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I suspect I'd like a 60% rules to 40% lore split. More importantly to me though is that said rules are organized in such a fashion as to be easily found, utilized, and referenced.
An ability, feat, or item does me no good if I can't ever find it (or worse, was wholly unaware of it) because it is buried deep in a lore entry that is only tangentially related to the mechanical ability itself.
PF2 would not be a good game without a searchable online rules index.
It just would not be possible for typical players to handle the complexity without it.
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I miss having the old PRD as an offline app on my phone.
I miss having the old PRD as an offline app on my phone.
You didn't download it before it went away?
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Sort of a mixed bag. I generally think books like SoM and GnG are good books and I like the mix of information in them, but at the same time it has sort of felt like with the two lines of books being one book that's almost entirely lore and another that's a mix of lore and rules that heavy mechanical options have taken a backseat.
I know Paizo has said they're putting out as much or more content than before, but I've had players express frustration with the pacing of new mechanical options regardless.
... Though I wonder if part of that has less to do with the actual content pacing and more to do with PF2's overall design. PF1's PPCs could print a spell, throw it on twelve spell lists and print a handful of feats that a half dozen classes would all want.
PF2 giving each class its own unique pool of options makes it a lot harder to just shotgun out something new everyone can appreciate. Archetypes exist, but they're intentionally a limited commodity, so their impact is diminished a bit.
So while every decision Paizo has made sense on its own, I can understand a sense of frustration at how slow class specific options have been. The idea that if a class path isn't quite right for you, or that if there's a level that really feels dead feat wise... that you're going to have to probably wait years for anything to change, assuming it ever does.
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I think one thing is that Paizo wants to avoid when a Players Companion had option that was worthless (e.g. "Monkey Lunge"), totally bananas (e.g. "Sacred Geometry") or extremely unclear (e.g. "Bladed Brush"). So any time there's new rules we need a lot of eyes and hands on them (after the Shifter thing, they decided that every class needs to be playtested.)
Whereas when it comes to lore you don't need that many people to look at something, and it's mostly "this fits in the setting" or "this needs to be reworked for these reasons" since you don't need to test setting information. So something like most Lost Omens Legends or the Mwangi book can be given to a bunch of talented writers (many of which are freelancers) and the results can be fantastic. But if we need new spells, feats, archetypes, ancestries, or classes that's harder to do without the attention to some of the Paizo team.
Like there are people on this forum you could very much trust to write like "some rites of Shelyn" for publication, but most of us should probably not have our hands on the game math.
Which the whole trying to keep power level down has in fact created the opposite problem and made even more things that are underpowered, not less.
What
I think one thing is that Paizo wants to avoid when a Players Companion had option that was worthless (e.g. "Monkey Lunge"), totally bananas (e.g. "Sacred Geometry") or extremely unclear (e.g. "Bladed Brush"). So any time there's new rules we need a lot of eyes and hands on them (after the Shifter thing, they decided that every class needs to be playtested.)
Whereas when it comes to lore you don't need that many people to look at something, and it's mostly "this fits in the setting" or "this needs to be reworked for these reasons" since you don't need to test setting information. So something like most Lost Omens Legends or the Mwangi book can be given to a bunch of talented writers (many of which are freelancers) and the results can be fantastic. But if we need new spells, feats, archetypes, ancestries, or classes that's harder to do without the attention to some of the Paizo team.
Like there are people on this forum you could very much trust to write like "some rites of Shelyn" for publication, but most of us should probably not have our hands on the game math.
There are, of course, many ways to absolutely beef the writing of new and old lore, and PF2E has seen a few already, so it's still worth applying a good deal of oversight to it. But yes, it probably saves on developer attention and decisions by The Committee™ (because I assume for the bigger or more annoying questions they have a Committee™) to let some of the pages on any particular subject be taken up by lore.
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PF2 would not be a good game without a searchable online rules index.
It just would not be possible for typical players to handle the complexity without it.
Oh tosh, they are great resources but they are far from essential/stop the game from being good in their absence. The typical player isn't trying to squeeze every ounce out of the game, the CRB is easy to reference barring a few niche elements that were tucked away in weird places (repeat knowledge checks, settlement levels and such).
The main issue people have with the CRB organisation isn't that it is badly organised or indexed, but that it is organised differently to past Pathfinder and D&D books.
Not saying it is perfect but I have reading averse players who have been using the CRB for every levelup since launch.
If the 3.5 tables I have run/been a part of can handle physical books only, PF2e with its far better index, tags and coherent rules design is significantly easier to learn/play/create characters with.
Now, charactersheets... pf2e certainly has some of the worst character sheets I have had the misfortune of using.
I miss having the old PRD as an offline app on my phone.You didn't download it before it went away?
Of course I did. But it eventually broke.
Also, it didn’t have PF2 on the one I’m talking about, so it’s not like it would be relevant now anyways.
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...how do you feel about the ratio of rules to lore in the recent books? Feels like they are way more lore heavyAre you distinguishing between the rulebook product line and the Lost Omens (setting) product line?
^^^THIS!^^^
I don't seen a reason we cannot have our cake and eat it too. The Rulebook line should concern itself primarily with game rules and I think it does that with just enough lore to tie the rules to the campaign world. This is important so we can better understand when/where the designers want their rules to apply. OTOH, the Lost Omens line is perfectly suited for lore, which by its very definition is campaign specific. This where we learn about the Who/what/why and get a smattering of rules based on the lore, like archetypes, backgrounds, etc.
While I am sure everyone has their own comfort level for what constitutes the "right" mix of crunch vs fluff, I think 2E has done an excellent job with that mix. YMMV.
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CRB is easy to reference barring a few niche elements that were tucked away in weird places (repeat knowledge checks, settlement levels and such).
*Stares up into the old Grognard's eyes with the countenance of a sad, wide-eyed orphan*
Please sah, where might they be found?
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I find rules without lore/story/narrative backing them to be incredibly boring.
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For me, if the difference between a pure rulebook and a rulebook with lore tied in is filler archetypes and feats id rather have the latter. I don't think we could get continuous apg styled books without falling into bloat and traps.
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I find rules without lore/story/narrative backing them to be incredibly boring.
I have bad memories of reading new classes in 4e where the book was just pages and pages of stuff like:
Encounter Martial Weapon
Standard Melee
One Creature
Dexterity vs. AC
2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and ongoing damage equal to 5 + your Strength modifier
And my eyes just glazing over.