Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

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Grantholomeu
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Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Grantholomeu » Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:27 pm

This seems to be a largely dead channel, but I've been encouraged by Primarch's recent, giant posts about how games work and why they're cool to make my own. So Pathfinder 2e came out about two years ago, and I've been DM'ing for some friends back in the U.S. for about a year now. Having played dnd 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, albeit when I was a young gamerling, as well as a good amount of dnd 5e, those are mainly what I'll be comparing Pathfinder 2e to. Disclaimer from the start, I've enjoyed Pathfinder 2e the most out of all of them so far.

First are all the good things I love about Pathfinder 2e in no particular order:
- Varying degrees of success: When you roll a die, as per usual, meeting or exceeding the DC of the check is a success, and rolling under the DC is a failure. However, Pathfinder 2e makes this system more interesting because if you are ever 10 or more above the DC you critically succeed, and on the other hand, if you are 10 or more under the DC you critically fail. Additionally, after rolling a natural 1 or 20, you calculate your result normally, and then on a 1 go down one more degree of success, and on a 20, go up one more degree of success. So if you are several levels more powerful than an opponent, you can go up to them and crit them pretty regularly. Another interesting idea is that if say a lvl 1 kobold rolled a nat 20 against an elder dragon with an AC of something like 40, he would still miss because his 20 would be a critical fail, and still only go up to a regular failure. This is a very fringe case, but amusing.

- 3 actions: While in most other systems you get 2 actions, in Pathfinder 2e you get 3. This makes a few things more customizable. Spells often take 2 actions out of your turn. Some of them take 3 and a few take 1. But this opens up the playing field to using an extra action to extend the range of your spells, or using feats to cut the action cost of your spells down by 1, among other things. Physically attacking is different from dnd too. From level 1, if you start your turn next to someone, you can try to clobber them 3 times. The catch is you take -5/-10 on your rolls for the 2nd and 3rd attacks. This plays into the critical miss threshold too, so you CAN swing 3 times, but you should be pretty confident you can get close to a hit, or else you'll critically fail and suffer some consequences. All in all, 3 actions feel a lot more malleable than the 1 action 1 move system.

- DC's: In other rpg's, there are many checks which are opposed, which is good for interaction, but makes the results very random in my opinion. For example, if a rogue is trying to sneak, they might have a good stealth modifier, but roll poorly and get spotted, OR the guard might roll well and spot them. In Pathfinder 2e, first, you can take a common feat called Assurance that lets you automatically take a test with a certain skill as if you had rolled a 10 on the d20. This is very useful for rogues and stealth, grapplers and athletics, wizards and arcana, etc. If you didn't have that, you would roll stealth on your turn. The interesting thing is you would roll against whoever is around's perception DC, which is just their perception modifier + 10 (more or less an average roll). There are many things that go against (skill/save) DC that calculates as that modifier + 10, and it makes things more consistent because it uses the randomness of 1 die roll rather than the randomness of 2 die rolls.

- Variation sweet-spot: Many people dislike dnd 5e because each character sharing the same class is forced down a very similar path and feel like you're playing nearly the same character. There is not as much customization as most people would like after their first couple characters. Pathfinder 1e had the opposite problem. You would go on their website to see what kind of character you could play, and there were 348 official classes, 875 semi-official classes, and 11998 home-made classes from Auntie Sherry's 5th floor basement. Then you'd try and level up and there was an even longer list of feats to the point you would basically be forced to google what feats were good for your class. Pathfinder 1e had too much customization. Pathfinder 2e finds a good middle ground. There are 12 classes in the core rulebook, and 4 more in the advanced players' guide, which are the only books with classes in them that I have. I believe there are 2 more classes in the new Secrets of Magic book and another 2 more in the new Guns and Gears book, but still a manageable number of classes. At certain levels (something like 1/3/5/9/11/13/15/17) you gain 1 class feat out of about 4 options for that level. Some levels have fewer options and some levels have more, and you can also always take a feat from a lower level. Some of the feats are kind of needed for a kind of path you might want to take, like a wild shaping druid, or a bow and arrow focused ranger, but still, each class has several different paths you can spec into, creating much more individualized characters. This is a nice sweet spot in my opinion with enough variation to make each character different, but little enough that it is still very manageable.

- Runes: Magic in Pathfinder 2e is held by runes imbued in equipment. Runes are cool because each ability on a piece of magical equipment has a rune giving it that ability, and if you have someone who is good at crafting, they can take that rune out of said piece of equipment and transplant it into another. So if you have a nice rune in a mace, but you don't use maces, you can potentially transplant it into your greatsword that you're an expert in.

- Each creature is unique: The "Monster Manual" in Pathfinder 2e is called the "Bestiary." They did a real good job game-design-wise making every creature have thematic and unique abilities. Ogres can eat you whole and then you can try and rupture from their stomach. These plant zombies that are just corpses filled with vines have their arms drop off at half hp and they gain reach because the vines are still in tact on the inside. This one war daemon with a bunch of weapons impaled in it gets to try and wrench your weapon from your hands when you hit it. I love that there's a fun catch with every opponent, rather than opponents just being stat-blocks.

- Level 1 HP: You start with HP both from your class and race. Then level 2+ you only get HP from class. That helps you not be easily one-shot-able level one, because the lowest HP you could possibly have level 1 would be 11 I believe as an Elven wizard. Most people start level 1 between 14 and 18 max HP. As a dwarven barbarian I think you would start level 1 at 23 or 24 HP.

- Significant improvement every level up: Kind of mentioned in the variation point, but each level you get a few new abilities/feats/spells/skill boosts etc. Sometimes in dnd it can feel bad when you level up and you basically just get another spell slot and not much else.

- Archetypes: Very much like in dnd 3.5, but you can take basically a sub-class called an archetype regardless of your main class. An archetype gives you access to a bunch of feats that you couldn't take otherwise. So you could be druid with the beast master archetype or you could be a fighter with the beast master archetype and get access to the same feats. You can also archetype into another main class and gain access to their feats, however at a higher level. So what a full-blooded rogue would gain access to at level 5, an archetyped rogue would gain access to at about level 7 or 9.

- Relics: These are just cool items with a twist. Relics have two "aspects" like wind, death, water, light, etc. Then they gain gifts, which are just new magical abilities as you level up with them, that reflect the user's actions. So if you have a relic with the light/water aspects, maybe you're a good character and usually get the light gifts, but one time you get a water gift because of a sailing arc where you were fighting pirates. All up to the DM.

- NPC gallery: Just a really nice thing to have in the back of the "Gamemastery Guide." Yes, they really tried to not call it a "Dungeon Master's Guide." But in the back of the book is a collection of regular-ish people with full stat blocks so you don't need to make them up on the fly. Homeless ruffians, clergy members, forest guides, palace guards, and many more are predefined and ready to go whenever your party might run into them.

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Qualms:

Alchemist: Alchemist just seems bad, no two ways about it. It's a complicated class, and fan favorite from 1e, but no matter how you play it, alchemist looks bad. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but the bombs just do very little damage and the elixirs give very negligible buffs. Poisons look alright, but I can't see you using them all that often. Maybe if you gave them to a martial character in your party, but what kind of fun is that for the alchemist player?

Crafting Price: By the book, when you craft something, you have to pay the full price of it as listed in the book. Then, you may spend extra days reducing the price further to a max of 50%. But you reduce the price very slowly, to the point you would need to spend literally months crafting a lot of things if you actually wanted to get it for 50% the price. In my game, this has lead to me just saying that vendors sell things for higher prices than are in the book, because if it took them that much gold to craft it, they're going to mark it up 25%-50%. But it doesn't feel good either way. I'd say you should get at least a 10%-20% discount from crafting, base.

Magic strength and range: My friend was annoyed with this and I partially agree. Magic early does not do a ton of damage, nor does it have much range. At level 1, it can be frustrating when all your spells have a 30ft range, but everyone can potentially take 3 move actions in a turn and has a move speed of 20 feet or so. In most cases it seems to me that spells don't quite do as much damage as martial classes, which is annoying to some people. However, I would argue that spells have a lot more creativity in their uses compared to a longsword. Finding times to play to your spells' strengths can be huge, and as a DM I try to reward that as long as it isn't too much of a stretch. Additionally, a decent number of creatures have resistances to physical damage, or non-magical physical damage, which magic can get by. And you are more likely to have something with an attribute a creature has a weakness to. So I don't totally agree that the damage thing is unfair, especially when casters gain access to a bunch of non-damage related spells that can totally change the flow of an encounter. Range can be rough at level 1 though.

Armor: Probably my biggest gripe with the system is how armor affects your AC. The different armors in the game give you an AC bonus between +1 and +6 from leather armor to full plate. The catch is that in leather armor, you can have a dex modifier of up to +4, whereas in full plate you can't have any dex modifier. So for being a walking tank in plate mail, you basically end up with 1 more AC than the rogue in leather armor, who can also still run much faster than you and perform all sorts of maneuvers. Proficiency is a big thing in Pathfinder 2e. It lets you get a bonus equal to 2/4/6/8 (trained/expert/master/legendary) + your level to many different stats in the game, including AC. So not only is the difference between a rogue in leather armor and a paladin in full plate 1 AC, if that rogue was 2 levels higher, they'd have more AC than the paladin! That just doesn't sit right with me. Admittedly a paladin is more likely to use a shield, but they shouldn't HAVE TO. Even if you are unarmored, you have a DEX cap of +5, and you can still enchant your adventurer's clothing with runes just like any other armor to improve it's AC (which starts at +0). Wearing heavy armor seems like it doesn't reward you at all. You could argue that it lets you ignore DEX and put your ability points elsewhere, but I feel like DEX has so many convenient uses that you wouldn't want to do that anyways. I've thought of house ruling that medium armors have +1 to their AC compared to what's in the book, and heavy armors have +2. No matter how dexterous you are, I don't think you should count as being as heavily armored as a dude in full plate when you have no armor on.

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With qualms out of the way, I'd still give Pathfinder 2e a big thumbs up. Encounters are fun, unique, and well-balanced, which is everything I want in an rpg.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by The Underdweller » Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:35 pm

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! A friend of mine has been pushing Pathfinder 2e recently. We played a 2 hour intro game, which gave me some idea of what it was like, but this gives me more detail.

I like how they did the multiple attack rolls with the 3 actions.

Some of the things were around in D&D 3.5 (and other games), such as degrees of success or "taking 10" even for things like stealth, but they seem to be more prominent in P2E.

348 official character classes in P1? That is crazy! Is it similar to how 3.5 had prestige classes?

More character customization certainly sounds like a major selling point when compared to 5e.

Significant improvement each level up sounds similar to 5the, and in my opinion can make overly complicated characters sometimes, with abilities people tend to forget. But it does make leveling up more exciting.

From a fluff perspective, I find the idea of transferring runes kind of annoying, but I understand why it's a good game mechanic.

Archetypes sound more like 5e than 3.5? But anyway it's a good idea.

I'm fine with the magic doing a bit less damage than martial classes, especially at lower levels. I am not a fan of the 5th edition "everyone can do pretty much the same damage, but spellcasters can also do tons of other interesting things like flying, invisibility, etc"

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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Jye Nicolson » Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:35 am

Good review!

I never played Pathfinder (I went in hard on 4E and subsequently 13th Age instead) but those sound like some interesting changes.

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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Grantholomeu » Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:42 am

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

I think archetypes are more similar to prestige classes. It's weird because multiclassing into another main class and taking an archetype in what is like a prestige class are both called archetypes. So you can archetype as a barbarian, which is a main class, or you can archetype as a marshal, which you cannot play as your sole class.

Also I believe 'taking 10' in dnd requires 10 minutes to perform something meticulously enough to guarantee you could get a 10 on the die. At least that's how I've played it in the past. Assurance in Pathfinder 2e allows you to take 10 instantly, but it's a feat you need to invest in.

p.s. I was exaggerating about the number of classes, but I do think there may have been over 100.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Primarch » Mon Oct 18, 2021 8:54 am

In D&D 3.5 taking 10 was something you could do as standard. Taking 20 took longer as you were trying to get it right.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Grantholomeu » Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:59 am

Oh wow that's pretty powerful.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by The Underdweller » Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:57 pm

As Primarch pointed out, Taking 10 in 3.5 did not take longer, but you had to not be distracted or be under any threats (such as being in combat). There were exceptions, though - my Fighter/Barbarian sidekick had a class feature that let him Take 10 on certain skills, like Tumble, even when he was being threatened.

Taking 20 took about 2 minutes (10 times longer than usual) and assumed you rolled every number from 1 to 20 - so you could use it for something where failure was OK, such as jumping up and trying to reach a ledge, or picking a lock. If you tried to disarm a trap with it, though, it would automatically trigger it before you succeeded in disarming it.

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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Konrad » Sat Oct 30, 2021 5:01 am

I stopped playing DnD after 2nd ed, missed out on the Pathfinder revolution entirely and have only started playing 5ed via Skype with my old school buddies recently....35 odd years later. The "Take a 10" "Take a 20" sounds like a useful mechanic. I can see it allows the players to feel a little more in control those times when the DM needs to move things along for the sake of the plot.
So Pathfinder has even more player class options than 5e? Dang. There is so much to keep track of in 5e. Every class at every level "unlocks" so to speak a bunch of special abilities. And every class has a half-dozen flavors which get more bells and whistles. Seems to be very little limit on what sort of archetype you would like to create. I suppose that's just the accumulations of cool ideas from the previous 4 editions. Not complaining, I'm having a blast. It is interesting to see how the game has evolved.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Primarch » Sat Oct 30, 2021 6:59 am

I think having a wide range of viable options is important in an RPG system like D&D/Pathfinder. D&D 3.5, the system I'm most familiar with had dozens of base classes and hundreds of prestige classes or class alternatives.

Sadly though, there were some balance issues with certain books that rendered some options obsolete. Psionicists were better than any of the traditional spell casting types by a long way. The Book of Nine Swords melee classes were incredible compared to the melee options in every other book.

Conversely, the three new classes in Tome of Magic varied between barely playable and utter dross. There were some great concepts, but the rules meant no-one bothered with the book.

On top of all that, there are forums and online resources that tell you all the best ways to build a character to get the most powerful options available. The temptation is always there to build the best character you can, so I often found myself limiting books and options when I ran a game. When I played, I loved looking through the various options and trying to put together a character that was different from what I had played before.

I guess having enough options to keep things interesting (especially for people who have played a lot), but keeping things fair between all of the various builds is a difficult thing to balance. I'm not sure that any game can ever get it right, but hopefully games developers keep trying.
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Re: Pathfinder 2e shilling (and a few qualms)

Post by Konrad » Sun Oct 31, 2021 4:32 am

@Prim- yeah "rules inflation" is a thing in all games, not just 40K. Whether on purpose or not, the temptation will always be there to add juuuust a little extra oomph to the new material.
I'm like not a power-gamer in any sense of the word, but even I was checking out the forums and min-max guides and whatnot. Actually some valuable insights and a good way to get an idea of how the rules worked and to scout out any potential issues.
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