I had, until recently taken a break from TTRPGs, and I haven’t GMed a game for even longer.
However, despite all the everything going on, my mental state has somehow slightly improved, and now I’m ready to jump back on the proverbial horse.
Pathfinder 2E has been like a favorite suit to me; I really love it, but I haven’t had many opportunities to use it, in fact, I haven’t never gotten around to GMing it (only playing it), but now I’m ready to take the plunge and I have four people who have agreed to follow down after me.
The problem is, the amount of experience my courageous players have with the game is, on average, low. Two I’m not that worried about; one has a fair amount of experience with the system and the other, though a novice, I have played other TTRPGs with and know they are an intelligent and attentive player, so they should grasp the rules quickly.
Another has I’ve also played RPGs with before, and though they try there best, they regularly forget rules and ask to be reminded. The last one has had 0 experience with TTRPGs, but they are my sister and I know they are capable and I can’t stress for how long I’ve wanted them to try RPGs, because I’ve thought they would love them.
My current plan to help them get there feet wet is with a short adventure with pregenerated characters; The Great Puppet Heist. In addition to introducing the to most of the P2E mechanics, it will introduce everyone to each other. Then after the adventure, assuming none of them were completely scared off from the system, I will give the group the choice of a few APs and see what they what piques there interest.
Then the next week, I’ll have everyone to sit down for a session 0; we’ll set up the ground rules and everyone will make there characters together. Then, the next week we will begin our full campaign.
So, I didn’t just make this post as a diary entry, but to get some tips of advice.
Are there any good resources that I could share with my players to help them understand the rules without overwhelming them?
Does my strategy seem to have merit, or should I rethink my approach?
What APs would be a good choice to offer as possibilities to my players? I’m okay with 1st edition Adventure Paths as long as there are good tools to convert them to 2E.
Some of the one’s I was looking at were:
1. Curse of the Crimson Throne
2. Mummy’s Mask
3. Abomination Vaults
4. Strength of Thousands
5. Season of Ghosts
I would appreciate any replies and I thank you if you read this far.
The beginners box is a pretty good introductory adventure to the rules and such. The Great Puppet Heist should also work for that, though, as the free RPG day adventures are meant for new players.
If your players like videos, there's some new player videos on Youtube. I don't know how most of them are because I haven't watched them, but I know NoNat1s is pretty easy to listen to. He does occasionally get stuff wrong, but it's not a big deal at this point.
New players can feel like there's a lot of rules, and there is. But they don't need to know most of them. Like if you're playing a Fighter, you don't need to know how spellcasting works. You need to know that spells usually provoke Reactive Strike, and that's it. There's a lot of the rulebook the just don't need to look at to start. They need to know about actions, MAP, how attacks work, and what their skills do. Thinning it down makes it a lot more easily digestable.
A reference card helps a lot. I like to make an index card with the key actions listed that the player will do most often, so they can look at that to get a quick idea of what they can do. A bigger version of this is to create an index card per action which can also explain the action on it, but personally I use the single card.
And of course that if they have an idea to improvise use of a skill, to speak it up! Those creative moments are some of the best ones.
One key piece of advice I will give is to stay away from variant rules at first. People might tell you that every game should use free archetype, ancestry paragon, and a bunch of other stuff. Don't do that. Most of it adds more "stuff" and new players already have a lot of things to pick and learn to use. You can add variants and house rules later as you learn the game and decide what things you want to change.
Aside from that, it also depends on how strict your group is in terms of the rules. I have two groups, and one wants a game that adheres pretty closely to the rulebook. The other is more vibes based. Unsurprisingly the second group doesn't know the rules as well as the first group, but as long as they understand their own character that's really all that matters to them. I just adjudicate whatever makes sense, the game moves, and everyone's happy.
In terms of APs... don't start with a conversion unless that conversion is actually complete. A lot of them are "mostly done" and you'll run into places where its not. Some of the higher rated PF2 APs are a good place to start. Season of Ghosts definitely qualifies. It's also relatively easy in terms of its combat difficulty and the plot is interesting.
I'm running Abomination Vaults now and it has some pretty difficult fights for a group of 4. It's also very dungeon heavy unless you work to expand on the town (Abomination Vaults Expanded has lots of resources to add more to Otari). If the group really likes dungeon crawls then it's a good pick, but do be careful of the nastier battles. Giving out some free relevant loot like a ghost touch rune early on helps a lot, and also shows them the kind of items they should be looking for. All that said, Curse of the Crimson Throne is awesome and if you're comfortable dealing with the conversion, then keep it as an option.
Speaking of items: they'll need some guidance there. There are a LOT of items and finding the relevant ones is tricky. Weapon/armor runes, skill boosting items, and healing/recovery consumables are all handy early on. Once they get a feel for it you can take the guardrails off there, but steering early loot towards things that are actively useful will help them vs giving out a bunch of talismans that they'll forget they have.
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I’ll second everything that Tridus said. Additionally, I would recommend that you gently guide them away from the more complicated classes at the start of the game. The basic classes are all strong, some more than others, but more importantly, it’s easy to learn the class features and how the game works.
I have seen a number of times in both home games and Pathfinder Society play when the players are interested in a certain character concept, they take on a complicated class, get overwhelmed, and/or do not use all the classes’ strengths. Often they end up not returning or leaving the campaign, with the idea the Pathfinder 2e is ‘too complicated.’ Although, Pathfinder is not as complex as some TTRPGs, it can be overwhelming for new players and I think the OP reflects that understanding.
As someone who has been playing for three decades and loves spellcasters, during the transition from 1e to 2e I stayed away from them until recently. I had a blast with the martial classes and used the advice of encouraging certain classes when I introduced my son to the game. We haven’t regretted it and he’s two characters into PFS now.
Therefore, I would recommend fighters, sorcerers, champions, rangers, rogues, clerics, and monks. Those are all easy to learn classes with a quick turnaround on enjoyment of the game. The PCs start exploring how these stronger components interact effectively with the rest of the game without the higher difficulty of absorbing edge class rules. Your players will be ready to take on more complicated classes after they have gained essential rules mastery.
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Something that concerns me, is that experienced players of other TTRPGs (depends on the RPG) may have really bad habits that will make the game unfun if they try to do the same in PF2. It's worst for players who have experience with PF1, because the games play so extremely differently and many people who migrate try to play the game the same way (as much as they can) only to hate it because they don't have the right mindset about things.
PF2 requires teamwork. Or at least rewards it. You can probably succeed if everyone in the party kind of does their own thing without trying to implement much coordination, but it will be harder. But a player that thinks they can carry the party on the merits of their character alone (as they could in PF1) will have a dead character and likely an unhappy player very quickly.
Players need to know that attacking 3 times in a round is usually a waste of actions (due to MAP). Fighters and rogues are extremely strong classes that are very straightforward to play. Round out the party with choices among bard, cleric, and sorcerer. Spell casters are obviously more complicated than non-spells casters, but you can also have some pretty complicated non-spell casting classes too (Inventor, Thaumaturge, Alchemist, Swashbuckler) aren't classes I'd recommend to a new player.
Thanks for the advice everyone!
In terms of Classes and Complexity, is there any first-or third-party source that breaks down all the classes in an easy to understand way and notes how complex they are?
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Something to know, that is very useful that newer players who have experience with TTRPG might not expect, is that the sorcerer might be the most friendly introductory spell casting class, because of a surprising reason.
Sorcerers can use any spell list, due to how their bloodlines work. So you can absolutely use the divine spell list, if that's your thing, without being a cleric or other "traditional" divine class. And because of the benefits that have been given to spontaneous spell casters (signature spells) without an equivalent to prepared casters, prepared casters usually feel much worse to play unless you know exactly what you're going to encounter and prep for that specifically. IMO, prepared casters definitely feel a lot harder than spontaneous. And the idea of versatility and utility that prepared casters were supposed to have, doesn't exist so much in PF2. There aren't many long duration buff or utility spells anymore. And even if the situations where they would be useful...it's unlikely you knew about it in advance so you weren't likely to prepare it.
And as far as I recall there aren't just general default mechanism to leave slots open and prepare them later or to reprepare slots as a downtime activity. Which is pretty much why I'd never recommend prepared casting. That's what scrolls or wands are for, to provide you with access to those utility spells. Oh, and Scrolls and Wands use your spell casting DC or spell attack roll, so they're absolutely a viable source of offensive magic.
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Thanks for the advice everyone!
In terms of Classes and Complexity, is there any first-or third-party source that breaks down all the classes in an easy to understand way and notes how complex they are?
Not that I'm aware of.
Very generally, martial classes are less complex and spellcasters more complex (because you have to know your spell lists and what they do). But as I mentioned there are martial classes that are also more complex. And there are also spell casters that aren't very complex outside of the part of managing the spells.
Here are classes I personally would recommend to new players based on not being very complex:
Fighter
Rogue
Barbarian (more complex than the first two, but not too bad)
Champion
Ranger (also a bit more complex than some of the other martials, mostly because of the prey mechanic)
Monk
"Less complex" spell casters:
Bard
Cleric
Sorcerer
Wizard (isn't that complex for spellcasters but feels a lot worse than an arcane sorcerer to most people)
Druid (if you avoid animal companions aren't too bad on complexity)
Thanks for the advice everyone!
In terms of Classes and Complexity, is there any first-or third-party source that breaks down all the classes in an easy to understand way and notes how complex they are?
Not that I'm aware of.
Very generally, martial classes are less complex and spellcasters more complex (because you have to know your spell lists and what they do). But as I mentioned there are martial classes that are also more complex. And there are also spell casters that aren't very complex outside of the part of managing the spells.
Here are classes I personally would recommend to new players based on not being very complex:
Fighter
Rogue
Barbarian (more complex than the first two, but not too bad)
Champion
Ranger (also a bit more complex than some of the other martials, mostly because of the prey mechanic)
Monk"Less complex" spell casters:
Bard
Cleric
Sorcerer
Wizard (isn't that complex for spellcasters but feels a lot worse than an arcane sorcerer to most people)
Druid (if you avoid animal companions aren't too bad on complexity)
Good list! Though I'd probably remove Wizard because actually playing it well is a LOT harder than playing the others on the list well.
For new players, I tend to warn them that certain classes have a lot going on and are harder to get up to speed. You can still do it if they want, but it'll be a harder time than the above list. (Note that this is not if I like the class or think its weak, just how I view it for new players.)
- Alchemist. Power level is heavily determined by how well you understand and can master the Alchemy item list, which is absolutely huge. So there's a lot to digest early on.
- Summoner. Mechanically complex because you have two character sheets (yours and the Eidolon), which share actions and HP but don't share other things. The interaction is a lot more complicated than it is with animal companions since some things are shared and some things are not. (Though I also don't recommend an animal companion to start.)
- Witch. Requires understanding how familiars work and managing that, especially with a patron that might want to put the familiar into combat to activate an ability as familiars are fragile (like the ever popular Resentment).
- Commander. One of my favorite classes, but heavily dependent on strong team play because your main thing is giving other people extra things to do. Thus getting the most out of it means understanding what everyone else is doing and when it's a good time to spend your actions to have other people doing things instead (and the other players wanting to do those things).
- Inventor. A lot of abilities require checks or flat checks to work, and it can be VERY frustrating if your dice go cold and your class abilities just don't function reliably. So it's not a great "new player experience".
- Wizard. Spontaneous casters are easier to play in general IMO. If you want a prepared caster, Cleric and Druid are more forgiving and easier for new players. Wizard's issue is really that it needs more skill to get the most out of it than a lot of other casters.
- Psychic. See Wizard, except with fewer spell slots. It's big ability also debuffs the caster, so bad timing can be costly.
- Animist. Pretty complicated to learn as it's one of the more complicated casters.
- Oracle. Less so than it was before, but it's still a more complicated class due to the curse. That said, it's also very strong now, so if a player does want to learn it, they'll probably be pretty effective.
Of course, I also think enthusiasm matters for new players. If one of your players just REALLY wants to play a certain class and understands the learning curve, you should go with it. Someone who is enthusiastic about a concept is more likely to try to learn it after all!
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Good list! Though I'd probably remove Wizard because actually playing it well is a LOT harder than playing the others on the list well.For new players, I tend to warn them that certain classes have a lot going on and are harder to get up to speed. You can still do it if they want, but it'll be a harder time than the above list. (Note that this is not if I like the class or think its weak, just how I view it for new players.)
Well, it's not that the wizard is hard to play or understand (beyond spell casting in general). It's that the wizard is hard to play well, and there's not really much "understanding" that can improve it either. But yes, in my prior posts I was trying to indicate that wizard is a more challenging choice compared to arcane sorcerer.
For the other stuff:
Alchemist - I agree it's a terrible class for new players. It's main power requires you to be very knowledgeable about alchemical items and when to use them. It's very bad for a new player. Or anyone that doesn't want to memorize the list of alchemical items and their uses.
Summoner - Agreed complex because you're running two characters, and even worse because they share action economy and lots of feats are based around action economy manipulation between the two characters. And it has even more confusing spellcasting being a "wave" caster.
Witches - Mostly agree, and the reason I didn't recommend is because of the familiar interaction as a spellbook and some patrons abilities that want to put the familiar at risk. It's not much more complicated than a wizard, but also doesn't have much that makes it more rewarding (IMO).
Commander - A great class, but requires a lot of coordination between players. On that merit alone, it's not beginner friendly.
Inventor - A lot of fiddly bits to keep track and also roll dependent as you mention.
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Another tip worth knowing from before people ever start making characters.
Magical healing ISN'T required, though it can be useful for keeping characters in a fight.
In fact magical healing is worse at keeping people topped up in between combats (and PF2 generally assume you will take time between combats to get people healed up to full/near full).
The medicine skill is now really strong, and with just a few feats (battle medicine, ward medic, continual medicine) and putting 1 characters skill increases into increasing proficiency when available allows for that character to carry out of combat healing. It is definitely nice to have some magical healing for in combat, or in the emergency case of your medicine user being unconscious. At least one character needs to choose medicine and invest in it at every opportunity. Preferably not a character who has access to magical healing, if only to spread around the capacity to heal between characters.