I feel like, if there was some incentive to play through all the Paizo APs as fast as possible, the way you would do that is to have multiple groups that are each tackling separate stories. Like there's no a priori reason someone couldn't be in three separate games that each meet weekly on different days- you probably wouldn't want to GM each of them, but playing wouldn't be a huge ask.
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And by that metric, it's 100% okay to only play 1E Pathfinder, or only play 2E Pathfinder... or play both (like me).
I like both. I wish there were a way to move PF1e closer to PF2e and PF2e closer to PF1e if that makes any sense. I mean I know I can streamline the action economy (That's in Unchained correct?) Any other suggestions, James, if you're willing since you play/design both? I ask because my player group is a house divided!
Calliope5431:
Oh! Check out the Order of the Amber Die for completed AP's! They're only now wrapping up Abomination Vaults using only Gunslingers
I like both. I wish there were a way to move PF1e closer to PF2e and PF2e closer to PF1e if that makes any sense. I mean I know I can streamline the action economy (That's in Unchained correct?) Any other suggestions, James, if you're willing since you play/design both? I ask because my player group is a house divided!
It might help if you could identify which bits you like about each?
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I play both games but I enjoy 1E more. 2E definitely has better, cleaner, more streamlined rules, no doubt. But for me it's not alot of fun, mostly because the classes are very one-dimensional and really "samey". Martial classes have a template they mostly follow, and Casters have a template they mostly follow. I just don't see much difference between classes.
Customization wise, there's not much I feel I can do with a 2E character either. Once Ancestry, Background and Class have been selected, the character is basically on rails. Class feats are mostly underwhelming, Skill Feats are easily the worst thing about the system, and archetypes in general are very weak and in many cases make your character worse, not better.
It's really too bad, because the 2E rules set is vastly superior, but the actual fun of the game took a big step back imo.
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Once Ancestry, Background and Class have been selected, the character is basically on rails. Class feats are mostly underwhelming, Skill Feats are easily the worst thing about the system, and archetypes in general are very weak and in many cases make your character worse, not better.
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STRONGLY recommend you take another look at archetypes and multiclass archetypes. Your conclusion is disconcertingly incongruous with my experience regarding archetyping.
I also strongly recommend Free Archetype, since it brings character build flexibility MUCH closer to PF1.
As a reminder, you can multiclass into a spellcasting archetype and get more and better casting in PF2 than you could multiclassing in PF1, and that is a minor example of the things you can do with archetypes.
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I play both games but I enjoy 1E more. 2E definitely has better, cleaner, more streamlined rules, no doubt. But for me it's not alot of fun, mostly because the classes are very one-dimensional and really "samey". Martial classes have a template they mostly follow, and Casters have a template they mostly follow. I just don't see much difference between classes.
Customization wise, there's not much I feel I can do with a 2E character either. Once Ancestry, Background and Class have been selected, the character is basically on rails. Class feats are mostly underwhelming, Skill Feats are easily the worst thing about the system, and archetypes in general are very weak and in many cases make your character worse, not better.
It's really too bad, because the 2E rules set is vastly superior, but the actual fun of the game took a big step back imo.
While I agree 2E has some flaws (ahem...General feats are boring for one). I disagree with all of your post.
I've played with and without archetypes (both free and not) and have never found them to be a serious drawback for characters, especially if taken with some forethought.
Also I've seen the same classes built differently in the same game to the point I rarely worry about overlap just because of class.
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I also strongly recommend Free Archetype, since it brings character build flexibility MUCH closer to PF1.
A thing I want to underline here is that the number of choices you make at a given level is set low enough so as to not overwhelm less experienced players with choice paralysis. A thing you can do when you've cleared a certain level of system mastery is to adjust these levels up without really harming balance because Feats generally represent "here's a new thing you can do" not "you are better at doing your thing." So the system is remarkably modular in terms of "making character building how you want it to work."
The one thing that's harder to fix is "making backgrounds interesting" but as we've seen in AP player's guides there is nothing stopping you from making new backgrounds that have more stuff in them (like the Season of Ghosts Backgrounds giving a seasonal boon.) In a hypothetical PF3 "making backgrounds more interesting" is probably the part of character creation that needs the most work.
I play both games but I enjoy 1E more. 2E definitely has better, cleaner, more streamlined rules, no doubt. But for me it's not alot of fun, mostly because the classes are very one-dimensional and really "samey". Martial classes have a template they mostly follow, and Casters have a template they mostly follow. I just don't see much difference between classes.
This one is a little wild to me because "makes martials less samey" is the one thing everyone in my group agrees PF2 did well, even for those of us who generally prefer PF1's design.
A thing I want to underline here is that the number of choices you make at a given level is set low enough so as to not overwhelm less experienced players with choice paralysis.
Per pathbuilder the last character I made qualified for like 65 feats at level 2. I'm not sure how successful this ended up really being.
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Per pathbuilder the last character I made qualified for like 65 feats at level 2. I'm not sure how successful this ended up really being.
A thing I want to underline here is that the number of choices you make at a given level is set low enough so as to not overwhelm less experienced players with choice paralysis.
Maybe. There are certainly a lot of things available. And as PF2 continues to be expanded, that number is going to keep going up.
Not sure that it quite meets the pile-o-randomness that was PF1 general feats though.
The other difference - and the one I find more significant - is that no matter the total number, PF2 has a lot lower percentage of useless feats to have to filter out and reject. The decisions among build options that you make in PF2 are based more on what fits your character theme rather than what you need to pick to match the desired power curve.
Also, the tools we have now are better at only listing out the feats that you qualify for. That is something that could be retrofitted into PF1. But from what I have seen available, the General Feat list isn't even able to be filtered by what level you can get them at. It is just a huge list. And for any particular character that I am building, most of them I can't choose, and most of the ones I can choose aren't good enough to be playable.
Per pathbuilder the last character I made qualified for like 65 feats at level 2. I'm not sure how successful this ended up really being.
Choosing once between 65 feats is much easier than choosing twice from 65 feats though, since the former is just "which of these options seems appropriate to my character and useful" whereas when you get into multiple choices you start worrying about opportunity cost.
Like you can just choose skill feats via "I am stealthy, what stealth feats are here"?
I like both. I wish there were a way to move PF1e closer to PF2e and PF2e closer to PF1e if that makes any sense. I mean I know I can streamline the action economy (That's in Unchained correct?) Any other suggestions, James, if you're willing since you play/design both? I ask because my player group is a house divided!
Just had a thought. If the thing that your players loved about PF1 was the crazy combos you could pull off, then one way to open the taps a bit on that one while still staying mostly PF2 is using the old Dual-Class rules. You can let your players get some of that old-school "My character is clearly an unholy abomination that was never meant to be and it is glorious." feeling without tearing yourself away from the base system so far that your GM has to start putting real effort into conversions.
...and if you really want to go gonzo with it, toss Free Archetype and/or Ancestry Paragon on top.
Worth noting that this will be more fun for the people who really like martials than for the people who really like casters.
I think the class feat selection is really well structured. Most of the time, there's a enough good feats to make a meaningful choice every level. Sometimes that choice feels obvious (like taking the archery feats on an a longbow fighter) but not always. I wish we got more class feats and/or some of their design space was sent into other feat buckets, but I think they generally succeeded there. Always wanting more feats than you have is a good indicator of a healthy game.
Ancestry feats are fine. They probably hit the right balance point but I'd like if you got more of them. Maybe getting an anatomy feat and a culture feat at alternating levels.
General feats are functional but boring. I don't super feel a need for more of them because I'm usually just deciding whether I want to take fleet or toughness first.
Archetypes are maybe the least well balanced feat bucket in the game. While I enjoy free archetype, it really widens the floor and ceilings to something more akin to PF1. Archetype dedications also add a loooot of options to wade through. I am increasingly finding myself missing my pre-GMG double class feats rule, which runs smoother but lacks automation support since it isn't the official variant.
The big problem is skill feats. You choose these just as often as skill feats, but they are simultaneously the biggest pool (outside of archetype dedications) and the least impactful choices. You have to wade through way more of them and what you get might never actually come up in the campaign because your GM has to actively work to make them matter. For newb tables, it might work better if you just removed skill feats completely.
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Per pathbuilder the last character I made qualified for like 65 feats at level 2. I'm not sure how successful this ended up really being.
A thing I want to underline here is that the number of choices you make at a given level is set low enough so as to not overwhelm less experienced players with choice paralysis.Maybe. There are certainly a lot of things available. And as PF2 continues to be expanded, that number is going to keep going up.
Not sure that it quite meets the pile-o-randomness that was PF1 general feats though.
The other difference - and the one I find more significant - is that no matter the total number, PF2 has a lot lower percentage of useless feats to have to filter out and reject. The decisions among build options that you make in PF2 are based more on what fits your character theme rather than what you need to pick to match the desired power curve.
Also, the tools we have now are better at only listing out the feats that you qualify for. That is something that could be retrofitted into PF1. But from what I have seen available, the General Feat list isn't even able to be filtered by what level you can get them at. It is just a huge list. And for any particular character that I am building, most of them I can't choose, and most of the ones I can choose aren't good enough to be playable.
Seriously, this. When picking a class feat, if you don't archetype you have a handful of choices, most of which are relevant. When picking a feat in PF1, you have something like 3000 choices. Even if you filter out all the ones you don't qualify for at the time, you've got hundreds of them, 95% of which are useless to you at the moment. (And of course since the feat you really want might be third in a feat chain, just filtering out everything you don't qualify for means you'll never find it if you don't already know its there.)
For someone who doesn't already have existing system mastery in PF1, it's horrifically unapproachable at this point to try to learn and make a character that functions reasonably well. That's its fatal flaw, really.
People will always be playing PF1 and those who want to keep playing it because they like it will need to find each other, same as with all systems as time goes on. But the market shifted away from that kind of game years ago and it's probably never shifting back, as the barrier to entry for new players is simply too high with how many options exist now.
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For newb tables, it might work better if you just removed skill feats completely.Errhm. No. You've just proposed to remove Battle medicine. There are at least some more very important ones.
I think the approach 'just take what's needed and don't worry about remaining ones' is good for skill feats.
Battle Medicine is a great feat, but also a complicated one with the player having to choose their DC every time. You can just rely on traditional healing magic in battle. I think losing continual recovery would be a bigger problem, but that feat should really just been baked into medicine IMO. It's pure tax.
Battle Medicine is a great feat, but also a complicated one with the player having to choose their DC every time. You can just rely on traditional healing magic in battle. I think losing continual recovery would be a bigger problem, but that feat should really just been baked into medicine IMO. It's pure tax.For newb tables, it might work better if you just removed skill feats completely.Errhm. No. You've just proposed to remove Battle medicine. There are at least some more very important ones.
I think the approach 'just take what's needed and don't worry about remaining ones' is good for skill feats.Firstly it's not complicated: unless player has said it's more than 15, it's 15. And it's always 15 at low levels, so no problem for new players at all. Secondly, you can't rely on healing magic when you don't have healing magic. And BM is available to basically everyone.
And I simply wanted to say you can't just cut skill feats out of the game even to simplify it: they are too important.
Fair enough. But I can't think of very many feats that's true for. Maybe Magical Crafting in certain games, but anywhere with proper shop access doesn't need it. Feats like Intimidating Glare/Prowess are really good if you're leaning into the skill, but even then you could just ignore the -4 linguistics penalty and be fine. Beyond Medicine I can't think of much that's important until higher levels of play, and even those are almost all intimidation feats.
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Fair enough. But I can't think of very many feats that's true for. Maybe Magical Crafting in certain games, but anywhere with proper shop access doesn't need it. Feats like Intimidating Glare/Prowess are really good if you're leaning into the skill, but even then you could just ignore the -4 linguistics penalty and be fine. Beyond Medicine I can't think of much that's important until higher levels of play, and even those are almost all intimidation feats.
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That's slightly harder to justify than perception. Everyone is to some degree or another perceptive. Not everyone has an MD, or even basic field surgery training. I certainly don't in real life.
Remember, this is one of the many things that made lots of people very angry about D&D 4e - the fact that out-of-combat healing was something everyone got in the form of healing surges. It was panned as being "unrealistic" and "overly gamist."
Pathfinder 2e has avoided this via (fairly unrealistic) Medicine rules. D&D 5e has avoided it via letting people spend hit dice out of combat to regain hit points. Which is basically the same thing as 4e healing surges, except it takes an hour rather than 5 minutes and goes down better with AD&D/3.x players who like hit dice.
I'd justify it as something that sets adventurers apart from normal folks who might brave danger. A soldier, might or might not have medical training but would usually have somebody they can turn to to heal them, but an adventurer used to long odds and being self-sufficient probably wouldn't last long without it.
It's more of a stretch than Perception, but if it's good for gameplay it's a change that can be justified.
It is good for the game to be able to use different resources to get the same result. For example, investing in Battle Medicine, using magic or buying potions to heal in combat.
Giving it for free reduces the variety and thus the fun.
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It is good for the game to be able to use different resources to get the same result. For example, investing in Battle Medicine, using magic or buying potions to heal in combat.Giving it for free reduces the variety and thus the fun.
I'm not sure how sold I am on that. Variety sounds good. What sounds less good is having to mess with your build after the fact because no one wants to be the medicine guy, something I've seen come up multiple times.
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I play both games but I enjoy 1E more. 2E definitely has better, cleaner, more streamlined rules, no doubt. But for me it's not alot of fun, mostly because the classes are very one-dimensional and really "samey". Martial classes have a template they mostly follow, and Casters have a template they mostly follow. I just don't see much difference between classes.
Customization wise, there's not much I feel I can do with a 2E character either. Once Ancestry, Background and Class have been selected, the character is basically on rails. Class feats are mostly underwhelming, Skill Feats are easily the worst thing about the system, and archetypes in general are very weak and in many cases make your character worse, not better.
It's really too bad, because the 2E rules set is vastly superior, but the actual fun of the game took a big step back imo.
Imo I feel almost the reverse on many of the points, which is where personal taste comes in.
I like building powerful synergies into PF1e characters on paper... but they are generally very static in play and my choices lock me into future choices fairly early on so I feel way more constrained in practice.
Pf1e feats generally feel underwhelming or immediately thrown out for me unless they are specifically enhancing the build I am going for, or are the standard that are always picked to either make the character work at all or reduce in play tedium so much I can't justify not making room for them.
For me the fun at character creation took a big dip with PF2e but fun actually at the table went way up, a microcosm of this would be power attack imo. Any player choosing power attack in PF1e will use it almost every single round for the rest of their game, in PF2e I see fighters weighing it up against a third attack, crit increasing buffs, enemies with resistances/hardness and shields, movement options and various skill actions even at low levels.
Casters I see grabbing scrolls, wands and staves to expand their spellcasting repetoire. Using a combination of weapons, spells and skill rolls and using a wide range of their spell list as they level rather than being limited to their higher slots. Now a pf2e with isn't shutting down combats like my PF1e witch did, but it isn't repeating the same 4 tactics and choosing from the same small list of always BiS spells that the target isn't immune to. (Closest we have is synaesthesia, which I expect to get errataed/cut)
Not to say you have to like this, but I don't think it is a matter of paizo choosing balance over fun.
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I'm not sure how sold I am on that. Variety sounds good. What sounds less good is having to mess with your build after the fact because no one wants to be the medicine guy, something I've seen come up multiple times.
It is good for the game to be able to use different resources to get the same result. For example, investing in Battle Medicine, using magic or buying potions to heal in combat.Giving it for free reduces the variety and thus the fun.
Potions. Lots of potions.