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Pathfinder 2e: Actual Play Experience
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<blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 8001709" data-attributes="member: 5834"><p>First, I want to make it clear I'm not looking to insult anyone or decide which way to play is better or any of that arbitrary subjective opinion. I am merely illustrating my experience with power gaming over the decades in every edition of D&D/PF1 and many other games. I know some of you who have played with power-gamers, optimizers, or the like will understand it and some who never have won't. I'm not going to respond to each post. I will express my experience and why I like the math of PF2 so much comparatively.</p><p></p><p>Power gamers/min-maxers/optimizers, whatever you want to call them rely on game rules and math to create the characters they create. If the math wasn't capable of being min-maxed, their strategy wouldn't work. Optimization comes down to manipulation of the game rules and math for the maximum possible outcome and the most value in defeating combat challenges, the primary driver of experience in the game and thus power. If you're not playing with players doing the math and rules-lawyering at least a bit, you're not playing with optimizers and power gamers. And that's fine. More power to you. Your games must be far easier to run than mine.</p><p></p><p>Even in 5E, my players did the math to figure out the maximum value per hit and then built parties to improve that metric. They did not do this in the manner I'm speaking as they don't communicate in that manner, but that is what they did by simply doing the simplistic game math in every single RPG to obtain the best possible outcome as a group. Then creating group elements to accomplish this task. Questions around my table, "Who is playing the martial?" Which would always be a two-hander martial or sharpshooter archer in 5E and PF1. "Who is playing the bard and what level will he get bless?" Bless for 5E and inspire courage in PF1. Someone always ended up with a multiclass paladin or two in 5E. There was no party without bless in 5E. No party without GWM in 5E. No party without Sharpshooter in 5E. And in PF1 there was always some min-maxed caster with maximized DCs picking up Archmage at the appropriate level and taking every feat to maximize their spell strategy and DCs.</p><p></p><p>In game group terms for 5E as an example, that means the GWM 2-hander guy in a group is doing far more damage per hit and crit. So the group works to put him in the position to hit things. And they don't put the 2-weapon guy into position to hit things because it slows down the outcome they want: a combat victory. They focus heavily only on those outcomes which specifically maximize their chance of victory in combat building their characters and groups for this objective.</p><p></p><p>This was even worse in PF1 when you get things like beast totem barbarian building to use come and get me, extend his reach, maximize his AoOs, with the widest crit, highest average damage weapon he could get backed up by caster buffs with superstition to ensure no nasty enemy caster short circuits his insane rage with a spell.</p><p></p><p>I am sure all of you that deal with min-maxers, optimizesrs, power-gamers or whatever you want to refer to them as can come up with lists of abused powers and abilities in each edition of D&D/PF1 or whatever game you like including GURPS that were used to make DMing hard. That was life for me as a DM. It required a tremendous amount of work to counter and deal with as the levels progressed. A few of my other buddies DMed, they often resorted to making things up to challenge the party that were way more powerful than anything in the rules or just flat out gave up running the game.</p><p></p><p>And that is why I much prefer PF2 math where they have painstakingly worked to ensure the math is very tight. The rules very clear and mostly controlled. Classes are very balanced. And challenges are difficult for their level. If this wasn't what you were dealing with at your table, then I can see why maybe you don't share the same appreciation for the PF2 math.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celtavian, post: 8001709, member: 5834"] First, I want to make it clear I'm not looking to insult anyone or decide which way to play is better or any of that arbitrary subjective opinion. I am merely illustrating my experience with power gaming over the decades in every edition of D&D/PF1 and many other games. I know some of you who have played with power-gamers, optimizers, or the like will understand it and some who never have won't. I'm not going to respond to each post. I will express my experience and why I like the math of PF2 so much comparatively. Power gamers/min-maxers/optimizers, whatever you want to call them rely on game rules and math to create the characters they create. If the math wasn't capable of being min-maxed, their strategy wouldn't work. Optimization comes down to manipulation of the game rules and math for the maximum possible outcome and the most value in defeating combat challenges, the primary driver of experience in the game and thus power. If you're not playing with players doing the math and rules-lawyering at least a bit, you're not playing with optimizers and power gamers. And that's fine. More power to you. Your games must be far easier to run than mine. Even in 5E, my players did the math to figure out the maximum value per hit and then built parties to improve that metric. They did not do this in the manner I'm speaking as they don't communicate in that manner, but that is what they did by simply doing the simplistic game math in every single RPG to obtain the best possible outcome as a group. Then creating group elements to accomplish this task. Questions around my table, "Who is playing the martial?" Which would always be a two-hander martial or sharpshooter archer in 5E and PF1. "Who is playing the bard and what level will he get bless?" Bless for 5E and inspire courage in PF1. Someone always ended up with a multiclass paladin or two in 5E. There was no party without bless in 5E. No party without GWM in 5E. No party without Sharpshooter in 5E. And in PF1 there was always some min-maxed caster with maximized DCs picking up Archmage at the appropriate level and taking every feat to maximize their spell strategy and DCs. In game group terms for 5E as an example, that means the GWM 2-hander guy in a group is doing far more damage per hit and crit. So the group works to put him in the position to hit things. And they don't put the 2-weapon guy into position to hit things because it slows down the outcome they want: a combat victory. They focus heavily only on those outcomes which specifically maximize their chance of victory in combat building their characters and groups for this objective. This was even worse in PF1 when you get things like beast totem barbarian building to use come and get me, extend his reach, maximize his AoOs, with the widest crit, highest average damage weapon he could get backed up by caster buffs with superstition to ensure no nasty enemy caster short circuits his insane rage with a spell. I am sure all of you that deal with min-maxers, optimizesrs, power-gamers or whatever you want to refer to them as can come up with lists of abused powers and abilities in each edition of D&D/PF1 or whatever game you like including GURPS that were used to make DMing hard. That was life for me as a DM. It required a tremendous amount of work to counter and deal with as the levels progressed. A few of my other buddies DMed, they often resorted to making things up to challenge the party that were way more powerful than anything in the rules or just flat out gave up running the game. And that is why I much prefer PF2 math where they have painstakingly worked to ensure the math is very tight. The rules very clear and mostly controlled. Classes are very balanced. And challenges are difficult for their level. If this wasn't what you were dealing with at your table, then I can see why maybe you don't share the same appreciation for the PF2 math. [/QUOTE]
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