Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2E or Pathfinder 1E?

[CapnZapp]

This is one of the areas I found least satisfying with 5e. Our group played through Curse of Strahd and I found no joy at all from character creation or levelling up. I can totally understand how others may prefer this simplicity, but to me, it was pretty boring. We haven't played 5e since. It's just not for me. I feel it removes an enjoyable component of the game - crafting and personalising your character.

My argument is that you could take away the 5E PHB, rewrite it completely, but still keeping compatibility (more or less anyway) to the MM and DMG.

Thus making for a much richer deeper player-side building experience, but without significantly complexifying the game for the DM!

If WotC were to print an "Advanced Player's Handbook" with a set of new classes that weren't primarily designed to co-exist with the PHB classes, they would naturally need to call them Warrior, Thief, Magic-User or somesuch to not invalidate the PHB.

For Paizo, things would be simpler. A same-same-but-different game just doesn't have that concern. A Pathfinder 2 game does not need 100% or even 95% compatibility to 5E. In the same way Pathfinder 1 met with success even though it diverged from 3rd edition in a thousand little ways and even a few bigger ones.

This would appeal to the millions of current gamers in a way the clusterfrak of a PF2 playtest never will.

They could do a vaguely-5E:ish game, that does 5E better than 5E. A game where the DM's job weren't significantly more cluttered or complicated (primarily by not demanding full PC rules for NPCs!!!) but where the player's side, primarily during character-building, were just that: significantly more cluttered and complicated... or what we would say: much more involved - richer and deeper

They would never be sued since by now Paizo knows better than to infringe upon WOTc's remaining IP. And for the rest, they would just point to Pathfinder 1 and say all concepts are taken from that game, their own game.

 

[CapnZapp]

The thing is that my group can appreciate some of the crunchier aspects of gaming - especially in tactical play and character creation. PF2 seemed like it was going to support this, but they held on to too many of the "sacred cows" of PF1 (and 3.x editions) and had added a few needlessly convoluted subsystems (like the dying mechanic). Additionally, the playtest was just so bad that my groups are hesitant to try it again (after having bad experiences at home with the Doomsday Dawn as well as PFS events at Origins and GenCon.)
So we are enjoying the balance and tactics of 4E, and my "beginner games" are with 5E.

A perfect illustration to accompany my prayer that Paizo scraps the current PF2 effort and starts again from scratch!

 

[CapnZapp]

I have 2 comments about this:

First, the leveling up in PF is not always that "creative" because effective builds have to be planned several levels in advance - your leveling up from 6 to 7 may have been planned at level 1.

Second, I've seen players who are more concerned about creating characters than playing the game! For them, the game is a way to test/prove their characters, and it can lead to not great table behavior. This doesn't mean that enjoying character build is always bad, but it's not always good either. Furthermore, I've enjoyed building 5e characters - there are a fair number of potions, and almost all of them are valid.

Sorry but this is exactly what 3.x/PF customers want. Or at least lots of them.

By "sorry" I mean that if Paizo is going to achieve success they can't listen to you. Planning and detailed crunch is what these people feel is missing from 5E!

The concern they love charbuild more than actual play is not a real concern. As long as they buy the book, Paizo is fine. (Most will definitely want to try out their precious build in actual play)

 

[amethal]

tl;dr: the fact I can (and do) run a complete campaign with only three* DCs** is a huge benefit for 5E. It might seem like a trivial small issue, but it really is very very good!

I'm glad it works for you.

Personally, I prefer games where the answer to the question "How can we possibly hope to pick the lock to the most secure vault in the kingdom?" is "We need to track down the legendary master thief Mysterio, who vanished ten years ago in the Great Swamp" rather than "Let's grab forty peasants off the street; statistically one of them is bound to roll a 20 on the check."

I suspect that in 5e the answer would be to bypass the skill system completely and rule that only a legendary thief can succeed. However, if one of the players argues "My thief is pretty famous, even if he isn't a legend (yet). Why can't I do it?" I'd prefer the answer to be "because the DC is 50" rather than "because the adventure says he can't".

 

[CapnZapp]

I really wish there was a way for characters to develop naturally over the course of play, without also ending up severely underpowered next to a character that was planned in advance.

I don't think you can even theoretically achieve both. Either a game does what you describe, or choices don't mean much. If you end up with a quite decent character without thinking, you do not have to think.

---

When the customers WANT a game that rewards system mastery you see the problem...

3.x/PF was such a game.

These people are eagerly awaiting a new D&D game that rewards system mastery.

Therefore "natural development" can't be a thing. There I honestly feel 5E is a much better bet.

Them's the breaks, I'm afraid.

 

[CapnZapp]

But YOU are the one that brought it up!



That's what you said! You said *all the kinds*. You extended the topic, I thought that wasn't quite right, and I commented.

Okay you got a point.

I meant D&Dish fantasy since we're in that context in this thread, but still. Have a point.

 

[Retreater]

I don't think you can even theoretically achieve both. Either a game does what you describe, or choices don't mean much. If you end up with a quite decent character without thinking, you do not have to think.

---

When the customers WANT a game that rewards system mastery you see the problem...

3.x/PF was such a game.

These people are eagerly awaiting a new D&D game that rewards system mastery.

Therefore "natural development" can't be a thing. There I honestly feel 5E is a much better bet.

Them's the breaks, I'm afraid.

Dare I say that 4E did a decent job at this. Characters could become terribly complex, but the streamlined Essentials builds were pretty effective for characters who didn't want to make the effort.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm glad it works for you.

Personally, I prefer games where the answer to the question "How can we possibly hope to pick the lock to the most secure vault in the kingdom?" is "We need to track down the legendary master thief Mysterio, who vanished ten years ago in the Great Swamp" rather than "Let's grab forty peasants off the street; statistically one of them is bound to roll a 20 on the check."

I suspect that in 5e the answer would be to bypass the skill system completely and rule that only a legendary thief can succeed. However, if one of the players argues "My thief is pretty famous, even if he isn't a legend (yet). Why can't I do it?" I'd prefer the answer to be "because the DC is 50" rather than "because the adventure says he can't".

Yep.

Sorry the simulationist train has long gone.

Inflating the whole game just to avoid this specialist (and to be honest theoretical) problem is... just not worth it.

Much better to place the vault inside a continuous Wall of Fire. Alternatively - each time you fail, you're zapped by a Lightning Bolt.

Now you need far more than just forty peasants. But you still only need one level twelve Thief.

 

[Aldarc]

IMO, epic/high fantasy is more setting/world and plot than "character build".

I think that you misunderstand my sense of "epic/high fantasy" in this context. I found, for example, the Paizo blog talking about proficiencies in the new Pathfinder 2 playtest.

Legendary

A legendary character is world-class, and in addition to adjusting checks and DCs by +3, can routinely produce results that defy real-world explanation, even if they're not a spellcaster. For instance, a character who is legendary in Survival could learn to survive without food, water, or air in a featureless void, a character legendary in Thievery might be able to steal the armor off a guard, and a character with a legendary Will save might have a mind so strong that no mental intrusion can fully affect him. Most characters can't hope to become legendary until level 15 at the earliest, and even the mightiest fighters reach these heights with their weapons only at level 13. Most characters become legendary in only a few skills and one or two other statistics.

Making the Nonmagical Extraordinary

The best part about proficiencies is the way they push the boundaries for nonmagical characters, particularly those with a legendary rank. If you're legendary in something, you're like a character out of real-world myth and legend, swimming across an entire sea while beating up sea monsters like Beowulf, performing unbelievable tasks like Heracles, or hunting and racing at astounding speeds like Atalanta. While we did perform a bit of research on things like real world Olympic records and average expectations when it came to the lower ranks, masters and especially legends break all those rules. Want your fighter to leap 20 feet straight up and smash a chimera down to the ground? You can do that (eventually)!

This is a bit more mythical and legendary than what is generally the case for 5e.

I think that one of the biggest fallacies of gaming is the idea that D&D can do everything well, especially 5e D&D in our current gaming environment. While Pathfinder is an off-brand version of D&D, there are undoubtedly things that each iteration of D&D can do better in terms of its spin on the fantasy genre, though at this point we may note how D&D has practically become its own sub-genre in fantasy. And there are and will be types of fantasy that 3e/PF1/PF2 will do better at emulating than 5e and vice versa. I don't understand why people get so sensitive about this fact, particularly when it comes to their pet system 5e. D&D is not my favorite game. Pathfinder is not my favorite game. I generally prefer Fate. But I don't claim - nor do the creators of Fate for that matter - that Fate does everything well. D&D 5e does not do everything well. People even often joke that D&D 5e is so popular because 5e is everyone's second favorite edition of D&D.

I believe that my point regarding "high epic fantasy" is one such point. 5e D&D and PF2 are both modes of D&D fantasy, and so they will do that well. And all D&D fantasy is essentially about the "high epic fantasy." But when we compare games within D&D-esque fantasy, we can nevertheless see differences of scope, emphasis, and strengths/weaknesses. No one bats an eye when one notes how 3e had godmode casters (e.g., wizards, clerics, druids) in comparison with 5e. Or even the number of magic items an assumed character had in 3e vs. 5e. So herein we can recognize at least two ways in which there is a difference of tone and flavor produced from those differences in our sense of high epic fantasy. And in the case of Pathfinder 2 (playtest), the above quote is fairly indicative that they are aspiring to a higher fantasy normative scope than what 5e assumes. Can you make 5e do that too? Sure. But does 5e assume it as normative in the same way? Probably not.

 

[amethal]

Yep.

Sorry the simulationist train has long gone.

Inflating the whole game just to avoid this specialist (and to be honest theoretical) problem is... just not worth it.

Much better to place the vault inside a continuous Wall of Fire. Alternatively - each time you fail, you're zapped by a Lightning Bolt.

Now you need far more than just forty peasants. But you still only need one level twelve Thief.

That was an interesting counter example, so thanks for that. Having several linked (comparatively) easier challenges is a much better approach to adventure design than requiring one, very high skill check.

However, I still disagree with you.

“Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 20 to 1” doesn't have quite the same ring to it.