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This thread is about should you be required to play a healer in Pathfinder/D&D?

Generally the answer is yes, you need some amount of healing to play the typical D&D dungeon hack adventure.

This is also a side effect of the modern expectation of 4 encounters a day (6-8 in 5E, I don't remember the 4E assumption).

The guts of the game has always been about the 4 roles- Warrior, Artillery, Support and Expert which more or less means Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief. Some classes share a bit from other classes in 5E addressed this in the pillars- combat, exploration, and social.

A Paladin for example traditional is not as good at combat as a fighter (less feats or weapon specialisation, less attacks than a fighter in 5E) but it kind of 25-50% of a Cleric (varies by edition). Rangers have a similar ratio in regards to a splash of Druid.
5E addressed this by making it ok for a class to have up to a 3rd of another class built in or being better at say combat (eg Fighter Champion vs Eldritch Knight).

If you have to much healing however the game becomes to easy and ultimately boring. This would be a large bag of wands of CLW, or a party focused on healing in 5E (life domain cleric, thief with healer feat).

D&D/Pathfinder has also spread the healing around with Clerics, Druids, Rangers, Paladins and sometimes Bards (depending on edition) all being able to do it to some extent.

So what do you do if you have no healer? I have played games like this in D&D, put simply you run less combat or use easier encounters. Often in games where the PCs have copious amounts of healing the DM directly or indirectly puts in more damage or the designers do (compare 3E-5E critters vs AD&D ones). An adventure like Tomb of Horrors is going to require more healing than X1 The Isle of Dread and the Pathfinder APs do not generally require a massive amount either as they tend to be on the easy side (some more than others).

Older D&D adventure designs often had Staves of Healing along with potions and scrolls of healing. You could not buy them a'la 3.X but if you ran prepublished adventurers they were fairly common. And level 1 clerics may not have even be able to heal you anyway.
NPCs were often in the adventure along with a magical fountain, font or something similar that could heal.

Basically I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, if you have a lot of damage built into the game on the monsters (5E) you will want a generous amount of healing. If damage is low and monsters struggle to hit healing can be less (B/X-AD&D). Clerics should still be the best at it IMHO but they can spread the healing around buffing classes if need be (5E did this).

That still does't deal with the what type of adventure you are running- Kingmaker vs one of the harder APs will be very different but I think at that point its up to the GM to figure out what the players like or if they like variety such as doing a dungeon hack after returning from the Isle of Dread.

Its an art form, not a science, 4E tried and failed to enforce a daily limit ultimately boring people and making the game grindy while 3.X has wands of CLW and 5E missed the boat here and there as well (life clerics being to good at it relative to other clerics and clerics being better than everyone else).

Whats more important IMHO is how big the gap is between classes that are good at healing vs the ones that can do it but are not expected to do it all of the time. A Paladin or Ranger for example could maybe heal themselves, a cleric can have some of the best cure spells (shared with Druid), while a cleric with the healing domain should probably be the best (bonus dice of healing or group radius etc). Right now the PF2 cleric is a bit to good at healing relative to the other classes so one step forward two steps back since wands of CLW are going bye bye. But you can buff that and add generic feats perhaps (blessed by XYZ healer god can heal ABC per day).

Reducing monster damage is also another option, once upon a time you could really only heal with your daily spell slots and what you could find. Personally I would put some healing options in the game, and let the players and GMs figure out how much they want to use. No cleric? Well a Bard, or Druid with a side helping of Ranger or Paladin might be an idea. Want to focus on damage instead, well see if you can kill stuff faster reducing the need to heal. Or be nice to NPCs.

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).

This threads are about my thoughts about the races viewed from a PF2 perspective. I have not played PF since about 2012 and since then I have been playing OSR games/5E. This means I will not be marking them down if they are missing things PF1 gave you as all races are in the same boat so in that regard they are fine compared with each other. In general though you are getting less racial abilities than say 3E, 4E, 5E and AD&D but everyone is in the same boat.Mechanically its fine but you might like the candy virtually every other edition of D&D offers YMMV that is a subjective thing.

I will consider their racial boosts, flaws, feats, and overall package in my rating. When it comes to stats I rate the primary ability first relevant to your class and also rate con and dex highly due to most characters want a decent score here due to saves, AC, extra hit points etc which are good for everyone.

Anything that I think it good or bad will get mentioned. Generally I rate always on abilities higher than a situational ability unless that situation is fairly common and/or very powerful.

Then I will give an overall observation of anything I think is cute. I am only human but so may misread or miss something so feel free to point anything out, hopefully I don't muck it up to bad. Also note if I mention D&D without a quantifier such as 1E, 3E , B/X I am referring to 1E-5E+ OD&D, BECMI, Pathfinder and clones but not related games like 13th Age or DCC.

All PF2 races also get 1 free boost except humans so in a way that is nice as you can have a good anything but you can still trip up a bit when you discover some things don't work even if you have an 18 prime all of the time if you want it. All races get racial feats, what ones are actually good depends on how much you want to use weapons and what class you are on so its kind of a wash there. If you're a fighter you probably want to use your racial weapons as long as you are playing to sterotypes due to exotic weapons being martial for you and how it interacts with class feats.

Dwarf.
Dwarves seem t be a favourite for D&D players and are usually very good in most versions of D&D. A bonus to constitution is always good going back to AD&D. They get boosts to con (great), wisdom (useful), + 1 free and a -2 to charisma which unless you want to play a charsima based class is fairly minor hit so in effect you get around 2.5 boosts as long as you don't care about charisma or -1 resonance to much along with a minor hit to charisma based skills.

You also get a whopping +10 hit points which is great at level 1 but racial hit points will matter less proportionally as you level up. Darkvision over low light vision is nice.

Great stats and racial hit points and then you hit the feats. A lot of these feats are situational and/or are based of things going back into AD&D. Even ignoring that fact there are way to many situational ones here (like almost all of them) so the stand out ones are weapon cunning and familiarity IMHO which are semi useless for some classes. You also pick up Darkvision and are not slowed down as much in heavier armors but you already move slow at 20.

Great racial package as such, weak feats I foresee a few Dwarven orphans who have been adopted or they have very close friends from other races. Main drawbacks are slow speed and weak racial feats.

Elves

Elves are basically the opposite of Dwarves. Racial package is a bit meh but you get good racial feats.

SO dexterity and intelligence as boosts, con as a flaw + 1 free. Dexterity and intelligence really only matter a lot for 2 classes-0 the Rogue andd wizard although intelligence in PF2 is not a dump stat unlike 5E as more skill points are always nice but I don''t consider it a great secondary or tertiary stat. And the constitution flaw hurts although I think you can buy it off with your free boost but then you are in effect +2 Dex and Int.

Languages, low light vision and 6 hit points are all worse than the Dwarf package but you do get 30' movement and that is unique to elves. That is good you may be squishy comparatively but you're fast. This leaves feats. Several stand out. Ancestral Longevity is a free skill and you can change it daily it seems. That is better than +1 skill and its versatile. More skills are nice, being able to change it is neat. Skill monkey Elf option.

Nimble also stands out and its another +5' movement. Elves are now 10' faster than anyone else, 15' faster than slow races. Thats not bad in this low powered race meta.

Otherwordly Magic. I thought this was really good as cantrips are very good in PF2 IMHO. From level 3 you get 2 dice+ ability score to damage and that scales up to 3 dice at 5th, 4 dice at 7th etc. PF2 critters have hp similar to 5E ones and 2 dice+ ability mod is a level 8 or 10 ability. Comparatively PF2 cantrips hit harder than 4E and 5E ones. Looks great until you read innate ability. Buried somewhere in the text innate abilities are keyed of charisma and not intelligence so the 5E high elf gets a better deal here. Still decent but being adoptive into elf culture could be beneficial for some races. Doesn't scale very well either so utility over damage might be better.

Elf weapons cold be useful YMMV but a not bad elf package and 2-4 decent feasts makes the elf the best race so far and they make decent anythings for the most part, just a bit more squishy although they are a bit weaker at charisma based classes as using your free boost on charisma for example is not as good as other races who can get charisma+dex and con for example.

Gnome
Racial abilities basically add up to weak Dwarf but your stats are very very good for a spellcaster. This is because your flaw is strength and you get constitution+ charisma and your free one can be dexterty or whatever. Any charisma based spellcaster (Bards, Sorcerer) in effect gets 3 boosts and strength is a dump stat. Rogues can also get dex to hit and damage and have uses for con and charisma. So the Gnome is one of the better spellcasters in the game even if you pick wizard. Moving onto racial feats.

Animal Accomplice. You get a familiar. Familiars can be useful if you get creative and have been useful since forever in D&D. YMMV but this can reward clever players. Its not great but not bad.

Animal whisperer. Makes the prerequisite feat a bit obsolete but talking to animals can be useful in exploration and social pillars and can reward clever players. Not sure if its worth 2 feats to talk to animals and gain a +1 bonus though YMMV.

1st world magic.
Similar to the elven ability you get a primal (Druidic) cantrip as an innate ability. Gnomes do get a charisma bonus so this could be useful to a Bard or Sorcerer, not so much for damage perhaps due to the half scaling thing.

Overall great spellcaster option, weaker than a Dwarf but strength makes a good dump stat and 3 boosts are nice. Racial feats are a bit lacking though. I think my parents might be dead though and Gnome orphans can be put up for adoption.

Goblin
Low racial hit points, medium speed of 25'+ darkvsion. Goblins are another small race that are better than Gnomes IMHO although the -2 wisdom hurts more than strength. This is because Goblins are useful at all of the classes with the exception of wisdom based casters. They can even make decent fighters although PF2 doesn't reward dex based fighters that well so a Rogue MC into fighter might be the better bet. Goblins are charismatic who knew.

As the new it race Gobbos have decent class feats. Stand out ones are.

Burn It.

Goblin pyromancer! And if you can use your free boost to offset your wisdom flaw (IDK if this is legal I think it is?) you can even probably make a cleric of Sasraena (sp?) work as they pick up burning hands and fireball. PF2 has damage tuned a bit lower in some ways so this ability is not to bad so while the race may be weighted towards Alchemist I think Sorcerer or Bard might be the better play.

Flame Heart.

Resist fire damage, fire damage is common in D&D's.

Rough Rider.
If you want a mount this is not a bad option.

Very sneaky.
This lets you sneak at 15' instead of 10' if I have read it right. And it helps vs flat footed so its easier to hit.

Goblin Weapon feats.

Check out the dogslicer for Rogues. Just saying.

Halflings.

The better goblin. Your stat arrays is betetr than the Goblins and Gnomes IMHO and as it turns out the small races make great charisma based casters. A penalty to strength mostly doesn't matter in that situation or if you are a Rogue. Low hit points though and no form of darkvision. Its like Paizo though of this already. Nice basic package there though unless you want a halfling fighter (not recommended). Golden for Bards, Sorcerers, Rogues etc and you have decent speed by PF2 standards.

Distracting Shadows.
Basically the same ability as 5E. Not sure if the same trick works in PF2 but you may be able to hide behind larger members of the party and try to get surprise. Guess where Paizo got the idea for this ability, it has King Snurre on the cover.

Lucky Halfling.
At first glance I thought this was great and once again it looks similar to a 5E halfling ability. A key difference however is you can only use this once per day vs daily. In PF2 however this is more useful due to critical failures. Useful effect but once a day hurts proabbly need to be buffed to once per minute or hour, at will is too good in PF2, OK in 5E.

Sure Footed.
Turns success into critical success on fairly common D&Disms of climbing and balancing. Useful.

Titan Slinger.

Bonus damage in a common D&D situation vs large critters. Once upon a time halflings made decent fighters with slings and thrown weapons.

Humans
Mr/Mrs Average all around on the racial traits. medium speed, 8 hit points.Nothing to get excited about. However they get some of the best racial feats in the game.

Racial Feats.

Adapted Spell.
This ability is great. Put simply you can filch a cantrip and cast it at full power from another class and key it off your classes primary spellcasting stat. If your class has meh cantrips this is one way to pick up better ones or get adopted. You might make a better archer getting this than mucking around with a bow.

Clever Improviser. More or less +1 to all the skills you are untrained in. For a low skill fighter that is a lot of skills and almost eliminates the untrained penalty. Less useful for Rogues. If you want a skill monkey this is good.

General Training.
You get a general feat. Its a general feat. This means you can get adopted to cherry pick another races stuff.

Natural Ambition
You get a class feat. This can be very useful for obvious reasons and in effect you get hurt less (less opportunity cost)if you multiclass at level 2.You miss out on a level 2 class feat but pick up an additional level 1 feat and some of them are better IMHO than level 2 ones anyway.

Skilled.
Pick up 2 skills. By level 5 you can be more or less a PF1 human but are 1 skill up.

Half Orc/Elf
You are basically a human but get to pick some other bits and pieces. The half elf is better due to better choices of the heritage feat and they can cherry pick human and elven feats. Human feats> Half Orc and Orc Feats and there are some nice elven ones as well.

Well session 0 crashed and burned due tot he complexity/layout of PF2 but I did enjoy some parts of it. Other parts are good in concept but need some work.

1. The Boost/Flaw system in character creation and level 5,10,15.

While technically the races have a flaw, in effect they do not as they get 3 boosts so you can offset it or in other cases mitigate it. This means its roughly the same as Pathfinder, 4E and 5E( well most races get +2/+1 similar idea). Flaws to strength mostly do not matter though if you are planning on being a primary caster.

2. All Races are good at something.
All races get a +2 boost to something. 4E and 5E to a certain extent often end up with very cookie cutter class and race selection. This is because its easy to start with a 16 using the default array but not if you do not pick a race that gets a boost to your classes primary attribute.

3. The Background system.

This is different to the 5E system and that is a good thing. Its a good example of more moving parts without increasing the complexity of those moving parts to much (+2 bonuses to attributes are easy to grok).

4. Breaking feats up into combat, skill feats etc.
This is not a new idea 2E AD&D did this back in 1989 *1E may have I'll have to check its WP/NWP). In late 2E an optional rule of character points feed the weapon and non weapon options from the same source. 3E went with feats but non combat and RP type feats compete with combat feats. 5E continued this with things like the Actor feat competing with Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master (and less feats as well higher opportunity cost). This gives you options but flattens the power curve as those options expand the classes sideways rather than more combat power layered on more combat power (or pure skills if someone went that way).

5. Stats Above 18 increase slowly. Boosts above 18 only go up by one. This reduces the incentive to have a 24 (or more) whatever and have the rest of at 16 or lower. I suspect you will end up with a lot of PCs looking something like 20/18/16/14/12/10.

6. Unified Proficiency Bonus

4E had this along with 5E and Star Wars Saga edition. The +20 range might be two much IDK but since 2E AD&D some skills/proficiency have had combat applications but they advance at a different rate than THACO/BAB which creates problems. See for example 3.0 and 3.5 tumble checks or use the force skill in Star Wars Saga. Its also smoothed out things like SWSE and 4E +5 trained and +5 skill focus which combined with a 16 ability score creates a +13 difference in a non trained character with a 10 ability score. At level 1. I'm not sure +20 is a great idea though, 5E +6 over 20 levels might be to low.

7. Untrained- Legendary.
Ok a difference of +1 may not be exciting but it narrows the gap between an untrained character and a trained character to 5 points. Even in 5E with its bounded accuracy you can blow this out to a difference of 13 points (trained+expertise+20 ability vs no proficiency ability score 8. Combined with PF2's boost system and feat system their is also less opportunity cost to expand a PC into new skills. IDK if the numbers are right (trained to legendary each step is +1) but the idea is good. This is not that different to 2E AD&Ds system but you could go higher than +3 on a proficiency. IN practice you were better off getting new proficiency than a +1 bonus same theory probably applies here.

8. Max hit points via class and Racial Hp.
More hit points and less variance due to dice rolls but a bit more variance than say 5E optional fixed hp/level rule. See how this plays out but its interesting IMHO.

That is a few things so far. To me this means PF2 is not beyond hope. They can tweak or rewrite classes and tweak the math, hopefully they dump the PF2 round structure as well. How much time they have and how they fix things we will know at a later date the main concern is PF2 feels more like an alpha or beta test than a 5E type playtest.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Early poster here long time lurker. Long story short I picked up Pathfinder a long time ago due to my dislike of 4E and at the time I was not done with 3.5 as 4E was announced just over 4 years after 3.5 landed.

This lasted until 2012 or so when e left 3.x behind after a 12 year run with it (adopted 3.0 ion 2000) and we went back to AD&D 2E and OSR retroclones until 5E landed and have mostly been playing that although in the last 3 years or so I have played AD&D, OSR, 5E and Pathfinder.

So from my perspective I am not feeling nostalgic about AD&D or whatever as I have actually played it recently not remembering the good times from back in the day when you had 2 and 3 month school holidays which made D&D a lot of fun.

So why participate in a playtest for something you probably won't play much? Well there are several reasons.

1. I still have a decent amount of good will towards Paizo. This is from early Pathfinder and superb work on Dungeon magazine along with Dragon to a lesser extent. I don't love Pathfinder but I don't hate it either would play it but not run it if that makes any sense. I also like Golarion.

2. A different perspective on things. The last Pathfinder material I bought was Ultimate Campaigns so what looks like a good idea to the Pathfinder faithful and staff might fall flat to other gamers who have not followed the evolution of late Pathfinder. For example Mearls admitted part of the disconnect between 3.5 and 4E was if you only had the 3.5 PHB and did not have all the late 3.5 material.Well that is me this time around with Pathfinder to Pathfinder 2 I am 5 years out of date on the Pathfinder world. You guys are an intelligent and fanatic bunch and I have enjoyed some of my lurks here since 2008 or so.

3. I tend to look at concepts rather than the exact mechanical expression. For example ion PF2 the fighter having 3 skills vs the Rogues 10 is a mistake IMHO. A Rogue for sure should get more skills than all of the classes its how wide that gap is I think there may be a problem. A similar idea applies to saving throws, skill checks etc. A 5E rogue has 50% more skills than say a fighter while in 2E it was 3 NWP vs 4 NWP difference between the classes with a lot of NWP and few NWP. Conceptually the gap between two handed weapons and everything else would be another example.

4. I'm not to bad at figuring out D&D, I own all of them+ Pathfinder and around a dozen clones/OSR games and have/own related d20 material like Star Wars Saga books. I figured out OD&D, 3.x, AD&D, 4E, Star Wars Saga (and d20 and D6). If I can't figure something out odds are it may be a bad idea. Basically I own all the D&Ds and a few derivitives none of them are perfect IMHO and even 4E had some good ideas mechanically/conceptually.

5. 5E is not perfect and the more I play it the more annoying some of the things in it become. A few things for example: the encounter rules, weak monsters, unbalanced feats, the gap between the good and bad feats, over night healing, saving throw system, the gap between a good and bad save, intelligence as a dump stat, trying to have short rest and long rest classes play nice in the same group, intelligence being semi useless full stop, intelligence saves being semi useless.

6. I do actually miss a few 3.Xisms. The things I disliked the most about 3.X games in the end was the complexity of running the damn thing as a DM and easy access to buying and crafting magic items (that Pathfinder made worse vs 3.5). The things I miss though are 3 saves (simpler than 6, the gaps between the save numbers not so much), micro feats vs 5E big feats, most classes being daily or at will type builds, ye olde traditional D&D isms such as LG Paladins, slower non magical healing, the 4 encounters expectation vs 6-8.

7. An alternative to 5E all the damn time. I like 5E but maybe not as much as some of my group, I like to play something else on occasion such as Star Wars D6/Saga Edition, an OSR game or whatever (RPGs for us are Star Wars or some flavour of D&D). If PF2 was just a cleaned up version of PF1 that was easier to run we would play it on occasion. If we get sick of 5E and PF2 is really good it might even be PF2 for a year or 2 with the occasional game of 5E so we're in the market for another version of D&D.

So yeah its early days in the playtest, 5E turned out very different from the early playtest packets so not overly negative or positive about PF2 so far. A lot of the concepts are great in it they just need fine tuned IMHO. Right now if you mixed the good parts of PF2, 5E and perhaps ye old B/X D&D (simplicity) you would have a great "D&D" game IMHO. In a way I am still after that fixed 3.X game I wanted back in 2008 and did not get with 4E but I do not think 3.X is the pinnacle of D&D game design and I could quite happily dump some aspects of it the magic item system being a big one (back under the DMs control a'la OSR/AD&D and 5E).

After all a wand of CLW is not broken the ease of getting them is. So lets see where this crazy journey will take us. BTW so far even the negatives towards PF2 are a lot nicer than the start of the 5E playtest back in 2012.

And dated is me being polite. Yes I iknow its a playtest document but it looks around 10-15 years out of date.

Doomsday Dawn for example looks like an old Dungeon adventure from 2004 or so. Decent cover and some of it is nice but you have Drakus on page 16 that is erm not nice, statue of Pharasma is nice (pg 14), page 6 looks goofy.

The cover of Pathfinder Ii also looks erm dated but not out right bad as such. For comparison imagine this on the shelf beside the 5E PHb or Xanathars Guide or Mordenkainens Guide to the multiverse.

Yes I know WoTC has deep pockets BUT.

The world has also changed since 2004 as well even 3pp can have great covers.

https://www.amazon.com/Beasts-Wolfgang-Baur/dp/1936781565

Or even retroclones.

https://www.amazon.com/Adventurer-Conqueror-King-System-Companion/dp/098498 321X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1533272046&sr=1-2&keywo rds=adventurer+conqueror+king

It doesn't look great to put it mildly. I did not expect full art in the playtest Bestiary so thats fine I know its not a final product but it is kind of a shock to see now after being AFK from PF for a few years. Its a bit jarring.

Nice simple question.

IN general I want a fixed 3.5 that is easier to run basically the game I wanted in 2008 rather than 4E. At the time I wanted something a bit more like SWSE+ 3.5 hybrid. After playing SWSE again recently that need a math overhaul as well.

Easier to DM is also a big thing after playing 5E and clones. Something we can play as an alternative to 5E which killed PFS here and Pathfinder in general. Reality is its competing with 5E if you can't get the players because they are playing 5E no point getting it. Doiesn't mean you have to copy 5E but ease of running it is my number 1 priority. Things like goblins and alchemists don't even register in relation to that.

Fixing the underlying math problems and complexity of it is more important than the exact class designs etc. A fixed 3.5 10 years ago was what I wanted, these days I would probably want Paizo to go a bit further than what I wanted back then.

Skills and BAB overhaul is important the broken spells and stacking need to be fixed up to and including the removal of the spells from the game a'la 5E.

3.5 style multiclassing I can buy that, micro feats that is different than 5E but I can also buy into that-as long as the feats don't have so many terrible options. I also like the idea of fort/ref/will over 5E system. BAB and 3.X multiple attacks can die in a fire along with some classes getting 2 skills and others 8- AD&D and 5E did it better her with the difference being 3 or 4 proficnecies and 4-6 skills.

I also like the way 3.X handles its armor and weapons over 5E but things like crits can be smoothed out with X2 and X3 perhaps being replaced with extra dice of damage.3.X armor and weapons are a bit more interesting than 5E which more or less has 2 types of armor (studded leather and plate) along with a handful of weapons that matter. If bows are god with things like rapid shot, crossbows and rifles perhaps can go big on extra dice of damage.

I don't want to see OF2 versions of the 5E -5/+10 feats or 3.5/PF power attack which has mostly the same issues.

That is mostly it, and the over riding goal is mathematical simplicity while having a bit more complex game than 5E that is easy to run and still feels like 3.X/D&D. That early Pathfinder feel before the glut (I only use APG and Ultimate Combat/Magic that is it). I d o not really recognise a lot of the later PF splat book stuff. I want have the option to play it with my 10 year old nieces and nephews.

And the gunslinger seems to me to be a fighter feat chain or archetype.

Background I have been playing D&D for around 25 years and have 7 editions of it on my shelf, more if you count sub editions. I played Pathfinder a few years ago and bought some of the books and loved the Inner Sea World Guide but burned out on the 3.X system before 5E landed and went back to AD&D 2E and retroclones. I also got sick of Paizo going down the 3.5 splat book treadmill. To me Pathfinder is a clone of 3.5 just well supported. I played because it was not 4E, I do not think 3.XYZ is the D&D ideal.

Realistically I may not be in the PF2 target audience as I do not have that undying loyalty to Paizo some have. I liked the Inner Sea World Guide and the work they did on the Dragon and especially Dungeon magazines and generally I like the company. I liked 3.x for 12 year.

It is interesting in seeing what people on the forums here expect from the various classes and PF2. In general I do not care about exact mechanics of a D&D but more the concepts. For example I think Paladins should smite I do not care if it is AD&D smite evil, 5E smite mechanic, or if it is double damage or whatever.

On things like Alignment restrictions etc I am kind of neutral. I prefer my Paladins to be LG but I can live with them being good aligned as they usually get smite evil not smite chaos so they are more holy than law IMHO. I do not like non good Paladins but its not a deal breaker as you can always play them as LG if you want and evil Paladins have been in the game going back to the 1970's you are just letting them into the PHB. Alignment restrictions however can help define a class, the 5E Ranger is kind of a hot mess as they tried to design a ranger for every edition as the 1E to 4E+ Pathfinder rangers were all different to each other.

I am also not a fan of the +16/+11/+6/+1 type attacks for warriors (fighters, rangers, barbarians, paladins or anyone else with full BAB in PF). This idea is a bad idea and it is unique to the 3.x system. It was a bad idea in 2000 and its still a bad idea now IMHO, AD&D never had it, 4E kind of fixed it in the wrong way and I think 5E got it right. Just give them a multiple attacks at level 6,11,16, and perhaps tone down the extra strength modifier damage on 2 handed weapons and the -1/+2 damage on power attack. This is simple and discourages a lot of multiclassing abuse.

2 skills a level for fighters is also a bad idea, once again this was added in 3.0 before that the difference was 3 vs 4 proficiencies. I think 5E once again got it right here as each class in effect gets at least 4 skills (2+ 2 back ground), whole the classes that are ore skill based get 5 or 6+ things like expertise. The difference between 2 skills and 8 is to much IMHO, 4 and 8 would be better if not 3-6.

As previously stated the 5E Ranger is a hot mess partly because it tried to be to many things to to many people and arguably failed at all of them. For example they tried a beastmaster ranger despite beasts never being a strong part of the class, 3E was the one where the ranger had the "best" beast but it was kind of marginal even then as it was a lot weaker than the Druid. The best ranger conceptually IMHO was the 1E AD&D one although it was a bit overpowered. What is a ranger? These days people seem to think it means wilder rogue (why not be a fighter/rogue instead?) but I think the AD&D Aragon wilderness defender/defender is the stronger archetype to focus on and should be supported mechanically.

Barbarians in the d20 era are also built around rage, that is a new thing unlikely to change but once again it was not a defining feature in AD&D. They dropped the ball on the 3.0 Barbarian and the Pathfinder one is still based off that. 5E did alright with one of the subclasses but the other one not so much (the Totem one is the good one BTW). I'm not convinced you even need a raging barbarian although the option of having it should be there.

The fighter design is elegant, a few more skills and some BAB/multiple attacks and saving throw tweaks and rewritten feats it can pick would fix it IMHO. The band aid AC bonuses added to the class from 3.5 can perhaps be toned down or removed if they power up other aspects of the design (multiple attacks, better saves).

4E got a few things right conceptually (not the class design anyway) but more things like how saves and defences interact with offensive options. I don't really care how they do it mechanically but conceptually warriors should be closer to AD&D and 4E rather than the 3E system where DCs can vastly outstrip saves and its not a good thing in 5E either IMHO.

Whatever happens I think you need to ask the hard questions. What is a fighter/ranger/Paladin/Barbarian conceptually and then design mechanics to enable that. 5E did that, missed the mark in a few cases mechanically (beastmaster ranger, champion fighter, frenzy barbarian) but they at least tried.

Make a better Pathinfder/D&D, learn from other games and not just some late PF books where they seemed to have dropped the ball anyway. Keep the good bits of 3.X (customization, fort/ref/will, options some of the ye olde D&Disms it retained) and overhaul the mechanics that makes it less awful to run and play once you hit level 7 or so.

IN early 3E I liked how you could easily make magic items. Towards the end of it I had a page of house rules mostly of banned stuff, but I experimented with taking magic items out of the players hands and goin back to AD&D ways of making them *except you do not lose a point of con).

Basically once you reach a certain level you get the item creation feats for free BUT you can't craft anything you want as you might need power component. Think Damascus steel- you need to get specific ore from a specific location and in a D&D world you might need the blessings of a solar and quench he forged blade in a sea of holy water and use the breath of an angel to make a holy avenger.

5E kind of went back to AD&D magic items (under the DMs control), but the magic item rules for creation are not the best.

AD&D also had advice in regards to buying and selling magic items. Don't. Doesn't get much simpler than that.

This doesn't mean you do not get powerful magic items, AD&D adventures often had things like +3 intelligent weapons you could get before level 8 but you could not mix and match them with feats etc. For example in 3.0 you could use improved critical+keen on a scimitar and crit on a role of 12+ (roll to confirm).

3.5 toned that kind of silliness down and Pathfinder inherited it. At the time I thought Pathfinder was better than 4E but that was 10 years ago and 18 since 3.0 landed which I was an early adopter of.

I do not miss THAC0 and do not use it when I play 2E anymore but AD&D in hindsight got some thing right? Why create new rules and complications such as resonance when another potential solution as per EGG came up with is right there.

One thing I do like about 5E is no feat chains. My theory is just get rid of them and overahul the existing feats to make them more competitive with each other (ie toughness could be +2 con).

For some of the more powerful feats you can just put requirements on them that are somewhat simple probably level based.

Eg
Super Awesome Feat
Requirement level 11
This feat lets you be super awesome XYZ times per day.

One thing that has bugged me about 3E since around 2002 (once the 3E honeymoon wore off) is the iterative attacks system.

+16/+11/+6/+1 is just BS. Extra attack at BAB +6,+11,+16 is better IMHO.

5E figured this out, so did 4E, along with the OSR and TSR era D&D.

Its exclusive to 3E, doesn't enhance the game in any way I can think of, is complicated, is not fun, doesn't achieve anything except kick martials in the balls.

Even if you replace BAB with a proficiency system (whatever that number is +6 by level 20, +_10 or whatever) just allow extra attacks at level 5,10, 15 or wherever and if you do something like 5E where fighters end up with more attacks please have the last one come online before level 20 (level 15 or 16).

When AD&D does something better than you mechanically it might be time to do something about it.

Well Paizo has gone ahead and pulled the plug and there is a new edition of PF in the works that they seem to have mostly completed so playtesting may be to iron out bugs or perhaps eliminate whole systems if it is that rough.

Some people are panicking because they fear PF may simplify things to much. We will have to wait and see the playtest documents before we can 100% guess where things are going.

From the sounds of it they are keeping a lot of what made Pathfinder complex vs 5E- you are getting more options than a 5E PC gets at level 1. 5E for example doesn't use feats (they're optional) and even if used only 1 race gets feats. Pathfinder is not doing this you will get a racial feat at level 1 along with whatever the classes give you.

Pathfinder is not making feats optional and they will be using "micro feats form the sounds of it and we will have to wait and see how they have overhauled feats anyway.

They are using a universal proficiency modifier, whether that is similar to 5E +6 over 20 levels, 4E/Star Wars Saga half level to the number or something else remains to be seen. This I think is mostly to smooth out the numbers, you do not really need +35 to hit AC 45 when + 15 to hit AC 25 is mostly the same thing. This doesn't effect build complexity at although it may once we know more about how things like buff spells scale, stack etc the basic idea is 100% fine IMHO.

They are overhauling the magic items as well. Once again we will need to see what they do here but a long time ago (2007/8) I tested 3.5 (pre PF) and eliminated the entire magic item section and went back to the AD&D system and the game worked fine. A Holy Avenger sword in 3.x is not that exciting when you can sell it and get a better weapon. it is a great weapon when you find it at level 8-10 and trading it is not an option.

They also are using the universal proficiency system for skills- this is something they should have done a long time ago in 3.X and things like skill points sort of debuted in late 2E as character points (that you could spend on other things). Once again this is to simplify numbers and bring skill checks into line with attack rolls so they can interact better.

So we are getting a playtest in August, ex Pathfinder player here and reasonably enthusiastic.While I do not expect PF to clone 5E or any other game there are a few things I associate with 3.x games I think should be retained in Pathfinder while other games I think also have some ideas worth mining from.

If I have to guess Paizo seems to have a mostly complete edition ready for launch with a playtest to tweak it a bit perhaps. Its a very short test compared with 5E but they had to rebuild the game from the ground up after 4E. The following are thigns I would be looking at.

5E.
OKay okay okay I get it, 5E may not be to popular around here and I do not think Paizo should try and clone it. I play it because its the best D&D around atm and a lot of new players like it, its not perfect. I lean a bit more towards OSR stuff perhaps but 5E will do. 5E however had a lot of great ideas in it some recycled from TSR editions of the game, others new concepts or even from 4E. Paizo has already been influenced by 5E I think but there are some other htings they could look at or be worth discussing. For example 5E caps ability scores at 20, AD&D capped them at 25 while B/X capped them at 18. I don't think capped scores would have ruined 3.0 or 3.5 had they used them.

OSR Games

Over the last few years I have played some BECMI games (well more B/X). Some of you may know what B/X is but it is a older edition of D&D concurrent with 1E that was a lot more simple than AD&D. For example you could only play 7 classes and races (race= class unless human then you had 4 choices). Now I would not do that to a 3.x game but the way saves scaled at higher level, smaller numbers, and perhaps weapons and armor topping out at +3 could be worth a look. Oh OSR spells also tend to be weaker than 3.x spells (and 5E). SR/MR could be worth a look as well. Concepts not clones (THAC0 can stay in OSR/TSR land).

Star Wars Saga Edition

The other 3.75 game, had 4E been a bit closer to this instead of the 4E we got Pathfinder may not have existed. There is not a lot here I would want to use but there is the occasional thing like prestige classes, some talents, feats and skills and how they interact here that is fun.

4E
Yes strange is it may sound (I dislike 4E a lot) but it did do a few things OK. For example weapon properties, critical hits, some feats and class options (as in starting options/archetypes, powers lists not so much).

D&D Minitures
Back in 3.5 they had a minis skirmish game. I liked their system of SR/MR and how it worked with a single d20 roll and caster level did not effect it. Tweak to a high/medium/low number perhaps (6,11,16) and you need to beat that number on a d20 roll.

Mostly I would want fixed math and a few of those games can help here in that regard. Smooth out the math, reduce rocket tag, make martial a bit more resilient vs magic at higher levels.

Once upon a time I was a big 3.x/Pathfinder fan. For me personally I never really divorced Pathfinder from D&D as it was continuing the D&D tradition that I felt was interrupted by 4E.

Paizo also had (and still does) have a residual amount of good will from me as a consumer due to the quality of the work they did on Dragon and Dungeon.

Over the years though tastes change, by 2012 I was getting burned out on 3.x type games for most of the usual reasons (to complicated, to much work, game gets less fun the more you level up, magic item super markets etc). Another main reason was I was an early adopter of 3.0 which I picked up in 2000. That was 12 years of 3.x, mostly behind the DM screen I barely got to play it as a player and could not play 4E at all (as a player, I DMed it and well yeah).

So what do you do if you are sick of 3.x gaming and don't like 4E. My solution was to run a game of 2E again. We had a lot of fun with that and from 2E our group branched out into the OSR clones, and even played B/X again which was also fun. The mechanics not so good I will admit and I house ruled out THAC0 fairly damn quickly but my players mostly weaned on 3.x gaming and Pathfinder players I recruited actually enjoyed playing 2E AD&D again. The play style was still fun and the lower power level I think helped a lot. For example a level 4 spell magic weapon turns your weapon into a magical one and grants it a whole whopping +1 to hit and damage.

Now the desire for a 2E of Pathfinder has come up on these forums multiple times. I believe that Paizo should do what is right for Paizo and I think a 2E is more or less inevitable at some point. Its a big ask for consumers to consume an RPG edition for 5+ years. I remember them mentioning that they wanted to make Pathfinder last 10 years.

Well its now 2018, its been 10 years since I played the beta and coming up 9 years since Pathfinder launched. I do not regard the initial comment from years ago as set in stone promise more of an ideally this will last at least 10 years. IN those years things have changed a lot, 4E died, the OSR movement exploded and 5E landed and Paizo has launched Starfinder which I may look into this year as Star Wars Saga Edition has not aged to ell for my space opera itch (and I would rather play the D6 version from the 80's and 90's now).

Still waiting for that fantasy heartbreaker than fixes 3.X gaming, Pathfinder I liked more than 4E and that is why I bought into it. After playing OSR again some of the concepts from that era are what I want in a d20 type game. 5E ticks some of those boxes but not all of them. The main thing I want is a game that is nice to run for new players and something you want to DM rather than get headaches wrestling with the rules while retaining a few things from 3.x that are good (that 4E threw out and 5E only adopted some of them).

Better balance at higher levels would also work. Doesn't have to be as extreme as 4E or rewriting the spells from the ground up like 5E but some of the more broken things from 3.X need to go such as the way saves scale vs DCs (5E failed there), the way spells stack and I would prefer most bonuses from things like buff spells being scaled down along with them perhaps not as stacking as much. Spells like Greater Magic Weapon could have there effect not scale and have a fixed +2 or 3 modifier. If you want a larger modifier cast a higher level buff spell and/or tack other effects onto it ie you get some of the abilities of a Solar, or Dragon or whatever. A good buff spell can grant things like resistances instead of just bigger numbers.

Buff spells should also be short duration IMHO, no more than 1 minute perhaps with longer lasting ones being very minor in effect (no more than a +2 bonus). This allows you to still cast buff spells and they will still be good to use. It makes something like a +3 or +4 bonus mean something as opposed to stacking multiple bonuses together which is a headache and can be OP as well. Most of the damage spells are fine as is and they have not really changed in any substantial way since 2E's versions in 1989 (and it is 2018 now).

Now I admit I may no longer be in the target market for Paizo material, but there was a reason I stopped buying it and I doubt I am the only one to feel this way. I still like Paizo as a company and competition is good and Starfinder at least looks intriguing.I would still play Pathfinder as well just not go out of my way to DM it. Keep a lot of the mechanics, aim for the same or very similar playstyle but have a hard look at some of the big offenders whether or not a 2E starts getting worked on this year or in 5 years time (or not at all perhaps that is best for Paizo IDK). The spells should basically do the same thing (ie fireball from 2E-3.0-3.5-Pathfinder) but how they interact with each other and the size of the numbers for spells that do not deal damage could be looked at.
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Where AD&D was in 2000, well Pathfinder is getting there now with an old rules system tht is 18 years old, in 2000 2E was 22 or 23 years old depending on how you want to count the release (1st 1E book vs the PHB).

This is an old account but I rolled up a character so to speak around 10 years ago.

I enjoyed early Pathfinder APs, Runelords, Kingmaker, Skull and Shackles, but I have very little idea what has come out since Reign of Winter.

I have not really been interested in new character splat books since Ultimate Magic/Combat/Campaign. Basically missed everything for the last 5 years or so, before 5E landed (I went to OSR around then).

Early on I saw Pathfinder as 3.5, when they started churning out a lot more books I had already been there and done that for 2E and 3.5 and did not want to go through it again.

I really liked the Inner Sea World Guide and still read it a bit and rate it up there with the 3.0 FRCS for campaign setting quality.

So what have the new APs been like in quality? I liked Savage Tide for example and the previous AP's mentioned I generally do not like techno magic, APs reliant on new splat book material, and heavy dungeon hacks (smaller dungeons fine, Temple of Elemental Evil not so much). I like adventures like X1 Isle of Dread, early The Night Below (pt 1), various old Paizo era Dungeon magazine adventures. Simple is also good although a good plot is appreciated and can be complex I mean simple as in doesn't require extra reading, easy to run, not to much in the way of new magic items etc.

Just curious on thoughts of the new ones.

I spent 12 years playing 3.x based games and I eventually burned out circa 2012 and retreated back to AD&D 2E and the retroclones along with 5E when it landed. I bought a few hardcovers including the Inner Sea World Guide, Ultimate Magic/Combat/Campaign and then I moved onto 5E when it landed.

Our current group is playing 5E and looking at 2E Darksun for our next game or a 1E Greyhawk game.

The Pathfinder: Kingmaker kickstarter however has turned up on some of the 5E boards and I kind of liked the AP so I might keep an eye on it and buy it after it releases. Due to Pathfinder Online more or less tanking I am not willing to support a kickstarter and are going to wait for some reviews.

I quite like Golarion a lot though and have been reading the Inner Sea World Guide again. Also going through an ancient world kick atm so I am planning on using the actual Rome/Greek/Egyptian gods again so the Osirion themed AP might be interesting to me.

So basically I tuned out when Paizo started to hype up Mythic adventures which had 0 interest for me. The last AP I read was part 1 of the Shards AP and the last one I paid much attention to was the Skull and Shackles one. Has Pathfinder more or less become its own thing or is it still "D&D 3.75" sort of thing.

What APs after Skull and Shackles would be easily convertible to 5E? By that I mean do any of the new ones mostly use monsters from the 1st Bestiary and the equivalents exist in 5E or are easily convertible such as a bestiary 1 monster with class levels? For example a Fire Giant in Pathfinder with 10 levels of wizard in 5E can just be a fire giant who casts spells as a 10th level caster.

I know PF covered a Giant Themed AP which I do not need as 5E has Storm Kings Thunder (which is meh by a lot of accounts). Being set on Golarion is a bonus as I like the world a lot and want to get away from the Sword Coast and the Golarion Pantheon is fairly easily converted to 5E as well in terms of domains.

So any recommendations? Things I am interested in.

1. Gritty AD&D vibes.
2. Classical and ancient world
3. Golarion

Things not interested in

1. Furys (Catfolk, dogmen etc).
2. Magitech (Eberron, that PF AP with techno stuff in it)
3. 3.x mechanics

FOr me Pathfinder kept the seat warm due to a certain edition WoTC released a few years ago. I was an early adopter of 3.0 more or less as soon as I could get my hands on the books in 2000.

By 2012 3.x was not looking that appealing and after 10 years of supporting Paizo I more or less stopped getting stuff. After trying out 2E agian after a 10 year hiatus (2002-2012) I found I enjoyed certain things from AD&D the main appeal of 3.x over 2E at the time was things like ascending ACs, no level limits or racial restrictions.

Now I will quite happily play OD&D,BECMI, 1E,2E, 3.0/3.5/PF or 5E and I own all 7 editions of D&D, Pathfinder, Castles and Crusades, ACKs, DCC, Basic Fantasy and a few other clones I forget the name of.

Suffice to say I have my preferences but very few sacred cows as such. I prefer no racial restrictions of level limits but if I am playing AD&D 1E or 2E I can live with them.

So after 6 years of Pathfinder being around and perhaps up to 15 years of 3.x games I was wondering what peoples opinion here is on sacred cows? How many of the following things do you regard as essential to your enjoyment of Pathfinder in particular or 3.x gaming in general.

1. Disparity of 6 points between a good and bad save.

2. Sacking spell DCs with the level of the spell and then adding the spellcaster modifier to the DC (when you require XYZ amount of ability score to cast the spell in the 1st place).

3. Being able to easily buy magical items.

4. Wands of Cure Ligth Wounds and similar wands existing enabling very cheap healing.

5. Multiple attacks decreasing in accuracy eg. +16/+11/+6/+1

6. The natural spell feat existing.

7. Disparity of +/- 6 skill points between the classes eg 2 for fighters, 8 for rogues.

8. Auto scaling buff spells you can stack together eg divine power, divine favor, righteous might etc.

9. Feats existing full stop. Would you play a 3.x/d20 game with no feats?

10. Ability scores scaling up as you level and uncapped limits on ability scores.

I have been thinking about running an online game for some friends I meet playing other games online.

They have a good group of Pathfinder players and I told them I had every edition of D&D ever printed along with Pathfinder and various clones such as Castles and Crusades and ACKs.

In recent years we have been playing 5E and AD&D/clones. I have not run a 3.x game since 2012 and have not played Pathfinder at all since 2014. One of the guys wanted to play a Shadow Sorcerer no idea what that was but I can take a few guesses. My idea of a shadow mage is in 2E Spells and Magic book from 1996. The last PDF I bought was Ultimate Campaign and the last AP I paid attention to was Skull and Shackles.

In 2012 I was burnt out on 3.x games as I was an early adopter of 3.0.
Some of the players have played other editions of D&D/3.x but looks like Pathfinder is the only one everyone knows how to play. ANyway I am thinking about running a game of Pathfinder but core rules only + ultimate magic/comabt being allowed. I might allow class from another book but spells and feats would still be limited to core rules+UM+UC. The main reaosn is I actually own those books on hard copy and do not mind looking up the PRD for an online game.

I also asked them if they were fine if we did not use magic item shops. Magic items will only be what you can find and maybe trade for WBL guidelines well not be used. The PCs are likely to be over equipped in terms of $$$ but they will not have the choice to marry up the perfect magic item with whatever feats/class they have chosen. For example someone might chose a very suboptimal fighitng style like dual wielding weapon finesse daggers but they might have a +3 or +5 dagger which RAW breaks the WBL guidelines but they can't sell that dagger and then buy exactly what they want.

More of a spin off from the strength buids a are to good thread.

I am fine with a two handed strength build dealing more damage than a weapon and shield build or maybe dual wielding.

Where I disagree with this is the strength build is dealing double, triple or quadruple damage and in 3.5 and Pathfinder you really only need two feats to do this (power attack, cleave) and have a very basic and very effective PC.

This is before you pile on any other feats or archtypes. THis is becuase the strength based character gets to triple dip the strength score.
1. Two handed weapons deal more damage
2. Power attack rewards two handed weapons more than 1 handed weapons
3. 50% or 100% bonus to strength scores when using a two handed weapon.

Now it was not always this way. Druing 3.0 power attack scaled at the same rate for everybody, -1 to hit, +1 damage. During 2E the high damage builds were dual wielding fighters (or rangers RAW) and sword and board was very good as well.

5E rewards two handed weapons a bit as well and to deal more damage you need to suck up a -5 to hit +10 damage bonus and you suffer no penalties on multiple attacks. In AD&D you ponly suffered penalties to hit dual wielding i and in 2E you could offset that and in 1st Edition you could play a row I suppose as dual wielding was not a great idea.

This leaves the mega damage of a two handed weapon more or less unique in D&D so I do not regard it as a sacred cow as such. This has come as a bit of a shock to PFS players I have run 2E with.

So do people agree in theory that 2 handed weapons should deal more damage the trade off is you do not get to use a shield. In its current state martials in PF need that extra damage I suppose. Any overhaul of this would have to wiat for a new 3.5 or PF2 type game but one can change the current game in various ways.

But how would you feel if say they made feat trees that negated the penalty to hit for sword and board fighitng styles or whatever so at level 6 for examplema sword and boardd PC got 2 atacks at no penalty while the two handed weapon user got two attacks at +6/+1.

For dual wielders they could make a feat that lets you move and full attack. Now I am sure this may break the game with various add on classes I know nothing about but I am more concerned with just the core rule book as all the martial types I see in PF usually are using 2 handed weapo9ns or archery for obvious reasons.

The PFRPG book has fast, medium and slow xp rates for the various classes and you can pick how fast you want to level up. I was thinking though what if you used those rates for the different classes so a weak class like the monk can level up faster than say a Druid.

The tier 1 and 2 class use slow xp advancement
The tier 3 and 4 clsses use medium xp advancement
tier 5 and 6 use the fast table.

TSR era D&D used to do this and it was one of the reasons why fighter types were often still useful to have around as they would hit level 18 while the wizard would be level 16 for example and the Rogue would be level 20.

D&D5E is out and it has some good points and bad points in and and it is a little bit of fun being hinest. It can't compare to the options available in Pathfinder but for me that is a selling point. I do not think I will invest heavily in it but a PHB purchase and the odd game may be played.

One thing I did like was that they have made "super feats". You get less of them but they are more powerful. FOr example Heavy Armor Master IIRC gives you +1 strength and DR 3 vs non magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage.

By 3.x standards you also get several feats for free at level one for example dex to hit, damage and on ranged weapons which is worth probably 3 feats all by itself and Rogues get a version of spring attack in effect by level 3. You can also use your movement before and after you attacks and combine that with your attacks as well. For example if you have 30' movement and 2 attacks you could move 10, have an attack, move up to 20 feet and have your 2nd attack and Rogues at level 3 can do this without provoking attacks of opportunity. You can also dual wield with no penalty on the attacks and anyone can do this so that is worth another 3 feats or so right there.

Most of that is actually an indirect buff to martial characters. I am not a big fan of dex to damage for free but I have used a home brew improved weapon finesse feat that grants dex to damage. In Pathfinder and 3.5 before ir 2 handed weapon users get a triple dip advantage on using THW as they get larger damage dice, +50 or +100% strength bonus to damage, and a greater effect out of power attack. This tends to make any one handed weapon somewhat pointless in terms of damage unless you are something like a Magus or Rogue who can layer on extra damage from class abilities.

Another arguement I have made on these forums was the 2E to 3.0 changeover actually nerfed the fighter in terms of power relative to the editions they were in. Weapon specialization in 2nd ed actually mattered and a +1 or +2 bonus to hit was very good and you could get this in several ways. A dual wielding fighter using longswords and the fighters hand book was a death dealing machine with great saving throws. Some retroclones have buffed two handed wepaons up to 1d12/2d6 damage as in AD&D the difference was a d8 vs a d10 for a two handed sword for example.

3.x games also heavily focus on combat as AD&D had proficiencies but they broke them into weapon and non weapon so you did not really lose out in comparison to 3.x if you spent a feat on skill focus. AD&D did not use skill points but in Patfinder terms the classes had 3 or 4 skill points each you did not have the gulf of 2-8 skill points as a range. 5E D&D you get 2 trained skills (Rogue gets 4) and you et an extra 2 off your back grounds. Between 2E and 5E I tend to agree with this approach. If any classes get gimped on skills it should probably be the spell casters IMHO as they have spells that duplicate or exceed skill.

Feats havbve not aged that well either with weapon focus for example being unchanged more or less since 3.0. These feats were designed in an environment (AD&D) where a +1 or 2 bonus to hit or AC mattered a lot more than in 3.x based games. Pathfinder buffed dodge of course compared to 3.5 but alot o their ideas and assumptions didnot play out to much such as spring attack, great cleave etc the designers thought would be good. 3.0 to 3.5 buffed power attack and the Pathfinder PA in some ways buffed power attack again even though it did not really need it.

So my suggestion would be to tweak the feats in a hypothetical PF 2.0 along with some math tweaks to maybe reign in spell casters and two handed weapons. After playing AD&D again it was somewhat refreshing to see sword and board fighters being decent.

Some ideas so you get what I am talking about.

Weapon focus. +1 to hit with all weapons.

Weapon specialization, grants an extra attack 1 per encounter or something.

Ambidextrous: You can dual wield a a light weapon with your off hand at no penalty to hit.

Improved weapon finesse, dexterity to damage.

Spring Attack, stays the same dump the dodge and mobility feat requirements.
weapon specialization: You gain +2 damage with all weapons

Finally does this look like a fighter to you? Note I have used 3.x mechanics but buffed several things such as saves and skills. You also get to full attack as a standard action.

Fighter Human Level 4

AC 20
HD 4d10+8 (hp 34)
Saves Fort 10 Ref 11 Will+7 (base saves +5/+5/+4 at level 1)

Abilities: Str 8 Dex 18 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 13 Cha 12
Attacks 2,+10 dmg 1d6+6 (short swords) or
+10 long bow (dmg 1d8+2)

Skills: Acrobatics +11, Diplomacy +8 Perception +8 , Ride +11 Stealth,+11

Feats Ambidextrous, Weapon focus, weapon finesse, improved weapon finesse, spring attack, weapon specialization

Equipment: 2 master work short swords, mithril breastplate, cloak of resistance +1, master work long bow

A somewhat basic example but does this look like a 3.x fighter to you using a simple build to dual wield? Note that this is just theory crafting I am not using this as any sort of house rule.

This is a spin off from the why don't fighters and rogues get epic thread. Some of what I say my not be to popular as such as people can get reactionary around things especially with the lingering effects of the 3.5/4E edition war still lingering.

I am no expert as such but I have played D&D for 20 odd years most of which I have DMed. Most of the classes etc are still new to me as I barely got to play D&D as a player. Note by D&D I mean Pathfinder as well although recently I have been playing in the Reign of Winter AP as I found another group.

In regards to the 3.x rule set I have spent 14 of those 20 years playing 3.x and by that I mean 3.0, 3.5 and Pathfinder. I got the 3.0 books in 2000, 3.5 when it came out in 2003 and the PFRPG PDF in 2009 and dead tree format books in 2011. I have not run PF since 2012 as I was using APs and they tended to crash and burn at level 10 or so or around the 4th book of the AP.

Since 2012 I have gone backward to AD&D and retroclones such as ACKs and Castles and Crusades while buying the occasional PDF off Paizo (Ultimate Campaigns) or dead tree book (Bestiary) to fill in gaps. Also bought additional copies of the core books for one of my players so Paizo has still been seeing some of my money.

After playing AD&D again though I have come to the following conclusions about why magic is so broken in 3rd ed.

1. 3.0 had all the classes advance at the same rate. In AD&D/BECMI martial types were often 1-4 levels ahead of the wizard. In effect spell casters had a level adjustment (LA. The xp tables were wonky at some levels for the wizard however.

2. The way saving throws worked made things like save or dies/suck unreliable at higher levels. There was a 1-3 point difference between good and bad saves for the most part, not 6+ levels of gaps.

3. The way magic resistance worked was changed. High level AD&D fighters were useful to have around if you came across things like mind flayers that were a flat 90% resistant to magic.

4. Changes to the way where magic items were acquired. It is cheap and easy to get them in 3.x games compared to AD&D and spell casters can make them at half price.

5. Changes to the way multiple attacks worked. A fighter with 4 or 5 attacks a round suffered no penalty on his attacks. None of this +11/+6/+1 malarky.

6. Changes to the way skills worked in comparison to NWP. The difference between classes now is 2 vs 8 skill points per level. In AD&D it was 3 NWP vs 4 NWP.

7. Making it harder to interrupt spell casters. In AD&D your spell failed if you took a single point of damage with no concentration roll allowed.

8. Clerics and Druids and Druids again were massively buffed over AD&D.They actually levelled up faster than fighters in AD&D but were kind of weak in 2nd ed.

9. Scaling buff spells were introduced which obsolete things like weapon focus feats.

10. Cheap wands that can have spells duplicating class abilities (knock, CLW, fly etc). Partly related to number 4.

There are probably other reasons and spell casters will usually be more powerful at higher levels it just depends on how big you like that gap. In 1st ed spellcasters did not have so many options but they added UA spells to the 2nd ed PHB and added more spells from 2nd ed to 3.0.

Now in terms of balance AD&D was not perfect either but it did not have the gaping problems 3rd ed had and most of the problems it did have was in terms of ass backwards mechanics and silly restrictions like level limits. In 2000 I was quite excited to see ascending ACs and unified d20 mechanics. We more or less played early 3.0 like 2nd ed. There was no major disconnect for us between 2nd ed and 3.0, unlike say 3.5 and 4E.

A lot of the spells for example were all but the same, and the ones that were changed it took time to figure out how powerful they were and splat books did not help with 3.0 actually being a lot more broken thn 3.5 and Pathfinder. We are talking about spell DCs in the 40's, infinite ability score loops, and being able to stack divine favor, divine power, and greater magic weapon on bows and arrows. Those spells scaled faster than they did in 3.5. A few of those spells did not exist in AD&D and the ones that did often gave a static bonus of +1 or +2. Pun Pun was weaker than a 3.0 Spelldancer prestige class.

At a rough guess 4E was not to popular around here, I do not like it myself but they did actually try and fix this type of stuff by rewriting the game. To me this caused a disconnect in the game. For example if you put a 1st ed PHB, 2nd ed PHB, 3.0, 3.5 and PFRPG books side by side you can see the evolution of D&D even with 2nd ed and 3.0 being different. The difference in warrior THAC0 and BAB is a single point, the spells are the same, the Paladins abilities are not that different from a 1st eds Paladins. 4E evolved from late 3.5 splat books however and in my case I did not even own those splat books even though I had 80+ 3rd ed books. So basically 4E came out of left field for me.

5E has taken a different approach. The formatting makes it look like 3rd ed but they have rewrote all the spells and classes. It has a bit to much 4E in it for my taste and there is a bit of a disconnect as I did more or less sat 4E out and I kind of like my classic fireballs (1d6/level) as boom spells are not usually the ones that break D&D/PF.

As much as it is easy to blame 3.0 it is not entirely 3rd eds fault either. Even if you changed the math behind 3.x games you still have spells like simulacrum and 3.5/PF haste is very good. 2nd ed can share some of the blame here as it added UA spells to the PHB increasing spell caster options and making the illusionist a subclass of wizard actually gave a normal wizard access to illusionist spells such as simulacrum and improved/greater invisibility. The trade off in picking an illusionist in 1st ed was you could not cast a lot of normal wizard spells and AD&D spells often had draw backs as any spell that could age you could also kill you via system shock. These draw backs were eliminated in the 2nd to 3rd ed change over.

TLDR: They buffed spell casters and nerfed fighters in the 2nd to 3rd ed change over.

One could buff the other classes and Pathfinder did do this and nerfed the spell casters a little as well but this creates various problems as well IMHO. Adventure paths do not work so well with the sheer amount of damage archers and two handed weapon users can put out. If anyone here actually has a copy/PDF of the 1st ed PHB or Rules Cyclopedia for BECMI go and compare the list of spells to the PFRPG core book. you are looking at around 13 spells available as options vs all of the ones in PF which increases complexity and the the odds of the right spell for whatever situation you need. In 1st ed you did not even get the choice as to what spells you would start your career with and you did not get to chose them as you levelled up either.

This may seem overly harsh and restrictive in modern terms but it kept the spell casters in check relative to 3.x game. Of course some of this is inherently subjective and players like their options and power but there is a price that comes with that in 3.x based games. If you are a DM and do not like running PF at higher level (post level 10) or are a player who can't find DMs who run high level games there may be a reason for that. Some of you may not actually even have a problem or even enjoy the power levels of higher level games and that is fine as well. Preference are purely subjective.

Can one fix this? IDK I have been trying since 2008 via house rules and have even wrote a 100 page proto 2.75 D&D which is a hybrid of AD&D and 3rd ed. I would like a D&D that reflects the taste of AD&D and 3rd ed but without some of the problems those games have. Not to much interested in a rewrite of the game a'la 4E and 5E to a lesser extent. Still playing 3.x after 14 years though so the game must have done something right. It is not my preferred D&D fix any more though.

It has been around 2 years since I last ran a PFRPG game and around 2 weeks since I last played PF as a player. Last time I house ruled the game a lot and had a list of banned stuff.

To some extent I am somewhat traditional in my D&D and it was a main reason why I rejected 4th ed and went to Pathfinder instead and since then I have branched out into OSR gaming spurred on by the retrieval of my 2nd ed books in 2012 which had spent 12 years at my parents place in a box.

I am still a big fan of 3rd ed type games but I have kind of been burned out after 12 years DMing them from 3.0, 3.5 a Pathfinder and even Star Wars Saga I suppose. I do not have a favourite edition of D&D as such but if I had to pick 2 it would be a toss up between 2nd ed and Pathfinder if I had to pick one only it would be between those 2.

IN the change over from 2nd to 3rd ed though they kind of dropped the ball on a few things even though I liked the basic concepts of the d20 mechanics as some things in AD&D were kind of silly like level limits (make a better human FFS).Anyway some things I personally do not like in 3rd ed but do not regard as essential to the 3.x D&D/PF experience.

1. The natural spell feat.
2. Scaling buff spells and quantity/stacking of buff spells.
3. Wand of cure light wounds/knock etc in particular.
4. Cheap/easy magic item creation and/or purchasing power.
5. Number bloat/complexity.
6/ +16/+11/+6/+1, 4 attacks at +16 is fine by me.
7. Bonus strength damage via power attack/two handed weapons.
8. Large gaps in fort/ref/will saves.
9. Spell DCs over 20.
10. Unlimited ability score progression.
11. Fighters with only 2 skill points (house ruled to 4 IMC)

I suppose my ideal game D&D game would be a d20 type mechanics hybrid between AD&D 2nd/Pathfinder. Pathfinder for the mechanics (ascending ACs, feat, skills, BAB, fort/ref/will etc), AD&D for the math (smaller numbers)and options growth with less power creep.

Not that interested in "fixing" 3.x via 4E and probably D&DN now I know a bit more about that system.

I have read a lot about Rogues sucking in Pathfinder but I still want to play one. I am about to get to play PF tonight for the 1st time as opposed to DMing it and I get to start at level 4. Books allowed will be core+Ultimate Combat+ the Advanced Players Guide. I do not need the most min maxed character ever but I am thinking of something like Rogue 3/Barbarian 1 and the Barbarian level can be Ranger or Fighter as well.

The basic idea is to ignore weapon finesse and start with an 18 strength and 14-16 dex (we roll for scores). After that dexterity will be the focus for all the level up stuff.

I remember the dex based Rogue in 3.5 being a bit of a trap option and as a DM I thought the high str based one was the better idea. 1d6+ str bonus for damage vs 2d6+6 with 18 strength almost doubles or triples your average damage. The feat saved off weapon finesse can be used for power attack and you can take cleave later I suppose.

Thoughts or am I still stuck in 2006 or so;).

What if any of the APs would make for a suitable conversion to a TSR era D&D game? I do not mind subbing in monsters etc and maybe upping the treasure as 1 gp=1xp in BECMI/1st ed and there are difference in the relative power levels the monsters from edition to edition.

I do not like playing Pathfinder over level 10 or so and prefer to do it with retroclones etc so I'm wondering what one uses the most classic monsters and would be the easiest to convert.

Failing that what have been some of the better APs as the last one I paid much attention to was Skull and Shackles and the last one we played was Kingmaker. Also thinking of a hard core party with 8,9, 11, 12,13,14 stat array.

After 12 years of 3.x and a recent return to playing TSR era D&D I have reached the following conclusion.

The 3.x system is fundamentally borked and needs a rewrite. I have been playing some retroclones as well and have been rereading the BECMi rules cyclopedia and my AD&D books mostly 2nd ed but the 1st ed PHB as well.

One solution is to go back to TSR/retroclones the one I chose to do was a homebrew d20 system roughly based on PF but using parts of 4th ed that made sense and a return to several ideas ffrom TSR era D&D.

The basics of my homebrew.

1. d20 system sing fort/ref/will and Pathfinders skill system. Might even go a bit further and strip the skill system out.

2. Classes level up at the same rate. I am kind of liking TSRs approach in this regard so it is not set in concrete.

3. A simpler combat section. ATM using 4th eds/SWSE round structure. Once again not set in concrete.

4. BAB being revised into AD&D style/SWSE multiattacks.No more +11/+6/+1 just 3 attacks at +11.

5. Ability scores being capped at 20 for players, 30 for monsters.

6. Spells mostly return to AD&D levels of power along with saving throws being boosted to AD&D/BECMI levels. Fighters for example get +5/+5/+4 saves at level 1. Lifting my spells from Pathfinder atm but using old school versions of some of the broken ones. Might go as far as BECMI trimming of the spell lists as well.

7. Feats being turned into options with very little mechanical bloat. Most feats do not grant a bonus to hit and damage although they may let a fighter pick up healing spells or whatever. Weapon focus for example doesn't exist as a +1 bonus to hit.

8. Less focus on builds. Weapon specialization for fighters grants a +1 bonis to hit and damage on all weapons and is available from level 1 as a single talent instead of two feats.

9. Class rewrites. Clerics and Druids for example are back to no level 8 and 9 spells. Martial types are similar to SWSE characters.

10. Some 4th ed innovations are used. Encounter powers do exist but are optional via feats and talents for example. Healing can be used as a minor action buit you do not get it for free requiring feat investment.

Those are a few of my main ideas atm. Not 100% married to all of them and I could just thinki screw it and play a retroclone but I'm intersted in some ideas peoiple have here in regards to the 3.x system and if it is even worth trying to fix/save or play.

I have recently bought the Ultimate Campaigns PDF. I'm not usually to much of a stickler for realism or artwork but the cover is just bad. The weapons and armor are starting to look very very silly.

This has been a recurring theme through out your products. I love the Inner Sea World Guide due to it interior art and the cover is ok.

Anyway as I said doesn't have to be to realistic but please no more badly drawn meat cleavers.

Greatsword
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zweihaender_im_historischen_Museum_Basel. JPG

Viking blades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Viking_swords.jpg

Longsword (maybe bastard sword in game terms)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Espadon-Morges.jpg

Well it has been 13 years and it has got to the point I am kind of burned out by 3.XYZ. Sick of things like magic mart, the game kind of failing at higher level and the amount of prep time required of d20 rules.

Not a massive fan of 4th ed although it had sopme decent elements in it and I am keeping an eye on the D&DN playtest. However I have been giving Paizo money since 2002 or so when they picked up Dragon and Dungeon. I like the material I have bought off them alot and are quite happy to keep supporting them $$$ wise.

I ran a few games for my modern players of AD&D 2nd ed and surprisingly they enjoyed it even with things like THACO. Anyway we are gonna take the great leap backwards to 2nd ed and play that for a bit as a break from 3.XYZ and keep playing Star Wars Saga for the d20 fix.

I own a few PF boks and have usually mined Golarion for bits nad pieces for my own wolrd such as porting Magnimar over more or less as written. I also use a few of the Golarion deities with a few more I have borrowed from 3.5 and 4th ed along with some of my own creation.

What products do you think are easiest to convert or are just plan fun to read. Fluff and maps are easily mined for ideas and presitge classes like the Red Mantis can be converted into normal AD&D classes. Thoughts?

What spells do people think are to good or are game wrecking broken?

Depending on the tone of the setting I find a lot of movement spells can be a bit much. Fly, teleport, and maybe haste. LoTR+ teleport= go to mount doom and throw in the ring, scry and die, and inter continental teleport makes exploration games hard if combined with scrying. And the old buff, scry and die trick has been working well for multiple editions.

Greater Magic Weapon is a pet peeve of mine. Not because it breaks the game but it s to efficient and a +1 weapon with XYZ abilities is always better than a +3/+4/+5 weapon. Buff spells to me should be about as powerful as bless, prayer, aid, and haste being the best one. Not a fan of ones that give more than a +2 bonus for more than a single combat or of buff spells stacking.

Anyway are there any spells which you think are so good the game is improved if the DM just says no. Timestop has been a classic one but the game tends to have problems long before level 17.

Today I am running Pathfinder for the 1st time in a few months. Anyway I have a 13 page book of errata and some feats converted from 3.5 and ideas borrowed from other d20 systems most Star Wars Saga, a few from 4th ed and some from D&DN play test.

It is a work in progress at the moment but it is turning into a rewrite of various things. overall I am looking at toning down PCs in terms of offensive options due to the way the game tends to collapse at around level 10 or so due to various problems. I am kind of aiming for a 2nd ed style game in some ways using d20 mechanics and the fun parts of 3.5/PF.

Some of the ideas I am currently experimenting with.

1. Magic items requiring exotic materials to build a'la 2nd ed. Eliminating wands of CLW. Wealth by level is also going out the window.

2. Power attack and Rapid shot being changed. These feats have been being abused by power gamers since at least 2001. I was on the WoTC boards when the early builds were being put together. Charge builds, archer builds, cleric build etc. Not much has really changed.

3. Limiting ability score. We are using a hard cap of 25, considering going down to 20.

4. Saving throws increasing or a fixed cap of DC 20. Currently going with the 1st option, in effect everyone has monk saving throws almost. A level 20 fighter for example has 12/10/10 base saves while a wizard has 10/10/12. Saves no longer stack from multi classing.

5. Critical hits being toned down. Crits now deal maximum damage, X3/X4. weapons do an extra dice of damage on a crit in addition to max damage.

6. Most classes get 4-8 skills per level. Background and not class determines skills.

7. Races are home brewed but have a choice of floating stats. Elves for example get +2 dex, and +2 int or wis and -2 con.

8. Weapon finesse is now a property of light weapons. Weapon finesse is now precision based dex to damage.

More or less it atm. Working on how to dial the spell casters down. Spell DCs and the spell lists are prime targets atm.

I quite like my pathfinder books but myself and my players are noting alot of the 3.5 problems cropping up in Pathfinder. This has kind of ruined some of the Paizo APs at higher levels of ply (10+).

Anyway I have narrowed down the list to 3 big offenders.

1.Spell DCs.
2.Power Attack feat
3.Rapid shot feat.

These three things have been the big offenders since 3.0 in numerous power build options. 12 years of annoying the hell out of me. Do you think these are the big offenders in terms of the power level of higher level games? I'm considering some houserules for my games, not sure what they are yet.

THeres been more than a few threads about the monk sucking but I would be more interested in finding out whats more important for a monk or at least what do people on these forum think. I'm currently redesigning the monk and either way I go its problems with hitting will be resolved. This leaves to elements I can focus on for the class.

1. Mobility. The monk is fast but it conflicts with its flurry ability.

2. Flurry. The monk gets multiple attacks but in conflcts with its mobility thing.

Anyway what do you think feels rigt for the class if one had to pick one of them. The basica idea I am having is

Option 1. Mobilty. If you remember the Scout class in 3.5 ed this is a similar idea. My idea so far is to have this aspect focus on 1 atack a round but making it a big one to compete with archers and two handed wepaon users and the like. Such an attack could in theory deal more damge than a fighter or even a barbarian only having 1 attack. The basic idea will be somehting like the Soucts skirmish ability of steroids.
+1 enhancement bonus every 3 levels to hit/damage.
Flurry. Monk adds his level to damage.
Skirmish (monk moves 10'+ in a round.
Level
1 +1/1d6
3 +2/2d6
5 +3/3d6
7 +4/4d6
etc
The +1 is a bonus to hit and AC, the 1d6 is a bonus to damage. A level 9 monk for example would deal base damage +12 +5d6 damage and gain +5 to hit and AC as long as he moved 10' in a round. Full attacking he would gain +9 on all damage.

Option 2.
Similar to the exiisting monk but overhauling the class. Monk is built around the a pounce ability that lets them move+ full attack. Flurry will be similar to what it is now. Monk will probably get a skirmish ability to hit but not the extra dice to damage the above example gets.

Both builds will have improved ACs and the like over the current monk and will get an enhancement bonus to hit and damage with unarmed attacks topping out at +5 or maybe even +6 to hit/damage. Yes I am aware the 1st option will let monks deal alot of damage in one hit but a barbarian or paladin can deal a simialr amount with a keen falchion, archers can full attack, fighters can be built in various ways, dervish dance+magus etc. Neither example is set in stone just throwing around ideas. THe main thing is mobilty vs flurry whats more "monkish" to you.

Related to the Dervish Dancer feat and thread but a separate issue. On the surface dex to damage is to good of an ability. Strength has very little use in comparison to dexterity which also has uses in accuracy with ranged weapons, initiaitve, AC, several great skills, reflex saving throws and indirectly movement rate as a high strength low dex character is probably goign to be wearing heavy armor and probably a few things I have missed. Dex to damage has the ability to create a super stat. RAW there are currently 3 ways of getting dex to damge in Pathfinder that I know of.

1. Dervish Dancer feat. Yesterday in PF I described an NPC carrying a scimitar and dressed in light armor. PCs assumed he was a Magus. PCs were right.

2. Agile weapon enhancement. Probably won't be available to PCs at low levels, located in semi obscure sourcebook I have read about on the forums whose name eludes me.

3. Aldori Bladelord. PrC, feat intentensive limited to one weapon.

If there are any more please let me know.

I'm not 100% sure and others may disagree with me but these are probably the best weapons in Pathfinder. Im no particular order

1. Scimitar
2. Falchion
3. Falcata
4. Bows and Guns.
5. Two handed weapons in general.

Or basically power attack, rapid shot, high crit and ranged weapons. These weapons have the best feat support and do the most damage compared to competing weapons for low opportunity cost. Bows and scimitars have been popular to abuse since the early days of 3.0, two handed weapons since 3.5 and the changes it made to power attack.

Basic weapons such as longswords are really only used by classes like Clerics with a deity who has it as a weapon, people who do not know any better and maybe the sword and shield types who will probably be outclassed by other builds. A Dwarven waraxe is also a decent choice if you are a Dwarf I suppose. Not everyone is a powergamer either and may just go with whatever they feel like as it will not matter to much vs creatures of similar CR if they can build a decent build.

Anyway is dex to damage broken as an ability? Opinions may vary and I have been allowing it in my own games via an improved weapon finesse feat. I do not allow Piranha Strike into my games though as we only use the core rules, APG, Inner Sea World Guide and the ultimate books in the game.

I also gave feat suppot to weapons that PCs in normal circumstances would not use as primary weapons. One of my PCs is a Gunslinger1/Fighter 5 who dual wields daggers, another uses a rapier. The Rapier user also gets to add intelligence to damage and he uses nothing in his other hand. I converted the 3.5 Swashbuckler class to PF as a fighter option. I wanted to see if I could make the duelist option work in Pathfinder and he is enjoying his character.

Now are things like this overpowered? In a way yes they are. The Rapier user for example is dealing something like 1d6+10 damage with his rapier (+4 dex, +3 int, +2 specialist, +1 weapon). Thats a little bit borked compared to a core PF build. However from the DM point of view his character is easier to deal with than say a Paladin with a keen falchion. The other fighter type has taken similar feats and dual wields daggers which deal 1d4+10 (+4 dex, +2 int, +2 specialisation, +1 trait, +1 weapon) damage each.

Yes they all took high dex characters when I gave them some juicy feat options to support it but it was also in comparison to their last characters which involved a ranger acher and a Paladin using a keen falchion. It was something different for them to try. Personally ATM I have no problem with dex to damage but one may want to limit what else you can pile onto it (Piranha Strike comes to mind). I have gone as far as allowing int to damage although that one is precision damage.

Anyway thoughts about dex to Damage? I had to custom design feats for my examples above but if you want PCs to use different weapons you may need to do the same thing. Bastard sword sucks as written give it a feat that increases its damage or crit range and see what happens;)

Some of my PCs have asked me about using the slow xp methid of gaining levels. The reason is they know I am unwilling to DM at higher levels most due to the fact i have bettr things to do with my time than spending an hour or 2 to design a 30 minute encounter. I normally have PCs retire around level 10 and our Kingmaker game kind of fell apart at level 10 when they won initiative and killed everthting before it got to act. At that point I did not want to keep running a game.

Anyhow has anyone else tried slow PC progression tables? Some people in the group have also mentioned letting monks use the fast one while Druids, Clerics and Wizards/Sorcerers use the slow one.

A few months ago I purchased the game Crusader Kings II by paradoxinteractive. It is a strategy game set in the middle ages (start date 1066) where you have to manage your dynasty until 1452. You get married, have kids, train them, die etc. YOu really only lose the game if you lose control of your bloodline in your county/duchy/kingdom.

Anyway they have character traits since d20 games will not reflect a multi generational dynasty game that well. Paradox games also tend to go very ahistorical. Theres nothing wrong with my 1750 Byzantine Empire controlling everything from Britain to India honest.

Anyway I was wondering if conversions of traits like these would be a good idea.

http://crusaderkings-two.wikia.com/wiki/Traits

I have made a few for personal use, no surprise one of my PCs took the lusty trait.