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We tried it out!
… and are going back to PF 1st Edition.
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Awesome. Enjoy.
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We tried it out!
… and are going back to PF 1st Edition.
You know I am pretty new to pathfinder 2e and the learning is ongoing.
I would say there is also a time investment in the GM and players learning the new system.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We tried it out!
… and are going back to PF 1st Edition.
What were the biggest turn-offs for your group? I'm almost exclusively all PF2 now, and while there might be some things I miss from PF1 I find that:
* The game is smoother and less complicated to run
* The action economy is a lot of fun with a lot of narrative rich options
* Character creation is also a lot of fun, though I would say Ancestral Paragon is a must if you *actually want* your Ancestry to get half of what it would get in PF1.
* Little things I like including the dropping of alignment, the currency change etc...
* I also appreciate the lethality of PF2 combat and the concomitant change to in-combat healing
The things I miss are:
* Class Choice, with archetypes and true-multiclassing creating an absolute panoply of options. I find PF2 "multiclassing" (provided through "dedication feats") completely anemic and lacklustre, which appears to be due to an inability at least from my understanding with the UTEML framework and frontloading issues.
* Animal Companions (and familiars though I feel this to a lesser extent) got completely shafted.
* Very specifically, the PF2 Summoner isn't...really. In that it is a huge detour from both the flavor and mechanics of the PF1 Summoner, but then the Vanilla Summoner for me far surpassed the Unchained Version.
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(My biggest hurdle in coming to grips with PF2 is unlearning PF1. I feel new players, not having this issue, will enjoy it a lot more quickly.)
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I wouldn't go back to PF1 unless someone else ran that game and they had to deal with all the painful balance problems with PF1.
I moved to PF2 by pretty much telling my group I refuse to run PF1. If they want me to DM, then we're doing PF2 because I'm not spending the time needed to make PF1 work even remotely well as a challenging game.
Not sure what role you play in your group, if you are the DM leverage that to move your group to a new game. If not, then I guess keep making crazy characters in PF1 if your group enjoys that insane level of power.
I have no patience to DM broken 3E/PF1 games any longer. I love the ease of DMing PF2 and I'll never go back from it. I'll quit before I DM 3E/PF1 games again or 5E games.
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Not sure how much work my DM has to do behind the screen with Strange Aeons. We've definitely had a mix of danger and dominance up through level 6.
Hopefully I can sit down with the remaster books soon and get to learning 2E finally. Still got a lot of 1E to run though.
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I can see the draw.
PF1 is familiar to those who know it already. Learning something new is hard.
Also, PF1 is better at certain things. Most notably creating characters that are demonstrably more powerful than expected. So building a superhero in an over-the-top style works better in PF1. So there are some gameplay metas that just don't work as well in PF2.
I am actually in a PF1 game currently. The rest of the group is more familiar with PF1 and doesn't like the tight math of PF2. I'm struggling with the character creation minigame, but the players are a good group and it is still fun.
I will absolutely defend PF2 if anyone wants to say that it is objectively worse than PF1. But if someone has a personal preference for PF1, I don't see any reason to try and invalidate that.
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High level PF2 characters are uber powerful. Powerful enough to feel great. PF2 is far easier on the DM to challenge them the insane imbalance between high level monsters and high level PF1 characters.
Even now I'm running a party of level 17 characters. They are brutally tough. They run over most encounters fairly easy. Yet it is still far easier to challenge them at level 17 than it ever was level 17 PF1 characters which had me making things far outside the game rules to have any chance of surviving for a few rounds.
If his players still want to be tougher than normal, just let them do Free Archetype or Dual Class. Even with those rules, it's far easier to run in PF2 than PF1.
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I must admit, as someone who has exclusively been a GM for 1e and exclusively been a player for 2e... I long to GM a 2e game, and to play a 1e one. Character building just feel more fun in 1e, I'm not sure why, but all I see is endless options when I try to build something in 1e, when I see mostly constrains and limits in 2e.
But on the other hand, I have barely started spires of Xin Shalast, but it have become really hard to meaningfully challenge my players anymore, and I have to homebrew a lot of stuff for the adventure to remain as interesting as it first was. I'm pretty sure it would be far more relaxed to GM in 2e.
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The problem with high tier 1E is, you can't challenge the PCs mechanically, because any mechanical challenge is trivial.
So you need to challenge them narratively, so that they have to figure out how to use their auto-succeed mechanics to accomplish their narrative goal.
And published adventures can only provide so many narrative challenges and can't guarantee that your PCs will have the desire to solve them.
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I was trying to sell the group on PF2. But, There was more resistance to change then I expected.
To put one thing to rest, no my player group doesn't tend to make overpowered characters.
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Glad you at least tried it so you could put that nagging doubt aside.
Don't let the results stress you too much. Let's face it... PF1 was fun. PF2 is fun. D&D 3.5 was fun. Any game is better than no game, and liking or preferring one system over another isn't a crime. Even if it's irrational, I'm a Burger King person not a McDonald's person.
My group tried PF2 in the early days and there were some things that were nice and some things that were annoying. Our experiment mainly failed because Paizo hadn't put out enough playable material so when we burned what existed, we... resumed consuming the human lifetime of PF1 material we have.
Maybe someday we'll try PF2 again but given the recent release Pathfinder Second Edition Second Edition, it'll probably be PF3 by then.
PF2 is a good system and it would've been fine if you shifted to it, but sticking with PF1 isn't the end of the world as long as you're having fun.
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Glad you at least tried it so you could put that nagging doubt aside.
Actually, it has given me more doubts.
* - I agree that as a GM, PF2 works better then PF1 mechanically.* - It is MUCH easier to convert PF1 & Earlier to PF2 then the reverse.
* - As I noted above, even the weaker combinations still work quite well in PF2. The distance between the Most Optimized and the Least Optimized character is still manageable for the GM.
But, as I said, resistance was overwhelming.
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I was trying to sell the group on PF2. But, There was more resistance to change then I expected. ...
This explains pretty much the problem to me. Maybe this could be a ageism of my part but usually more older and experienced a player is, greater is its resistance to changes.
Anyway if your players prefer to play PF1 and someone willing to GM it. Just go and play it!
I was trying to sell the group on PF2. But, There was more resistance to change then I expected. ...This explains pretty much the problem to me. Maybe this could be a ageism of my part but usually more older and experienced a player is, greater is its resistance to changes.
It is … but that doesn't make you wrong.
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There's more than enough 1e content for just about anyone to continue playing it forever, and even more if you go back to 3.5. As the forever GM for my group I made the choice to swap to 2e for my group because I liked prepping for it better, and had some trouble with a couple of power gamers, but it's not for everyone. I'm glad that we all have the option to choose what we want to play.
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For me selling my table was easy on p2e. We were originally going to use 5e DND
I had lent another friend all of my DnD books and he lives in another town. So I had no books but another group of friends were interested in playing a DnD game.
I first saw the pathfinder core rule book at book store and picked it up. I didnt want to rebuy the DND books i own. I came onto these forums and for a few months just read up on as much as I could for all the questions about the rules I had while looking at the book.
I saw the remaster project and signed up to have those books delivered to me.
So I had time to get to know this system enough to put together a campaign. I might be into running some APs in the future, some of them sound interesting.
Thats when I broke it to my players I made the campaign for p2e instead of DnD 5e. Though I knew they wouldnt really care what system they play as long as they have a good time.
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I also had the issues where my players much prefer the original games material, adult adventures written for adult players. Also a decade of a system is a hell of a drug.
I would recommend using the GMG rules of:
- Proficiency Without Level (Wider level range for monster threats)
- Automatic Bonus Progression (No downtime/item fiddly s!&$)
- Free Archetype (Chew toy for the min/maxers)
PF2e feels like a slide towards the Disney Cocomelon Fantasy PG-13 demographic with PCs being offered to be flowers or dolls, which is no doubt better for younger players or family groups- but we're 30 to 40 something year olds who want sex, blood and naughty words in our RPG; not trying to figure out how to make friends (Fist Full Of Flowers... never again).
It can be really hard as a GM to have to 'damage control' the changes as they come. I feel the Remaster has been a speedbump that was hit way too hard and fast (understandable as to why) but it has only led to unclear rules. We ended up dropping everything and just using the Remastered Core and nothing else. It's just easier this way. Less is more.
Abomination Vaults is a very good adventure and you can immediately step from Beginner Box (Menace Under Otari) straight into Abby Vaults (Ignore Trouble In Otari, it's a 6/10 rats in the basement snoozefest)
Abby Vabby at least has a horror theme, though quite tame- I recommend adding some flair and spice to it and ham up the atmosphere; make them fear The Empty Death!
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The first check? Who exactly would get the idea to even try "pushing back spirits"? One in ten players, if I'm being very optimistic? How do I even get that idea over to the players without it seeming to come out of nowhere? There actually does not even seem to be a mechanic to make a recall knowledge check, as far as I have seen.
So, yeah, hazards seem to me to be often underexplained in as how to deal with them, especially haunts. I hope the upcoming GM Core spends a bit more time on how to have players get knowledge on how defeat them, because currently it is a bit of a crapshoot.
This quote is only an example, but it points at the way to deal with hazards: "Determining a magical hazard’s properties thoroughly enough to disable it requires either the use of more powerful magic or a successful skill check, likely using Identify Magic or Recall Knowledge." So to determine ways to disable hazards you need to Recall Knowledge or Identify Magic in case of magical ones.
As to why haunts sometimes use 'strange' skills - they are spirits or spirit remains, so sometimes you can interact with them a bit like with creatures. That allows 'normal', non-magical skills.
Okay, necromancy sure. But this is taking things out of context a bit. I'll refer to the AoN page because this text hasn't really changed between CRB and remaster GMC.
Every hazard has a trigger of some kind that sets its dangers in motion. For traps, this could be a mechanism like a trip wire or a pressure plate, while for an environmental hazard or haunt, the trigger may simply be proximity. When characters approach a hazard, they have a chance of finding the trigger area or mechanism before triggering the hazard. They automatically receive a check to detect hazards unless the hazards require a minimum proficiency rank to do so.
During exploration, determine whether the party detects a hazard when the PCs first enter the general area in which it appears. If the hazard doesn’t list a minimum proficiency rank, roll a secret Perception check against the hazard’s Stealth DC for each PC. For hazards with a minimum proficiency rank, roll only if someone is actively searching (using the Search activity while exploring or the Seek action in an encounter), and only if they have the listed proficiency rank or higher. Anyone who succeeds becomes aware of the hazard, and you can describe what they notice.
Magical hazards that don’t have a minimum proficiency rank can be found using detect magic, but this spell doesn’t provide enough information to understand or disable the hazard—it only reveals the hazard’s presence. Determining a magical hazard’s properties thoroughly enough to disable it requires either the use of more powerful magic or a successful skill check, likely using Identify Magic or Recall Knowledge. Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all.
As you see, the line about needing to Recall Knowledge appears in the context of finding some magical hazards just with detect magic, not using any kind of skill check.
I don't think that should be extrapolated to "you always need a RK check to determine the skills to handle any hazard". That's a big leap.
Instead I think the theme is:
- PF2 doesn't like people doing important things without taking a risk.
- Any significant hazard requires a check to "get to know". Usually that's a Perception check while Searching or Seeking.
- A few hazards can be found automatically with detect magic (usually during the Detect Magic exploration activity). That's great, it means that your poor-Perception wizard does something useful. But the game still requires an element of chance, so to know what to actually do with the hazard, you need a check. But that might be a skill check that the wizard is better at than Perception, so yay for them.
So if you found a hazard with a successful Perception check, I'd give you the information about which skills can be used automatically, because you've already paid the "must take a risk" toll.
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I also had the issues where my players much prefer the original games material, adult adventures written for adult players. Also a decade of a system is a hell of a drug.
I would recommend using the GMG rules of:
- Proficiency Without Level (Wider level range for monster threats)
- Automatic Bonus Progression (No downtime/item fiddly s%@*)
- Free Archetype (Chew toy for the min/maxers)PF2e feels like a slide towards the Disney Cocomelon Fantasy PG-13 demographic with PCs being offered to be flowers or dolls, which is no doubt better for younger players or family groups- but we're 30 to 40 something year olds who want sex, blood and naughty words in our RPG; not trying to figure out how to make friends (Fist Full Of Flowers... never again).
Chucky would like a word with you.
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Chucky would like a word with you.PF2e feels like a slide towards the Disney Cocomelon Fantasy PG-13 demographic with PCs being offered to be flowers or dolls, which is no doubt better for younger players or family groups- but we're 30 to 40 something year olds who want sex, blood and naughty words in our RPG; not trying to figure out how to make friends (Fist Full Of Flowers... never again).
As would Annabelle!
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Game thematics depends from GM and the story thematics behind it.
You don't like cute puppets and leshys in your adventure. OK just ban or reskin them. You want to make a humanocentric adventure just restrict your players to just pink humans. If you want a low magic setting you make restrict access to some classes and ban some options.
The fact that the game allows to get a children's adventure does't prevent that you can play other types of adventures. The fact is that the system allows you to tell with all thematics freely. Complain that one of them that you don't like is possible is pointless.
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Yup, I don't really see how leshies and poppet being an option makes it more work for the GM to have an "adult" adventure. Partly because I think "fully inhuman" characters like them have their place in less childish stuff, but mostly because making an executive decision to cut them out is the simplest thing to do.
However, it is true that the change of tone between early 1e and now have affected how easy it is to create some kind of adventure. The edgyness of old made it easy to have so called "gritty" campaign simply by using the unmodified lore and APs. The most recent lore book are significantly less edgy, and thus it takes more work to inject some into them if you do want that kind of tone. The reverse is also true, early 1e was incredibly avistan-centric and humanocentric, and wanting to play anything that isn't a human or core race from avistan asked you to do a lot more leg work, while the new lore books makes it a lot easier.
Personally, I like to take a bit of both, I really dislike the notion of "always evil" races that was prevalent in early 1e, and love the more nuanced presentation made in books like the mwangi expanse and impossible land (they actually feel like they are written for you to play as one of them, while before they felt like they were written to be NPC with strange customs), but I find the presentation in a lot of 2e lorebook to be a bit too saccharine, so I mix and match the two with my own interpretation of the setting to get the tone I like. It's a bit more difficult to do a "mix and match" like that for published adventure tho, so I can understand the disapointment of peoples that prefered the 1e tone if they don't find it in 2e AP. But since I haven't run any of them myself, being only a 2e player so far, I can't be positive that every 2e AP lack this "edge". I'll see when I finally get my hand on the season of ghost, which should be the first 2e adventure I run.
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I also had the issues where my players much prefer the original games material, adult adventures written for adult players.
...
PF2e feels like a slide towards the Disney Cocomelon Fantasy PG-13 demographic with PCs being offered to be flowers or dolls, which is no doubt better for younger players or family groups- but we're 30 to 40 something year olds who want sex, blood and naughty words in our RPG; not trying to figure out how to make friends (Fist Full Of Flowers... never again).
<begin parody> Youngsters these days always wanting blood and gore instead of real roleplaying. <end parody>
My core group of players is in their 60s. The eldest of them at age 65 said that A Fistful of Flowers was amusing. Our Leshy mini-campaign was played with a more thoughtful investigative tone than our previous Ironfang Invasion large-scale war story. I continued the mini-campaign after A Fistful of Flowers and A Few Flowers More by sending the leshies north to Galt, land of guillotines. I wrote a third chapter based on the Scarlet Pimpernel (he was a pimpernel leshy, of course) and a fourth chapter based on The Seven Samurai (the players decided to massacre the bandit camp rather than train the defenseless villagers in defense).
Roleplaying combat is relaxing because the goal is straightforward survival. A hack and slash session is a good way to unwind. The tense roleplaying situations are cleaning up and rebuilding afterwards to ensure that the rescued people stay safe.
My wife, a sweet youthful 60-year-old, began playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1978 at 15 years old. She has played in over two dozen different systems and is a tactical mastermind. Our daughters, now in their 30s, grew up on Dungeons & Dragons, the younger beginning before she could read. We have many decades of experience in our group. Mere sex, blood, and naughty words are too basic for exciting stories. Tactics, heroics, and narration are where the action is. We have recruited younger people interested in learning about tabletop roleplaying games, though the teenager in our group left for her freshman year that the University of Toronto.
The leshies and poppets are not children's toys. They are exotic species even stranger than the elves, dwarves, and halflings based on J. R. R. Tolkien's books. And remember, Tolkien's first fantasy novel in Middle Earth was a children's book, The Hobbit. The leshies in A Fistful of Flowers are the native species of the Verduran Forest protecting their kin from heedless humanoids. What can be more mature than that?
At first I assumed this was some gas light attempt to say "No, no, my dolly is actually very adult and serious! He has a sword and everything!"; I mean, after saying "sex, blood and naughty words" I was perhaps not speaking about The Hobbit. This was my mistake and I will be more explicit in future.
Just to make sure there is a relative media comparison I might lay out:
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Fear & Hunger, Maze Of The Blue Medusa, Lake Mungo and our good ol' fashioned Hamlet.
I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.
I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.
Removed what from your games?
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I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?
The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
I agree with you.
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On a lighter note: there is another problem with changing systems.
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I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
Really this was all about drows again ?
Because AFAIK they are the only ones who got a full official retcon (aka never existed).
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I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
Really this was all about drows again ?
Because AFAIK they are the only ones who got a full official retcon (aka never existed).
I think that complaint was about Leshy and Poppets.
They didnt want them in their game because it doesnt fit their idea of adult themed gaming. Which is fine for them, if thats what they want to do.
I think that complaint was about Leshy and Poppets.I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
Really this was all about drows again ?
Because AFAIK they are the only ones who got a full official retcon (aka never existed).
If that's the adjustment, I agree with them.
But there is very little in the PF 2nd System that mandates a certain style of play . Pathfinder is not the same as Golarion. It's all about what a particular table wants.
(Justice for Captain Binky!)
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For me haflings and gnomes are human adult proportion at 3 feet something. So when I draw character designs for my games(admittedly less than amateur at drawing) they dont look the same as Golarion standard versions.
(Justice for Captain Binky!)
Who the heck was Captain Binky?
(Justice for Captain Binky!)Who the heck was Captain Binky?
I posted a Link about changing systems above.
I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
Really this was all about drows again ?
Because AFAIK they are the only ones who got a full official retcon (aka never existed).
I think that complaint was about Leshy and Poppets.
They didnt want them in their game because it doesnt fit their idea of adult themed gaming. Which is fine for them, if thats what they want to do.
I probably wouldn't allow a Leshy in a horror game set in Ustalav either. Poppets though, creepy haunted dolls are a mainstay of the genre and would therefore be allowed with the right angle on it. Paizo publishes a lot of content and maybe half of it is expected to be appropriate for 100% of campaign pitches.
I probably wouldn't allow a Leshy in a horror game set in Ustalav either. Poppets though, creepy haunted dolls are a mainstay of the genre and would therefore be allowed with the right angle on it. Paizo publishes a lot of content and maybe half of it is expected to be appropriate for 100% of campaign pitches.I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games?The offending parties involved.
They must not be named, for they never existed.
Really this was all about drows again ?
Because AFAIK they are the only ones who got a full official retcon (aka never existed).
I think that complaint was about Leshy and Poppets.
They didnt want them in their game because it doesnt fit their idea of adult themed gaming. Which is fine for them, if thats what they want to do.
That makes sense. Just like not everygame is going to have tech from numeria.
My current game wont have any poppets, im not even trying to exclude them, they just are not common and i have no npcs or players with that ancestry in the game. One of my players is playing a Leshy and likely will be the only one in the entire campaign.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Same for poppets. We have a bunch of terror stories in pop culture about creppy dolls.
I can see easily a player playing as Poppet as result of some Soulbound ritual in a terror setting.
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I probably wouldn't allow a Leshy in a horror game set in Ustalav either.Huh? Leshies could be creepy as hell. Just a mention of preferred fertilizer or growth substrate for relaxing could go a long way. And have you seen mushroom leshies? They are terrifying by default!
IIRC there was a picture of a leshy based on a carnivorous plant on some blog post and they were pretty terrifying.
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IIRC there was a picture of a leshy based on a carnivorous plant on some blog post and they were pretty terrifying.I probably wouldn't allow a Leshy in a horror game set in Ustalav either.Huh? Leshies could be creepy as hell. Just a mention of preferred fertilizer or growth substrate for relaxing could go a long way. And have you seen mushroom leshies? They are terrifying by default!