Pathfinder 2E Never give up on PF2

Retreater said:

No kidding. I was running multiple full campaigns, weekly, in different systems for a few years. Luckily, I've started cutting back.
My brain is friend from the experience. (And probably a big part of the reason I've been so grumpy on here.)

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I hear you. The first thing I said to my group before I ran our first CoC game is we're never doing anything but short scenarios we can run in a session or two. Due to that and the lethality of the system, don't get attached to your characters.

Retreater said:

No kidding. I was running multiple full campaigns, weekly, in different systems for a few years. Luckily, I've started cutting back.
My brain is fried from the experience. (And probably a big part of the reason I've been so grumpy on here.)

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Its one of those things I did when I was younger, but wouldn't try anymore; I might be able to manage two on alternating weeks, but even that might be a stretch.

Thomas Shey said:

Its one of those things I did when I was younger, but wouldn't try anymore; I might be able to manage two on alternating weeks, but even that might be a stretch.

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It's one of those "frogs in the boiling pot" situations: "How bad is adding just one more game going to be?"
And my schedule has changed a lot since I started this rotation (during the pandemic shut-downs).

Retreater said:

It's one of those "frogs in the boiling pot" situations: "How bad is adding just one more game going to be?"
And my schedule has changed a lot since I started this rotation (during the pandemic shut-downs).

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I'm (effectively) retired so I theoretically have plenty of time, but I still know I need to account for prep time and recovery, and those occasions when my get up and go got up and went.

PF2E is definitely my preferred system.

I love the amount of tactical detail. It's a bit rules lighter than I am used to, coming from 1980s era tRPGs like Hero/GURPs and even Other Suns (an obscure Sci-Fi game with trig and calculus formulas needed to resolve star ship actions).

There are 'enough' tactical choices to keep play fast. Not as many as I would like in a perfect world - and since I use Foundry I could easily handle more as I automate a lot of background detail. But it's enough to enjoy, without being too many to weigh things down.

I very much like that it can make both the roleplayer and gamer sides of me happy. I don't have to give up my 'gamist' side as so many other modern tRPGs demand.

I'm pretty disgusted right now with a lot of DnD influencers that love to dump on and insult players that enjoy 'game' challenge, and glad that perspective - that wasn't present in DnD back when I played it in the AD&D 1E through 3.5 days - has not yet infected Pathfinder. The 'anti-game' folks used to be more present in games like Amber Diceless to Tri-Stat, and we used to have a lot of systems welcoming both camps (80s/90s era Shadowrun, Vampire, etc). If folks want to be in camps, then I'm happy to let the anti-game folks (at least among YouTubers - I don't get the same hostility from the actual people playing the game) stay in DnD. And I'm glad Pathfinder straddles the middle of welcoming both people who want stories and people who want games - because many of us want both things in the same campaign.

I'm glad that I feel no need at all to make any house rules. I've never been a fan of house rules and "back in the day" I'd just dump a system if I felt that need, or play through things I felt were broken. For me, Pathfinder 'as written' works and I can just 'go with it'. I get that goes against the grain of a lot of people, and especially in this modern era people feel it's almost a duty to house rule (homebrew rules); but playing by a known preset standard is just how I like things.

I really like the setting. For me the 2E and then remaster changes were clear fixes to get rid of elements I found distasteful or just poorly written. The current 'Lost Omens' version of the setting just works for me. It's kitchen sink as they say, but with an internal logic to it. It's not perfect, but there are less flaws than any other major published offering I've seen to date.

As a GM, there is less work - making running stories smoother.
As a Player there is more work - meaning there are more game elements for me to dig in, explore, challenge, and thrive with. There is just the right amount of character granularity. No multi-page long list of advantages / disadvantages like in GURPS or Hero, no 'hand wave it' like in Tri-Stat or DnD. People call 'choice paralysis' what I see as 'choice paradise'.

I like what PF2 is doing (except for the whole mess around expected power level of runes etc, not sure if revised fixed that). I just don't want something that is so close to DnD, but not. Everything would just feel like a weird copy to my players.

So I'm right now just interested in Starfinder 2e finally using a reasonable rules system. Being able to go 'scifi! space fantasy!' makes for a cleaner divider.

fluffybunbunkittens said:

I like what PF2 is doing (except for the whole mess around expected power level of runes etc, not sure if revised fixed that). I just don't want something that is so close to DnD, but not. Everything would just feel like a weird copy to my players.

So I'm right now just interested in Starfinder 2e finally using a reasonable rules system. Being able to go 'scifi! space fantasy!' makes for a cleaner divider.

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I'm not sure if you've seen it, but the automatic bonus progression optional rule is probably for you if you don't want to mess with runes.

Belen said:

I maintain that PF2e is far too rules heavy for my tastes.

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I suppose it's all a matter of where you're coming from. I took off from tRPGs right as PF1E came out. So I'm missing this whole era of 'rule light' games being dominant. Tri-stat was out when I was around, and in fact I used to GM the Super Hero and was prepping a for the Cyberpunk version of it right before the company went under. But my mainstays were things like GURPS, Hero, Runequest, Rolemaster, Other Suns, etc.

For me, PF2E is a rule-light system. It just barely has 'enough crunch' to keep me there. Any less and I'd be falling asleep at the table even as the GM.

ironchains said:

I have played 5e since before it came out. And I dabbled in other systems. And pf2 was the first time I truly felt like the system encouraged teamwork.

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This is a HUGE draw for me. I spent my 20 years away in MMOs where you bring a team. There's the whole "Leroy Jenkins" meme about players who think they're the main character and anyone with that perspective gets tossed out of the raid with no mercy.

You build for teams. Every PC is a member of a team. I'm also a veteran, and the idea that any set of highly armed individuals going into an extremely dangerous scenario would not work together in a tight knit fashion is abhorrent to me on an instinctive level. I don't care how much A and B might hate each other - out there on the mission their survival and mission success depends on strict coordination along mission objectives. Anyone with any less ability to work together dies on first contact with the enemy. So I have no concept of PCs not being to that standard.

"Its what my character would do" - is not viable for people going on team missions. I know it, any soldier knows it, and while most players are civilians who DO NOT know it; their PCs are not commoners, and don't live in a nice safe world. So their PCs know it. Even the commoners that would live in such a society would know it.

(Obviously in some genres like a modern spy game half the angle is that the commoners don't know it.)

As you note - Pathfinder 2E rewards it. Build for and play as a team and the system lines up to hand you success. Fail to do so and the system gets brutal. And this for me a major feature. It was one of the things I disliked most about the old Cyberpunk genre tRPGs I used to GM and play in - they rewarded backstabbing. In an actual Cyberpunk like society the people that do NOT backstab are the ones that survive above the drek. Frankl as someone who 'got out' of the ghetto in my youth, that's a lesson I know to be true on a real-life level. Even as action movies have villains who kill of their own henchmen, or teams that betray each other - that's just not how it works.

ironchains said:

As far as "feat problems" goes. I think it's a straw man argument.

A class feature by a different name is still a class feature. If you want pf2 to be like 5e, I guess you could go through and limit each class to a specific feat at every level. Instead of having options.

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Agreed. A feat in PF2E is just part of a build kit to reach a final character design. I love how they work. I do think something more is needed in the skill feats. Some of them have chains you can go down and some don't and I'm often looking at a character in the mid levels and picking a starter skill feat rather than a bump to a prior picked one. Some of the 'DLC Ancestries' also don't have enough ancestry feats. I dislike the Ancestry Paragon Variant Rule precisely because it over-rewards picking Human because human has so many choices. But overall the design is great.

Justice and Rule said:

But I think if people have a problem with feeling overspecialized

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MMOs got me over this concern. Actually 3,0 started it, then MMOs finished it.

I used to be a big fan of the classless, level-less systems like Hero and GURPS. But the problem I now see with them is that it's a roleplaying game. Two words, not one. And the game side is at issue here. Specialization lets each player know what their role on the 'game board' is. What they get to do for the group to 'win the game'. And specialization works to ensure each person's thing is their thing and not overshadowed by another player.

A more freeform point buy system is truer to life in a civilian context. But specialized roles are how you build teams designed to achieve mission success. Some overlap and training on dealing with covering the gap when a team member goes down (this particular thing is something that makes the US military stand out above many others), but you want people focused on their goal and every member of the team should be highly valued or not brought.

Translating that to a game - every player should have their space to shine, even as you build a team comp where working together is how they succeed. Specialization ensures this - even if it means some PCs don't have abilities their 'concept' would make sense for them to have. On some points, the game has to win over the story, and this is one of them.

If PF2 is so easy to run, then why not run a game for your fellow Enworlders??? Once the doubters see the engine in action, I'm sure they'll change their minds.

Less telling people PF2 is great; more showing people PF2 is great please.