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You expressed my same thoughts perfectly. Another thing I always think about whenever someone on this board states something like: "There's not enough choices, and classes are stuck with few playstyles" they are not comparing to the PF1e core rulebook. You really can't make a variety of builds in PF1e with the core rulebook. It's very limited. In fact I think it's way more limited than the playtest in fact.I think some of the issues people are experiencing are due to mistaken assumptions about the playtest.
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I can make a functional halfling paladin on a dog in PF1e with just the core rulebook. Not-so-much in PF2 Playtest.
The playtest has greatly increased niche protection, which is good, but it also means by definition that limitations have to be put in place in order to do so.
While I agree with your analysis re: niche protection, I think that the new multi-class system is where Paizo is reintroducing the character variety and build choice back in after establishing it.
As example, your Halfling Paladin, while not able to have a dog mount at level 1, can multiclass Ranger at 2 and pick up a mount at 4 (if my quick skim of the rules is correct). Same with Goblin Paladin and a Wolf, whatever your feelings may be on that :)
I have really enjoyed the multi-class system so far, and feel like that dynamic of building a base of niche protection and options to expand and diversify through multi-class is really working well, something I truly look forward to exploring more through character building. YMMV of course, but an angle on the topic to consider.
Edit: On reading more closely, it seems to me that Steed Ally lets you have a dog riding Halfling Paladin at level 1 "at the GMs discretion," given that would be "appropriate to yoru ancestry and culture." Same with Goblin Paladin riding a wolf. So your example is either already core, or I missed something that causes it not to work.
Slight issue with your edit - the whole thing is "At GM's Discretion you can select a different animal companion appropriate to your ancestry and culture, But it doesn't gain the mount special ability"
So you'd get a dog... that can't be used a mount. Well I think it can but it takes another action or two. I'm trying to find rules for Mount special ability
The Pathfinder Beta of 2008 is a very well-written, playable system. In some aspects, it can be considered better than the Core Rulebook. Playing a campaign with those rules is definitely practical.
That book is now very hard to come by (if anyone has a copy they don't want to keep, please PM me). When I preordered to Pathfinder Playtest, I was expecting something similar, because that was the standard that Paizo had set in the past.
The fact that it is of nowhere near that standard is disappointing, but there are reasons why one would expect it to be different.
I just saw a copy of the Pathfinder 1 Beta Rules at my local Bookmans for $12 the other day. Right next to a copy of the current Playtest.
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The posters in question were referring to the use of a racially charged term being banned on the forums. This term had been used in some published Paizo materials so they felt that were being unfairly targeted...but the moderator was pretty clear that, no matter what was printed in the past, it's not allowed here now.
That confusion (regarding a term used for people of mixed ancestry in the books) did eventually come to light at least. The moderator also deleted a post (and its replies) for calling a particular ancestry feat "garbage". The term quoted was explicitly called out as being the reason the post was deleted.
Some more posts were removed later for various resons, but the end result was that multiple sets of posts just disappeared over the course of the day, replaced by moderator explanations that only added confusion (for those not in-the-know) and fuel to the PR bonfire (for those in-the-know).
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Also, it has Weakness to Fire as well as Good, providing spell options to capitalize on said weakness, and archers can have cold iron arrows easily enough.
One of my current concerns with the game is that there is absolutely NO remotely reliable way for the spell casters to GET the information they need to take advantage of those weaknesses.
I expect Paizo to fix this in the final product but right now, RAW, knowledge skills are very, very much up to GM fiat. Certainly as I interpret how they're written I think they're close to useless.
If characters are more or less EXPECTED to be able to take advantage of monsters weaknesses then this is an issue that MUST be fixed.
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I can make a functional halfling paladin on a dog in PF1e with just the core rulebook. Not-so-much in PF2 Playtest.
I can make a functional goblin alchemist in PF2 with just the playtest rulebook. Not-so-much in PF1 Core.
The playtest has greatly increased niche protection, which is good, but it also means by definition that limitations have to be put in place in order to do so.
The niche protection is nowhere near as severe as you are implying, and tend to be based on choices made when building the character rather than being locked into classes. In our Mirrored Moon game the scouting was done by the party's Fighter because he had used his skill raises on Survival. The Multiclassing rules work quite well and allow for an impressive amount of builds. This was particularly apparent in Sombrefell Hall when our Gorumite Cleric was smashing Undead with a Greatsword and Attacks of Opporunity, whilst the Cleric of Nethys was blasting away with spells.
Paul:
Isn't there a line of feats around recalling knowledge? Even being able to do that as a free action once per turn and so on? I dunno what DM wouldnt allow that to confer info on weaknesses. I mean, damn, who running your games?
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I can make a functional halfling paladin on a dog in PF1e with just the core rulebook. Not-so-much in PF2 Playtest.
I can make a functional goblin alchemist in PF2 with just the playtest rulebook. Not-so-much in PF1 Core.
Except you're pretty blatantly going out of your way to use two options that weren't in the PF1 CRB. That's all well and good that you can make that goblin alchemist with the PF2 CRB, but that's pretty a misrepresentative rebuttal.
The point is there's builds that can't be done in PF2 that could be in PF1. Pretty simple ones at that. Archer paladin's another popular one to bring up. It's great that we have new stuff moved into CRB territory and some new options for PF2! However, we should be able to still do most things in the PF1 CRB.
Maybe it'll be true in the final product, but we certainly aren't seeing that right now.
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I still dont get all these "I can build X with PF1 but I cant do the exact same thing PF2" comments. Honestly, these are two different games and this is to be expected.
But, whatever, I guess.
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I still dont get all these "I can build X with PF1 but I cant do the exact same thing PF2" comments. Honestly, these are two different games and this is to be expected.
But, whatever, I guess.
One of the playtest goals is to be able to tell the same kind of stories. To do that you need to be able to have the same kinds of characters. Right now you cannot have a longbow wielding paladin of Erastil. Well, technically you can, but you are not using any of your class features when using your deities favorite weapon, so you are either very sup par or not doing Erasil type stuff.
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I don't think so. Niche optimized builds can do far better. A lv1 human can reach a str of 26 while raging. doing nothing but buying a +2 belt and putting level ups into it gets it to 30 raging str.
A niche build can get 38 str at times at lv4 with no items and with a 26 con too.
I agree that niche builds can do this (though doing it in Con as well as Str tends to be rare, IMO). My argument was about non-niche builds.
Still pretty doable. 20 Str/18 Con base, with the two levels into Con for 20. Potion of Bull's Strength plus Rage gets you to 28, at which point you can either say "eh, good enough" or get another boost from Enlarge Person or Alter Self or something. Extra bonus points if it's a buddy casting the spells on you instead of a potion you're drinking. Rage brings Con to 24, plus Raging Vitality to 26, plus a Potion of Bear's Endurance for 30. That doesn't seem particularly niche or super optimized to me, just needs the right stat allocation (which is also the "optimal" allocation for a Barb), one feat, and two-three items which you can get ahold of with minimal issue if they haven't been passed out in the loot already. Maybe a bit trickier than it should be, but still achievable at 9. Or get a +4 belt of one stat or the other, a 9th level character should have enough gold for one of those plus a magic weapon and other assorted gear.
That's not really optimal. Nobody actually needs Str 20 at 1st and taking it is almost always a mistake, IMO. But yes, you can hit 30 in both on a very focused Barbarian...which would be why I mentioned that, using the treasure it starts with, you can give it a Belt/Potions in the same way and give it 34s.
On the other hand if monster buffs come into the picture then all bets are off since they can be geared up with anything your heart desires and start the fight with as many buffs as you can think of. That's usually reserved for unique encounters though like bosses or those weird miniboss-type encounters in APs that...
I'm just talking using basic treasure allocations for actual gear. Something that's basically necessary to deal with optimized PCs in PF1 in most cases.
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Also, it has Weakness to Fire as well as Good, providing spell options to capitalize on said weakness, and archers can have cold iron arrows easily enough.
One of my current concerns with the game is that there is absolutely NO remotely reliable way for the spell casters to GET the information they need to take advantage of those weaknesses.
I expect Paizo to fix this in the final product but right now, RAW, knowledge skills are very, very much up to GM fiat. Certainly as I interpret how they're written I think they're close to useless.
If characters are more or less EXPECTED to be able to take advantage of monsters weaknesses then this is an issue that MUST be fixed.
This I agree with entirely. The rules on monster knowledge are so unclear as to border on useless. It's impossible to even know what skill to use on most creatures, going by the rules.
I, too, expect and hope for this to be fixed...but it's definitely an issue at the moment.
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Except you're pretty blatantly going out of your way to use two options that weren't in the PF1 CRB. That's all well and good that you can make that goblin alchemist with the PF2 CRB, but that's pretty a misrepresentative rebuttal.
The point is there's builds that can't be done in PF2 that could be in PF1. Pretty simple ones at that. Archer paladin's another popular one to bring up. It's great that we have new stuff moved into CRB territory and some new options for PF2! However, we should be able to still do most things in the PF1 CRB.
Maybe it'll be true in the final product, but we certainly aren't seeing that right now.
It's no more unrepresentative to list things that are possible in PF2 that weren't possible in PF1 than vice versa- they're different games. Of course there were options in PF1 Core that won't be in PF2 Core, and anyone that expects otherwise has a poor understanding of mechanical design and print layout.
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Paul:
Isn't there a line of feats around recalling knowledge? Even being able to do that as a free action once per turn and so on? I dunno what DM wouldnt allow that to confer info on weaknesses. I mean, damn, who running your games?
Playtest. RAW :-).
Dubious Knowledge is sort of wonderful or absolutely awful, depending on how you feel about Meta Knowledge and how good the GM is at deceiving the player (and yes, I MEAN GM and PLAYER, NOT character)
The Automatic Knowledge Feat is basically almost totally useless under the current assurance rules. To take the example that prompted my comment, a L13 demon. Lets assume the character is also L13
So, the DC for the knowledge check is 28 or 30 or more (depending on GM opinion on how rare it is). Skill is, of course, unknown but lets assume at least one character has it more or less maxed out. So, character has something like +6 (stat) + 13 (level) + 2 (Master) + 2 item. That is REALLY pretty maxed out, btw, hardly guaranteed. So +23.
The Automatic Knowledge check failed. I have to use Assurance, even if I'm master that is only a 20. Auto fail. I barely make the check if I'm Legendary (which I'm not likely to be when facing a CR13 monster).
So, I take an action. +23 vs a 28 or 30 or so. Only a 5% chance of incorrect information (possibly no chance with various feats, etc). Very good chance of a success. Reasonable chance of a crit (need a 15 or 17 so not great, but reasonable). Various ways to roll twice, get lots of rolls. All of which cost resources of one form or another (feats, class options, spell points, etc)
So if I get a success I get ONE of its best known attributes. Manticore has tail spikes is an example. If I crit, I get ONE attribute plus "something more subtle". Very vague.
And further uses "increase the DC". By how much? Probably the difficulty level on the chart. One ultimate difficulty attempt or one failure and I'm done. So, best case is pretty much 4 attempts (Medium, Hard, Incredible, Ultimate). At Ultimate even my maxed out character needs to roll a 13 to succeed and may get FALSE information on a 1-3.
So, now lets look at that Treachery Demon. It has something well over 20 potentially interesting things for the GM to tell the player.
That maxed out knowledge character MAY find out the weaknesses but its a long, long way from certain AND its totally up to the GM what to say.
Edit: I've noticed that both myself and GMs that I've played under are often ignoring the actual rules. Its "obvious" that this is a bug that will be fixed so its better to see how characters do against a monster when they DO have information than how they'll do without the information. If we want to test how good a monster the Treachery demon is then its almost certainly better to let knowledgeable characters actually get an advantage from that knowledge
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Paul:
Isn't there a line of feats around recalling knowledge? Even being able to do that as a free action once per turn and so on? I dunno what DM wouldnt allow that to confer info on weaknesses. I mean, damn, who running your games?
That feat gives you the assurance value as a free action. You could identify common same level creatures at the levels you advance assurance values, but you aren't doing too great outside of levels 2/7/15. The recall knowledge rules also require a critical success to get something other than "most famous characteristic" sighting weaknesses as critical success worthy.
Rules as written, the odds of it being useful aren't very good.
One of the playtest goals is to be able to tell the same kind of stories. To do that you need to be able to have the same kinds of characters.
Making the connection between same kinds of stories and direct analogues between character builds is a loooooong stretch.
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One of the playtest goals is to be able to tell the same kind of stories. To do that you need to be able to have the same kinds of characters.Making the connection between same kinds of stories and direct analogues between character builds is a loooooong stretch.
One of the playtest goals stated was that the new game would feel like pathfinder, so before you say
“It does you fools”You need to remember everyone valued different parts of the previous edition and a big issue a lot of players have now is that classes included in the playtest no longer have access to play styles they used to have, because of this those players feel that the goal of the new edition feeling like pathfinder has failed.
Now I know a lot of builds can kind of be recreated via multiclass dedication feats but again a lot of people don’t want to HAVE to take these feats, additionally some combat feats are class locked in the new game when they weren’t previously.
So yes 2E has customisation but there are players who feel that the characters they want to play aren’t available such as bow paladins, strength rogues or dex paladins to name the ones I see mentioned with the most frequency.
So yes while a lot of concepts can be kind of remade in the new sytem people want to play characters and build them their own way instead of being forced to go through particular channels.
And again the major cause of friction on this topic is what people consider to be the main feel of 1E, for a lot of people it’s the ability to build what you want the way you want instead of being handed cookie cutter templates you have to layer to get the desired shape, for others the main draw of 1e was versatility of actions and then there were people specifically drawn to the high fantasy which has led to some feeling like the same stories can no longer be told because magic for some people (myself included) has become a pale imitation of its former self.
To summarise no one’s feelings about the feel of the playtest is inherently wrong people just want different things because the previous edition had multiple draws and some people feel like certain draws have been prioritised over others.
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One of the playtest goals is to be able to tell the same kind of stories. To do that you need to be able to have the same kinds of characters.Making the connection between same kinds of stories and direct analogues between character builds is a loooooong stretch.
I respectfully disagree. I understand that going from a bazillion splat books and a shelf full of hardcovers to a single core book is going to limit options - BUT comparing base book to base book is illustrative. Because presumably those base builds from the original CRB are part of the common shared history of Golarion. Like, where did those bow paladins of Erastil all go?
I get why so many games do the "big cataclysmic event" storylines to explain their next evolution - because it may not wipe the slate clean, but it smudges it enough that you can change the world and mechanics and just narratively handwave away the changes. But if there isn't going to be a cataclysm, if wizards are going to go to bed one night in 1st edition and wake up the next day in 2nd edition and barely notice the change (to paraphrase one of the Paizo folks), then it's reasonable for the players to expect that the base stuff from the original CRB will be there in a pretty familiar form. Because if it isn't, they may as well just sign on for a trope-filled cataclysm story, because it's just going to be jarring.
To look at it from another angle - the adventure paths that form the history of Golarion need to be mechanically possible in future Golarion, because they happened (somehow). And for a lot of players, that means that the first characters they created for an early AP or module need to be represented as options in the 2E CRB.
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.To look at it from another angle - the adventure paths that form the history of Golarion need to be mechanically possible in future Golarion, because they happened (somehow). And for a lot of players, that means that the first characters they created for an early AP or module need to be represented as options in the 2E CRB.
As a bit of an example;
I disliked getting into PF1. I had a bad and rocky start with learning the rules and a Summoner and Alchemist either breaking the game or breaking the RP section(Not instant clearing Diplomacy just being completely distracting)
Even then, I still remember my first character I made. Cause he was fun and stupid. Shield+Improvised Paladin. Focused on Shield Bash and throwing things, never using a blade if he could help it as a sign of penance. Pretty sure his God was Cayden Cailean.
Sup par? Maybe. I had fun with him and hold him as one of my favorite characters. Maybe not numbers wise but I still recall him unlike some of the other chaacters I've made.
So uh..., where's the Shield Bash feats? The throwing? The Improvised weapons? I don't even think I dug into Splat books outside of maybe 1 feat a friend showed me?
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Frankly, it is in my opinion totally unreasonable to demand to be able to exactly functionally duplicate builds made with Game A in Game B. To go further and state that you can't tell the same kinds of stories in Game B because you can't exactly replicate builds from Game A is just plain wrong.
I have run DnD 1E modules with assorted editions of the game (and assorted editions of other games!) for example. While the mechanics are different and the builds are different, the "kind of stories told" are very much "the same kind."
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Frankly, it is in my opinion totally unreasonable to demand to be able to exactly functionally duplicate builds made with Game A in Game B. To go further and state that you can't tell the same kinds of stories in Game B because you can't exactly replicate builds from Game A is just plain wrong.
I have run DnD 1E modules with assorted editions of the game (and assorted editions of other games!) for example. While the mechanics are different and the builds are different, the "kind of stories told" are very much "the same kind."
OK.
But If I want builds that Game A provides, it is totally unreasonable for you to expect me to play Game B, which does not provide them.And if I play the exact same kind of stories in two different systems, but the mechanics of one of those two different systems captures the narrative spirit of that story much better than the other, then it is only obvious that I'm going t pay the one that embraces the story.
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BryonD:
I dont expect you to play Game A, B, C or whatever. If you want to only play games where very specific mechanical builds are possible, go ahead. I am not stopping you.
I am also not gonna go and get into some kinda "narrative spirit" discussion with anyone since that is a bunch of subjective stuff which wont lead to any sort of productive discussion.
But "kinds of stories"? Exact build mechanics has very little to do with that kinda broad measure.
PF2 does look like it has a much more restricted range of characters than PF1, even considering the core rulebook only. I do agree with Data Lore though that expecting exactly the same list of character types to be available in a different game (any different game) is unreasonable.
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You expressed my same thoughts perfectly. Another thing I always think about whenever someone on this board states something like: "There's not enough choices, and classes are stuck with few playstyles" they are not comparing to the PF1e core rulebook. You really can't make a variety of builds in PF1e with the core rulebook. It's very limited. In fact I think it's way more limited than the playtest in fact.I think some of the issues people are experiencing are due to mistaken assumptions about the playtest.
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I can make a functional halfling paladin on a dog in PF1e with just the core rulebook. Not-so-much in PF2 Playtest.
The playtest has greatly increased niche protection, which is good, but it also means by definition that limitations have to be put in place in order to do so.
I mean we could probably go back and forth on this, and I have a feeling I would eventually win. here's a few examples of viable characters that you can't make or are just unviable in 1e.
Spell Blade - this one is huge since it's a hugely popular class type in fantasy. Fighter/Wizard multiclass usually just end up being garbage fighters and garbage wizards
Rogue archer -you have to spend all of your feats to just fire without penalty... and then you have bad BAB and you have no ability to sneak attack in fact I could just put combat rogue here and I'd probably still be right lol
Totem Barbarian - Like 90% of 1e barbarians take totems. These aren't actually in the core rulebook.
Those are a few characters that my players actually made during the playtest that weren't possible/viable in 1e.
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I am with Data Lore and Dire Ursus on this one. I think there's reasonable overlap in character concepts for the Playtest, and I believe we've been presented with fewer options to work with because the game is still evolving. I may not like where that overlap is, and some classes have definitely gotten the short straw, but the range of options isn't one of my complaints with the game.
That being said, I do understand why others feel differently. Some exciting concepts aren't possible or viable yet (and may not ever be under the new system), and if those are your thing then the PT isn't going to feel very good. And if the game is evolving away from the things you found most exciting in PF1, then it's going to feel worse.
So I'm kinda torn. In a way, both sides are right.
Speaking as an engineer and math wonk, to hell with the math. Please give me narrative builds, warts and all. If you do that good, we will be there.
As someone whose maths all day long, and whose job title includes the words "Data Analyst" I could not agree more.
I love math. I make spreadsheets for fun. I'll spend hours just tweaking the numbers on every character I make.
The game does not need to be built for people like me.
The story, the flavor must come first. Design your math to fit the flavor, not the other way around.
We want to play Heroes. Heroes do not fail 50% of all tasks they attempt.
Ok, when you say story, do you want scene editing meta currencies? Because that is one of the few ways to actually mechanise story. Otherwise I'm not sure what element of the current games design demphasises story.
Flavour driving design results in degenerate design every time, let's say you decide a fighter should be better at fighting than a rogue and a magic fighter should be better at fighting than a fighter because that makes flavour sense because he has magic, you've just put yourself into a hole where fighters are sub-optimal and rogues are dreadful. Design should incorporate flavour whenever possible but it can't determine how that game is designed or balance is inevitably sacrificed.
If the high failure rates bother you, your problem is not with the core design, its where the success chances have been set. Those can be adjusted without a total redesign, in fact I'd guess that's why 1 of the playtest scenarios has you fight a pack of underleveled adversaries and another has a very overleveled opponent, they're checking how those numbers play out.
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I respectfully disagree. I understand that going from a bazillion splat books and a shelf full of hardcovers to a single core book is going to limit options - BUT comparing base book to base book is illustrative. Because presumably those base builds from the original CRB are part of the common shared history of Golarion. Like, where did those bow paladins of Erastil all go?
While your concerns are completely reasonable - I certainly want Paladins of Erastil to be viable - I think it's important to remember that you are not comparing base book to base book. We are comparing base book to playtest, and the devs have stated that the playtest is not a complete representation of the final book in terms of number of options.
A straight comparison would be PF1e playtest to PF2e playtest, but I don't know if that would be a useful comparison.
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The biggest issue is that PF2 is not being marketed as an entirely different game. It's being marketed as a replacement for PF1. Thus it is understandable that people are upset that they can't still do the same thing. It feels like something got taken away from them.
So far I haven't seen PF2 being marketed as anything, as it doesn't exist yet. The Playtest hasn't been marketed all that much either in my opinion (understandably), but from the interviews I have watched and read I felt that the devs rather clearly announced it as a new edition, instead of the "next step", so maybe you are projecting your expectations onto the sparse marketing?
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By being a new edition in the same setting ,that setting still has to work, and right now it doesn't. The Rune Lords for instance (without massive fiat) would be a complete joke, and if you do use fiat you state clearly that PCs are deliberately made to suck, which is how the you are terrible at everything maths feels tbh, like a punishment for playing.
Runelords could and should have access to a bunch of uncommon and rare spells and rituals, which the PCs wouldn't have access to. I think that falls perfectly in line with the setting and the narrative that they are enormously powerful and ancient wizards and casters, which have cast through long forgotten Rune Magic.
If you consider that a massive fiat, than I think we should agree to disagree on the topic, but I don't see that scenario as a problem.
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The biggest issue is that PF2 is not being marketed as an entirely different game. It's being marketed as a replacement for PF1. Thus it is understandable that people are upset that they can't still do the same thing. It feels like something got taken away from them.
If I might quote from one of the first Paizo blogs regarding the playtest:
New, but the Same
Our first goal was to make Pathfinder Second Edition feel just like the game you know and love. That means that as a player, you need to be able to make the choices that allow you to build the character you want to play. Similarly, as a Game Master, you need to have the tools and the support to tell the story you want to tell. The rules that make up the game have to fundamentally still fill the same role they did before, even if some of the mechanics behind them are different.
That was March 6, 2018. It's the oldest blog entry with the "pathfinder playtest" tag. The blog states that "feel" is the first goal of PF2e. It has to feel like 1e.
It does not feel like 1E to me or a lot of other people.
This kind of reminds me of the break that happened when Civ V was released. Civ V might be a good turn based 4x computer game, but the fundamental changes in that game destroyed the feel of "Civ". One can argue the same thing about 4e, or the reboots for any number of TV / movie franchises.
Feel is hard to impossible to quantify. One way to do it is with sales. If the new version sells, then yaay - success! As a test, you probably want some kind of indicator beforehand.
Maybe - maybe Paizo thinks they can get enough people to replace those lost to attrition. Maybe, maybe the final game will pull back enough to 1e or be a hybrid of the two that is really great. And maybe the people who are dissatisfied are only the people who post on the forums and maybe our voice exceeds our numbers by orders of magnitude.
I don't have the answers to any of these maybes. We'll find out when 2e comes out. I always thought changing less was better than changing more and change for change's sake was a terrible idea. Find the parts of the game that needed fixing and fix those. Leave the rest as intact as possible. From my limited end and observation the conclusion I'm drawing is that there was a conscious attempt to redesign the game from the ground up to make it very balanced. Possibly to cater to PFS, possibly to churn out modules more evenly. But the feel right now is that the game is cookie-cutter. And that is exactly what the original Pathfinder supporters fled from in droves. So this backlash should not only have been unsurprising, it should have been expected.
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So I'm kinda torn. In a way, both sides are right.
They are. It's not a black and white question.
For me, if I come into it as a Pathfinder player and get told this is a new edition of Pathfinder, that carries certain expectations about what I will be getting. Namely that when I play, it should feel like I'm playing Pathfinder, and I should be able to do certain things.
The catch is that what "things" are important changes from person to person. If you removed healing, some people wouldn't care (and some people might even like it!), but it'd flat out be a different game to me because I play lots of healers in 1e.
So yes, it's entirely fair to say "it's a new game, not everything will be the same", because it's true. But it's also entirely fair to say "they said it should fee like Pathfinder, and this doesn't feel like Pathfinder to me because X."
This isn't an argument anyone can win, but it can provide useful feedback on what aspects of the game people find most iconic.
*Cough*
Monster Lore
A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.
Seems pretty clear cut to me in PF1 N N 959. I haven't seen anything like that in PF2 yet only that on success you "Recall Knowledge".
Now as a GM it depends. Myself, I don't toss out stats(If only because the stats might be modified), so maybe I would give out the base stats and they can figure it out from there. I usually give out immunities, weaknesses, poisons, special attacks, etc.
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By being a new edition in the same setting ,that setting still has to work, and right now it doesn't. The Rune Lords for instance (without massive fiat) would be a complete joke, and if you do use fiat you state clearly that PCs are deliberately made to suck, which is how the you are terrible at everything maths feels tbh, like a punishment for playing.Runelords could and should have access to a bunch of uncommon and rare spells and rituals, which the PCs wouldn't have access to. I think that falls perfectly in line with the setting and the narrative that they are enormously powerful and ancient wizards and casters, which have cast through long forgotten Rune Magic.
If you consider that a massive fiat, than I think we should agree to disagree on the topic, but I don't see that scenario as a problem.
When I ran Rise of the Runelords (3.5 version adapted to Pathfinder rules), after the party gained control of the ancient library of the Therassic wizard monks in Fortress of the Stone Giants, I told the wizard that he had gained access to all the spells in the Core Rulebook but not the more modern spells in the Advanced Player's Guide. He still had to study them and scribe them into his own spellbook, but the library contained a collection of ancient spellbooks.
I gave access, because that wizard's prior sources of new spells were the spellbooks of the necromancers the party defeated. Those were biased toward evil spells and I did not want the wizard switching over to evil spells simply because those were the only high-level spells he had access to.
As the Playtest Rulebook spells out, rarity is a matter of access. The PCs gain access by earning it. Because they earned it, it would be unfair for the GM to deny it. The Rise of the Runelords PCs will have access to the ancient spells.
When I ran Rise of the Runelords (3.5 version adapted to Pathfinder rules), after the party gained control of the ancient library of the Therassic wizard monks in Fortress of the Stone Giants, I told the wizard that he had gained access to all the spells in the Core Rulebook but not the more modern spells in the Advanced Player's Guide. He still had to study them and scribe them into his own spellbook, but the library contained a collection of ancient spellbooks.
I gave access, because that wizard's prior sources of new spells were the spellbooks of the necromancers the party defeated. Those were biased toward evil spells and I did not want the wizard switching over to evil spells simply because those were the only high-level spells he had access to.
As the Playtest Rulebook spells out, rarity is a matter of access. The PCs gain access by earning it. Because they earned it, it would be unfair for the GM to deny it. The Rise of the Runelords PCs will have access to the ancient spells.
I don't see your example here standing in conflict with what I described. Granting the players these uncommon and rare spells from the Runelords, after having defeated them is not problematic to me, but where would the PCs have gotten them before that?
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It does not feel like 1E to me or a lot of other people.
It does to me and a lot of other people. In fact every player I've run the game for has said as much when filling in the survey. As Paizo said in that initial post, the mechanics function differently, but characters and games can still feel similar. A PF2 Fighter feels like a Pathfinder Fighter, a PF2 Cleric feels like a Pathfinder Cleric and the PF2 adventures we've played so far feel like Pathfinder adventures, even with the significant rules differences.
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The biggest issue is that PF2 is not being marketed as an entirely different game. It's being marketed as a replacement for PF1. Thus it is understandable that people are upset that they can't still do the same thing. It feels like something got taken away from them.
If I might quote from one of the first Paizo blogs regarding the playtest:
New, but the Same
Our first goal was to make Pathfinder Second Edition feel just like the game you know and love. That means that as a player, you need to be able to make the choices that allow you to build the character you want to play. Similarly, as a Game Master, you need to have the tools and the support to tell the story you want to tell. The rules that make up the game have to fundamentally still fill the same role they did before, even if some of the mechanics behind them are different.
That was March 6, 2018. It's the oldest blog entry with the "pathfinder playtest" tag. The blog states that "feel" is the first goal of PF2e. It has to feel like 1e.
This is exactly how I feel.
Do I agree that maybe expecting a Hex based Magus should be available in the playtest is a step overboard?
Absolutely.
Expecting to be able to play a Paladin that uses a bow in the playtest, that seems extremely reasonable.
Not being able to do that, is a step in the wrong direction.
If I can open the Core of PF1, and make a build that does not exist at all in the current playtest then to me that is an issue.
Either one, they planned to release that option later post playtest, which means that option isn't receiving any playtest feedback.
Or two, it isn't meant to exist at all.
Both of those are bad to me.
No one is arguing specific mechanics should be present, just that key ideas for characters should exist that did exist in Core of PF1.
I think both sides have valid points, but surely we can all agree that a bow wielding Paladin should be possible with the same level of viability it had in PF1 Core (currently, not the case).
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And why should it depend on the GM? Why should what I know about an Ogre given the same character and the same roll be different depending on who is running the game?
There are some advantages to letting this go undefined: any attempt to codify this means that every creature stat-block has to be accompanied by a series of "what you know if you beat the DC by 0, 5, 10, 15" info blocks, which makes creating new creatures much more laborious.
And it would also make that knowledge very rigid. A GM can tell the fireball specialist wizard, "This creature is resistant to fire," as the first piece of information, because that's what he cares about most, or tell the archer, "This creature is resistant to non-silver weapons". If the rules were more precise, that probably wouldn't be possible.
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Expecting to be able to play a Paladin that uses a bow in the playtest, that seems extremely reasonable.
I mean there's nothing stopping you from just using a bow as a paladin and multiclassing into fighter for bow feats. And I wouldn't say that a bow paladin was really an "intended" character concept in the core rulebook. It's just the fact that smite does more damage if you have more attacks, and one of the best ways to get a lot of attacks is to use a bow.
Anyways, during the class surveys you should have been able to answer questions about paladins. If enough people think that a bow paladin is popular enough they might just put that kind of stuff into the core rulebook.
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If I can open the Core of PF1, and make a build that does not exist at all in the current playtest then to me that is an issue.
Do you genuinely believe that every single concept available in PF1 Core has to be in PF2? Because that would mean that A) certain trap builds would need to be made available again and B) no new concepts could be added because of space concerns.
I genuinely think this focus some people have on not being able to build exactly what you want is detrimental to playtesting PF2. There are some things that actually need to be look at and playtested, like accuracy options available to certain classes, scaling skill DCs and relative success likelihoods, the viability and usefulness of many skill feats or single target attack options for casters, and these issues are being lost in complaints about "problems" that aren't anything to do with the core mechanics of a game but are fixed by content that 100% will be released by Paizo.
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I'm going to second this with the caveat that this problem also existed in PF1 and 3.5.
Oh, it very definitely existed in PF1 and 3.5. I utterly agree with you there. It is one of the areas with the largest table variation in PFS.
But its MUCH worse in PF2 instead of, as one would hope, being actually better. At least in PF1
1) It was clear which skill to roll
2) You got more information the higher you rolled. For every 5 higher than the base DC
3) It was quite possible to have knowledge checks at sufficiently high levels that most GMs would tell you at least most of what you needed to know. I've seen mid to high level characters exceed the base DC by 20 or 30
4) Take 10 and take 20 were things (for at least some characters) and Take 10 was actually useful.
5) It didn't take an action
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It does to me and a lot of other people.
It does not feel like 1E to me or a lot of other people.
I'm with Zi Mishkal on this. I'd feel a lot better about the playtest if this was generic fantasy game x that was meant to stand on its own. I can't see it as any kind of continuation of the old game or even close for that matter. we've been told that a PC should be able to go to sleep in PF1 and after waking up in PF2 not notice the difference... So far, my PC's would have to search long and hard to find the similarities [and sadly, only have a 50% chance to notice them with the game's DC's].
So if you can see the pathfinder in the playtest, that's great for you. Some of us though are seeing it like one of those cheap knock off electronics like a Somy DVD player: it looks like the old game if you glance at it, but once you give it a close look, you notice it's a Pathfunder brand game. Sure it plays DVD's, it just doesn't have the features you expect in the actual brand. :P