Pathfinder 2E PF2E Gurus teach me! +

[payn]

My GMing advice is to pay very close attention to the CR system. It means business! In the beginning, lean on moderate or easier encounters until players get their feet under them. Then, sparsely add in severe and extreme fights. The system gives a huge advantage to the enemies for level that is easier to overcome in both PF1 and 5E.

 

[Porridge]

JThursby's answer to this question is pretty much a perfect answer, IMO. Building on that, two further comments:

-The wealth per level guidelines, and the item system in general, is not optional. It's part of the math of the game. The same goes with the encounter guidelines. It is not like most D&D editions where you can just ignore item and CR recommendations. Mark put a lot of effort to make the math of the game work when you just follow the guidelines, so I would tell any new 2e GM to consider those guidelines sacred until they understand why they are the way they are. All the APs already do that for you.

1. If you want to avoid the headache of tracking this, you can just use the (very popular) Automatic Bonus Progression optional rules in the Gamemastery Guide. This is, IMO, a big quality of life bump -- you don't have to worry about gear at all, and can just hand out magic items whenever it feels fun/flavorful to do so.

2. It's often said that it's impossible to build a bad character in PF2 if you follow a few guidelines, and that's basically true. But it's nice going in to know what those guidelines are!

1. You want your main attribute to be 16+.
2. You want your (AC bonus from armor)+(Dex modifier) to be 4+.
3. (This one is often omitted, and IMO pretty much the only real trap of character creation): You want to build your character to have at least a couple effective third action options.

To expound on #3 a bit: When you're building a character, you want to be thinking about what you’ll generally be doing with your third action. With a -10 MAP (Multiple Attack Penalty) it’s generally not worth attacking a third time. So you want something else effective you can do, or else you’re effectively throwing away a third of your actions. There are lots of options, but most will require some mechanical investment on your part to do well. For example:

• Raise Shield is a great option. But that means you’ll want a shield, a free hand, and probably the Shield Block feat.
• Casting the Shield cantrip (or some other good 1-action spell like Guidance) is good. But that means you need to make sure you know that cantrip.
• Demoralize (using Intimidation), Bon Mot (using Diplomacy), or other social attacks: fantastic choices. But these require an investment in Intimidate or Diplomacy skills, and a decent Cha.
• Recall Knowledge: This can be very useful, but it requires an investment in knowledge skills, and a decent Int.
• Moving like a skirmisher in range to attack, and then back out of range again. But if you want to make your enemy spend more actions moving than you do, you'll want a high speed - to pick up the Fleet feat, or go for an ancestry with a movement bonus (Elf) or ancestry feats which grant movement bonuses, have a class bonus to movement speed, look into styles which help with this like Tiger Stance, etc.

And so on. Ideally you want at least a couple good third action options to choose between. But that requires choosing these options ahead of time, and building to make them effective.

 

[Staffan]

I think the biggest difficulty issue with Pathfinder at "run-time" has to do with conditions and the way they interact. For instance, let's say we're fighting something relatively tough so we're piling on all we can, and the poor bastard's been hit with:

• Clumsy 2 from a poison, giving a -2 status penalty to basically everything Dexterity-related,
• Frightened 1 from the paladin Demoralizing the foe, which get them a -1 status penalty to all checks and DCs.
• Flatfooted because I and my buddy are flanking them, for a -2 circumstance penalty to AC.

Since the status penalties don't stack, the enemy has a net -4 to AC. And when listed like that, that seems kind of obvious, but in actual play it's fairly easy to forget what's a status bonus and what's a circumstance bonus.

 

[Staffan]

You want your (AC bonus from armor)+(Dex modifier) to be 4+.

Note that all armors in the none, light, and medium categories have item bonuses and max dex bonus that sum up to 5, and the heavy armors sum up to 6. In addition, the higher the armor's item bonus is, the higher its Strength requirement is (which lets you ignore the armor's check penalty as well as reduce its speed penalty by 5 ft). So basically, the point of medium armor is to let melee-focused characters get an appropriate AC without needing both Strength and Dexterity.

Edit: This is why it was a Big Deal when errata gave Medium armor proficiency to alchemists. It made mutagenists who focus on Strength and mutagen-powered unarmed attacks viable, not just Dexterity-focused bomb throwers.

 

[niklinna]

I can only hope that it gets better with player experience, but the "three action economy" that looks so wonderful on paper can actually be very frustrating with players who constantly try to either do FOUR actions on their turn, or (just as bad) only TWO. The arguments/discussions that can result can really bog the game down.

Make sure you and your group get that under control early. I honestly think it's a great mechanic, but I've seen games grind under it.

One thing about the three action economy I'd recommend to GMs is to be clear with spellcasters that most spells cost 2 actions to cast, and some cost three. It doesn't feel the same as using a regular action vs. a bonus action. Spellcasters who go for an animal companion or other action-using feature may be frustrated at bumping into that three action limit, which initially promised to be so versatile and freeing. It actually is, of course, but having your core schtick often chewing up 2/3 of your versatility feels, well, not so versatile!

 

[Scribe]

Is there a cheat sheet/guide for helping folks to translate between 5e terms and PF2? I've only glanced at PF2.

I feel such a thing must exist, I'll go looking...

 

[Scribe]

-The wealth per level guidelines, and the item system in general, is not optional. It's part of the math of the game. The same goes with the encounter guidelines. It is not like most D&D editions where you can just ignore item and CR recommendations. Mark put a lot of effort to make the math of the game work when you just follow the guidelines, so I would tell any new 2e GM to consider those guidelines sacred until they understand why they are the way they are.

Apologies if this is clearly defined in the core books, but, is this defined in the core books? Is the math more open/explained?

 

[JThursby]

Apologies if this is clearly defined in the core books, but, is this defined in the core books? Is the math more open/explained?

It's somewhat explained.

The basic idea is this: a single creature of the players level + 2 is just as threatening to a party of four as two creatures of the players level, despite having half the actions. This is accomplished by having bonuses on a track: a +1 item bonus to hit is expected by the end of Level 2 of play, an extra die of weapon damage by the end of level 4, and so on. All of these assumptions are baked into the monster math, the monster building rules, and the DC-by-level chart.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Is there a cheat sheet/guide for helping folks to translate between 5e terms and PF2? I've only glanced at PF2.

I feel such a thing must exist, I'll go looking...

I'd recommend checking out some of the Rules Lawyer and Knights of Last Call youtube videos. They have some good run-throughs of game mechanics to help illustrate how certain of the PF2e elements work together.

Translation between 5e and PF2e is kind of tricky outside of conceptual similarities. It definitely helps to see how similar elements between the two systems behave in-play, as there can be wide disparities in effectiveness that could easily get missed in a reference document.

 

[Gammadoodler]

An additional general tip, specific to going from 5e to PF2e, the spellcasters will feel a looooott less powerful and martials will feel a looooott stronger, especially at early levels.

The balance they've struck is very very good, but players coming in with a 5e spellcaster mentality will be in for a bit of a shock.