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I love having a challenging game, and I love to provide my players an honest challenge, both in 1e and in 2e.
We're currently playing 1e AP where the end boss for one book was a...
Let's call it "essentially a Huge sized magical bat" with CR 14. Our PC's were level 10 or 11 plus 1 mythic rank. I -think- we were supposed to have some help in this fight from NPC's since CR 14 is Epic encounter for a group of our level.
Our characters aren't... minmaxed per say, but our group is very competently built, we know our way around buffs and tactics and consumables - we're all veteran players.
Our GM wanted to provide us a real challenge, and so, they slapped on a size increase, giant template, advanced template and a mythic agile template on the boss, plus some "mooks" in the form of couple greater shadows (CR8), couple CR 9-10 other monsters, plus a CR 12 pallid angel (which left the combat after the first PC fell unconscious because of some plot related RP stuff).
without this frankly amazing amount of prep and -way above our paygrade- buffs and additional monsters? Against just a single CR 14 huge bat? It would have been a cakewalk. Now, it was an amazing and super epic encounter, one of the best we've had. We still won, and it was a tough fight, and we enjoyed it.
Problem is, 1e requires a huge amount of work from a GM if they want to challenge a competent party, and most encounters are skippable because they are just time sinks. If our group is unprepared, my mediocre +16 to hit and 1d8+8 dmg isn't just cutting it, even if I do get to make some 4 attacks per round. I just can't hit targets, and if I do, I'm not making a dent. If I turn my power attack on, I'm certainly not hitting targets.
If I get my buffs on, we get to flank, target gets debuffed by the witch, it's an entirely different story - instead of not hitting a single blow, I can land 4 out of 5 and take out half of the hp from a level appropriate monster in a turn.
I enjoy the challenge. It's just really, really hard to balance when "ambushed" = certain TPK and "prepared" = cakewalk - it's very hard to find a good middle ground.
Meanwhile, in our recent 2e campaing, I ran the end of the book boss encounter for my PC's, as written. PC's had a horrible start - crit from the boss (we use crit and crit fumble deck) left their divine sorcerer confused and stupefied, and monster caused 3 out of 4 PC's to be slowed and not able to use reactions - all in round 1. It looked like it might be a TPK for the PC's, especially since they were super low on healing as they had spent most resources on the dungeon crawl before this.
Good tactics saved the day, tho. Swashbuckler/Marshal buffed the party with a stance, slapped the sorcerer to get them out of confusion. Rogue demoralized the boss, sorcerer casted command from a scroll to force them to drop their weapon -> 2 actions taken away from the boss (one to drop, one to pick). Other rogue moved to flank, -3 ac (flat+frightened), plus +1 ab from buffs, turned an unlikely strike (+11 vs ac 24) into a probable hit (+12 vs 21).
Nets, bon mot + fear from spell, sickened from goblin pox from the other rogue's multiclass dedication to prevent the boss from drinking healing potions, recognizing enemy to know it was capable of attacking basically everybody around it and maneuvering to avoid that... All the random "other than a basic attack" actions really saved the day for the group. If they had just "move, attack, attack", they would have lost by simple math, boss would have kept removing one or two of them each round.
And that's why I like 2e. The fights are challenging and rewarding without requiring noticeable prep from the GM... And if you think it is too hard, it's always easier to adjust the difficulty down mid-combat than it is to adjust it up mid combat.
(I also love the character creation of 2e, but I'm running out of time here. Maybe I'll return to this topic later).
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Hey everyone. Hopefully I got the right place for this. I'm coming back to Pathfinder after about a four year hiatus and see everything has changed but definitely confused and overwhelmed quite a bit. So I have a few questions about this new stuff.
First, how does second compare to first? What are the changes that make a big impact? Does it simplify? Make things more interesting? (I was always a fan of how much you could do with 1st edition and thats why I enjoyed PF more)
Also can second edition be ran comfortably with 1st edition adventures? Like Rise of the Runelords, etc? Have a couple friends who are new and using it as a gateway since its a fun and mostly straightforward campaign to me.
Any help and explanation is appreciated. Thank you so much!
PF1 was more fun as a player. Options were more interesting. You felt more powerful. It was more fun to build a character.
PF2 is much easier to DM. Much more balanced. Character building is more interesting than 5E, but more cosmetic in nature. Magic items are kind of boring in Pf2. New books don't really add much to the game. Most of the classes in new books have wonky mechanics that make for an often weaker character than the core RB.
My feeling after playing a few campaigns is PF2 is ok. Not as fun as PF1, but better than 5E.
If you want an edition of a D&D-based game that is easy to run as a DM, very balanced, and offers sufficient character customization to cover most of the common archetypes, then PF2 is your game.
There are still a lot of conditions to track in PF2.
Plus lots of things that last until the next turn. Last night one of my monsters was Frightened 1, persistant bleeding (from SwashBuckler finisher), persistant burning, slowed, stupified and flatfooted. Fortunately it didn't last very long past that.
The players enjoyed it.
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PF1 was more fun as a player. Options were more interesting. You felt more powerful. It was more fun to build a character.
I agree that PF1e is more fun to build characters for, although a lot of that comes down to the sheer number of options and how little competence a character has without building into it. So you know that each choice you have made tends to directly allow you to do the thing you are specialising into rather than expanding your options.
PF2 is much easier to DM. Much more balanced. Character building is more interesting than 5E, but more cosmetic in nature. Magic items are kind of boring in Pf2. New books don't really add much to the game. Most of the classes in new books have wonky mechanics that make for an often weaker character than the core RB.
My feeling after playing a few campaigns is PF2 is ok. Not as fun as PF1, but better than 5E.
If you want an edition of a D&D-based game that is easy to run as a DM, very balanced, and offers sufficient character customization to cover most of the common archetypes, then PF2 is your game.
Now, suggesting that characters are more cosmetic in nature is something I cannot agree with. There are plenty of choices CRB/APG that dramatically and in meaningful ways, especially the general archetypes from the APG.
The lost omens stuff tends to be more hit and miss but that was always the case with the companion and setting softcovers. Thematic but niche.The witch gets to do things with familiars that no other class can regardless of investment and couplesthat with being able to gain spells like a wizard in any spell list while having a weakened version of the bard composition cantrip without having to spend resources.
The Oracle gets its focus point recovery feats for free, 3 focus points even if you stick with the focus spells you start with and while some mysteries are awful (ancestors and lore, although I wouldn't be surprised if lore gets errata'ed) the others can often give decent mystery benefits and interesting tradeoff play with their curse while being spontaneous divine casters.
Swashbucklers are great fun, stupidly fast, confident finisher is good for bypassing defenses, exemplary finisher is extremely useful too for all of the styles (although battle dancer is the least so) and it has a really strong feat selection lineup.
Investigator I don't know enough about but there is a lot of meaningful areas it covers that CRB classes don't cover from what I can see at a glance.
Overall I think the oracle is the weakest of the four, but for the other three there isn't a direct comparison that can be drawn from the CRB. I could be reading your post incorrectly, but i got the impression that you had written off the four classes as being outright worse than CRB options and thus not worth considering.
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PF1 was more fun as a player. Options were more interesting. You felt more powerful. It was more fun to build a character.I agree that PF1e is more fun to build characters for, although a lot of that comes down to the sheer number of options and how little competence a character has without building into it. So you know that each choice you have made tends to directly allow you to do the thing you are specialising into rather than expanding your options.
This is another great example of why PF1 appealed to me and why PF2 doesn't.
Because absolutely in PF1 the options you take are to specialize into something, it often doesn't do much to expand your options.
While in PF2 character builds rarely do much to allow you to specialize into something (skill feats not withstanding, I do actually really like those) but expand the options that you have available to you.
So rather than giving you more attack bonus or damage, they're going to give you an option that allows you to do something like spend two actions to make a single strike with increased damage (but less damage than if you could successfully make two strikes) which might be beneficial against an enemy with high AC or DR, but isn't an outright improvement to what you could already do.
And for me that's unrewarding.
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I prefer 2e from a design and balance perspective. Most editions of ttrpgs cater to players or dms but this is the first one I've played that really seems to make a concerted effort to make sure parties on both sides of the the dm screen have a mechanically rewarding and balanced experience. I really dig that. Players get their myriad of options and dms get a tight system that won't break under the hood. Nothing's perfect but p2e gets closer than any other system I've touched
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This is another great example of why PF1 appealed to me and why PF2 doesn't.
Because absolutely in PF1 the options you take are to specialize into something, it often doesn't do much to expand your options.
While in PF2 character builds rarely do much to allow you to specialize into something (skill feats not withstanding, I do actually really like those) but expand the options that you have available to you.
So rather than giving you more attack bonus or damage, they're going to give you an option that allows you to do something like spend two actions to make a single strike with increased damage (but less damage than if you could successfully make two strikes) which might be beneficial against an enemy with high AC or DR, but isn't an outright improvement to what you could already do.
And for me that's unrewarding.
On one hand, I get it, specializing can be fun, but man, there's only so many times you can Full Round Attack before changing it up sounds great.
Options are something I'm always hoping for in 1e. So I welcome a game that lets me have a wide swath of options for varied situations.
I also like that you're not punished for taking skill options, as in 1e, they were taking the slot of your needed combat options.
There's a lot of solid class options for handing a variety of situations, and I like that.
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I got burnt out on speccing for specific builds in 3.0/3.5's era, when PF1e released I cheered that it did away with how optimal multiclassing was in 3.5.
Then after around 5-6 years of PF1e I realised I was liking games in spite of the system. While character building was fun, actually playing the game is more important and the PF1e rules just kinda got in the way of doing that for me (extensively as a GM).
Combats were monotonous/repetitive to an extreme past early levels, characters locked themselves in to doing what they would be good at very early on in their career unless they happened to be playing a full caster (and even then, decisions need to be made).
Campaigns seem to have a soft cap on enjoyment for me at around level 7-8, past those levels and I start wishing I was doing something else (as a player, but especially as a GM levels 9+)
Heck I am still playing in a PF1e game, but it is for the group and the GM who has put in effort. Even if the mechanics keep getting in the way of the story he wants to tell and slowing it down to a crawl.
By no means am I suggesting this is a realization everyone will have in time, different people like different things. But I do think it is worth looking back at our favourite moments of play and thinking whether the system supported them or whether it was in spite of the system.
The best thing 5e/D&D:Next's playtest brought to my RPG playing/running was to remind me of AD&D and why I loved playing/running it. It got me out trying different systems and themes.
PF1 character building was a game in itself. Fun for many people. But a bit abstract and not really an essential part of roleplaying.
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This is another great example of why PF1 appealed to me and why PF2 doesn't.
Because absolutely in PF1 the options you take are to specialize into something, it often doesn't do much to expand your options.
While in PF2 character builds rarely do much to allow you to specialize into something (skill feats not withstanding, I do actually really like those) but expand the options that you have available to you.
So rather than giving you more attack bonus or damage, they're going to give you an option that allows you to do something like spend two actions to make a single strike with increased damage (but less damage than if you could successfully make two strikes) which might be beneficial against an enemy with high AC or DR, but isn't an outright improvement to what you could already do.
And for me that's unrewarding.
Hi, Claxon. I appreciate your posts debating your position in a level-headed manner. Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
From what I recall reading of your posts, I don't expect your preference to hinge on this alone. If you still don't like P2, that's your call. The math, however, does not support your above post.
I've done extensive testing on the damage calculator and my own spreadsheets to test the math myself. Damage options from feats are proven significant advances over straight attacking. You're referring to Power Attack in this example. A superficial comparison says you could do 2d12+4 with PA vs. 1d12+4 x2 with two simple attacks. That's an (at level) average of 17 vs. 21. That's not the math. The comparison ignores a MAP of -5 on simple attack #2 reducing your two attack average damage to 16.275.
You might say, "Well what if I want to attack two people, not just do big damage against one?" Enter the Swipe feat. Combined with a weapon with the sweep trait, your two-action attack on two foes ignores MAP and instead applies your +1 circumstance sweep bonus to both attacks. This raises your average damage to 23.1.
That's only two feats. Both offer improvement over "what you could already do" as you put it.
You also mentioned you like P1's ability to really specialize. Continuing the Power Attack example, at L6 you can take the Furious Focus feat to change your PA from counting as two attacks for MAP down to one. This means your third attack is at -5 instead of -10. You might say this is situational, and I totally agree. The feats allow you to excel far beyond straight math when you get situational. How about a maneuver to make your foe flat-footed to your next attack? That benefits PA even further over straight strikes. Damage Resistance? PA and Double Slice (and all of its 2W variants).
Continuing situationals, P1 let you get straight bonuses to specialization areas, the trip monkey for example. P2 gives you options to automatically succeed in specialization areas: free grabs, trips, shoves, trips + shoves, success shifts to critical. Circumstance and status bonuses of +2 to +4 are out there, and you can build to consistently capitalize on them.
P1 was awesome compared to the market in its day, and I was a huge fan. I still support anyone who wants to claim it as their favorite, so more power to you. I encourage you to revisit your analysis of the math though. Statistics are not always intuitive.
It's also true to say P1 let's you stack more bonuses onto a specialty to give you a +20 bonus disparity over another character in your party without the specialty. This is a rabbit hole side topic, but this makes high level games a nightmare to balance. I love P2 plugged this hole. I love the three-action system. Love the archetype dedication system, feat system, skill feats, etc. Magic balance went too far, but all of the above combine to make P1 unplayable for me and my group since the playtest.
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This is another great example of why PF1 appealed to me and why PF2 doesn't.
Because absolutely in PF1 the options you take are to specialize into something, it often doesn't do much to expand your options.
While in PF2 character builds rarely do much to allow you to specialize into something (skill feats not withstanding, I do actually really like those) but expand the options that you have available to you.
So rather than giving you more attack bonus or damage, they're going to give you an option that allows you to do something like spend two actions to make a single strike with increased damage (but less damage than if you could successfully make two strikes) which might be beneficial against an enemy with high AC or DR, but isn't an outright improvement to what you could already do.
And for me that's unrewarding.
Hi, Claxon. I appreciate your posts debating your position in a level-headed manner. Thanks for contributing to the discussion.
From what I recall reading of your posts, I don't expect your preference to hinge on this alone. If you still don't like P2, that's your call. The math, however, does not support your above post.
I've done extensive testing on the damage calculator and my own spreadsheets to test the math myself. Damage options from feats are proven significant advances over straight attacking. You're referring to Power Attack in this example. A superficial comparison says you could do 2d12+4 with PA vs. 1d12+4 x2 with two simple attacks. That's an (at level) average of 17 vs. 21. That's not the math. The comparison ignores a MAP of -5 on simple attack #2 reducing your two attack average damage to 16.275.
You might say, "Well what if I want to attack two people, not just do big damage against one?" Enter the Swipe feat. Combined with a weapon with the sweep trait, your two-action attack on two foes ignores MAP and...
I appreciate your analysis, and perhaps I was too loose with my wording but I don't think your analysis contradicts my point.
In the case of Power Attack, the difference between 16 and 17 points of damage is relatively negligible.
In the case of Swipe, it is going to be a upgrade to your damage, but also has conditions that make it not possible to use all the time. In my gaming experience (mostly with PF1) it wasn't all that common for me to have more than 1 enemy in my reach. I wont say never, but probably 25% or less of the time. So while it is better on paper, it has to be better because it's usage is restricted. If it wasn't better than just making two basic strikes it would be a complete waste because of the restrictions on it's usage.
So it's more complex than looking just at the math. Those requirements for enemies make it "not a straight upgrade" IMO.
PF1 really didn't have a lot of conditional or situational options, or rather people avoided it for things that were consistent and easy to use. PF1 power attack was basically a straight upgrade on damage for anyone with a two handed weapon. There was no question about using it, unless you went up against an enemy with an AC much higher than would normally be expected, it was basically always a damage increase in all conditions.
Trust me in this, while I may not be a statistician I am an engineer and I have enough understanding of statistics that I know enough for these games. But the math doesn't account for everything by itself.
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In the case of Power Attack, the difference between 16 and 17 points of damage is relatively negligible.
I've always seen Power Attack as a way to deal with a high-AC boss or to deal with damage reduction. Great for the right situation.
Facing a boss with an AC so high that your second Strike at -5 amounts to a needing a natural 20? Use Power Attack. The difference becomes way more than 17 vs. 16 at that point. But there's more: what if a spellcaster gives you a +1 status bonus on your attack? And the Rogue moves around to provide flanking? At that point you now have an effective +3 bonus on your Power Attack whose average damage is now significantly enhanced.
And you can add to that further. Perhaps you can Demoralize it to give it a status penalty to AC before your Power Attack? Or an ally can debuff it some other way. If you have a Hero Point to spare, you can enhance that uber-buffed attack further.
Many effects, like Feint, only affect your immediate next attack against a foe. Power Attack may be useful in that situation.
PF2 is much more about combining effects and working with allies, than it is about individual effectiveness and each PC being an island. PF2 has engineered the math so that you can get to 80-90% success rates with planning and tactics, as opposed to individual builds. YMMV, but I personally prefer this to having individual builds able to succeed 80-90% of the time while planning+tactics lead to auto-successes.
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It seems like the objection here is that you should be able to select feats that always make you better at specific game elements, rather than situational ones. My perspective is that all bonuses were situational, PF1 just made it too easy to manipulate situations into those situations more easily. This is a big part of why casters in PF1 were so powerful but players had to rest after every encounter. Because manipulating situations is resource intensive.
In the case of Power Attack, the difference between 16 and 17 points of damage is relatively negligible.I've always seen Power Attack as a way to deal with a high-AC boss or to deal with damage reduction. Great for the right situation.
Facing a boss with an AC so high that your second Strike at -5 amounts to a needing a natural 20? Use Power Attack. The difference becomes way more than 17 vs. 16 at that point. But there's more: what if a spellcaster gives you a +1 status bonus on your attack? And the Rogue moves around to provide flanking? At that point you now have an effective +3 bonus on your Power Attack whose average damage is now significantly enhanced.
And you can add to that further. Perhaps you can Demoralize it to give it a status penalty to AC before your Power Attack? Or an ally can debuff it some other way. If you have a Hero Point to spare, you can enhance that uber-buffed attack further.
Many effects, like Feint, only affect your immediate next attack against a foe. Power Attack may be useful in that situation.
PF2 is much more about combining effects and working with allies, than it is about individual effectiveness and each PC being an island. PF2 has engineered the math so that you can get to 80-90% success rates with planning and tactics, as opposed to individual builds. YMMV, but I personally prefer this to having individual builds able to succeed 80-90% of the time while planning+tactics lead to auto-successes.
Absolutely, all of that is true, and agrees with the point I was trying to make. The feat options that you get aren't a strict upgrade in power. But, they can be superior options in the right circumstances.
As with the analysis of power attack, going against the same average AC enemy there's little difference between two strikes and power attack. But with high AC or damage reduction it becomes more favorable. Though I think if you start adding attack bonuses it pushes back toward making two attacks because it increases the second attacks chance to hit and crit. Without looking at specific conditions to run the math (and to be honest I'm just too lazy to go create a spreadsheet to do it all) I think power attack is better than two strikes when you chance to hit is comparatively reduced. If you do things to increase your chance to hit, it goes back to two strikes.
And that goes back to the earlier point that, feats bring options not strict upgrades (or specialization) in PF2.
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Tbh if the issue is just missing too much just have your GM lower enemy levels. You’ll get all the fun balance and builds of PF2 and you’ll be able to hit at similar percentages to PF1.
Tbh, that simply doesn't work for me.
I want to be the one in control of my character's performance, not have to beg the GM to give out extra levels or give us fights against weaker enemies.
I agree that sort of adjustment you suggest might accomplish creating enjoyable game play for me. I can't be sure since I haven't tried it.
But it's easier for me just to go back to PF1 where I don't have ask for these kind of things.
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I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.
To be honest, I enjoy the second one while I don't enjoy the first. In the second one, either I run roughshod over things or the GM is saying "Well you guys are good, so I have to amp up the difficulty".
I get that it's a mindset thing.
But my mind is set where it's at. And even CR+5 enemies in PF1 never felt anywhere as grueling as a CR+2 in PF1.
I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.
I mean in PF1 the GM had to do extra work or encounters were trivial/useless or even sometimes broken OP (see CR 2 Shadow).
In PF2, the GM can just pick slightly weaker enemies to cater to groups that don't like ultra hard games.
Sounds like the GM you're playing with just isn't doing that, but in either case your GM had to do some work.
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I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.
To be honest, I enjoy the second one while I don't enjoy the first. In the second one, either I run roughshod over things or the GM is saying "Well you guys are good, so I have to amp up the difficulty".
I get that it's a mindset thing.
But my mind is set where it's at. And even CR+5 enemies in PF1 never felt anywhere as grueling as a CR+2 in PF1.
I know exactly what you mean. Its similar to when a video game presents its three difficulties as "Standard, Easy and Very Easy" vs. "Standard, Hard, Very Hard". In the first, it feels like an admission of weakness to go with lower difficulties than standard. In the second, it feels like you're choosing to take on a challenge and test yourself if you go with higher difficulties. Even if the second game's "Standard" is as difficult as the first game's "Very Easy".
Its definitely a perception/mindset thing.
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I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.
To be honest, I enjoy the second one while I don't enjoy the first. In the second one, either I run roughshod over things or the GM is saying "Well you guys are good, so I have to amp up the difficulty".
I get that it's a mindset thing.
But my mind is set where it's at. And even CR+5 enemies in PF1 never felt anywhere as grueling as a CR+2 in PF1.
Claxon, I think a lot of players had similar experiences to you early on in PF2, and it is unfortunate that that is forever going to be your perception of PF2, as it really is rather a subjective situation to early GMs running early adventures without the experience to adjust to player expectation, but I’d actually argue that PF1 is just as hard if players and GMs aren’t aware of the necessary changes to run it smoothly. What happen when the GM has players roll HP and the fighter with a 14 con ends up with 3 HP? The floor of PF1 was incredibly low and if you came to it early, before there were tons on internet guides to walk you and your GM through making the game function well, it would be all too easy to have a character who couldn’t do anything well.
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PF2 is much easier to DM. Much more balanced. Character building is more interesting than 5E, but more cosmetic in nature. Magic items are kind of boring in Pf2. New books don't really add much to the game. Most of the classes in new books have wonky mechanics that make for an often weaker character than the core RB.
My feeling after playing a few campaigns is PF2 is ok. Not as fun as PF1, but better than 5E.
If you want an edition of a D&D-based game that is easy to run as a DM, very balanced, and offers sufficient character customization to cover most of the common archetypes, then PF2 is your game.
Now, suggesting that characters are more cosmetic in nature is something I cannot agree with. There are plenty of choices CRB/APG that dramatically and in meaningful ways, especially the general archetypes from the APG.
The lost omens stuff tends to be more hit and miss but that was always the case with the companion and setting softcovers. Thematic but niche.The witch gets to do things with familiars that no other class can regardless of investment and couplesthat with being able to gain spells like a wizard in any spell list while having a weakened version of the bard composition cantrip without having to spend resources.
The Oracle gets its focus point recovery feats for free, 3 focus points even if you stick with the focus spells you start with and while some mysteries are awful (ancestors and lore, although I wouldn't be surprised if lore gets errata'ed) the others...
The swashbuckler is an example of a class with wonky mechanics. If you use a finisher, you can only attack once per round. If you don't get panache, you can't use a finisher. Your speed is only fast if you have panache. So as a player and DM, you have to track when they have panache and when they don't. When they used a finisher and whether they can attack again. It's easier to play a rogue or fighter that plays like a swashbuckler. No mechanical headaches. And you do as well or better than the swashbuckler.
Witch is weaker than a bard. Maybe better than a wizard. They can only use their hexes on a single target once per minute. If the target saves, they are immune for a minute. My player still hasn't found much use for the familiar. Most of the time he forgets he even has it. Familiars are one of those things a player can use and if cleverly used, they think they're great. But if they don't have a familiar at all, they won't even notice.
Haven't played the oracle or investigator. They don't look interesting for a standard campaign.
The glimpse of the Summoner and Magus seemed mechanically weak, exploitable, and once again focused on wonky mechanics over effectiveness.
Suffice it to say I've been looking at my old PF1 books thinking of ways to make it easier to DM. I haven't been looking forward to any PF2 books. The designers seem real intent on wonky mechanics and like the 4E designers, seem intent that they are right and those of us that don't like it are wrong. I don't feel that's ever been a good idea myself, but Paizo seems intent to walk down that path. So their internal metrics must be telling them they are getting enough buy in on second edition to continue to back the game.
As a huge fan of PF1, I can just say this version has its good points. But the path they are taking on the additional books with the wonky mechanics and trying to make the wheel better isn't working for me. My group and I have lost interest because so little of the new material is interesting mechanically. It's way too constrained and wonky. I don't much get what they're going for, but something feels missing.
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Stop dissing the swashbuckler. It's a good class.
Panache is a yes no switch. It's not hard to track. It gives you a bonus for doing everything you should be doing anyway as a martial character on PF2. I think that playing the swashbuckler gives you a really good understanding of the right way to play martials.
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The swashbuckler is an example of a class with wonky mechanics. If you use a finisher, you can only attack once per round. If you don't get panache, you can't use a finisher. Your speed is only fast if you have panache. So as a player and DM, you have to track when they have panache and when they don't. When they used a finisher and whether they can attack again. It's easier to play a rogue or fighter that plays like a swashbuckler. No mechanical headaches. And you do as well or better than the swashbuckler.
I'm surprised the swashbuckler is too difficult for you, since it's way simpler than the 1E version. Keeping track of panache just isn't that hard for me.
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Suffice it to say I've been looking at my old PF1 books thinking of ways to make it easier to DM. I haven't been looking forward to any PF2 books. The designers seem real intent on wonky mechanics and like the 4E designers, seem intent that they are right and those of us that don't like it are wrong. I don't feel that's ever been a good idea myself, but Paizo seems intent to walk down that path. So their internal metrics must be telling them they are getting enough buy in on second edition to continue to back the game.
This is incredibly disingenuous. PF2 has undergone play test after play test, and while you may not agree with the choices, they have absolutely taken the consideration of play testers into account. People like the swashbuckler. A lot. There is survey data backing this up. Their external metrics are giving them a lot of strong data too.
The PF2 Swashbuckler is enormously more fun than the PF1 Swashbuckler, which gives me a lot of hope for all of the PF1 classes that were pretty meh.
If you don't want to do the stuff that the swashbuckler does to gain panache, the character you are imagining is probably not a swashbuckler.
I just had a player who’s only played 5E try Pathfinder 2E and loves the Swashbuckler. He was starting to get the mechanics down pretty easily by the second combat. He is also a big RP person and loves the flavor it brings in and out of combat.
I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.I mean in PF1 the GM had to do extra work or encounters were trivial/useless or even sometimes broken OP (see CR 2 Shadow).
In PF2, the GM can just pick slightly weaker enemies to cater to groups that don't like ultra hard games.
Sounds like the GM you're playing with just isn't doing that, but in either case your GM had to do some work.
This reminds me of the time when my party was playing a pirate module and fought a bunch of high level weresharks, we were a 6 people 4th level party (i think it was even earlier), there was at least 5 7th level sharks, making it an absurd encounter (when we rolled really high and didn't hit we were baffled), but surprisingly enough, we steamrolled that encounter using will spells and our Witch almost single-handedly won the encounter by using Slumber, it was a simple character slightly optimized but nothing anyone here would think it was (just 18 Wis at the time no shenanigans attached).
Then we fought 8 harpies that were by far the weakest encounter at the island (Skull and Shackles book 3), but they had an ability to fascinate and every character but my Dwarf Reach Cleric failed the saving throw. They had weak damage and poor accuracy compared to our AC (APB was on) but it was still a really tough fight because if I had decided to run away, it would've been a TPK, but I didn't and managed to juggle several tasks for very few actions and I turned the tide. It was supposed to be just a clean up encounter with our initiative (we scouted the place first) and it almost turned out into a TPK (by the end of the fight, only 3 out of 5 players were left standing all the others were downed by stable).
TL;DR: S!%@ is wack.
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I recognize that it might seem silly to many people, but for me as a player there is huge difference between asking the DM to lower the enemy's abilities compared to the GM choosing to raise the enemy's to present a challenge.
To be honest, I enjoy the second one while I don't enjoy the first. In the second one, either I run roughshod over things or the GM is saying "Well you guys are good, so I have to amp up the difficulty".
I get that it's a mindset thing.
But my mind is set where it's at. And even CR+5 enemies in PF1 never felt anywhere as grueling as a CR+2 in PF1.
Yes, it's a mindset. No one likes being told to change theirs of course, but I'd like to propose a different point of view.
When PF1 came, there was already a CR system in place, as the game was an evolution of D&D. Anyway, Pathfinder reassigned CRs (I suppose it did, I never made a comparison) based on its initial assumptions: CRB content only, and characters starting with 15 point-buy.
Now, you can build a god-wizard with CRB only, but in general, with more options came some sort of power creep. And how many campaigns give the PCs higher starting stats (20 or 25 point-buy)? On the contrary, when Paizo introduced more monsters, they obviously had to be using the same CR guidelines of the existing ones.
With time, while characters tended to become stronger (via more options and growing system mastery), a balance that was already not perfect at the start, shifted more and more towards PCs.
PF2 started anew, it didn't have to try being compatible with an already standing system, and with its tighter math it allowed the developers to assign all enemies a more appropriate level.
But they also changed the basic assumptions of the game, so that an equal-level enemy is probably stronger in comparison to the PCs than it was at the start of PF1.
And while you can't really overcome this by building an overpowered character, you've got more options to tilt the balance in your favor during combat, mostly via teamwork.
So, I guess that PF2 is somewhat an harder game in general. Also, some groups don't like to revolve around teamwork: if your PC too often has to rely on their friends to shine, it doesn't feel as much like a hero; I understand this.
To to get the same feel you got from PF1, you have to tone it down a bit. It's not about begging the GM to reduce difficulty, it's about matching the playstyle and personal preferences of players. After all, we are all trying to have fun, not to reach some kind of gold standard.
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This has been a long thread but just wanted to say I really loved all the APG classes. I wouldn't really called them "wonky" mechanics. I feel they are really fun and make the characters more fun.
All the characters are just so different so far!
Rogue mainly wants to attacked flat footed people all the time.
Ranger has to hunt all the time.
Swashbuckler has to get panache all the time.
I think PF2 does an amazing job making all martial characters feel different.
Then again I am someone who loves Pathfinder 2 and enjoys Pathfinder 1. From this thread you can definitely tell there is a lot of bias for each edition :)
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There's been a number of things I've disagreed with in this thread but lack the werewithal to dig into, but I wanted to take the time to thank Claxon for taking the time (and having the self-awareness) to note that what he's having is a look-and-feel thing, rather than something that's an intrinsically bad design choice. Its refreshing to hit that.
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate your support in terms how I express my thoughts on PF2.
I am trying to be fair to both editions of Pathfinder.
Honestly, I think there is a lot of great stuff that was done in PF2. It just isn't giving me that heroic feeling without having to ask for extra levels or asking the GM to debuff the enemies, and so for me misses the mark.
I'm trying to report my experience and feelings so that others who might not have experienced PF2 can get different view points to help inform their decision and expectations, especially for those who are familiar with PF1 but haven't tried PF2 yet themselves.
One of the great things about Paizo in general though, is that you can try both editions without really needing to purchase anything for a home game. Archives of Nethys has all the material available to you, although I do think the books format and presentation make it a bit easier to figure things if you're unfamiliar with the basic concepts and so there's definitely good value in purchasing the materials.
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Then the age all complain about "its always full attacks". That stems from people who refuse to build anything else because all they are looking at is "more damage!". Take Vital Strike for example, its a great feat tree that rivals a full attack and still lets you use a move action. But people dislike it because "muh damage". Same with all the other standard action attacks.
I'm sorry, but this is just objectively incorrect.
Let's take for example a level 6 paladin with a greatsword. To demonstrate some obvious disparity, Vital Strike does 4d6+18 while smiting evil vs the standard 2d6+18. That dice also doesn't double on a crit, add things like flaming, etc.
So you give up a second chance at a crit to...do less damage, when move actions aren't really that useful in PF1 due to everyone having AoO, and the fact that everyone also gets a free Step each turn.
I literally even built a warpriest using Greater Weapon of the Chosen Vital Strike as a backup character in a campaign, and checked its expected damage vs the antipaladin in the same campaign. (Long story short, it was not impressive.)
This disparity only gets worse as more attacks are added to the mix, such as through haste or higher BAB. With haste, you're giving up effectively an entire turn's worth of normal attacks to use Vital Strike.
Not taking Power Attack makes you extremely vulnerable to things like DR, as a character in one of my campaigns found out. They tried that up until level 11, and eventually ended up taking Power Attack because not having it was just too sad damage-wise.
And you're going to feel really useless if you take Vital Strike and don't take Power Attack in a campaign with someone who did the opposite - you're doing 4d6+12 (average 26) on one smite evil at level 6 compared to their 2d6+18 (average 25) twice (or three times). In a situation where you both crit, you're literally doing less damage - and they get multiple hits to your one!
The reason Power Attack/Vital Strike is significantly more functional in PF2 is that it's a level 1 feat that a) scales with you, b) can crit, c) is in an environment with significantly fewer static damage modifiers, and d) doesn't give up a full attack routine.
I think a lot of people who really enjoy PF1, rarely play to the highest levels of the game, so issues that expose high level unbalance were rarely seen in play and thus didn't enter a lot of player's perceptions as a problem. Even most PF1 APs didn't go all the way to level 20, largely because writing adventures for high level characters was nearly impossible in PF1. They might as well have not provided any details, just loose story guidelines and then told GMs to fill in the rest based upon the players and how much of a challenge they were looking for.
The Math of PF1 works pretty decently up to level 10 and only then does it really start falling apart quickly. You could have a really favorable picture of PF1 if you only ever played the first 2 books of any AP.
PF2 is designed to work at high level. We are even getting an AP that starts there
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Let's take for example a level 6 paladin with a greatsword. To demonstrate some obvious disparity, Vital Strike does 4d6+18 while smiting evil vs the standard 2d6+18. That dice also doesn't double on a crit, add things like flaming, etc.I always saw Vital Strike in PF1 as something of a consolation price. You don't build around Vital Strike, but it's there for when you do need to move, and still gets you some extra damage.
Which I guess is part of the over-specialization of PF1 characters: they are built to do one thing and do them really well. And that means there's little room for a feat that doesn't do The Thing.
Which is why the best martials in PF1 were the characters who could full attack every round - pouncing beast totem barbarians or archers (not the archetype) turreting up.
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I mean, one of the most fun things about PF1 was the "build a character who does a thing" game you can play by yourself. But a knock-on effect of this is that the people who were best at things ended up weird.
Like at level 13, the Inquisitor, Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest, Sohei Monk, Luring Cavalier, Haunt Collector Occultist, and Tempered Champion Paladin were better at Archery DPR than the Fighter, and a Champion focused medium slides in there between the Fighter and the Ranger.
One of the side effects of "you get to build to be really good at something" is that the identities of "who is best at a given task" ended up really weird.
LIke the two PF1 builds who were so good at healing the fact that "healing is inefficient" didn't matter were an Oracle and a multiclass Paladin/Oracle.
Someone wanting to build "an archer" would probably gravitate to a fighter or a ranger, not a moltune arsenal chaplain warpriest a haunt collector occultist, or a monk archetype other than the archery one; someone wanting to play "a healer" is probably going to default to "cleric" not "kitsune spirit guide oracle with dual life."
In my last PF1 campaign my sacred huntmaster inquisitor basically delivered as much damage as our arcane archer + monk + alchemist combined. Heck my tiger alone out dps’d any of them. Our wizard was more of a generalist mage so while being very effective at times also wasn’t doing much damage and didn’t seem to like using battlefield control spells. Oh and I also had more skills than most of them and was the face of the party.That sort of inequality can make gaming tables very uncomfortable as players take the spotlight. And PF1 is ripe with that. Ultra specialized characters can very much steal the spotlight and run the show and it can wreck lots of tables. Worst of all though is the well played spell caster (usually wizard but druid or cleric can also do it) that through spells can replace every other party members utility while also ending battles with 1-2 well placed control spells. At that point the rest of the party is just permanently on mop up duty. Angel summoner vs BMX bandit indeed. Not many people want to be marginalized like that. It’s not fun to spend hours every week playing a game where your actions basically don’t matter.
My friends would never know this because when we played our characters until level 13, I was a Wizard and made an effort to keep things tame. I was a Conjurer, but I always limited my summoning to one spell per battle and focused on battlefield control. Not that it mattered, of course, since I was player with the Bonded Object wizard, that was inherently inferior, I asked the GM if I could pick ONE single 3rd party feat that was tied to the Bonded Object Wizard (literally no meaningful support whatsoever from Paizo), it allowed me to add INT to another two skills of my choice, I chose one that my party didn't have (disable device) and Stealth (so that I wouldn't be dead weight when we needed to sneak), my friends still made fun of my wizard who did "everything".
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...[power] inequality can make gaming tables very uncomfortable as players take the spotlight. And PF1 is ripe with that. Ultra specialized characters can very much steal the spotlight and run the show and it can wreck lots of tables. Worst of all though is the well played spell caster (usually wizard but druid or cleric can also do it) that through spells can replace every other party members utility while also ending battles with 1-2 well placed control spells. At that point the rest of the party is just permanently on mop up duty. Angel summoner vs BMX bandit indeed. Not many people want to be marginalized like that. It’s not fun to spend hours every week playing a game where your actions basically don’t matter.
When I hear players say they prefer PF1, this is one of two things that immediately spring to mind. Working backwards, the second is, "The three action combat system of P2 makes tactical choices and feat options so meaningful! That's way more fun."
But the first is always, Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit. If you haven't seen this, well, straight off it's a great laugh. Then, sadly comes the realization that it's PF1 in a nutshell.
PF1 is not a well balanced game. After GMing it for decades, saying good bye to its character power disparity and inevitable break down at mid-levels was easier than I imagined. P2 will have longevity and will become a foundational inspiration for future d20 design.
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...[power] inequality can make gaming tables very uncomfortable as players take the spotlight. And PF1 is ripe with that. Ultra specialized characters can very much steal the spotlight and run the show and it can wreck lots of tables. Worst of all though is the well played spell caster (usually wizard but druid or cleric can also do it) that through spells can replace every other party members utility while also ending battles with 1-2 well placed control spells. At that point the rest of the party is just permanently on mop up duty. Angel summoner vs BMX bandit indeed. Not many people want to be marginalized like that. It’s not fun to spend hours every week playing a game where your actions basically don’t matter.When I hear players say they prefer PF1, this is one of two things that immediately spring to mind. Working backwards, the second is, "The three action combat system of P2 makes tactical choices and feat options so meaningful! That's way more fun."
But the first is always, Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit. If you haven't seen this, well, straight off it's a great laugh. Then, sadly comes the realization that it's PF1 in a nutshell.
PF1 is not a well balanced game. After GMing it for decades, saying good bye to its character power disparity and inevitable break down at mid-levels was easier than I imagined. P2 will have longevity and will become a foundational inspiration for future d20 design.
I laughed way too hard at Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. They even had Olivia Colman, one of the best actresses working today, as the first rescued victim.
Seeing how wizards and other spellcasters get far stronger after level 10, this is painfully accurate indeed.