Pathfinder 2E Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

[dave2008]

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.

Flat footed and cover don't modify attacks in PF2e?

 

[kenada]

It's more controversial to do so than in 5E, however. The culture of Pathfinder 1, for instance, was outright player entitled as far as I can understand, hostile to the idea a GM should be given the right to deny a player some splat book feature.

Pathfinder 2e is not Pathfinder 1e. Pathfinder 2e is explicit that rarity is meant to be a knob you can turn to control the amount of complexity in the game. Let me quote the introduction to the section on rarity in the GMG (emphasis mine).

The rarity system is a powerful tool that helps you and your group customize your story, your characters, and your world to better match your game’s themes and setting. You can also use it to keep the complexity of your game low by limiting access to unusual options.

It could not be any more clear than that. If you don’t want to allow other material, it is within your right as a GM to declare it rare (or whatever) and consequently unavailable except for special circumstances (e.g., you put it in the treasure as a reward). If players make bad assumptions about what material they can use, then that’s on them. The GM can point out their mistake, it can be corrected, and everyone can get on with playing the game.

I’ve omitted the rest of your post because I reject the idea that the GM is just helpless in the face of entitled players, so we shouldn’t use the tools available to us to shape our games. That’s not a system problem. That’s a social problem, and I see absolutely no reason to throw up my hands and acquiesce.

 

[glass]

Flat footed and cover don't modify attacks in PF2e?

I already addressed that. They modify defences.

_
glass.

 

[dave2008]

Doubling down it is then? Your position was wrong. Nevermind bless, your other two examples do not affect attack rolls.

(And before you say you did not say "attack rolls", just "attacks", that is true but you were responding a discussion about what modifier's affect a Ranger's attack rolls specifically.)

_
glass.

Frozen never said attack rolls, he/she said attacks. You can't just dismiss that by saying the previous example was attack rolls. Frozen is specifically point out that the modifiers are not just to the rolls.

 

[glass]

Frozen never said attack rolls, he/she said attacks. You can't just dismiss that by saying the previous example was attack rolls. Frozen is specifically point out that the modifiers are not just to the rolls.

They did nothing of the sort. If their point had been that there are modifier to defences in play as well as modifiers to attacks, they could have actually said that. They did not.

_
glass.

 

[dave2008]

They did nothing of the sort. If their point had been that there are modifier to defences in play as well as modifiers to attacks, they could have actually said that. They did not.

_
glass.

Your wrong (that doesn't make me right of course). He/she specifically pointed out your misrepresentation and you ignored it and claimed victory.

That being said I am out, I can't even find a PF2e game to play after my local stored dropped it. I don't know why I keep coming to these forums. Maybe when the pandemic slows it will come back and I can find someone to play with, then I can join in these discussions again.

I guess I find it funny about people saying it is not complex. It is, embrace it - don't deny it.

 

[kenada]

Not sure why you're speaking spoiler.

I generally respond in spoiler when someone posts in spoiler. Even if my response is arguably not a spoiler, I’ll respect their decision to warn potential audiences of spoilers.

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.

Given how difficult PF1 adventures could be for a group of non-optimizers (like mine), I’m not surprised that PF2 adventures are also fairly difficult. I’m pretty sure if I had actually run an AP or an official adventure, my players would not have liked PF2 when we tried it.

If there’s anything these discussions have taught me, and it’s something that I envy about 5e, it’s that PF2 needs a bigger and more visibile community of people who don’t just run APs and official adventures. It’s easy to get a distorted view of what the system can do or does when that’s all you see. I can say from experience that PF2 is a really good system for running old-school style games. The stuff that seemingly causes problems in official adventures actually works pretty well for that.

 

[kenada]

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 point isn’t to have consumables handling all healing. However, if you’re down a bit, and time is an issue, then just pop a potion or an elixir to top yourself off.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What I was hoping someone would share is a link to a breakdown of encounters by difficulty. Book 1 has X severe, Y moderate, etc. I don’t have the books, and I’m not going to buy them just to look at what the spread of threats are in their encounters.

I honestly wish I could: I find this sort of practical data more useful than white-room theorizing. Unfortunately, I don’t have the adventures either.

I will point out that in my tally of encounters, I did include an encounter that our group bypassed through skill rolls. I don’t know whether that was possible for other encounters.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Frozen never said attack rolls, he/she said attacks. You can't just dismiss that by saying the previous example was attack rolls. Frozen is specifically point out that the modifiers are not just to the rolls.

Thank you for the defense. It is appreciated. I feel that my comments stand on their own and I don’t want to derail the thread in further bickering.