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at a convention I'm going to next month, hosting a panel about getting started in Pathfinder 2e, from the perspective of someone who play's 5e.
I was wondering if I could post my spiel on here for feed back on: Accuracy, presentation of information, selection of topics, flow/structure.
The only thing I'm not looking for feedback on is my grammar (I don't think it's perfect, it's just I'm the only one going to see this so I don't care so long as I can understand it)
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Finding the path from 5-2
Thank you for coming to my panel, Finding the path from 5 to 2, a primer on Pathfinder 2nd edition for D&D 5e players. There is no denying that D&D 5e has been a huge gateway into TTRPG’s over the last decade and half. And for that reason, I will always celebrate someone who tells me they have a D&D game coming up. Good for you. However, with the actions of D&D’s parent company over the last couple of years, and the sorta-kinda-but-not-really new edition, now’s a good time for people to try out new systems.
Now, the good news, is that if, as the name of the panel suggests, you are coming from D&D 5e, you already know most of the major rules! YAY! But, as they say, Asmodeus in the details. In this panel I’m gonna take you over the basic mechanical differences that will effect everyone, the differences you’ll face as you build characters, the differences GM’s will have to contend with, and the differences for the players. I promise, as you learn, you will find yourself thinking at least once here “Oh, that makes things easier,” or “Well, that’s already how we do it at our table” or sometimes you will think “FINALLY!”.
one of the first differences is one you’ve probably already heard about: the three action economy! On your turn, you get three actions. Any basic thing you do… is an action. Move, that’s an action, attack, that’s an action, tell the goblin what you and your allies did to the guys in the last room to make him soil himself, that’s not just an action, that’s a really GOOD action. Now martials are probably rubbing their hands thinking “oh! Three attacks per turn at level one!” hold up. There is something called the Multiple attack penalty. Basically while you get to make your first attack at full bonus, trying to follow up with another attack, is making you a bit reckless, giving you a minus 5 penalty to hit. And if you do a third (or more) attack, that penalty goes up to minus 10! There are things that can mitigate this penalty, but bare in mind just swing away, isn’t always good advice. Most spells will cost two actions, but there are plenty that are one, or three, or the number of actions could vary. Anything that isn’t a spell that costs more than one action, or costs one action but you can only do it because of x-rule is called an activity. A lot of activities your class or class feats give you will be about action compression.
Now when I talk about the basic mechanical differences, I’m talking about the rules you’ll encounter while rolling dice. First of all, you should know that there are more results just succeed and fail. Almost every effort in game will yield different results depending on critical failure, failure, success, or critical success. The one major exception is attacking (usually) doesn’t have an effect for a critical failure. That’s because Critical Failures and Critical success are no longer just based on Nat 1 and 20. If you beat a DC by 10 or more, that’s a CRITICAL success. And if you fail by 10 or more, that’s a critical failure. So if you are fighting a little bitty goblin with an armor class of about 13, and you manage to roll 24 on an 18, that’s a critical hit. (Also, critical hits just double ALL damage, not just the dice)
These crits are made more and more possible through the use of bonuses, which are more common than advantage/disadvantage (which is called fortune and misfortune respectively). Now those of you in here who are having traumatic 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e flashbacks; calm down! You cannot stack bonuses ad infinite. There are three bonus types, and you can only use the biggest one of each. The bonuses are Item bonuses, Circumstance bonuses, and Status Bonuses. Item bonuses are gained because you have a well made item helping you do something, or maybe even a magical one (more on magic weapons later). Circumstance bonuses are usually from things you are doing. You give yourself a beneficial (or harmful in the case of penalties) situation. A good example of this is flanking. If you and an ally flank a creature, it then off guard to both of you, giving it a -2 circumstance penalty to it’s armor class. Status bonuses are more lasting effects, usually a result of a condition or a spell. One of the most powerful, which theoretically anyone can cause, is the “Frightened” condition. You can take the “Demoralize” action to say something threatening or scary to an enemy, and if you succeed, they become frightened 1, which gives them a -1 status penalty to EVERYTHING, attacks, skill checks, armor class! Learning to create and stack these bonuses and penalties can cause some MASSIVE plays. And remember, each +1 is more than a +1 to hit, it’s also a +1 to CRIT.
Now you are all probably thinking “but what about my normal to hit modifier”! Okay, let’s talk proficiency. In normal Pathfinder 2e, there are five degrees of proficiency; Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary. Untrained is exactly that, you don’t really know what you’re doing here, but you’ll give it a stab, you add your ability modifier and that’s it. Trained through Legendary get a boost of +2,+4,+6, or +8 respectively. In addition you add your level to anything you have trained or higher proficiency in.
They also don’t apply universally at the same time. In 5e, at level 5 your proficiency for everything just goes up to +3. But in Pathfinder it works differently. Your proficiencies are divided into two groups I like to call “Class Proficiencies” and “Skill Proficiencies”. Class proficiencies get assigned based on what class you are playing. These will including things like your perception, your weapons proficiency, your spell attack/DC, your class DC (For martials), your saving throws, and your armor class… that’s right, armor is something you get better with.
The major differences for GM’s come from secret rolls, tighter balance, and the result of that tighter balance being a shift in burden. Secret rolls simply means any skill check where a character is trying to get information, YOU roll the check behind your screen. If they fail badly enough, you’re going to give them bad information, and they don’t get to know whether they failed or succeeded.
Tighter balance in both items having specific levels to help you figure out when it is okay to give to the party, CR’s being more reflective of a creature’s over all capabilities guides for balancing encounters based on intended difficulty and level that actually works and prevents accidental surprise TPK’s. However, all of this comes with more rules which make building encounters more simple if you are willing to stick to Paizo created content, but more complex and difficult if you prefer to home brew monsters and creatures.
Skill proficiencies are mostly the skills you know athletics, acrobatics, stealth, deception, etc, etc. Some of them will have slightly different names, and some may be expanded into multiple skills. Also some skills will sometimes be “Class proficiencies”. That’s the more complicated classes.
And since were talking about classes, let’s talk about the difference in character building. First off, while they are the same 6 catagories, instead of ability scores, you have attribute modifiers, which simply means we don’t bother with the big number and only concern ourselves with the modifier. And these modifiers get built as you build your character. You will get attribute boosts from your ancestry, from your back ground, and from your class, as well as 4 boosts just for building your character. Now the limit here is boosts from the same source cannot over lap. So if you get a strength and dexterity and free boost from your ancestry, both your strength and dexterity go up by 1, and then you can increase one of the four others by 1.
Your ancestry (Race or species in D&D) will determine a few things: it will give you a few boots and maybe a penalty, it will determine any special senses, and it will give you some extra starting hit points for level 1, based on how hearty these ancestries normally are. You will also choose your heritage, representing the community you grew up in, and a special feat from your ancestor.
From your background you’ll get a couple of boosts, become trained in a skill, and get a skill feat (some special ability you can do because of your training in that skill)
And from your class well… that depends on your class! Each class has a key attribute modifier which will automatically get a boost. Now here’s the big thing that may shock you all: When you pick your class, you are that class from level 1-20. Multi classing works VERY different. It is less of “I am both these classes!” and more “I am this class, but I also have a little training in this other class”. But the good news, the REALLY GOOD NEWS: All the classes are build like the 5e Warlock. You get a bunch of basic stuff necessary to your class in the first few levels, and at later levels it’s mostly your class proficiencies going up. And every Even level (and level 1 for martials) you gain a class feat, all of this helps making your character play your way.
one of the first differences you will feel in combat encounters is movement. While attack of opportunity does exist (called Reactive Strike here), not everyone can do it. For the most part only martial characters can learn this, and only at 6th level or higher (exception being the fighter who gets it out of the gate)
Martials, you will keep up better with your spell casters because of how weapons work. Specifically the RUNE system. You can place runes on weapons and armor (very common magic items). For weapons the fundamental runes are Potency (adding to your item bonus to hit) and striking (adding extra damage die). For armor Potency adds to the armors item bonus for armor class, and Resiliency, which adds item bonuses to your saving throws. Both can then add exta runes that give special effects like adding some elemental damage, or making people you hit with it afraid.
This builds on the weapon TRAITS. Each weapon will have certain traits which could mean things like you can try to trip someone with this weapon, and if you do you can add the weapon’s item bonus to the athletics roll to trip. Or maybe it’s got the deadly trait, which adds an extra damage die when you critically hit. Or it could let you use the melee weapons with your dexterity modifier to hit (NOT To damage though), or it could reduce your multiple attack penalty.
Then there are weapon GROUPS. For instance you may have a Katana, and a scimitar, and a long sword, and they all work very differently, but they are all in the same weapon GROUP. And when weapons of that group critically hit, they do an extra thing if you have certain class feature (kind of like 5e’s new weapon traits)
Casters, you are going to have to deal with a LOT more rules. But because degrees of success are such a big thing in this game, nearly ALL your spells will do something even on a successful save. They must CRITICALLY succeed a saving throw to avoid everything. So no more feeling like a turn was completely waisted because your big fancy control spell didn’t get anyone to completely fail.
But this extra power, comes at a price.
Prepared casters, clerics, Druids, Wizards: You have to REALLY prepare. Your spell slots are chambers in a revolver, and you have to load them with SPECIFIC spells. So if you only prepare a healing spell twice, you can only cast that healing spell twice, and only at the spell rank (spell level) you prepared it.
Spontaneous casters, you aren’t getting off scott-free either. When you learn a spell, you learn it at a SPECIFIC spell rank. You can’t just learn fire-ball when you turn level 5 and then be able to automatically up cast it when you get bigger spell slots. You have to learn it at those higher spell ranks. That said prepared casters do, USUALLY, have a feature that lets them choose one spell from each spell rank to be able to upcast without re-learning it. but that just makes the spells you choose that much more important.
For me, the biggest difference was martials being interesting to play.
This has been a big thing for non-PF2 folks who try it in my experience. I have one in one of my games right now who wanted something easy to play because he isn't that into the system and has a busy life so not a lot of time to invest in learning. He also loves martials.
He's playing a 2h human fighter. Every time he crits something with Vicious Swing (and he has a Rogue to flank with and a Bard for buffs, so it happens a lot) he has a huge grin on his face. Rolling 4d12 damage at level 1 never gets old.
That turned out to be the actual selling feature of PF2 for him: Martials are really good.
First of all, you should know that there are more results just succeed and fail.
To me, that is a big one. Definitely worth bringing attention to.
One of the things that this causes is that players don't need to be as afraid of rolling for things. A result of 'failure' is a detriment, yes - but not one that is catastrophic. It shouldn't cause problems so serious that it ends entire encounters with defeat or derails the campaign entirely.
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This one may be more for PF1 veterans than 5e. I'm not sure how much 5e is tied to attrition. But PF2 does not use attrition of resources (notably HP) for combat encounter balance. It is expected that your character will take damage in combat. And it is expected that your character will heal all of that damage back up after combat is over.
The only things that are subject to attrition are spell slots, innate spells, and n/day abilities (like the 1/day Halfling Luck).
Even for spells, there are other types of spellcasting that don't suffer attrition. Focus spells being the best, but even cantrips are strong enough to be useful both in and out of combat.
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I am in the "Tell Them What You Are Going to Say, Tell Them, Tell Them What You Said" camp (How to Open a Presentation: Tell 'Em What You're Going to Say) of giving presentations. I used to lecture on mathematics, mostly algebra and calculus, and the tough material needed repetition to stick in the students' minds.
The Tell Them What You Are Going to Say would be an overview of the big differences: the three action system, the four degrees of success, the tight math, and the classes and archetypes. This would be a list, especially if you have a chart, a Powerpoint slide deck, or a handout, with you reciting only one sentence to define each item in the list.
Then in the main body of tells about each topic in practical detail. For example, the Three Action System topic would have that all three action in a turn are the same, except for the free actions and reactions. Explain--as you did above--about the Multiple Attack Penalty and that most spells take two actions to cast.
The Four Degrees of Success would have an example of a basic Reflex save: no damage, half damage, full damage, double damage--with non-damage spells often having a one-turn effect on a successful saving throw so that spells are seldom totally resisted.
The Tight Math topic would be that Pathfinder 2nd Edition uses bonuses and penalties rather than advantage and disadvantage, but it tries stop the numbers from accumulating. Bonuses are down to proficiency bonus from level and training, item bonus from magic items, status bonus from spells, and circumstance bonus from actions. And most penalties are from Conditions with standard rules, such as Frightened or Off-Guard.
For Classes, talk about the classes that D&D and Pathfinder have in common and the classes unique to Pathfinder. Use this opportunity to tell, as others suggested, that martial characters are more interesting in Pathfinder. Describe that multiclassing works differently: each character gets a class feat at each even level and can chose to take an archetype feat instead, such as Beastmaster, Medic, or Sorcerer Multiclass.
Finally, for the Tell Them What You Said put all these topics together. Talk about how surprised many D&D players are that Pathfinder 2nd Edition is very tactical. The GM can predict the power of a party due to the Tight Math and create a challenging encounter that needs tactics to win. Fortunately, the party can use Three-Action System for single-action teamwork such as Stepping into flanking position or Point Out an invisible enemy or Demoralize to Frighten an enemy or Trip to make an enemy waste an action Standing up, and still have two remaining actions for dealing damage. Many classes, such as bards and champions, have unique single-action abilities or reactions to aid their allies.
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I am in the "Tell Them What You Are Going to Say, Tell Them, Tell Them What You Said" camp (How to Open a Presentation: Tell 'Em What You're Going to Say) of giving presentations. I used to lecture on mathematics, mostly algebra and calculus, and the tough material needed repetition to stick in the students' minds.
Is that still the best delivery method when you're doing a panel at a convention, rather than teaching students? Honest question. I would think people who signed up for your panel would be more engaged and they aren't going to be quizzed later.
I am in the "Tell Them What You Are Going to Say, Tell Them, Tell Them What You Said" camp (How to Open a Presentation: Tell 'Em What You're Going to Say) of giving presentations. I used to lecture on mathematics, mostly algebra and calculus, and the tough material needed repetition to stick in the students' minds.Is that still the best delivery method when you're doing a panel at a convention, rather than teaching students? Honest question. I would think people who signed up for your panel would be more engaged and they aren't going to be quizzed later.
I asked my housemate, who has served on a panel at a science fiction convention. He said that for a lecture the Tell-Them-Three-Times method works. But a panel means multiple people giving their presentations and they have to give each other their turns.
Zoken44 said they were hosting a panel, which means that they coordinate the panel. I have seen many panels at science fiction conventions. Typically the host introduces each panel member and then provides an initial question for the panel members to respond to, possibly giving a response themself after everyone else has had a chance to respond or pass. Examples of opening question would be, "What was your experience in transferring from Dungeons & Dragons to Pathfinder?" or "What surprised you most about Pathfinder 2nd Edition?" For leading with a list of topics, I would ask, "What do you think is a significant difference between Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder 2nd Edition?"
Eventually, a panel will switch to taking questions from the audience, which is too unpredictable for planned responses.
For me, the biggest difference was martials being interesting to play.This has been a big thing for non-PF2 folks who try it in my experience. I have one in one of my games right now who wanted something easy to play because he isn't that into the system and has a busy life so not a lot of time to invest in learning. He also loves martials.
He's playing a 2h human fighter. Every time he crits something with Vicious Swing (and he has a Rogue to flank with and a Bard for buffs, so it happens a lot) he has a huge grin on his face. Rolling 4d12 damage at level 1 never gets old.
That turned out to be the actual selling feature of PF2 for him: Martials are really good.
[Emphasis mine] Just want to clarify quite pedantically because this confused me. Vicious Swing does add a dice of damage. But a Critical doesn’t double the dice, it doubles the damage. So it’s 2d12, doubled. Not 4d12. I’ve seen folks try to game this in PbP to offset rolling poorly on the “first” roll/s.
I guess “rolling 4d12 damage” is just more confusing to me than “scoring 4d12 damage” or “inflicting 4d12 damage” when it is only rolling 2d12s. And none of which takes into account Strength bonuses etc…
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For me, the biggest difference was martials being interesting to play.This has been a big thing for non-PF2 folks who try it in my experience. I have one in one of my games right now who wanted something easy to play because he isn't that into the system and has a busy life so not a lot of time to invest in learning. He also loves martials.
He's playing a 2h human fighter. Every time he crits something with Vicious Swing (and he has a Rogue to flank with and a Bard for buffs, so it happens a lot) he has a huge grin on his face. Rolling 4d12 damage at level 1 never gets old.
That turned out to be the actual selling feature of PF2 for him: Martials are really good.
[Emphasis mine] Just want to clarify quite pedantically because this confused me. Vicious Swing does add a dice of damage. But a Critical doesn’t double the dice, it doubles the damage. So it’s 2d12, doubled. Not 4d12. I’ve seen folks try to game this in PbP to offset rolling poorly on the “first” roll/s.
I guess “rolling 4d12 damage” is just more confusing to me than “scoring 4d12 damage” or “inflicting 4d12 damage” when it is only rolling 2d12s. And none of which takes into account Strength bonuses etc…
Rolling the damage twice (doubling the dice and non-critical modifiers) is an option in the rules so while it's not the default, it's valid RAW. I always use that option because it smooths out the result (rolling min damage on a crit sucks and it's dramatically less likely with more dice, though I had a player roll 3 nat 1's in a row on skill checks last night so its still possible).
For in person play, it's also just really fun to roll a fistful of d12s. :D Like I said: this person isn't really a fan of PF2 but he has a huge grin on his face every time he crits because rolling 4d12 for damage at level 1 never gets old. The modifiers and such are nice, but a crit just feels special vs a hit when it results in you getting to throw a lot more dice. (We did have to make sure he understands that his modifiers also get doubled, unlike in 5e, but after that he was loving it.)
Course, my son played a 2h Fighter in Extinction Curse and although it takes longer to add up at level 20, rolling 14d12 never got old either...
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So that's 4d12+8 actually right? (I assume he's got +4 strength)
Frankly, I'm happy with just rolling the normal amount and multiplying by two specifically BECAUSE you also double the flat damage too, which I feel makes up for it if you roll low, but I definitely see the appeal of rolling ALL THE DICE!
So that's 4d12+8 actually right? (I assume he's got +4 strength)
Yep! Usually 4d12+10 because they have a Bard. It goes up to 6d12+10 when Runic Weapon gets cast, and at this level nothing survives that.
"Fighters are actually good in PF2" is the sales pitch we gave him to try the character, and it's delivered so far!
Frankly, I'm happy with just rolling the normal amount and multiplying by two specifically BECAUSE you also double the flat damage too, which I feel makes up for it if you roll low, but I definitely see the appeal of rolling ALL THE DICE!
Yeah :) . If someone wanted to roll normally and double I'd let them do that too, because it really doesn't matter much. But folks usually want to roll more dice because grabbing all these dice and then flatting whatever you're attacking is a "my PC is a badass" moment.
@Thanks for the clarification Tridus! I think we both linked the same thing, but I didn’t read the lower section…
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I'd personally avoid too many details. You're presumably talking to people who are interested in PF2e, but might not know anything about it. Giving very specific examples will only go over their heads. For example:
Now when I talk about the basic mechanical differences, I’m talking about the rules you’ll encounter while rolling dice. First of all, you should know that there are more results just succeed and fail. Almost every effort in game will yield different results depending on critical failure, failure, success, or critical success. The one major exception is attacking (usually) doesn’t have an effect for a critical failure. That’s because Critical Failures and Critical success are no longer just based on Nat 1 and 20. If you beat a DC by 10 or more, that’s a CRITICAL success. And if you fail by 10 or more, that’s a critical failure. So if you are fighting a little bitty goblin with an armor class of about 13, and you manage to roll 24 on an 18, that’s a critical hit. (Also, critical hits just double ALL damage, not just the dice)
That "on an 18" is superfluous. You're throwing a lot of numbers at your audience, so you should cut out any numbers that don't add to your story. Just emphasise the critting on a non-natural 20 part and you're good.
Martials, you will keep up better with your spell casters because of how weapons work. Specifically the RUNE system. You can place runes on weapons and armor (very common magic items). For weapons the fundamental runes are Potency (adding to your item bonus to hit) and striking (adding extra damage die). For armor Potency adds to the armors item bonus for armor class, and Resiliency, which adds item bonuses to your saving throws. Both can then add exta runes that give special effects like adding some elemental damage, or making people you hit with it afraid.
Again, you're throwing out a lot of information here. Just say that there are runes that increase the effectiveness of your weapons/armour, and things you can add on top of them. They don't need to learn the exact terminology here.
There's a few more examples in your text, but I think this gets my point across.
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Also, you've added a lot of parentheses in your speech. It works fine on paper, but you need to speak it out loud, and then your quick asides might come across as unnatural or distracting. Either work them in your speech naturally, or leave them out if they're not super important to your story.
A few more examples of what I mean:
And since were talking about classes, let’s talk about the difference in character building. First off, while they are the same 6 catagories, instead of ability scores, you have attribute modifiers, which simply means we don’t bother with the big number and only concern ourselves with the modifier. And these modifiers get built as you build your character. You will get attribute boosts from your ancestry, from your back ground, and from your class, as well as 4 boosts just for building your character. Now the limit here is boosts from the same source cannot over lap. So if you get a strength and dexterity and free boost from your ancestry, both your strength and dexterity go up by 1, and then you can increase one of the four others by 1.
Both bolded parts do not add anything. Sure, it's a feature, but it doesn't change anything. The second part is overly technical and you might lose people.
Then there are weapon GROUPS. For instance you may have a Katana, and a scimitar, and a long sword, and they all work very differently, but they are all in the same weapon GROUP. And when weapons of that group critically hit, they do an extra thing if you have certain class feature (kind of like 5e’s new weapon traits)
Bolded part is technically true, but it's much easier if you omit that. Then the core message becomes "clubs are different from axes," rather than "you need a feat to do thing X."
Spontaneous casters, you aren’t getting off scott-free either. When you learn a spell, you learn it at a SPECIFIC spell rank. You can’t just learn fire-ball when you turn level 5 and then be able to automatically up cast it when you get bigger spell slots. You have to learn it at those higher spell ranks. That said prepared casters do, USUALLY, have a feature that lets them choose one spell from each spell rank to be able to upcast without re-learning it. but that just makes the spells you choose that much more important.
Basically, same goes here. It's good to highlight the differences between spontaneous and prepared casters, but mentioning signature spells right away just adds to the cognitive load.
Also, for the skills section, I would like to add how skills can advance at different rates. You've explained Trained, Expert, Master, and Legendary, but what I like in PF2 is that skills can actually differ from each other, pfoficiency-wise. Whereas if you advance in proficiency in 5e, that goes for EVERYTHING. Specialising in a certain skill actually feels like focusing on one skill in particular (one Dex skill can be at +6 and a different Dex-based skill at +10, for example. That wouldn't be possible in 5e).
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All IMHO of course. Feel free to disagree.