Pathfinder 2 Playtest 2nd Edition: If it ain't broke, still fix it.

New update buffs blasting a bit, but that still runs into inflated monster saves anyway - with the underlying maths of the system, you're likely doing 75% or less of the actual listed damage overall due to high reflex granting lots of successes/critical successes.

The use of universal +level to everything and the 4 tiered success/fail system seems to be causing more issues than solving. Tight maths is fine on a non-flat RNG, but on a flat RNG it leads to a feeling of homogenisation to me.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

I personally find the card deck initiative far faster than writing down everyone's initiative roll. It works well, just because you are agile, does not mean you react fast in a combat situation, that's what some edges are for.

The math is not "horrible", the swingingness of "anything can happen" is part of the appeal of the game.

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This appeal I don't see, maybe because it does not feel right for any of the genres that the game nominally supports. Sure, classic adventure or pulp adventure don't have blatantly superhuman characters, but D'Artagnan or Solomon Kane still shouldn't be in any actual danger when going against mook #34. Things get worse in contests other than stabbing each other, because with exploding dice a d4 has about 15-20% chance of beating a d12. Neither I think that the math which in some cases punishes you for having nominally higher ability (for example a difficulty 6 test is easier with a d4 than a d6, because of the reroll on a max value) is a feature rather than a bug.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

I'll also have to disagree about "a lack of interesting mechanical options", for me Pathfinder provides very little interesting options and most go into the trash Pile (a ratio that is only higher in PF2e to the point it seems like everything is a trash option). Savage Worlds characters start off with lots of interesting in-combat actions and then can further gain more edges that only expand them. A Savage Worlds mage isn't going to compare well to a mid level Pathfinder mage, but they do compare well to a PF2e caster.

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Fair enough. Maybe my perception is skewed because of overtly simple characters generated by my group.

A quote on the addition of level to everything.

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Originally Posted by Jason Buhlman

...We are looking at ways of tightening it up so that it performs a bit closer to expectation.

At the current time, we are not considering removing [+level to everything] from the system, and we will not be discussing it further in this thread.

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I sort of understand where they're coming from - they don't feel like discussion would be productive at this point or in the thread mentioned, but framing it as "No we won't consider removing it, and no we won't tell you why" is awful optics. There are plenty of ways to frame it that don't sound so dismissive.

"Currently, we are not considering at removing it from the system, and we do not think that this thread is the appropriate place for us to discuss our reasoning."

Bam, much better. Doesn't come off as just not wanting to explain.

Level to everything (except maybe initiative) should have been implemented in DnD long ago. It's tiring to still see the game pretending that my character who can beat T-Rexes and 10-feet tall giants with skin of stone in hand-to-hand combat, effortlessly even, is still forced into the "action movie hero" definition of realism outside of combat; and if you have some stats fall behind by design, that makes items to boost them mandatory and creates the genre-inappropriate Christmas Tree syndrome without fail.

The problem with PF2 skill implementation are as follows:
(1) Generally underpowered and still too much number-crunching for too little payoff.
(2) Some skill uses that probably should be trained-only aren't.
(3) You have to ultraspecialize in a skill to get decent results reliably. That will still not make you outclass someone who totally disregarded the skill to the point where the latter cannot compete.

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Originally Posted by FatR

Level to everything (except maybe initiative) should have been implemented in DnD long ago. It's tiring to still see the game pretending that my character who can beat T-Rexes and 10-feet tall giants with skin of stone in hand-to-hand combat, effortlessly even, is still forced into the "action movie hero" definition of realism outside of combat; and if you have some stats fall behind by design, that makes items to boost them mandatory and creates the genre-inappropriate Christmas Tree syndrome without fail.

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Why though? Why shouldn't a character be allowed to not get better at certain things? Why should the classic fantasy archetypes of the stoic, grouchy master swordsman or the absent-minded archmage be off limits, to name just two? Because that's what +level to skills does. It means that a 20th level character, even if untrained and with 8 charisma, is a better talker than the most silver-tongued 1st level bard. Or that the 20th level archmage who is infamously absorbed in his own internal world can spot the sneakiest 1st level thief.

I've seen this confronted with "Oh you can just declare that your character autofails at those things" which is just bull, because that can be used to justify literally everything. By that logic, every character should be able to fly and shoot lasers out their eyes because if you don't like that you can just "declare that your character can't do those things". We should have to justify why a character is good at the things they're good at, not why a character isn't good at what they aren't good at. It makes no sense from a character-building sense nor an in-world sense.

I actually think 13th Age's implementation of Backgrounds is a much better way of adding +level for skills. You pick between 2 and 8 (depending how you choose to distribute your points) broad-ish areas that reflect your character, and then roll those when they are relevant. That way it's not automatically every skill ever, but it also means that nobody gets left behind.

Some things need to scale with level, other things don't. Most of the things that don't need to scale with level should be almost completely independent of it. For example, there's really no reason for level to effect your Knowledge checks at all. There are low level characters who are very good at knowledge (like the various sages and academics players might consult) and high level characters who are very bad at knowledge (like the stereotypical ignorant Barbarian). On the other hand, while it is totally acceptable for characters to have bad defenses, those defenses shouldn't get relatively worse as they level up. A Rogue should succeed more on Reflex saves than a Fighter, but he shouldn't succeed more more at 20th level than at 2nd.

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Originally Posted by FatR

This appeal I don't see, maybe because it does not feel right for any of the genres that the game nominally supports. Sure, classic adventure or pulp adventure don't have blatantly superhuman characters, but D'Artagnan or Solomon Kane still shouldn't be in any actual danger when going against mook #34. Things get worse in contests other than stabbing each other, because with exploding dice a d4 has about 15-20% chance of beating a d12. Neither I think that the math which in some cases punishes you for having nominally higher ability (for example a difficulty 6 test is easier with a d4 than a d6, because of the reroll on a max value) is a feature rather than a bug.

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Since PCs are wildcards, the difference between a d4 and a d6 on a TN-2 (need to roll a 6) is 32.3% and 30.6% chance of success. That particular math blip is real, but it really doesn't come up that much. (TN is 4 normally).

So yeah a d4 approaches a 20% to out roll a d12, meanwhile a d12 Wildcard vs a d4 extra loses 7.2% of the time.

Solomon Kane is basically a normal dude, why wouldn't mook #34 be a threat to him? If you want Super heroes in Savage Worlds that just "out level" certain threats, you use the Superpowers Companion for that. Savage Worlds does a better job at keeping casters and martials equivalent (to tie this back to Pathfinder) both tend to get their stronger abilities at the same time. So if you want a Super mage, your party is also going to have super martials. It's up to the players and the GM how much verisimilitude limits what characters can do, but if you gave your Wizard 80 superpower points so that he can play like a high level 3e Wizard and you gave the Fighter no points, then you have a clear mechanical indicator of why these two aren't balanced next to each other.

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Originally Posted by Minion #6

Why though? Why shouldn't a character be allowed to not get better at certain things? Why should the classic fantasy archetypes of the stoic, grouchy master swordsman or the absent-minded archmage be off limits, to name just two?

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The main reason is that they most certainly aren't fantasy archetypes. They are, at most, DnD archetypes, and I've already mentioned upthread, that DnD has a big problem with being incestuous. "Master swordsman"? I'm really, really, really struggling to remember a single fantasy main character whose whole specialization was "being a swordsman". Conan was nowhere near this narrow - he was good with just about any weapon, while also being an expert thief, an expert wilderness survivalist, at least competent seaman, and a great warlord. He was a low-level character. In stories with high-level characters world-class sword mastery is something that Zelgadis or Rand al'Thor pick up as a side skill, in whatever time they have free from learning earth-shaking magic. "Absent-minded archmage"? Actually, can't remember one even in DnD. The only well-known DnD mage who was not good at anything but magic was Raistlin.

And you know, the realization that there is a big damn problem with DnD classes being too narrow to portray iconic fantasy characters occurred not today or yesterday, but all the way back in the eighties. At that point, admittedly, there was no easily acceptable method of solving the problem, because the notion of straight-up superhuman warriors and fighting magic did not penetrate the fantasy genre. Nowadays, thanks to anime, computer games, and SFX advances allowing for crazier stuff in live action movies, it did.

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Originally Posted by Minion #6

Because that's what +level to skills does. It means that a 20th level character, even if untrained and with 8 charisma, is a better talker than the most silver-tongued 1st level bard. Or that the 20th level archmage who is infamously absorbed in his own internal world can spot the sneakiest 1st level thief.

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I see no problem whatsoever with either. You're comparing a living god with a talented but inexperienced mortal here. A 20th-level character may exert such pressure on common men with his mere presence, that they will agree to anything, with utmost sincerity even, just to avoid contradicting him to his face. A 20th level achmage who is absorbed in his internal world probably had long since made that world external, and besides that, to reach 20th level he climbed a mountain of corpses, many of which belonged to living shadows, and finest dark elf assassins, and stalker demons, and things that do not even fully exist in our universe, so it stands to reason that his absent-mindedness does not prevent him from mechanically and without looking catching knives aimed at his back or zapping overconfident thieves.

If you don't like that, you of course can tone down power level as a whole. But not only that would be genre-inappropriate, because DnD, besides just a few unintentional outliers, already was falling behind the crazier stuff from fantasy in its 3.X incarnations, given the reaction to PF2 people are not satisfied with that.

I disagree that 3.5 had real difficulties statting mainstream fantasy characters. Statting them with one class? Yes. Statting them at all? No.

Give me 20 levels and I can absolutely build the 7 deadly sins in 3.5 or PF. Which is reasonable since they are the best characters in a kingdom of high level magical knights. I don’t think I can build any of them in PF2, even the giant, which should be easy.

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Originally Posted by Gnaeus

I disagree that 3.5 had real difficulties statting mainstream fantasy characters. Statting them with one class? Yes. Statting them at all? No.

Give me 20 levels and I can absolutely build the 7 deadly sins in 3.5 or PF. Which is reasonable since they are the best characters in a kingdom of high level magical knights. I don’t think I can build any of them in PF2, even the giant, which should be easy.

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You eventually run into the issue of HP bloat and BAB bloat that give the characters verisimilitude breaking powers.

But yeah, can't disagree that PF2 is kind of terrible at everything.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

You eventually run into the issue of HP bloat and BAB bloat that give the characters verisimilitude breaking powers.

But yeah, can't disagree that PF2 is kind of terrible at everything.

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Sometimes. A lot of important powers can be worked out with templates or items. A bigger issue is how not to give them extraneous powers. Meliodas’ entire schtick, for example, is the spellthief power that lets him absorb enemy spells and throw them back, but I can’t give him that without a mound of spell casting (I could also model it as spell turning, but that probably comes with even more casting). That’s where point based systems are better than classed ones for exactly duplicating characters. Still, I can get there.

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Originally Posted by skaddix

I mean at some level buffing melees is easy give more skill points for out of combat stuff...the problem though is keeping martial classes simple while making them more versatile in combat that is the tricky part and I don't have a solution to that. But that is bandaging the problem. I mean really the simple solution was more unchained like stuff to fix weak classes and fixed Summoner to drop the Casters down a peg or two.

To fix the Martial vs Caster dynamic...I think one needs a full system overall. Basically I don't think Pathfinder 2E is ambitious enough...DnD 5e already has the casual market cornered with simple game more focused on DMs and Roleplaying so I don't think less depth was the right route.

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I largely agree. A few simple things like dropping 2+Int Skills, (except for Wizard and Witch, Int based Classes), updating a few of the weaker Core Classes, or those that lack many fun Class Features to be more on par with APG or other Classes, a bit of Arcane Spell nerfs would have probably done the job.

Personally, Im not a fan of easier or more streamlined systems, and I do not get this <hopefully a> fad to make that a primary design goal. It causes as many issues as it fixes.

One thing I do think might help with martial vs caster issues could be a small change to how spells work from 3.5/PF, so that they have a better lesser effect, that is more consistent, but are less likely to have the full, encounter ending ones.

So for example with Sleep, instead of knocking out targets the fail their save, maybe have it apply a -2 to everything for being groggy, (save is irrelevent), and only those that roll a Nat 1, (or maybe fail the Save by 5 or 10) fall asleep.

This would make spells more overall reliable, (as a player, wasting a spell that does absolutely nothing sucks), while being less swingy overall, whuch means designers do nnot need to worry about it as much, and when it does have it's full effect, it feels kind of like a crit.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Personally, Im not a fan of easier or more streamlined systems, and I do not get this <hopefully a> fad to make that a primary design goal. It causes as many issues as it fixes.

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It depends on the design philosophy.

I personally dislike "streamlined" systems like 5e where the devs say "changes the rules willy nilly they don't matter"

I personally prefer system where the devs say, "Look you are free to do whatever you want at your table and we encourage building on the system, but at least try out the rules before changing them so you at least know what all the possible knock-on effects you'll need to deal with for that change. But we do not actually recommend changing the rules."

To me, the later shows a level of care and confidence in their rules even if it is a vastly simpler system than something like 3.5/PF. I'm kind'of burned on "rulings over rules" of things like 5e. I much prefer when a dev instead adds rulings for edge cases which would create undo complexity to cover.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

It depends on the design philosophy.

I personally dislike "streamlined" systems like 5e where the devs say "changes the rules willy nilly they don't matter"

I personally prefer system where the devs say, "Look you are free to do whatever you want at your table and we encourage building on the system, but at least try out the rules before changing them so you at least know what all the possible knock-on effects you'll need to deal with for that change. But we do not actually recommend changing the rules."

To me, the later shows a level of care and confidence in their rules even if it is a vastly simpler system than something like 3.5/PF. I'm kind'of burned on "rulings over rules" of things like 5e. I much prefer when a dev instead adds rulings for edge cases which would create undo complexity to cover.

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"Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, where the DCs are made up and the rules don't matter."

I think their intended goal was to remove discussions and arguements, but in practice it just means different sides all point to the same Rule Zero thing, and nothing really happens and no one really learns anything new.

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Originally Posted by Beckett

Personally, I'm not a fan of easier or more streamlined systems, and I do not get this <hopefully a> fad to make that a primary design goal. It causes as many issues as it fixes.

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Streamlining is all well and good if done well... but it actually has to be done well.

PF2 doesn't really do streamlined at all - it's only "more streamlined" overall if you just think that 'less splatbooks = more streamlined' or 'less bonus types = more streamlined'. Character creation is more complex, certainly, with even the simplest classes having lots of decision points between a lot of bland stuff. Overtuned monsters crit far too often, especially if you deviate from the "Max your primary stat and then Dex to avoid crit city" build that works best for essentially every class. Things that sound like they should just be basic skill uses are made into feats you have to take - picking pockets, recognising spells, making connections, and so on. Even the underlying mathematical framework requires more legwork to get working, requiring optimising to get >50% success rates in far too many cases.

Even 5e, the streamlining of which touted by it's dedicated base, doesn't do it properly. It's streamlined in that it isn't a complete system - skills are really more "Mother May I/Guess What The GM Thinks" than a representation of any in-world ability, bounded accuracy on a flat RNG makes rolls feel really swingy (and vastly over-inflates the value of things like Animate Dead or Animate Object), Advantage/Disadvantage makes any ad-hoc strategies mechanically identical - I could go on for a long time here. The whole game seems to run on one big Oberoni fallacy - can't say the rules are bad if the GM is expected to just adjudicate everything that's not combat (and non-trivial amounts of combat) on the fly.

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Originally Posted by OgresAreCute

"Welcome to Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, where the DCs are made up and the rules don't matter."

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HAHAHAHAHA

May I use this as my new signature?

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Originally Posted by Minion #6

Even 5e, the streamlining of which touted by it's dedicated base, doesn't do it properly. It's streamlined in that it isn't a complete system - skills are really more "Mother May I/Guess What The GM Thinks" than a representation of any in-world ability, bounded accuracy on a flat RNG makes rolls feel really swingy (and vastly over-inflates the value of things like Animate Dead or Animate Object), Advantage/Disadvantage makes any ad-hoc strategies mechanically identical - I could go on for a long time here. The whole game seems to run on one big Oberoni fallacy - can't say the rules are bad if the GM is expected to just adjudicate everything that's not combat (and non-trivial amounts of combat) on the fly.

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You're fortunate to be in the 3E sub-forum. Say that on the 5E sub-forum and you'll be yelled at, figuratively speaking. Been there, had that.

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Originally Posted by Pex

HAHAHAHAHA

May I use this as my new signature?

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I would be honored. Solemn nod

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Originally Posted by Pex

You're fortunate to be in the 3E sub-forum. Say that on the 5E sub-forum and you'll be yelled at, figuratively speaking. Been there, had that.

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They could yell all they want, it still wouldn't give their Potemkin Village of a game a complete ruleset.

Side note, but I've never understood the reasoning behind the "every roll should be tense" design philosophy they're using here. A game is a series of interesting decisions. Every decision should be tense, not every roll.

I agonize over whether or not to use a grenade in XCOM all the time, and there's no RNG attached to that

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Originally Posted by exelsisxax

Anyone have recommendations on systems to play while watching PF2 possibly implode? Is anyone in the know about successor games in development as a result?

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I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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Originally Posted by n00b17

It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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Consider my boat floated my guy. If nothing else, it'd be interesting to see.

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Originally Posted by Minion #6

Consider my boat floated my guy. If nothing else, it'd be interesting to see.

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What could be more interesting than magical tail recursion? Sure hope you got your base case right.

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Originally Posted by n00b17

I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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I'd be interested in it as well. Could you please PM me when it comes online?

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Originally Posted by n00b17

I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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Can you add me to the boat of people being PM'd when you release your first draft?

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Originally Posted by n00b17

I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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Ping me as well when that gets put up, sounds worth a read.

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Originally Posted by n00b17

I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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Add me onto the theoretical PM notification train. (Why yes, I have been lurking on this thread since it was made, why do you ask?)

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Originally Posted by n00b17

Side note, but I've never understood the reasoning behind the "every roll should be tense" design philosophy they're using here. A game is a series of interesting decisions. Every decision should be tense, not every roll.

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Oh, that's rather simple. If it doesn't matter, don't roll the dice in the first place. PF1 had the unfortunate tendency to generate auto success / failures results due to stacking boni / not investing anything, which pretty much undermined the reason why you roll in the first place.

And no, not every "decision" should be tense. This is why 4E had minion and PF2 adds +level to anything, so you can simply mow down those pesky goblins and be a big damn hero.

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Originally Posted by Florian

Oh, that's rather simple. If it doesn't matter, don't roll the dice in the first place. PF1 had the unfortunate tendency to generate auto success / failures results due to stacking boni / not investing anything, which pretty much undermined the reason why you roll in the first place.

And no, not every "decision" should be tense. This is why 4E had minion and PF2 adds +level to anything, so you can simply mow down those pesky goblins and be a big damn hero.

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I totally agree that in those situations you shouldn't be rolling dice. But just because it doesn't involve a dice roll, that doesn't mean there's no decision. "Should I kill the king in his sleep" has a ton of repercussions and is a really interesting decision even if you don't have to roll for it.

With the minions example, you're still making decisions about what abilities to use, how to position, whether you should blow your daily now or save it for later, which enemies are in the most threatening position, etc. It's not like you have no options but to stand in one place and say "I attack" over and over. Decisions =/= rolls with a high chance of failure, and trying to design as if they're the same leads you to replace interesting decisions with straight-up randomness to "make the roll more tense". There's no point to randomness in the first place unless there's a decision involved about how to mitigate its risk to the player.

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Originally Posted by n00b17

I'm working on a spiritual semi-successor in that it's focused around lateral problem-solving, tactical combat, and a deep build system, under the working name Artifice. It's going to take a lot of cues from PF2 like the feat system and action system and a magic system built around resonance, but trying to allow the same depth of character creation as 3.5 and PF. 1st draft will likely go up in a month or two. It'll also have a Turing-Complete spell creation system if that floats your boat

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You are the Platonic ideal of "some guy on the internet" and I, too, would rather check out your homebrewed system than PF2.