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I'm still reading, but my first knee-jerk reaction after getting through character generation, classes, and skills?
Everything feels VERY cookie cutter, like its actively promoting only the most generic fantasy tropes, and that it is actively punishing anyone who wants to play against type.
I dislike the entire idea of how default ability generation works, as you no longer get a choice in how your character is really built. Back to playing against type, you can't do a Dex fighter anymore because the classes force you into taking stats you don't want. And then its going to be a case of either everybody has identical cookie cutter backgrounds, or the entire concept of backgrounds are going to be ignored and it just becomes "Pick some more stat boosts". Frankly, should have just ran with point buy and called it done (which is completely missing, I notice, yet that archaic sacred cow of rolling for stats is still there).
Speaking of ability scores, why do we even still have them? Monsters in the bestiary don't have them, they just list modifiers. Why do players still use them? If the idea was to streamline and simplify, getting rid of 3-18 format ability scores seems like an obvious place to do it, so why are we holding on to it if literally nothing uses it?
And I just cannot get over the "Everything is locked behind class walls". If I want to play a Paladin tank? Tough luck, only the Fighter gets shield feats. Want to play a sorcerer with a certain bloodline, but don't want the spells the designers think are appropriate? Tough luck, you don't get to choose from a generic spell list anymore.
And my god, having everything stretched out over so many levels just makes the entire idea of having to wait to play the character you want to play SO MUCH WORSE! Apparently the answer to "High level play is kinda broken" was to say "Hey, lets make the un-fun parts of low level last as long as humanly possible!".
So yeah, its basically what I feared from the previews, only worse. GREATLY reduced customization, a system that actively punishes you for thinking outside the box (I need to be trained in Religion just to READ A HOLY TEXT?!?), and is overall just very video-gamey.
Knee-jerk reaction is that you don't make characters anymore, you basically just choose between premades. And that is AWFUL. A system should allow you to make whatever you want, and help you do it. This... this feels like it is actively fighting against you if you want to go even slightly off-center from what the devs think you should be doing.
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My kneejerk reaction is that the Volley weapon trait is lame, unrealistic, not in keeping with the inspirational media (e.g., Legolas), and apparently just an attempt to make longbows suck.
I'm sure this is a bad take, but hey! Kneejerk!
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Yeah, so far my initial impressions are also along the lines of the devs thinking "nurf everything!" was a good idea. Hey, want the +2 to saves vs spells every dwarf gets for free in 1E? Now you need a ancestry feat to get it and it also comes with the negative of your resonance going two points down!
Seriously, I didn't think that this edition would be structured along the lines of "let's nerf all the things!". Has there been a general sentiment against high fantasy over the last ten years I've been unaware of?
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I welcome all the nerfing. It's more in line with 5E and other recent trends of getting away from all the absurdly ridiculous high power nonsense that is from a dated age of design trends.
The designers clearly set out to make the game overall less high power, which I like, and there's still plenty of choice. It's just a different kind of choice, and isn't bloated to all hell like some other holdovers from things based on 3.5 and such.
New edition, new rules, new designs. As long as characters perform as they should within the constraints of the new system, then it succeeds, in my opinion, even if that means it's not as powerful as 1E.
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I welcome all the nerfing. It's more in line with 5E
Thing is, if I wanted to play something like 5e... I would be playing 5e.
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They nerfed everything except +1 per level power creep.
And they added it to AC. hahaha!!
Bows get no bonus damage from dex or str and have penalties closer than 50ft and farther than 100ft. LoL.
after 20 years why range penalty is not -1 per increment? You know you can halve the distance of range and give -1 per increment?
I'm having half a mind to remove +1 per level from any testing and give every monster -1 penalty per level on everything to see how that goes.
Played once 4E without +1/2 per level and it was great.
You are taking 99% ideas from D&D. Take bounded accuracy also.
"make low level monsters great again!"
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It feels as cookie cutter as 4E, nearly as simplified as 5E thought with less player power creep but with more confusing linguistic choices because everything is either a feat or skill, and don't get me started on the mess that is resonance. It's, to me at least, as bad as 4E if not worse.
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I'm generally happy with a lot of what I'm seeing. As a GM and player. I like a little limitation in choices. Over the last few years I have felt that 1e really required (Core + APG + one of your choice) for character creation, and it seems to me that the new way of doing things should help balance out the eventual content bloat.
My main complaint ATM, and I understand its a play-test, is some of the layout and formatting...Its kind of jumbled and too much basic stat info is mixed in with descriptive or even flavor text
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Yeah, so far my initial impressions are also along the lines of the devs thinking "nurf everything!" was a good idea. Hey, want the +2 to saves vs spells every dwarf gets for free in 1E? Now you need a ancestry feat to get it and it also comes with the negative of your resonance going two points down!
Seriously, I didn't think that this edition would be structured along the lines of "let's nerf all the things!". Has there been a general sentiment against high fantasy over the last ten years I've been unaware of?
Did you miss 5e and it's popularity??
I'd say the answer to your question is...yes...in some games there has been a desire to lower the amount of super high fantasy in recent years as well as power levels and the degree that differentiates between someone skilled and someone not as skilled.
Don't know how much this appliesto PF2e as I haven't gotten through the rulebook yet.
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Can't say that I'm completely against nerfing casters a bit, but I'm far more interested in lifting the non-magical characters up.
High powered characters that decimate armies and challenge demigods is exactly what I want higher levels to be. I have the lower levels to frolic in when I want to enjoy more harrowing fare. Third party could at least scratch that itch for martial characters in PF1, but I'd hoped for more impressive things martial characters could so in this one.
Monks get access to the one Ki power that creates a swell of wind around them I guess. Having an aura of power that makes it hard for anyone to even walk toward you is cool. More stuff like that please. Go further with it, more cool stuff that does a thing.
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Yeah, so far my initial impressions are also along the lines of the devs thinking "nurf everything!" was a good idea. Hey, want the +2 to saves vs spells every dwarf gets for free in 1E? Now you need a ancestry feat to get it and it also comes with the negative of your resonance going two points down!
Seriously, I didn't think that this edition would be structured along the lines of "let's nerf all the things!". Has there been a general sentiment against high fantasy over the last ten years I've been unaware of?
Did you miss 5e and it's popularity??
I'd say the answer to your question is...yes...in some games there has been a desire to lower the amount of super high fantasy in recent years as well as power levels and the degree that differentiates between someone skilled and someone not as skilled.
Don't know how much this appliesto PF2e as I haven't gotten through the rulebook yet.
Considering they have been telling us they don't want to compete directly with 5e, embracing the higher fantasy of PF1 seems like the right direction, IMO.
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Did you miss 5e and it's popularity??
Problem is, everyone who liked that is already playing 5e. It is the superior option, as D&D is the superior brand name.
If Paizo wants to compete, it can't try to mimic D&D.
To reference The Art of War, you don't pit strength against strength, you pit strength against weakness.
Because if you try to be 5e, you don't have to be as good as 5e, you don't have to be better than 5e, you have to be SUBSTANTIALLY BETTER than 5e. And frankly, I don't think Paizo has it in them to do that.
So the obvious answer is to do well what 5e can't.
Its like owning a mom and pop store when Walmart comes to town. You don't try to fight Walmart, you're going to lose. You change and offer things that Walmart doesn't so that you can both co-exist.
If it comes down to "PF2e and D&D 5e are similar", then 5e is going to win, no questions asked.
Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.
Yeah, I like the accessibility of 2E - and taking some things from one of the best editions of D&D? A good move, overall.
Less bloat the better, and more simplicity is a plus. There's also a difference between doing something different than 5E and holding onto outdated trends of design that have actively turned people away from such systems.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.
Which is just another way of saying the system has no depth.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.
and that's the point where people like me who came to pathfinder because it was the opposite of 4E/5E, lots of customization and variables, wave goodbye to the good people of paizo, because I want more than 3 effective options per class and that's coming from a permanent GM.
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Did you miss 5e and it's popularity??
I'd say the answer to your question is...yes...in some games there has been a desire to lower the amount of super high fantasy in recent years as well as power levels and the degree that differentiates between someone skilled and someone not as skilled.
Don't know how much this appliesto PF2e as I haven't gotten through the rulebook yet.
I've been ignoring 5E completely, since I was having fun with the current edition of Pathfinder. Also because of a grudge against WotC because of their treatment of the Forgotten Realms.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.and that's the point where people like me who came to pathfinder because it was the opposite of 4E/5E, lots of customization and variables, wave goodbye to the good people of paizo, because I want more than 3 effective options per class and that's coming from a permanent GM.
*waves back*
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and that's the point where people like me who came to pathfinder because it was the opposite of 4E/5E, lots of customization and variables, wave goodbye to the good people of paizo, because I want more than 3 effective options per class and that's coming from a permanent GM.
Which is what I really don't understand what Paizo is going for.
They're alienating their existing player-base, but they're aiming at a market the CANNOT WIN IN to replace them?
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I disagree and I'm not quite sure how you came to some of these conclusions.
1. How can you not make a dex fighter anymore? Where do you even get the idea of that?
2. Backgrounds only add flavor to the character. The only thing it does is help you flesh out your characters backstory and give them more options to converse with the NPCs of the world. Like if your fighter was a farmhand you could more easily convince the farmers kid who's scarred s**tless to give you the information you need by connecting with him. While yes people may not care and just pick whatever to power game or just get on with it but honestly if that's what you want to do why are you playing a RPG in the first place? I agree that point by should have been included and I'm wondering why it wasn't, given the randomness of rolling ones stats, which I never really liked to begin with.
3. There are still ability scores. Just because they only added the bonus doesn't mean they just don't exist. They probably just realized it wasn't needed for monsters and was just wasting space on the paper.
4. The class walls argument doesn't make sense. Of course you can play a Paladin who is tanky. But SHOULD you be able to play a Paladin who is as tanky as the Fighter who's literal job is to be the best at using weapons and armor? No, absolutely not. Also the way multiclassing works you can now dip into fighter and get those shield feats you want with very limited loss to your Paladin abilities. So it's not that much of an issue. And the sorcerer argument doesn't make sense either. That's like saying you want to play a Druid but don't like that you don't get access to Wizard spells. They're two different classes. Saying "but it want it all" isn't a good argument, it's just greedy.
5. Having gaining stuff over levels is kind of the point of a level system based game. Having the ability to gain everything you want by level 9 doesn't improve the game at all and hurts players who aren't trying to just that. I'm not really seeing the problem you're presenting here.
6. I see more customization not less.
7. To be able to UNDERSTAND a holy text and it's message yes it makes sense to have a basic understanding of religion, which is what being trained means.
My knee-jerk reaction is this looks awesome. Very streamlined with a lot of customization built straight into the game and removing old things that were unnecessary for ease of play.
Also I realize the numbering thing kind of makes me seem like an a**, I just didn't know how else to go point by point of what the OP said.
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How can you not make a dex fighter anymore? Where do you even get the idea of that?
You're right, my bad, I overlooked where the fighter gets Str or Dex as a class boost, bad example on my part.
2. Backgrounds only add flavor to the character.
Generic, bad flavor. I *HATE* it when books try to just shove all the flavor at you like that. There's no point in wasting all that space when it serves no purpose.
3. There are still ability scores. Just because they only added the bonus doesn't mean they just don't exist. They probably just realized it wasn't needed for monsters and was just wasting space on the paper.
Again, why?
They serve no purpose. Nothing uses them. EVERYTHING is based on the modifiers. Nowhere I see right away has the raw score being used. Its a leftover from earlier days that should have been cut entirely.
4. The class walls argument doesn't make sense. Of course you can play a Paladin who is tanky. But SHOULD you be able to play a Paladin who is as tanky as the Fighter who's literal job is to be the best at using weapons and armor? No, absolutely not
See, thats where I disagree. I think that MY CHARACTER should be as good or not good at whatever *I* decide he/she is good at. Not what the designers tell me he/she is ALLOWED to be good at.
5. Having gaining stuff over levels is kind of the point of a level system based game.
Personally, I prefer Mutants & Masterminds here, because I can build and play the character I want to play from the very start. I don't have to wait half the game to play what I want, nor do I have to stop playing what I want because I out-leveled the sweet spot I like.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.Which is just another way of saying the system has no depth.
In which case, you'll be happy playing 1e and I'll be happy playing 2e.
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In which case, you'll be happy playing 1e and I'll be happy playing 2e.
Correct.
I have no interest in playing a system that tells me what I'm allowed to make or not make. I have a set of crazy test builds/concepts I put any new system through. The more of them it can do, the better I consider the system to be.
So far, 2e is failing on ALL OF THEM because it has no real flexibility.
I've been in this hobby for a quarter of a century now. I don't give a damn about generic cliche characters, and that is all I see 2e promoting. Horrible cliches and 1 dimensional builds.
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I find myself in agreement with a lot of what both Edymnion and magnuskn have said already.
My first pass through the material was "this is interesting, but it's not what I want to play when I think of 'Pathfinder' or 'DnD'.
It's a radical enough departure from the 3.0/3.5 mechanics that I have to ask - WHY would I choose this system over Dnd 4E or Dnd5E (or GURPS, for that matter). Myself and the group I game with all ported over to Pathfinder as "Dnd 3.75" precisely because it was closest to what we've played all these years.
For anyone whose running persistent homebrew campaigns, how do you implement such changes cleanly? How magic works, etc all help define, over time, how the campaign evolves. Sure Forgotten Realms was regularly blown to bits to accommodate changes in how magic worked, but I found that to be a pretty brutal way of doing things, and NOT suitable for my own campaign. That also helped Pathfinder pretty much be the shoe-in as the next logical step from 3.0/3.5 evolution. When WotC came along with 4E, I pretty much took one look and "noped" right out that - it wasn't DnD (despite marketing and branding). Pathfinder WAS.
I'm left with a distinctly 4E deja-vu feeling that I can't quite shake, and I'm not liking that.
I'll see how gameplay is, and I'm sure it can be a fun system, but 2E is going to fall into the same category that GURPS, Call of Cthulhu and other 'non-DnD" systems fall into for me.
I've got enough 1st Edition material to last 20 years. And two more AP's coming. In a year, it will be 3rd party publishers I'll be relying on more and more.
Meh.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.
Yo dawg, I heard you like nerd shaming in your nerd hobby. So Paizo went ahead and put out PF2 so you can forum shame about your nerd game.
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3. There are still ability scores. Just because they only added the bonus doesn't mean they just don't exist. They probably just realized it wasn't needed for monsters and was just wasting space on the paper.Again, why?
They serve no purpose. Nothing uses them. EVERYTHING is based on the modifiers. Nowhere I see right away has the raw score being used. Its a leftover from earlier days that should have been cut entirely.
Could not disagree more.
Not listing the ability score is extremely jarring and counter-intuitive. The bonus is a function of the ability score, but it isn't the actual ability score. The barbarian has a Strength of 18, he doesn't have a Strength of +4.
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Knee-Jerk reaction: Yes they made stuff weaker. But I think it's more so that combat lasts longer than a round or two, and they want the focus on the game to be more about tactics and teamwork than individual DPR and Encounter ending spells.
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.Yo dawg, I heard you like nerd shaming in your nerd hobby. So Paizo went ahead and put out PF2 so you can forum shame about your nerd game.
Yeah, pretty much any person sitting at a table playing an RPG is by definition a nerd with too much free time.
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Could not disagree more.
Not listing the ability score is extremely jarring and counter-intuitive. The bonus is a function of the ability score, but it isn't the actual ability score. The barbarian has a Strength of 18, he doesn't have a Strength of +4.
Why?
Both have the exact same levels of granularity. At no point does having a Dex of 16 mean anything different from having a Dex of 17. Even in 1e, the ONLY TIME raw ability score ever mattered was for carrying capacity (which was routinely ignored).
Literally the only reason to have an odd numbered score was because you got an odd number of ability boosts from leveling up, so one of them was "half priced" to get up to the next modifier boost.
Modifier might have been a function of the score, but everything in the game used the modifier. At no real point was the score itself ever used.
It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
3. There are still ability scores. Just because they only added the bonus doesn't mean they just don't exist. They probably just realized it wasn't needed for monsters and was just wasting space on the paper.Again, why?
They serve no purpose. Nothing uses them. EVERYTHING is based on the modifiers. Nowhere I see right away has the raw score being used. Its a leftover from earlier days that should have been cut entirely.
Could not disagree more.
Not listing the ability score is extremely jarring and counter-intuitive. The bonus is a function of the ability score, but it isn't the actual ability score. The barbarian has a Strength of 18, he doesn't have a Strength of +4.
Though oddly nothing will ever change that 18 in strength except level bumps. No traps, poisons, or spells will change that number. Those things will change the modifier check though.
Ability score is only in the game so grogs like us can feel more at ease. Thats some respect I tell ya!
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Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.Yo dawg, I heard you like nerd shaming in your nerd hobby. So Paizo went ahead and put out PF2 so you can forum shame about your nerd game.
Yeah, because I've have had that one "well my problem is that other people at the table are too stupid/not invested enough/don't want to optimize to win/didn't spend 12 hours reading guides/aren't really true gamers just tagalongs" person too many in my games.
Your experiences and mileage may vary, of course.
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Ability score is only in the game so grogs like us can feel more at ease. Thats some respect I tell ya!
Lol, I still remember how To Hit Armor Class 0, but doesn't mean I'd want to go back to it. ;)
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It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats? Just have a chart that if you roll an 18, your ability... score(?) is a +4? There's no real point to getting rid of them, and it seems like a weird complaint to have.
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What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats? Just have a chart that if you roll an 18, your ability... score(?) is a +4? There's no real point to getting rid of them, and it seems like a weird complaint to have.
It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
Roll 4d6 as usual and look in a convertion table. You already do that actually.
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What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats?
It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
Roll for modifiers. 1d6-2. You now have a full range of -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, and +4. And you can do it on one die instead of 3-4.
Or just roll like you do now, look up the modifier, and write the modifier down, then throw away the base rolls. They aren't needed.
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The 1d6-2 is definitely not. The reason you do the other rolls in the first place is to get a more average roll. Ever play yahtzee? there 4 or 5 1s is the goal. In the old school method, it creates one (or 2) bad stat(s). In that, you have rolled up a small child.
As for why it should stay...
Could not disagree more.
Not listing the ability score is extremely jarring and counter-intuitive. The bonus is a function of the ability score, but it isn't the actual ability score. The barbarian has a Strength of 18, he doesn't have a Strength of +4.
Why?
Both have the exact same levels of granularity. At no point does having a Dex of 16 mean anything different from having a Dex of 17. Even in 1e, the ONLY TIME raw ability score ever mattered was for carrying capacity (which was routinely ignored).
Literally the only reason to have an odd numbered score was because you got an odd number of ability boosts from leveling up, so one of them was "half priced" to get up to the next modifier boost.
Modifier might have been a function of the score, but everything in the game used the modifier. At no real point was the score itself ever used.
It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
The feel to it. Hearing that your character's strength is a negative number can make the character feel inadequate, and cause a bit of panic. Plus, there's negative stat damage. "Why is it my negative 1 to strength ok, but -5 means I can't stand? Was I that close to being that easily weakened?" Not to mention past 17/18 things drop to +1 instead of +2 to stats. My intelligence as a 4.5 makes even less sense than reworking numbers we're all familiar with on the basis of it being supposedly outdated
Plus, and then you might have to rework anything that gave a +1 to an ability score because you could end up with something like "My X choice and Y choice gives me a +2 total to this, but I already have a +3", so where does that extra +1 go? Sure, you could put it to another ability score, but it's just wonky and seems more work than necessary.
If the +3 was from a 16, then the +2 just makes it 18 and it's a +4. The system was built with ability scores in mind for PCs, and is not something that needs removed, imo.
Enemies not having scores comes from Starfinder and it works perfectly fine there.
Not to mention past 17/18 things drop to +1 instead of +2 to stats.
That is easily fixable by simply cutting the rate you get the boost in half after +4.
Plus, and then you'd have to rework anything that gave a +1 to an ability score
Nothing gives ability score boosts in +1 except level up bonuses, and its just as easy to say you get a +1 modifier half as often.
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I welcome all the nerfing. It's more in line with 5E and other recent trends of getting away from all the absurdly ridiculous high power nonsense that is from a dated age of design
..... But.... if I wanted to play 5E, I'd play 5E. It already exists, and is lovely in its own way.
Maybe I should have expected this, but I didn't. Pathfinder 1E was effectively D&D 3.75. But somehow I didn't expect that Pathfinder 2E would be D&D 5.5.
I guess I'll try to change my expectations and start going over it again....
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Maybe I should have expected this, but I didn't. Pathfinder 1E was effectively D&D 3.75. But somehow I didn't expect that Pathfinder 2E would be D&D 5.5.
I guess I'll try to change my expectations and start going over it again....
This is true. Pathfinder always has been trying to ride D&D's coat tails instead of making their own product.
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Not to mention past 17/18 things drop to +1 instead of +2 to stats.That is easily fixable by simply cutting the rate you get the boost in half after +4.
Plus, and then you'd have to rework anything that gave a +1 to an ability scoreNothing gives ability score boosts in +1 except level up bonuses, and its just as easy to say you get a +1 modifier half as often.
do you want ability damage to also cut in half? And not everyone will remember that they gave themselves a half point in a stat. All this talk of fractions and negative numbers is, by definition, more complex math than counting up and down. It's simpler to stick with the old method.
do you want ability damage to also cut in half? And not everyone will remember that they gave themselves a half point in a stat. All this talk of fractions and negative numbers is, by definition, more complex math than counting up and down. It's simpler to stick with the old method.Not to mention past 17/18 things drop to +1 instead of +2 to stats.That is easily fixable by simply cutting the rate you get the boost in half after +4.
Plus, and then you'd have to rework anything that gave a +1 to an ability scoreNothing gives ability score boosts in +1 except level up bonuses, and its just as easy to say you get a +1 modifier half as often.
it pretty sure there are not such thing like ability damage anymore.
do you want ability damage to also cut in half? And not everyone will remember that they gave themselves a half point in a stat. All this talk of fractions and negative numbers is, by definition, more complex math than counting up and down. It's simpler to stick with the old method.
There would be no half points. You either had a full modifier or you didn't.
Its not simpler to have a middle man, just base everything on what is actually being used, the modifiers. +1/-1 to modifiers is a hell of a lot simpler than "Okay, this one is a -1, but it only affects anything if its a stat that is odd, otherwise nothing happens".
When doing modifiers, something either happens or it doesn't. There is no fiddling with go-betweens.
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Honestly, if people don't understand that 3-18 for Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is fundamental to the definition of D&D and its descendants, they shouldn't poke holes in other people's design.
Many things were "fundamental" to D&D. Like THAC0, and Elf/Dwarf being a class instead of a race. Doesn't mean we kept them.
Honestly, if people don't understand that 3-18 for Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha is fundamental to the definition of D&D and its descendants, they shouldn't poke holes in other people's design.What would you propose for groups (like mine) who only ever roll for stats? Just have a chart that if you roll an 18, your ability... score(?) is a +4? There's no real point to getting rid of them, and it seems like a weird complaint to have.
It was pointless as anything but a vestigial holdover from rolling for stats.
I know right? They got optional rolling in the rulebook! You gotta love the respect.