Pathfinder 2E PF2E like D&D 4e?

[dave2008]

@Campbell is their a good way to find a pathfinder society group in my area? I did a quick google search and didn't get any good info. My PF google-fu must be bad.

 

[Campbell]

@Campbell is their a good way to find a pathfinder society group in my area? I did a quick google search and didn't get any good info. My PF google-fu must be bad.

Generally you are going to want to find the website for your local chapter. Here is the website for the Ohio Pathfinder Society.

Right now is not the best time to find in person games. If you use discord this semi-official discord server always has games going on various virtual tabletops. There are all kinds of really helpful folks there.

 

[Campbell]

I am not really a fan of long rest, short res, daily or encounter abilities that do not directly correspond to meaningful stuff in the fiction. It bothers me less than martial characters that are lackluster, do not fulfill their fictional promises, or are not compelling from a game play perspective. For the longest time I defended encounters and dailies in Fourth Edition because I did not want to see the return of fighters that felt boring to play (to me) and did not feel like they should be fighting dragons and pit fiends.

Then I played games where at will abilities were allowed to be awesome and game play was mostly about choosing the right ability based on the current situation or where different resources had to be managed in tandem. From a game play perspective I prefer it when resource recovery is not automatic, where you have to make decisions about which resources to focus on.

 

[dave2008]

Generally you are going to want to find the website for your local chapter. Here is the website for the Ohio Pathfinder Society.

I actually looked there and couldn't find anything in my area. I will keep checking.

 

[Teemu]

I don't mind short rest abilities. Abilities that charge per discrete encounter are not short rest abilities in my opinion. They are recharged per encounter, not via a short rest which is easy to play with as a DM. You seem to implying that encounter powers recharged per short rest, which they did not in my experience. You literally had access to them every discrete encounter after waiting what...5 minutes to go to the next room if that? That's an encounter power, not a short rest power. And as you just stated, once you blow it off it is done for the encounter regardless of how long the encounter takes which can also negatively impact story-telling. If I'm in a story and the PC in question uses his big attack against a group of kobolds and he wins, then looks fine. IF he is in battle with a group of giants in a big old fight and he blows off his encounter power, but can't do it again even though it is still needed to achieve victory then the story reader starts to go, "Why doesn't he just do that power again? Why can he only do it once whether the battle is 12 seconds against a kobold group or 30 minutes against a group of giants?" Different animal in my experience.

I can already tell we're never going to agree on encounter powers or at will powers. So I'll make it my last post on the subject and accept the differing viewpoints.

I just wanted to mention that the 4e 5 min short rest is not always guaranteed. Just some time ago the group in my 4e game was assaulting an enemy keep. They had to fight 3 full encounters without a short rest in between since their rests were interrupted by enemies coming down from upper levels. It’s definitely true that most of the time you’re going to get a 5 min breather after an encounter, but it’s not always true.

And as comparison to my 5e game, even though the short rests take up an hour, often the circumstances allow for a short rest between every fight of a particular day. Not always, but it can be quite common. It really depends on the type of situation the party is in.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It was the fact they recharged per encounter.

They didn't. They recharged with a short rest. They were called encounter powers and normally the players had them every encounter - but the actual recharge mechanic was the short rest. Of course it could have been presented better rather than being a sentence a paragraph and a half in to the short rest rules, but if you interrupted PCs half way through a short rest they would not have their encounter powers back.

4e worked the way 5e works here - and lead to the same protection but not hoarding of short-rest based resources when this was very occasionally enforced. It was just one of the all too many things that should have been presented better in the 4e PHB (don't get me started on skill challenges; they are a great improv tool, but the presentation looks like someone trying to present how to do improv simply took down the results).

In other editions of D&D, you don't know if you're going to need that fireball on a watch at night when the BBEG sends his minions or a big encounter might happen.

Fireball is of course a daily power in 4e. You need that long rest to recover it. Even if the players were burning encounter powers they certainly shouldn't have been gratuitously burning daily ones.

That's why mechanics that don't recharge by encounter are important to give the DM the ability to breed fear in the PCs,

You mean like daily powers? Or like actual 4e encounter powers rather than misunderstood ones?

I just wanted to mention that the 4e 5 min short rest is not always guaranteed. Just some time ago the group in my 4e game was assaulting an enemy keep. They had to fight 3 full encounters without a short rest in between since their rests were interrupted by enemies coming down from upper levels. It’s definitely true that most of the time you’re going to get a 5 min breather after an encounter, but it’s not always true.

I'm reminded that AD&D turns were ten minutes. Pressuring 4e PCs and denying them their short rests makes for really tense times.

 

[Celtavian]

They didn't. They recharged with a short rest. They were called encounter powers and normally the players had them every encounter - but the actual recharge mechanic was the short rest. Of course it could have been presented better rather than being a sentence a paragraph and a half in to the short rest rules, but if you interrupted PCs half way through a short rest they would not have their encounter powers back.

4e worked the way 5e works here - and lead to the same protection but not hoarding of short-rest based resources when this was very occasionally enforced. It was just one of the all too many things that should have been presented better in the 4e PHB (don't get me started on skill challenges; they are a great improv tool, but the presentation looks like someone trying to present how to do improv simply took down the results).

They turned things that should not have been encounter powers into encounter powers in 4E. PF2 and 4E are very different.

For example, if I want to use 3 focus points on the same power 3 times in a row, I can. Focus powers are more flexible and give the player more agency and control as well to use the power that is appropriate multiple times if necessary. And some powers or abilities are designed like fighting maneuvers that you can use continuously. That was another aspect of encounter powers I did not like and made no sense. If something is a fighting maneuver, it needs to be a fighting maneuver you can use endlessly as long the fighter is standing.

I think some people want to shoehorn PF2 into the idea of being like 4E. As someone that played both, it doesn't feel anything like 4E. It's far more flexible and powers feel more like maneuvers and appropriate parts of class abilities.

 

[Neonchameleon]

They turned things that should not have been encounter powers into encounter powers in 4E.

Which is an entirely different issue from the direct misinformation you were spreading.

That was another aspect of encounter powers I did not like and made no sense. If something is a fighting maneuver, it needs to be a fighting maneuver you can use endlessly as long the fighter is standing.

Your approach makes sense ... if your fighters aren't made of flesh and blood but are untiring robots who never ever need to worry about pacing themselves. Of course this is the sort of situation that non-4e D&D hit points leave you in; it doesn't matter how badly beaten up or tired you are, as long as you are still standing you still have 100% of your physical capabilities.

Further spamming the same attack again and again makes sense ... if you are up against unthinking robots who never ever see what you are doing and learn and adapt as you repeat the same trick again and again. "Fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, shame on me."

Are there more realistic ways that aren't that complex than 4e manages that take account both of fatigue and of predictability leaving you open for counters? Sure - and I could make a case that the Bo9S Crusader mechanic is a good example of one. But in terms of making sense 4e is vastly better than the "walk forward and mash A to deplete the enemy's health bar until they fall over" of a 1980s beat-em-up video game that it replaced.

 

[dave2008]

If something is a fighting maneuver, it needs to be a fighting maneuver you can use endlessly as long the fighter is standing.

I know you don't agree with me, as we have had this discussion before, but to me this perspective makes no sense. It is extremely gamey, and just breaks my immersion. Only in a video game can a fighter do the same "maneuver" over and over without fail. It is just not realistic.

The way you state this as some universal truth when it is so clearly a personal preference not based in reality just rubs me the wrong way. It is not something that the game "needs," it is something you want.

Sorry to vent, please feel free to enjoy what you enjoy.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think some people want to shoehorn PF2 into the idea of being like 4E. As someone that played both, it doesn't feel anything like 4E. It's far more flexible and powers feel more like maneuvers and appropriate parts of class abilities.

Well, some of us are capable of both agreeing 4E doesn't play like 4E and seeing clear similarities in how several core subsystems are built. [emoji6]

(Insert "why not have both?" girl here )