way, etc, are different questions.)

 

[Eric V]

We get it. You and your group are obsessed with optimisation. Not every group is, and you don't need to repeat it every two posts.

It's not about optimization. It's about game design resulting in some options being stupidly obviously better than others.

 

[Eric V]

I think this line is what I will end up having repeated the most often during these discussions...:

If everybody's special noone is.​

That is, if you can't make any wrong choices, you can't make any right choices either, which dampens the very important part of many D&D players' enjoyment - the charbuilding phase.

Maybe you shouldn't be making 'right' or 'wrong' choices...maybe you should be making 'style' choices, or 'preference' choices.

Why in the world would game design come up with some rule for PC creation in order to have the reaction of "Poor schmoe who chooses this...damn."?

 

[dave2008]

It's not about optimization. It's about game design resulting in some options being stupidly obviously better than others.

That is what an optimizer would say.

My players are intelligent well educated people (mostly masters and some PHDs), yet they almost never take the "stupidly obviously better" option. They simply don't look at things that way. I feel like it is really hard for optimizers to understand the non-optimizer mindset (and probably vice versa).

 

[Eric V]

That is what an optimizer would say.

My players are intelligent well educated people (mostly masters and some PHDs), yet they almost never take the "stupidly obviously better" option. They simply don't look at things that way. I feel like it is really hard for optimizers to understand the non-optimizer mindset (and probably vice versa).

I don't understand why, in game design, my style choice necessitates me being less effective than another person's style choice.

That is a legit question whether one cares about this sort of thing or not.

 

[TwoSix]

I think this line is what I will end up having repeated the most often during these discussions...:

If everybody's special noone is.​

That is, if you can't make any wrong choices, you can't make any right choices either, which dampens the very important part of many D&D players' enjoyment - the charbuilding phase.

I think there are 2 things that are true in relation to this statement.

1) The market as a whole is moving steadily away from "character building as a method of demonstrating/utliizing system mastery" and towards "character building as expression of style and aesthetic."

2) The Pathfinder player base has a disproportionate amount of the players who do favor character building as its own subgame, and that remnant is still large enough to be worth targeting.

I think PF2 might have tried to split the difference and ended up not squarely hitting the target for either camp.

 

[FrozenNorth]

It's not about optimization. It's about game design resulting in some options being stupidly obviously better than others.

Except that isn’t the case. It is only the case if your criteria for “stupidly, obviously, better” is:

• does most damage;
• in combat;
• against enemies in melee;
• who don’t have spells that shut down my character;
• or are a large number of weaker enemies;
• or other situations that make them hard or impossible to hit;
• and I don’t care about Dex-based skills;