Pathfinder 2E Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

[kenada]

I think when it comes to encounter difficulty part of the issue with getting some groups to adjust encounters to suit their needs is psychological. PF2 calls a spade a spade, but as we have seen in the video game world there a number of people who want to play games on an easier mode while not wanting to call it that. When you say maybe stick to low threat encounters until you find your feet it does not feel good despite being a fairly accurate assessment of encounter difficulty. Like the encounter difficulty categories in 3e, 4e and 5e have this psychological boosting effect because they call things challenges that are not in fact challenging like at all.

Maybe call low-threat instead of moderate-threat? I agree there’s a bias against “easy” fights (as evidenced by some of the comments here), but I wonder if there’s also a counter-intuition with the term “moderate-threat” that will actually beat the crap out of the party unless they work together effectively as a team.

Alternately, instead of calibrating the guidelines against expectations, just build them with those expectations in mind. Shift all the creatures’ levels up by 2. Everything is built to a guideline anyway, so it’s not like level matters. Now, you can have four 1st level creatures fight a 1st level party, and it won’t be an extreme (i.e., deadly) encounter.

 

[kenada]

These last few posts got me thinking more about why I view simplicity the way I do. Well, I have a computer science background and work as a software engineer. Taking small things and building bigger things out of them is just what I do.

So traits and stuff like that appeals to me because they are like little boxes that I can combine into bigger effects. With free-style rules, you’ve got to infer intent and hope that your overall understanding of the system is enough that you don’t accidentally break things. With a trait, you should just need to reason about the effect it will have on things with that trait (which are all conveniently identified because that’s how traits work).

So at the risk of possibly not endearing my position or argument to some here, that seemed like an observation worth sharing.

 

[Aldarc]

I think when it comes to encounter difficulty part of the issue with getting some groups to adjust encounters to suit their needs is psychological. PF2 calls a spade a spade, but as we have seen in the video game world there a number of people who want to play games on an easier mode while not wanting to call it that. When you say maybe stick to low threat encounters until you find your feet it does not feel good despite being a fairly accurate assessment of encounter difficulty. Like the encounter difficulty categories in 3e, 4e and 5e have this psychological boosting effect because they call things challenges that are not in fact challenging like at all.

"Story Mode"

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Pathfinder is a book full of options (2000+ options) but I would not consider it difficult. It's extremely processual with the most consistent, predictive math I've seen in an RPG since GURPS.

 

[Campbell]

These last few posts got me thinking more about why I view simplicity the way I do. Well, I have a computer science background and work as a software engineer. Taking small things and building bigger things out of them is just what I do.

So traits and stuff like that appeals to me because they are like little boxes that I can combine into bigger effects. With free-style rules, you’ve got to infer intent and hope that your overall understanding of the system is enough that you don’t accidentally break things. With a trait, you should just need to reason about the effect it will have on things with that trait (which are all conveniently identified because that’s how traits work).

So at the risk of possibly not endearing my position or argument to some here, that seemed like an observation worth sharing.

I am in a similar position (software engineer and user experience designer) although my degree is in Information Systems rather than Computer Science. I also do have substantial time in art school though.

For me personally the way the rules of a game are written contribute substantially to how smooth it feels at the table. PF2 feels smooth to me because I find it much easier to tell what rules are actually in effect compared to games like 5e that use "natural language" where if I want to actually use the rules I have to interpret it like a bible verse. I think most people are not aware of how complex a game like 5e can feel because they gloss over substantial portions of the rules because they are hidden in obscuring paragraphs.

Most rules elements in PF2 are written in a very crisp, procedural way where it is very easy to follow the steps. You resolve something and you are basically done with it. Interactions are easy for me to process due to how modular and object oriented the game is with traits and some fairly consistent interface stuff like a consistent proficiency system, counteracting, and a very consistent action economy with very few passive effects built into the game. It is also extremely explicit about where and when it expects the GM to apply their judgement.

The text absolutely should have been better organized. There's also tons of ways it could be written to provide a better user experience. Crafting could have used another pass. The character sheet is fairly awful (so is the official 5e sheet).

Still the technical writing, actual play processes, and core game play loops feel very smooth in play to me. The game is actually designed in a very modular way with a fairly good design manual in the Game Mastery Guide. Feature like rarity, traits, modular actions and activities that look like Apocalypse World moves structurally let you extend and change the system in more of an agile way,

Some people like @CapnZapp would have liked a game designed for a tighter experience where attrition was less dynamic and you could design to an experience better. So they spend an inordinate amount of time reading the tea leaves for more exacting guidelines than actually exist. PF2 is not 4e.

I think one of the reasons why PF2 might feel more smooth (and possibly you @kenada ) to me personally is that one of the lead designers is actually a very well trained Computer Scientist. Before joining Paizo Mark Seifter was working on his PhD at MIT. I think that's way there is such a strong like modular and object oriented approach to systems design. Also probably why it sometimes shows too much of its guts.

 

[Campbell]

Ayep.


Like it or not, far too many D&D gamers just aren't interested in how other games solve issues.

Being able to say "but AD&D fixed it" or "it works without a hitch in 4E" or "just look at Pathfinder for a much better solution" carries much more weight than pointing to OSR or Apocalypse Now or Call of Cthulhu. While this is partly unwarranted, it actually is partially warranted. D&D needs to solve a particular set of questions that other games can just drop.

I might not like everything about 5E, but i consider it undeniable that its designers managed to truly get rid of the 3E crud and many darlings were killed. 5E really represents a very impressive effort in pleasing your customers while actually not listening the the demands that existing detail and structure "must" be retained.

Sure, the game erred on the side of simplicity too much, but still: PF2 would have been a vastly better game had Paizo bothered to check up on the competitition... and made that show in its own rulebook.

Absolutely. And when it does I'm there to point it out. (For instance with its legacy crud about hand usage, spell components and object interaction. When you read those rules you get the distinct impression you're no longer reading the easygoing game 5E is elsewhere)

I think this post encapsulates a lot of why we often butt heads sometimes. I am not really concerned with "D&D gamers" or even gamers in a general sense. I evaluate games based on if provides a compelling play experience that I and the rest of the people I play with or might want to play with would be interested in. That is a very small subset of that group. Solving for the general subset will often result in a poor experience for the subset I am interested in.

I also have about zero interest in chasing after some mythical perfect game that we can play until we do not want to play anymore. That sounds absolutely dreadful to me. I have about 7 games that are D&D adjacent on my shelf. Even within the dungeon fantasy substrate I value that diversity of play.

I honestly do not understand the focus on a greater meta narrative about what the game should be instead of concrete discussion of what the game actually is. Speaking personally sometimes it seems to skew towards a gate keeping direction. I do not want to be unfair here, but a substantial part of things you consider outmoded are things I consider essential to dungeon fantasy. In any event I do not think these sorts of meta narratives do much to further discussion in a fruitful direction. It absolutely undermined meaningful critical analysis of Fourth Edition because it changes the discussion from one about a game and how it functions to if the game has a right to exist in its present form. I do not think that discussion is helpful.

 

[Campbell]

Maybe call low-threat instead of moderate-threat? I agree there’s a bias against “easy” fights (as evidenced by some of the comments here), but I wonder if there’s also a counter-intuition with the term “moderate-threat” that will actually beat the crap out of the party unless they work together effectively as a team.

Alternately, instead of calibrating the guidelines against expectations, just build them with those expectations in mind. Shift all the creatures’ levels up by 2. Everything is built to a guideline anyway, so it’s not like level matters. Now, you can have four 1st level creatures fight a 1st level party, and it won’t be an extreme (i.e., deadly) encounter.

That's pretty much the Fourth Edition model. It definitely can work well, but also usually comes with other ways in which adversaries and player characters are treated differently in regards to the rules. I really appreciate how level being a fairly consistent measurement of power has allowed for a smooth play experience. Spells can just refer to level. You can build NPCs like PCs and have the encounter building guidelines work pretty well. I do think a better label for moderate should have been chosen, Maybe something like how Blades in the Dark calls its baseline Risky to let players know it's still fairly dangerous. Maybe Tough Threat or something like that. Words are hard.

I do think Paizo has made a fairly conscious marketing decision to try to be the Dark Souls to Fifth Edition's Mass Effect. It honestly plays to their strengths as a company. From the beginning when they were publishing Dungeon magazine Paizo adventures have always focused on going deep into the lore of the game and being like pretty damn difficult. I think the game was pretty designed with that approach in mind. It is very modular and can be played at a less highly tuned level, but it was absolutely designed with that sort of material in mind. For instance, the level scaling was definitely put in place largely to make boss monsters more threatening in like an aggressive Dark Souls way where Legendary Monsters in 5e feel more like the Reaper fight or a World of Warcraft raid encounter (not meant negatively).

 

[Zardnaar]

Opinion on PF2 hasn't changed. Bought the PDF to complex and a pain to navigate.

Would play, would not run. Effectively means I'm not going to get to play it.

If I'm not playing 5E my tastes lean towards OSR or D6 Star Wars.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Meanwhile I'm still unsure of whether I like +10 crit or not.

I mean, the way I observed is that it works: low level mooks without flanking or debuffs likely only crit party's martials on nat 19 or 20, high level solo enemies deal enough damage even if party kites them to be threathening. However it doesn't really feel fun from player perspective to be critted a lot by enemy

I'm still under impression that system works best when "higher than pc level" enemies are rare, so most of time "+2 party level" enemies should be the "strongest enemies" while most enemies should be equal level or lower with couple "+1" mixed in among the mooks and encounters should almost never have multiple higher leveled creatures at same time.

But yeah, I still long for that 1-20 campaign experience, so far my experience is PF2e scenarios up to level 8 and plaguestone/slithering which are both incredibly difficult in different ways(plaguestone is composed of severe level difficulty encounters, while slithering starts with ooze hell and then becomes easy once oozes are done with )

Overall though, system is so far my favorite tabletop game ever besides Cypher system, but at least I get to play this game

(I have really strong dislike of 5e more I run it, I do kinda tolerate it but I couldn't play it as my main game, one oneshot every meanwhile or maybe one campaign that gets to high levels might be nice, but I kinda got bored of it when I did actually get chance to play long games of it

So while 5e is markting success, I get strong distaste on "2e should be more like 5e to be successful in the market!" especially nobody can hope to beat wizard of the coast's market share unless they bungle it up horribly.)

 

[CapnZapp]

I too have a background as a programmer and computer consultant. I too found the "clean" approach of PF2's three-action system and orthogonal core systems intriguing.

To me, all your praise for Pathfinder 2 is fair. At first look, when you're playing at first level.

What I'm telling you is that the complexity quickly - too quickly - snowballs to ridiculous extremes. To me, Pathfinder 2 comes across not only as a game where the dev team is fighting to rein in system complexity but lost control - but as a game where the dev team is completely oblivious as to the negatives of system complexity, and in fact is pushing hard to exploit every single little design nook or rules cranny.

I would have hoped that the dozen examples already posted would be enough to convince you but maybe I have to go deeper into the scary rabbit hole that is PF2 rules exceptions and things that should work identically but merely works similarly.