Pathfinder 2E PF2E like D&D 4e?

[MaskedGuy]

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.

Eh, I take it you haven't seen certain scene in curse of strahd

 

[CapnZapp]

What I'm referring is the formula from Dungeon Master's Guide where encounter difficulty is determined by total exp of the encounter, but if there are multiple enemies then the exp amount for sake of difficulty is multiplied. So if there are 15 or more monsters, you multiply total exp of those 15 enemies by 4. So in theory twig blight, a CR 1/8 enemy, would be 25 * 15 * 4 xp so 1500 xp which would be deadly encounter for 3 4th level characters... But in practice though, twig blights are slow and easy to avoid so uh.... Yeah.

Thats what I meant, even if you have hundreds of them, if pcs are high enough level they are really easy to defeat before they ever get in range of attacking pcs.

Same way, Pathfinder 1e and Starfinder has option of "If you want to simple encounter cr without counting exp budget, you can just have multiple of same CR creature and use this table to determine cr". Table where 16 creatures is "creature's cr plus 8" which in case of stuff like... Well 16 level 1 goblins aren't really "moderate" challenge to level 8 party anymore.

Or if you want to use full encouter building rules, then by raw, if you have enough mites to give 2,457,600 xp to each of 4 party members, it would be CR 30 encounter. Even though at high enough levels, no amount of mites is going to kill players even if they get lucky with few nat 20s.

Sorry if that still doesn't make sense? I'm not native speaker, but I really should practice my english grammar. It has kinda gotten rusty since I spend too much time in chats But what I'm trying to say "by RAW, the encounter building math in D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e and Starfinder are kinda nonsensical since they assume that enough large number of trivial difficulty creatures is enough to make CR 8 encounter as if the difficulty was same as single CR 8 creature."

I guess your argument can be boiled down to "a creature a given number of levels lower than the party should yield zero xp, as opposed to some low number than, if multiplied enough, still becomes lots of xp".

Not coincidentally, you gain exactly zero XP from a creature five levels below yourself in PF2.

 

[CapnZapp]

Eh, I take it you haven't seen certain scene in curse of strahd

Probably not. (My guess: the druids' twigs at the winery?)

 

[CapnZapp]

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. PF2e is much better about "protecting players from themselves" in much the same way 4th edition D&D did, for example by eliminating complexities like free-form multiclassing and ensuring the choices offered by various classes (say, feat lists) are carefully curated to avoid overwhelming the player. PF2e is NOT by any stretch of the imagination identical to 4th edition D&D but it can meaningfully be described as a 3e/4e hybrid.

My main gaming group left D&D for Pathfinder because we disliked the protecting-players-from-themselves 4e ethos, and ironically ended up returning to 5e when Paizo chose to put its creator in charge of PF2e. 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.

Yep, that just about sums up every grievance I have with PF2.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

Remember that the other side of the "impossible to make a bad character" coin is "impossible to make an awesome character".

 

[MaskedGuy]

Remember that the other side of the "impossible to make a bad character" coin is "impossible to make an awesome character".

Eh, my personal experience with that is replace awesome with "broken or invincible to standard enemies".

Like I admit, I like mooks actually being good at their intended role in 2e Its kinda hard to feel awesome when you wash the floor with all enemies in every room.

 

[dave2008]

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"?

Not sure what circles you travel in, but no one has been shaming them on these forums that I know of.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Not sure what circles you travel in, but no one has been shaming them on these forums that I know of.

Hmm, I do admit that I could have been projecting my foul mood(having better mood now, but few hours ago I just woke up and I'm groggy in mornings) there since its easy to misunderstand the tone in Internet. Still though, I've seen people here in Enworld being like "That designer worked in 4e, so they are trash" in the past.

 

[dave2008]

I've seen people here in Enworld being like "That designer worked in 4e, so they are trash" in the past.

There are still some people who despise 4e, though I haven't really heard that travel with the designers (but maybe I've missed it). Also, with time there seems to be a lot more acceptance of 4e on these forums, IMO. You still have some haters, but there is more praise and acceptance than hate now.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Thats true yeah, since 4e isn't anymore the "current" D&D edition, its been actually been gaining some fans. Like in one chat I saw one gm switch to 4e from 5e because they though tactical combat was better in 4e.