Pathfinder 2E Will Pathfinder 2nd Edition Be Based on D&D 5E?

There seems to be a bit of confusion about the nature of Pathfinder 2nd Edition, with some folks believing that it will be based on the D&D 5E rules engine, in a similar way to how the original Pathfinder was based of the D&D 3.5 rules engine. The evidence points to it not being so.

In accordance with Betteridge's Law of Headlines, the quick answer is "no".

Paizo's Erik Mona says "While it's reasonable to assume that developments in other games have gone into some of our thinking with this new edition, it'd be wrong to assume that we're explicitly trying to make the game more like 5e, or like any other game. What we're trying to do is make the very best version of Pathfinder that we can."

But decide for yourself! The demo game on the Glass Cannon podcast doesn't sound much like D&D 5th Edition at all, certainly not to me. But give a listen and draw your own conclusions.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition will surely borrow concepts from a whole range of games, and 5E will almost certainly be notable amongst them. But even from the little description we have so far, I'm seeing influences from things like Cubicle 7's The One Ring, and other games.

While Paizo has said that Pathfinder 2nd Edition will be release under the Open Gaming License (the OGL) it's important to note that the OGL has been around for nearly two decades, and dozens of games are released under it (Pathfinder 1, Fate, Mutants & Masterminds, WOIN), none of which have the slightest thing to do with D&D 5E. There isn't a "5E OGL"; there's just the OGL. It doesn't contain any rules; it's just a way to license content to third parties. Paizo uses the OGL to license its game engine to its large array of third party publishers, and will be continuing to do so, whatever form that game engine comes in.

So why release it under the OGL? No matter what the system looks like, even if it diverged so far from D&D as to be utterly unrecognisable, many of the "nouns" of the system are rooted in D&D history -- spell names, monsters, and so on. "Magic Missile", for example, or "Ankheg", or a thousand other terms which were irrevocably made Open Gaming Content nearly twenty years ago and are a fundamental part of Pathfinder's identity as much as they are a part of D&D's identity. Pathfinder's "story" elements - those names - requires continuing access to those terms. That doesn't mean that the game system has anything to do with it, though, or that it needs to resemble 5E (or 4E, or 3E, or Fate, or WOIN, or any of several dozen OGL games). The OGL is a convenient and easy way to access those terms safely. There's no good reason not to use it.

I think it's safe to say at this point that Pathfinder 2nd Edition isn't a variation of D&D 5E. It's more likely to be an evolution of the 3.x ruleset, diverging from the path WotC took significantly, but influenced by many game design evolutions across the industry in the last decade. I'm sure you'll be able to see some 5E DNA in it, mixed in with the DNA of various other things, but it looks like Pathfinder 2nd Edition is very different to WotC's current game.

I mentioned that I'd be surprised to see Pathfinder 2 using even a single word from the 5E SRD. Erik Mona confirmed this. "It doesn't. This thing is far less 5e-inspired than people are assuming based on the first day of information we've dropped and the use of some similar terminology."

I mentioned the question of backward compatibility yesterday. Paizo says "While many of the rules of the game have changed, much of what made Pathfinder great has remained the same. The story of the game is unchanged, and in many cases, you can simply replace the old rules with their new counterpart without having to alter anything else about the adventure. As for individual rules, like your favorite spell or monster, most can be added with a simple conversion, changing a few numbers and rebalancing some of the mechanics."

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[Kobold Boots]

Competition benefits consumers. At the moment, WotC has no real competition. I don’t know if PF2 will be able to provide that, but I also don’t think that the two biggest companies joining forces is good for consumers.

Depends on how they do it. But there's going to be price fixing no matter what they do. All you need is one company to set a price point for their stuff and everyone else is going to follow as soon as that price point sells well.

 

[Morrus]

Depends on how they do it. But there's going to be price fixing no matter what they do. All you need is one company to set a price point for their stuff and everyone else is going to follow as soon as that price point sells well.

I wasn’t talking about price so much as quality of product, which tends to increase in a competitive environment. Competition stops anybody becoming complacent and drives them to do better.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I wasn’t talking about price so much as quality of product, which tends to increase in a competitive environment. Competition stops anybody becoming complacent and drives them to do better.

Got it. I guess I really don't expect quality from any large company, and especially not in gaming. Part of the reason I like Paizo is their high quality of product, but if they suddenly stopped doing it, then I'd stop buying it, others may too. This also goes for WoTC as I already own enough product to run a game and the pirated pdf/Internet thing exists, even if I happen to loathe and avoid it.

 

[Henry]

Side thought: some detractors' fear that a game rule from one OGL system will show up in another OGL system and "ruin" it is baffling to me. It's one of the two main purposes of open source and open content in the first place. If the spell scaling, or concept of balancing attack bonuses, or even a rule lifted whole cloth, if a good idea, then so be it. I don't see it as much here, but on some forums it drives my open-source-loving brain batty.

 

[Arilyn]

Side thought: some detractors' fear that a game rule from one OGL system will show up in another OGL system and "ruin" it is baffling to me. It's one of the two main purposes of open source and open content in the first place. If the spell scaling, or concept of balancing attack bonuses, or even a rule lifted whole cloth, if a good idea, then so be it. I don't see it as much here, but on some forums it drives my open-source-loving brain batty.

Cross pollination benefits the hobby. Designers understand this, but players can get strangely protectionist...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Side thought: some detractors' fear that a game rule from one OGL system will show up in another OGL system and "ruin" it is baffling to me. It's one of the two main purposes of open source and open content in the first place. If the spell scaling, or concept of balancing attack bonuses, or even a rule lifted whole cloth, if a good idea, then so be it. I don't see it as much here, but on some forums it drives my open-source-loving brain batty.

Cross pollination benefits the hobby. Designers understand this, but players can get strangely protectionist...

I look at RPG systems like recipes. To a certain extent, cross-pollenization IS good...in moderation. In cooking, that’s how you get things like creole-Vietnamese fusion restaurants and such.

Too far, and you wonder why someone put habaneros and gyro meat in your apple pie, or if that fried fugu poboy is really safe to eat.

Back in the day, I’d have happily run a 2Ed D&D game using HERO 4th’s HTH combat rules courtesy of the conversion system supplied in Ultimate Martial Artist, and I think players would have been happy.

But there comes a point when too much infusion of another system or system’s ideas “ruin” the unique flavor of the game you and your buddies enjoy. And of course, that “point” varies from player to player.

 

[Staffan]

But wasn't Pathfinder originally sold as a more streamlined version of 3.5?

That's not something I recall from when Pathfinder launched. Even from the start, it was somewhat crunchier than 3.5, what with rogue talents, sorcerer bloodlines, and stuff. The only thing I think was called out as streamlined was combat maneuvers.

 

[Aldarc]

I think prevailing game design philosophies will inspire PF 2e like they did 5e.

I think that this point gets missed out on a lot, though you are not the only person who has made similar comments. Pathfinder has basically been glued to a rules system that had been released back in 2000. 5E's game philosophies did not come out of nowhere. But there is a new milieu in gaming, one that has influenced and inspired 5E. But as believe Erik Mona has said, the game developers at Paizo - though they still love Pathfinder - are not the same people as they were when they began Pathfinder. The gaming industry has changed. Preferences in gaming have changed. And, as you say, there are some prevailing game design philosophies out there in the market that will likely shape PF2.

 

[Phototoxin]

It's good to have competition, it's also good that it's not massively litigious 'ohmygerd they stole our idea to use d12 as barbarian hit points!! SUE SUE SUE!'

As long as no one decides to make their system use a proprietary d23 or something we as customers should benefit.

 

[Henry]

It's good to have competition, it's also good that it's not massively litigious 'ohmygerd they stole our idea to use d12 as barbarian hit points!! SUE SUE SUE!'

As long as no one decides to make their system use a proprietary d23 or something we as customers should benefit.

That’s the kind of thing the OGL meant to prevent - so that in addition to more gamers flowing into D&D and back out to other similar games, and back in again (the “rising tide floating all boats”) but also that similar good ideas come to the surface and get re-used. I wish WotC themselves would use it more, but even as it is, a 5e customer would not have too crazy of a time going over to Pathfinder 1e because of all the same touchstones. Now keeping all the different bonuses straight is a different story, but a 20 STR in Pathfinder does mean the same thing as a 20 STR in 5e, and a Barbarian/Rogue multiclass is made the same way (albeit with drastically different means).

I do hope the basic concept of advantage sees some use, because it’s a fantastic way of giving a bonus without too much numbers inflation - but I doubt it because it’s too ingrained into the defining characteristics of 5e at this point.