Gothfather's page

What we are finding is that "Balance" comes at a cost. When Paizo started to emphasise extreme balance for society play so you could bring any character from any game in the world to any other society game in the world we started to lose something in the process. You could no longer role play a better reward, role play a cleaver monetization scheme or craft something to sell. Why? because so much of this is subjective on how successful a given idea would be so they simply eliminated the option. Society play was about making sure you made your perception rolls to find treasure and your characters killed the monster and when the writer of a module included social rewards you had a good enough bonus to make your roll. Everything became mechanical. They literally removed the role play from a role playing game. I understand why it was done but I feel the price was too high.

Now we are seeing them double down on balance being dominant vs subornment aspect of their system. Perfect balance =/= better game. Rock, paper, scissors is a perfectly balance game. Who plays that for FUN? No one or rather very, very few people. It is used to arbitrate things because it is so balanced but no one sits down with a 1/2 dozen of their friends and plays rock, paper, scissors for 5 hours. Why? because it isn't fun.

When the combo of race and background are so balanced that unless you take a combo that is punitive to a desired class there is no difference you have failed to make a good game. Sure it is balanced but it isn't interesting and it isn't fun. And when a game isn't fun it can't be good. I mean every single background gives two stat bonuses, 1 free and one a choice of between two, 1 skill feat and 1 skill. WTF? This is so utterly bland and boring. I'm like why bother? Why not just say at first level you get 2 free stat boosts 1 skill and 1 skill feat and be done with it because backgrounds add NOTHING to your character to be pointless. it is so absurd that a Noble and a street urchin are exactly the same so as to start with no advantage one way or the other and they are both just as rich as each other. Really? we are that subservient to balance now that you can't even allow that variance at first level? I don't know call me crazy but I expect my nobles to be richer than my street urchins in the game.

We shouldn't be subservient to rules in an RPG they should be subservient to us, but this strive for perfected balance has taken a once varied and flavourful full meal of a game and turned it into porridge and we are all poorer for it. I understand the too much imbalance is bad but so is too much balance we need a level of imbalance to keep the fun in the system otherwise the more we flatten our the game to make it balance the more it losses something in the process. The fun is found in the bumps and valleys of the system the imperfections that allow us to find a niche and enjoy the experience. Flatten things out too much and you get a dull boring pointless game.

So I downloaded the playtest because a player in my gaming circle wanted to try the new system and I understand the OP issues.

After reading the rules and reading the adventures I am unsure what PF2 is offering me. A new system has to offer something superior to the old so that you think it is worth scraping all the money you invested in the old system for the new, while at the same time giving players experiences they can't get elsewhere.

D&D 4e I could see what they were trying to do with the system but it didn't give me an experience I couldn't get elsewhere, in fact it felt so much like a video game that I was always thinking I could get the same experience but better playing on my computer.

D&D 5e is an example of a system that gave me something different from the pervious so I could see exactly what it was trying to do and it gave an experience that you couldn't get elsewhere so there was clear reason to play it. Now I personally don't like the system but i am able to see the appeal other have for it so I get what it was offering people to buy it.

3.x/PF1 Both are examples of offering something I couldn't get elsewhere and I could see what it was trying to do. SO I could see the value. PF1 had the advantage of saying we are going to keep 3.x alive which was great because 4e really was crap for most people.

So what is PF2 trying to showcase? Why is this better than PF1, what is it about this system that solves ENGOUGH issues to make the hundreds of dollars invensted in PF1 worth giving up? I don't see it.

The playtest adventures where so poor at showing me why PF2 is worth a look. That I scrapped it completely and started working on a one night adventure. When I playtested 5e I got it immediately what they were trying to achieve. I see PF2 as a reactionary response to D&D 5e actually being popular and PF losing some market share so they feel they have to release a new edition. I don't mean to say this is just a money grab as that isn't the case. It instead feels like a desperate attempt to appear relevant but not having a central concept on how to make their new game superior to their old one. Maybe it is superior but the playtest doesn't show how it is better and that is the point I believe the OP is trying to make.

It isn't enough to just make a system and playtest the mechanics you need to playtest how people react to the new systems. Do they get what you are trying to do? Do they understand the benefits you feel the system has over the previous? This is as vital as at this point in adventure 5 people start to die. I would argue it is more important. Show me why this is better or expect people to say no thank you I'll stay with what I have. Sure you will get initial surge in adopters to the new system but as soon as something better arrives they will leave. This is what PF1 did to a whole lot of disaffected 4e players. It showed us what could be made better to 3.xe while at the same time giving a superior game for 4e players to migrate to.

PF2 doesn't have either things going for it, at least on face value. 5e is quite popular and pf2 isn't immediately showing what makes it special over its predecessor.

one of the complaints I had with d20 systems in the past was that tactics where pretty much insignificant to battles. I never saw a bard character viewed as a highly valued team member but more as a yeah we already have a rogue, Fighter, cleric, magic users so if you want to play a bard that's cool.

What i experienced was at first level people did tactics because they wanted to mitigate their low HP but after a few levels they were not as fragile and they had more tools in the tool box that tactics sort of went out of vogue becaues they were not needed.

Strategy was exercised in class builds vs actually playing the game as a good class build didn't require your class working with others. The value of the group was in each member bringing down their share of the HP/enemies of the encounter in isolation rather than as a group. This is because you have a high expectation that you were going to score x average damage per round because your accuracy wasn't a concern at 95%.

I see this as a positive as it requires the party to work and plan as a unit vs each player acting as isolated units.

Conceptually I have no problem with Heavy armour not being the best armour for all classes, but fighters and Paladins being able to exploit it for the best results. I also have no conceptual issue with all armour giving the same bonus when adding in max dex bonus. Being hit more often but mitigating more of the hit squares with being fleet of foot so your are harder to hit but your armour mitigates those its far less.

This variance to armour has been pretty constant in many systems over the years and I am not convinced that it is a problem that medium is the superior choice for most melee characters.

I also don't find it a huge problem that the fighter with its best chance to crit class is slower in heavy armour. Games also juxtipose the idea of a slow hard hitting brick vs the quick but less damaging fineese archtype.

If you have an expectation that light, medium, heavy means okay, better, best then the current mechanics appear problematic. If you don't have that linear scaling in mind with regards to armour and you see viable options for heavy armour being the best protection for some builds, while medium is better in most cases and light best in specialized builds, you see a balanced concept in principle.

This isn't to say things are perfect as is, but rather the ideas behind the mechanics are balanced but we may need to tweak things to get it right.

Re stats

If some feats were gated via high odd stat values then you don't get "dead" zones for stat increases as you can buy feats during this period to give a sense of progression. Feeling there is a value for a high odd stat eliminates the sarcifice power now for power later issue, because you need that odd value stat to buy that neat feat you want to build your character. And there is a tradition in the d20 systems of gating feats with an odd stat value.