Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder Second Edition: I hear it's bad - Why Bad, How Bad?

[Remathilis]

This is interesting.

I cannot fathom why and how Paizo seems to go in the direction of 4E with lots of measured (=bland) "samey-feeling" powers, when that is what made 4E bomb.

Especially since they have 5E to look at, where people aren't complaining (about player abilities; defanged monsters is another thing).

It boggles the mind why Paizo would end up with something that draws comparisons to the failed edition while trying to avoid comparisons to the wildly successful and well-regarded one... [emoji46]

That's was a bit of my fear when I looked at the playtest; each class was a skeleton of proficiencies and some locked-in class functions, then just a long list of options that you slot in at various levels. It even picked up the oddity of locking certain playstyles into certain classes (such as paladins missing abilities if not in heavy armor). Granted, they kept a form of vancian magic and different cooldown mechanics rather than ADEU, but I did see more than a passing note of "well what if we tried that idea but didn't make it suck?"

Of course, as I've said before, Paizo is trying to fix the same problem WotC was a decade earlier; how to make classes flexible to hold a variety of class features without resorting to hundreds of prestige classes, alternate class features, substitution levels, themes, archetypes, and variant classes. How do you keep all those options balanced? How do you slow the roll of new classes nearly every book? The answers they found matched WotC: broader classes with much of its power locked into bite sized chunks, and those chunks being roughly even in power to allow real choice and keep things balanced. Ergo, classes devolve into menus of carefully curated abilities (feats or powers).

 

[Aldarc]

I simply thought it was a misspelling.

Okay. That's fair.

5E is much more like 3.x in allowing real power to your selections, so your choices feel like they make a difference. (That said, expansion content is much less impressive; mostly just rehashing existing powers while introducing few to no new mechanics. So you're right, he could have meant that)

Having played 3-5e and PF1, I'm not sure if this is an assessment that I would ever associate with 5e at all. D&D 5e is usually associated with being light on significant choices that a player will make,* because it is a concerted move towards pre-3e simplicity and recapturing the OSR crowd. In various comments about switching to PF2 from 5e on the PF2 subreddit, for example, many comments have reflected on how they feel that 5e lacks "real power to your selections" and frustrations that their choices don't feel like they make a difference. Basically the exact opposite of what you say here.

* Race and Class are fairly bog-standard choices in D&D. Background was a fairly recent (and much welcome) extra step to character creation choice in D&D. However, to what extent does Background in 5e represent a meaningful choice when Backgrounds in 5e largely amount to "pick two skills, two proficiencies (tools, language, etc.), starting gear, and get some associated lite bonus fluff"? Choice here is often a thinly-veiled exercise of how to acquire "Stealth" and "Perception" proficiencies for your character. Your most meaningful choice usually amounts to class and subclass. I'm not sure that ASI/feats are significant choices either since many classes have obvious paths: e.g., buff attributes until 20, Great Weapon Master, War Caster, etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

Perception and Stealth are the 5E super skills. Sailors, Urchins and the other background that grants stealth are popular.

 

[billd91]

* Race and Class are fairly bog-standard choices in D&D. Background was a fairly recent (and much welcome) extra step to character creation choice in D&D. However, to what extent does Background in 5e represent a meaningful choice when Backgrounds in 5e largely amount to "pick two skills, two proficiencies (tools, language, etc.), starting gear, and get some associated lite bonus fluff"? Choice here is often a thinly-veiled exercise of how to acquire "Stealth" and "Perception" proficiencies for your character. Your most meaningful choice usually amounts to class and subclass. I'm not sure that ASI/feats are significant choices either since many classes have obvious paths: e.g., buff attributes until 20, Great Weapon Master, War Caster, etc.

If people are just choosing backgrounds based on getting Stealth and/or Perception and not using the rest of it - that's on them. It may be their style to not really think about anything other than justification for mechanical advantages, but it's hardly an indictment of whether the background is a meaningful choice if people don't happen to use it at full potential. As with many RPGs, it has as much meaning as you choose to use.

 

[Parmandur]

Perception and Stealth are the 5E super skills. Sailors, Urchins and the other background that grants stealth are popular.

I've never observed this at all, do we have data (such as from D&D Beyond) to back that up?

 

[Parmandur]

Okay. That's fair.

Having played 3-5e and PF1, I'm not sure if this is an assessment that I would ever associate with 5e at all. D&D 5e is usually associated with being light on significant choices that a player will make,* because it is a concerted move towards pre-3e simplicity and recapturing the OSR crowd. In various comments about switching to PF2 from 5e on the PF2 subreddit, for example, many comments have reflected on how they feel that 5e lacks "real power to your selections" and frustrations that their choices don't feel like they make a difference. Basically the exact opposite of what you say here.

* Race and Class are fairly bog-standard choices in D&D. Background was a fairly recent (and much welcome) extra step to character creation choice in D&D. However, to what extent does Background in 5e represent a meaningful choice when Backgrounds in 5e largely amount to "pick two skills, two proficiencies (tools, language, etc.), starting gear, and get some associated lite bonus fluff"? Choice here is often a thinly-veiled exercise of how to acquire "Stealth" and "Perception" proficiencies for your character. Your most meaningful choice usually amounts to class and subclass. I'm not sure that ASI/feats are significant choices either since many classes have obvious paths: e.g., buff attributes until 20, Great Weapon Master, War Caster, etc.

5E offers a handful of large grain choices (Race, Class, Subclass), but they are meaningful: I can say from experience that a Half&Elf Draconic Sorcerer is a very different feel from a Mountain Dwarf Wild Mage. It's a Class system, a few small but significant choices are the name of the game.

 

[wakedown]

I cannot fathom why and how Paizo seems to go in the direction of 4E with lots of measured (=bland) "samey-feeling" powers, when that is what made 4E bomb.

After skimming through the final rules, it looks like Paizo is going after the same kinds of player-minds that subsidized 4E sales. They aren't trying to build a comparable product to 1E-3E & 5E.

These rules aren't likely to win over your average group. Most groups I'm familiar with in my area (10+ & then organized play attendees) have members that will absolutely detest the PF2E rules buffet. There's way too many boxes with keyword tags and way too many moving parts in both character construction and combat play (i.e. having to memorize your actions and if they cost 1, 2 or 3 of your actions per turn). They hate math (even if it's subtracting -10 to determine if it's a crit vs regular success/fumble). In a sample group of 6, there's probably ~4 who shake their heads at all the mental gymnastics to learn the PF2E rules. They like the 5E era where character construction and leveling takes mere minutes outside of the game with little "bad decision" consequence. And they like how the players who have 100 hours away from the game between sessions don't have a big advantage in figuring out overly powerful combos in character building.

PF2E is aimed at the folks who have countless hours to "play with the rules" on their own free time outside of a group gaming session. It's like there's all these puzzle pieces to figure out what Dedications to take and to come up with character builds that flex the rules system and then there's this newer mini game beyond PF1E where you try to figure out your actions in combat like puzzle pieces and then possibly even build a little cheat sheet flow chart on which actions to take depending on your target's defenses and the probability of a normal success vs critical success in order to fully optimize.

To me, this harkens back to 4E where a lot of the revenue was from folks who wanted "rules play" and grabbed the books essentially as "activity books" to take home and play with the rules themselves. And if luck permitted, you'd have some group sessions to play those out if the group involved enough like minded folks. I could see how some 5E groups of six might luck into having 3 players aligned who do "rules play" outside of their regular sessions and then possibly meet or VTT as a trio with the PF2E rules.

The short here is that Paizo potentially realizes they are becoming a niche player and have tried to assemble a core system that has as many moving parts as possible for entertaining the at-home rules play crowd for the next 3-5 years. There's probably 6-12 months of rules play in the Core rulebook alone, depending how many hours per week you apply yourself at trying to master it (assuming the average is ~5 hours a week).

TLDR: If the RPG market has ~5% of its audience interested in at-home "rules play", perhaps that's enough to sustain a niche offering that can sell 1-2 rule supplements a year at $40 a pop?

 

[Parmandur]

After skimming through the final rules, it looks like Paizo is going after the same kinds of player-minds that subsidized 4E sales. They aren't trying to build a comparable product to 1E-3E & 5E.

These rules aren't likely to win over your average group. Most groups I'm familiar with in my area (10+ & then organized play attendees) have members that will absolutely detest the PF2E rules buffet. There's way too many boxes with keyword tags and way too many moving parts in both character construction and combat play (i.e. having to memorize your actions and if they cost 1, 2 or 3 of your actions per turn). They hate math (even if it's subtracting -10 to determine if it's a crit vs regular success/fumble). In a sample group of 6, there's probably ~4 who shake their heads at all the mental gymnastics to learn the PF2E rules. They like the 5E era where character construction and leveling takes mere minutes outside of the game with little "bad decision" consequence. And they like how the players who have 100 hours away from the game between sessions don't have a big advantage in figuring out overly powerful combos in character building.

PF2E is aimed at the folks who have countless hours to "play with the rules" on their own free time outside of a group gaming session. It's like there's all these puzzle pieces to figure out what Dedications to take and to come up with character builds that flex the rules system and then there's this newer mini game beyond PF1E where you try to figure out your actions in combat like puzzle pieces and then possibly even build a little cheat sheet flow chart on which actions to take depending on your target's defenses and the probability of a normal success vs critical success in order to fully optimize.

To me, this harkens back to 4E where a lot of the revenue was from folks who wanted "rules play" and grabbed the books essentially as "activity books" to take home and play with the rules themselves. And if luck permitted, you'd have some group sessions to play those out if the group involved enough like minded folks. I could see how some 5E groups of six might luck into having 3 players aligned who do "rules play" outside of their regular sessions and then possibly meet or VTT as a trio with the PF2E rules.

The short here is that Paizo potentially realizes they are becoming a niche player and have tried to assemble a core system that has as many moving parts as possible for entertaining the at-home rules play crowd for the next 3-5 years. There's probably 6-12 months of rules play in the Core rulebook alone, depending how many hours per week you apply yourself at trying to master it (assuming the average is ~5 hours a week).

TLDR: If the RPG market has ~5% of its audience interested in at-home "rules play", perhaps that's enough to sustain a niche offering that can sell 1-2 rule supplements a year at $40 a pop?

Where have you seen the final rules...?

 

[Aldarc]

5E offers a handful of large grain choices (Race, Class, Subclass), but they are meaningful: I can say from experience that a Half&Elf Draconic Sorcerer is a very different feel from a Mountain Dwarf Wild Mage. It's a Class system, a few small but significant choices are the name of the game.

Sure. I would suggest that the issue is that these choices are made early, typically 1-3 level range. So players are not really getting the psychological thrill of making those significant character build choices like you were in the early levels or even smaller ones later. Several comments on the 5e to PF2 subreddit thread noted this. One person said that they felt like the thrill of their barbarian tapered off once they hit 5th level and got their extra attack, and they felt like that was mostly kinda it for their character. Nevertheless, this assessment is not something that I would associate with 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure. I would suggest that the issue is that these choices are made early, typically 1-3 level range. So players are not really getting the psychological thrill of making those significant character build choices like you were in the early levels or even smaller ones later. Several comments on the 5e to PF2 subreddit thread noted this. One person said that they felt like the thrill of their barbarian tapered off once they hit 5th level and got their extra attack, and they felt like that was mostly kinda it for their character. Nevertheless, this assessment is not something that I would associate with 5e.

Yeah, I would say after PC generation the choices of significance are those made in play, not build.