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

[Tony Vargas]

Do the rules really encourage that style of play?

The 3.x/PF rules do lavishly reward that sort of meticulously-applied system mastery, yes.

Or, perhaps, is that just a style of play many people enjoy?

It's /also/ that, yes. I love doing a good build-to-concept in 3e or 4e or in other systems that are better for that approach than any edition of D&D, like, oh, Hero.

But 3e was probably the height of D&D for that style - it gave you so many options, so much flexibility, and gulf between an optimal and indifferent build was profound. In 5e, there just isn't all that much to do, and, in 4e, while there was a lot of choice and customization, applied system mastery didn't yield as large an advantage, you could have your perfect 30-level build, and you weren't overwhelmingly superior, indeed, might be /barely/ superior, to an ordinary character that grew to that level organically.

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"?

Are you kidding? Trap options are /key/ to encouraging system mastery, you need the stick as well as the carrot!

 

[Celtavian]

This is pretty much a big load of baloney and largely based on a badly misinterpreted article by Monte Cook. WotC did not include trap options in 3.5, nor does Paizo include them in Pathfinder. There are options that work for some purposes, styles of play, styles of campaigns, that don't work for others. The trick isn't to "avoid the traps" as much as figure out which ones work right for your own campaigns and the styles of play you prefer. The classic example that Monte Cook used was the toughness feat - which frankly sucked for PCs, but was perfectly reasonable for the DM to use in NPC creation. It wasn't a "trap" option or a Timmy card - it was a tool useful for certain contexts - not so much for others. Cook lamented that they didn't put enough effort into explaining those contexts because they led to people thinking they were traps... when they were not.

And, honestly, Core only PFS is fairly popular, even with more recent seasons. Core exists, in no small part, to keep the complexity down to a more manageable level by limiting the number of resources involved. PFS scenarios don't require or expect PCs from more recent rulebooks in order to be successful.

Not to mention many design goals were centered more around abilities appropriate to the concept they were building regardless of whether they were balanced against other abilities. I prefer creativity and appropriateness over balance myself. I thought PF and 3E did a great job of making many fun options that though not optimal, were very fun to play and made you feel like the concept you were attempting to build.

 

[CapnZapp]

The idea to Foster creativity and variety crashes and burns hard against the notion the game needs to feature challenge to be fun.

Yes, if adventures let you run around fighting obviously inferior foes (including generous ways to take harder goes on one at a time, etc) then yes, you can create pretty much any character, and feats like, say, Linguist isn't trap options.

But in any scenario where players will want to meet a certain DPS threshold first, and go for colorful personalities only second, you will want options balanced for effectiveness.

A feat like Linguist, for example, gives you zero combat utility. And in a world with Comprehend Languages magic, it honestly doesn't give much utility at all. So why not recognize that by saying it costs 1 "build point" while the power attacks and spell focuses costs 4.

The main advantage isn't even the balance in "this feat is worth less, so we price it at a quarter".

The main advantage would be that the price itself sends a clear message to players:

"This feat costs only 1 build point, so it is clearly a ribbon ability, something I understand even before reading what it does."

"I get that it likely won't do much to my character's ability to win fights. On the other hand, I get four of them for the price of one solid combat feat, so picking this one won't hurt my chances much."

"In the end, I might consider it a fair trade: it might help me to build a character personality I like to play, and it doesn't cost me too much"

In the end, the former "trap option" has

- been clearly labeled
- no longer hoses you vs a minmaxed build (since a single build point won't break your character)
- allows the game to offer colorful personality enhancers without asking players to sacrifice effectiveness

 

[CapnZapp]

If variable costs are unacceptable you simply must build in at least SOME utility into every feat to avoid traps.

And giving Linguist +1 Intelligence, say, doesn't cut it. Yes, now the feat might no longer be an outright trap for Wizards.

But then again, Wizards are the most likely users of Comprehend Languages, so...

And for any class whose primary ability isn't Intelligence, the trap remains.

So the next step would be to give the feat a much more generally useful utility bonus.

But do that, and players start to grumble "why does Linguist make me better at fighting. This reeks of gamism!"

So you might consider removing it. But then players will find your ruleset "only focuses on combat!" and start complaining "I can't create the colorful character I want to!"

---

In the end, pricing it at 1/4 and letting it stay a ribbon ability that does what it says on the label is a much better and easier option.

 

[Aldarc]

The idea to Foster creativity and variety crashes and burns hard against the notion the game needs to feature challenge to be fun.

Yes, if adventures let you run around fighting obviously inferior foes (including generous ways to take harder goes on one at a time, etc) then yes, you can create pretty much any character, and feats like, say, Linguist isn't trap options.

But in any scenario where players will want to meet a certain DPS threshold first, and go for colorful personalities only second, you will want options balanced for effectiveness.

This is a huge reason why Paizo made the changes that they did for PF2. Mark Seifter, for example, was one of the designers for PF2 (and later PF1 stuff), and before that he was a five-star GM for Pathfinder Society. So he saw a lot of issues (much like many others did) with how concept effectiveness and character effectiveness were sometimes greatly out-of-whack due to the math and other oddities of PF1. This is one reason why Paizo switched to its proficiency system. This is why they also designed Skill Feats that would be gained at different levels than Class Feats or General Feats, so that you could acquire Linguist without losing out on character effectiveness.

 

[amethal]

This is a huge reason why Paizo made the changes that they did for PF2. Mark Seifter, for example, was one of the designers for PF2 (and later PF1 stuff), and before that he was a five-star GM for Pathfinder Society. So he saw a lot of issues (much like many others did) with how concept effectiveness and character effectiveness were sometimes greatly out-of-whack due to the math and other oddities of PF1. This is one reason why Paizo switched to its proficiency system. This is why they also designed Skill Feats that would be gained at different levels than Class Feats or General Feats, so that you could acquire Linguist without losing out on character effectiveness.

That's interesting.

I've never played PFS, and am never likely to, but I can imagine what the reaction might be from the other players if you turn up with something "sub-optimal" which could get all their characters killed.

My first ever D&D 3rd edition character was an Elf Sorcerer with the Combat Casting feat. We also had a bard, and two fighters (and a cleric, fortunately). We had a lot of fun, since it was all new to us and we didn't realise our characters "sucked". A novice who turns up at PFS with the pathfinder equivalent of one of those characters might never come back - or am I being unduly pessimistic?

 

[billd91]

My first ever D&D 3rd edition character was an Elf Sorcerer with the Combat Casting feat. We also had a bard, and two fighters (and a cleric, fortunately). We had a lot of fun, since it was all new to us and we didn't realise our characters "sucked". A novice who turns up at PFS with the pathfinder equivalent of one of those characters might never come back - or am I being unduly pessimistic?

All of the tables I've played with face-to-face have been pretty kind and friendly. I've heard horror stories about some people who have been rude about another PC's capabilities. So I can see it - if the new player gets a table with sufficient asshats. I've come closer to experiencing it in online games - where, surprise surprise, people tend to be ruder than face-to-face.

 

[wakedown]

I've never played PFS, and am never likely to, but I can imagine what the reaction might be from the other players if you turn up with something "sub-optimal" which could get all their characters killed.

I played PFS during its peak, over 300 tables at 6 different game stores and at least 6 different convention venues, so have probably seen at least 1000 different players come and go.

More often than not there was a huge disparity between characters, almost always at the lower levels (1st through 5th) and that disparity absolutely drove people away and to other games. In some cases, it was a jerk player who effectively suggested the ill-built character's player would probably enjoy a different game. Other times, the player was mostly just quiet throughout the session as they desperately looked for some way to add value throughout the scenario only to be one-upped by the highly optimized built characters. I'd say out of 10 fresh faces, 9 out of 10 would be turned off by "performance issues" and not really show up again, and 1 out of 10 would see the challenge, go away for a week and come back after Internet searches with an optimized build and become part of the "crowd".

Some folks just wanted to game, and for whatever reason built a Wizard with an 8 Con or 10 Con and abysmal DCs offensively speaking and would die a lot but keep playing, and there'd be this stigma of playing with them as that character didn't have enough Prestige to Raise Dead on themselves, so folks would try to avoid them during mustering for fear of having to pool their PP in order to cover what they expected would be a dead wizard.

The reality so far is that PF2E from what I can see has done some ways to curtain the highest level of superpower potential (buff-stacking). Yet PF1E wasn't all that bad at generating adoption (by using builds, whether self-researched, or by your buddies, significant other). PF2E requires greater in-game system mastery and a greater in-game terms vocabulary to shine at your table, so is a bit more alienating to the casual player than a prior edition. Character builds are closer to one another in parity, but the amount of hours to achieve system mastery is higher than ever as there's more bits to memorize than previously so the gap between a first-timer and a system master will be wider now in terms of actual at-the-table decision making.

 

[Celtavian]

This is a huge reason why Paizo made the changes that they did for PF2. Mark Seifter, for example, was one of the designers for PF2 (and later PF1 stuff), and before that he was a five-star GM for Pathfinder Society. So he saw a lot of issues (much like many others did) with how concept effectiveness and character effectiveness were sometimes greatly out-of-whack due to the math and other oddities of PF1. This is one reason why Paizo switched to its proficiency system. This is why they also designed Skill Feats that would be gained at different levels than Class Feats or General Feats, so that you could acquire Linguist without losing out on character effectiveness.

We didn't mess with the skill system too much in the playtest. I'm interested to see if PF2 increases the effectiveness of skills. The skill feats did not seem great at first glance, but when you only play to 5th level it's hard to see. Maybe some of the higher level skill feats are more interesting. It would be nice to have a skill system that gave the feel of an extraordinarily skilled person able to seem almost magical in their abilities.

 

[Celtavian]

I played PFS during its peak, over 300 tables at 6 different game stores and at least 6 different convention venues, so have probably seen at least 1000 different players come and go.

More often than not there was a huge disparity between characters, almost always at the lower levels (1st through 5th) and that disparity absolutely drove people away and to other games. In some cases, it was a jerk player who effectively suggested the ill-built character's player would probably enjoy a different game. Other times, the player was mostly just quiet throughout the session as they desperately looked for some way to add value throughout the scenario only to be one-upped by the highly optimized built characters. I'd say out of 10 fresh faces, 9 out of 10 would be turned off by "performance issues" and not really show up again, and 1 out of 10 would see the challenge, go away for a week and come back after Internet searches with an optimized build and become part of the "crowd".

Some folks just wanted to game, and for whatever reason built a Wizard with an 8 Con or 10 Con and abysmal DCs offensively speaking and would die a lot but keep playing, and there'd be this stigma of playing with them as that character didn't have enough Prestige to Raise Dead on themselves, so folks would try to avoid them during mustering for fear of having to pool their PP in order to cover what they expected would be a dead wizard.

The reality so far is that PF2E from what I can see has done some ways to curtain the highest level of superpower potential (buff-stacking). Yet PF1E wasn't all that bad at generating adoption (by using builds, whether self-researched, or by your buddies, significant other). PF2E requires greater in-game system mastery and a greater in-game terms vocabulary to shine at your table, so is a bit more alienating to the casual player than a prior edition. Character builds are closer to one another in parity, but the amount of hours to achieve system mastery is higher than ever as there's more bits to memorize than previously so the gap between a first-timer and a system master will be wider now in terms of actual at-the-table decision making.

I'm not sure this is true yet. We were able to make characters more quickly in PF2 than in PF1 and get started. Bonuses were very simple. Feats very simple. Everything was simplified and progression slowed. You no longer for example have monks starting off with 2 or 3 feats depending on race. You don't get all your racial abilities at the start. Most of the classes start with maybe one or two abilities. The character creation system is very streamlined and easily spelled out making choice easier.

The area I can't discuss heavily yet is condition tracking. PF always had conditions. The conditions are similar this time around with the exception of individual condition modifiers. As a long time PF DM, I memorized most of the conditions. I will have to memorize any changes. I want to see how difficult that is. At low level players did not have many conditions they could apply, so up to lvl 5 we didn't deal much with condition tracking. I imagine as casters get higher level, it might become more of an issue.

From what I can see the divide between decisions doesn't seem that high. A lot of the powers and abilities were fairly equal. Since I did not play past lvl 5, it's hard to say how important system mastery will be. In PF1 system mastery was very important. You had to know feat chains, which class powers and archetypes were the best, and which spell combinations worked well. If you made a suboptimal choice, you found out that your choice sucked when the guy next to you was doing twice as much or more damage. I'm not even sure that possibility exists in PF2. In PF2 because using a 2h weapon versus a 1h weapon isn't much of a difference. Archers aren't a king class and option any longer. Spells are similarly balanced. You don't have metamagic feats that far better than others. Powers are very tightly bound and fairly equal in power. It feels right now an inexperienced player making "bad" choices would have a character fairly close to a min-maxer making optimal choices.