Praise for four-level check results

[breithauptclan]

I made a quick one-scenario one-shot mission last night and ran through it with my oldest. He had serious problems with the save or suck mechanics of previous versions. Enough so that it ended up not being much fun to play with him.

However, with four levels of outcome, it was much easier to create challenges and obstacles that were challenging, but didn't run into the problem of 'my character is completely worthless and can't do anything'.

Crit success is the epic success that everyone loves.
Regular success is, 'you succeeded, but there is nothing special'.
Regular fail can be either: 'you don't accomplish what you want, but you made some progress. Here have a bonus for your next attempt.' or 'You failed, but not disastrously.'.
Crit fail is the total and spectacular fail.

What makes it really cool is that crit fail doesn't happen very often, so the spectacular fails can actually be spectacular and end up just as memorable and 'cool' as a success.

[Malthraz]

Correct!

I think this change alone makes PFe2 superior to PFe1.

[The Once and Future Kai]

I particularly like how it's used with spells. It was always a bummer to save a powerful spell just have the target shrug it off with a high roll...now, for many spells, it would still have an effect unless the target had a Critical Success. I think that's as big a step forward for casters as infinite cantrips were in Pathfinder 1e.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

Similarly, it's made spells and other effects less "All-or-Nothing" in that, even if they make their save, the spell usually has a reduced effect. So unless your target got a critical success, there isn't the feeling of "This spell either immediately ends the fight or was a waste of a Standard Action/2-action Activity". For the PCs, failing the save doesn't mean you do stuff on your phone until you get actions again, more like, "Someone get this persistant damage/conditions off me!" and successes may still involve the spell hampering you for a bit.

...Which is also probably why spells as a whole seemed to have gotten taken down a peg or two, but that's another issue and I'm not complaining about it. I want to try it out for myself.

[Laik]

+1, I like the crit mechanics too.

[oneking]

I am the odd man out here, I don't like it. I prefer the pass/fail mechanic better. I can see the initial excitement from some of what has been said here, but to me its just clutter.

[Vic Ferrari]

I am glad save or suck is gone, I would like more gradation, but I find the 4-tiers of success/failure deal, slows down play, and is a bit clunky in text.