Pathfinder 2E PF2E like D&D 4e?

[MaskedGuy]

Paizo asked 4e's lead dev to help design 2nd edition Pathfinder and liked his contributions so much they put him in overall charge of the edition.

Sounds like one of those things you need citations for

 

[Lackofname]

But if you're a fan of 4e while still appreciating to some degree the editions that came before it, then PF2e might be a great fit for you.

Unfortunately I am not. Thanks for the write up.

 

[MaskedGuy]

On sidenote, I kinda find idea of multiclassing being changed about "protecting players from bad builds" weird when its obviously more about balancing the game. Because multiclassing is one of things that makes any edition with it kinda impossible to balance because taking synergy and exponential power increase in account in the system is pretty impossible if you keep releasing new content It will always eventually lead to stuff like "i have 19 in one class and one level in class that gives me bonus that makes my main build much more powerful!" and other silly stuff.

 

[jsaving]

I wouldn't say it's "impossible" but you do have to design classes with multiclassing in mind and you specifically have to make sure you don't overly front-load their benefits. 5e does a somewhat better job with this than 3e, though admittedly that isn't a super-high bar to exceed.

 

[Campbell]

I will post a more substantive analysis of what I think the similarities and differences are later. For now I wanted to address the links in the design team with Fourth Edition.

Spoiler: Fourth Edition Player's Handbook Credits

Design Team : Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, James Wyatt.
Development Team: Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Peter Schaefer, Stephen Schubert.
Additional Design and Development : Richard Baker, Greg Bilsland, Logan Bonner, Bart Carroll, Michele Carter, Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, Bruce R. Cordell, Jeremy Crawford, Jesse Decker, Michael Donais, Robert Gutschera, Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel, Peter Lee, Julia Martin, Kim Mohan, David Noonan, Christopher Perkins, Matthew Sernett, Chris Sims, Ed Stark, Rodney Thompson, Rob Watkins, Steve Winter, Chris Youngs

Spoiler: Pathfinder 2 Core Rulebook

Design Team : Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seifter
Developers : Adam Daigle, Lyz Liddell, and Erik Mona

Logan was not brought on for Pathfinder Second Edition. He left Wizards of the Coast in 2010 and did freelance for both them and Paizo until 2012. Since 2012 he has been with Paizo full time.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland was with Paizo from 2010 until shortly after the release of Pathfinder 2's Core Rulebook.

Two key members of Pathfinder Second Edition's design team did development and design work for Fourth Edition, but they were not key decision makers. Logan did become more involved in supplemental products until he left. They had both been working for Paizo for far longer than they worked for Wizards when they started working on Pathfinder Second Edition.

That does not mean that they were not influenced by Fourth Edition when designing Pathfinder Second Edition. There are some definite similarities in design language and rules technology, but I think they are put to some very different uses.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Logan was not brought on for Pathfinder Second Edition. He left Wizards of the Coast in 2010 and did freelance for both them and Paizo until 2012. Since 2012 he has been with Paizo full time.

Stephen Radney-MacFarland was with Paizo from 2010 until shortly after the release of Pathfinder 2's Core Rulebook.

Two key members of Pathfinder Second Edition's design team did development and design work for Fourth Edition, but they were not key decision makers. Logan did become more involved in supplemental products until he left. They had both been working for Paizo for far longer than they worked for Wizards when they started working on Pathfinder Second Edition.

That does not mean that they were not influenced by Fourth Edition when designing Pathfinder Second Edition. There are some definite similarities in design language and rules technology, but I think they are put to some very different uses.

Sooo yeah, I was right about that previous post being "Oh, there were couple person working on same project, so let's shame them because I didn't like the other project despite not having context of what exactly they did in the other project or for how long they had been working at paizo before the 2e"?

That said, Logan Bonner is in lot of interview videos(and paizo's twitch streams) so if you really are interested in their design philosophy you can find it out with research

 

[CapnZapp]

PF2e has less divergence between groups

Much less.

So little, in fact, I would say it's more of a bug than a feature. YMMV.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Much less.

So little, in fact, I would say it's more of a bug than a feature. YMMV.

I think its mostly because Advanced Player's Guide isn't released yet. There REALLY isn't lot of content for each class yet. Its kinda same situation as comparing Pathfinder 1e with only the core book and comparing it post 1e Advanced Player's Guide.

 

[CapnZapp]

Eeeh, its mostly the... Well D&D 5e still uses the logic "If there is 20 of same low level enemies, its dangerous!" without taking in account "enemy with 4 hp, 20 feet speed, no ranged attacks and weakness to fire will all die from few fire ball even if there are hundreds of them."

Note: this is a theoretical construct created to make an extreme argument.

I would say that in practice, you would very very rarely see more than twenty opponents, and they would easily have 20 hit points each, Speed 25 and a weak ranged attack.

Besides, Fireball isn't the answer to this kind of situation. Spirit Guardians is.

 

[dave2008]

I think its mostly because Advanced Player's Guide isn't released yet. There REALLY isn't lot of content for each class yet. Its kinda same situation as comparing Pathfinder 1e with only the core book and comparing it post 1e Advanced Player's Guide.

There are already more player options in PF2e than 5e, yet 5e has a lot more group divergence. It has to do with the tight math of PF2e vs 5e, not the number of options. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.