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The DM Lair team just released a video, with 18 minutes of PF2e love, explaining why they are transitioning to majority PF2e content. This includes their Lair Magazine which already reads "5E and PF2 GM Resources"
Why I’m Ditching D&D 5e and Moving to Pathfinder 2e
https://youtu.be/H9rEJiAFXY4
"..why don't we just use a game system that is better designed instead?"
One by one!
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You know, this is probably going to sound Gatekeepy, and I don't mean it to be, but I'm not sure I want *all* D&D 5e players to come to PF2E.
I think it's pretty much like League of Legends vs Dota 2 players. One is fast, casual friendly, and lighter on mechanics. The other is famously impenetrable, rules (mechanics) heavy with heroes like Invoker or the guy who splits into 5 of himself and you have to have insane Micro to use and much more, plus denying your own minions, farming is harder, supports spike harder, there's no B button or anything, and it's overall more dense.
I bounced off DotA 2 because it wasn't for me. Not every game is for every person you know?
I'm always happy to hear more people enjoying a game I love, but One by one makes me pause...because what's the goal here. Like why? Why do we need or expect everyone to play PF2E? There's nothing inherently wrong with 5e. I feel I've personally outgrown it, and it no longer appeals to *me* but, like for example, I don't think I can imagine the cast of Critical Role enjoying or wanting to play PF2E myself. Maybe they'd love it. Maybe Matt Mercer would cry tears of relief at running it after years of basically rewriting 5e to be a game he'd rather play (from what it appears lol, so much DM work). But..yeah idk I don't think they'd like it as much?
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I'll say... I love PF2, and I gladly welcome anyone who tries it and likes it. More players more better... and anyone who hears what PF2 has to offer and thinks it sounds like it might be nice should try it.
At the same time, I expect that there's a sizable fraction of the current 5e players who would not like it if they tried it... and that's okay. PF2 does certain things very well... and not everyone actually wants those things. Again, that's okay.
So, glad to welcome more folks in, and getting the word out is great... but maybe don't be too pushy about it.
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I'll say... I love PF2, and I gladly welcome anyone who tries it and likes it. More players more better... and anyone who hears what PF2 has to offer and thinks it sounds like it might be nice should try it.
At the same time, I expect that there's a sizable fraction of the current 5e players who would not like it if they tried it... and that's okay. PF2 does certain things very well... and not everyone actually wants those things. Again, that's okay.
So, glad to welcome more folks in, and getting the word out is great... but maybe don't be too pushy about it.
I think you said what I was trying to say but better. Probably have higher charisma than me lol.
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Uh...why don't you let them make that determination?
EDIT: And you know...Critical Role started with PF1. I'm betting they'd settle into PF2 just fine. (Feels like you're really taking a dig at others...while I get you're L33t, I really don't think it belongs on these forums...)
Making an observation that they are an RP Heavy party who does not optimize and do not seem to get deep into the mechanics isn't a dig. It's a playstyle preference.
This leads me to the true, or potentially false, conclusion that they may bounce off the more mechanically complex PF2E. Especially since they *left* PF1E and didn't stick to it for the entirety of their campaign.
I'm sorry if it feels like a dig to you. To me it's just preference. Some people really don't want to dig in. I know a person who won't play PF2E because it doesn't have a version of 5e's Warlock class. They are not interested in doing anything else outside of Eldritch Blast and nothing can convince them otherwise, and that's okay. Warlocks and Eldritch blast are literally fun.
I was already subscribed to The DM Lair on YouTube, though Ron Cruz's The Rules Lawyer is my favorite YouTube channel about roleplaying games. It is nice that The DM Lair will have PF2 content, but its content was worth watching when about other systems.
You know, this is probably going to sound Gatekeepy, and I don't mean it to be, but I'm not sure I want *all* D&D 5e players to come to PF2E.
I think it's pretty much like League of Legends vs Dota 2 players. One is fast, casual friendly, and lighter on mechanics. The other is famously impenetrable, rules (mechanics) heavy with heroes ....
I have a strange gap in my roleplaying experience with Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Chthulu, GURPS, L5R, Iron Kingdoms, etc. I have played AD&D, D&D 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, and 4th Edition. But I have not played D&D 5th Edition. I was just too busy GMing Pathfinder when 5th Edition came out.
From secondhand accounts, I assumed that D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder were both well-designed games that served two different niches. D&D was the entry-level game, a quick start for new players or a simply pastime for casual players. Pathfinder was the more detailed game for people who wanted more customization and immersion in their tabletop roleplaying. I have a lot of goodwill toward Wizards of the Coast, because I liked their Magic: The Gathering and D&D 3rd Edition games. Though 4th Edition was not to my taste, I see it as an honest attempt to balance the game and reach out to new players.
Now I hear more about a few flaws in D&D 5th Edition. All games have flaws, but apparently PF2 has avoided many and the contrast is noticeable.
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I was already subscribed to The DM Lair on YouTube, though Ron Cruz's The Rules Lawyer is my favorite YouTube channel about roleplaying games. It is nice that The DM Lair will have PF2 content, but its content was worth watching when about other systems.
You know, this is probably going to sound Gatekeepy, and I don't mean it to be, but I'm not sure I want *all* D&D 5e players to come to PF2E.
I think it's pretty much like League of Legends vs Dota 2 players. One is fast, casual friendly, and lighter on mechanics. The other is famously impenetrable, rules (mechanics) heavy with heroes ....
I have a strange gap in my roleplaying experience with Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Chthulu, GURPS, L5R, Iron Kingdoms, etc. I have played AD&D, D&D 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, and 4th Edition. But I have not played D&D 5th Edition. I was just too busy GMing Pathfinder when 5th Edition came out.
From secondhand accounts, I assumed that D&D 5th Edition and Pathfinder were both well-designed games that served two different niches. D&D was the entry-level game, a quick start for new players or a simply pastime for casual players. Pathfinder was the more detailed game for people who wanted more customization and immersion in their tabletop roleplaying. I have a lot of goodwill toward Wizards of the Coast, because I liked their Magic: The Gathering and D&D 3rd Edition games. Though 4th Edition was not to my taste, I see it as an honest attempt to balance the game and reach out to new players.
Now I hear more about a few flaws in D&D 5th Edition. All games have flaws, but apparently PF2 has avoided many and the contrast is noticeable.
That's very true. It does have flaws, and that's okay. So does PF2E in its own way, as does every game. Age of Sigmar is pretty flawed, but the balance is roughly 45-55% winrate for almost every army and it's growing bigger by the day.
I just don't know if it's necessary to recruit every single person from D&D 5e to PF2E. I think anyone who wants to try it out should, but I don't think there should be some weird pressure to *make* people play this.
If people are having fun and genuinely enjoying D&D 5e, they should do that, and it should be encouraged. I have nothing against 5e, I just don't want to it play it myself anymore and I'd be bummed if people were trying to make me play it when I know I'm just not that into it.
Now I hear more about a few flaws in D&D 5th Edition. All games have flaws, but apparently PF2 has avoided many and the contrast is noticeable.
5e is notably less flawed in many of these ways than 3rd ed was. 3.x got pretty bad. It's just that PF2 does things like game balance really impressively well, and 5e has (apparently) been slowly decaying over time as it adds new stuff.
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If D&D wasn't ubiquitous with roleplaying in a lot of the public's mind I think it would just be an above-average meh fantasy setting system and no better or worse than Castles and Crusades, Pathfinder, etc. and I wouldn't have any antipathy towards it.
I'm sure it's a great ruleset, but I don't play things for their ruleset, I play it for what they create with that ruleset, and 5e is just stagnant. I couldn't care less about the lost mines of Phandelver, or yet another Ravenloft reboot. Not even Krynn is really interesting since it's just a side story. If you want the real plot of Shadow of the Dragon Queen, go read the books. These things don't matter. None of it matters. Next edition they'll just be back. FR is gonna be FR forever. Give me Pathfinder where my group's characters now sit on thrones as kings or retainers of high-level characters or Starfinder where they shut down the Death Star moments away from it destroying Absalom Station.
But that's not the world we live in anymore sadly. At some point in the 2010's D&D became synonymous with TTRPG's among the uninformed, to the hobby's detriment. Everyone wants to buy from and work for Wizards the same way people were crazy for Microsoft in the 90's, with the same predatory and anti-competitive practices.
Maybe we're pulling back from that now that Wizards of the Coast is the only thing keeping Hasbro solvent and they're desperately flailing to wring cash out of it like TSR in the late 80's/early 90's. Until then I'm going to keep saying "Have you tried not playing D&D?"
I didn't recognize the name DM's Lair but as soon as I started watching the video I realized this is one of the guy's I've been seeing a lot as a guest recently on Roll for Combat and The Rules Lawyer.
I'd gotten so used to seeing him on Roll For Combat that I forgot he was on Rules Lawyer because he was with the crowd of 5E Influencers trying out PF2E live on stream.
Always glad to see more converts. As someone who is somewhat new to PF2E myself (but not because I left 5E, rather I left tRPGs 20 years ago, and came back only recently), it's good to see the field growing.
When he says 11-minutes into the linked video that D&D is known to be rules light and easy to pick up, which can be true, but that there are tons of situations that are not covered so the GM has to wing it...
Decades ago before I left tRPGs games like BESM and Theatrix were getting cheered for being rules light. But I found them nightmares to run or play because you'd spend half the game session having no guidance on how to resolve a situation. I'm a good ad-libber so I could do it on the fly - but that would mean the 'game' we were playing would vary sessions by session and according to my random mood. If I forgot that last session that action gave them a +3, today it might give a -3... No ability for the players to know what's going to happen when they try to do something. No ability even for me as a GM to know until it happened and I made a call based on whim, and very unlikely I'd make the same call the next time.
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When he says 11-minutes into the linked video that D&D is known to be rules light and easy to pick up, which can be true, but that there are tons of situations that are not covered so the GM has to wing it...
Decades ago before I left tRPGs games like BESM and Theatrix were getting cheered for being rules light. But I found them nightmares to run or play because you'd spend half the game session having no guidance on how to resolve a situation. I'm a good ad-libber so I could do it on the fly - but that would mean the 'game' we were playing would vary sessions by session and according to my random mood. If I forgot that last session that action gave them a +3, today it might give a -3... No ability for the players to know what's going to happen when they try to do something. No ability even for me as a GM to know until it happened and I made a call based on whim, and very unlikely I'd make the same call the next time.
Rules light only seems to be celebrated by people who don't actually want to read rulebooks or, you know, learn a game.
Just in my experience. Still playing with a guy who after literal real life years is still confused which die to use for an attack roll versus damage roll or like how basic checks function.
At least his characters are funny and cool :) Sir Branomir's player might not have much of an idea of how 5e works, but he's a badass in combat and as a Paladin, just generally useful by virtue of *being there*. So I guess there's something to say about that too. (A character can be good even if their player barely knows how they work).
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Nerds judging other nerds based on their choice of game? Sorry, bubbles, whatever edition you're playing, you'll never be as cool as we jocks are. Now what are those funny dice you got there?
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But that's not the world we live in anymore sadly. At some point in the 2010's D&D became synonymous with TTRPG's among the uninformed, to the hobby's detriment. Everyone wants to buy from and work for Wizards the same way people were crazy for Microsoft in the 90's, with the same predatory and anti-competitive practices.
Maybe we're pulling back from that now that Wizards of the Coast is the only thing keeping Hasbro solvent and they're desperately flailing to wring cash out of it like TSR in the late 80's/early 90's. Until then I'm going to keep saying "Have you tried not playing D&D?"
Just to say... the reason "D&D became synonymous with TTRPGs among the uninformed" is because they drew in huge numbers of people who'd never played before. The people who started thinking "RPG = D&D" in the 2010s didn't care enough to have any sort of opinion at all before then.
So in some ways, WotC is doing the rest of the hobby a great service, by first drawing in large numbers of people who've never played before, getting them hooked, and then driving them away afterwards.
It's not the first time this cycle has occurred, with D&D specifically.
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But that's not the world we live in anymore sadly. At some point in the 2010's D&D became synonymous with TTRPG's among the uninformed, to the hobby's detriment. Everyone wants to buy from and work for Wizards the same way people were crazy for Microsoft in the 90's, with the same predatory and anti-competitive practices.
Naw, that happened in the 1970s.
This hobby has been referred to as 'playing D&D' by the outside world since the 1970s, and is referred to that inside the hobby as well, often even by players who have themselves never even played D&D...
And in this entire time, the only time D&D ever actually had the better fantasy system was from the launch of 3.0 to about a year or two after the launch of 3.5. For most of the time before and after - the best games have been small obscure systems that only a handful of people ever knew about, and then for a short while PF1E because it was really 3.75 - but 3.75's rules have aged poorly (or rather aged well, but everything eventually ages out).
We might all have our different opinions over what's the best made system out there - but even many D&D players have never felt it was actually D&D. It's usually only the people have not tried anything else that feel D&D is best.
Most people play it because they play it, which they do because they play it. It's a circular room with no windows or doors.
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I'll say... I love PF2, and I gladly welcome anyone who tries it and likes it. More players more better... and anyone who hears what PF2 has to offer and thinks it sounds like it might be nice should try it.
At the same time, I expect that there's a sizable fraction of the current 5e players who would not like it if they tried it... and that's okay. PF2 does certain things very well... and not everyone actually wants those things. Again, that's okay.
So, glad to welcome more folks in, and getting the word out is great... but maybe don't be too pushy about it.
Former 5e players who don't get what they want from PF2 should try Wicked Ones instead. That game even has rules for a more standard adventuring party now if you're not into playing monsters.
Paizo has a pretty well-defined niche and has been successful in it, I definitely agree that chasing down players that aren't interested in what they have to offer isn't going to help them. Still, there are clearly a lot of 5e players who want what PF2 is doing. The crowd with pages upon pages of house rules trying to fix the balance of 5e will almost certainly be happier in a crunchy game like Pathfinder.
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Making an observation that they are an RP Heavy party who does not optimize and do not seem to get deep into the mechanics isn't a dig. It's a playstyle preference.
I've always found this notion funny because dnd (yes, even 5e) is actually a really rules dense game, and people like that are better served by rules light or rules "medium" games. D20 games are by convention at this point, very dense with rules.
Like, all of the people who claim to be super into the RP and don't like "rules getting in the way" add MORE rules to the game to make it into a much clunkier pbta adjacent game (which is by default a MUCH lighter rule system!). Like at that point, just play pbta, it'll be more fun
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Making an observation that they are an RP Heavy party who does not optimize and do not seem to get deep into the mechanics isn't a dig. It's a playstyle preference.I've always found this notion funny because dnd (yes, even 5e) is actually a really rules dense game, and people like that are better served by rules light or rules "medium" games. D20 games are by convention at this point, very dense with rules.
Like, all of the people who claim to be super into the RP and don't like "rules getting in the way" add MORE rules to the game to make it into a much clunkier pbta adjacent game (which is by default a MUCH lighter rule system!). Like at that point, just play pbta, it'll be more fun
I watched one and a half seasons of Critical Role. Best I can say without insulting anyone (hopefully) is they definitely lean on rule of cool. Like I don't think it's a secret that throwing daggers is probably not the strongest way to play the Rogue class, but damn if it isn't cool.
Vex'alia (the beast master ranger) never really used her bear. It's often cited Ranger is the weakest class, with Beastmaster being the weakest subclass of the weakest class...but damn if it isn't cool!
etc etc.. I mean Scanlan's player (Sam) literally said "What is the worst thing you can be in D&D?" and got his race/class from that question. Which is apparently Gnome Bard. I don't know what "worst" means here (I wasn't there for the conversation, that's just how he explain it.) Then again, since they started in PF1E maybe gnome (and bards?) were much worse in that, and incidentally became more useable/better in 5e.
Also I'm like 80% sure most of the things he does with Bigby's Hand don't actually work like that...but it's cool so who cares. :D
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Gnome bard is such a weird thing to say is "worst", since in pf1, it was a solid combo with a lot of stat synergy, and in basically every system, bard is a really good class since AoE force multiplying is just generally a good thing to do
But tbh, all that is just more to my point that an actual rules light game would let you play a dagger chucking rogue or a beastmaster ranger or get freakin wild with magical hand spells and have it actually work well instead of fighting the mechanics and having it work in spite of the rules
IIRC, 5E was a return to form after how 4E was poorly received, while P2E is seen as an updated P1E, which was an alternate updated 3.5E.
I personally lost faith in WotC when 4E introduced "once per encounter" rules and nerfed the entire system, ditching the idea of "one die times my level equal your BBEG is almost dead".
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Personally, I actually really enjoyed 4e, it was very streamlined and smooth for the types of games it was made for, and I actually like the at will/encounter/daily setup for bread and butter moves, exerting power blows, and "ultimate attacks", respectively. Imo, pf 2e does encounter powers better with it's focus system, but hey
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IIRC, 5E was a return to form after how 4E was poorly received, while P2E is seen as an updated P1E, which was an alternate updated 3.5E.
I personally lost faith in WotC when 4E introduced "once per encounter" rules and nerfed the entire system, ditching the idea of "one die times my level equal your BBEG is almost dead".
PF2 is very much a spiritual successor of 4E, it too has "encounter powers", it's just that it doesn't call them so and cleverly disguises them as focus spells and 1 minute duration abilities/spells. It seems to be working well, you didn't notice.
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It's amazing what grounding a mechanic in fluff can do for improving the entire experience. Almost as if the two are interlinked.
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It's amazing what grounding a mechanic in fluff can do for improving the entire experience. Almost as if the two are interlinked.
It's more of a case of slyly avoiding the words that trigger some part of the playerbase while getting the intended design working. Given how many 4E designers worked on PF2, it's no surprise to see some of the better design ideas from that ed resurface, even if "cloaked".
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PF2 is very much a spiritual successor of 4E, it too has "encounter powers", it's just that it doesn't call them so and cleverly disguises them as focus spells and 1 minute duration abilities/spells. It seems to be working well, you didn't notice.IIRC, 5E was a return to form after how 4E was poorly received, while P2E is seen as an updated P1E, which was an alternate updated 3.5E.
I personally lost faith in WotC when 4E introduced "once per encounter" rules and nerfed the entire system, ditching the idea of "one die times my level equal your BBEG is almost dead".
The differences are that
1) I can have more focus points as I level up (up to 3);2) those spells have a much bigger payoff (hello "1d6 x my level", how I miss thee [similar formula]);
3) and I have way more options than those (feats, spells, weapons, name it).
In short, in P2E, you don't depend on focus spells, compared to 4E where most of your kit was made of encounter powers. I swear, for 1 at-will power you had, you received 9 encounter ones.
Without starting an "edition war", encounter powers felt limiting like these:
- Imagine in a fighting game where you can use your special moves once per round
- Imagine in a first-person shooter where you can reload once per spawn
- Imagine in a MOBA where you can use each spell once per spawn
- Imagine in a platformer where you can use your double jump once per level
I get it was supposed to look like a MMORPG, but when you forget the idea of RECOVERY TIME, there's a problem. If these had a recovery time of 1 round/power level, that probably would have alleviated a bit.
Back to P2E, a Kobold with the Kobold Breath feat can use its breath weapon once every 1d4 rounds, as opposed to 4E's Dragonborn which could use theirs once per encounter, it be lasting 2 rounds or 10... and that's if you DM doesn't troll you with "one last enemy to defeat".
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Oh, I thought that your point was "4E has encounter powers and I don't like them" and not whatever is the new goalpost that you set up now. Sorry!
From my experience, players who have 1d4 round recovery moves end up functionally being 1/encounter powers anyways unless they get super lucky.
Also, characters that do get focus spells (at least not named wizard) in my experience do rely on them quite a bit, or, when they dont, suffer a lot of resource or underperformance problems. The witch player in the game I'm playing in doesn't use his hexes, and he's not all that effective; alternatively, once the bard in a different campaign discovered Lingering Composition, she's been much more effective without paying a one action tax each round to put up her buffs.
Sounds like you just don't like resource management, but that's okay, there's martials for that
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To consider PF2 as just a successor to 4e would be a very biased look at the thing.
In practice, what I see most in PF2 is that it takes several good ideas from several previous editions and applies them in a renewed and more intelligent way, in addition to creating its own solutions, such as the highly flexible action economy.
The 1x per encounter abilities (which are basically the focus points and actually extend to 3x per encounter) are just one of the core mechanics of the game. We must not forget that the game still inherits the idea of spellcasters with various resources for daily use, nor that the economy of actions creates a series of skill options per round.
And this is just looking at the more primary mechanics of the game, there are many other things in PF2 that operate in very interesting and unique ways like the hit based crit system, almost every test can have up to 4 results (crit hit, hit, failure and critical failure), or more derivative things like juggernaut, greater juggernaut, resolve and greater resolve that together with evasion and improved evasion made even the saves something much more interesting.
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Yeah, this whole notion of PF2 being a coat of paint on 4e is an erroneous oversimplification. There seems to be a current of online discourse that boils down to "4e was great, we just kneejerked it too hard" which is frankly laughable. I went all in on 4e, made fun of the people who *were* knee-jerking, and just went about playing it for years. After buying a bunch of books and playing it a bunch our group all came to the realization that it just kind of sucked and wasn't letting us tell the stories we wanted to tell. The reasons are multitudinous, from small to large, but to say it didn't have serious ground-up problems is sheer rose-tinted glasses talk.
We went from 4e to PF1 and found it was a strict upgrade on all levels, for goodness sake.
To address this currently discussed fallacy: Encounter powers and Focus Spells are really, very different and to pretend otherwise is... odd. You can opt-in to Focus Spells, refocusing takes time and you can't always do it, Focus Spells don't replace basic physical activities, nor do they replace a Wizard's spell list, and refocusing is tied into specific thematic activities. Equating the two is such a stretch, it's dishonest. Focus Spells obviously have a shared ancestry with Encounter Powers, but they fulfill very different design goals.
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almost every test can have up to 4 results (crit hit, hit, failure and critical failure).
Having degrees of success and not just binary pass/fail is a thing in RPGs since the 90s, and D&D/PF was one of the last holdouts of sticking to binary success. Even Call of Cthulhu gave up and introduced degrees in 7th ed. Pathfinder was simply sticking way too long to an obsolete design and finally gave it up in PF2.
4E was a good game with bad marketing, PF1 was a bad game with great marketing. PF2 is a great game with great marketing. The guy above indicated that 4E encounter powers were a bad thing, well, they are in PF2, sure they don't fulfil the same role, but the design DNA is rather plain visible. And that's good, PF2 is something of "D&D design all stars", lifting best ideas from about every edition and permutation of the game to deliver something that works.
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Yeah, this whole notion of PF2 being a coat of paint on 4e is an erroneous oversimplification. There seems to be a current of online discourse that boils down to "4e was great, we just kneejerked it too hard" which is frankly laughable. I went all in on 4e, made fun of the people who *were* knee-jerking, and just went about playing it for years. After buying a bunch of books and playing it a bunch our group all came to the realization that it just kind of sucked and wasn't letting us tell the stories we wanted to tell. The reasons are multitudinous, from small to large, but to say it didn't have serious ground-up problems is sheer rose-tinted glasses talk.
We went from 4e to PF1 and found it was a strict upgrade on all levels, for goodness sake.
To address this currently discussed fallacy: Encounter powers and Focus Spells are really, very different and to pretend otherwise is... odd. You can opt-in to Focus Spells, refocusing takes time and you can't always do it, Focus Spells don't replace basic physical activities, nor do they replace a Wizard's spell list, and refocusing is tied into specific thematic activities. Equating the two is such a stretch, it's dishonest. Focus Spells obviously have a shared ancestry with Encounter Powers, but they fulfill very different design goals.
The problem with this is nobody is saying this is 4e with a new coat of paint. That’s not what a spiritual successor is. It doesn’t mean it’s “the same thing but different” but something more like a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but does not explicitly continue the product line or media franchise of its predecessor, and is thus only a successor "in spirit"
You can definitely see and feel the bones of 4e here it’s just not that obvious as previously stated. Some people didn’t notice.
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Amen (and pass the hand grenades). IMO, 4e was hot garbage. If I had wanted to play Diablo as a TTRPG, I just would have played it online.
But you're playing Diablo TTRPG, either edition of Pathfinder is a game that has a ruleset which is 90% about combat, you collect better gear to get stronger, PF2 even has now item sets just like Diablo. Rules for anything other than killing things are sparse, the game is a powergamer paradise (well, PF1 is), it's literally the most Diablo-like ttRPG in existence. Throw a stone in a basement in America or at a RPG con and you'll hit an OSR grog who will tell you that 3.5/PF is a video game-inspired mess that took power away from GM and gave it to anime kids making character builds using Excel ... just like in Diablo. Hell, there was a 3.5e-based Diablo RPG a while back.
Oh, I thought that your point was "4E has encounter powers and I don't like them" and not whatever is the new goalpost that you set up now. Sorry!
I didn't like encounter powers because they were more limiting than enticing to use, not mention that if you miss, you're screwed.
I agree with you that Focus Spells are similar to encounter powers, but then again, you can rest to regain focus points or can simply stick with up to 3 points for 2 fights in a row. It's essentially just another meter to refill, while your character can use at-will cantrips, ancestral feats with their own cooldowns or simply attack with a weapon which may lead to ITS OWN powers thanks to class feats. If as a monk, you whiff your Ki Strike, you still have your stance, flurry, stances and whatnot.
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But you're playing Diablo TTRPG, either edition of Pathfinder is a game that has a ruleset which is 90% about combat, you collect better gear to get stronger, PF2 even has now item sets just like Diablo. Rules for anything other than killing things are sparse, the game is a powergamer paradise (well, PF1 is), it's literally the most Diablo-like ttRPG in existence. Throw a stone in a basement in America or at a RPG con and you'll hit an OSR grog who will tell you that 3.5/PF is a video game-inspired mess that took power away from GM and gave it to anime kids making character builds using Excel ... just like in Diablo. Hell, there was a 3.5e-based Diablo RPG a while back.
Amen (and pass the hand grenades). IMO, 4e was hot garbage. If I had wanted to play Diablo as a TTRPG, I just would have played it online.
The ruleset is 90% combat, but the games are 50% combat. Story, roleplay and non-combat challenges are all important for a game of Pathfinder to be memorable. It's just that you don't need rules for roleplay or story and even for non-combat challenges you don't need as many rules as you need for combat.
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Yes, I can play a intrigue social campaign with no combat using PF rules, just as I can play non-Mythos WW2 combat-heavy campaign using Call of Cthulhu rules, but why would I, either scenario is a terrible mismatch between the rules and the game.
PF is good for one thing, combat-heavy heroic fantasy adventuring for people who enjoy deep character customisation. There are much better RPG rulesets, including ones that marry rules with roleplay, for other types of game. "Roleplay doesn't need rules" sure, it doesn't need them, just like combat doesn't need rules; it's just that there are RPGs out there that give you rules that meaningfully interact with roleplaying. D&D is a specific type of old-school ttRPG that has rules for combat and walking on a 3" wide ledge during sandstorm at -20 C, but not for much else.
almost every test can have up to 4 results (crit hit, hit, failure and critical failure).Having degrees of success and not just binary pass/fail is a thing in RPGs since the 90s, and D&D/PF was one of the last holdouts of sticking to binary success. Even Call of Cthulhu gave up and introduced degrees in 7th ed. Pathfinder was simply sticking way too long to an obsolete design and finally gave it up in PF2.
Yes, I agree, that in general this was a fault more of the D20 systems than the TTRPGs themselves. Other systems, such as G.U.R.P.S and several others, already considered degrees of success in their rolls.
However, PF2 not only brought this as a rule to a D20 system, but also standardized the mechanics of degrees of success.Typically in other TTRPGs that consider varying degrees of success as critical hits or failures, the effect of these rolls is almost always GM fiat. PF2 brought a very cool thing in my opinion, which is the fact that almost everything that has a roll already brings all the degrees of success already considered along with the roll, and that is the rule and not the exception.
This meant that many things could be considered by players not only for their success effects, but their failure and crit consequences as well. To me that was a very interesting "new" thing that PF2 brought to the table.
4E was a good game with bad marketing, PF1 was a bad game with great marketing. PF2 is a great game with great marketing. The guy above indicated that 4E encounter powers were a bad thing, well, they are in PF2, sure they don't fulfil the same role, but the design DNA is rather plain visible. And that's good, PF2 is something of "D&D design all stars", lifting best ideas from about every edition and permutation of the game to deliver something that works.
Here I already disagree a little.
I don't think PF1 was a bad game, I don't think 4e was such a good game either. But I agree with the marketing part of PF1 (it's not like WOTC didn't invest in marketing 4e).
4e didn't fail because it was a horrible game, it failed because of a bunch of bad decisions, bad communication and bad timing. It was a game that tried to change a lot of things from 1x scaring the players, it failed to provide the necessary assistance to the role-play part, especially when compared to the previous edition, it failed to convince the players that many of the changes were good/necessary and crashing left the OGL messing up all the third-party support that had made the 3.5 and D20 system one of the most relevant and outstanding systems at the time.
This opened space (actually practically forced) third-party developers to look for their own solutions since continuing to invest in D&D at the time became unfeasible. Among these, Paizo with PF1 was the one who stood out with its improvements in the 3.5 rules that did not break most of the compatibility, with a vast and interesting scenario and, as you say, with good marketing.
For you to have a good idea, I personally, and I believe that many others, prefer the PF1 to the 5e! Because despite acknowledging that 5e made a lot of improvements on the player side, it managed the feat of making DM life worse.
So much so that I consider the current "revolution" of many D&D players leaving 5e and coming to PF2 as, in large part, DMs tired of 5e, taking advantage of the scandal of licenses where WOTC has shown to have no qualms about the hobby in time to want to earn more money, to tell your players "OK, so let's go to another system!? Let's go to this one that looks really fun, flexible and complete and doesn't abuse me so much?".
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Let me quote the DM Lair on The Importance of Pacing in D&D. "If every moment is super-awesome, amazing, and crazy, ... everything just becomes dull."
That is the key behind encounter powers, focus spells, spell slots, and any other mechanics that limits the use of amazing abilities. To keep the game exciting, its mechanics ought to limit peak moments of awesome. If it doesn't, then the awesome becomes routine.
Focus points do that job better than encounter powers. Encounter powers in D&D 4th Edition had no reason to hold back. They were use or lose, either use them during the encounter or not. Focus spells had more choice. Does the stormborn druid spend the focus point on Tempest Surge or Stormwind Flight or spend two focus points for both? Will she have a chance to Refocus before the next combat? If not, perhaps she should save the focus point for a tougher combat. Focus points are a cost that limits the casting of a strong focus spell, And chosing to spend the cost, minor though it be, adds a little drama.
I don't know. From the start with D&D1 (even before AD&D was a thing), there was an expectation that wizards and related arcane spellcasters in particular would supplement their daily abilities with scrolls, wands, staves, and similar items to work around their built in limitations, especially at lower levels. PF2 makes something of the same assumption. That expectation is here; however, that expectation is expanded to virtually every class. Consumable economy in particular seems like a must have feature for PF2 games. Unfortunately, in D&D1 (and its later editions) the expectation never really worked out because players like to hoard resources rather than use them. This is why the alchemist is actually such a great class. It has temporary items that fully incentivize item usage via use or lose. If all spellcasters had this (e.g., 1 temporary scroll per day or similar temporary widgets) I suspect the feel of their play would improve.
Yes. Resource design needs to balance managing resources to enable moments of awesome versus hoarding resources because the moment does not feel worth the cost. Sometimes the problem is that the cost is wrong. Scrolls cost money, but they also cost an action to pull out the scroll. The money cost means not spending the scroll on a low-threat encounter, yet the action cost means not spending the scroll on a death-defying encounter where every action counts. Thus, the best scrolls were for utility spells cast outside the action economy and for prepared casters who don't want to spend a spell slot on a spell useful only once a week.
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Yes, I can play a intrigue social campaign with no combat using PF rules, just as I can play non-Mythos WW2 combat-heavy campaign using Call of Cthulhu rules, but why would I, either scenario is a terrible mismatch between the rules and the game.
PF is good for one thing, combat-heavy heroic fantasy adventuring for people who enjoy deep character customisation. There are much better RPG rulesets, including ones that marry rules with roleplay, for other types of game. "Roleplay doesn't need rules" sure, it doesn't need them, just like combat doesn't need rules; it's just that there are RPGs out there that give you rules that meaningfully interact with roleplaying. D&D is a specific type of old-school ttRPG that has rules for combat and walking on a 3" wide ledge during sandstorm at -20 C, but not for much else.
Please, don't strawman me.
I've never said that PF2 was ideal for "intrigue social campaign with no combat", just that combat alone is not enough to define it. There is more to PF2 than combat and collecting gear. You are painting an inaccurate portrait of the game.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yes. Resource design needs to balance managing resources to enable moments of awesome versus hoarding resources because the moment does not feel worth the cost. Sometimes the problem is that the cost is wrong. Scrolls cost money, but they also cost an action to pull out the scroll. The money cost means not spending the scroll on a low-threat encounter, yet the action cost means not spending the scroll on a death-defying encounter where every action counts. Thus, the best scrolls were for utility spells cast outside the action economy and for prepared casters who don't want to spend a spell slot on a spell useful only once a week.
You have picked up an interesting point here.
The problem with consumable resources in TTRPG is that they share the same scarce resource. Money!My TTRPG experience is that players don't like to burn money on consumable resources, as they prefer to save this same resource to use in permanents, where they know they can resell later and recoup part of the investment, or keep the item until the end of the game, just improving it whenever possible.
This is why the idea of the Alchemist's infused reagents is so popular. Not exactly because they are temporary. But because it uses another source of resources that is not shared with permanent items.
And that's precisely what ended up hurting the idea of the caster trying to compensate for their limited resources with consumables. Not to mention the fact that at the beginning of the game you don't even have enough money for that.