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I strongly prefer PF2 over 5E, though I admit to much less experience with 5E. But as someone who primarily GMs, if I’m given a chance to play, I’ll play 5E. I’m not all that interested in running 5E, though this comment caught my attention:
- bounded accuracy makes sandbox play and hexcrawling fun with minimal rule changes required imo.I have a major itch to run a hexcrawl sandbox, and I’m just not sure PF2 is the system for that. Though Kingmaker 2E may change my mind and/or scratch that itch if I run int next year. My Pathfinder group is on Book 3 of Strength of Thousands and aren’t likely to jump ship before that finishes.
As was said by another proficiency without level is a must... but it damages a lot of the core balance of PF2e.
Personally I have tried to get in hexcrawling and sandbox play with PF2e but I don't think it is playing to the system's strengths. As a GM I just ended up wishing I was running another system more suited to it like Forbidden Lands, OSE advanced fantasy, Cypher System games or 5e.
Combats work best in PF2e if planned out, as does equipment and character progression imo. Playable ofc, but it is too easy to fall into the trap of lots of 5e players, trying to fit the system they like into every genre of play.
That said I think smaller sandboxes and hexcrawling sections can work. But that doesn't give the full sandbox exploration and development experience.
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I despise 5e, but one of my friend groups thinks it is far superior to PF2E and won't' give PF2E a try. So we still play 5E weekly. I'm in an online game to get my fix.
The whole friend group? Like every one of them?
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As was said by another proficiency without level is a must... but it damages a lot of the core balance of PF2e.
Have you used it? What does it damage?
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Been stuck playing 5e ever since it came out since everyone else in my groups prefers it. I much prefer the amount of options in PF1 and thankfully a new group started for it in the flgs.
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I despise 5e, but one of my friend groups thinks it is far superior to PF2E and won't' give PF2E a try. So we still play 5E weekly. I'm in an online game to get my fix.The whole friend group? Like every one of them?
I mean for a lot of groups, 5e IS a better game. Not everyone wants the complexity of PF2E. And many won't bother to try PF2E because they are so comfortable with 5e. (Asmodeus knows I should try more systems than I actually have.)
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Have you used it? What does it damage?
Yes and
- combat encounter difficulty (low number or single enemy fights significantly easier)
- critical threat ranges (+10-10)
- summoned creatures
- proportionate value of buffs when used on non static DCs
- incapacitation effects become more reliably powerful
- nerf to AoE effects with saves in larger battles
- lower value for in higher proficiency tiers
- static DC items become a lot more powerful for their levels
I am on the "I am not a fan of scaling proficiency every level" side and have been since the playtest. But the game is built and balanced around it, and it works best like that atm imo. Rebalance a bunch of rules, feats, spells, items and creatures
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I mean for a lot of groups, 5e IS a better game. Not everyone wants the complexity of PF2E. And many won't bother to try PF2E because they are so comfortable with 5e. (Asmodeus knows I should try more systems than I actually have.)
I only ask because usually what's going on is there's ONE GUY who absolutely REFUSES TO try anything new, and the group for some inexplicable reason lets this one guy have veto power over the rest of them. Oftentimes he's not even the 5e GM!
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How do the rules of PF2e inhibit hexcrawling or sandbox style games? Or to flip it on its head - what rules do other systems have that enable hexcrawling?
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How do the rules of PF2e inhibit hexcrawling or sandbox style games? Or to flip it on its head - what rules do other systems have that enable hexcrawling?
The tight encounter math and strict rulings on spells and out-of-combat actions mean that running into a higher-level encounter is much worse for a party in PF2 than it would be in say D&D 5e. Plus, PF2 is really best suited to tailored encounters designed either for the environment they take place in or, better still, tailored to the party's strengths and weaknesses to create a series of knife-edge balanced encounters that threaten doom but never quite get there. PF2 has a massive strength in these kinds of well-crafted combat puzzles but often feels lacking when played in a more freeform fashion where players don't treat combat as an optimization puzzle.
There's a certain appeal to D&D 5e's looser encounter math so where the party is rarely put into a situation that creative use of spells and abilities can't at least let them escape from. This can lead to 'dead' encounters where the party isn't challenged by something that, in theory, should challenge them but also allows for the DM to ramp things up to where a party is fighting enemies that feel better because the players know their [insert party level] group beat an encounter that is, supposedly, [x+party level] by the game's default math.
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How do the rules of PF2e inhibit hexcrawling or sandbox style games? Or to flip it on its head - what rules do other systems have that enable hexcrawling?
- characters have scaling modifiers and will outgrow standard challenges. It creates a world that feels like it is either being scaled to you and your exploits or has leveling zone boundaries like a mmo.
- the system doesn't have many options to wear players down over time outside of spell slots. And even then because of wands and scrolls the endurance of PF2e characters is very high.
- combats work better when planned out and a power differential tends to have a greater impact on the game than in many other systems. In 5e for instance you can stumble across an adult green dragon at level 5, not be seen and have a tense experience... or even trade one or two blows and run away. In PF2e they would be slaughtered and fast.
- item progression is important, and beyond the fundamental runes.
- characters tend to be less broad than say a 5e character, so their ability to adapt to unforseen events when they are higher level is more restrictive.
- characters take longer to make and are harder to replace due to the complexity
- combats are more complex and slower, tied with a player directed experience and random encounters this can mean (and I would even say will usually mean) that less progress will be made and pacing will be less than ideal for a sandbox environment.
- very little mechanical focus is placed on travel and survival mechanics, or day to day minutea
Again, I love pf2e, I think the system does very well at what it aims to do. And even small hexploration mini sandboxes can work for portions of an adventure, but large sprawling adentures in open sandboxes feel like trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole.
An example of a good sandbox rpg hexcrawl, Forbidden Lands. Another older one, old school essentials (aka B/X)
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How do the rules of PF2e inhibit hexcrawling or sandbox style games? Or to flip it on its head - what rules do other systems have that enable hexcrawling?- characters have scaling modifiers and will outgrow standard challenges. It creates a world that feels like it is either being scaled to you and your exploits or has leveling zone boundaries like a mmo.
- the system doesn't have many options to wear players down over time outside of spell slots. And even then because of wands and scrolls the endurance of PF2e characters is very high.
- combats work better when planned out and a power differential tends to have a greater impact on the game than in many other systems. In 5e for instance you can stumble across an adult green dragon at level 5, not be seen and have a tense experience... or even trade one or two blows and run away. In PF2e they would be slaughtered and fast.
- item progression is important, and beyond the fundamental runes.
- characters tend to be less broad than say a 5e character, so their ability to adapt to unforseen events when they are higher level is more restrictive.
- characters take longer to make and are harder to replace due to the complexity
- combats are more complex and slower, tied with a player directed experience and random encounters this can mean (and I would even say will usually mean) that less progress will be made and pacing will be less than ideal for a sandbox environment.
- very little mechanical focus is placed on travel and survival mechanics, or day to day minutea
Again, I love pf2e, I think the system does very well at what it aims to do. And even small hexploration mini sandboxes can work for portions of an adventure, but large sprawling adentures in open sandboxes feel like trying to fit a square peg into a circular hole.
An example of a good sandbox rpg hexcrawl, Forbidden Lands. Another older one, old school essentials (aka B/X)
Yeah, my group was looking at doing a hexcrawl with pf 2e and this was one of my concerns. I feel like after the eaeliest parts of the game, what it'll end up playing as is being a sandbox where the party goes out to points of interest, and the hexcrawling is mostly going to be a quick set dressing for travel.
I don't find it hard to improv a 2e encounter, and something like the green dragon example can be treated as something like a hazard/chase/etc, or make it a noncombat thing, like perhaps the dragon demands tribute or a favor from the party instead of just wanting to melt them in acid; but there are some limits to how high above your weight class that you can punch before you just get roflstomped.
To the point of not being broadly built though... that to me feels like a build failing; pf 2e doesn't really reward you for hyperfocusing your abilities, so there's no reason you cant have a character with a broad range of abilities. Most of the players in my table build themselves to be good at medium range of tasks, and then also be good at assisting others when their specities aren't the solution; or just generally being creative with their skills. The only one that really suffers with unexpected scenarios is the magus who has a hard time figuring out what to do if he can't spellstrike that turn, and even then, the character is theoretically versatile in and out of battle, it's just that the character is being ran bu someone whos mostly just interested in obliterating things with spellstrike
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Amusingly enough, when I mentioned wanting to look into 5e more, my group (who play both) talked me out of it. As near perma-GM, they wanted me to keep running Pathfinder because they said it allowed them more options for character creation and allowing them to make very different builds within the same class.
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Bumping into higher level areas being scary and challenging is a bonus to hexcrawls not a detriment in my opinion. Nothing says living open world to me better than having to turn tail and run.
I have also found PF2 is way way way bettet at just throwing an encounter together than 5e or pf1 3.5. Yeah you can tightly design some awesome PF2 encounters, but just grabbing a few appropriate enemies of the shelf yields a way more engaging encounter than doing the same in 5e. Just innately due to the combat system and better enemy design. Your group fumbles into an Owlbear nest in the forest? Slap a weak template onto two owlbears to represent juveniles and that is a darn fun encounter. I've nit even bothered with interesting terrain. Do the same thing in 5e? Ooh its time to trade hp again!
Y'know, this reminds me of another point that I feel gets overlooked, esp in a sandbox game: not every encounter needs to fill a narrative role as long as it was enjoyable. The game itself should be fun to experience regardless of the loot, exp, etc, so treating roadside encounters like this as irrelevant because they don't drain resources or advance the Plot (tm) is kinda missing the point.
Sandboxes tend to have emergent stories anyways, so killing two juvenile owlbears could turn into a story where momma owlbear goes on a rampage when she finds her kids dead and now the local area has a problem with owlbears gutting travelers on once peaceful roads.
Also, I think people forget retreating from a monster; any monster, can be done with the chase rules; they are explicitly set up to not factor move speed and ranged attacks so that you can run from archers and dragons and the like
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Frankly my 2cp is that 5e is a good, if not a great, gateway to rpgs in general, but ultimately is something that should probably be regarded as just that: a gateway. It really has very little substance once that's done with.
To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed by some trends I see in paizo and PF since its painfully clear that PF is trying and has always tried to do much more than 5e ever did but is kind of shackled by design choices.
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I ran a 5e home game from 2016 to 2021. I enjoyed providing the game to the players who were new to TTRPGs because they watched Critical Role, and made lifelong friends.
I've been a Pathfinder player since 2011, and really enjoy 2e a lot, but my 5e friends AND my Pathfinder 1e friends refuse to give it a real try, so it's mostly PFS games for me.
I'm still chasing the dragon of trying to find a Pathfinder Savage Worlds game, which is an AWESOME system.
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I no longer also play 5e but it is mainly because the reliable and relatable group of gamers I play TTRPGs with and I just don't really dig it that much, it's too insubstantial and not meaty enough.
The OTHER groups of gamers in the area that do run 5e games... I don't jive with, they're a bit too... um, zoomer brained, for a lack of a better term, for my tastes. Every single session I tried with the three groups I found through the years was 90% socialization and derails, 5% roleplaying, and 5% incorrectly using the rules and/or stopping the game to look at and laugh at the rules. Over half of the time most players were just chitchatting, sharing memes, staring at their phones, talking anime or furry culture, and making constant and non-stop instagram/tik-tok in-jokes... not my speed at all, but to be fair to 5e, I don't blame the game itself for that but rather mainly just the youth culture and difficulty in finding more grown gamers in my area.
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.
One thing I do know is that people are also waaaay too apt to think monsters will attack on sight of the PCs, but like, realistically, sharks dont eat every fish they see, humans dont kill every smaller creature than them, etc; so bumping into a a big nasty doesn't have to be a fight
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.One thing I do know is that people are also waaaay too apt to think monsters will attack on sight of the PCs, but like, realistically, sharks dont eat every fish they see, humans dont kill every smaller creature than them, etc; so bumping into a a big nasty doesn't have to be a fight
What on Golarion happens if the PCs fail the chase scene, The-Magic-Sword? Are they forced to fight a superior foe while winded.
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.One thing I do know is that people are also waaaay too apt to think monsters will attack on sight of the PCs, but like, realistically, sharks dont eat every fish they see, humans dont kill every smaller creature than them, etc; so bumping into a a big nasty doesn't have to be a fightWhat on Golarion happens if the PCs fail the chase scene, The-Magic-Sword? Are they forced to fight a superior foe while winded.
** spoiler omitted **
They don't all have to fight, just the player with the slowest movement speed.
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.One thing I do know is that people are also waaaay too apt to think monsters will attack on sight of the PCs, but like, realistically, sharks dont eat every fish they see, humans dont kill every smaller creature than them, etc; so bumping into a a big nasty doesn't have to be a fightWhat on Golarion happens if the PCs fail the chase scene, The-Magic-Sword? Are they forced to fight a superior foe while winded.
** spoiler omitted **
Depends on the exact context, but at least one of them gets caught and most likely dies based on what the thing chasing them wants to do to begin with, with the others getting away as a result. Resurrection ain't that hard in this game, we have the many undead facing character options, its pretty reasonable.
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I have done the hexcrawl full level sandbox thing in pf2e now, it works well so long as you're willing to let your players sense the levels of other creatures and use the chase rules from the GMG as ad hoc retreats.One thing I do know is that people are also waaaay too apt to think monsters will attack on sight of the PCs, but like, realistically, sharks dont eat every fish they see, humans dont kill every smaller creature than them, etc; so bumping into a a big nasty doesn't have to be a fight
APs often condition this response, IMO. The good ones do include monsters you can talk to, but even most of them will try attacking you eventually. The game is so focused on tactical combat that most things push you in that direction.
I'd like it if we started seeing "conflict de-escalation stats" as the norm in APs, even if they are difficult or require specific feats like Glad Hand or Wild Empathy. Particularly with intelligent enemies. Many should demand surrender at least before attacking. But people want to fight stuff.
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The very first time my wife sat down to play 1e, I rolled a rando encounter for their level 2-3 party and it was like a CR 10 dino.
First of all, I was really wrinkling my brain trying to figure out why the eff a Late Jurassic-era dinosaur was stomping around the forests near a Dwarven harbor, but after that I realized this thing might TPK them if I just put it in front of them, so it was more like a cinematic encounter of them watching this gigantic reptile stomping through the forest and marveling at it and wondering why it was there.
Not everything has to be a fight.
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The very first time my wife sat down to play 1e, I rolled a rando encounter for their level 2-3 party and it was like a CR 10 dino.
First of all, I was really wrinkling my brain trying to figure out why the eff a Late Jurassic-era dinosaur was stomping around the forests near a Dwarven harbor, but after that I realized this thing might TPK them if I just put it in front of them, so it was more like a cinematic encounter of them watching this gigantic reptile stomping through the forest and marveling at it and wondering why it was there.
Not everything has to be a fight.
I did similar things with random encounters in Ironfang Invasion. Just seeing monsters existing in the world makes the world feel real.
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I despise 5e, but one of my friend groups thinks it is far superior to PF2E and won't' give PF2E a try. So we still play 5E weekly. I'm in an online game to get my fix.The whole friend group? Like every one of them?
There's one player who wants to try it, but he's also got a reputation as the "min-maxing number cruncher" so he's not really helping me convince the others and is only confirming their biases.
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I was very excited for 5e but got to it a year late.
3 sessions in I realized I hated the system.
Stuck with it for over a year. For my real life friends. But it was a struggle.
With wotc in the news and what they are doing with one DND? Not only do I dislike the system. I've grown to dislike the company and how they intentionally follow behind the smaller companies and get lauded as if they were leading the pack.
Wich really ties into certain noteworthy members of the community and their intentionally bad faith takes and near slander of a system I do enjoy?
If my friends were to use any supported wotc system I'd likely not participate until the game has concluded. Even if it meant I don't get to play any ttrpg
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I have the books, but have never actually PLAYED 5e. I rarely have my copy of the 5e PHB because my brother borrows it. As for me, the only D&D I play nowadays is a bizarre mashup of 1e and 2e AD&D, 5e D&D, Talislanta and a copious amount of homebrew the DM has had percolating since the 80's typed up on a TYPEWRITER. He calls it Cauldron.
I was very excited for 5e but got to it a year late.
3 sessions in I realized I hated the system.
Stuck with it for over a year. For my real life friends. But it was a struggle.
With wotc in the news and what they are doing with one DND? Not only do I dislike the system. I've grown to dislike the company and how they intentionally follow behind the smaller companies and get lauded as if they were leading the pack.
Wich really ties into certain noteworthy members of the community and their intentionally bad faith takes and near slander of a system I do enjoy?
If my friends were to use any supported wotc system I'd likely not participate until the game has concluded. Even if it meant I don't get to play any ttrpg
Everybody dumps on WotC, but it's really their parent company Hasbro that makes most of the terrible decisions (other than the creative choices that made 4e an inferior game).
Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e are similar games, but key differences (action economy, saving throws, the skill system, and bounded accuracy in general) separate them enough that mental effort is required to translate between them.
How many people on these boards also play 5e? And how do you split your time and attention between them if you do both?
I had hoped to count myself among those that would play both. But everytime I opened my 5E books I just felt uninspired. More recently when I told myself to 'get over the art and layout and just look at the game system' I went right to looking over Wizard and Sorcerer and it felt like Wizard was just Sorcerer but better. Both of them are what PF2E would see as spontaneous casters - yet at every step the Wizard has more and I was left wondering why the Sorcerer had not been removed from the game. Sorcerer was only added in 3E to address players that didn't like prepared casting. 5E got rid of prepared casting for Wizards, and yet didn't give Sorcerers a new niche to fill.
To me that just spoke volumes about design in isolation failing to account for or balance in other aspects of the game.
For all the 'casters aren't powerful enough' debates I see, as a player who loves casters and hates vancian casting... I actually prefer PF2E spellcasters, including really liking the PF2E wizard. I like it because I can easily look at a character I make in it and know where I fit in the balance of things, know what my niche is and that I or another class are not pointless as a result (even when I compare witch and wizard - which is arguably the closest example of one making another feel pointless).
From there my perceptions just start to spiral out into all the other things I hear about - confusion over how many actions you have when this is free, that is bonus, that is regular, that is move, and the other thing is something else, and so on. Issues with magic items, the very existence of min-max builds, problems with higher level play, and so on all serve to keep my interest in 5E low.
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I had hoped to count myself among those that would play both. But everytime I opened my 5E books I just felt uninspired. More recently when I told myself to 'get over the art and layout and just look at the game system' I went right to looking over Wizard and Sorcerer and it felt like Wizard was just Sorcerer but better. Both of them are what PF2E would see as spontaneous casters - yet at every step the Wizard has more and I was left wondering why the Sorcerer had not been removed from the game. Sorcerer was only added in 3E to address players that didn't like prepared casting. 5E got rid of prepared casting for Wizards, and yet didn't give Sorcerers a new niche to fill.Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e are similar games, but key differences (action economy, saving throws, the skill system, and bounded accuracy in general) separate them enough that mental effort is required to translate between them.
How many people on these boards also play 5e? And how do you split your time and attention between them if you do both?
Sorcerers in 5e aren't any worse off than classes like Alchemist and Witch are in PF2. They also have niches, like multiclassing into Paladin, that Wizard just doesn't fill. In a vacuum, they are a strictly weaker class, but 5e doesn't need a ton of optimization to function and is honestly probably best played at like 70% power to avoid tedium and solved encounters.
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I despise 5e, but one of my friend groups thinks it is far superior to PF2E and won't' give PF2E a try. So we still play 5E weekly. I'm in an online game to get my fix.
I'm in the same position (2 groups of friends no less!!!). Since I haven't been able to find anything online or offline I've taken to just doing Pathfinder Society. It's honestly a lot of fun for what it is. It's limiting, but sometimes limitations breed creativity.
So if you ever just want to drop into a 1 hour little bounty to fight 1 thing or do a quick 2-4 hour session (Scenario) these little pop ups or planned sessions can be quite fun.
I do wish I could play a "real" adventure though.
Everybody dumps on WotC, but it's really their parent company Hasbro that makes most of the terrible decisions (other than the creative choices that made 4e an inferior game).I was very excited for 5e but got to it a year late.
3 sessions in I realized I hated the system.
Stuck with it for over a year. For my real life friends. But it was a struggle.
With wotc in the news and what they are doing with one DND? Not only do I dislike the system. I've grown to dislike the company and how they intentionally follow behind the smaller companies and get lauded as if they were leading the pack.
Wich really ties into certain noteworthy members of the community and their intentionally bad faith takes and near slander of a system I do enjoy?
If my friends were to use any supported wotc system I'd likely not participate until the game has concluded. Even if it meant I don't get to play any ttrpg
Absolutely untrue
Wotc has some good people, every company does
But they are just as if not more guilty of what happened.
I'm never giving them a penny knowingly again as long as I live
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The current CEO of Hasbro is Chris Cocks, who was promoted to the position from his prior post as President and COO of Wizards of the Coast. This promotion was last year. Separating the decisions of the two companies is just incorrect.
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I was very excited for 5e but got to it a year late.
3 sessions in I realized I hated the system.
Stuck with it for over a year. For my real life friends. But it was a struggle.
With wotc in the news and what they are doing with one DND? Not only do I dislike the system. I've grown to dislike the company and how they intentionally follow behind the smaller companies and get lauded as if they were leading the pack.
Wich really ties into certain noteworthy members of the community and their intentionally bad faith takes and near slander of a system I do enjoy?
If my friends were to use any supported wotc system I'd likely not participate until the game has concluded. Even if it meant I don't get to play any ttrpg
I picked up 5e and disliked it from my very first read. It was clear they had replaced one disfunctional system where saving throws at high level suceeded on a 2 with another where many saving throws got worse at high level. (Spell DCS go up but 4 of your 6 your saving throws likely don't) Then I played a couple of sessions and realised all the Monster ACs were terrible, PCs could become unhitable, and advantage was all but guaranteed, and you could literally run laps around your enemy with no AoO. It was a lightweight game designed for the casual gamer. Sure it was accessible but it had no meat on it. You obviously can build a rich campaign in it, if you do the work. I still do play the odd game of it, but it is never my preference.
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That is such a bizarre assessment of 5e but fair enough.