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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7934289" data-attributes="member: 87792">I have read the original post. I've also eviscerated the original post. The parts you see as commonalities are because 4e and Pathfinder have a common ancestor in 3.5 - and that common ancestor is the one that actively e.g. distrusts DMs. (4e actively trusts and empowers them more than most other games in my experience, especially 5e).Encounter focus? That's D&D since 1985. Balance focus? E. Gary Gygax had a huge focus on balance and has explicitly said on these boards that parts e.g. of Unearthed Arcana were to improve balance. 3.0 claimed to be the most balanced edition of D&D ever and did a lot to put everything onto a common core. (They then screwed up badly by playtesting only using 2e veterans and tactics which turn out to be ... sub-optimal in 3.X). One of the big claims of 3.5 to be something other than the shameless cash grab that it was was that they improved the balance (and in some cases it was a genuine improvement).So to put it bluntly most of your claims about Pathfinder 2e being like 4e are either claims that 2e is like 4e are either (a) wrong (not trusting the DM), (b) comments that Pathfinder is a part of the D&D family, doing things that all editions of D&D openly tried to do for 35 years until 4e was the only one to really deliver, or (c) because they are both successor games to 3.X. Meanwhile when I look at the distinctive things I've seen so far of Pathfinder 2e I see an obvious successor game to Pathfinder that takes all the ways Pathfinder differentiated itself from 4e and doubles down. Off the top of my head:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e had a powers structure and worldbuilding that assumed magic was a part of the world and not something reserved for the elite few. Pathfinder 2e meanwhile kept the spellcaster/muggle separation. In worldbuilding Pathfinder 2e continued with this. Likeness to one of the key distinguishing features for 4e from Pathfinder? Nope</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e gave everyone a rack of encounter and daily powers to prevent doing the same thing every turn and to accentuate the difference in fighting styles. 3.5 and Pathfinder used feats that could always apply so you could and frequently did do the same thing over and over. Pathfinder leans hard into 3e.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">On a related note 4e ditched iterative attacks and -5 to hit for doing extra attacks. Pathfinder 2e doubles down on them, giving them to everyone.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e made feats bigger and more influential as part of a character, meaning they were something more meaningful. Pathfinder added literally over 1000 mini-feats in the form of traits to the game. Pathfinder 2e has doubled down on this mini-feat direction with petty feats that have been discussed in this thread.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e characters have inherent endurance in the shape of healing surges, and most forms of hit point recovery are about allowing characters to draw on their own resources. 5e has a watered down version of this in the form of hit dice. Pathfinder seems to reject this endurance model entirely.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">4e was above all kinaesthetic with a lot of movement and a lot of forced movement. Pathfinder 2e ... isn't so far as I can tell.</li> </ol>So where they are similar it's because they are both direct successors to 3.X games that have stuck within the traditions of D&D. But literally everything I would consider to be indicative of 4e is something Pathfinder 2e appears to have rejected. Many of which were incorporated into 5e in one way or another.So no I entirely reject the assertion that Pathfinder 2e has any ambition to be like 4e. Instead it shares a common ancestor and it is that you are seeing. Nothing about 4e that makes it good and distinguishes it from D&D 3.5 in a positive way appears to be present in Pathfinder 2e. Meanwhile ways Pathfinder distinguished itself from 4e seem doubled down on. It's trying to be the most Pathfinder that it can be - a game made in reaction against 4e.</blockquote>

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