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

[Celtavian]

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]

It's more like 5E than 4E. 4E was very video gamey like you were punching buttons every single fight because you had powers based on encounters.

Pathfinder 2 more like 5E, but not quite as bad. In 5E once you had advantage and bless, you were pretty much done using buff powers. Advantage by any means and bless was pretty much the most powerful combo in the game. Then just pile on damage with your advantage and bless bonus, rinse and repeat. It didn't matter if the ability giving you advantage was martial, magic, divine, or what not. At the end of the day it was just getting advantage. That's just super boring. I hate DMing 5E because of how boring it is, but I don't mind playing it if some DM wants to run it.

Pathfinder 2 doesn't go that far, so that was good. It's more that the powers, feats, and abilities are very low level, moderate bonuses. A great deal seems to be based on proficiency for every class. Certain classes like the paladin has been basically neutered from its PF1 form. It's no longer the powerful force against evil. It's more like a fighter with some divinely powered abilities. I think the paladin was the most disappointing class from PF1 to PF2.

The reason we're willing to give it a shot is because some of the base elements were pretty interesting. The new invisibility/unseen rules are more specific and work well with the action system. You just spend an action to attempt to locate an unseen creature. You can still attempt to attack it or move towards it. Really, the action system is the shining and fluid part of Pathfinder 2. It allows for more flexibility of action by the PCs that can drive story and seems like a more pseudo-realistic way to spend time. It was super nice to not have to move, attack, and maybe use a quickened action or immediate action. Instead you get 3 actions to spend as you wish. So you can raises a shield and cast a two action spell. You can move and a cast a two action spell. You can seek, move, attack. You can pick up magic rock, examine it, and put it in your pouch in one round without disrupting any combat flow and still have a reaction to shield block. It's a very nice action system. It is what sold us on trying the game.

The rest of it was hard to see. It's obviously powered down from Pathfinder 1. We want to see how the characters play once we run a campaign.

They got rid of power attack and the like. That was a huge plus. Those abilities scaled insanely and made crits nuts. Crits are flat double damage. You can do decent crit damage, but it's less than it was at higher levels.

So far monsters using the new action system are also more interesting. You can have a monster swoop in, attack with a single attack, and swoop out without a special feat or ability. Or use a spell like ability from afar, then move stealth into the bushes in the same round.

So far the monster scaling along with the action system seems better designed to challenge a higher level party and make monsters more interesting to play.

And they don't have pop up healing like 5E, PF1, or even old iterations of D&D. It can be hard to get back into the fight even with healing. I liked that quite a bit. Forgot about that part. You no longer are healed and automatically wake up. Instead if you get knocked to zero, you make a save. If you miss, you get closer to dead. Even if you get healed above zero, you have to make a save to become conscious. Your body is still messed up from getting downed and is trying to regain consciousness. This usually takes a minimum of 2 rounds once you're healed to 1 or more hit point. Once you're conscious if you lose the dying condition at 1 rank per round. So if you were close to dead, you may a take a while of being up to shake that off. That part was cool. Brought some of the lethality back without having to resort to just save or die or straight death at a certain hit point count.

Pathfinder 2 has a lot of interesting changes. Some of them seem very fun and should enhance the game. I'm hoping once we play the final product, classes will seem more fun. One class I did like more was the monk. Monk seemed like a lot more of a straight up badass martial artist than the mystical dude he was before. The modular system has made the monk more interesting. You can make many types of monks now. That was one class superior to Pathfinder 1.

 

[Celtavian]

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?

Pathfinder 2 is nothing like 4E. I played 4E. It feels absolutely nothing like 4E at all. I don't agree with that assessment in the slightest.

PF1 was always math and rules intensive. Good DMs are what drove Pathfinder 1. They had to know the rules to keep the gameplay going for the players. Pathfinder 1 simplifies a lot of the Pathfinder rules and math. It is superior so far in that fashion. You won't sell PF1 players on the PF2 4E comparison. Every PF1 player is used to math and rules like grappling, combat maneuvers, many different conditions with different bonuses, and so many spells and class abilities with different modifiers and effects that it was impossible to know them all. If you played PF1 for any length of time, you know how many different rules there were. PF2 has less and simpler.

 

[Celtavian]

I simply thought it was a misspelling.

4E is the edition infamous for a deluge of "balanced" but ultimately forgettable powers and items.

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)

Not my experience with 5E. I liked 5E better than 4E, but once you obtained advantage and had bless you pretty much were done doing much else than damage. We quit 5E and went back to PF1 because 5E was way too generic. You felt like your choices gave you power? We played the game and found that if you weren't a multi-class paladin of some type or an archer, you weren't as powerful as anyone that was one of those types. We allowed all customization options and were told by 5E players that is why we didn't like 5E. Why? Because taking paladin multiclass was a no brainer no matter the class. 2 to 6 levels of paladin mixed with almost any other class made you way better than any other class. One guy made a paladin wizard with a whip that made the guy playing a straight paladin hate his class because the whip guy had more spell slots to smite and did it with reach with the whip. He hated the sorcerer paladin because he also had more spell slots to smite with. He also hated the warlock paladin for the same reason. And the entire game was get advantage by any means necessary, then you were done since advantage didn't stack with anything else no matter how it was obtained. Super boring. And archer with the right feats was a monster damage dealer.

I figure 5E is as popular as it is because of how easy it is to play. My friend plays with his kids. You can play a pick up game and teach just about anyone the game in an hour regardless of their experience. 5E is a great game for a wide demographic to introduce them to role-playing. For advanced players looking for more it's not a very robust system, but with a good DM even advanced players can have fun. If your primary interest is role-playing in a very simple, fluid system with someone of any age or experience, then 5E is your game.

PF2 is still a game for players that want more in their game system. It's definitely not 4E and doesn't feel like 4E at all. It's more like 5E on steroids.

 

[Remathilis]

Not my experience with 5E. I liked 5E better than 4E, but once you obtained advantage and had bless you pretty much were done doing much else than damage. We quit 5E and went back to PF1 because 5E was way too generic. You felt like your choices gave you power? We played the game and found that if you weren't a multi-class paladin of some type or an archer, you weren't as powerful as anyone that was one of those types. We allowed all customization options and were told by 5E players that is why we didn't like 5E. Why? Because taking paladin multiclass was a no brainer no matter the class. 2 to 6 levels of paladin mixed with almost any other class made you way better than any other class. One guy made a paladin wizard with a whip that made the guy playing a straight paladin hate his class because the whip guy had more spell slots to smite and did it with reach with the whip. He hated the sorcerer paladin because he also had more spell slots to smite with. He also hated the warlock paladin for the same reason. And the entire game was get advantage by any means necessary, then you were done since advantage didn't stack with anything else no matter how it was obtained. Super boring. And archer with the right feats was a monster damage dealer.

So you didn't like 5e because a bunch of min-maxers discovered the absolute best DPS builds and then were upset they couldn't stack even more bonuses on top?

Honestly, the reason I love 5e over Pathfinder was that the PF rules encouraged perfect-build characters with obscure feats, traits, archetypes and magic items that played several levels over their true level, and then Paizo would respond by making later Bestiary monsters and modules hyper-lethal to respond to them, creating an arms race to the point that most of the non-caster's in the Core Rulebook were wasted ink and the original Bestiary was a joke as far as challenge rating. You haven't lived until you see a gunslinger, cleric, paladin, and summoner one-shot a red dragon 8 CR higher than the party is facing.

So I hope PF2e fixes your concerns with the game. 5e isn't perfect, but I know my players have stopped being concerned with builds and optimization since playing it and they are trying ideas that are fun rather than built to squeeze every last +1 out of the game.

 

[MockingBird]

Sounds like PF2 is a shoe in for min/maxes. That is what it sounds like you and your group did in 5e, min/max. I dont think anyone who enjoys that style of play will enjoy D&D 5e with its bounded accuracy. I cant speak on PF 2e, I've only ever skimmed through the playtest document, wasnt for me. You cant really say with a matter of fact 5e is bad compared to other systems cause it didnt adequately suit your play style.

 

[Zardnaar]

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

Personal observation/anecdote.

 

[Celtavian]

So you didn't like 5e because a bunch of min-maxers discovered the absolute best DPS builds and then were upset they couldn't stack even more bonuses on top?

Honestly, the reason I love 5e over Pathfinder was that the PF rules encouraged perfect-build characters with obscure feats, traits, archetypes and magic items that played several levels over their true level, and then Paizo would respond by making later Bestiary monsters and modules hyper-lethal to respond to them, creating an arms race to the point that most of the non-caster's in the Core Rulebook were wasted ink and the original Bestiary was a joke as far as challenge rating. You haven't lived until you see a gunslinger, cleric, paladin, and summoner one-shot a red dragon 8 CR higher than the party is facing.

So I hope PF2e fixes your concerns with the game. 5e isn't perfect, but I know my players have stopped being concerned with builds and optimization since playing it and they are trying ideas that are fun rather than built to squeeze every last +1 out of the game.

I quit 5E because it bored me. After playing 3E and PF1 with all the options and interesting interactions, going back to 5E was like playing basic D&D again. I feel 5E accomplished what it set out to do taking the game back to its beginnings, but I've found I've gamed enough where I want a game with more options and rules.

My players are min-maxers. I don't play with any other people and don't plan to. My players didn't like the game because the min-max options were very limited. Once they figured out the min-max options, game was pretty much over for them. Nothing else they wanted to try. But I was bored running the game. Monsters were super boring and limited. Hit point bags with a few damaging powers and not many spell-like abilities to strategize with.

 

[Celtavian]

Sounds like PF2 is a shoe in for min/maxes. That is what it sounds like you and your group did in 5e, min/max. I dont think anyone who enjoys that style of play will enjoy D&D 5e with its bounded accuracy. I cant speak on PF 2e, I've only ever skimmed through the playtest document, wasnt for me. You cant really say with a matter of fact 5e is bad compared to other systems cause it didnt adequately suit your play style.

We'll see. So far not much to min-max with compared to PF1. But min-maxers will min-max any game. Min-maxing isn't based on game system, it's based on player. I haven't seen a game a min-maxer couldn't push to its limits and often beyond.

 

[Nebulous]

PF2 is still a game for players that want more in their game system. It's definitely not 4E and doesn't feel like 4E at all. It's more like 5E on steroids.

Ive run 5e for 5 years now. I like it, i like the modules, the game works, but i do think it has been oversimplified in many ways. I despised 4e though, so I'm glad to hear your opinion that PF2 is 5e on steroids, because that sounds life the kind of game I want to play.

 

[Green Onceler]

Honestly, the reason I love 5e over Pathfinder was that the PF rules encouraged perfect-build characters with obscure feats, traits, archetypes and magic items

Do the rules really encourage that style of play? Or, perhaps, is that just a style of play many people enjoy?

I have frequently seen Pathfinder criticised for its many "trap options" that were supposedly underpowered. If Paizo were all about pushing the perfect build on the bleeding edge of optimisation, why would they publish so many "traps"?

Personally, I prefer flavour over optimisation. And Pathfinder allows me a far greater palette of flavours than 5e.

Which brings me to one of my primary concerns with the new edition, the flavour or aesthetic. A lot of the new art has left me cold. Gimmicky "comical" goblins pushed more to the fore. A lot of Paizo's original flavour also didn't appeal me, but it seems the new game is veering further in directions I do not appreciate aesthetically. I shall approach with caution.