Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2E and balance ?
Having level directly tied into every saving throw, skill check, attack roll, AC, etc., means that monsters hit at pretty much exactly where they are supposed to. If you try to run a monster that is more than several levels lower, it will be largely worthless against a higher level party and vice versa.
The frequency of getting critical strikes make martial characters more effective than in previous editions - especially fighters.
Spells (and by extension - spellcasters) have been brought in line with martial characters. Area effect spells (such as fireball) don't do the damage they used to.
The action economy keeps buff spells and sustained damage spells in check.
Feat taxes, planning out builds over many levels, etc., aren't as common as you'd find in PF1. There are built in rules for retraining that aren't too punishing. You don't have to have a bandolier of Cure Light Wounds wands to function (thanks to the highly effective Treat Wounds activity.)
You are usually balancing encounter difficulty only within the encounter itself - not the adventuring day.
The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
One of the biggest points of balance is that the game works very hard to ensure that not only can its various classes contribute about equally, it goes out of its way to make sure that you can achieve a baseline level of power, and that optimization functions to give you additional power, but reigns in how much additional power you can get from optimization. So to begin with, in Pathfinder 2e, playing a Wizard or a Fighter isn't a decision about how powerful you are (contrasted with 5e, PF1e and so forth) although they may contribute to the party in somewhat different ways (martials are generally better at single target damage and big single hits and tankier, while casters are good at AOE and getting more smaller hits in due to failure effects or even just buffing, debuffing, and healing.) Then, even the classes that are talked about as maybe not measuring up (the Alchemist being the hardest to build and play well, and the only real example) are much closer than they would be in those other games. If you look at charts, the real differences in damage and other forms of effectiveness are not very large (though they may look it because having a small range makes the differences look bigger).
A big part of how the game accomplishes this, is that it has strict guidelines on what numerical bonuses you can get and from where, and on what does and doesn't stack. It also loads most of your power into things that you always get, like class features, and its multiclassing system doesn't compromise that core-- everyone gets the majority of their numbers this way. Then, you build a stable of feats on top of that, that provide relatively modest bonuses with a deficit of real feat taxes (in other words, things that are necessary to take to be viable-- the fact that the alchemist is the exception is part of what makes it problematic, the exception that proves the rule so to speak), when I say "real" to be clear, I mean to make the class function and contribute sufficiently to encounters, you can absolutely find yourself spending the majority of your feats to build into a certain concept (Druids are perfectly capable of being viable regardless of their feats with their full casting, if you want to keep up with Wildshaping it eats a LOT of your feats, because its not part of that core... although you could always use your spell slots to shift instead, interestingly and still force it to work.)
So as a result, if you follow the encounter guidelines, and your players broadly boost their key attribute (the game makes this very easy to do and still have a well rounded character), they will mostly all feel like they're contributing to encounters, and encounters will hinge more on their decisions and dice rolls than their ability to break the game by staring at optimization guides (while still rewarding them for their system mastery, my players optimize heavily when they organize a regular group and handle severe and extreme encounters much better than I see other groups discussing online.)
Finally, because so much of your power comes from the 'baseline' and because stacking bonuses up tall is relatively restricted (you won't be able to endlessly benefit your main thing past an investment of a few feats, if that) the game naturally encourages you to build wide, and sacking a feat on something that won't always be useful won't be as tough a decision. Similarly, noncombat feats are seperated from your class feat bucket so that you're never screwing yourself by taking non-combat capability, generally. Taking options is then both more intuitive ("oh this gives me a means of attacking with my reaction" or "Oh this makes my second attack likelier to hit" or "This gives me a use for my third action." instead of stacking up a massive combo of bonuses that all make your attack hit arbitrarily harder) and more self contained.
A big part of how the game accomplishes this, is that it has strict guidelines on what numerical bonuses you can get and from where, and on what does and doesn't stack. It also loads most of your power into things that you always get, like class features, and its multiclassing system doesn't compromise that core-- everyone gets the majority of their numbers this way. Then, you build a stable of feats on top of that, that provide relatively modest bonuses with a deficit of real feat taxes (in other words, things that are necessary to take to be viable-- the fact that the alchemist is the exception is part of what makes it problematic, the exception that proves the rule so to speak), when I say "real" to be clear, I mean to make the class function and contribute sufficiently to encounters, you can absolutely find yourself spending the majority of your feats to build into a certain concept (Druids are perfectly capable of being viable regardless of their feats with their full casting, if you want to keep up with Wildshaping it eats a LOT of your feats, because its not part of that core... although you could always use your spell slots to shift instead, interestingly and still force it to work.)
So as a result, if you follow the encounter guidelines, and your players broadly boost their key attribute (the game makes this very easy to do and still have a well rounded character), they will mostly all feel like they're contributing to encounters, and encounters will hinge more on their decisions and dice rolls than their ability to break the game by staring at optimization guides (while still rewarding them for their system mastery, my players optimize heavily when they organize a regular group and handle severe and extreme encounters much better than I see other groups discussing online.)
Finally, because so much of your power comes from the 'baseline' and because stacking bonuses up tall is relatively restricted (you won't be able to endlessly benefit your main thing past an investment of a few feats, if that) the game naturally encourages you to build wide, and sacking a feat on something that won't always be useful won't be as tough a decision. Similarly, noncombat feats are seperated from your class feat bucket so that you're never screwing yourself by taking non-combat capability, generally. Taking options is then both more intuitive ("oh this gives me a means of attacking with my reaction" or "Oh this makes my second attack likelier to hit" or "This gives me a use for my third action." instead of stacking up a massive combo of bonuses that all make your attack hit arbitrarily harder) and more self contained.
Thomas Shey
Legend
I'd like to congratulate you on a pretty fair and accurate summary, given I know your experiences with PF2e haven't been exactly great.
I've never played PF1. but I have played and run a lot of 5e. sorry if this is a bit off topic. for me, the balance is found most strongly in the encounter difficulty guidelines. PF2 works. like, its some kind of magic - when compared to 5e. my strengths as a GM are not in running optimized monsters. in fact, I suck at this. I constantly miss abilities, synergies, powers, and capabilities. in 5e, encounter balance guidelines are always way under represented of what happens at my table. put another way, I've had to create a bit of a "feel" around my own encounter balance to make fights even moderately difficult, and I invariably end up with encounters many times the size of what the DMG recommends. did I mention I suck at running monsters? in pf2, even though I still suck at running monsters, an "extreme" threat is still a bloody hard near TPK thing - every. single. time. I can only imagine that with a competent GM who is good at tactical combats, those will truly be "Extreme" from a player POV.
so - for me - having encounter guidelines that appear to work, that I know if I want a moderate encounter I have a very clear way to build one that feels moderate at my table, with my flaws as a tactical GM - makes PF2 SO MUCH FUN.
Cheers,
J.
so - for me - having encounter guidelines that appear to work, that I know if I want a moderate encounter I have a very clear way to build one that feels moderate at my table, with my flaws as a tactical GM - makes PF2 SO MUCH FUN.
Cheers,
J.
Thomas Shey
Legend
This is one of those things that's such a big gap between some people its essentially impossible to cross.
There are people who got really used to the D&D3/PF1 model of encounter building where everything was (generally) off balance the higher level characters were, so that they to really used to an average encounter actually being one they could dance all over. And they get to PF2e and discover that, no, an average encounter is generally actually average, and will have some difficulty, and a tough encounter is genuinely tough.
And they really don't like it.
Because the only way to get the kind of experience they're used to is to use mostly weaker encounters. And that, to be blunt, feels bad to them. Because its fundamentally a look-and-feel issue.
At the other end you have people like me who find having encounter levels that actually mean what they say they mean seems nothing but logical, and wanting them not to seems, well, perverse. And there's no meeting in the middle really possible in that.
(The one area where there's some grounds to have useful discussion is the question of player group competence. PF2e assumes some degree of baseline player engagement in its encounter guidelines, and if you don't have that level, it behooves a GM to be aware of it and use encounters accordingly (the alternative is to try and get your players a little more up to speed, but "git gud" is even more obnoxious in this context than it is in computer games, so that needs to be approached carefully).
Hex08
Hero
For as much of a fan as I am of Pathfinder (I played D&D 3.x/Pathfinder from the launch of 3.0 until now) that's one of the things I hated about the game. It really fell apart at higher levels. After running one adventure path and getting everyone to 20th level I swore I would never do it again. After that the highest I would advance characters was 10th, maybe 12th level. It's nice to hear that 2nd edition works better at higher levels.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Well, there were definitely problems with D&D3e (and I suspect PF1e didn't swing far enough from it to change this) as you advanced, but this was more about the fact the CR system really worked less and less well over time, to the point about the time you hit the early teens, it was next to useless. My current evidence is that while there may be some outliers with the PF2e one, that doesn't seem to ever become the order of the day.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
PF1 is swingy and CR unreliable (more so than 5E) so it's a stark difference. For me, I have so many years of experience with 3E/PF1 that its like a feature because combats are less predictable and thus more interesting. However, they require an experienced GM not to go pear shape on the table. So, I can see the attraction in balanced reliable CR which PF2 delivers better than any RPG I have played.
