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Message: <blockquote data-quote="payn" data-source="post: 8382508" data-attributes="member: 90374">Heya Folks,Im a player from Retreater's second PF2 campaign. Some of this I agree with, some I dont, and some I'm unsure of. Lets get to it then!Im a long time 3E/PF1 fan. Still my favorite fantasy system. I did watch carefully as PF2 was developed and revealed. I also did some playtesting and it wasnt shaping up to be something I liked. Fast forward a few years and I was eager to give PF2 another round and see if my mind had changed. Retreater tossed out the idea of giving Abomination Vaults a shot. Its a dungeon crawl campaign that would let us really kick the tires of the PF2 system. So, away we went.The system.  Chargen seems to have been silo'd much like it was in 4E (even used a similar multiclass system). I don't really care for this it feels a bit stifling compared to PF1. A lot of "every class has 2-3 paths" and multiclassing has a dedication system that makes sure you stay in a particular lane. I get that these guides are supposed to keep people from building a crappy character, but it really takes some of the fun out of the glorious Lego system the PF1 was. Feats. So the designers decided to take the feat design of 3E/PF1 and apply it to everything in PF2. Skill feat choices now come in, once a campaign use, once a session use, and once an encounter use. Hmm, which shall I choose? Just go ahead and apply that to class, ancestry, archetype, etc...Stealth ADEU makes adventure pacing awkward. I know a lot of folks ran to PF to get away from 4E, though, you can see a lot of similar design in PF2. One thing is the weirdness of encounter powers that reset after a ten min rest. The healing rules make use of skills odd too. A constant game of "GM, do we have 10 min?.. 20?... 30?.. to rest?" going on with the GM to recharge and heal. Adventure pacing is odd and I honestly prefer a sub-system where you can short rest x amount of times per day to heal up and recharge encounter powers. Seems like the designers went out of their way to not ruffle any sensibilities of folks that don't like ADEU, which I can understand. +1 to everything and encounter design. This is one of my biggest issues with PF2. This math system locks you into a certain band of possible encounters. Things below your level are super easy, things higher are tougher. What I found is that sever/extreme encounters (+3/4 APL) often shut down a lot of character choices by making them painfully ineffective. Some PF2 aficionados I know told me I have to learn the winning combos of things that help the other PCs and eat enemy actions. Thats a bummer because it eliminates a lot of spells and feats from being useful. The worse part though, the critical system ensures that severe/extreme enemies will hit often, and have good chances of critical hits/saves, while the opposite is true for the PCs. I was also told by my PF2 aficionados that severe/extreme encounters are supposed to be rare and challenging encounters and not a regular occurrence like they tended to be in AV AP. Perhaps I'd enjoy a less steady diet of them but we can discuss this during adventure design. The rules are bad?I dont think so. I think they feel bad at times, which is subjective. I get why Paizo went with a gonzo +/lvl to everything approach to differentiate Pathfinder from D&D. I just prefer bounded accuracy. I get why classes are silo'd and MC was reigned in because it makes a math system easier to maintain. It just limits options and choices, even if many of them might be terrible. I understand why more healing options and encounter powers were added. I just want old school resource attrition adventuring instead. The rules for combat, conditions, etc.. are not too many, they are just new, different, and complex. I can run a PF1 game in my sleep, which I couldn't do 20 years ago, probably not even 10 years ago. It takes time to grok a new crunchy system. Bad Adventure Design???To be fair to Retreater, this is the first time I sat at their (virtual) table. I don't know what a typical game is from Retreater. From the amount of prep in both the adventure material into roll20, and learning the PF2 system, I don't think this was typical. I have not read any of the material for Abomination Vaults (or any PF2 AP). I do have extensive experience running PF1 adventure paths and know they can vary AP to AP and module to module in quality. I have not experienced something this basic though. I did ask my PF2 aficionados about the AV AP and the comment, "no plot, no mystery, no meaningful roleplaying opportunities." and they said that is simply not the case with AV. I cant confirm, nor can I deny, that Abomination Vaults is bad adventure design at this time.Why I think it didnt click for us.I think Retreater has the right idea about the lack of an interesting adventure and roleplay being an issue. I also think there were a lot of growing pains learning the PF2 system that bogged things down. There were also things that just didnt feel good during this attempt. The weight of all that just collapsed the desire to go on. I am fine with that because my goal was try out PF2 mechanically, which I got a good taste of. I look forward to seeing what Retreater has in store in a new system and adventure soon.What I think of PF2 now.I can enjoy the design for what it is and what it is trying to do. Its way more tactical than 5E, yet not as flexible as PF1. I am putting PF2 in the same bucket I put 5E in. Its not my favorite system, but i'll play if a GM I know well has an interesting idea they want to run. Though, my heart remains with PF1 as a player. Though, after the years and new systems, I don't know if running PF1 is my favorite anymore. I'd like to give PF2 a go as a GM sometime, but dont know when.-Cheers</blockquote>

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