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Pathfinder 2E Taking20 -"I'm Quitting Pathfinder 2e Because of This Issue"
- Thread starter Lefi2017
- Start date
Panjumanju
Radio Wizard
The whole "T-Rex all the time because optimal" argument sounds to me like they've over-thought the fact that they're really just bored of the game itself. They've reached the ceiling on how mush systerm-mastery they can do, and they're tired of PF2. That should be fine in and of itself, but I suspect it's a lot easier to blame some supposed inherent flaw in the system.
//Panjumanju
//Panjumanju
FrozenNorth
Adventurer
It’s been about a week since I saw the video, but didn’t Taking20 say that his party had had a TPK at level 9, and that it had been his first TPK in like a decade?
It seems his players already tended to optimize, but if you add a TPK at level 9 to that, I can see why his players felt they had to choose the “optimal” tactic each round to survive.
On a non-PF2 note, this is why I tend to be leery of optimization in general: you end up excluding a lot of interesting character ideas simply because they aren’t optimal.
It seems his players already tended to optimize, but if you add a TPK at level 9 to that, I can see why his players felt they had to choose the “optimal” tactic each round to survive.
On a non-PF2 note, this is why I tend to be leery of optimization in general: you end up excluding a lot of interesting character ideas simply because they aren’t optimal.
Yeah. He must be a rookie. I had my first TPK in the adventure he's running at 3rd level.
Seriously, I have regular TPKs regardless of the system I'm running. It just stings a little more in PF2 because of the time it takes to build characters and reduces their investment in the Adventure Path.
Ravingdork
Explorer
He has a really indepth analysis about a third of the way through, but he's still getting some things wrong.
Raduin711
Adventurer
Whatever it is that you get out of rpg supplements: sparking new ideas, or new mechanics to play with, or new lore... every new supplement is an injection of stuff to play with. When games stop getting new books, you don't get new toys. But hey! Look over there! That RPG has new supplements! New toys to play with! Lets try that one!
dave2008
Legend
While that is true for some, it is true for others that we can play the game foe years (decades) with only the core books.
Really if you want to play a game where players don’t feel they have to shell out money for all these supplements to be equal to other players just use the PHB. It also allows for quicker character generation and it is easier to create a new character when you die in the middle of a session and get back in.
How is it any harder to play core rulebook only? DMs call whether its DnD Pathfinder or any other game.
The-Magic-Sword
Explorer
Even if your players must have every toy in the game (tbf, we're like that) its all for free on Archives of Nethys anyway so, its not like you have to purchase every supplement, I have my subscription to the core rulebook and lost omens lines because I enjoy collecting and displaying the books, want to support paizo, and enjoy reading the setting info in the lost omens books.
Starfox
Adventurer
About channeling players away from role-play and into a few optimized options. My experience is that the harder you make the tactical part of an RPG, the more the players will focus on numbers and the less on role-play. From my playtest experience, PF2 combats seem harder than Pf1 combats in general. Some of that may be poor balance in the playtest scenarios, the Pathfinder Society scenarios were better. But what I hear from PF2 play, it is generally more of a boardgame than PF1 was. The GM is stronger relative to the players when using default challenges. By my observation above, this will make the players focus more on the numbers and optimized moves, less on role-play and the fun but useless bits in a build.
I describe my playtest experience with PF2 like this; PF1 is a role-playing game with a strong boardgame element. PF2 is a boardgame with a bit of a role-play element. This is the same trend (if not as extreme) as the move from 3.5 to 4E. To me, it is incomprehensible how Paizo, who grew big from players disatisifed with 4E, could recruit a lot of 4E designers and release a PF2 that moves in the same direction 4E did. This is my personal opinion and I don't claim it to be true for everyone.
I describe my playtest experience with PF2 like this; PF1 is a role-playing game with a strong boardgame element. PF2 is a boardgame with a bit of a role-play element. This is the same trend (if not as extreme) as the move from 3.5 to 4E. To me, it is incomprehensible how Paizo, who grew big from players disatisifed with 4E, could recruit a lot of 4E designers and release a PF2 that moves in the same direction 4E did. This is my personal opinion and I don't claim it to be true for everyone.
I don't know pf2 to really comment too deeply on his first video but will say that he makes good points about the illusion of choice & players being forced to make certain choices in build/combat in both systems in it. His second video about illusion of choice he makes a lot of very good points though, particularly the one about system defenders seeming to miss the point deliberately or dismiss the whole thing as a powergamer charop issue. 5e is especially bad about the illusion of choice just in other areas like feat & spell selection. Probably by dumb luck he stumbled into a 5e combat example where it seems like a player really has choices by presenting a longbow with a once presented on a tactical grid with a 150/600 range starting at a 20-30sh foot distance, but in nearly every other case including just the ranger being further away* at the start the combat is pretty much move into range & rockemsockem robots till one side dies
*like on the other side of the open door an extra 30-60ft away)
*like on the other side of the open door an extra 30-60ft away)
Justice and Rule
Explorer
I always find this opinion to be puzzling, since it implies that roleplaying can only be done outside the rules, rather than actually engage with the rules created.
I mean, the problem is that the good points you think he's making aren't really good points because he is going into PF2 with 5E assumptions and thus getting a bunch of things wrong: as I said in the other thread, his grapple example is straight up wrong because the necessity of the shove/grapple combo in 5E isn't the same in PF2, and thus he's has to actually play badly to get it to work. Further he doesn't actually build a 2E character, he just sort of takes about 40%: unlike 5E, a lot of PF2 stuff is not class-related, and not including stuff that could be added in hurts the whole example, let alone the choice of scenario is... unideal (wraiths are very different between the systems, and those are very different encounters given that he had to level up the Ranger to 5 to get anything close to an actual interesting result).
The whole thing is a mess. He just should have said what other members said he should have (he'd rather have a rules light system than a rules heavy system) rather than trying to mathematically-justify himself and fail at it.
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@Justice and Rule You got me to rewatch that part of the video. Something that really stuck out to me is the assumption that grappling the tripped wight would make the ranger prone. That’s not how it works in PF2, 5e, or even 3.5e. In PF1, you have a penalty to Dexterity while grappling and are denied your dexterity bonus while pinning someone, but that’s still not being prone.
It’s just picking more nits (like how the ranger doesn’t Hunt Prey when it melees the wight), but it happened to catch my attention because I’d just finished summarizing Grapple in my PF2 cheat sheet. The only way you can end up prone while trying to Grapple is if you critically fail and the target chooses to have you fall prone (versus grabbing you back instead).
It’s just picking more nits (like how the ranger doesn’t Hunt Prey when it melees the wight), but it happened to catch my attention because I’d just finished summarizing Grapple in my PF2 cheat sheet. The only way you can end up prone while trying to Grapple is if you critically fail and the target chooses to have you fall prone (versus grabbing you back instead).
Battle mats don't cover 600 ft. Modules rarely use that scale, especially when the companies sell tiles, flip mats, etc. If you're playing a standard adventure on a tactical grid, you're likely in a 30-40 ft room in a dungeon. And it's probably a square or rectangle. Unless you get freaky and it's a circle or an easily drawn polygon. This is the industry standard of design for the RPG business, and it has been for 40 years.
If you're outside you might be on a road on an ambush or in a forest with a handful of trees.
People who suggest they regularly use multi-levelled battlefields with complex terrain, hazardous zones, and rich tactical depth are either being disingenuous or are exceptions to every game I've played in, published adventure I've read, and printed battle map I've seen.
Cody's setup was fine. It was a little simple for demonstration purposes, but if we're all honest, it's a standard sample fight in any d20 system. And for most players most of the time, it's accurate.
If people want to get on here and pretend every battle in their game is like the opening of Bayonetta, I find it hard to believe.
A physical battle mat might not cover six hundred feet... but they tend to cover quite a bit more than 30-30ish and your point highlights the mindboggling levels of wtf thst go into making a !50/600 longbow.
Also we aren't living in the days of 3.5 and there are plenty of digital tools that handle dramatically larger maps to the point that those boneheaded absurd range ranged weapons make life hell for the gm. Roll 20 might have trouble with even a large chessex maply sized grid sure but in arkenforge with a tvbox on the table I could model the entire castle racenloft& under mountain many times over in one map file and not even come within sight of the software's limits. Not being within one sixth of what is considered:"short range" of your weapon is hardly an extreme goal for a pc