Pathfinder 2E Never give up on PF2

Philip Benz · Jun 14, 2024

There is so much cool content available for PF2, new books and adventures coming out all the time, and consistent high quality.
The 3-action turn, the four degrees of success and the wild variety of feats, classes and archetypes all make for a fun experience with the game, for players and DMs alike.
I've played D&D since 1974, many different editions and offshoots, and several D&D-like games from other publishers. DMing PF2 is so much more relaxing than with any other game system (with the possible exception of OD&D) that I can't imagine going for any other currently available game system.
What do y'all think?

payn · Jun 14, 2024

Its a good system, but relaxed isnt how I would describe it. Wound up way way too tightly is a better description. Some folks are definitely looking for that. Paizo is great even if PF2 isnt for me.

Justice and Rule · Jun 14, 2024

payn said:
Its a good system, but relaxed isnt how I would describe it. Wound up way way too tightly is a better description. Some folks are definitely looking for that. Paizo is great even if PF2 isnt for me.

Eh, it's adjustable. The nice thing is that they did a lot of work outlining how to do the adjustments, if you so do.

payn · Jun 14, 2024

Justice and Rule said:
Eh, it's adjustable. The nice thing is that they did a lot of work outlining how to do the adjustments, if you so do.

Sort of. My problems are systemic, but they are also my problems.

Retreater · Jun 14, 2024

DC20 has a 4-action economy. So I guess that's an improvement over PF2's 3-action economy?

Not to yuck on your yum, but I'm just so burned out on PF2 right now. I've been GMing it for a few years now, and here's my experience:
1) Didn't like the name changes and small changes in the Remaster. It's enough of a change to cause a headache at the table without improving anything.
2) Conditions being confusing (and way too many)
3) Dang diagonal movement. I hated it in 3rd edition and I still hate it.
4) The extraordinarily limited range of suitable monsters you can use (they're either exactly right or completely overpowered or completely worthless).
5) You can't effectively use low-level monsters as mooks/minions because they are still complex to run (and can't challenge the PCs)
6) There are too many options for feats and other builds that you can't make a character simply (without tools)
7) Those same tools are vital just for running the game. Trying to run in-person is a Herculean task.
8) Adventure Paths are railroads full of impertinent details and backstory that doesn't matter.
9) Too many classes. (Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Witch, etc., could just be subclasses.)
10) The 3-action economy is an illusion. (You also have reactions, there are many actions that are activities that take multiple actions.) Plus, with the Multiple Attack Penalty, using your third action to attack is usually pointless. And for most characters there is nothing useful to do with your third action anyway.
11) Most feats are so limited in application that we forget to use them. Or you have around 20 of them, so who's going to remember anyway?
12) Multiple levels of success and failure is cool, until you realize you have to learn 4 different spell effects.
13) Healing doesn't matter because you are able to Treat Wounds all day long. So the only unit of time that matters is the 30-minute combat.
14) There's not enough 3PP support to address a variety of playstyles. (Unlike in 3.x/PF1 or 5e.)
15) I don't like the kitchen-sink setting of Golarion. And it's so hard-wired into the rules that I can't imagine building my own world.
16) About half of the APs are significantly flawed.
17) About half the classes are pointless and repetitive or underpowered (alchemist? champion?)

Justice and Rule · Jun 14, 2024

payn said:
Sort of. My problems are systemic, but they are also my problems.

Nah, you're good. My problems with PF2 (outside some sort of add-mechanical quibbles that I can fix) are that it's still stuck in the sort of healing/damage assumptions of D&D, which has never been great at figuring out how to do long, lasting damage/injuries as well as long recovery (Or at least not in a particularly satisfying way to me). It's why I adapted the WWN Strain system to it to help. But really, I think the system is actually very adaptable comparatively speaking.

payn · Jun 14, 2024

Retreater said:
DC20 has a 4-action economy. So I guess that's an improvement over PF2's 3-action economy?

Not to yuck on your yum, but I'm just so burned out on PF2 right now. I've been GMing it for a few years now, and here's my experience:
1) Didn't like the name changes and small changes in the Remaster. It's enough of a change to cause a headache at the table without improving anything.
2) Conditions being confusing (and way too many)
3) Dang diagonal movement. I hated it in 3rd edition and I still hate it.
4) The extraordinarily limited range of suitable monsters you can use (they're either exactly right or completely overpowered or completely worthless).
5) You can't effectively use low-level monsters as mooks/minions because they are still complex to run (and can't challenge the PCs)
6) There are too many options for feats and other builds that you can't make a character simply (without tools)
7) Those same tools are vital just for running the game. Trying to run in-person is a Herculean task.
8) Adventure Paths are railroads full of impertinent details and backstory that doesn't matter.
9) Too many classes. (Swashbuckler, Gunslinger, Witch, etc., could just be subclasses.)
10) The 3-action economy is an illusion. (You also have reactions, there are many actions that are activities that take multiple actions.) Plus, with the Multiple Attack Penalty, using your third action to attack is usually pointless. And for most characters there is nothing useful to do with your third action anyway.
11) Most feats are so limited in application that we forget to use them. Or you have around 20 of them, so who's going to remember anyway?
12) Multiple levels of success and failure is cool, until you realize you have to learn 4 different spell effects.
13) Healing doesn't matter because you are able to Treat Wounds all day long. So the only unit of time that matters is the 30-minute combat.
14) There's not enough 3PP support to address a variety of playstyles. (Unlike in 3.x/PF1 or 5e.)
15) I don't like the kitchen-sink setting of Golarion. And it's so hard-wired into the rules that I can't imagine building my own world.
16) About half of the APs are significantly flawed.
17) About half the classes are pointless and repetitive or underpowered (alchemist? champion?)

Philip Benz · Jun 15, 2024

Retreater said:
DC20 has a 4-action economy. So I guess that's an improvement over PF2's 3-action economy?

Not to yuck on your yum, but I'm just so burned out on PF2 right now.

I've seen these arguments before, but never collected in one place, with so much... "yuck" to them.

I feel like Goldilocks, 3 actions is just right.

1) The name changes are cosmetic at worst. WotC is the culprit.
2) Hard disagree, but I do need to keep my DM screen handy as a quick reference sheet for those conditions. At the tabletop, we also use condition cards laid down next to the figures. On Foundry, condition tracking is seamless and transparent.
4) Hard disagree, especially since it's super easy to take any adversary and make it higher or lower level. I use a lot of NPC adversaries, making it even less of a problem.
5) Don't know where you're getting this stuff from, creatures below the party level aren't intrinsically complex. It's true, when you have a lot of critters on the battlemap, combats take longer to run. Maybe you just need a better combat tracker.
6) "Too many options" is an advantage, not a drawback. But I'll certainly agree that using a tool like Pathbuilder for character creation is much, much faster than flipping through pages in multiple books, or even just one. The important difference between PF2 and earlier systems like DD3.x and PF1 is that you can't "win" the game at character creation, by finding the optimal combination of broken feats.
7) Running Pathfinder around the tabletop is anything but a "Herculean task". Many would argue that it's far easier than that other popular RPG, for reasons too numerous to name, but starting with the fact that the Building Encounters table actually works, and you don't have to make up rules on the fly just to keep your game running.

I'm going to stop here. It's clear you have your position and there's zero chance of convincing you. My experience is vastly different. Thanks for sharing.

Zardnaar · Jun 15, 2024

Art leaves me cold. One of the players owns the books but idk.

Philip Benz · Jun 15, 2024

About APs.

I think it's natural and nearly inevitable for any pre-written adventure to feel something like a railroad.
However, that doesn't stop individual DMs from treating the pre-written content more like a toolbox than a roadmap.

Some years ago, when I was running Rise of the Runelords for PF1, I think 30 to 40% of our sessions involved stuff that wasn't in the pre-written content at all, as players followed up on peripheral NPCs and clues and "went off the rails" as I homebrewed extensions and side-quests here and there.
The same thing happened last year, when I was running Malevolence for PF2. The adventure deals almost exclusively with challenges inside a haunted mansion, but I added tons of peripheral stuff and a few storylines linked to the surrounding countryside, notably a fey forest this manor was next to.

More recently, I've been running homebrew campaigns ostensibly set in Golarion, but I avoid the "kitchen sink" aspect by simply ignoring content I don't want to use and "adjusting" my version of Golarion to better suit my own vision of what the world is like.

Railroad adventures only hem you in if you let them. From one session to the next, a clever DM can easily add whatever new material he likes, taking inspiration from existing storylines or adding his own as desired.

Pathfinder 2E Never give up on PF2

Philip Benz

A Dragontooth Grognard

payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

Justice and Rule

Hero

payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

Retreater

Legend

Justice and Rule

Hero

payn

I don't believe in the no-win scenario

Philip Benz

A Dragontooth Grognard

Zardnaar

Legend

Philip Benz

A Dragontooth Grognard

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