Zardnaar's page

rknop wrote:

Re: players keeping found magic items, I strongly suspect that ship has sailed and is not coming back.

Yeah, buying and selling magic is here to stay. And it really should be. It made no sense in pre-3rd ed that nobody would buy or sell magic items. If something nice or useful exists, people will buy and sell it. The world has magic, there's a market for it. So it will be for sale. The demand for Everburning Torches alone would probably be huge (a light source I only need to buy once, never blows out and won't burn down my house? Cheap at twice the price.)

rknop wrote:

(This also ties directly into the problem of people spamming low-level healing magic items rather than buying ones more suited to their level. A Cure Moderate Wounds potion is only a sensible purchase as an emergency in-combat recovery option. For general healing, Cure Light Wounds potions are so much more efficient per hit point that only somebody who hasn't taken a cursory look at the numbers would ever consider purchasing a Moderate potion... never mind a Serious potion. It's possible this ship has also sailed, as fixing this would require substantial changes to wealth by level, and would make things like dragons sitting on top of impressive-looking hoards impossible. The economics of all kinds of magic items in Pathfiner is completely broken, and things like resonance are just attempts to patch over some of the consequences without recognizing the true underlying problem.)

I'm not sure potions are really a big concern in this regard anyway. I know I always see them as emergency battlefield healing (or I suppose when you're in a situation with nobody that can use the wand). They're more expensive to heal with than wands are. A first level wand is less than half the price per hit-point healed than a potion (assuming an 18 wisdom, but even wis 10 will be cheaper than a potion). So wands are much better for healing between fights while potions are for combat when time is of the essence. The action cost in...

Found magic items is more fun IMHO and we actually houseruled this in 2009 or so right before PF landed with 3.5. We kept things from 3.5 we liked (feats, fort/ref/will, PrCs, multiclassing) and removed an aspect that I thoght broke the game.

That was a fun game, I put more loot in than a normal game a'la AD&D, players spent their gold on other things without feeling like they got punished for it and they found better items as I did not have to worry about them selling it to create some combo between the new bought items and some feat I had not thought of.

I think its past the point where GMs don't want to run Pathfinder because it has to much player agency. They want to play it but don't want to run it and that is a problem.

Letting players pick items+ feats+ PrCs etc etc etc is big problem IMHO. Let them build the PCs they want but remove the cheese of choose your own magic items (4E ha this problem as well).

As for claiming this is unpopular well look at 5E or the old D&Ds that were a magnitude more popular than Pathfinder. They created resonance which is a band aid solution to the real problem- cheap wands of CLW and letting PCs get items they want to easily.

Even IRL you can't buy anything you want, some items are unique or so rare they are almost never for sale (Tiger Tanks for example).

One way to deal with it is have some sort of optional rule where you include prices and put something like " If the GM wants to buy and sell items here is what you do" or "On some worlds they have a ro bust magic item market".

I'll offer my own counter-analogy that I think is more apt.

The Past
Paizo is Sony. WOTC is Nintendo. Sony/Paizo and Nintendo/WOTC partnered to work on the SNES-CDROM/DnD3.5. Adruptly, Nintendo/WOTC ended the partnership and focused on a new platform that alienated third party publishers. Sony/Paizo decided to take their learnings from the SNES-CDROM/DnD3.5 and create a new system Playstation/Pathfinder. Playstation/Pathfinder was a huge success that surpassed the N64/DnD4 (hate to make that comparison) thanks in large part to the wealth of materials generated by third party publishers (and, in Paizo's case, ported from DnD3.5).

The Now
This is where the analogy starts to break down. WOTC skipped the Gamecube and went straight on to make the Wii. They also brought back third party support. And they landed some major marketing wins with Critical Role and Stranger Things.

Paizo has the same challenge that Sony did with the Playstation 2. But there's no new technology to offer like a built-in DVD player and while they briefly dominated the market their brand has yet to solidify into the popular consciousness. This is an extremely challenging moment for Pathfinder - they need to do something new to remain relevant but cutting backwards compatibility to make something completely new also undermines one of their greatest strengths. And WOTC is also in a much stronger position than they are.

Why is the difference important?
Because Paizo - unlike Star Wars - doesn't have the advantage of nostalgia or brand recognition. Many of the fans who are mad at The Last Jedi (in my opinion) are mad because Luke was their childhood hero and it sucks to see your childhood hero return as the equivalent of a cowardly old drunk. Most of the fans who are mad at Paizo are upset because of some rules - rules that can shift and change during a playtest. Compromise is possible. If the playtest results in a fun system that keeps the feel of Pathfinder Paizo will be able to thrive (though they're not...

I would probably compare Paizo to Sega, they briefly toppled Nintendo, WotC is Sony or Microsoft. Probably Sony they got beaten once (PS3/Xbox360), but they bounced back like how WotC did with 5E.

It remains to be seen if Paizo can become Nintendo or go the way of Sega. The casuals also went to Sony, the hard core went with Sega as well.

Starfinder is apparently outselling PF as well but a lot more people play PF on the VTTs (and probably real life). What that tells you is its probably a saturated market, PF is more popular but everyone who wants it probably already owns it so growth prospects are probably around 0 or are even negative as people drop out (its been 10 years).

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Lou Diamond wrote:

Another design flaw found in the New game system. All classes should be able to increase their weapon skill in a single weapon by spending a general feat. There is no reason for this not to be able too be done.

This bolded part isn't actually true. In many ways, Weapon Proficiency beyond Trained is the equivalent of BAB in this edition, and not allowing it to simply rise via Feats is probably an extremely good idea from a Class Design and Game Balance perspective.

I actually would have personally preferred that Expert proficiency gave you a simple +1 attack bonus, and higher proficiencies allowed you to add or change weapon properties on your weapons.

Mostly, I'm just frustrated that there isn't a way to do this. It would be so much fun! What if you could craft a Deadly Falchion, or a Reach Greatsword, or a Forceful Handaxe? Or wield them in such a way that you could add change them around? This would really open up weapon options and give players a chance to really play with the whole property system, and it's so criminally underutilized! XD

Its because you would end up with 1 weapon that is just better than everything else. An agile. finesse great sword for example.

WHY KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE?

As a retired professional game designer and game historian of some note, I find the Pathfinder Playtest has a fatal game design flaw. My background is: starting designing games in 1959, designing games at Coleco for Colecovision and the Adam and Atari and other computers, designing WarGames which was awarded the #1 game cartridge in 1984, developing the first edition of Axis and Allies, since 1968 being mentored by Gary Gygax, owning and designing games for Nova Games and Game Theory and Design, Simulations Publications (SPI), scenarios for Avalon Hill, etc.

There are many new ideas in the Pathfinder Playtest that are good ideas and have great potential so I will not comment on these ideas. Playtesting will make those good ideas great and streamline the system, removing others.

The fatal flaw is explained as digging a hole in the design to fill it with a plug. This same problem occurred with updates to GPS systems. When GPS for cars first came out you were asked to input address number, street name, city or town name, and state. That system worked great. Then some idiot designer decided you should only input address number and street name. The system would take up to 5 minutes to search every town and city in America and list a number of places based on distance to choose as your destination. The search result was tedious and time consuming, sometimes never listing the destination searched for. That GPS system was worse than a map! The next generation design was even more ridiculous. The idiot designer decided to do the same thing but show a map with circles of locations. You had to guess which circle was your destination. Then you had to press that circle and the GPS system would update your driving directions, almost always giving the wrong destination. You would have to do the same thing all over again until you found the correct driving directions. Terrible! Terrible! Terrible! Siri and the I phone have replaced GPS systems and eliminated an entire industry.

So what...

Number of players are up- they are playing 5E though and that gives even more power to the DM. Giving more power to the players has the inmates running the asylum. And the complexity. If the game is to complex to run for a GM they do something else which atm seems to be 5E.

Seems a fairly common complaint about PF, I like playing it do not like GMing it and if you can't find a GM no game. Magic items are a great example of that. In 5E its back to AD&D get what you are given, PF its get what you can buy or easily make. Its personal preference at that point but some poor sod has to arbitrate the get anything you want and doesn't bother and quits or goes and plays something else.

I'll play most versions of D&D from OD&D to 5E, I won't DM 3.X though and would I am not that motivated to play them or 4E although if it was a choice of that or no D&D I would be more inclined to play.

Izmo wrote:

Most of us were worried that the book's layout and wording are fairly finalized.

This is not meant as a jab or belittlement at all. But how could anyone worry that the initial printing of a months-long playtest document is finalized?

Becuyase it more of an alpha or beta vs a playtest and there is not that much itme left. Paizo have indicated they will change the releases dates but it seems clear they are really pushing some things they want in the game (resonance etc).

1E-2E playtest was over a year (87- 89 release), 5E was 2 years, 3.0 took 3 years in house, 4E was rushed at 2 years.

And how you present things also matters. Consider a mechanic Paizo likes "Hey here is this new mechanics its really great what do you think". They never asked for example do people want resonance or a mechanic limiting items or presented other options.

Consider using resonance as an example vs my sample before.

" Here is this new mechanics resonance, we don't like it much but what do you think?"

Sure you can poll people on what they like but how you push something also matters.

And if its not resonance its something else. There was no survey that I know of along the lines of "hey we are going to fix the spellcaster/martial do you want us to do that. If yes what ideas do you like (list a few).

They have already decided on how they are doing some things with limited time. They might tweak or ditch some if it but there are other ways of doing what they are trying to do.

Zardnaar is a professional doomsayers. He did nothing but whine and moan about how awful the playtest was for 5e and how much he loves AD&D 2e but how P

F1e should be copy pasted wholesale. Expect nothing but click bait thread titles from Zardnaar and if he has something positive to say in the actual thread it will be a refreshing surprise.

5E playtest was awful apart from 3 or 4 packets but I knew 5E success or lack of it would have sod all to do with the playtest vs the final product.

AD&D 2E has a lot of concepts I like, the execution is off in a lot of cases. 2E is good in terms of what you can do with it using official material or taking elements of modern D&D and plugging into it. For example you can dump level and racial restrictions replace THAC0 with BAB plug in BECMI or d20 ability scores and not break the game.

And you have the settings.

Click bait titles get people talking, I had a nice one the other day got all of 1 or 2 reply's. More people want to complain about PF2 than test it, if you test it don't like it fair enough. Well the playtest was good for how they set it up but the packets were lacking although I had a ot of fun with the 2nd packet (the Sorcerer one).

The other funny thing about 2E is you can find the genesis of a lot of "modern" concepts in it from feats through to the disadvantage/advantage mechanic.

I liked the session we had today, I have doubts to higher level PF2 in this playtest version more due to the large prof number required and magic items being built into the system math as I think cantrips for example might actually scale faster than martial damage without magic weapons. Een then I think the example I looked at was with a d12 weapon might have to crunch some numbers.

Took me almost 2 weeks and 15+ hours to grok the system at least to a certain extent.Level 1 was fun the next test for these characters is level 9. Level 1 passed the does this feel like D&D test for me although ins some ways you are more of a level 2 or 3 PC.

Much like 4E PF2 plays better than it reads ATM.

For the Goblins;).

Doomsday Dawn: The Lost Star

So after a 2 hour session 0 did not go so well we spent an additional 10-15 hours going through the rule book figuring things out and making up some preconstructed PCs for the players to use. Decided to try The Lost Star level 1 adventure in Doomsday Dawn.

Also i the process of writing a cheat sheet for player hand outs. After testing note to self add in firing into melee modifiers (if any) and spell DC's.

So casting summon yobbos and play these PCs for us the party wandered off hot joining the adventure under the sewers of Magnimar last used in 2014 for the great Magnimar Yacht Race for 5E. The brace suckers erm heroes had this for a party composition.

Sword and board half elf fighter with power attack
Goblin Rogue using a dogslicer
Human cleric of Sarenrae
Human Bard

Seeing the 3 round structure thing in action was quite interesting, players would often go for a 2nd attack at -5 (often -2 or 3 due to flanking, agile and/or bard buffing), and getting a connecting 2nd attack in is not rare. Buffs,flanking, flat footed and touch ACs. 2 attacks at -10 almost connected missing by 1 (-10 may have been more like -6 or so but Drakus missed by 1 with a 3rd attack).

After playing 5E for a while there was a few things I missed ffom previous editions (2E-4E. Bonuses to hit via flanking being one, 5E has it as an optional rule but it grants advantage and is to swingy +2 feels about right.

I did miss Fort/Ref/Will from 3E just not the implementation of it. Defenses scale kind of like 4E and Star Wars Saga but numbers are smaller and there is a lot less variance in high and low numbers which I think is great. Monsters have similar hp to 5E ones but more to hit but generally deal less damage but the large to hit numbers enable critical success and s AC 14 or so that can be very dangerous to a PCs. PF2 characters have more HP and more healing available via a cleric than a 5E character but a lot less non magical healing.
Combat flowed fairly well maybe not quite as fast as 5E but close and you do have a few more numbers to add up but a lot less than 3.X. Did not bog down to much (had to check some rules on occasion)

Reminds me a bit of 4E but with the things I did not like about 4E (classes, AEDU healing surges ripped out) and more traditional type classes plugged in. It runs a bit more like BECMI Rules Cyclopedia or 2E AD&D with some optional rules ebing used. Power level is a bit higher than 5E at level 1. A level 1 PF2 class is perhaps like a level 3 AD&D 2E character with a kit and using the weapon speed rules except PF2 weapons have traits instead of weapon speed.

With agile weapons and flanking Rogues in effect can get the 2nd attack penalty down to -2 and it seems they can sneak attack multiple times as well and that was useful but not 100% sure that was correct.

Obviously PF2 has more moving parts than say 5E, but in play it was not that complicated. Kind of reminds me of some B/X clones which have added a few options as well such as Adventurer Conquer King or maybe Castles and Crusades with optional "feats" used. And better math. Perhaps early 3.0 when we played it like AD&D 2E with more bells and whistles (before we figured out how to stack numbers, use haste and stack buffs).

The negatives are mostly the actual rules. If 5E was designed as a greatest hits D&D, pF2 is more of a greatest dud collection to read. it has the uselessness of the 5E index, the dryness of 5E, the complexity of 3E (read page 291 for an example), and the organisational mess of OD&D/1E AD&D without the charming cartoons and random harlots table. With 5E we more or less grabbed the starter set and were playing within an hour or so, PHB landed no big deal it was mostly more options. PF2 failed session 0 2 hours, 1-3 hours over the next few nights and a 5 and 3-4 hour session hammering things out. And even then I made a few mistakes in running it no big deal its new I remember a few I made with 5E, 3.0, Pathfinder etc it happens.

Things I liked over 5E.

1. Defenses scale better. 5E saves an be annoying and even ACs as you can get hit a lot at higher levels.

2. Less whack a mole type issues.

3. Weapons are a lot more interesitng with the best parts of 3E and 4E but without the orcket tag X3 and other confirming a threat range.

4. 3 saves are simpler than 6. Less variance between good and bad saves (basically 1-2 points+ ability and other modifiers).

5. Flanking- enables basic tactics and rewards you due to critical success.

6. Critical success/failure. Might be a bit rocket tag later on though (flunking a fireball save).

7. The 3 round system. Was not to enthused at 1st but its starting to grow on me. Making a 2nd attack at -5 is better than no second attack in 5E. 5E handles TWF better and might handle better at higher levels though as they warrior types get 2nd and 3rd attacks built in at no penalty., more testing required. Not a fan of the way shields work. Complicated, ties up a fighters reaction, heavy incentive to just use a bigger weapon.

8. Dex is a super stat in 5E, add feats in and dex becomes to uber for ranged attacks, skills etc. Dex to damage as a class ability is nice along with free weapon finesse on the right weapons. Nice hybrid between 5E and 3.X might be better than both.

9. Smoother transition to level 2. Level 1 in 5E can really go pear shaped.at low levels.

10. Basic monsters deal more traditional levels of damage. 5E Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Bugbears, Orcs and Gnolls can easily go pear shaped at low levels in 5E (Hobgoblin critical hit potentially 2d8+4d6+1 CR 1/2 critter).

Overall impression. I enjoyed it as a DM and can see several combos I would like to try in the player seat. Rules need a clean up and simplification though (see pg 291, 5 pages of conditions, Fighter is 9 pages, races are a bit underwhelming, double slice is confuzzling etc).

The guts of it though I think is a winner. You could use its engine to make a more complicated 5E, OSR clone or an OGL 4E clone. D&D tradition go beat on goblins (Keep on the Borderlands, Lost Mines of Phandelver, Lost Star).

Visanideth wrote:

I wouldn't make a big deal out of the technical language for now. I'm sure Paizo will be able to embellish the text.

And honestly, I'll take a dry, technical rulebook that leaves no room to misinterpretation over pretty prose that forces me to spend an hour a week over twitter asking the authors what they really meant with that (looking at you, 5E).

I generally find 5th Ed pretty clear, sort of like a 3rd Ed Lite, but I agree, it is muddy in some areas (stealth, bonus action sequence) and there are some horrendous design decisions (welcome to the 5th Ed D&D Multiverse, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in town).

And healing is whack a mole, Rogue+ healer feat are one of the best healers and the best at whack a mole (at least clerics run out of healing words), and they put magical healing potions in the water supply.

And the 6-8 encounters things can be hard to pace along with short rest vs daily vs at will classes (Rogue, Warlock or monk+ wizard have fun pacing that).

ANyway we are doing char gen atm spent around 8-10 ours reading the book and flipping back and forth. Things are starting to click and I think I have a spicy little pyromancer build or even 3 of them (Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, maybe alchemist).

Some of the "bad" classes I think may also be good but people are comparing them to the PF1 versions, damage has been nerfed across the board some some of those +1 damage abilities or whatever may not look exciting but they are equivalent to +2,+3 and +4 abilities in other editions.

My wife is has been devouring the book over the last 3 hours or so making some PCs. Goblin seems very good.

Nice I wanted to do a 2 page cheat sheet with conditions included. Did not realise the conditions would be 2 pages by themselves.

Complete Gnome Cobblers Book was great.

Ironically 4E stripped out crafting and its now a major component of a lot of RPGs these days and similar adventure games such as Tomb Raider.

We did that in 2E with The Complete Fighters bookosome fo the fighters wouod craft basically +1 non magical weapons. If they were lucky the spellcasters would enchant it.

They didn't do it often but it was special when they did. A few wands a couple of swords and maybe a bow its been a while.

Zardnaar wrote:

Also complexity look at Calculate the Result pg 291), that is potentially 10 steps to resolve something.

I was shaking my head when I read that torturous equation. Why not simply state the following?

Result of a roll = die roll + ability modifier + level + proficiency modifier + item bonuses and penalties + other bonuses and penalties?

(and note that I separate proficiency modifier from level)

The current way it's stated is dreadfully abstruse.

EDIT: The same presentation of this information on page 292 is visually better, but still problematic.

So its not just me then?

I don't get the problem people are having. I read the book cover to cover. Character creation takes maybe 30 minutes maximum for any class. Where is the confusion? I can understand it if you are coming at it from a min-max munchkin style but if you just want to build a decent character, it's extremely quick.

Its the cross referncing. For ewxample we're doing Session 0.1 now and the wife is looking at bards and druids. She has to go read cantrips and figure out what they do, then she wants to find out what a level 10 spell is, then she is trying to figure out why Bards don;t seem to get a level 10 spell (maybe they do she is still looking).

She has not tread the action economy section yet, she has to go and find out what expert, mater, legendary+ signature stuff is etc.

My printer is also out of ink the 270 odd pages I did print killed it and I am reading the PDF more.

Its also very dry to read (hard, boring etc) its like reading the 3.5 Spell Compendium or 4E PHB again. Sometimes I translate stuff into 5E terms for her like the level 20 stuff is capstone abilities like 5E but you can pick what you want such as level 10 spell or use your wild shape to shapechange (and then she has to go read wild shape and shapechange).

If you are used to it from late Pathfinder books in general or Starfinder it might be easier but we stopped playing Pathfinder in 2012 (as DM) last played 2014 (as player).We also did not go that deep down the warren of splat books mostly just using the core book+ advanced player guide and Ultimate Magic/Combat so maybe missed some evolution there in later PF books IDK.

Ultimate Campaign and Skull and Shackles/Kingmaker was the last time I paid much attention to Pathfinder. And I barely read Ultimate Campaign being honest.

Also complexity look at Calculate the Result pg 291), that is potentially 10 steps to resolve something.

necromental wrote:

One other thing to consider is that, AFAIK, the people at conventions play premade characters. Building a character you're gonna play for a campaign is a different beast than being handed a sheet and told: go have fun. And character building is not making me tingle right now, as opposed to PF1.

Just wanted to chime in here. While the demo tables in the booth only used pregens, the Pathfinder Society playtest scenarios had a mix of pregens and player-made characters. So there were quite a few characters made by players. Many bought their playtest books and then sat down to spend a few hours creating their character before diving in. So we did get some feedback from them on that process as well as actual play.

-Lisa

The problem with that though is.

1. They all had physical copies of the book.
2. Fan conventions by nature are for the most hard core.
3. They could network with each other in person.
4. They are existing and fanatical fans of Pathfinder.

Mike Mearls explained the 4E disconnect. 4E evolved out of late 3.5, however if you only has the PHB and maybe a splat or 2 and did not have the late 3.5 material 4E came out of the blue.

We left Pathfinder in 2012, Ultimate Campaign was the last book we bought except for some humble bundles. We have not seen late Pathfinder material, we have not played Starfinder. I have the PF core book, some splats, Inner Sea World Guide and I am struggling with PF2. My D&D history BECMI-2E,1E, 3.0, 3.5, SWSE, 4E, SWSE/3.5, Pathfinder, 2E AD&D, B/X+ clones, 5E. I was a Paizo customer 2002-2012.

I did not like 4E but I understood the basics. I'm struggling with PF2, my wife gave up trying to create a Rogue. This is the 1st D&D this has happened with. And we have a rough idea what finesse and agile weapons are, if I was a new player I can't imagine trying to figure this out.

If it takes you hours to generate a PC that is a problem right there. I played B/X again after playing 3E and the adventures often have a stat array in the back so you pick one and adventuring pack ,B or C and off you go its 5-10 minutes to start a game.

I have most of the Paizo era Dragons and Dungeons (lost a couple of issues) but I remember in the final issues IIRC it may have been you stating that they were proud of Kyuss stat block being 3 pages long.

Think about it 3 pages for a monster, who can run that in a real game. Is that really a good idea? Compare it with the deity stat blocks in 1E Deities and Demigods book. PF2 has 9 or 10 pages for a basic fighter.

IDK if PF2 will be aimed at new players, I assume you want them but I don't see vast numbers getting on board with that IMHO of course.

Zardnaar wrote:

The basic D&D DNA was the 6 attribute scores, class based, alignment, and a few other bits and pieces- most gamers don't care about THAC0, BAB, feats, powers builds, level 11+ etc.

True, and I found in a 3rd Ed campaign I ran where I allowed any WotC book, with 2 full casters in the party, that problems can start at 7th level, once 4th-level spells hit the table it can become a nightmare (murderous mist still makes me ill thinking about it), I managed, but, wow, it seemed like a lot of effort to maintain.

i think the 3.X sweet spot is level 3-7. Level 7 is where a lot of problems start though.

Level 4 spells and when buff spells hit +2 and +3 and can be stacked (level 9 divine favor/power etc 3.0, +2 level 8 3.5 + persistent spell in both cases).

The math is a bigger problem for me I can deal with Op stuff easier, if the math is really borked you can't do much about it.

Thankfully Paizo has already mentioned the poor way this rulebook is set out and rules are explained. Hopefully that'll make the less rules learning keen players out. I struggled making my first pc, and I've been following pretty closely

+1 they know about it.

Its a bit of a mystery to me. The trend in gaming overall is less complexity and then they make something more complex than Pathfinder.

More puzzling a lot of it is complexity for complexities sake.

Red Rabbit wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

And then we got to the actual Rogue. And this is where things fell apart. Put simply there is a lot of moving parts in PF2. She had to go and read the class feats, then the feat section and the skill section, then cross reference everything if required. One could actually see the enthusiasm die. Note she is an ex 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder player, currently she likes 5E but will play OSR games if that is what I want to play. Some comments.

I read your post a few times now, but I can't get my head around this: there are 4 class feats (Bludgeoner, Nimble Dodge, Trap Finder and You're next), roughly a half page of text. You need to pick one of them, and you can always retrain them later, so it's not like you need to plan your character for the next ten levels if you don't enjoy doing that. And then there is a skill feat, where I would just go with "what skill sounds cool? - and then go through the 2 or so skill feats for that skill and level 1 (and again: if you picked the wrong skill, just retrain). It is orders of magnitudes more easy to build a PF2 character than it is to build a PF1 character, where you had to decide on at least one feat at level 1 (out of a list of how many? 50 or so?).

My group struggled with this sort of thing too. I think it's less about picking one of the four class feats, it's that just about everything is so rules-dense that you need to go look up stuff all the time if you don't already know the system. Take Sneak Attack, for example:

sneak attack wrote:

You deal additional damage to flat-footed creatures (see page 322). If you Strike a flat-footed creature with an agile or finesse melee weapon, an agile or finesse unarmed attack, or a ranged attack, you deal 1d6 extra precision damage. For a ranged attack with a thrown weapon, that weapon must also be agile or finesse. As your rogue levels increase, so does the number of damage dice of your sneak attack. Increase the number of dice by one at 5th, 11th, and 17th

...

This lol. We got the 4 class feats you can pick at level 1, it was all the referencing.

Zardnaar wrote:

I think we are on the same page here. If you clone 5E and ripped out the classes and made feats non optional and had different class structure that is roughly what I want.

Layer on some concepts from PF2 and AD&D 2E options that is something useful/fun.

For what it's worth, I'm part of a project that fundamentally follows the premise of taking the kind of mechanical engagement the 3.x/4E generation pursued (huge number of classes, rich character options, strong options for customizing actions) while completely removing the number threadmill.

In a way we were relieved to see PF2 doubled down on scaling, growing numbers because it makes it go in a different direction. We believe in horizontal growth more than vertical growth, so to say.

PF2 seems to double down on the "pick this to become +1 good at thing" ethos of 3.X, which may or may not be your thing.

At the time it was fine these days na. Make the bonus +2, and put in less of them t prevent lots of stacking.

For example I am making an Elf and they get the racial proficiency of modern D&D and +2 to hit with them. AD&D gave them +1 but the long sword is not an uber weapon and has not been a good weapon for a long time now (alright in 4E?). Same deal with shortsword and longbow. Since I am not using anything like the -5/+10 part of 5E sharpshooter feat I prevent that abuse there. If you want to be accurate with some swords and bows be an elf or pick something else. At least that is what I want anyway.

Not 1E D&D Faerie iire was also a +2 bonus and I would change 5E bless spell to a flat +2 as well instead of a d4 although that is more due to how good bless is in the 5E context maybe tweaked the way saves scaled and the -5/+10 feats and concentration are more responsible than the 1d4 itself.

Functionally Xanathars Guide to Everything brought back encounter powers as well. Its worded more like "once you use this ability you can't use it again for 1 minute". I don't think AEDU was the problem in 4E making every class universally use it and replace the yea olde D&Disms was the real culprit IMHO.

People are still trying to fix things from bad decisions made 20 years ago 3.5, PF, 4E, 5E have all hada go but conceptually AD&D and B/X fixed it 30 odd years ago it was in the 2E to 3.0 transition they broke things (saving throws for example). I eman AD&D is a hot mess, 5E for example uses BA which is not that fundamentally differnt to B/X where a level 20 fighter got +13 to hit, +11 in 5E.

Palidian wrote:

We can all argue about whether someone's issues were real or perceived, and we can tell people that the problems they had go away in actual gameplay, but if a person chooses not to play a game because it seems to complex, boring, confusing, bland, tedious, or time-consuming, then that is a valid criticism against that game.

That's valid criticism but it's low-quality feedback, ie it's not very useful information.

You're selling a product, you focus on the people interested in your product. Unless you're completely incompetent and you have created something your target audience isn't interested into, the odds probably are that the people who are not interested in even trying your product aren't those you were creating it for.

Aren't you a 4E fan? The relevant part.

"you're completely incompetent and you have created something your target audience isn't interested into"

You might actually be the 1st honest one if you agree with your won comment lol:).

PF2 would also be better for an OGL successor to 4E than 5E. You would just replace the PF2 classes with AEDU type ones.

I think the big takeaway from this is... this isn't the game for you or your wife.

Most of my players currently think PF2 is too simple, rigid and streamlined for them. They have the exactly opposite issue: there's no real intricacies or complexities to the system.

I think you can rejoyce because simple, low crunch games have been the most popular for a decade now, and they still are. 5E is a game with minimal mechanical engagement for the player.
You can solve your issues by turning to one of the dozen quality games that actively and aggressively pursue mechanical clarity and the reduction of moving parts.

Games like PF2, D&D 4E and such are probably aimed at the audience that is interested in mechanically engaging, complex games. Not every game is necessarily for everybody. I can't play 5E or Basic anymore because they bore me, but I'll never ask for them to change because I realise they're made for someone else.

That may actually happen. We handled the complexity of 3.0, 3.5 and SWSE fine though, 4E's complexity was not the reason we stopped playing that.

It doesn't drastically bother me to much I want something with more complexity than 5E, but without the math problems of 3.X and 4E.

Complex moving parts are fine, complex fiddly math not so much.

It has taken me a while to digest a lot of PF2 and my wife has taken some time off work. We went out for dinner, came back and decided to roll of a PF2 character. I knew it might take a bit of time so we set aside the rest of the evening to have some background music playing on youtube (Faith No More+ others). She had tried reading the PF2 materials a couple of days after it came out but was struggling. I put more effort into it and between reading more and paying attention to the forums thought I had figured it out.

After discussing the options we settled on a non spellcaster. Its winter over here, the PCs are in another room that is cold and I figured the 1st 173 odd pages would be enough to generate a PC.

So initially things went well. The step by step thing to the new boosts and flaws was easy to follow. All scores start at 10 and off you go.

The backgrounds were also well done and different enough from 5E. And her eyes lit up when she learnt you got 4 more boosts at level 5,10,15.

Compared to 5E you can get an 18 very easily (5E you have to roll), but we treated an 18 as the new 16. She also liked the multiclass feats concepts and was kind of wanting a MC Rogue/Wizard but it was not required.

Then we got to the races erm ancestry. A few things different here but it was ot to hard to understand although some of the racial options were a bit underwhelming. Quite interesting that 25' is the new movement standard with Elves being the only ones to get 30' movement and they can get that to 35 easily enough.The racial feat was left blank and we cheesed the stats around a bit to get 18 dex, 14 con, 14 intelligence, 12,12, 10 IIRC. The stat thing was actually fun, the racial feat not so much but so far so good. She also liked the art (I don't), but being in black and white (printer) was not a problem but she loved the Gnome Druid and that as another combo she wanted to try.

And then we got to the actual Rogue. And this is where things fell apart. Put simply there is a lot of moving parts in PF2. She had to go and read the class feats, then the feat section and the skill section, then cross reference everything if required. One could actually see the enthusiasm die. Note she is an ex 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder player, currently she likes 5E but will play OSR games if that is what I want to play. Some comments.

"This is soul destroying"

"I would rather play 2E" (AD&D she is not an OSR fan but will play it).

"Pathfinder (1E) is easier than this"

"Now I see why they did that in 5E".

"Now I see why you like Basic" (as in B.X and OSR clones of B/X)

"How much do you really want to run this?"

Note we can play complex games- she like Pathfinder 1, 3.5 and she likes Star Wars Saga. She was also one of the ones who put together the uber 3.5 bard that gave the entire party +8 to +16 on attacks and damage.

After 2 hours she basically gave up. I think we are going to do some more reading,print out the entire PDF. I knew more than her, I think I could have completed the character and then in an actual game muddled our way through spells and the combat rules.

Recommended watch this- Don't Just Hire Your Fans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VtTMluhSmk

Put simply when your rules are actively driving people away you might have a problem. I more or less grok the system to attempt to muddle my way through a game but its not easy or fun. I think I could bang out a Rogue or Fighter in an hour or two.

This is actually worse than 4E as we actually tried the game and got to level 7 (xp to 8 but did not level up) before we thought this is a waste of time.

Suggestion either pre generated characters or a "default" fighter or whatever and people who grok it better can fiddle with the moving parts. Default racial option/build would be nice as well and dump ancestry as a term and use races like every other D&D/Pathfinder.

What's the "core foundation that breaks the narrative from the mechanics" for you?

I spent a fair amount of time converting old characters this weekend, and although I struggled with some of the information flow in the character creation section, I was pretty pleased with the results.

Heck, I think I like level 1 Ostog the Unslain better in second edition than I did in first.

You are probably more familiar with the guts of PF2 than a lot of posters.

For example our group dropped out of Pathfinder circa 2012, at that point we had put in 12 years of 3.X and had been playing Star Wars Saga as well which was another d20 spin off.

So we missed late PF1 and Starfinder. Play test gets announced a few months ago, semi excited. Cool we might get that fixed 3.5 game we wanted back in 2008. Download it and print out the 1st 140 odd pages.

So potential playtest group. I was really struggling with it it took me a while to figure out double slice+ two weapon flurry worked. Now I have to reference several other p[ages and add up a heap of numbers to figure out how it works.A fighter is always the 1st class I look at. A level 11 5E fighter basically gets all that for free (3 attacks level 11 + bonus action off hand attack, 1 weapon style to get off hand damage to weapon).

My wife beelined for the bard its basically her favorite class going back to 3.5, Pathfinder and 5E if she doesn't beeline for a Bard its a Rogue. I could actually see her enthusiasm die right there once she started reading. The other players are either not enthused for similar reasons or they will wait for a more up to date, easier to play playtest version.

There is also plenty of things that are jsut annoying now like the 3 acion system which while an improvement is still the old iterative attack thing from 3.5 warmed up. Instead of BAB +16/+11/+6/+1 why not just just allow 4 attacks at +16. PF2 you still have to wrestle with the rules and math to make something that should be very simple.

A Star Wars Saga Soldier for example is 5 pages and has lots of ways to build it to be effective and its easy to understand. The PF2 fighter is nine pages.

Races are not much better off erm I mean ancestry. To many people are familar with races though and are still calling them that, its just clunky and then you don't really have a half orc or half elf ists just an ancestry thing for humans.

This has been tried before BTW in AD&D 2E which in effect let you have point buy races in Skills and Powers, the PF2 version is not to drastically different. You don't have races as such just a selection of racial powers/blocks/abilities or whatever.

Consider if you played B/X for example you have 7 options at character creation. If you have 10 races, 10 classes, and 10 feats you have 1000 variable to digest. In PF2 you have to figure out racial packages, boost, complex back grounds and then a 9 and 10 pages of character classes and then you go have a look at the feats with 10+ subsections of what types stuff you can pick from that you have to cross reference with the classes.

Most of the options also have all sorts of fiddly and annoying minor abilities or +1 whatever or some sort of reduction to some penalty or removing some restriction that I now have to go and look up and find out what it is. Its actually more complex than 3.5 and Pathfinder one with virtually none of the advantage of those systems as its mostly just "more options" and most of those options are complex, suck and are uninteresting.

This is where you are getting stories of 2 and 3 hour character creation from. You can compare this with 10 minute character creation from older D&D or half hour or so in 5E. Session 0 is going to be character creation. Another contrast would be the 5E playtest the packet sizes were a lot smaller and easier to digest.

You have also changed the 3.5 round structure, why not just keep it and instead of fluffing around with 3 actions tweak it to Move, standard, and swift actions and let full attacks happen on standard actions.Note that 3 action system is not drastically different from 4E's minor, move, standard action or 5E move, action, bonus action system. You basically made it more complex than it needs to be for no discernible reason and as an added "bonus" you can go and learn some new rules that are annoying to boot.

yeah sure its great in a way if you like Starfinder but what if you have never seen Starfinder or have never played it? What if you want to pitch PF2 at new players, if I am struggling to grok it after playing 3.X for 12 years how are they going to cope? Did anyone actually slow down and think "Is a 9 page fighter a good idea".

All that complexity, cross references, a new round structure, changing races to ancestry and then making ancestry mostly not matter by turning it into a pick what you want buffet has added up to a few people not wanting to actually play the game as its to complex and frustrating as well. They already know they don't like it they don't have to play it. I'm willing to play it, probably can't get any of my players to have a go.

Also seems you have not figured out the fundamental problems of 3.X. For example you are rewriting spells and putting in things like resonance which is a band aid to the fundamental problem of easy access to magic items. An easier solution to some spells is just buff other classes and things like defences so fighters don't get hosed by save or sucks. You're actually creating new problems to fix old problems when the solution is very simple and could be done by buffing saves and nerfing DCs. Wands of CLW a problem just remove them from the game simple solution. Rewrite or remove the magic item creation rules.

Athaleon wrote:

Regarding 4e's financial success or lack thereof: I think it speaks volumes that WotC laid off key staff (including 4e lead designer Rob Heinsoo) every year from 4e's launch in 2008 to the beginning of 5e's development in 2012.

That's a non-argument, since 5e, which is crazy successful, is done by a small team that's a fraction of the 3.5e team.

3E had 5 primary designers, 3.5 a few of them were not used such as Monte Cook.

Size of the design and staff levels are not great indicator. 1E is one of the biggest selling D&Ds of all time written mostly by 1 person over 2 years. TSR at its peak had 300+ staff ( and then had a 30% slump in revenue and was almost bankrupt the following year).

Ryan Dancey gave these figures over on the GitP forums.

1E 1.5 million
Basic Red box 1 million +
3E 1 milion+ (this includes 3.0+ 3.5)
2E AD&D 750k

Other sources pout OD&D at around 40k, 3.0 at 500k+ and 3.5 at 250k-350k. Go watch some interviews on youtube. Gygax also claimed 1E outsold 2E 2-1 which matches up with Dancey's claims.

No one actually knows precise figures for B/X and 1E as TSR did not keep good records.

Dancey tend to be about 15-20% higher than other sources. Applecines D&D book also covered the TSR years. Sources at places like the Aceaum are close to Dancey for numbers of TSR era D&D. Some of the TSR D&D adventures have higher sales numbers than Pathfinder and d20 D&D core book sales (eg Keep on the Borderlands).

Pathfinder estimates were 250k circa 2014 at PAX east IIRC. I'm not sure of this number but we have another 2 data points.

Peak Pathfinder was probably 2012 maybe 2013 but Paizo was in a US magazine in 2012 about top 5000 up and coming companies and they reported Paizo had revenue of 12.7 million and around 4. something in 2009.

The other data point was the estimated size of the RPG market in 2013 at 13 millon, its 44 million in 2018 and it almost doubled in size in 2014 with 6 months of sales for 5E. This number is higher than the TSR numbers of the 80's and 90's although they can beat that in 1983 and ironically when they went under adjusted for inflation.

There all sorts of stories about TSR floating around and how they bleed money but apparently revenue was good but selling things at a lose and Dragondice along with the novel return thing did them in.

WotC on their old site had 1983 at 20 million+, Gygax gave the figure of 27 million, others I have seen are low 20's for TSR revenue in 1983. 1983 was peak D&D year, adjusted for inflation its $50 - 68 million dollars bigger than the entire RPG market now.

Some of the guys tracking data on ENworld for Amazon sales recently put up 4E did peak higher than 3.5 on release but fell off a lot harder and sooner, 3.5 maintained higher rankings over a sustained period not sure on total sales however. However 3.5 was not a great selling D&D its the second worst selling D&D ever *maybe 4E IDK 100%) and every D&D from the peak sold less than the one before it, 5E was the one to break that cycle and on sustained sales its probable we great peak D&D now and 1983's figure was 2 editions and 5E is higher than to the other good years of TSR (81 and 82).

With 4E the numbers are unknown, and I have never seen any verification than it actually sold well except hat very brief launch window and Jonathan Tweet is on record sayings its a disaster, Mearls admitted they drove away their own players. Its decline on Amazon matches the rise of Pathfinder 2009-2012. I do vaguely remember a claim that 4E pre sales were very good (AKA before people read it). Beating 3.5 in sales is not a great achievement though every D&D can claim that and possibly Pathfinder.

D&D also has boom and bust years normally close to the boom. 1983 was the peak followed by a 30% collapse in 1984 and near going bankrupt in 85, its how we got Lorraine Williams. 2004 was another bust year along with 96/97 when TSR did actually go under.

Its why I look at sales of PHB (or the equivalent like B/X). In terms of big selling D&Ds though if you add 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder together you are in the ballpark for sales equivalent to B/X or 1E. Sales of the CMI part of BECMI were not very good (people don't play high level D&D any edition generally).

5E is on track to beating B/X and 1E golden age added together, at least in revenue adjusted for inflation. Online VTTs its about 5 times bigger than Pathfinder. Peak golden age D&D was also around 4-5 times the size of peak Paizo going by revenue. Golden age might be silver age now while the 3.0 silver age is bronze age. Online 3.5 is 5 times more popular than 4E, Pathfinder is a factor of 12.

Each successive D&D actually sold less than the previous one since the golden age, 4E may be a blip there but that was followed by a very rapid collapse. 5E is the 1st one to break that cycle especially over a sustained period.

Big selling D&Ds are not Pathfinder, 3.5 or 4E though at least in terms of RPGs all of them are probably top ten selling RPGs of all time but I think 7 D&Ds can make that claim (not OD&D) and probably Pathfinder. 1E AD&D, B/X and now 5E are your top 3 not 100% sure in the order probably 5E, 1E, B/X.

Moro wrote:

Zardnaar wrote:

who plays 4E with just the core 3 book.

Masochists.

Yep.

I fully believe 4E is the best D&D edition, but it only really works if you've invested a few hundred dollars in it.

I think most gamers use just the core books and maybe 1-2 splats and maybe an adventure or 2.

4E PHB had 5/11 3.5 classes missing. That is not good they should have ctt he epic level stuff and put the magic items in the DMG and fit them in. 4E was rushed though so go figure.

Azih wrote:

BryonD wrote:

I've seen several comments now about how much "the people at GenCon loved it" or similar. Those comments concern me that they are being taken as more significant to the big picture than they should.

To be fair, the comments on these boards should also not be taken as more significant than they should.

People who are opinionated and passionately adamant enough to post on forums a lot are not all that representative of the wider player base :).

I would say they are disproportionally the people who buy the actual products, though, i.e. GM's.

To be honest, outside of the CRB, none of my players own any of the materials. I am the only person who is collecting all the hardcovers, AP's and selected sourcebooks. And there's only one guy who has another CRB.

Nope casual players buy the most materials. WoTC listened to forum concerns and the RPGA in regards to 4E design did not turn out well and WoTC own forums were very negative towards 5E (mostly because the 4E fans had taken them over). When it became clear that 5E was not 4.5 and fans of other editions started posting about the D&D Next playtest or what have you they blew up a lot worse than they have here.

The way people talked about 3.5 on the forums was vastly different to the way most players played it. The well known problems 3.5 had on the forums were not a major problem for most gamers its how they got Pathfinder.

Put simply most players are not hard core power gamers or want to spend a lot of time crunching numbers and eking out builds.

The big issue is that there's some weird assumption that systems need radical overhauls every so often. Its not necessarily the case but 9/10 times the changeover comes more from simple lack of access, advertisement, and store shelf space of the older editions. Editions very rarely are put in direct competition, in fact the only time i can think of that happening is PF vs 4E...and the older edition won out there.

That is because there has usually only been 1 edition in print, the exceptions are 4E vs Pathfinder, 1977 when there were 3 editions in print (Holmes, 1E and OD&D) and the old 1/E and B/X versions which ended in AD&D eating B/X's lunch. 1E PHB was reprinted into 2E though (1990) and the last 1E module was 1994 IIRC a ToEE reprint.

If PF 2E tanks I would imagine Paizo would go 3pp for 5E rather than relaunch 1E. I would be amazed if that subject has not been mentioned behind closed doors. Everyone who wants PF1 already has it and odds are sales of 5E conversions of PF APs would do better than new PF1 material.

Some of the 3pp for 5E have had massive sales, a 2 million dollar kickstarter being one of them along with the Kobolds and HotDQ.

I'll probably buy PF2 regardless due to goodwill towards Paizo, what I buy after that depends on what PF2 ends up being.Something a bit crunchier than 5E is fine but not PF1 or PF2 playtest levels of crunchy which are headache inducing comparatively.

Otha wrote:

Visanideth wrote:

Honestly the history of 4E proves that online outrage is rarely, if ever, a good meter of judgement for the actual success of a product.

Maybe...but I bought the hardcover books for 4E and never played it once. I know my boardgame group also had an RPG night (which I did not play in) and they bought it as well...and they stopped having RPG nights not too long after. Not saying it didn't sell well, just putting out that it may not have played as well as it sold. I know there was a lot of hype for 4E when it was released...and it's a given that a new version of D&D will sell well, at least initially. Just curious, is there any breakdown/comparison of sales figures for how well it sold from its first year to the following years? Any way, there were enough people that left it for Pathfinder to be born...

Visanideth wrote:

Paizo's only concern is creating a product that can safely coexist with 5E, and not appeasing grognards.

You could very well be right as concerning RPGs as I do not know the market that well; I hope they succeed but it's a risk. Anything seen as similar to a very popular product runs the danger of paling in comparison; Coke Classic-New Coke and Hardees making changes (new hamburger recipe, frying burgers as opposed to char-broil) in the 80's are a couple off the top of my head...

Visanideth wrote:

Grognards never have the commercial critical mass to sustain a product.

I admit I don't know the RPG market well, so you could be right...but I wouldn't say never. The wargame market depended almost solely on Grognards, small as that market was. Grognards sustained Avalon Hill for many years...and GMT Games is doing pretty well with Grognards as their primary base as well...

But, as you say, the RPG market is probably different. I just don't know if Paizo can afford to lose the majority of their Grognards unless they can get at least a matching infusion of new players...

Fantastic post.

As for 4th Ed...

I just remember what others post, Dancey, Gygax and Applecine have all put up nummbers and they are roughly in the same ballpark although Dancewyt's tend to be 15%-20% higher but as I said its a ball park.

Probably not, 6 months would be for a tweak AD&D 1E to 2E, 3.0 to 3.5 or 3.5 to PF2.

Even if they tweaked it each month for 6 feedback cycles say if resonance is rejected they don't have much else to go on.

2 years is probably not a long enough development time either, 3.0 had almost 3, 5E got 3, 4E got 2, AD&D 2E got 2 IIRC.

Simple but complex is an oxymoron right? By this I mean you have the moving parts of PF1 but formatted in a way that are easy to understand and in a way where you do not have to wrestle with the rules, give yourself a headache or want to play something else. I will be looking a lot at concepts in this but will contrast a 5E fighter with the PF2 one and suggest how to fix that while paying tribute to PF1.

To star with I will first look at the main concepts of the fighting styles for the fighter class since around 198, yes this predates Pathfinder and 3E and it became prominent in the 1989 Complete Fighters Handbook. The main combat styles of D&D/Pathfinder

Great Weapons (damage)
Ranged weapons (erm range)
Dual Wielding (more attacks)
Sword and Board (defensive).

Note you can probably come up with others- crosssbowss, versatile weapons, 1 handed weapon nothing in the other hand etc.

How good those styles are varies by editions. Two handed weapons in AD&D were not that good because the longsword was so great and dual wielding was a lot better as well along with dual wielding longswords.

For example I want to build a dual wielding fighter in concept. In 5E I choose the TWF style at level 1 (ability to damage with your off hand), and dual wielding uses your bonus action. At level 5 I can make 3 attacks a round and move nice and simple and its not broken as dual wielding is regarded as a little bit under powered but you can make a decent dex based character doing it and gain the benefits of dex to everything else.

In the PF2 playtest I need to take the double slice feat. This feat is also a pain it references 3 other page numbers and you have to add up all of the damage and treat it as a single attack and you have a penalty to hit as well- that is so 1989 right there. Now to get a 3rd attack I have to combine it with the two weapon flurry feat which is level 14 and it uses all 3 actions. Add there is a -8 penalty requirement in there so now I have to go look that up as well. That is a lot of math and 4 things I have to reference just to have 3 attacks. In 5E you make one choice and its very easy, 16 dex 2 short swords level 5 two attacks+ bonus action 1d6+4 damage per attack. Put simply I'm not going to bother with the Pathfinder 2 one its to much work and this is not unique in trying to use TWF the other styles are not much better off.

In its own way this is actually worse than Pathfinder 1 as well along with 3.5, 5E, 4E and AD&D 2E. Part of this is also related to the new 3 action system some people seem to like and in some ways its better than the old 3.5/Pathfinder system is not actually good as such. Its complicated and still annoying. Its also changing Pathfinder 1 engine for no real reason, the guts of the Pathifnder action economy is not that different to 3.5, 4E or 5E. Before anyone gets all upset consider this.

3.5/PF
Standard Action
Move Action
Swift Action

4E
Standard Action
Move Action
Minor Action

5E
Action
Move
Bonus Action

All of them have a reaction. You could actually plug 3.5's system into 5E and use it more or less as is, bonus actions become swift actions. Now of course in 3.x you have the full attack, I would suggest that concept needs to die in a fire, then you do not have to go with PF2's clunky and annoying 3 action things. This has several advantages as its not that different to the other D&Ds, is a nice throwback to PF1/3E and if its not broken don't fix it. Whatever other issues 3.5 has have its round structure is not one of them. Put simply allow multiple attacks as a standard action a'la 4E and 5E and keep the existing 3.X engine, just tweak it.

Got me so far? Well I will keep going. A 3.X fighter ends up with 4 attacks at +16, +11,+6,+1. I'm dumping that as well and replacing it with 4 attacks at +16. Note in Pathfinder this would be broken due to the amount of numbers you can stack up and things like power attack in 3.5. Once again you change the real problem which is the damage you can stack onto those basic attacks. The multiple attacks are gated to the level the old fighter got them.

Lvl 6 two attacks
Level 11 3 atacks
Level 16 4 attacks.

They either get them as class features or have feats level gated to allow multiple attacks, a crossbow sniper buil;d might not need multiple attacks but could get extra dice and crits (4d12+ whatever for example) Resolving multiple attacks is a pain in Pathfinder due to the math, its not that much of a problem in 5E or AD&D 2E as I have seen 7 attacks in 5E (level 11 fighter action surging+ bonus action attack) and in 2E if you hasted a dual wielding fighter making 6 or 8 attacks a round at 1d8+8 damage would not be to unusual but you can resolve it quicker than adding up 10 modifiers.

My hypothetical fighter would also look a lot similar to the old Pathfinder fighter or the 3.0 and 3.5 fighter. The math might be changing but you want the class to at least look similar to what came before even if other things are changing. See 1E to 2E aAD&D or 3.0 to 3.5 and even in 2E to 3.0 a lot of that was in the late 2E splats they just messed up a few things in that transition.

So the guts of our fighter at level 11 3 attack, +11 to hit. I kind of like the PF2 boost system so assuming it started with an 18 and got 2 boosts to strength/dex (20 ability score) you would have +16 to hit, 2d6+5 damage with a great weapon. Each attack deals 12 average damage for a DPR of 36.

A dual wielder would probably be using d6 weapons (don't make the rapier d8 like 5E), and dual wielding would be limited by weapon size. No monkey gripped great weapons, and 2 longswords is also a bad idea at least without some sort of feat investment. The dual wielder gets an extra attack.

4 attacks 1d6+5 damage. Each attack is 8.5 on average, DPR 34.

The great weapon user is still dealing more damage the dual wielder is not to far behind. In both examples they still have a swift and move action left over. Also not his is the base fighters, both of them have not spent any feats. I'm going to steal the 4E power attack here (-2/+3) and cleave. IMHO you do not want an open ended power attack or one like 5E -5/+10 damage which only great weapon and missile users get.

For a -2 penalty to hit the great weapon user is now dealing +9 damage, DPR 43 vs 34.

My dual wielder is dealing less damage but the great weapon can cleave and gets better crits but the dual wielder has not spent his feats yet either. Those 2 feats could be spent on something like 2 more attacks which would bring the average damage up to 51- the dual wielder could potentially deal more damage than the great weapon user and gets 6 attacks a round. That is actually fine the Great weapon user gets a potential cleave attack, better crit damage and better at punching through damage reduction. There is nothign in the D&D bible that requires great weapon users to deal the most damage all of the time. In my examples which are only brainstorming the damage race is actually fairly close- sometimes THF will deal more damage other times TWF will.

Both fighters would get the bonus feats every 2 levels. You could also punch in some extra feats or whatever in the levels they do not get anything. So the potential fighter class would get. I'll go with perks from fallout 4

Feat
Perk
Feat
Perk
Feat
Perk

etc.
And they get +1 to hit via proficiency bonus. not that radically different to 3.5/Pathfinder. The PF2 fighter gets 3 skills while the Rogue gets 10 so it seems Paizo still has not learned I would recommend 4 and 6 or 6 and 10- the Rogue should get more skills X2, X3,or X4 is a bit much and the Rogue can have the option of getting more via class options or improving the ones they already have such as skill focus/expertise.

This is a fairly simple idea I think and it fixes a lot of problems the old fighter has and a lot of problems the PF2 playtest has. The class would also resemble the old fighter so you can take a look at it and grok how it works if you are familiar with any of the d20 D&Ds and you still have more moving parts than say 5E so your fighter is doing something different to the 5E fighter and appealing to those who like more options with simplified math. +20 to hit vs AC 30 and +10 to hit vs AC 20 are also the same thing, you don't need to add more math "just because".

The current PF2 round structure inherited from Starfinder (IDK BTW) is not good, its debatable if its an improvement over what you already have. Rather than write a heap of complex rules to mitigate the full attack mentality the real problem is not letting multi attack happen as a standard action. In effect you are creating complicated rules and then creating more complex solutions to get around those rules you just created. With my system you are not butchering sacred cows either just addressing a concept I have not liked since 2001 and one I don't think actually adds anything to the game. Then how the other moving parts such as class, racial, skill feats etc interact with that change is easy to work out. You can play around with what you can do with the swift and move actions along with the standard action with those moving parts to appeal to those who like complexity, the game doesn't really change but it makes it easier on them and everyone else as well. You're not blowing the game up a'la 4E or trying to duplicate 5E as PF2 would still be more complex than that.

PF2 is a system capable of facilitating non-identical characters of the same class. It is barely hyperbole to say that all 5e characters of the same class are identical.

5E classes have a surprising amount of depth in them. For example a level 3 fighter using just the PHB. For example

You have 3 archetypes. The fighter class has 6 fighting styles and you can go strength based or dex based.

So you have 3X6X2 36 viable fighters in the PHB alone. And that is before back ground and feats are taken into account. And none of them are trap choices. You might have a dex based sword and board battlemaster with the urchin back ground and they pick up a couple of thief skills and thieves tools. The champion version is a bit more brute force while the eldritch knight has some can trips and spell slots. The strength based ones tank around in heavy armor and might select the defensive options instead.

Throw in the fact that 5E PCs in effect get several feats built in for free vs Pathfinder (spring attack, weapon finesse, improved weapon finesse, TWF etc). By level 5 a dual wielder can move and have 3 attacks, 5 with action surge a level 14 PF2 fighter can have 3 attacks but can move.You have more moving parts but you have weaker fighters than 5E (or 2E even). You get less moving parts but you also get several abilities built in that are feat chains in PF.

Sure some of them may be samey but I assume every archer in PF is still taking point blank shot, rapid shot etc and every two handed weapon user takes power attack and if you want dex to damage you take scimitars and that feat I forget the name of it, often gets used with the magus. 5E you pick dual wielder, get off hand attack no penalty, dex to hit and damage level 2 and you can action surge and second wind. That is not to bad IMHO. I assume the dual wield feats in P core book are still ones used on that build? The ideas are very similar the 5E one just requires one choice and gets it at level 1.

How many feats do you have to take to get dex to hit, damage, dual wield at no penalty and move+ full attack. Level 1 5E 1 choice. ANd if you need to switch to a bow you don't get punished because you did not spend 3 feats on a bow although a 5E dedicated archery is very good (requires 1 feat).

GLD wrote:

I feel like the cracks in the 3.X engine were becoming pretty prevalent and I was actually glad to see a lot of its relics be written out.

Honestly, if it's not a complete overhaul, what's the point? If you're just tweaking the existing mechanics then don't bother with a new edition. Just release a book of variant rules and be done with it. And they already did that with Unchained and sprinkled throughout a myriad of other books over the last decade.

If you have criticisms about the new game, go for it. But the fact that it's distancing itself from 3.X isn't a valid one in my mind.

If you just want more Pathfinder 1, well you're set. Between Pathfinder's ridiculous amount of official material, all the 3rd party stuff and all the fully compatible 3.5 books put out by Wizards (and that is well into the hundreds) you are set. There is more content than you could ever hope to absorb and the system is weathered enough that you and tens of thousands of other fans have produced a nearly infinite number of variations, house rules, extra content and so forth, to tweak the game into exactly what you want.

Except next year at GenCon there aren't going to be Pathfinder 1 tables for me to play my characters I've spent the past two years building at.

I'm going to either have to switch to PF2 (haven't seen anything to make me want to yet), switch to another system (or more of another system- this year I did 4 slots 5E, 4 slots Pathfinder, but I've played Shadowrun before and if I'm trying a game that's completely new, which PF2 is there are many other options out there), or just not go.

I agree- they could have done another Unchained ruleset, then they could have even made those rules the baseline for PFS going forward if that's what they wanted to fix.

But they wanted to toss everything out, babies and bathwater, and start fresh. So here we are.

People still play OSR games 30+ years after they have gone out of print. Online they are more popular numbers wise than 4E.

Depends if you are a DM or player or both. If I want to run AD&D my group plays AD&D (or ACKs or C&C). One of my players switched to DM/GM sometimes so I get to play.

Last time I played AD&D as a player was with some PFS fellas, I had a PF player play 2E AD&D tweaked to use BAB and a better human (no level limits) with our group as his Mymidon Fighter and he liked it. It also helped that his fighter was better relative to what he was facing in 2E than the PF one.

I have not resorted to playing online yet but may have to though playing AD&D is getting harder and its for when I burn out on 3.X or 5E and want to take a break.

Some of the posters here are claiming that PF2 is going to be 5E lite or whatever. I don't think it will be but 5E had a lot of great ideas IMHO that would improve a hypothetical OSR game, a new 3.X game, a hypothetical 6E game or even a 4.5. However 5E won't scratch every itch and I think they dropped the ball in a few places for a variety of reasons. I play all sorts of D&D and I can generally find something in them I like even the rough ones like OD&D or 1E AD&D or even 4E.

Note I have played a lot of 5E and even if you like the system there are some major flaws in, some minor ones and some things that other D&D's do differently that you might like better some of the time. %E may have also carried the simple is better concept a bit to far or did not think of some of the ramifications of concepts like bounded accuracy. A bit more complexity is fine, but its a fine line between more options are good and "this is to complex I don't want to play it".

1. Micro Feats Are Core.

In 5E feats are optional and they are bigger than 3.X feats roughly being 2 or 3 feats rolled into one. On occasion I do miss 3E and 4E type feats conceptually,in execution not so much. However there is a wide variance in feat power and while feats are optional its an on/off thing and if you like organised play they are not optional. This means feats like Great Weapon Master get compared with actor and that feat and Sharpshooter are generally regarded as a somewhere between overpowered if not out right broken as they have the problems of 3.x power attack- -1 to hit/+2 damage at least as a ratio as they are fixed at -5/+10. You can cleave in 5E using GWM feat but not with a battle axe or longsword. If 5E had micro feats you have a cleave effect and a power attack type effect on 1 feat.
If you design the PF2 feats right you can have better balance+ more options.

2. Breaking up Feats into Combat Feats and Non Combat Feats

A problem with a lot of the crap/weak or non combat feats in Pathfinder and 3E are that they are competing with powerful combat feats such as 3.5's power attack. Back in 2E AD&D they used to have weapon proficiency (proto feats in effect), and non weapon proficiency- the classes got both. In late 2E they merged these with the optional character point system in Skills and Powers and in 3.0 the non combat feats were lumped in with all the feats. A few classes got specific feats as bonus ones in 3.0/3.5 which in effect became class abilities (scribe scroll for wizards, ranger and monk bonus feats).Rather than taking options away form other classes this is giving you more options but expanding the power levels sideways rather than pushing it up. Of course some classes should get more combat feats than other. Conceptually this is a good idea, PF2 may need some organisation work. 2E AD&D for example had general NWP, Rogue, wizard, priest and warrior categories. It needs some work ATM but the idea is good.

3. Paizo Can Make Great Adventures.

If Paizo announced Rise of the Rune Lords for 5E tomorrow I think a lot of 5E players would rejoice and the old 3.5 ones Savage Tide and Age of Worms would arguably work better in 5E than 3.5 especially Savage Tide. Not all of the Paizo APs have been great but you can say the same about the WoTC ones as well and they made 1 stinker in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Generally the worst Paizo AP is average vs out right bad even if it doesn't interest you or they are pushing the envelope with new mechanics (magi tech, domain rules etc). At the worst Paizo APs are average and formulaic, that is not a bad thing as such. At best you would have contenders for top 30 list of all time adventures, 5E has perhaps one or two contenders there.

4. Golarion.

What campaign settings are good or not is purely subjective, personally I am not a fan of Ravenloft or Dragonlance. Golarion as far as kitchen sink settings is a good one I think reminiscent of early FR and Mystara with a dash of Eberron. It has also not suffered form any Realms Shaking events to blow it up. Once again I don't think there would be to many 5E players upset if they ever converted Golarion to 5E such is its quality and some things like the Red Mantis could easily become a rogue archetype.5E has taken a story based approach and made FR front and centre. Perosnally FR fdied for me at the end of 3E into 4E I prefer Golarion and have used it for retroclones for example. Conceptually the difference between the Sword coast and Varissia is not that much.

5. Saving throws.
Well 5E kind of missed the boat on saving throws. They are very unbalanced with some being drastically better than others (con saves for spellcasters come to mind) while intelligence saves being all but useless. The saves are not all equal with wisdom saves and con saves being very good, dex saves are OK and the others less valuable. Classes with proficiency in con saves+ charisma or strength are a lot better than dex+ intelligence or intelligence+ wisdom. The other compounding problem is that since the saves do not really scale some of the classes primary stat they have huge incentive to boost matches up with one of the good primary saves (con, wisdom dex). A cleric with 20 wisdom for example may have a +11 wisdom save while a fighter who likely has a 14 wisdom probably lower has +2 while a wizard will have +11 wisdom saves and +8 wisdom saves with that 14 intelligence. Most classes only get 5 ASIs so the opportunity cost of buffing a bad save or attribute is quite high assuming you want to max your primary stat. There is still a wide variance between good and bad saves and since DCs are tied to your increasing proficiency bonus in effect most saves get worse as you level up as DCs increase but most saves do not. 3 saves are also easier than 6 and in 5E most aves are con/wis/dex anyway.

6. Intelligence is the Ultimate Dump Stat
In 5E unless you are a wizard and maybe one of the 1/3rd casters intelligence is semi useless. There are very few intelligence saves in the game and you do not get more skills or languages or anything off it. There are a few intelligence based skills but most of them you can live without or make do by being proficient in them with a 10 or 12 intelligence score (or buf using the cleric guidance spell).

7.Interesting Weapons and Armor.
There was not to much wrong with the 3.5 armour system and the weapons could do with a tweak perhaps. In this regard 5E may have simplified things a bit to far. 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4E all have their issues but this is not a major one IMHO apart from maybe the 3E crit hit system. 5E functionally has 3 armors in the game- studded leather, plate and whatever the best medium armor is and the usefulness of medium armor is more for spellcasters due to who strength and dex work in determining attack rolls combined with the amount of ASI's you get.

Pathfinder has more interesting armour IMH0 that is still reasonably simple to grok. Well exotic weapons could die in a fire I suppose but you could combine elements of the two to have a simple and effective weapon system. For example you can have 3.5 weapon crits deal crits like 5E but replacing the X2 and X3 effects with extra dice educing rocket tag but you crit more often as you dump the roll to confirm element. Crits would still be worth getting (great axes deal 3d12 damage, greatswords 4d6). You can do some interesting things with weapons in 5E but its more or less gated to classes such as Monks being able to weapon finesse spears for example. Or a mountain dwarf sorcerer wading into combat with a battleaxe. Whatever you do there you have design space different from 5E that can still be reasonably simple to pull off while being interesting/effective.

In the lead up too the PF2 player test I read about resonance and I am not a fan of it and this is coming from someone who has no problem restricting things in his games.

Put simply its clunky, annoying and it gives the charisma based classes a huge leg up all other things being equal.

it also fails to address the main problem which is easy and cheap access to magic items. This was actually made worse in Pathfinder compared with 3.5 where you had to at least pay exp to craft magic items.

A wand of CLW for example is not broken, the ability to buy or craft it is. A wand of CLW in AD&D for example is not broken and it would actually work OK in 5E as well due to the changes made to wands and it would not be that drastically different to a Staff of Healing.

The wands existence makes writing an adventure very had and generally people seem to think the Paizo ones are to easy. Wands of CLW contribute to that as in effect each battle has to be rocket tag or every fight is way to easy which ultimately leads to boredom. In both cases the DM is probably not having much fun. In rocket tag he has to work hard to create encounters to challenge the PCs, if the game is to easy he is not really there to do anything except rolling dice for the players to plow through the NPCs.

If you like playing Pathfinder but are struggling to find a GM/DM, don't want to DM yourself or can't find a DM that is a contributing factor. The complexity of running the damn game is also another one. If your PFS has collapsed locally because of 5E that would be another example. If none of that applies to you that is great but if you have seen it or elements of it well its a factor. Also if you think the great Paizo AP's would run better with more casual type PCs using a default array and not optimised so much you are probably right.

10 years ago it may have been a good idea but unless you were very young you are probably coming up to 30 years old or more which means wife, job, mortgage, kids etc all eat into your gaming time. nd new players are not so big on complexity in general and this applies to video games as well(Tetris vs Europa Unversalis, Mario vs Civilization series etc.

The cheap and easy magic items thing is endemic to 3E and 4E but 4E toned down the power of magic items a lot and ultimately made them boring but once again it made the assumption that letting players buy them was a good idea. Player agency is fine up to a point but then you have a problem of the inmates running the asylum. Think of most sports that have strict rules, those rules exist for a reason. Its not legal in Baseball to use the bat as a weapon (Fallout 4 maybe).

Around about now some of the hard core players might disagree with me, the argument is that Pathfinder is all about options. I would agree but that was never the intent of 3E to begin with. When they designed 3.0 the idea was to remove some of the restrictions AD&D had. This was things like racial limits, level limits etc which often made no sense. Level limits are a prime example why not just design a better human?

IN hindsight a few of those things were a mistake IMHO and they have been trying to fix it ever since at least from 3.5, 4E, Pathfinder and 5E have all made efforts. What became the "3.x playstyle" was actually an aberration it was never intended. For example apparently when they tested 3.0 they hardly tested above level 10 and played it like a less restrictive 2E AD&D with more options. Being able to buy and sell magic items was intended to stop the DM screwing you over, it was not meant to enable easy access to everything and even in 3.0 they still had "ask the DM" for custom magic items.

So how did the "3.x" play style evolve and why have I put brackets around it. Well the problem is there has been a divergence in how forum posters play or assume D&D/Pathfinder is played and how most people IRL actually play. Going by forum chatter for example you would have assumed that 3.5 was a horribly bloated mess that was only played by power gaming munchkins who own every book in the game and enjoy building Pun Pun or whatever. In practice most players probably own very few source books, do not visit the forums and as late as 2014 I havbe seen people play Pathfinder as a glorified 2E AD&D who don't even use the wands of CLW. Its not as if 3.5 or Pathfinder put up signs in the DMG saying "use these wands" nor is it readily apparent by reading through the books that you should.

If you are a member of forums, here or the old WoTC forums or wherever perhaps in organised play sure you know about this. I think this is a reason 4E tanked they fixed the game for problems forum users had but the community at large did not know about or did not care about. A lot of the min/maxing that occurred online was theory crafting IMHO although I am sure some games were ruined by Incantrixes or Shadow Adepts or Spelldancers etc. The only 3.5 class that was easily broken was the Druid were the class by itself was broken combined with the natural spell feat which was kinda of obvious and commonly picked.

You had to work a bit harder to break the Cleric and Wizard and know how to do it via spells, feats, splat books etc. Even back then we ran power builds but very few of them came from the forums and I was about the only one who had a vast amount of 3E books at the time- other groups had the core books, an adventure or 2 and maybe a few splats.

So every version of 3.X and D&D since 3.0 has been toning stuff down in a variety of ways. Is it wrong to like the amount of player agency 3.X gives you? No absolutely not but it was not intended and makes the game harder for GMs/DMs. Its not even universal to the 3.x players.I am not saying you can't have options but its how those options interact with the rest of the game, how big the gap is of those options and how easy/hard they make the game to run thats a bit different. Its actually an aberration, was not intended and evolved out of the D&D online hivemind. As early as 2001 we had a wizard nicknamed Xerox due to his ability to mass produce scrolls of haste- 3.0 haste lol.

Just by having micro feats as an option for example you are going to have a very different game than 5E. The more options you have the more complexity you are going to have and if 80% or 90% of those options suck whats the point? Right now for example even PF players are struggling with the existing PF2 material. 2 and 3 hours to create a character. Resonance contributes to that and its a band aid for some bad decisions (in hindsight) made in the late 90's that every edition of D&D/Pathfinder has backed up on. Cheap and easy access to anything you like is the culprit and it reduces the excitement of finding magic items as you will just sell them for half price to get what you actually want. When a Holy Avenger is an OK weapon there might be something wrong.

Heal bot can be spread around from the cleric. Basically buff bards, Paladins etc healing ability.

How long the adventuring day is also related to how scary the monsters are. Does and Ogre deal 1d10, 1d10+4 or 2d8+4 damage.

PF1 the expectation was 4 encounters per day? I remember the expectation in 3.5 (or 3.0)?) was that each encounter would use around 25% of your resources.

It may take 19 years but ironically the game might actually function as intended originally (4 encounters, played like 2E almost).

Well it seems that PF2 has had a mixed reception online but on the plus side it seems to have dodged the vitriol of 3E-4E and the start of the 5E playtest when it became apparent to the 4E players 5E was not going to be an evolution of 4E.

Myself I am somewhat indifferent I like some of it, dislike other parts but I agree a lot with the posters who have mentioned that its hard to read and there is to much to take in and the layout. For example the Fighters is 9 or 10 pages long, you have to cross reference it with the feats and then there are more feats on the archetypes section that are on page 280.

Another impression is that this is more of a beta that Paizo wants to clean up than a playtest like 5E which basically built a system fro the ground up.

Note that this is just IMHO I made an attempt to fix 3.5 around 10 years ago and that consisted of a ba list of the most abusive feats and prestige classes along with banning wands of CLW. Eventually I dumped the 3.5 magic items rules altogether and went with AD&D 2E spells and magic item creation rules. The reason is its exciting to find a holy avenger for example than lots of little items that you sell and buy the equipment you want. Also it leads to abuse combos when players can match up feats with magic items IMHO. Its something I have spent 10 years thinking about or noticing when you play AD&D or 5E or Star Wars Saga etc.

So the first thing I think Paio needs to do is identify who Pathfinder 2 is aimed at even if its a generic "Pathfinder 2 is for everyone" as no surprise there is already disagreement with the various people who play it. Note you will never appeal to extremists so those players who want a 3.8 version of 3E or the "burn it all down" players will never be satisfied. In the 5E playtest Mearls said their cut off point for negative feedback was 10%. The reason was that even if 10% of the players liked Gnomes for example in a group of player with 1 DM and 4 players a 10% threshold of players means 1 in 10 payers is angry which on average means every second group is going to have someone angry in it. Well maybe angry is not the right word but you get what I mean. But cutting gnomes is a mistake if 10% like them and 4E found that out.

Now the other thing with 5E love it or hate it is the table layout and class description (pretty art aside) is not that different than 3.5 or Pathfinder. This means existing D&D players can identify the class and something like the fighter is fairly straight forward and it basically fits on 2 pages with another half page or a page for the archetypes. Even if you want more moving parts than 5E (and this is something PF2 can differ on IMHO) you want to have it in a format that people can understand or enjoy. Something like the Star Wars Soldier for example you have a page or 2 of the basic class and 3 pages of talents (basically class features). You can read the 1st 2 pages, grok what the class is about then deal with all the fiddly bits later. This is similar to every spellcaster ever in D&D, A basic wizard from B/X is around 2 pages long the spell section is around 20 page but its kept away form the class.

While I don't think a Pathfinder 2 is 4E light there is a resemblance of page after page of feats to the page after page of the 4E powers. Since 4E went to level 30 and had 13-15 page classes the PF2 classes are comparable to that. Options are nice but its not helped if 80% of them are crap anyway or a players eyes glaze over. For example I printed the 1st 140 pages of the book and let my wife read the Bard which is one of here favourite classes going back to 3.5 (skills, spells, charisma). She loves the lore bard in 5E. She had a quick look, got sick of all the cross referencing and said she would read it later. That was 2 days ago later has not happened yet. Right now the key thing of Pathfinder seems to be more feats, more feats and still more feats, and combined with the character creation system you actually have something here more complicated than 4E and less easy to read than 3.5 or Pathfinder.

Another issue that has been commented on is how you can't build a very good strength based Rogue or in effect the various fighting styles are now exclusive to certain classes that get feat support. 5E just lets anyone dual wield for example if you want to be good at it be a fighter or Ranger and take that combat style. Combat styles are also shared across the PHB and Rangers and Paladins can also pick them. Some classes of course are better at it, Paladins do not get the dual wielding style for example but they can still do it if you want to be goods at it you have to multiclass as a fighter. Then you can have a Paladin dual wielding that can smite so you maximise your chances of smiting by maximising your number of attacks.

Without feats the styles are all reasonably balanced and its not so much is this one better but "what do you want to be good at". This changes when feats are added in because they went down the two handed weapons need to be uber rabbit hole again like 3.5 and Pathfinder. Note I have no problem with the idea that 2 handed weapons deal more damage but when they get to add 50-100% of your strength modifier and get the -1/+2 power attack effect or the -5/+10+ cleave effect in 5E its to much IMHO. When you are dealing double or triple damage over the other styles its clear what the best option is. Also note the styles as a concept thing is nothing new it has gone back to 2E AD&D Complete Fighters Handbook circa 1989 which will be 30 years ago when PF2 lands.

So putting it all together what would I do. I used the fighter as an example as it is generally the 1st thing I look at in a new edition of D&D, retroclone, Pathfinder etc. Well 1st things 1st format it so people can understand it or its not going to bore them stupid.You can have a simple format that hides a surprising amount of depth to it a'la 5E or the Star Wars Saga system. Also you may want to use something vaguely familiar even if the names change as 3.5, 4E, and 5E all use a very similar round structure for example even if 4E use Standard, move and minor actions while 5E has action, move, bonus action while 3.5 kind of had minor and standard actions in the splats. Going further using 4E as an example if you ripped out the entire 4E class system and replaced them with 3.5 classes would that be terrible? All the stuff you did not like about 4E is gone but the 4E engine is quite good IMHO. If you made your own 3.5 game or a retroclone you could do worse than use the 4E engine for example.

Well my argument is just use the engine you have got and tweak it. For example rather than have 3 action just let a fighter or whatever multi attack as a standard action (or as an action in 5E).Its simple you then you can layer on the complexity with the move and minor/bonus/whatever action and class abilities and feats.Yes I know this means you can move and full attack in Pathfinder 1 terms but then you change the other ingredients like no more -1/+2 power attack and +100% strength bonus to damage.

Putting it all together.

So in effect I am arguing you want a simple form of class design where you can layer on the complexity via options 5E does not have, I am not arguing that you need to make PF2 a 5E clone but even something as simple as micro feats (AKA options) vs 5E larger feats gives you more moving parts than 5E allows. I mentioned earlier Paizo also need to identify who they are aiming PF2. What I mean by that there are probably lots of ex and current PF players who do not have a lot of the late Pathfinder material and going by PF2 alot of the ideas are not actually that good in a vacuum just better than what you have already got (such as the 3 action system, have 3 attacks and don't move a 5th level l 5E fighter can do that).

I suppose ideally you would want ex and current PF players to play along with new ones and some 5E players. Give them something they can understand is key to that IMHO. The math can change of course, you can tweak it such as using a unified proficiency system (whatever the number are in that system +6, +10 or +20 by level 20). You can rewrite all the feats and spells but on paper the classes should resemble what came before even if the underlying engine has been tuned and the math, feats, spells etc have all been redone. The parts you could plug in for example were what was wrong with 3.X. Tune the math, fix or remove the broken/clunky/useless parts of 3E, have it look like 3E though even if number of spell slots change for example.

So usig the old Star Wars Saga Soldier as an example the class looked like this.

Feat
Talent
Feat
Talent
Feat
etc.

In effect it was build your own class from a list of options. Feats were in their own section, each class got a list of what feats they could pick, the weapon styles (dual wield etc) were mostly on the feats, what you could do with those weapons however were on the talent trees for the classes. Note Paizo can't use that system (copyright and all) but I am talking about concepts. So rather than have a massive list of class feat break those feats up into class perks or thematic feats. So the core PF2 fighter in this might look something like this.

Feat
Class feat
Feat
Class feat
feat

etc.

And boosts at level 5,10,15 and if you want to put 2 feats or a fixed/default fighter ability in there you do. For the "feat trees" which are different to feat trees in 3.5/Pathifnder you might group half a dozen armor/shield in the defensive feat tree. Rather than have to many fiddly+1 effects make them +2 or a situational +5 (flanking for example), or have them do something cool. Or example a shield can add its AC bonus to reflex saves or you can use your reaction to take half damage from an incoming attack (the shield deflects it a bit). You could also put in a numeric bonus as well but you don't want to many of them (+1 AC no more than +2).Don't eliminate +1 entries, +1 AC is fine for example but minimise the amount. I want to play D&D not D&D the accounting game.

Another potential feat tree is a weapon one, another one may be tough as guts 4-6 feats that grant you more hit points or some form of damage mitigation. You probably want 4-6 trees of 4-6 feats each. You can level gate some of the feats as well rather than use requirements like BAB +16 or whatever.

Now finally you need to figure out the combat styles. Conceptually several of them are easy work out. The basic ones from 1989.

Sword and board= defensive
Two handed=damage
Dual wielding= multiple attacks
Ranged= ranged.

These are your 4 basic ideas. You can probably break it up into more options for the styles as well. Lets add

Bows= rapid/multi shot
Crossbows= 1 bigger attack (more dice, improved crits maybe)
Thrown Weapons
Dueling (1 weapon no shield) IDK accuracy perhaps.

There are probably more this is just concept testing. You don't want the gaps between the styles to be to big as I mentioned earlier. Great weapons might get a static +2 damage, sword and board gets +2 AC, dueling might get +2 to hit, Bows are ranged and if you build on them you have ranged multi attacks, crossbows are for snipers, dual wielding might be for light weapons or finesse weapons etc.

Either way you want reasonably static effects. This avoids things like 3.5 scaling buff spells (damage scaling spells are fine). This means no more open ended -1/+2 damage, no more greater magic weapon +1 every 3 or 4 levels. Spells can be buffed as well for example bless can become +2 instead of +1 (1d4 in 5E but its a bit to good at that). Having a static number or effect (half damage for example) reduces the amount of things that can go wrong and lets the designers know exactly what they are doing.

So that is how I think you take concepts from AD&D, 5E or whatever while letting Pathfinder do its on thing in terms of options while not having those options wreck the game (something will come out on top, its how on top is key) and it presents those options in a format that an existent Pathfinder player (or ex player) with only the Pathfinder core book understand and for the hard core it looks a lot like Pathfinder one. It also lets you run around with a greatsword doing lots of damage but shuts down the -5/+10 powerattack crit oops I one shotted the boss (or got one shotted) effect. AKA rocket tag. Still make the "oops I critted effect" worth doing though.

Other moving parts like resonance, wands of cure light wound and tweaking, overhauling or leaving alone are reasonably easy fixes. Paizo could ask a simple question in a playtest.

Magic Items Do you like

Resonance
Unchanged
Removed from player agency (this means you keep wands of CLW in the game but can't buy them a'la 5E/AD&D)

Those are other arguments though. Not if you fixed the moving parts of 3.5 you could use the engine to make a B.X clone, a 4E type game or even a 5E. You could almost build a system that lets you do all of that as a feat could grant you a 4E type power. Doesn't have to be in the core book but design it right a new archetype can just be recommend prebuilt PC that has picked new feats, perks, talent etc. You could even have the 3.5 magic item system as optional along with an AD&D type magic system pick one to use (one is default in organized play).

Zardnaar wrote:

Looks good I would still prob use the SWSE defenses just tuned to 5E type numbers.

Thanks, I have that option as well, though I have added the 4th Ed option of Str or Con to Fort, Dex or Int to Ref, Wis or Cha to Will; so easy to play with the 5th Ed chassis (best part of the game). One thing I do not like is Ref as AC.

One of my players wanted me to tweak the core book plug in in 5E numbers.I think I cut a class and buffed the Rogue.

I was going to rewrite a few of the talents as well so they grant expertise and/or advantage on skills vs +1 and the if you roll a 20 thing.

If you were going to try and fix 3.5 or make a more complicated 5E love letter or even make an OSR game using the 5E chasis.

My personal homebrew D&D ended up as a B/X variant with micro feats and 5E type numebers but the 5E numbers perhaps could be stretched a bit, AC up around 30 prof going to +10 instead of +6- basically 4E and SWSE.

You could also do worse reusing the 4E/SWSE round structure with the micro actions.

Problem is rewriting everything yourself its a lot of work.

I understand why Paizo is going this direction, its just not what I (personally) hoped for. I disagree that PF1 took 3.5 as far as it could go.

Taking it as far as financially viable.

For example Starfinderr is outselling PF1 but PF1 is more popular at online tables.

More or less means sales of PF1 are flat but it has a larger player base. Everyone who wants to buy PF1 probably already owns it.

Zardnaar wrote:

Star Wars Saga was one of the best d20 games WoTC made and yeah the soldier is better than the PF2 fighter. If you overhauled the math on SWSE perhaps using a universal prof bonus and tweaked the talents you would have a great system IMHO.

I wanted 4E to be more like SWSE back in 2008 and instead we got 4E.

I totally agree, I have tweaked SWSE to use the 5th Ed chassis (Proficiency bonus, etc), here is Boba Fett, converted:

BOBA FETT
Medium humanoid (human), scout 3/soldier 5/bounty hunter 5/elite trooper 2

Armour Class 19 (Mandalorian armour)
Hit Points 129 (3d8 + 12d10 + 16 + 30)
Speed 30 ft., fly 30 ft. (jetpack)

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
15 (+2) 18 (+4) 15 (+2) 14 (+2) 14 (+2) 13 (+1)

Saving Throws Str +7, Dex +9, Con +7, Int +4, Wis +4, Cha +3
Skills Intimidation +6, Perception +7, Persuasion +6, Pilot +9, Stealth +9, Survival +7
Damage Reduction 1
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages Basic, Huttese, Mando’a
Destiny 3; Force 6; Dark Side 7

ACTIONS
Double Attack. Boba Fett makes two blaster carbine attacks with a -2 penalty.

Unarmed Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (1d6 + 7) bludgeoning damage,

Blaster Carbine. Range Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, range 40 ft./120 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) energy damage; or range 120 ft., 5-foot radius sphere, DC 17: 18 (3d8 + 5) energy damage (with burst fire).

Grenade Launcher. Boba Feet propels a grenade at a point up to 120 feet away. Each creature within 20 feet of that point must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 22 (5d6 + 5) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one.

Flamethrower. Boba Fett shoots fire in a 30-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw, taking 15 (3d6 + 5) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Missile Launcher. Boba Fett launches a...

Looks good I would still prob use the SWSE defenses just tuned to 5E type numbers.

This negative reaction does go along with an early concern I had. I was worried that they were changing too much and would run into backlash from the old players who came to PF1 explicitly because of the negative reaction to the D&D 4 change. Paizo seemed to go for maximum change with the option to potentially dial things back later. But there is less chance of having a 'later' if the initial reaction puts a lot of people off. I can understand why they did it, it's better to overshoot and then dial back instead of make something that's only slightly changed and therefore doesn't do much to expand the appeal. But I suspect PF1 players are a bit more resistant to major changes because of the bad experience with 3.5 to 4.

Plus it's not like what we got is without flaws. The way magic has been knocked down is possibly excessive for example. I still think this could be turned into an excellent second edition, but maybe not in the time they have. This is a drum I've been beating since the announcement, but I think it's still valid. There needs to be at least one more iteration of the rules before they lock down a final version. This schedule of playtest for 5 months and then get to writing a final release for next GenCon would be fine for a smaller change, but with this level of overhaul I don't think it's going to cut it. It looks like a lot of the playtest version will need to be changed, but those changes need to be tested too to see if they're too much or not enough.

With magic I think they just needed to identify the most broken effects. In 3.5 for example the warmage was not broken so you don't really need to fix boom spells, 5E may have messed that part up.

Overhauling the other classes and fixing saves would also help dial back magic but a bit more organically. If save or dies functioned more like AD&D where high level characters are semi immune they become high risk/reward type spells.

90% of 3.5 and Pathfinder spells are probably fine. Its that 10% or so that cause problems and fixing them or even removing them should be options then you can tweak the other classes or things like spell slots.

Then you only have to overhaul the ones that are still broken.

WormysQueue wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

so, Facebook, the End of Civilization, agrees with you? Never a good sign

Nice job in completely ignoring the actual point made.

Sorry, Gorbacz made a point? I must have missed that.

Anyway, the playtest forums are pretty civil, I must say. I see a lot of disappointment and negative feedback, but not the hysteric outrage that usually accompanies change. So, I really don't see how hyperbole is a point

This not everyone loves it but its not like the 3E-4E transition or the 4E-5E playtest. It lacks the vicious part of it and most people are civil even if they are negative.

Insight wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

Insight wrote:

The 4e bottom line may not have been inmpressive (depends on exactly how much they spent on things like marketing and infrastructure), but analysis of the overall revenue shows 4e is only behind 5e in terms of sales (not counting inflation adjustment for older D&D editions and separating 3.5 from Pathfinder).

Well, according to what I have heard/read, Amazon etc, 5th Ed is apparently selling as well as it did back in the early 80s.

According to Hasbro, far better even! The point was that both 4e and 5e are two of the best selling (if not the best-selling) RPGs of all time. I can’t fault Paizo for trying to emulate them.

Was 4th Ed actually one of the best selling RPGs of all time, I know initial sales were good. I guess the real money came from the DDI subscriptions?

Probably because it is D&D but it is probably on the low side of D&D sales.

With various sources (Gygax, Dancey)the highest selling D&DS in order are.

Probable sales rankings.

5E?
1E or B/X red box.
2E
3.0
3.5
Pathfinder
4E
OD&D

5E may have also outsold 1E and/or the red box. Its doing very well. No one even TSR knows how well 1E and Red box sold but generlaly its 1 million+ to 1.5 million.

Adjusted for inflation 5E may not have hit the peak year of 1983, but they have done better than say 81 and 82 with less product which likely means the 5E PHB is carrying the bulk f the sales.

No one knows how well 4E did but Mearls admitted they drove away their fans and one of the designers called it a disaster. If it sold alright it would have been on presales, seems sales tanked fairly hard afterwards.Some numbers are knowns about (500k 3.0, 750k 2E, 40k OD&D).

One of the Paizo staffers also gave a figue of Pathfinder at 250k in 2014, while Dancey gave 3.5 250k-350k sales. Not all 3.5 players went to Pathfinder so 3.5 probably outsold Pathfinder but its possible PF is ahead of 3.5. Note 3.5 did not do that well by D&D standards it only outsold OD&D at 40k and maybe 4E.

Only 1E and the Red Box are viable contenders to 5E sales, maybe even put together 12 or 15 million players for 5E apparently. Online its about 5 times bigger than Pathfinder.

Gorbacz wrote:

Sulako wrote:

I can, however, see why Wizards felt they needed a new edition. The OGL was just tearing them apart. The 3rd party material was just a travesty of hodge-podge dumpster fires.

Hey, you really shouldn't speak that harshly of Pathfinder.

Dude. Enough with the gasoline.

He was blunt but a lot of PF splat is not great. I liked the early stuff Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, Players Guide those were good.After that though.....

Great APs though.

To me, it feels more like 13th Age then 4e. Which is a very good thing. I would argue that 13th Age is what 4e should have been.

I thought 4E should have been more like Star Wars Saga with D&D type classes in it (vancian casters etc).

This was 2008, but yeah 13th AGE is arguably better than 4E IMHO. Its not D&D but doesn't have to be which was a problem 4E had.

Witch of Miracles wrote:

Initial responses are typically based on initial impressions.

Unfortunately, the initial impressions for the system are really, really misleading. A lot of the things they did to make the system more unified/consistent made it so the rulebook A) looked like 4e to a lot of people and B)had things organized so that it's hard to understand how any one part of the game works without reading the whole thing. That is going to provide a very bad first impression to a lot of people, regardless of what the system is actually like.

but if Paizo wants to sell their products, first impression matters. Imagine seeing this in your local game store without prior knowledge. Would you buy it after having a quick read through it? I'd think that this book is the illegitimate hate child of 4E and 5E and put it back on the shelf, embarrased to have even looked at it.

Its not the final book but yeah its not the easiest read ATM.

4e is a hot mess. This is actually a functional system. Anytime I've tried to understand 4e I find I don't want to anymore after reading the book for a while. This playtest is pretty easy to understand once you get past the not so great organization

That is not a hot mess, 4E is very very dry to read. 4E is over designed if anything not badly designed as such. Not designed as an edition I want to play which is a bigger problem..

If you think you can do it better, submit it to the art department.

I can't do better but I don't expect anyone to buy my stuff.

If you think I am bad my group is even worse towards the Pathfinder art lol. One in particular is very vocal about Pathfinders "animie" art style. WAR can do good art and art is a bit subjective but over the years a lot of ex players and even Pathfinder players IRL don't love the PF art.

Pretend you walk into a game store with the various RPGs books on the shelf. Are you going to like the 5E covers or the Pathfinder covers?
Or the various other RPG books with nice art. If you are a new player with no ball in the game so to speak do you see the problem?

Note the relative amount of success 5E has had the RPG market is about 4 times bigger now than what it was pre 5E and a lot of that is from new players. Has attendance at PFS gone up or down in your area (or died off?).

The Art in this thing is a lot better than 4th Edition and that was 10 years ago so, no, your opinion is objectively wrong. There is one thing with the art though-now that essence is a thing, isn't that in conflict with the house art style? I mean Pathfinder for me has always sort of been like what Rob Liefeld would have made if he'd ever learned to draw. It falls into two character archetypes: belts and belts and belts characters and Las Vegas dancer outfit characters. But now that Essence limits the amount of magic items you can wear, is the art even accurate. I mean, back in the day it made sense because the average pre gen character was toting around ~ 30 odd magic items.

4E did have some decent art the covers were not one of them though- and its WAR art there again And a lot of 4E PHB art was also underwhelming along with character art in general. Some nice landscapes.

I mean I don't like WAR generally, hes not bad as such and he can do some good art like his 4E Darksun cover.

To be fair I did not like WAR art in 3.0 Deities and Demigods either and that was 16 years ago its just to cartoony for me and to much of it is bad. The playtest adventure has a decent cover but some of that interior is erm bad being blunt IDK if its all WAR art or not though.

If you're not an established Pathfinder fan though and you see this sitting on the shelf next to some of the stuff I linked to above or even Numenera and other RPGs what are you going to think though?

I remember AD&D (2E) that often had great cover art and you get a bit disappointed when you look at the interior.