, despite the fact that the limits on items in 4e are...body slots and gold just like in PF1.
Is it confirmed that you're going to be able to wear 3 pairs of boots, five headbands and three belts at the same time? Or are there going to be limitations based on what you can wear based on the location it takes up on your body? Also is it confirmed there won't be a magic item economy in Pathfinder 2e? Otherwise trying to say body slots aren't important and gold isn't important seems premature given what's been revealed so far.
[the limit on daily powers] did not involve any points
As with daily powers provided by your class, there is a limit to the number of magic item daily powers you can use on any given day. This limit depends on your level.
At 1st–10th level, you can use one magic item daily power per day.
At 11th–20th level, you can use two magic item daily powers per day.
At 21st–30th level, you can use three magic item daily powers per day.
Each time you reach a milestone (see page 259), you gain one additional use of a magic item daily power.
So there were points. If you were expected to complete 3 milestones a day then you got 4 points to use on daily items at level 1-10, 8 points to use daily items at levels 11-20 and 12 points to use on daily items at levels 21-30.
If you want to say that's completely different, you're free to do so. But trying to say "you didn't have points in 4th ed but in Pathfinder 2e you do have points" is (IMO) ridiculous unless we find out these points are substantially different from how 4th ed used them.
Resonance exists to limit the number of "special" powers you can use from magic items (it is confirmed that always on effects do not take up resonance) on a daily basis. The 4th edition daily powers from magical items per milestone existed for the same reason. Both use a limited amount of uses per day to balance the effect magic items have on the game. Those uses per day do go up with level. Pathfinder 2e might be deriving the number of Resonance slightly differently to 4th ed, and 4th ed may have built in ways to avoid people going nova with their daily power uses, but that's as different as Pathfinder's change to ability score enhancement bonuses being limited to certain body slots + ioun stones. If you see it as a significant difference? By all means. Don't count it as a similarity. It is sufficiently similar in my book to immediately raise the ire of my ex-4th ed players and to have them immediately point out the similarity with 4th ed.
As for the statement it was removed in errata: never saw that errata (although my group did stop reviewing it sometime around either Psionic Power/Martial Power 2). But your houserule or later errata doesn't mean it wasn't part of the rules for 4th ed.
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, despite the fact that the limits on items in 4e are...body slots and gold just like in PF1.Is it confirmed that you're going to be able to wear 3 pairs of boots, five headbands and three belts at the same time? Or are there going to be limitations based on what you can wear based on the location it takes up on your body? Also is it confirmed there won't be a magic item economy in Pathfinder 2e? Otherwise trying to say body slots aren't important and gold isn't important seems premature given what's been revealed so far.
Physical limitations still apply, and I believe such items are tagged as limited in that way. So no to the three pairs of boots, but multiple rings, amulets, and belts should be just fine.
Physical limitations still apply, and I believe such items are tagged as limited in that way. So no to the three pairs of boots, but multiple rings, amulets, and belts should be just fine., despite the fact that the limits on items in 4e are...body slots and gold just like in PF1.Is it confirmed that you're going to be able to wear 3 pairs of boots, five headbands and three belts at the same time? Or are there going to be limitations based on what you can wear based on the location it takes up on your body? Also is it confirmed there won't be a magic item economy in Pathfinder 2e? Otherwise trying to say body slots aren't important and gold isn't important seems premature given what's been revealed so far.
Right. So just like in PF1, there will be some slot based limitations (the precise limitations may be changed, but there will still be some).
In 4e our group wasn't engaged and our combat turns were quick (2-3 mins). In Pathfinder we're more engaged with Pathfinder, but our turns take typically 5 mins and then easily 20 minutes at higher levels with animal companions, familiars, summoned creatures and time stop
Aaah. But you're not comparing apples to apples. Turns may have been quicker in 4th ed (especially if your group wasn't engaged and simply auto piloted their turns like this:
Turn 1: I standard action a daily. Minor action a daily. Move action an encounter. Free action mark. I action point and standard action a daily.Turn 2: I standard action a daily. I minor action an encounter. I move action an encounter.
Turn 3: I standard action an encounter. I move action an encounter. I free action mark. I minor action an item ability.
TUrn 4: I standard action my normal at-will.
Turn 5: I standard action my normal at-will.
Turn 6: I move my character and then standard action my normal at-will.
You get caught in the same rut and I wouldn't be surprised if you get through your turn quick. Doesn't mean combats didn't drag on. It just means everyone gets more turns per combat. Similarly Pathfinder turns might take a long time, but you'll have less combat rounds.
In my experience and everyone I saw gaming at venues where LFR was run and with PFS.
[EDIT]: Put my post in more context as the post I responded to was deleted.
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I played 4e Living Forgotten Realms up to 21st lvl, and I don't recall any encounter lasting longer than 2 hours. Meanwhile, I've been in a Pathfinder encounter that lasted ~10 hours over three gaming sessions.I don't believe that.
For us 4E encounters and PF encounters were pretty much identical in table-time length. The PF battle would take four or five rounds and the 4E battle would take ten or twelve rounds. It took basically the same amount of time to resolve though for us.
4E got considerably faster after they dealt with the high hit points of monsters issue (and made them hit harder and die faster). That was pretty late in its life though.
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The 10 hour encounter was clearly an outlier. It was the final boss battle of Jade Regent, with a party of 6, I think; I'm sure the GM modified the published encounter. After the Big Bad was killed, one of the party members showed his true colors and made his own bid for the throne.
I can certainly see 4e encounters running longer when you get to mid-epic tier, and some PCs have "once per day when you die" powers.
Similarly Pathfinder turns might take a long time, but you'll have less combat rounds.
To expand on this a little bit: My group's combats don't take the same amount of time as the 4e ones did. Here's some ways we speed up play:
* We don't have a smorgasbord of extra PCs on the table. We might have one or MAYBE two animal companions/combat familiars/summoned monsters on the table, but we don't have more than that. Typically it's obvious early on if someone wants to play a pet class and the rest of the party agree to not have pets for this game (sometimes it might be a druid who gets an animal companion, next time it might be a summoning specialist wizard).* Anybody summoning monsters is expected to have their stats pre-written with any templates applied. If they don't then they don't get to summon this session.
* Anybody polymorphing is expected to have their stats pre-written out for any form they polymorph into. If they don't then they don't get to polymorph this session.
* Spellcasters are expected to expend spells on buffing everyone so that as a group we can more effectively overcome the challenges we face.
* Players know how to play their characters and apply modifiers to their character stats ahead of time (either when the buffs are cast or before the game session. Situational modifiers that change round to round obviously aren't prewritten). E.g. Heroism is such a common buff with my character that I don't know what his stats are without it applied and I would have to quickly calculate them if I was in such a situation.
Some of the above rules will definitely impact turn durations.
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I played 4e Living Forgotten Realms up to 21st lvl, and I don't recall any encounter lasting longer than 2 hours. Meanwhile, I've been in a Pathfinder encounter that lasted ~10 hours over three gaming sessions.I don't believe that.
Believe it. I still play 4E and most of our encounters (in paragon tier) are handled in under an hour. Better math from the Monster Manual 3 on, knowing how to play the game, cooperation with other players in terms of combinations that work well, and well designed encounters make for a fun - and fast - pased game compared to some of our mid-level 3.5 and PF games.
As for the statement it was removed in errata: never saw that errata (although my group did stop reviewing it sometime around either Psionic Power/Martial Power 2). But your houserule or later errata doesn't mean it wasn't part of the rules for 4th ed.
"In the Daily entry of this section, delete
all material after the first sentence. This change makes the text consistent with the new rules for magic items."
It was apart of it originally, but removed because it was a bad idea.
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The 10 hour encounter was clearly an outlier. It was the final boss battle of Jade Regent, with a party of 6, I think; I'm sure the GM modified the published encounter. After the Big Bad was killed, one of the party members showed his true colors and made his own bid for the throne.
We've certainly had our fair share of long combats in PF as well. One time we were meant to carry out some mission in hostile territory. We got attacked and the module expected us to then move on and stealth through the rest of the adventure. Instead we stayed and called out for everyone to come get us. They obliged. We faced wave after wave of snow apemen (don't remember the module or actual creatures other than it was PFS) and our party of almost everyone being a monk or monk-like character stood our ground. We were tripping enemies, stomping on them, AoOing. It was a glorious battle and it went well into the wee hours of the night as we continued facing the foes.
Another PFS module involved infiltrating a cult. We spent hours establishing cover identities, gathering information on our cover identities (I was playing my halfling bard tank who frequently alter person'd himself to other appearances). We did so much prep-work to ensure that we were successful in infiltrating the cult and knew exactly what to do. We then finally entered the cult, the cult leader appeared and one player (whose name to this day is a curse word in our group as he had done this on many occasions over the years) said "I walk up to the cult leader and attack him" in full view of the cult. This instantly triggered a combat with the entire forces of cult being thrown at us at once. We held our own in this fight. It did take hours. It was hard and gruelling. The player who kicked it off was the first to go down and he didn't stick around to watch us finish the fight. We fought really hard and for a time it looked like we might actually get away with it and win. Ultimately we did fall down (one of us managed to escape and arranged for the rest of us to be raised). But this was a multiple hours-long combat.
Finally the other ultra long combat that stands out is from a Carrion Crown campaign. The players are searching some ruins where there's undead and cultists. A third party of an inherently evil race was also at the site and so my players captured them. So after facing a few of the random encounters as well as a couple of planned encounters the players retreated and captured alive some of these evil people. They stakes them out and then proceeded to torture them so that their screams could be heard across all of the ruins. The cultists were horrified at this (I was the DM), saw it was only five people doing this and so gathered their forces to attack. The players grabbed lunch and I prepared for the fight. I calculated how many of each enemy would be there and put them in squads to attack. They started marching forward. The cultists sent a weak force to begin with to gauge the PC's abilities. They saw what they could do and then committed the rest of their forces. They were overconfident (they're only 5 people!) and the combat went completely medieval with the undead in marching orders and the cultist leaders travelling with them (trying to use the undead as shields). Although they tried to alter their tactics it was a bloodbath. I did hurt the PCs but ultimately they had the favourable terrain, the enemy had underestimated them and they were ultimately victorious. Everyone had fun, but it was a long combat.
The above three scenarios are all exceptions to the normal combat duration. Each one had a specific reason as to why it went so long. None of that had anything to do with the rules of Pathfinder and were very situation specific.
Unlike Diffan I don't play 4e anymore. I did however:
* Play in LFR and got several characters up to Paragon (we stopped playing LFR once we had more than a couple of sessions in it).
* Played 2 campaigns from level 1 up to high level (one of which reached Epic).
* Played Against the Giants (or whatever the 4th ed one was called) which started and ended in Paragon Tier.
My experiences was using pre-MM3 monster math (although to be honest, even with MM3 monster math that 2 of the DMs houseruled into being used for the module without any of us knowing) and still found fights took forever.
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Eh, you can't use outliers to say much of anything about average encounter/combat times. I've had an AD&D 1e battle that took 8 hours, plus another 2 to catalogue the treasure. A GM can make a super complex encounter in almost any game system.
Personally, I thought the average combat length of both 4e and Pathfinder was a bit long. I grew up on BECMI and AD&D 1e combats which often can be done in minutes.
Resonance exists to limit the number of "special" powers you can use from magic items (it is confirmed that always on effects do not take up resonance) on a daily basis.
First, here's the post about body slots: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uz6u&page=13?Resonance-what-do-you-think#6 08
Second, did they say that passive abilities don't take up resonance, or they don't use up resonance?
I assumed it worked like the occultist, where you had to invest resonance into the items to activate the passive affect, and then you also used up that resonance throughout the day to use the on-use abilities. Did I misread that?
More appropriate to the topic thread, one way I hope PF2 does not resemble 4E was how difficult it was to homebrew in 4E (besides monsters). Classes especially were such a mess at first; I hope PF2 does not go down that road in their quest for customization.
4e was a boardgame, not a role playing game.
Preach it! (wow, it's like 2009 again!)
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4e was a boardgame, not a role playing game.Preach it! (wow, it's like 2009 again!)
If only they actually played it......*sigh*
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4E was terrible. I don't know anyone who liked it. I never played it because I read the rulebooks and they were a huge turnoff. I sat thru some of other people's 4E games and it sounded terrible. Those people quit playing it after a short time because they thought it was terrible.
Pathfinder 2E sounds the opposite of terrible. I'm excited about it.
I haven't peeked at much for PF2E yet, waiting to get a copy of the playtest CRB in my hands in May.
This said, 4E was probably my least-favorite D&D experience in nearly 33 years of playing tabletop RPGs. Ignoring the interminably long encounters (there's something wrong if you can't get more than one fight in during a normal 4-5 hour gaming session), I disliked how they prioritized numerical parity at all costs. It didn't matter if you called it "maneuvers", "spells", "disciplines", or whatever, a Daily Power was a Daily Power. Everyone had exactly the same number of them. The damage was often nearly identical. When PHB3 came out, I was saddened in looking at the psionics rules: I've never seen a D&D psionics system that lacked more distinction than the 4E one (hell, even the Unearthed Arcana Mystic in 5E has more distinctive mechanics).
It was obvious that it was designed to pull in the MMO crowd. World of Warcraft was at its zenith when 4E was being designed & was released. WotC probably figured it was an easy market to co-opt if they could arrange some similarities. But the whole "Controller/Leader/Striker" approach was just excessive, unnecessarily pigeonholed classes, and led less experienced players to believe (much like WoW in its continued use of the "Holy Trinity" of Tank/Healer/DPS) that a given party couldn't succeed unless all of those roles were filled.
I hope PF2E doesn't go in this direction. I've already peeked at what they're doing with the magic system, and I'm not particularly encouraged. If the release version winds up being closer to 4E than not, I'll probably just have to stick with PF1E, or go to D&D5E full time.
Yeah, this thread has almost singlehandedly taken away all my enthusiasm for the new version. I was expecting something new and innovative, not a rehash of a system that has too many rules.
If only they actually played it......*sigh*4e was a boardgame, not a role playing game.Preach it! (wow, it's like 2009 again!)
I did play it, and it was one of the worst rpg experiences I ever had. That's when I switched to PF.
So it would seem odd that PF would move towards a format that drove many people to take up the game.
Unless they think that there was a group of 4e players that will come to them if they clone it, as I'm sure 5e has hit them hard.
That may work for them, but if its the case its very unlikely to attract me and my players. Now if they did a system even more rules light and open ended than 5e, now that would be awesome.
There seems to be a cult of thinking that 4E was the best way to play a TTRPG. Though if you can only fool people into playing it...
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I also actually played 4e, about 5 times with a good GM, and once at a con with a terrible one, not counting playtest sessions. I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable tactical game, as open to roleplaying as many other RPG options, but not very "D&D like."
So far what we've seen of PF2e doesn't have too much of a "4e vibe" for me - about the only 4e-ism I see that I don't like are the free +level to all skills.
What I don't see and I'm happy not to:
A complete lack of "noncombat" class abilities
Classes not getting anything permanent/distinctive past level 1(i.e. class abilities outside the AEDU structure)
Removal of traditional options like gnomes and druids
All spells turned into damage or healing with minor riders
"Noncombat" spells not usable in combat
Minion enemies that work on their own ruleset
Stuff that may be 4e-like but I'm still unsure about:
NPC/monster building uses different rules than PCs
Damage being weak compared to enemy hp
I've read a bunch of conflicting things about the last two so I'm reserving judgment for now.
I haven't peeked at much for PF2E yet, waiting to get a copy of the playtest CRB in my hands in May.
This said, 4E was probably my least-favorite D&D experience in nearly 33 years of playing tabletop RPGs...
... I hope PF2E doesn't go in this direction. I've already peeked at what they're doing with the magic system, and I'm not particularly encouraged. If the release version winds up being closer to 4E than not, I'll probably just have to stick with PF1E, or go to D&D5E full time.
I'm in a very similar situation. I hope to be surprised by the play-test rules and I'll take part in the play-test effort, but early indications that perhaps 1 of the 2 regular games in which I play will move to PF2e. And games that I run at game club will probably be "Traveler" or "Castles and Crusades" has been looking interesting. Maybe I should give it more in-depth read.
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4e was a boardgame, not a role playing game.Preach it! (wow, it's like 2009 again!)
No kidding... I figured maybe most people had grown out of "my Kool-Aid's better than yours," but I guess not. Surprise! We'll all drinkin' the Kool-Aid, it's just different flavors, and some just don't like Kiwi-Baha-Blast-Wildberry flavor.
I've told great stories with 4th Edition.
I've told great stories with 5th Edition.
I've told great stories with Pathfinder.
I've told great stories with FATE Core.
And when PF3 comes out, my friends and I will figure out how to tell great stories with that one, too. (If I'm alive.)
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I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable tactical game, as open to roleplaying as many other RPG options, but not very "D&D like."
I'd say that's an accurate portrayal. While I do see D&D-isms in there, they're not consistent with previous editions. Personally I thought it was a good thing, but I also know that's an outlier opinion.
So far what we've seen of PF2e doesn't have too much of a "4e vibe" for me - about the only 4e-ism I see that I don't like are the free +level to all skills.
Agreed. I'd like to see a more concrete product before judging it fully. I wasn't a fan of the Fighter preview or All About Actions but the Cleric and Rogue ones were intriguing. And mostly not like 4E.
What I don't see and I'm happy not to:
A complete lack of "noncombat" class abilities
Classes not getting anything permanent/distinctive past level 1(i.e. class abilities outside the AEDU structure)
Removal of traditional options like gnomes and druids
All spells turned into damage or healing with minor riders
"Noncombat" spells not usable in combat
Minion enemies that work on their own ruleset
You played 4E a handful of times, so I can only assume you had just the PHB to work with. I assure you, as the game progressed, all of what you stated (aside from Minion rules) is there in 4E.
· Druids were in PHB2, Gnomes were playable in Core but they were in the Monster Manual (later in the PHB2).· All of the classes in Essentials got class-specific features after 1st level. Its the PHB 1, 2, & 3 that forced total AEDU structure.
· Non-combat spells in combat = Utility powers, Skill Powers, and some feats made casting times of Rituals much shorter.
Stuff that may be 4e-like but I'm still unsure about:
NPC/monster building uses different rules than PCs
Damage being weak compared to enemy hpI've read a bunch of conflicting things about the last two so I'm reserving judgment for now.
I can only hope Monster math and building is different than PC. Its one of th3 single biggest offenders of making classes compete against one another. Not to mention really dumb rules and requirements on monsters that are just going to often die anyways. Plus the metagaming...oh dear the metagaming.
"The enemy wizard shoots 2 bolts of magic missiles."
Player: "Oh so he's only 4th level tops. He doesn't even have access to 3rd level spells yet!"
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4E was terrible. I don't know anyone who liked it. I never played it because I read the rulebooks and they were a huge turnoff. I sat thru some of other people's 4E games and it sounded terrible. Those people quit playing it after a short time because they thought it was terrible.
Pathfinder 2E sounds the opposite of terrible. I'm excited about it.
While I don't know you personally, I enjoy 4E, as do the people in our group. I can't comment on how others play but for the majority of our sessions 4E is done pretty much the same way our 3.5 and PF and 5E games go. There are differences but the game usually takes the same time, though low level 5e is quicker.
For example, using the at-will spell Scorching Burst to melt the ice covering a door or using the Cleave exploit to cut through wooden pillars supporting enemy archers or Sacred Flame prayer to light up a hallway. All of these are "attacks" but used in utility-based ways. I had a Ranger player use Twin Strike to shhot the candles out so it would be easier to sneak down the hallway or Ray of Frost to freeze a small area of water to cross over.
I dunno, maybe we do things differently? We have a blast with 4E (as well as other systems too) and a lot of that comes from the more freeing feeling that system gives us than previous ones.
One thing that I havent' yet seen, but that I'm virtually certain will exist, is a class or two that is heavily point based like the psionic classes in 4E. Specifically, with all these spell-point abilities being rolled out, someone is going to think its a good idea to lean hard on them and design an entire class around using spell-points instead of spells.
The kineticist will almost certainly run like that. I would design the bard to do the same, and there's one or two others that might as well (please, take the shifter and do SOMETHING with it).
That's how every edition of D&D has worked except for 3e. They even managed to restrain themselves from going that way with 5e, where nearly all the other times the 3e mechanics clashed with traditional D&D they went the 3e way.Stuff that may be 4e-like but I'm still unsure about:
NPC/monster building uses different rules than PCs
I dunno, there's quite a bit of departure such as the removal of different attacks for classes (THACO & BAB) and alignment requirement for classes. They did go 3e's multiclass route though, which I'm rather 'meh' about. And the saves are pretty unique to themselves
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That's how every edition of D&D has worked except for 3e. They even managed to restrain themselves from going that way with 5e, where nearly all the other times the 3e mechanics clashed with traditional D&D they went the 3e way.Stuff that may be 4e-like but I'm still unsure about:
NPC/monster building uses different rules than PCs
3e was a huge step forward in that respect though - as the GM, in a 3e-based game, I don't need to wonder what the monster's ability scores are or if it knows anything about some random topic when it's charmed - all that information is right there in the stat block.
And PC-race NPCs in AD&D 1e, 2e, 3.0/3.5/PF have always been built using the PC rules. If you wanted the foe to be a 4th level fighter you built a 4th level fighter.
Now, I'm hearing that the PF2e "quick build" rules will produce something quite similar to fully statting out the NPC using the PC rules, so that's okay if true. I just don't want a situation where the NPC's stats are fundamentally different, like in Starfinder, or NPCs having abilities that can't ever be learned by PCs.
Monsters are obviously a little more fast and loose, but I do hope the monster system is able to convey good in-story explanations of the monster's stats. I don't want a situation where a monster is AC X because it's level Y, with no rationale given other than the game stats. I need to know what happens if this giant is wearing full plate, and to get that the giant's base AC has to make some sort of logical in-game sense.
The conversations i've had for years go a little like this;
Me: I didnt like A about 4E. It was also lacking B.
4E fan: Well if you only waited x years until y supplement came out, you'd learn to love A and get your B.
Assuming PF2 is anything like 4E, how does Paizo go about avoiding that pitfall? I mean I didnt get what I wanted from the 4E PHB, not even close. I didnt want to come back after any amount of time to check if a new supplement fixed my issues. I doubt im alone in that.
I'd been burned out on 3e for several years when 4e came out and wanted to like it, but kept running into mechanical and tonal problems. Figuring I'd missed something, I sought advice from the WotC forum which either didn't really help or made things actively worse and ultimately convinced me that it just wasn't the game for me.Yep, I believe the worst thing to come out of the whole 4th Ed fiasco, is not the game/rules (they're great), but the fanbase.
Honestly, I'm starting to reach a point where I think any excessively entrenched fanbase has this same problem.
I personally find the people who think 3.5 was the perfect RPG equally toxic. (And strangely paradoxical, considering how many of them still converted to PF1...)
Honestly, I'm starting to reach a point where I think any excessively entrenched fanbase has this same problem.
I personally find the people who think 3.5 was the perfect RPG equally toxic. (And strangely paradoxical, considering how many of them still converted to PF1...)
Oh totally this. Niches hobbies in the age of anonymous posting online breed a degree of toxicity that is not sustainable otherwise.