Ikos's page

Gorbacz wrote:

Update: 200 reviews of PF2 Core rulebook @ Amazon in a bit over 5 months.

To give some more perspective: PF1 CRB accumulated 652 reviews in over 10 years.

Looking at all those numbers, it seems that Pathfinder 1e actually is more loved (higher rating) than D&D 5e is now! It may not have had quite as many sales because D&D is the big elephant in the room, but dropping it...

Exactly, Paizo decided it was too much “love” for their tastes and hobbled themselves purposely to give 5e a fighting chance. It had nothing to do with a real metric of commercial success - dwindling sales from an edition that peaked in 2014.

All I have is anecdotal. We alternate each week between PF2 and 5e. The former replaces a 10-year run for PF1. The optimizers in that group can be grumpy. Those less interested in those shenanigans are happy to play the game without having to engage in the 3x mini game of finding the exploit. Even though it could have been leaner design, PF2 is clearly a much better system than its predecessor, but this can be easily lost on players trying to replicate the PF1 experience. I suspect as more content is released, many in the PF1 crowd will slowly come around or find themselves in an ever-shrinking camp.

It’s easy to forget now a year out plus from the playtest that adding level was not a foregone conclusion. Yes, it was the direction the majority in the PF community responded to most positively; however, it was hardly the only direction things could have gone. One questionnaire asked this point blank - add level or not? Months of debate followed. People participating in the playtest generally were already familiar with PF. A majority of these argued to add level. Even so, the gaming community outside of PF is quite sizable, many of whom are more comfortable with bounded numbers. In other words, there are people eager to PF2 without the scaling. I suspect the GM guide with vindicate this perspective. Keeping a place for these gamers at the fire is a very good thing for the brand, even if that kind of play is not palatable on a personal level.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

What I don't get is why anyone wants the band so tight that a large enough pack of level 1 ghouls poses a threat to level 18 PCs.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Specifically I was addressing the people who don't want to add level to things so the range would be like -1 to +12. I personally think that would be terrible.

That's fair. Each person has their own tastes.

I don't personally find adventures where the characters are near-deity super-fantastic entities to be very interesting. Generally speaking, the last two or three books of any Paizo AP are torture. They're so far beyond the common man that the immersion is lost. The upper level creatures feel like bizarre abstractions of Earthly lore.

It's also fair for folks to conclude Pathfinder just isn't the game for me. I'm at that point, frankly, but if the system (and supporting automation) will support alternatives/house rules then Paizo can enjoy a wider appeal and maybe I can stick around.

Agreed, what some may enjoy is very thing that others find detestable and that's A-Okay - par for the course when attempting to negotiate reality and the people within it. If it adds to the success of the game by broadening its appeal to others, inclusion of alternate features as optional rules benefits everyone. The modularity of PF2 is its strength. Adding options plays to that strength; there's no talk of taking anything away someone likes. I really don't need to understand why someone likes apples, but I prefer oranges, to see the benefit of a grocery store offering both.

Honestly i think an official rules option to remove level from all the equations, be it to hit, skills, saves, dcs or whatever, is gonna be presented in the GMG.

Not that it can't be done without, but it seems to me that so many people would prefer to run the game with, let's call it, a kind of bounded accuracy, that it would help a lot with edge cases, and most character-creating software would then probably be updated to be compatible with that possible choice.

Since one of the goals of 2e seems to be to "leave no man behind", it looks to me like a small and effective contribution to acknowledging the number of players who would prefer level wasn't added to the proficiency rank.

By the same reasoning, I would also expect a variant for adding your level to Untrained. A lot of people seemed to grok that in the PT.

It's all optional rules, and Paizo would profit to cater to the various playing styles preferred by various groups. It could even convince someone who otherwise wouldn't play 2e to instead give it a try.

Yes, yes, and yes - preach the gospel sister. One basket all eggs is not the approach best suited to getting fence sitters in the game.

When I hear occult, I think of witchcraft, evil monsters and horror. What does that have to do with a charismatic, music-themed support class? The flavor just seems off to me. But maybe I'm not clear on what Paizo means by occult.

The original "occult" bard was Orpheus, around which a mystery tradition developed in antiquity. Exploring this archetypal character, in the Jungian sense of the word, might help in explaining the connection. Pathagoreans and Neoplatonic philosophers also, amomg other things, developed systems of occult corrodpondence in which notes, tones, and music played a role. Since fantasy pulls heavily from past belief in supernaturalism, ideas like these could be informing the decision to make bardic magic occult.

It’s vague, but has been hinted at since Rule of Fear - the swaddled bundle is key - the cursed offspring of a paladin of Shelyn and Urgathoa, putting the “bastard” in Bastardhall. The coach seeks blood relatives, for an undefined purpose.

Add me to the waiting with bated breath for the GM guide crowd. As soon as we get options for ABP and, even more so, stripping level out, my group could easily be swayed to get aboard. Having official support for such options adds a veneer of respectability (and the implicit nod from above that the system can handle the change without exploding in an unexpected manner) that a GM just houseruling the changes lacks.

The summoner is, hands down, the most poorly designed class in the APG. I hope it acts as more of a negative example of what not to do in PF2, rather than a touchstone worthy of emulation.

It’s been months now since we played the playtest material, but, if memory serves, disrupting spell casting (1 point of damage per caster level is required) can really cut casters down to size. Being surrounded by foes intent on disrupting your casting is now a genuine threat to casters of all level.

Hmm ... if we choose to ignore that the scientific community, both natural and social, use the terminology to refer to the least reliable form of data, yes. Placed on a continuum, all data is not the same qualitatively. Anecdotal evidence is a term used in pejorative for a reason; it is based in comparison to other more reliable and less bias-prone forms of evidence. Otherwise, there would be no difference between peer-reviewed journals and the accounts of patrons from my favorite taproom.

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Especially if it's just a matter of wanting to be higher or lower power than the baseline, or more or fewer character choices per level, that's extremely easy compared to before, and something we're going to get to you guys pretty soon after the launch products.

I'm curious to see this one, for sure.

PF2 GM Guide hopefully.

Meh ... sometimes a picture is just a picture - the draw of fantasy is to escape all of the realworld tripe in which we're inundated. On one hand, hand wringing over realism in high fantasy is a drag and, on the other, there are much more effective means of promoting healthy body imaging than cartooning murder hobos.

Definitely missing Gargantuan creatures.

Granted, I’ve never been a fan of the dungeon dressing promos - I think they should be a separate line. I really hope the market’s appetite for them is waning. WizKids have so far clearly found them to be better sellers than big monsters.

Amen - add me to this list as well. The terrain looks great in a diorama, but most of it is a bit too fiddly for rigorous play. Hopefully, saturation will show over time that miniature couch and divan sets are poor substitutes for our neglected meaty beasties!

Ikos wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

Ikos wrote:

Yes, the numbers bloat in double-digit levels of the playtest ruleset currently borders on satire and can be squarely placed in the “worst parts of the 3x system” file.

And yet the funny thing is the numbers have been cut far back from PF1, which was cut far back from 3.5.

I'm going to assume you just want 5e bounded accuracy, even though that in no way fits for Pathfinder.

The baseline numbers are higher in PF2. This is not debatable. I’m assuming you did not play the second half of the playtest to claim otherwise. It is a consequence of adding +1 to everything. I don’t need things as flat as 5e; but would rather not have them higher than the previous edition.

Quite a few of the baseline numbers are not higher, not even close. My heavily optimized bard in Red Flags has +24 to Thievery (28 effective). That's not even close to what I can put together in PF1 in Disable Device - just a cursory glance tells me I can give that character a permanent +32, spending only 11k out of their allotted money instead of a 13th level item, and that's not even accounting for any other bonuses - just items and a 20 Dex. Trying even a tiny bit harder gets me +35 from adding Dex.

I recall a random cavalier who wasn't trying very hard at it had 41 AC at level 15.
You can easily hit an AC of 53 at level 20 in core PF1.

I can keep going if you like.

Yes, please keep citing individual cases as evidence disproving a general trend. By the double digit levels of play, the baseline numbers are higher in PF2.

Me: It's raining out. Here's the doppler. You: No, I've seen several people with dry shoes. Case closed.

BryonD wrote:

First "trained" is a mechanical term here. I'm not onboard with it as a good narrative description of wizards. If the game "works" (still a big if right now) then those kind of meta issues are insignificant.

I've been playing various versions of TTRPGs since the 80s and it should be no surprise that I also enjoy related media. You are not describing wizards I recognize.

Someone already mentioned Gandalf, right? Arguably the most famous Wizard in the English speaking world, doesn't tend to get hit a lot?

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Wizards use a lot of magic items and spells to defend themselves. And even then they AVOID getting into hand to hand combat. The is literally no narrative basis *at all* for the wizard getting better at dodging blows.

You mean other than the Wizard going "getting stabbed hurt! Maybe I'll ask the Monk for some tips and a sparring session during downtime so it doesn't happen the next time I try to cast a spell?"

The idea that there is no narrative basis for a Wizard training defense at all is frankly absurd. Unless the Wizard is literally going to stand still and allow himself to be hit every combat, he's going to be trying to dodge. If he's trying to dodge, he's going to inevitably get better at it because people improve with practice.

And that's excluding that your narrative is not the only one. Plenty of sources have hybrid Wizards who also have some martial skill to fall back on (aside from Gandalf), and they will certainly not want to get stabbed.

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I think if you were to go out to the public at large and describe this, you would get odd looks. It "makes sense" only to gamers who want to rationalize free boosts to their characters.

Classy.

If you asked the public at large to describe this, they wouldn't know what you are talking about, because this is too mechanically indepth for someone not familiar with gaming. Asking those who are, you're going to get lots of answers.

Besides, even in the playtest, a Wizard...

The catch with Gandalf is that if we're true to the source material in the triology, he's not so much a standard run-of-the-mill wizard as Gygax imagined, but rather an immortal demi-god masquerading as a human dabbler, not too disimiliar to the Weis' handling of a certain wandering mage in Kryn. They are exceptions not generalities.

Ikos wrote:

Yes, the numbers bloat in double-digit levels of the playtest ruleset currently borders on satire and can be squarely placed in the “worst parts of the 3x system” file.

And yet the funny thing is the numbers have been cut far back from PF1, which was cut far back from 3.5.

I'm going to assume you just want 5e bounded accuracy, even though that in no way fits for Pathfinder.

The baseline numbers are higher in PF2. This is not debatable. I’m assuming you did not play the second half of the playtest to claim otherwise. It is a consequence of adding +1 to everything. I don’t need things as flat as 5e; but would rather not have them higher than the previous edition.

Unicore wrote:

It seems like most of your arguments is that the Playtest is functioning too well at balancing the game, and that you enjoy a more broken and loose system.

Hmm we misunderstand eachother. Not once have I advocated for PF1. PF1 is a totally broken system because of number bloat, feat taxes/traps, class bloat, etc. I have moved onto 5e. What irks me is it’s like PF2 was created in a vacuum without 5e, and 5e fixed many of PF1 / 3.5 issues. Many. So many that almost all the complaints I see on these forums (dex to damage, magic item reliance / effects on monster stats, unnecessary number bloat, etc) have already been fixed by 5e. That’s not to say it’s perfect.

Although I feel there is elegance in its simplicity to character design, with much more emphasis on flavor and character background over mechanics, some don’t see enough options which I understand. That is where PF2 should’ve started. Taken all the leaps 5e made (number bloat reduction, magic item reliance reduction, emphasis on this is your world rather than we give you x,y, and z restrictions, etc) and added in more options within character classes and tactics.

Instead we have a system that retains the main problems of PF1 (number bloat) and in some cases expounds on them (class/skill/ancestry feat bloat) to the point where we have abilities that were available in PF1 now behind gates, monsters / npcs with no grounding in their formula, skill DC that fluctuates based on level, etc. Also there are fighting styles locked behind classes... all of this is regression not progression.

Again the problems currently facing PF2 with skills is it’s trying to maintain PF1 number bloat rather than reduce it. The same can be said of attack, ac, and saves.

Yes, the numbers bloat in double-digit levels of the playtest ruleset currently borders on satire and can be squarely placed in the “worst parts of the 3x system” file.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like fractional math is a non-starter for the actual product (though it's fine for a house rule) since one of the reasons we added +Level to begin with was that it was a lot easier and cleaner than +Level to some things +3Level/4 to others, +Level/2 to some things, and +Level/3 to those other things.

Like are people really going to enjoy figuring out which numbers to increment when they level up, instead of just incrementing all of them?

They will look it up in a table, PROFICENCY BONUS BY LEVEL. The character sheet will have a line to record all the five kinds of proficiency bonus by rank, and then the player will use that line to alter individual skill entries. Erasing and changing some skill bonus numbers will be physically easier than changing them all.

The Pathfinder Playtest already has plenty of similar tables. My wizard leveled up to 7th level. Let me check TABLE 3–21: WIZARD ADVANCEMENT on page 136. He gets 4th-level spells, general feat, skill increase. Let me check TABLE 3–22: WIZARD SPELLS PER DAY. He can cast 2 4th-level spells a day. Let me check TABLE 5–1: GENERAL FEATS on page 160-162. ...

Pathfinder 1st Edition has full, 3/4, and 1/2 progressions for BAB, 1/2 and 1/3 progression for saving throws, 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/3 minus 4 progression for spell levels, 1/4 progression for attribute boosts and several class features, 1/5 progression for multiple attacks by BAB. Those were not showstoppers for that edition.

Agreed, I’ve encountered zero players over the better half of two decades who found these 3x tables outlining fractional advancement the least bit disconcerting. A finger and an eye are all that is required. The drive to do away with them altogether is conceptual - the tidiness of +1/ level to everything in the Playtest looks great when presented as a unifying system; too bad its homogenizing influence makes play feel distinctly different from what preceded it.

Not to be a complete debbie downer by pointing out the hard facts, but can we try and restrict ourselves to suggestions that are...oh, I don't know...remotely realistic?

The PF2E team has maybe a few months at most to implement changes, bulk out the rules with all the stuff they left out of the playtest, and have a finished product ready to go to layout/copyfitting (or whatever the procedure is). They don't have time to run a playtest, and they don't have a very good track record of throwing out revolutionary new systems on a time crunch that work well right off the bat (see: this playtest). Any fixes need to be reasonably straight forward, they need to be very easy to test or simple enough that their effects can be checked by number crunching alone, and they need to slide into the existing system with minimal changes to any surrounding rules components.

Stuff like "leave +level modifier off skills, except when defending against combat actions by other creatures" is within the bounds of reason. Stuff like "reengineer the game to be 10 levels with a partial levelling system" or "totally strip out level scaling and then reengineer entire swarthes of the bestiary so that PCs aren't blown out by the high level special abilities of things that they should be able to otherwise take" is not.

Inclusion of an optional rule to accomodate parts of their base who are balking at the bloat is both reasonable and realistic, taking likely no more than a few pages of text. They've committed far more resources in the past to subsystems nobody uses. In this case, people are literally asking for it, even if not a majority.

Fractional math is the problem??

Who is in the target group? 1st grade of elementary school students?

And how often do you change stuff on character sheet? do you level up 2 or 3 times per session?

I really hope that they will give us optional rules in Core without +1/lvl treadmill.

I do not want skill ranks back like in 1stEd, and kind of like the intrained/expert/master/etc... system. but it could go with more levels(ranks)

I would got form 0(untrained) to +7(max) with no +1/lvl "free" bonus.

That way when you spend resource(class based, ancestry based, bonus feats, general feats) you increase skill bonus by +1

+2 max at 1st level(2 trainings used)

+3 at 3rd lvl

+4 at 7th

+5 at 11th

+6 at 15th

+7 at 19th

similar can be used for attacks, AC, spells, saves, etc...

Agreed, inclusion of an optional rule in the core rule, not the folowing year's hardback, allowing to easily deflate the math will benefit the 2nd ed. I cannot speak for everyone, but it will determine whether or not it played in the circles I've been running. Broadest appeal early should be the goal.

Is rolling 1d20+15 much harder than rolling 1d20+5? Cumbersome? Inaccessible?

[QUOTE/]

I've been quite clear here - yes, yes, and yes. Dealing with ACs of 28 and save DCs of 25 at level 9 is in fact (for some, beleive it or not, deride it or not) all of those things.

Gotcha - thanks!

The problem our table encountered with +1/level was that the math necessary for a GM to run a game past 10th level becomes increasingly cumbersome. From a group that has been extremely pro PF2, but now is seriously having trouble finding anyone willing to referee high level play, I can reasonably say that the upper half of the game will be inaccessible to many casual gamers. The upper tier of play may be more stable now, but it is just as unpleasant to manage as it has always been. Lowering the progression would help open up more of the game.

Hey guys, I can no longer edit previous posts, making it impossible to repair butchered English typed on the run.

Switch the word “simplified” with “consistent” and I agree. Simplified math implies to many that your are doing less of it in high-level PF2 than PF1, which is not simply not the case.

Steve Geddes wrote:

heretic wrote:

In all candour I find it almost impossible to be receptive to anyone who includes a “ if you don’t like this then this game isn’t for you etc.”.

Especially during a playtest where Paizo have said that everything is potentially up for change and they want to hear about what we do and don’t like. It’s premature to declare “this game isn’t for you”.

I don’t like +1/level more broadly than just this. However, the real problem for me is the way it applies to untrained skills my character has never attempted. I figure that distinction is worth bringing up to the design team.

The fans of +1/level may not be able to think of a way to reconcile the system as it currently stands with what I’m looking for. They may also think the cohort of people who share my opinion is negligible and safely addressed via “just overrule your PC’s stats or go find another game”.

I’m not really speaking to them. I’m addressing my concerns to the design team who are both more informed as to the state of the market and more experienced at crafting RPG subsystems. Maybe it will help improve the game or maybe not. It doesn’t hurt to put it forth during an open playtest (nor should it be shutdown by people who like the system as is - they can explain what they like without arguing over whether what I like “makes sense” or is “crazy”).

In the end it's about numbers and majorities. You and your cohorts dislike +1/level, there might be legions (including me) who like +1/level.

As you said, we all lack the knowledge of the true numbers supporting each approach. It might as well be that what appears to be cohorts shows to be the tiniest minorities as people content with a rule rather tend not to post in forums.

There’s another overlooked wrinkle here, an Achilles Heel of sorts in the playtest as a whole. It’s not just about the current Pathfinder enthusiasts and whether or not a majority agrees one way or another. The need for a new edition has just as much, if not more, to do with attracting new fans. Otherwise, why even make the effort to reform when so many in the current flock are already happy and quite resistant to change. An Unchained 2 would probably be warmly received by current fans.

The question that also needs to be asked is: which one of these approaches, (+1/level and bloated numbers) or something approximating at least the previous editions scaling, has the more likelihood to contribute to the edition’s positive reception in the gaming climate of the 2020’s. Does the +1/level dimension of the game make it enjoyable in a more general sense, outside of our current Pathfinder bubble? If so, why? If not,why not?

Mathmuse wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Shinigami02 wrote:

The bonus does at least theoretically equate to a more powerful being, because while a level-appropriate enemy will have the same bonuses and thus be on the same power level (how well balanced that power level is is its own debate that is already raging, so setting that aside for the moment) other creatures that were once a threat now... aren't, really.

Yes, +Level is good at tightening up threat ranges, and, also, 5th Ed may have gone a bit too far with the BA thing.

Why do some people want the threat range tightened up?

If people want to fight new kinds of monsters, ones more powerful than before, won't a fast experience point progression work just as well? Instead of 1,000 xp to the next level, make the threshold 500 xp.

I want a wider threat range. If the party has been fighting individual orc bandits at 1st level, and well-buffed orc veterans at 3rd level, and small orc patrols at 5th level, and warbands of orcs led by orcish champions at 7th level, and all around saving their small town from the orc menace, I have trouble saying, "You reached 9th level, so you will never see an orc again. The orcish champions are no longer a threat to you, not one, two, nor four of them, so those encounters are over."

Individual Orc Bandits > Orc Veterans/Orc Patrols > Orcish Warbands > Orcish Champions is a good progression though, and exactly the kind of thing I was mentioning with improving the orcs. But here's the thing, that isn't what would be happening with the change, particularly the Orcish Patrols or Warbands... because those individual Bandits from level 1 are still going to be potentially lethal to you at level 9. Sure they die in less hits than the Champion you're fighting now, but they're probably just about as hard to hit and hit likely just as easily. A patrol might well lead to a TPK, and a Warband, well, you might as well just run because you're going to need an army not an adventuring party....

That's assuming for some reason you're in the habit of fighting armies of anything. PF1 made the troop template for that very reason - to make large groups of mooks perform as genuine threats, mostly because somebody thought it would be more interesting if they did. There's diminishing returns to the momentary glow of being invincible. It gets old pretty quickly.

The data is just coming in on higher level play now. Gauging satisfaction on that front may be central as that’s when the inflation becomes increasingly obvious. I’m also curious what else is tied to the +1/level mechanic that’s not so obvious with a passing glance or a few sessions at the table, meaning would it’s exclusion cause a meltdown somewhere that we have not anticipated?

I've never understood why there are so many numerophobes in the world. In particular I don't understand why higher numbers are a problem. Is it just because they're higher?

The same could be said of people who don’t find the math unpleasant by those who do. Not all that profound; we’ll chalk it up to the mysteries of the universe.

For me, it really boils down to wanting a pastime (after 60 plus hours of work at a salary position) to feel like a relaxing hobby rather than just another spreadsheet. The sentiment is shared by most of the people who left PF1 for 5e in droves a few years back.

Yes, the bounded accuracy in 5e is accomplished by higher hit points, not higher math. The higher hit points are already there in PF2 as is the high damage. The fact that the math in PF2 scales higher faster than PF1 is my concern, not that math exists in the game. Higher level play in PF1 was unattractive for many reasons, one of them being that it became larded with higher numbers to the enjoyment of few.

Thanks, I didn’t think +1/level was an issue until looking at it square in the eye at the table yesterday. Just like higher level play in PF1, the more math inclined in chapter 4 playtest seemed to have little difficulty while the other half of the table’s brows immediately furrowed as they sought to keep pace. Removing it could only benefit the system in terms of ease of play and accessibility to new players.

Greg.Everham wrote:

For better or worse, +1/level is sorta here to stay, even if it is ultimately the biggest problem with PF2.

Excellent post, but the good news is, it's dead simple to omit, or dial up or down.

Outside the playtest, I have experimented with +1/4 level, +1/2 level, +2 x level, and complete removal. I prefer complete removal. Opens up the threat range of monsters, less auto-crits and only hitting on a natural 20, less number inflation.
Seems intentional, and they have talked about a mechanical variant book (that's how we got the new Action Economy), could easily mention omission of +Level for a different feel. I wish 5th Ed would release a book of mechanical variants (that XGtE turned out to be a guide to not much at all...).

Has anyone run an actual stat breakdown regarding stripping +1/level out of PF2? The math becomes onerous in the playtest at much lower levels than PF1, to the point in which running chapter 4 in Doomsday felt like running a 13th to 14th level game of PF1. The numbers scale high too quickly for easy enjoyment. Staving off the math porn for as long as possible sounds increasingly like the right course for me. That, or either not GMing past level 9.

Demoralize is a pretty dirty, and an overly effective use of a single action. It is basically an Attack which doesn't suffer MAP, and if used correctly can cost the target multiple rounds.

For example; during a boss fight with a Weak Ghost Commoner (so lvl 3 and -2 to all published statistics) a Critical Success chased my group's melee-Fighter out of a small crypt, screaming like a B-movie victim. That one action cost her both the round she spent fleeing and the round it took her to return.

Two rounds without worrying about a melee or short range combatant's contribution is far too strong a benefit for a check that doesn't have the Attack Trait. So I say, odd as it feels, Demoralize should be an Attack, and thus suffer MAP.

Yes, the fleeing effect from a critical demoralize success needs adjusting. It is the go-to skill exploit that takes more away from the game than it adds. Add the attack trait to demoralize or change the critical effect.

Agreed - demoralize is exploitable and leads to all sorts of bizarreness at the table. At the very least, adding language specifying that GMs have substantial discretion to determine when the demoralize action is a valid option, or the ability to apply significant conditional modifiers to raise DCs in situations in which a fearful enemy makes very little sense, would be helpful. Also, I suspect the kinds of enemies capable of experiencing such sudden bouts of fear may require additional refinement.

While we're here, let's keep going down this recursive rabbit hole to nowhere and agree that making pointless arguments about not wanting others to make pointless arguments is equally (and obviously, don't forget) without merit.

Ikos wrote:

Here’s were we need to highlight the difference between assumption and fact. We do not know how many people are walking away. We do know that many people who first had reservations about the system, still have those reservations, and unhappy people tend to make more noise than those who are happy. If your assumptions are correct, the game will radically change before it goes to print. You and I may consider ourselves authorities, being old enough to remember 4e or even D&D 2e, but relative to the people navigating his venture, we have very little skin in the game. It’s our hobby; it’s their careers and they’ve got people who were actually on the inside of the 4e fiasco. Controlling the narrative by circulating what has now become a tired trope on these boards does not make it neccesarily true. The proof will be in the pudding, not in feelings, angry board postings, or analogous anecdotes.

As an authority old enough to recall 4E, I'm sure you also recall that they also assured us that voices on the internet were not reflective of the community as a whole.

It turned out that a lot of unhappy people were not even bothering to comment.

We were also assured that us armchair experts should be confident that the professionals behind the design know better and would never make an error like this.

We don't know numbers. But it is not an assumption that the *tone* and patterns of debate are exactly repeating what we saw before.

A few people saying something doesn't make it true. I don't dispute that. Of course, that cuts both ways.

But the patterns are strongly consistent.

Let me asking you bluntly: Are SOME people walking away? Do you have any evidence that it is NOT a significant portion? Do you have ANY answer for how to salvage them?

Calling something a "tired trope" doesn't make it an accurate evaluation. And the steady trend, online and offline, in this assessment is alarming, while the presence of "you don't know" as a substitute for equally matter of...

Assumptions stated as fact without evidence are still anecdotes, nonetheless. They become tired tropes when one insists continually they are undeniably reflective of truth.

It is interesting how the debates always migrate.

The OP made very valid concerns about things feeling mathematically the same, even when coming from very different starting points.
The "4e feel" and antithesis of the 1E feel were noted.

These are serious and real issues which are fundamental to the mechanical chassis of the system. And, steadily, more and more people are running into it.

.....

Sunk cost fallacies and egos aside, the long run is what counts.
How do you stop the steady stream of people walking away?
That is a more important questions than "how do I tweak the game all those other people are walking away from?".

Here’s were we need to highlight the difference between assumption and fact. We do not know how many people are walking away. We do know that many people who first had reservations about the system, still have those reservations, and unhappy people tend to make more noise than those who are happy. If your assumptions are correct, the game will radically change before it goes to print. You and I may consider ourselves authorities, being old enough to remember 4e or even D&D 2e, but relative to the people navigating his venture, we have very little skin in the game. It’s our hobby; it’s their careers and they’ve got people who were actually on the inside of the 4e fiasco. Controlling the narrative by circulating what has now become a tired trope on these boards does not make it neccesarily true. The proof will be in the pudding, not in feelings, angry board postings, or analogous anecdotes.

Dire Ursus wrote:

MerlinCross wrote:

Step 1) Pick Rogue
Step 2) Pick up Bow.

I think I made an Archer Rogue...

well no you didn't because now you're taking a -4 penalty to firing into melee, and your BAB isn't very good. Also you can't sneak attack since it's very hard to make people flat footed.

It's like putting a Bow on a Paladin doesn't instantly make them a Bow Paladin then huh?

Unless it doesn't work both ways. And if it does, why can't I instantly become a Bow Rogue with just a bow, it's just a bow right?

Archery in both systems is JUST giving a class a bow right?

BRB, Making Bow Sorcerer in both systems. Totally works.

From the playtests I've participated in, archery actually does lend itself to a wider variety of characters because you no longer need multiple feats just to make it viable in combat, everyone gets the same bonus to attack, and magic weapons add extra damage dice. The level of specialization required to be tied to that one combat style does not require the same tax. Giving any character a bow actually does make them an archer in a way not possible formerly because the bow tree in PF2 is nonexistent.

it's kind of funny that we get another thread of someone voicing their complaints on something, and the first reply is "well why are you even here then?"

That question is actually at the crux of the matter. If someone has already decided that the playtest is not enjoyable, that they’ve lost all confidence in the developers, and that they’ve aired their concerns multiple times, but feel absolutely ignored, it seems quite natural to wonder, if one truly believes those things, why the continued dramatics? Either the issue is as dire as described (and pointless) or one of those variables is not entirely the case.

I think you're confusing lack of trust with lack of good faith. The latter infers dishonesty while the former means you have reservations regarding the designer’s choices. If the playtest is causing this level of personal angst and you truly believe the designers are actively out to defraud their customers, it actually might be healthiest to step away.

Well technically they *can* change the fundamentals of the system during the playtest, but I'm worried that people who gave them money to get the playtest book believing it would be used for about 1 year wouldn't be very happy to learn that it's no longer the case

I can't speak for everyone who bought the book, but those I know wished the book would have been loose leaf rather than bound (so that entire pages could be replaced), realizing at purchase that the word "playtest" meant that the sytem was in flux.

Well....I think we really won't know anything until a year or two after the game is released (especially since I do expect a lot more revision).

I think the important thing to consider is that this forum probably isn't a representative cross section of the game buying public. Hell, forums in generally are pretty much dying off, as discussion spaces have moved into sites like facebook and Reddit.

There was basically NO POSSIBLE WAY a new edition could go forward without alienating some existing set of Pathfinder players. We just don't know how significant that set is.

Yes, the boards attract a very specific type of player, hardcore fans deeply attached, deeply entrenched, and possessing the free time to post with regularity. Of the players in both my playtest groups, only two out of the nine of us meet that criteria, including myself. The others either don’t care what is said here, find the boards disruptive to healthy living, or lack time to post given their other responsibilities. Personally, because of these same reasons, I post with relative scarcity, despite being a lifestyle gamer with thousands of dollars sunk into the hobby.

Sorting out which of these issues are Doomsday Dawn specific (a purposeful meatgrinder meant to produce data) and which are systemic to the rule set is important. The chapters being primarily a stress test shapes the experience. The content needed an explicit warning that, like any hazardous test site, things sometimes blow up and people leave unhappy with the results.

Exploration mode is suppose to be like the non-combat skill challenges of 4th ed. Unfortunately none of the lessons learned during that fiasco seem to have stuck.

Having used both, they are not alike. 4e relied on specific events followed by a series of required successes before failures. Exploration mode is a generalized approach to grinding through terrain, without the same cinematic focus on singular events and no need for tracking multiple successes before failure. Without reaching, one could say they share superfluousness. Yet, in specific design, they only share the similarity of requiring die rolls in response to the environment outside of combat. For the record, I’m not a big fan of either.

To be frankly, almost all this sub-systems Paizo put out over the years in the AP (ship combat on S&S, Rebelion rules on Hell's Rebels, Caravans on Jade Regent) doesn't work and make the game less fun.

Yes, many of them were notably unpleasant or flawed. The caravan and mass battle rules were particularly devoid of fun for our group. We did, however, enjoy the rebellion mechanic. If the GM takes the time to weave it tightly into the narrative, it plays quite well.

I dont know, experience suggests it is decidedly a good idea to take out the garbage,and store things in their proper containers, otherwise the kitchen starts to stink.

I am very sorry to write this, but it's the truth.

Pathfinder 2.0 is trying to keep up with the success of D&D 5e, but it's failing very badly.

I am 43 years old and i can say that i pretty much played all the big Rpgs.

We stopped playing the Playtest after chapter 2, because it wasn't any fun to play at all.

We had all different kinds of players involved, from 17 year olds to 50+, from people that never played before to veterans of two dozen systems and everyone agreed: Pathfinder 1.0 & Starfinder are great, the Pathfinder Playtest isn't.

Your experiences are far from universal. Of the two playtest groups I've participated in (12 4-hour sessions so far), I've watched curmudgeons dead set against a new edition transform into outright fans. Of the nine of us in total, ages 30 to 60, many have been gaming since the red box and we see room for improvement, but are pleased to have a chassis not plagued so heavily with the problems we've been enduring, or house ruling, for the past two decades. As far as solid foundations to build on go, PF2 is proving capable.

I suspect stamina is a dead horse. Time to get off. There's no indication it will be adopted. In fact, Jason clearly stated otherwise. We used Treat Wound last night at the table. Players felt it was basically the free equivalent of the old CLW spam, just time sensitive. There was not a clear consensus on whether it was a good thing from the point of realism, but all agreed it did kill the 15 min adventuring day and make cleric-less parties more viable.

shroudb wrote:

Don;t know how you playtested, but in all our playtests so far, the melee classes were pummeled much more than the ragned classes.

Here's how I playtested: I went after the casters instead of leaving them do their own thing from a safe distance.

Monsters walked by melee characters, who no longer had AoO to try and stop them, and got to the casters in 1 Stride, most of the time.
Pathfinder's rooms and dungeons are notoriously small and cramped areas. Unless you're playing Kingmaker, you usually won't be standing 2 Strides away from your enemies.

It doesn't take more than 2-3 attacks to put heavy pressure on a low HP spellcaster and they subsequently were forced into either:
1/ Retreat and use healing potions (no Cleric in the party)
2/ Try to keep fighting and die

The melee characters ended up without buff spells because the casters were too busy keeping themselves alive. The Wizard did have Acid Arrow prepared and quickly made his choice when it came to using this spell or picking up a potion and drinking it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the foes kept attacking the melee characters. I needed just one monster to disrupt the casting "backline".
The rest of them could happily focus on taking down the "frontline".

If you've been playtesting by focusing on melee characters only and letting casters do their things in the back without much fear of having monsters get in their face, then I get why you think that "ranged is safe".

This sounds like things are working as intended, reminding me of the the first two editions of D&D rather than the surreal conga-line combats of 3x. Enemies breaching a shield wall or exploiting an opening cause havoc.