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did not have all the late 3.5 material.Well that is me this time around with Pathfinder to Pathfinder 2 I am 5 years out of date on the Pathfinder world.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.
I am especially looking forward to hearing the perspectives of players who have been playing with versions older than 3.0. I started with 3, then 3.5 and moved to pathfinder after trying 4e, and I get the feeling that a lot of pathfinder players my age will be coming from a similar perspective. I have also played some 5e and liked it, but in a very different way.
Additionally, I hope to see players coming from only 5e who are newer to tabletop games in general.
I wouldn't want to see 2e released in its current state, but I am very excited and hopeful for what it might become in the next half a year or so, and the bigger and more diverse the player feedback the better!
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D&D 3E was a major turning point. Many pre-3E assumptions were things that we took for granted until that edition came up with alternatives to them. I tend to shake my head when people come up with "new" ideas that are basically reverting to pre-3E game mechanics that we are now well rid of.
D&D 3E was a major turning point. Many pre-3E assumptions were things that we took for granted until that edition came up with alternatives to them. I tend to shake my head when people come up with "new" ideas that are basically reverting to pre-3E game mechanics that we are now well rid of.
Sometimes the concept is still good IMHO.
FOr example I prefer fort/ref/will saves over the AD&D system of save vs poison, wands etc.
However I prefer the vastly lower variance in good and bad saves in AD&D which at higher level was usually 3 or 4 points between a good and bad save.
In 3.X terms this means a fighters saves would look more like
+12/+9/+8 at level 20 and the DCs would be a lot lower (DC 15).
It means Fighters don't get hosed by things like dominate (well they do if they fail a save but they succeed 75-95% of the time).
Its means the wizard would have to have another trick to shut down the fighter, doesn't mean the wizard is useless they just have to use the power words, summon something, buff or fireballs etc. Often hasting the fighter was a better bet than casting Fireball as well.
An AD&D fighter 2E in 1999 is better relative to what they are facing and the environment they are in than a 3.0 fighter in 2000 or a Pathfinder fighter in 2018. Hell a 2E fighter from 1989 is in a better position. They have better saves, more damage more attacks etc.
I would not port those fighter mechanics into PF2 but yeah I think the concept is good. 3E feats actually developed out of the 2E WP/NWP. The problem was they unified it so the combat feats competed with the non combat ones in- 2E you got both.
Yeah, it would be nice if the Fighter was the saving throw king again; they went half way in 5th Ed with that underwhelming Indomitable feature, but really they should get to add 1/2 their Proficiency Bonus to any save that does not already add their Proficiency Bonus or something. For PF2, it would be nice if the...D&D 3E was a major turning point. Many pre-3E assumptions were things that we took for granted until that edition came up with alternatives to them. I tend to shake my head when people come up with "new" ideas that are basically reverting to pre-3E game mechanics that we are now well rid of.
Sometimes the concept is still good IMHO.
FOr example I prefer fort/ref/will saves over the AD&D system of save vs poison, wands etc.
However I prefer the vastly lower variance in good and bad saves in AD&D which at higher level was usually 3 or 4 points between a good and bad save.
In 3.X terms this means a fighters saves would look more like
+12/+9/+8 at level 20 and the DCs would be a lot lower (DC 15).It means Fighters don't get hosed by things like dominate (well they do if they fail a save but they succeed 75-95% of the time).
Its means the wizard would have to have another trick to shut down the fighter, doesn't mean the wizard is useless they just have to use the power words, summon something, buff or fireballs etc. Often hasting the fighter was a better bet than casting Fireball as well.
An AD&D fighter 2E in 1999 is better relative to what they are facing and the environment they are in than a 3.0 fighter in 2000 or a Pathfinder fighter in 2018. Hell a 2E fighter from 1989 is in a better position. They have better saves, more damage more attacks etc.
I would not port those fighter mechanics into PF2 but yeah I think the concept is good. 3E feats actually developed out of the 2E WP/NWP. The problem was they unified it so the combat feats competed with the non combat ones in- 2E you got both.
Yeah 5E kind of messed up the save system a bit but they toned down the ill effects of blowing a save a lot. Its just funny seeing high level Cs with a +1 or +2 modifer vs DC 17+, yay I fail 75% of the time again.
ALso partly mitigated by easy 5E monsters, the problem ones are low CR criter with spells and/or special save abilities vs physical attacks. Sopme CR 2 and 3 critters are packing fireball and lightning bolt, we just about had a TPK to a CR 4 Deathskull which can drop an 8d6 fireball.
5E PCs recover hp faster than PF ones but they don't have any more as a general rule.