Is character building faster, more convenient, in P2E?

[Deadmanwalking]

Voss wrote:

Notable experiences- pf2 characters feel very samey. Its all mathematical outputs and very little flavor.

For the record, this couldn't be farther from my experience.

Even making characters as quick as possible for the playtest, just the way Skill Feats and Backgrounds synchronized seemed to create built in flavor all on its own, even when the players weren't doing so intentionally. Certainly more than the character creation process on its own usually did in PF1.

[PossibleCabbage]

One thing I find a lot in making characters is that if I'm making something like "a flickmace fighter", if I'm planning for levels for the future I often come to situations like "I don't know what feat I want to take at level 8 (or whatever)" and I scratch my head for a bit, and then realize that there's absolutely no reason I need to decide now, and planning builds all the way from the beginning usually runs into tension with "how things actually go" anyway. I can just pick my level 8 feat based on what the party needs most 7 levels from now.

[Ravingdork]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

One thing I find a lot in making characters is that if I'm making something like "a flickmace fighter", if I'm planning for levels for the future I often come to situations like "I don't know what feat I want to take at level 8 (or whatever)" and I scratch my head for a bit, and then realize that there's absolutely no reason I need to decide now, and planning builds all the way from the beginning usually runs into tension with "how things actually go" anyway. I can just pick my level 8 feat based on what the party needs most 7 levels from now.

There might be new, more worthwhile content out by the time you get that far too.

[Staffan Johansson]

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, I don't recommend having new players make high level casters to start out with. PF2 spells generally do a good job of saying what they do, but it takes a long time to read through them and make sure that you understand all of the traits and specific terminology. But that was true in PF1 as well.

This reminds me of a thing I'd really like Paizo to do, perhaps as a PDF: Properly organized spell books. Back in AD&D, the primary caster classes had their own spell lists, and the spells were organized accordingly: 1st level cleric spells, followed by 2nd level cleric spells, and so on until 7th level cleric spells, which were then followed by 1st level druid spells, and so on. Basically, the same way class feats are organized.

In 3e, they skipped that because (a) someone thought it made for a better reference if you knew you'd be able to find fireball between fire trap and flame arrow without having to know it was a 3rd level wizard spell, and (b) it allowed them to have the same spell on multiple lists without either extra word count or clumsy references ("Cure light wounds, 1st level druid spell, see the 1st level cleric spell"). But the disadvantage is that if you want to decide what spells to choose, you need to flip around all over the book.

So, it would be really neat if there was a PDF I could download that had all the spells properly organized: by tradition, and by level. It would have been even better had the core book been organized that way from the start, but that ship has already sailed.

[lordcirth]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, I don't recommend having new players make high level casters to start out with. PF2 spells generally do a good job of saying what they do, but it takes a long time to read through them and make sure that you understand all of the traits and specific terminology. But that was true in PF1 as well.

This reminds me of a thing I'd really like Paizo to do, perhaps as a PDF: Properly organized spell books. Back in AD&D, the primary caster classes had their own spell lists, and the spells were organized accordingly: 1st level cleric spells, followed by 2nd level cleric spells, and so on until 7th level cleric spells, which were then followed by 1st level druid spells, and so on. Basically, the same way class feats are organized.

In 3e, they skipped that because (a) someone thought it made for a better reference if you knew you'd be able to find fireball between fire trap and flame arrow without having to know it was a 3rd level wizard spell, and (b) it allowed them to have the same spell on multiple lists without either extra word count or clumsy references ("Cure light wounds, 1st level druid spell, see the 1st level cleric spell"). But the disadvantage is that if you want to decide what spells to choose, you need to flip around all over the book.

So, it would be really neat if there was a PDF I could download that had all the spells properly organized: by tradition, and by level. It would have been even better had the core book been organized that way from the start, but that ship has already sailed.

I wouldn't consider that a "proper" layout at all. There's room for digital tools to re-organize spells however you want, but I think that sounds pretty bad for a paper CRB.

[Temperans]

Why does it sound bad? It's the same thing pfsrd and aonprd did with spell lists. Aka they made dedicated pages for each caster organized by spell level and alphabetical order. Pfsrd when it 1 step further and also organized them by school.

So for example you could search on the Wizard spell list, in 5th lv spells, in the evocation school section, and search for spell starting with the letter 'F'.

Notice how this is very similar to how books are organized. Book series (spell list): Book entry (spell level): Chapter (school of magic): Page (spell).

[Malk_Content]

Temperans wrote:

Why does it sound bad? It's the same thing pfsrd and aonprd did with spell lists. Aka they made dedicated pages for each caster organized by spell level and alphabetical order. Pfsrd when it 1 step further and also organized them by school.

So for example you could search on the Wizard spell list, in 5th lv spells, in the evocation school section, and search for spell starting with the letter 'F'.

Notice how this is very similar to how books are organized. Book series (spell list): Book entry (spell level): Chapter (school of magic): Page (spell).

I'd say its bad for a print book that is already bursting at the seams and the spell description section is already nearly 100 pages of it.

[Temperans]

Malk_Content wrote:

I'd say its bad for a print book that is already bursting at the seams and the spell description section is already nearly 100 pages of it.

Yes for print media it wouldn't work too many copies of the same spell would be bad. But it definitely could work with pdfs, last time I checked they dont have a character limits after all and can have hyperlinks. The editing however would probably be kind of a pain, which is why things like Excel dynamic sheets makes it much easier.

[Albatoonoe]

What's everyone experiences with equipment selection at high levels between editions? I haven't had a chance to make a high level character in PF2 yet, but laying out the number of items in each item level seems like it would make things somewhat quicker than the "buying" system of PF1. Am I right in my intuition here?

[Scruffy Nerf Herder]

Ravingdork wrote:

In Pathfinder, it could take me the better part of a day to make a fully fleshed out character of 3rd-level or higher, and maybe an hour or so for a 1st- or 2nd-level character.

In P2E, I find that, in my case at least, that hasn't really changed much (more on that below).

I'm curious to know what others' experiences with P2E character creation has been like.

1) How long does it take for you to build a 1st-level character?
2) How long does it take for you to build a higher level character?
3) Do you use online apps or other aids to expedite the process? If so, which ones, and how do they help?
4) What other notable experiences have you had with character building in P2E?

BELOW:
For me, I could probably flesh out a 1st-level P2E character in about an hour, with much of that time going into building the concept rather than the mechanics. Now that I've got a few characters under my belt, if I already knew what I wanted, I'd probably put out a 1st-level character in 10 minutes.

But I seldom actually do that. Instead, I like to see where a character can go, so I usually build at much higher level (5-15 generally) as it lets me better see what a completed concept might be capable of. This theorycraft is great for finding out what might be fun for me, or even help me come up with other cool ideas and combinations, but it's not fast. Building a high level character in P2E is a painstakingly long process for me, though no more or less so than First Edition.

I see tons of people throwing up seemingly quick character builds online, making it look quick and easy, but I've found that most are actually illegal if they aren't 1st-level.

I've found that, in actuality, there are SO many prerequisites on everything that I have to have spread sheets (such as this one for...

For me it's kind of a non-issue how long or short the character creation process is. I make solid builds but am not so concerned with power gaming that I need to be doubly sure it's the best build. Also I don't ever do one-shot campaigns and normally know well in advance when session zero is, so I take my sweet time creating a character.

In fact I take a lot of pleasure in this part of playing pen and paper rpgs so I normally think about it for a week or so, write a short two to four paragraph essay or two in there detailing the character's personality and background (if only for my pleasure alone, regardless of anyone being interested in reading it), and just generally enjoy coming up with something new. I can understand that there are different circumstances to different campaigns (being on a time crunch, etc.) and this kind of character creation isn't for everyone, but I'd recommend they try it at least once because it's a blast chewing on your ideas for a week or two and immersing yourself in a story before the campaign even starts.

[Temperans]

Well it depends on where you are looking for the items. If the place have them sorted by gold cost and type than there is no difference between searching in either edition. With the exception that PF1e has over the years gotten many different item types so there is the need to choose what type of item you want.
I like the sorting by worn location as it meant having to search less if you have an idea of what you want. (Ex: I want some gloves or I want a mask)

For costumizability if following the wealth by level tables, PF1e has way more options of what is available. Simply from the fact that even if some items are "required" there are multiple options on how to get its effect. Low level utility magic items are also very useful even at high level (*looks at ring of feather falling*).

However, one of the big sale points for PF2e was "less reliance on magic items" and "reduce Christmas trees", so it makes sense if less options are available/introduced. On a personal note its meh, I was never really bother by grabing a ton of different items in case they were needed, but if having less items means more people playing that's okay too.

[Perpdepog]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, I don't recommend having new players make high level casters to start out with. PF2 spells generally do a good job of saying what they do, but it takes a long time to read through them and make sure that you understand all of the traits and specific terminology. But that was true in PF1 as well.

This reminds me of a thing I'd really like Paizo to do, perhaps as a PDF: Properly organized spell books. Back in AD&D, the primary caster classes had their own spell lists, and the spells were organized accordingly: 1st level cleric spells, followed by 2nd level cleric spells, and so on until 7th level cleric spells, which were then followed by 1st level druid spells, and so on. Basically, the same way class feats are organized.

In 3e, they skipped that because (a) someone thought it made for a better reference if you knew you'd be able to find fireball between fire trap and flame arrow without having to know it was a 3rd level wizard spell, and (b) it allowed them to have the same spell on multiple lists without either extra word count or clumsy references ("Cure light wounds, 1st level druid spell, see the 1st level cleric spell"). But the disadvantage is that if you want to decide what spells to choose, you need to flip around all over the book.

So, it would be really neat if there was a PDF I could download that had all the spells properly organized: by tradition, and by level. It would have been even better had the core book been organized that way from the start, but that ship has already sailed.

Archives has their spell lists sorted by tradition, then by level, and then alphabetically if that's any help.

Not a PDF, and YMMV with Archives of Nethys, but it's there and I've been using it so far to help pick spells for casters I build.