I can share what convinced me: the setting is much more considered now thanks to the diversity of staff, without losing any of the old Pathfinder theme park fun. You couldn’t pay me to engage with the Darkest Africa “cannibals and headhunters everywhere” 1e approach to the Mwangi, while the 2e book on it is one of the finest setting supplements in the d20 sphere.
The old Dragon Empires books have aged like milk in places. I’m excited to see how a bunch of awesome Asian talent tackles Tian Xia for 2e soon.
Definitely, I had no desire to visit Mgwani before beyond, I'm pretty sure it's the last place the Tarrasque was seen? And there was a floating city there once? Is there an adventure path that explores those ruins that would be awesome.
But in 2e: that magic school AP looks really, really fun. I'm not even a Harry Potter fan.
1: More freedom. There are less restrictions on things compared to 1e
Did you know you can play a lawful barbarian to a chaotic monk? While limiting alignment makes sense on champions it doesn’t make any sense at all for monks and barbarians. The alignment restrictions for monk and barbarians were unneeded, limited flavor and character, and overall just plain stupid. A barbarian chieftain who is an honorable warrior would be lawful good yet 1e doesn’t allow that. A young monk who is energetic and seeks to make themselves stronger and is free spirited would be chaotic… yet 1e doesn’t let you play a chaotic monk. 1e placing alignment restrictions on these classes alone is why I will never play 1e. Why can’t I reflavor monk to be a chaotic neutral drunken tavern brawler?
2: Racial/Ancestry ability scores
Thanks to a recent errata, any ancestry and class combo can work. Instead of being forced to take +str +Wis +free -int on lizardfolk you can instead choose free free like a human. Meaning you can play as a divination wizard iruxi who is constellation and star divination themed with “ancestry” abilities being int and con
This way, you can play lots of character concepts without being unfairly put at a disadvantage. I have an iruxi Eldritch trickster (wizard) who’s backstory involves not being allowed into magic schools because everyone thought she was less intelligent due to her ancestry, when in reality she is very very intelligent (16 int), leading to her stealing books from magic schools and teaching herself. This wouldn’t be possible if I was forced to take that intelligence flaw.
3: more people playing it
While there are, unfortunately, more 1e westmarches than 2e ones, overall people are playing 2e more and you’ll be more likely to find games online to play for 2e, especially with the recent surge of people coming over from 5e
Yeah I'm sorta getting a lot of "The good more than makes up for the bad." vibes.
As I said above, I *know* I'm being pedantic. I dunno, I guess I just wanted some of my complaints to be validated and to be told "you're not wrong; but just play it." which I think largely I have been.
Maybe you're right Deriven and I just need to make 20 characters over 10 years and it'll seem like nothing. Sounds silly saying that out loud of course it will be.
1) Someone else posted a character generator that had images of these class specific sheets but no way to download blank ones without actually going through the process of building one it looked like. Do you happen to have a link? I've looked through some others and none really "fit" me.
2) Ohh Deep Backgrounds is what I want. Pity that's not default because it's a lot less to dig through but in an ABC kind of way it's a hand-holdy way to do it which you would think helps new players. Personally I literally had a player break down and say "we'll have to come back to this I need to read all of these and agonize over this decision for a week."
I'm not kidding.
3) Yeah I didn't love the weights to the point-buy either and I don't mind getting +2 to "this and that" but unless you're assigning the boosts as you go it was hard to track as a newb. Like if you're targeting a certain stat distribution it's best to wait until the end to assign anything and then its "I get a free boost from this, and this, or was it this? And this gives me a free boost but only to X or Y and am I missing one?" which is way harder than just getting ancestral boosts and boost to your classes main stat and then "here are an extra X boosts to put wherever, don't go over (16? 18? whatever is normal).
Don't get me wrong I *love* rolling stats but it's sweet and sour so we usually take the "standard array" option where they give you the exact stats and you assign them and then apply racial bonuses.
4) It seems I need more table experience at mid-levels to judge fairly.
5) What was wrong with "Use magic device" from PF1?
6) Yeah, I get it from a mechanical viewpoint. Feels silly still.
7) Yeah but if you had choses to attempt to be less helpful you would have healed them. That doesn't make sense. Your roll should determine how well you help them you shouldn't have this all or nothing thing it's got going. Still the best implementation of non-magical healing in an RPG to date, and I want wounds to be impactful not something you shrug off. That's a hard mark to hit, but I don't think Paizo hit it in this case.
(8-10 I've discussed with others, and like, I get it - just don't love it)
11) In the case of casters, your bonus was 1/2 your level plus your stat. Now it's your full level, plus your stat, and plus your prof beyond that. This is substantially more, less "more" for the "tanks" but still more.
12) I didn't explicitly say it, but I do include ancestry feats in with this point. I like the concept but I would really prefer to let my ancestry stuff be set and forget. Or have general feats I could use for skill feats or extra ancestry feats, which, in PF1 would be one of these two things every 3 levels. I've seen some others talk about how much bigger the feat list is in PF1 especially after 10 years of content. But PF2 will get there eventually too if you continue to let every player use every option from every book. And PF1 was a lot more "get +2 to this thing" and less "Here's a new thing you can do in this very specific circumstance" which is more interesting sure, but harder to pick between.
13) That's a fair take, but our table rarely dives that far away from Core/Adv/ultimate magic it's really not all that many classes and archetypes to go through.
15) Honestly yeah. I feel like this combat system is SO crunchy (in the good way) that you can get away with only having half a dozen options at level 20 combined with a potentially infinite number of circumstances. The simple act of kicking over a table (admittedly a low level example) is enough to make your action interesting and add a lot of enjoyment to your next attack based on any number of effects that could create - candles lighting a tapestry on fire, drinks splashing on your enemies just enough for even like -1 to their AC. A lot less effective than these new actions you're getting but more flavorful to begin with. This along with the skill feats, a lot of it could just be handled with the fact that you can roll up to a 50 on any of your main skills by the end. You don't need a feat to run across the surface of water for a square or two you rolled a FIFTY whatever you did with that was a feat by the definition of the word if not by definition of the game term.
On your last note, you're not wrong. 5e is far too simple. I wanted PF1 but balanced and streamlined got PF1 but balanced and *un*streamlined. I'm just disappointed is all and sad about it because I'm such a Paizo fan. And I'm not *totally* against using your cell phone to look up a thing real quick but it's the seeming *requirement* to use it in all aspects of the game. Most people tell me "this isn't an issue if you use X character creator" and "This isn't an issue if you use Foundry" and like I said, I kinda do think its neat we're able to have this crunchy a game because we have such easy to use tech these days. But when I DM I like to describe things with my hands a lot, I'll stand up and demonstrate and I guess I'm showing my age in that I don't want to *rely* on the tech.
I really appreciate you and everyone taking the time to respond to my wall of text of admittedly pedantic complaints!
Fighter is one class which, in particular is defined by the number of extra feats and static bonuses it gets. Hardly a fair comparison.
Take the Monk, which is rather feature heavy, there are no dead levels but there are plenty of levels where you get a thing without having to flip through a ton of choices you need to make.
You still haven't answered my question. Perhaps Fighter isn't the right class to ask about. But I am not sure Monk is either.
How about Rogue, where every other level you need to pick one of these and every third level you need to pick one of these.
And yet somehow you think that PF2 is the bloated one...
Every other and every third is less than every level there is something and a lot of it is superfluous. And a Rogue at level 18 is going to have something like a +23 to hit? Does that sound about right? Whereas in 2e it's going to be something more like 34? I've seen people get up to +20 at level 5 in 2e (under very specific circumstances, admittedly).
@Darksol That is extremely thorough, I was expecting most to just pick at 4 or 5 of them at their leisure. Most of what you said I can't argue with, except that I still wish I didn't have to dig through all the crunch a lot of the time. PF1 was crunchy, this is a jawbreaker.
On the topic of Cantrip vs Shortbow you it should also be noted that the archer is going to be getting 1d6/8 precision damage probably as well.
And Focus spells are just the worst. One of my players is a Sorcerer and they would have like 4 different kinds of magic. You got your spell slots, and they don't deal more damage per level unless you upcast them but that is essentially no different than learning a new spell. Except there are also signature spells, those can always upcast even if you don't learn it at that slot. And then you've got cantrips, those you can cast and they don't take a slot and they're always upcast to the highest you qualify for. And then there's Focus spells, which also don't take spell slots but you also can't cast them all the time you cast them with Focus points which come back once per rest but only if you've used one since your last rest which is kindof like you have ONE focus point that always gets used first and it comes back when you rest and you have these focus points which you can fall back on if you used your regening one but those don't come back when you rest.
That's a lot. Even if a some of that is from the added complication of the Sorcerer over the wizard who wouldn't need to deal with the Signature spell portion - Focus spells are complex to explain. They're fine in practice I suppose, but I feel like I'd want to color code them on my character sheet (this one comes back) haha.
In 1e, he's an elemental sorcerer and its "here are your spell slots, here are your infinite use spells, and here is your non-spell elemental blast you can use 7 times a day" That's a lot simpler. Even simpler when you consider that the cantrips are all so worthless in combat you may as well not learn them, but that's hardly a point in 1e's favor.
Most of your responses are "Pathbuilder2e" which is making my point for me.
I don't like that the game is so complex that you need external apps to play it.
Things like Backgrounds contribute to this, yes, they're free but they do COST something. They cost the energy it takes to go through them when previously, PF1 lets you put your stats where you want and skills where you want and then just say where you learned those things to come up with your background.
You can poke fun that I didn't listen to my math teacher about needing to use math but the point stands that I need a calculator to play this and don't want to, and don't so much in PF1.
All of this just makes me think that you haven't actually played PF1.
In PF1:
What is the normal attack bonus of a Fighter at level 18?
How many general feats do they have? How many are available?
How many combat feats do they have? How many are available?
Ven wrote:
I don't want the rogue twiddling their thumbs obviously. But I want them to shine as bright with *martial* prowess not magical.
Well sure, you could take things like Minor Magic and Loaner Spell. But Rogue also could stick to things like Bullseye and Stay Down if you don't want something that feels magical.
Fighter is one class which, in particular is defined by the number of extra feats and static bonuses it gets. Hardly a fair comparison.
Take the Monk, which is rather feature heavy, there are no dead levels but there are plenty of levels where you get a thing without having to flip through a ton of choices you need to make.
You want to play a fighter you get fighter but not every class does that.
"If you don't want your martial to be magical don't take the magic-like options" is fair. I think I'm just sour about 4e on that one.
so yes, every player needs a rulebook - digital or otherwise.
I'm not understanding your point. Why can't your players share the PF2 rulebook just like they share the PF1 rulebook?
I think you're saying that PF2 is so much more complicated than PF2 that your players can't understand their character's attributes without a rulebook handy to consult before every round?
Yeah that's pretty much what I'm saying.
Double sided knife that - I don't want "Vital Strike" or "Power attack" to be the only thing a martial can do, but PF2 feels like they have a *lot* and we may not be memorizing every attack - we certainly couldn't in 4th edition. You find it easy to track in PF2 once you get used to it?
We've been playing PF1 for over a decade now.
Most of your responses are "Pathbuilder2e" which is making my point for me.
I don't like that the game is so complex that you need external apps to play it.
Things like Backgrounds contribute to this, yes, they're free but they do COST something. They cost the energy it takes to go through them when previously, PF1 lets you put your stats where you want and skills where you want and then just say where you learned those things to come up with your background.
You can poke fun that I didn't listen to my math teacher about needing to use math but the point stands that I need a calculator to play this and don't want to, and don't so much in PF1.
I don't want the rogue twiddling their thumbs obviously. But I want them to shine as bright with *martial* prowess not magical.
My complaints with PF1 is the disparity between Martials and Casters, but my complaints about PF2 are piling up.
If you don't want people to have to buy a copy of the rulebook, and you don't have access to the internet while you're playing, then it's going to be very difficult for both the GM and the players to follow the rules.
My point exactly.
We don't need more than 1 rulebook at our PF1 table because every character doesn't have an expansive list of abilities with very specific mechanics for each, so yes, every player needs a rulebook - digital or otherwise.
Yeah it kinda feels like you get a lot more juice for less squeeze in PF1.
I DM so I'd look forward to the tight encounter balance I keep hearing about, but not all my players are as nerdy as I am so I have to get involved with character building a lot. It's a lot to go through and feels like "Yeah none of this matters" so its actually really hard to offer meaningful advice. (we made characters and played 1 or 2 sessions last year)
I don't think I can convince you that all of those things aren't issues but I can mention a couple of positive points and see if they sway you.
1) Balance.
The game is objectively more balanced than previous D20 fantasy games even if some classes are objectively a bit weak and some of the post-core classes are fiddly for no real gain in power compared to just being a fighter.
2) Tactical combat.
The balance and 3-action system makes for combats that aren't move-strike, full-attack, full-attack, victory and spells can't just end fights before they've even begun.
3) Ease of GMing.
The above means that the CR system actually works and that can make encounter design far easier for the GM which means less work and fewer campaigns that end due to GM burn-out.
All extremely good points.
I just wish we could have that without the whole thing being bloated and superfluous.
2) What's wrong with it is that it makes character creation more difficult. I get the impression they were going for the opposite effect but that's the effect it has for me.
4) Reliance on technology at the table is a barrier for entry to me.
5) I understand not giving people access my gripe is entirely based on not liking it's name.
7) One hour immunity isn't the issue so much as attempting to heal at a more competent skill level results in an increased chance to heal anything at all.
11) You described my problem with it. Adding your full level to *everything* and then +8 and then bonuses leads to adding huge numbers for everything. Plus it's like, "well I leveled up again time to erase literally every number on my character sheet."
I've been reading and rereading the rules to 2e for years now. Every so often I start watching a ton of 2e content creators on YouTube and generally I'm of the opinion that its probably the most well designed system to date, but I have a growing list of oddities, barriers to entry, or general silliness that make me hesitate.
I'd love feedback on any or all of the following issues:
1) Default character sheet is baaaaad.
2) Backgrounds are neat but just seem "extra" and unnecessary. Just get a stat boost and skill+lore of your choice. They're so unimportant why make me go through a list of "none of this is what I want"
3) Stat generation is neat, but hard to track in practice. I'd rather take the "standard array"
4) Every player needs a rulebook. Real DnD 4e energy on this one.
5) Trick Magic Item is a silly name, it's like your class doesn't actually let you know how to activate an item, the item just has a rule against letting you use it unless you pull a fast one on it.
6) Stronger enemies are more vulnerable to damage than weaker ones. Makes some sense mechanically, the vulnerability needs to scale with attacks at their challenge level to stay relevant, but seriously big bag dragon is so weak to cold that 3 damage becomes almost 30? That's SOME vulnerability.
7) I thought we were tryna go away from Save or Suck mechanics in modern TT? Why would Treat Wounds be save or suck? I got stuck by a goblin so a trained medic stitched me up. I got stabbed by two goblins and an master medic was like "I may have doubled the roll of the last medic but I'm sorry, I've completely forgotten how medicine works and can offer you no benefit. Like I get that you're trying to heal twice as much in the same amount of time but a medic isn't going to go "I can either try to stitch one of these stab wounds in 10 minutes, or try to rush through 2 in the same time." They're going to go "I have 10 minutes, lets see how many of these stab wounds I can sew." No fail forward at all?
8) Direct Damage cantrips are just terrible early on. Sure better than 1d3 ray of frost from 3.5 but still.
9) Cantrips quickly become more powerful than 1st level spells in terms of blasters. What are those slots for after that?
10) Focus spells add a needless layer of complexity and could have been wrapped into cantrip rules.
11) Math is far too high. Everybody is full base and also gets up to +8 beyond that before bonuses. It feels like 2e was made with VTTs that roll everything for you as the standard.
12) I get decision paralysis when choosing skill feats because none of them really seem all that good. Trying to theorycraft a rogue is particularly bad in this area. Did they really need so many of these?
13) Leveling is too complex in general.
13) Character creation is too complex in general. There's just so much going on both of these points, use of character generation and leveling apps is almost mandatory to play. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the customization level here but it would have been nice to do more with less. I don't think 1e struggled in the customization department and I found that much easier to follow.
14) Every class is a sorcerer. There are no "martial" classes. Everyone is a super hero at high levels and not because of feats of strength or skill, the rogue is literally so sneaky that they create illusory decoys? That's not skill that's magic. That's not a rogue that's an arcane trickster. DnD 4e energy again.
15) Martial classes should be simpler to play. The most 4e of all, and don't get me wrong I like that martials don't just stand there and trade blows until dead, and it's implemented worlds better than 4e in that they're not a lot of "once per day/once per encounter" martial skills because that made no sense. But they do keep gaining more and more abilities until their action list is big enough that you need a rulebook nearby or you can't really track it all. Do Fighters feel like wizards? No, but at my table we probably get into combat 25-50% as often as standard. We run pre-fabs and do a lot of "just the plot" fighting. Storming Hook Mountain plays a lot more like a movie than a video game (and not like, the Avengers). I feel like half as many strike options would be more than enough and this issue contributes to some other points like "leveling up is complicated"
I really *want* to like 2e, I had really high hopes, and DnD 5e was a disappointment, watered down and too simple, but 2e feels like a pretty wide swing the other way. I was hoping for a streamlined Pathfinder but ended up with this overwhelming system that begs to be run with Apps and browser based rulebooks to be playable. Which, on the one hand it's really neat that we have such powerful tools that we can play a system so complex with relative ease. I've seen YouTubers play really *fast* sessions on Foundry. And they obviously know exactly what to do and exactly what to click to get that to happen but I would 100% play a 1hr combat in 4hrs here with all the time my players would take thinking over their turn and constantly having to reference one of the *forty two* different conditions. But I don't want to play on my laptop I want to play on my notebook.
I've walked new players through character creation many times, I think that this playtest character went as smooth as any, having a narrower feat selection at first level really helped. Choosing a background is more grounded in reality than choosing a feat from the general feat list in PF classic, she was easily able to say "I think scout fits my back story."
Where she got hung up at a dead stop was skill proficiency. The check mark gives you your level, extra check marks give you extra, but no check mark gives you your level minus two, which at level one is minus one altogether. So you get a plus 1 if its checked and minus 1 if its not, which is simple enough but trying to explain that the minus 1 was actual plus one minus two went over her head.
If I could go back to yesterday I could explain it better, but PF classic was a lot easier to explain, you get a plus one if you put a plus one in it. Otherwise you don't. If its checked you get +3 more.
As a veteran player I like the current system, but if you increase all the numbers by one it would be simpler to explain, especially at first level.
Unchecked is 0, checked is your level plus one, two checks is level plus two.
You can easily hold up your fingers and say, I'm third level, and I have two check marks, that's five.
Just my .02
I'm running a game, actually the story is based off of Chrono Trigger but with twists to make it Golarian-y, and coming up soon is a section where they travel to the age of darkness.
Anyone have any idea what the world is like? I figure I might cover the world in ash (mimicking the snow of 12,000 bc) and have the party beset by surface dwelling Drow. But other than that I can't really think of interesting environments for them to traverse.
I do intend on moving the kingdom of Shory into this age (the humans using it to get above the clouds of ash and soot). Anyone feel like shotgunning me some brainstorm? These forums never disappoint on creativity.
I've read that the character's pretty much steam roll the campaign. But I plan on making a Monk and wanted to know if there are any obvious problems with that choice. Also, could it help up the challenge to not bring a healer at all?
I made a replica of The Misgivings to live in for my Minecraft Survival Server. I'm sort of at a loss for what to fill the rooms with. It feels empty. Suggestions?
Link
Room Numbers based on the original printing of the adventure, not sure if they changed in the Anniversary version, but I own that one too if someone needs a room clarified.
no additional chance of failure is going to stop me from using it.
Are you sure? you have 7 spells per day, and you would take a 25% failure chance to get 8? That means, statistically you'd get off 6. Massive boon my butt.
I've been compiling a list because I am in a similar situation as Leo. I have a first time D20 player on my team playing a ranger, I'm not going to hold their hand or anything, but if they pick Favored Enemy Plant I might subtly suggest that it's a bad choice.
So I've gone through and made a tally of everything that appears in all books and decided to present the total here. I imagine GM's with similar questions will find their way here as I did. Or, it's going to let players cheat.... oh well.
Keep in mind this is a list of how many Encounters these types appear in, not the total quantity of each monster. In other words, it is a measure of how many battles a favored enemy will be used in. One encounter with 1 human and 3 giants will list human and giant only once for example.
-Fortress of the Stone Giants-
Giant 21, Animal 6, Dragon 4, Undead 3, Construct 2, Evil 2, M.Humanoid 2,
Earth 1, Fae 1, Reptilian 1.
-Sins of the Saviors-
Human 7, Undead 6, Evil 5, Construct 4, Aberration 1, Giant 1, Dragon 1,
Earth 1, Aqua 1.
-Spires of Xin'Shalast-
Giant 7, Undead 5, M.Humanoid 4, Human 3, Cold 3, Evil 2, Construct 1,
Dragon 1, Fae 1, Aquan 1, M. Beast 1, Skulk 1.
Summary:
Undead appear in every book but Giants are by far the most numerous. Animals are more numerous than Humans but animals stop appearing later on and the last boss is a human. Monstrous Humanoids are only absent from 1 book and plenty of them are nasty but Evil Outsiders do appear in more encounters, especially during sins of the saviors. Over all if your looking for an organic set of choices, Animals, Humans, and Undead are all valid choices for a hunter and are general enough that they don't require that much foresight to have picked. Neither does a Demon hunter so Evil Outsider is a good one. Clearly Giant is the best option to keep the highest but they don't appear until book 3 and how would the ranger know to study up on them?
My Player picked Human first, not a bad choice as their are just as many humans in book 2 as undead. Undead would be a good lvl 5 pick, and lvl 10 would be just at the end of hook mountain so giant's a good choice to get ready for book 4. Finally lvl 15 is going to be super late into the final book so it really doesn't matter where that one goes but i would bring up human by 2 to get ready for karzoug. I am going to attempt to throw in a few giants as random encounters here and there and make them tough enough to give them a nudge to choose giant earlier.
Best progression IMO:
1: Undead +2
5: Undead +2 Giant +4
10: Undead +2 Giant +6 Human +2
15: Undead +2 Giant +6 Human +4 and the last choice depends on where they are when they level, shouldn't be too much trouble to sort through the last half of the last book. Probably dragon or m.humanoid for the lamia's.
From a rules standpoint I agree, but I usually let it happen anyway. Adjacent means next to after all (per language not per rules) and you cant get more next to than in the same square. Plus its just cool to imagine and cleave vs mirror image is a pretty specific circumstance for it to be an issue.(your player happens to choose cleave and your enemy happens to choose, and employ, mirror image. And your player happens to figure out that in real life swinging wildly through all the images would disable them) He used his head logically good for him.
side note: if same square isn't adjacent does that mean you cant cleave 2 ratfolk who are sharing the same square?
