Pathfinder 2E What Would You Want from PF2?

[billd91]

4E was really a situation of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think the core of it had a lot of great ideas, but the reactionary mood of gamers kept us from having a 5th edition that was revolutionary and just kept bringing up the same issues we've always had.

If that issue is an incredibly popular D&D and a growing hobby, sign me up for more of those issues.

 

[CapnZapp]

To be fair, 3.5/PF already did that, to a fair extent - the Rogue's contribution in combat, when he can make one at all, is high, spikey, situational DPR; the Fighter's best contribution, when he can manage it, is blocking a choke-point until the right spell can be cast to end the encounter.

As I remember it 3.x sneak damage is similar to 5E sneak damage in that it barely allows the rogue to catch up to the average for a decently minmaxxed character.

Plus of course all the gotchas - there was a lot of monsters that represented a "screw you" to rogues by being immune or nearly so to sneak damage...

I could misremember but isn't 5E actually an improvement over 3E...?

While still vastly overestimating the whole sneak/disarm/thief deal (in how it is used to justify the rogue's average offense and poor defense)

4e continued in that vein and did it better, and balanced the classes into the bargain...

I really don't wish to bring 4E into the discussion.

While 3.5 caught flack for not doing it well /enough/ especially on the Fighter side

I do not believ you disagree when I say everybody agrees the 3.x Fighter is a bare-bones character that misses out on all the supernatural goodness that D&D offers.

Meaning, that if you only look at the basic combat rules chassi of d20, the Fighter is a decent enough class.

It is when you compare to almost every other class it fares so poorly.

5E makes Fighters much more empowered in contrast. Not so much by boosting the actual Fighters (although Action Surge is a great feature for a class-defining ability), but by restricting and constraining everybody else's magic.

5e has both the fighter & rogue (& barbarian & almost everyone, really, if they want to) doing solid DPR, and the fighter is tanky enough, so that's not too far off, either - and it catches no flack for it, at all, having threaded the needle between acceptable & accessible.

Yes that's the point. By giving everybody good offense they have missed a great opportunity to add variety to the inter-party interaction.

(And to be specific: yet again hoses the rogue except in those parties where everybody is okay with the rogue player hogging the spotlight by sneaking off alone. Meaning that by not giving everybody good offense you can bring back the rogue to the fold - that is: granting it party-centric as opposed to individualistic abilities.

Of course, this scheme still falls apart if other classes outshine it in the DPS area. Which is why I believe that the Rogue - with access to little to no magics - needs to be the king of DPS. Everybody else, Paladins, Warlocks etc have other tricks up their sleeve.

Which brings me back to 5E sneak attack. Which I say shouldn't just be upped slightly (a few extra sneak dice), or even moderately (one sneak die every level as opposed to every other level).

No, we need something spectacular! Each sneak attack's damage should be multiplied by something like a d6!! Then and only then can we pare back those abilities that only encourage the player to avoid party-focused behaviors, such as sneaking off, hiding, not putting skin in the game, etc)

So, if PF2 wants to go there and make the fighter the Tank and the rogue the DPS, it'll have to thread that needle, too.

It's tough out there for a Game Designer.

Absolutely. Doesn't mean we can't hope for something more ambitious and tactically interesting than 5E!

 

[Zardnaar]

3E fighter got flak for sucking as 2E had really good fighters by comparison. Wasn't a lack of aggro that was the problem but things like how saves scaled, spells being buffed, all classes leveling up at the same rate broke the game.

2E fighters handbook and one optional rule letting warriors get extra WPs instead on NWPs and you had a fairly awesome fighter in the AD&D context. Had one solo a Marilith, lich and a Dragon in 3 rounds.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Simply put, I would want it less like D&D and more like Pathfinder. I don't know what that is exactly, but I am hoping Paizo can show us. The last thing I need is another version of a game that has been doing the same thing for decades. 5e has already proved to be the best compromise of everything done to date. PF2 needs to innovate new ideas, cater to a differenf style(s) of play, offer a new narrative, or some combination of these. Otherwise its just another third-party clone. From what I've seen, they are on the right track. Whether the public agrees and accepts may be a different matter.

 

[CapnZapp]

PF2 needs to innovate new ideas, cater to a differenf style(s) of play, offer a new narrative, or some combination of these. Otherwise its just another third-party clone.

Yes - when they abandoned compatibility (with either Pathfinder or 5E) that's where they're headed.

Obviously they're betting on reaching what no third-party D&D clone has ever achieved: mainstream success.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As I remember it 3.x sneak damage is similar to 5E sneak damage in that it barely allows the rogue to catch up to the average for a decently minmaxxed character.

Plus of course all the gotchas - there was a lot of monsters that represented a "screw you" to rogues by being immune or nearly so to sneak damage...

I could misremember but isn't 5E actually an improvement over 3E...?

In a lot of ways, 5e is a lateral from 3.5, and the Rogue is one of them. The 5e Rogue can count on SA working against a wider range of foes, but he can't snowball SA damage with iterative attacks, he doesn't get a huge advantage in number of skills or skill points but does get expertise.

I really don't wish to bring 4E into the discussion.

It's an example of D&D when the game was, however briefly & unpopularly, delivering class balance and, more to the point, the strongest role support for the defensive fighter/offensive rogue dynamic you said you were hoping would 'finally' appear in PF2. No "finally" when it was already done 10 years ago.

I do not believ you disagree when I say everybody agrees the 3.x Fighter is a bare-bones character that misses out on all the supernatural goodness that D&D offers.

I disagree with 'bare bones' and 'goodness.' The 3.x fighter was wonderfully customizeable, and perhaps the strongest example of D&D every being 'simple' to the point of /elegance/. That it lacked the profound brokenness of classes with supernatural power - "supernatural badness," let's say - is just a matter of being all alone as a good class design (though I'd argue the 3e Sorcerer was also as good a design as could be hoped for while leveraging wizard legacy spells).

5E makes Fighters much more empowered in contrast. Not so much by boosting the actual Fighters (although Action Surge is a great feature for a class-defining ability), but by restricting and constraining everybody else's magic.

Not to a meaningful degree. First of all, 5e loosens restrictions on magic. 5e casters enjoy spontaneous casting, prepped casting, out-of-combat slotless ritual casting, /and/ at-will cantrips, for instance. Access to at-will or 'free' out-of-combat magic is something TSR era casters didn't get, at all (and greatly coveted), and 3e casters barely got a taste of late in the ed. Spontaneous casting was the 3e Socrecer's whole schtick, and such a profound advantage, that even crippled by few spells known, it was a pretty serious Tier 2 class. And the sheer number of daily slots 5e casters gets dwarfs the availability (and power) of dailies 4e classes got.
Then consider casting spells successfully - casting in melee in 1e was a rules nightmare and the physical restrictions imposed by components were very tight, in 2e hardly better, in 3e required a cheese-able Concentration check, in 4e, at least provoked like all range/area attacks, and in 5e, nuth'n, you just cast. 5e 'Concentration' is restricted to a very small number of spells, some of them quite powerful, and is much less restrictive than the 1e version (which was less formal, but very restrictive, with any hit ending concentration on a spell with that duration) and less common than the 4e version (which required you expend an action every round to maintain such spells). (Concentration was really another lateral move, it means that casters can't load up on pre-cast spells the way that was de rigur in 3.x, but, along with BA, it also means they don't /need/ to, the demand on spell slots is much lower, giving them more flexibility to use every slot optimally.)

Compared to any and every other edition, 5e casters have it pretty easy. The reduction in sheer numbers of spells to choose from relative to 3.5 makes system mastery less of a factor in creating an effective caster, but there are still very good spells. The (Over) power(edness) of the most potent 5e spells is arguably dialed down from 3e, when casters were insanely OP, but also dialed way up from 4e, when casters were nearly-balanced.

Yes that's the point. By giving everybody good offense they have missed a great opportunity to add variety to the inter-party interaction.

Yep. It's a design choice that helps accessibility - a new/casual player is less likely to feel left out because his off-the rack character feels non-contributing in combat for want of big damage numbers - at the cost of role-support (but then there are no roles, so no foul, right?).

(And to be specific: yet again hoses the rogue except in those parties where everybody is okay with the rogue player hogging the spotlight by sneaking off alone. Meaning that by not giving everybody good offense you can bring back the rogue to the fold - that is: granting it party-centric as opposed to individualistic abilities.

Though it lost SC's, 5e retained the group check, and, between that and BA, a DM can let the whole party participate in many of the activities that in other eds might have been rogue-solo. I guess that further 'hoses' the rogue, in the sense you mean, though. ;(

Of course, this scheme still falls apart if other classes outshine it in the DPS area. Which is why I believe that the Rogue - with access to little to no magics - needs to be the king of DPS. Everybody else, Paladins, Warlocks etc have other tricks up their sleeve.

Then there's the Fighter with even fewer tricks than the rogue - and the barbarian, for that, matter, is pretty trick-less, even if he does have sleeves, which seems far from certain given the stereotypes.

Absolutely. Doesn't mean we can't hope for something more ambitious and tactically interesting than 5E!

I think that's an entirely justifiable hope, given Paizo's record. Certainly moreso than trying to hold onto any hopes regarding 5e & WotC.

3E fighter got flak for sucking as 2E had really good fighters by comparison. Wasn't a lack of aggro that was the problem but things like how saves scaled, spells being buffed, all classes leveling up at the same rate broke the game.

Well, and 2e fighters doing absurd damage by combining multiple attacks from leveling, (double) specialization, and TWF. And, at first, with things like Bull's Strength being very long-duration and ideal to give to an already-high-STR character, the spells didn't entirely hurt, either. The 'lack of aggro' was something noticed by the growing portion of the fanbase that was familiar with MMOs - to us old-timers (who were already old-timers in 2000, that is), it was just SOP for the players to put the fighter in front, and the DM to have the monsters attack said fighter.

Nothing about everyone finally getting on one exp chart broke class balance let alone the game, though, it just made it easier to compare just how imbalanced the classes were.

Overall, 3.x/d20/PF was a huge improvement over the WotC era - the mechanics were simpler, clearer & more consistent and players got many more options, some of them even meaningful.
There were just some giant-sized holes in 3.x that system masters could exploit.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's an example of D&D when the game was, however briefly & unpopularly, delivering class balance and, more to the point, the strongest role support for the defensive fighter/offensive rogue dynamic you said you were hoping would 'finally' appear in PF2. No "finally" when it was already done 10 years ago.

4E may technically have achieved class balance, but imo it did so by making them all awfully samey, losing the soul of D&D. What I want to avoid is useless arguments that bundle things I am convinced D&D would benefit from with things I am convinced D&D is better off without. That is why I am not counting it. It took D&D in directions since abandoned.

Yes I want certain design features attempted by 4E but I certainly do not want it in that form or in that package. Furthermore I am convinced 4E's way is not the only way to achieve these goals. To me 4E is a distraction that just threatens to derail good discussion.

Now, please let me stop talking about 4E! I really don't wish to engage in edition-warring here, I am merely explaining as briefly as I can why I would like to discuss 5E and PF in the context of d20 (and, to a much lesser degree, AD&D) exclusively.


Thank you.

 

[Zardnaar]

All classes leveling at same rate plus quicker progression made spellcasters power a lot more noticeable. They buffed spellcasters a lot in the transition to 3.0.

 

[CapnZapp]

In a lot of ways, 5e is a lateral from 3.5, and the Rogue is one of them. The 5e Rogue can count on SA working against a wider range of foes, but he can't snowball SA damage with iterative attacks, he doesn't get a huge advantage in number of skills or skill points but does get expertise.

Okay...?

I disagree with 'bare bones' and 'goodness.' The 3.x fighter was wonderfully customizeable, and perhaps the strongest example of D&D every being 'simple' to the point of /elegance/. That it lacked the profound brokenness of classes with supernatural power - "supernatural badness," let's say - is just a matter of being all alone as a good class design (though I'd argue the 3e Sorcerer was also as good a design as could be hoped for while leveraging wizard legacy spells).

You did not lose the point in all of that, so, sure.

Not to a meaningful degree. First of all, 5e loosens restrictions on magic. 5e casters enjoy spontaneous casting, prepped casting, out-of-combat slotless ritual casting, /and/ at-will cantrips, for instance. Access to at-will or 'free' out-of-combat magic is something TSR era casters didn't get, at all (and greatly coveted), and 3e casters barely got a taste of late in the ed. Spontaneous casting was the 3e Socrecer's whole schtick, and such a profound advantage, that even crippled by few spells known, it was a pretty serious Tier 2 class. And the sheer number of daily slots 5e casters gets dwarfs the availability (and power) of dailies 4e classes got.
Then consider casting spells successfully - casting in melee in 1e was a rules nightmare and the physical restrictions imposed by components were very tight, in 2e hardly better, in 3e required a cheese-able Concentration check, in 4e, at least provoked like all range/area attacks, and in 5e, nuth'n, you just cast. 5e 'Concentration' is restricted to a very small number of spells, some of them quite powerful, and is much less restrictive than the 1e version (which was less formal, but very restrictive, with any hit ending concentration on a spell with that duration) and less common than the 4e version (which required you expend an action every round to maintain such spells). (Concentration was really another lateral move, it means that casters can't load up on pre-cast spells the way that was de rigur in 3.x, but, along with BA, it also means they don't /need/ to, the demand on spell slots is much lower, giving them more flexibility to use every slot optimally.)

Compared to any and every other edition, 5e casters have it pretty easy. The reduction in sheer numbers of spells to choose from relative to 3.5 makes system mastery less of a factor in creating an effective caster, but there are still very good spells. The (Over) power(edness) of the most potent 5e spells is arguably dialed down from 3e, when casters were insanely OP, but also dialed way up from 4e, when casters were nearly-balanced.

Again, your history lesson threatens to get us derailed

First off, you say "5e loosens restrictions on magic" like its a bad thing. It's not.

Sure, they might have gone overboard with certain things, but in general - those restrictions on magic were hopelessly convoluted legacy rules for the most part. Getting rid of them is good. Getting rid of them is fun. That said, the challenge is to get rid of them in a way that doesn't overpower casters. They did not quite succeed: free cantrips nearly make ranged weapons obsolete. (OTOH, restrictions on Dex for martials were ALSO removed, so it's not like I'm moping for those poor poor Dex martials)

Concentration is not only for a very small number of spells. It truly changed the game visavi d20, shutting down the buffing game almost completely. The advantages are obvious:
- less LFQW
- focus on characters and not their buffs (in d20 the attacker has ridiculous advantages over an unprepared defender, which combined with generous teleporting almost single-handedly wrecks the play experience)
- MUCH easier dungeonmastering when monsters (especially humanoid ones, i.e. "NPCs") aren't expected to choose half a dozen buffs (and again, doesn't absolutely have to not to be a pushover, which arguably is an even better benefit)

Casters are still very good in 5E and they can still single-handledly win encounters. That is as it should be. Magic feels magical.

Thing is, they can't do that all the time. This allows martials to feel they are meaningfully contributing. Well minmaxed martials dish out insane damage and feel very welcome in parties indeed.

This is arguably 5Es greatest accomplishment, and not something I am keen to see PF2 roll back on. That 5E is far from perfectly balanced doesn't change that. That WotC clearly is resting on their laurels and feel they can ignore the game's flaws is deeply frustrating and unfortunate, but still doesn't change that.

Yep. It's a design choice that helps accessibility - a new/casual player is less likely to feel left out because his off-the rack character feels non-contributing in combat for want of big damage numbers - at the cost of role-support (but then there are no roles, so no foul, right?).

Not sure what you're saying here. There is nothing that says rogues must suffer mediocre damage just to achieve those positive characteristics you mention?

Remember, WotC was desperate at the time of 5E's design. They played it safe in area after area. That is not necessarily what made 5E a success.

Nothing says you could not have achieved greater distinction between tanking and DPS and still enjoyed success.

Anyway, 5E is done. We're discussing PF2 here. My point is that Paizo could and should have gunned for those 5E gamers that are ready for something crunchier. I suspect this group of potential customers far exceed the number of PF1 fans so loyal to the brand name they are willing to leave PF1 behind.

Though it lost SC's, 5e retained the group check, and, between that and BA, a DM can let the whole party participate in many of the activities that in other eds might have been rogue-solo. I guess that further 'hoses' the rogue, in the sense you mean, though. ;(

If you by "SC" mean skill challenges, boy did you pick the wrong audience I only encountered the utterly broken first set of rules, and had abandoned 4E before any of the rules patches and "essentials" arrived. (I do remember something about Obsidian? rules that so clearly showed the WotC dev that wrote the initial PHB rules had no clue how math worked)

Anyway, published 5E modules hardly ever discuss group checks. For good reason. Unless you play just to have a good time and isn't sensitive to every challenge being trivial, you don't use them. You don't need to be a hardcore minmaxer to see how easily clerics and bards trivialize atomic skill checks. I really do feel the very idea should be given a rest.

Rogues are masters of skill tests anyway, thanks to expertise + reliable talent. That's just a much smaller part of play than WotC wants you to believe. The "skill monkey" edge given to Rogues is small, and not nearly significant enough to justify the class' medium offensive and mediocre defense.

Then there's the Fighter with even fewer tricks than the rogue - and the barbarian, for that, matter, is pretty trick-less, even if he does have sleeves, which seems far from certain given the stereotypes.

Gloriously wading through your dead enemies is enough of a trick

That is, I really don't understand those who clamor for more out-of-combat tricks for the fighter. The clue is in the class' name!

And besides, the rules framework offered by D&D in social and exploratory contexts is so rudimentary that just assigning a great score in Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma goes a looong way of estabilishing said Fighter as a credible historian, survivalist or charmer.

Sure the dedicated specialist will trump him (if a Ranger or Bard is in the party) but that's just as it should be.

I think that's an entirely justifiable hope, given Paizo's record. Certainly moreso than trying to hold onto any hopes regarding 5e & WotC.

Except that if Paizo can't or won't raise the bar to 5E-like levels in areas discussed here, that doesn't matter for many of us... WotC might well be our only hope.

 

[Aldarc]

Casters are still very good in 5E and they can still single-handledly win encounters. That is as it should be. Magic feels magical.

Thing is, they can't do that all the time. This allows martials to feel they are meaningfully contributing. Well minmaxed martials dish out insane damage and feel very welcome in parties indeed.

This is arguably 5Es greatest accomplishment, and not something I am keen to see PF2 roll back on..

Instead of repeating this mantra ad nauseum, perhaps it would be benecial for discussion if you took time to familiarize yourself with PF2 and then explain to us how casting works differently between PF1 and PF2. Because right now you are talking abstractly about how you seem to be imagining PF2 rather than anything concrete about the playtest materials or subsequent details revealed.