Pathfinder 2E Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

[CapnZapp]

If the name of the feat does not give it away, you have to read four words ("Prerequisites: Legendary in -whatever-"). Either in the feat descriptions themselves, or the tables at the start of the feat chapter (grouped by skill and then level/required proficiency).

_
glass.

Yes exactly. You need to cast a quick look at hundreds of feats each time you gain a feat. You gain at least one feat every level.

Glad we are in agreement

 

[CapnZapp]

I find this hard to believe - I've built several characters and I still haven't read all the feats. I tend to only read the ones I'm able to pick for my class and level.

How do you know which feats you're able to pick?

More to the point, how do you know you haven't missed a feat (or three dozen) you are able to pick?

(I'm not trying to trap you here - if you answer "the app tells me which feats I can choose between" that is a perfectly cromulent reply)

 

[CapnZapp]

A question.

So apparently this is a game where there are several "high intensity" combats (the need to re-heal after each fight).

More accurately, official adventures are like this.

The rulebook only says things like, I dunno, "you need 1000 xp to level up".

If your GM gives you 500 xp each time you seduce a princess, for example, you would obviously face far fewer "high intensity combats"
(outside of bed, at least )

How... wide... is the gap between characters in power level? In 3.X and PF1, system mastery could make your PC a lot more potent than a poorly designed one, the difference was almost staggering.

Is this still true in PF2?

Nope.

If Pathfinder 2 was designed to do only a single thing, it would be to fix this specific issue.

Is there a need to "plan" your character build several levels in advance?

My players all feel it is fun to plan their characters several levels in advance. Planning ahead can obviously help.

But there is not a "need" in the sense you're thinking of.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not sure why you're speaking spoiler.

Looking at the GMG’s adventure recipes, most of them feature about a third or more moderate and likewise for severe. If the official adventures are like that or worse, that’s ridiculously overtuned. I know that PF2 errs on the side of system mastery as combat expertise versus character building, but ouch. That’s a rough way to git gud at tactics.

I think I’ve maybe used one, possibly two, severe encounters so far out of twenty sessions.

I hear ya. When I started out DMing PF2 there were still very few official adventures printed, so I whipped up my own sandbox. It featured very few severe encounters. Almost every encounter that came across as "really rough" was an accident - me not yet having mastered the game.

Since then I have learned that Paizo likes it very hard. And that's coming from a group that loves to minmax, number-crunch, and optimize for DPR.

Every single level in every single official scenario I have read so far feature multiple encounters rated "severe" for the intended level, sometimes back to back. Actually, I can't remember even a single exception to this.

The players have been very quick to learn "nope were not moving even an inch before back to full hp".

 

[CapnZapp]

The game was a bit vague about how much time pressure there was, but there were definitely too many encounters to take care of without regular resting, and leaving, taking a long rest and returning wreaked havoc with verisimilitude.

Without knowing what the dungeon is like, it’s hard to say. That can be reasonable, but it can also be unreasonable. Assuming the adventure’s structured such that you’re not expected to make multiple attempts, then the only reasonable thing to do would be to bring tons of consumables. Of course, Treat Wounds was supposed to obviate that, so .

This is precisely what I have been trying to say.

I too have have wrestled with the the double whammy of lack of advice on time pressure couple with how the encounter design pretty much says a hard no to having monsters retreat and regroup.

In my experience, adventures go out of their way not telling you how to pace encounters. While I can somewhat understand this - it makes adventures work for a bigger range of playing style - it pretty much drops the ball of fixing problems caused by game design squarely in the lap of you, the GM.

PS. Consumables do pitiful healing. Wands of healing were apparently one of the most reviled things about Pathfinder 1, so they're gone. And as far as I can see, potions of healing still give the same pitiful amount of healing despite a) heroes and monsters having much more hp in this game, and b) consumables are MUCH MUCH more expensive in this game. Literally a whole magnitude more expensive!

The net result is that, no, you aren't likely to bring "tons of consumables" anywhere. In fact, since you get a permanent item if you sell eight consumables of its level... you pretty much consider consumables vendor trash in this game. At least my players do.

Treat Wounds were absolutely intended to replace this yes. Treat Wounds is free in that it does not require money or spell slots - only time and a couple of build choices.

Shame it is a whole minigame in itself, and that it isn't powerful enough to heal you quick enough for other aspects of the rules to work as intended...

 

[CapnZapp]

Coming from PF1, it’s a major improvement.

Absolutely.

If 5E did not exist, we would likely all be applauding Paizo's clean design.

 

[!DWolf]

Nothing wrong with the encounter guidelines.

Just that - if followed closely - they result in Medicine not keeping up with other expectations of the game (as I've discussed above).

You can absolutely ease off on the difficulty when you GM your own adventures.

Official APs don't, however, which is why I'm bringing up the way Medicine resulting in 40-70 minute rests as a real problem.

Okay, you seem to be playing the game very differently than me - things that you list as bugs are features to me. From your posts you/your group seem (correct me if I’m wrong, it is very difficult to get a sense of these things through internet posts ) to want to do the following:

1. Go to a room. Kill monsters in the room.
2. Decide which room to go to next.
3. Repeat

But what happens is:

1. Go to a room. Kill monsters in the room.
2. Have to rest up to full health to be able to take on the next room. GM wonders why don’t the monsters in the next room simple come out and attack them while their resting?
3. Finally healed decide which room to go to next.
4. Repeat from step one.

While others, such as my group, play more “old school” - heavily focused on resolving encounters using non-combat or clever means, retreating if necessary and the like. And I can totally see why you get annoyed with the healing system (if you are indeed playing as previously described) it is an interruption to the game flow. To me on the other hand, it is what enables the game flow - healing is slow or uses resources, so lets do everything we can to bypass/negate encounters, or at least stack the odds in our favor, so that we can avoid wasting time or resources healing (which is why time pressure is good for me because it leans into that and it removes certain options that the players would otherwise take that could negate most of the challenges of the dungeon).

Sure, but that's a different adventure paradigm than official APs.

I happen to believe that the rules as written should support official adventures as written.

Okay. I got so curious/worried that I cracked open the first part of Age of Ashes (the AP I am least interested in playing) and, keeping in mind that different adventures are written by different people:
the dungeon absolutely is written to be compatible with my groups playstyle.

Spoiler

There are listed means to bypass many encounters, creatures in one part of the dungeon that give you information on other parts of the dungeon, creatures you can turn to your side or trick into attacking other creatures, there is (mild) time pressure, etc.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If two floating mods is more than you want to deal with - Pathfinder isn't for you.

Going back to the initial example, it is not just two floating modifiers. It is two floating modifiers (MAP and sweeping) before any of the bonuses and penalties from the combat are calculated.

At low levels, there was generally at least one additional modifier on most attacks. The most common were flat-footed, cover, and bless.

 

[!DWolf]

Have you ever considered how you arrive at which feats you can select?

That is, you absolutely must look at the feats that require you to be Legendary in a skill you don't have - how else to know you can't take it?

I am very confused by this: the class feats are listed by class and by level in the book. It is as easy as reading up to the level you want then selecting the feat. Likewise the tables list the general/skill feats by level, skill, and proficiency. So if I want a first level arcana feat I turn to the arcana section and read the first level feat list. I don’t even glance at the legendary thievery feats for instance. Why would someone read every single feat for a skill they don’t have?

 

[glass]

At low levels, there was generally at least one additional modifier on most attacks. The most common were flat-footed, cover, and bless.

The only one of those that actually modifies attacks is bless. And 5e bless also adds to attack rolls (only a die roll rather than a fixed add). Rather an unfortunate set of examples for your case, wouldn't you say?

EDIT: Which is not to say that PF2 does not have more modifiers to attack rolls than 5e; it absolutely does , by design. It just makes me smile that FrozenNorth is 0-for-3 on their examples.

_
glass.