Pathfinder 2 Release

[stack]

Mind explaining what you mean by this?

All kinds of abilities have traits in little boxes. Each trait has rules governing what it means. As a designer, it is much more precise to be able to refer to them and having rule elements clearly defined is easier in general. At a table, you can have a GM wing it, but I don't like forcing them too as a designer.

Am I just blind, or are there no rules for generating ability scores?

There are. Character creation section I believe. You get two bonuses from race (or three and a penalty), two from background. One from class. Four free at level 1, then more at 5 and later levels.

[Rynjin]

Am I just blind, or are there no rules for generating ability scores?

I recall rules for ability scores being one of the few things I liked from the playtest, so they definitely exist.

Ah, here:

Each ability score starts at 10, representing human average, but as you make character choices, you’ll adjust these scores by applying ability boosts, which increase a score, and ability flaws, which decrease a score. As you build your character, remember to apply ability score adjustments when making the following decisions.

Ancestry: Each ancestry provides ability boosts, and sometimes an ability flaw. If you are taking any voluntary flaws, apply them in this step (see the sidebar on page 24).

Background: Your character’s background provides two ability boosts.

Class: Your character’s class provides an ability boost to the ability score most important to your class, called your key ability score.

Determine Scores: After the other steps, you apply four more ability boosts of your choice. Then, determine your ability modifiers based on those scores.

A "boost" is a +2 and a "flaw" is a -2, as defined later.

So essentially you get 4 boosts of your choice, and a number of freebies based on class, race, and background.

The main issues with this are the increase in pigeonholing to roles based on class (you wanna play a Dex based Barbarian for whatever reason? Tough noogies, your class gives you Stronk), and the issue of needing to essentially optimize your character's backstory for mechanical advantages, which is icky, but it's pretty elegant when you get used to it.

[pabelfly]

Feats are weak across the board, but I suppose that is a form of balance. Takes a bit to reset expectations.

Reading up on this, it looks like you get a lot more feats though to balance how weak they are.

You get feats based on your race at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th
You get class feats at 1st level and every even level.
You get skill feats at every level, and an extra skill feat based on your character's background at 1st.
You get general feats at 3rd, 7th, 11th 15th, and 19th

I haven't had the chance to play P2E, but I don't mind this setup from how it's presented thus far.

[Rynjin]

Reading up on this, it looks like you get a lot more feats though to balance how weak they are.

You get feats based on your race at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th
You get class feats at 1st level and every even level.
You get skill feats at every level, and an extra skill feat based on your character's background at 1st.
You get general feats at 3rd, 7th, 11th 15th, and 19th

I haven't had the chance to play P2E, but I don't mind this setup from how it's presented thus far.

It looks like that, but it's not accurate.

Race Feats replace your basic racial traits everybody used to get. No gain there (and even some loss, actually).

Class Feats were already in the game for most classes, they were just called "Talents" or "Arcana". Except in PF 2e you lose a lot of BASIC CLASS FEATURES and have to regain them via Class Feats. So again a loss.

Skill Feats are new (-ish, they're basically Skill unlocks) but trash.

General Feats are now less frequent.

So of the "good" Feats everybody used to get, you get LESS Regular feats and the same number of Class Feats (in the best case; in bad cases you need to rebuy stuf you used to get for free), and then a bunch of nothingburgers, most of which consist of what people used to get for free. Any illusion of having more options is just that: an illusion.

[Psyren]

It does look much more interesting than the playtest - proof once again that my philosophy of sitting back while others do the hard work continues to pay off

Some of the fundamental design elements that I particularly like:

- No (or at least wider) bounded accuracy - they want high level characters to feel more like superheroes compared to low level ones. Legendary Proficiency being 8+level is far larger than 5e's bonuses, and far beyond what somebody untrained can do, making for a larger gap.

- Typeless actions (and casting taking multiple actions most of the time) - I find this more elegant overall, and it helps to balance spellcasting against other actions more easily.

- Degrees of Success - I love that this is baked into the system baseline. Not only is it just fun in general to get extra effects for something you're really good (or really bad!) at, it combines perfectly with PF2's greater emphasis (at least compared to 5e) on tracking bonuses.

- Bulk instead of Encumbrance - this was one of my favorite rules changes in Starfinder and I'm glad they brought it here. It makes tracking carrying capacity so easy, which in turn means people will do it more and get more immersed. Bulk is also great for planar or space travel.

One part I'm worried about though is the paucity of Fortune/Misfortune compared to 5e. Though I found 5e's implementation of advantage/disadvantage for everything to be a bit too simplistic (1 instance of advantage can cancel out 10 sources of disadvantage and vice-versa), I can't deny its benefits for speeding up play and attracting players that want to spend more time living through their characters and less time doing math. On paper I prefer PF using myriad bonuses more often than advantage, but it has the potential to bog down combat again just like it did in 3.5 and P1.

I think pf2 discussions should be in the 5e forum, seeing as it's based on the 5e srd.

As a d20 system without a dedicated subforum, it likely belongs here until/unless the mods choose to split it off. Also the Pathfinder connection.

[Kurald Galain]

Race Feats replace your basic racial traits everybody used to get. No gain there (and even some loss, actually).

You should check that section again. Racial feats go way beyod those basic racial traits that everybody used to forget about.

For instance, 3E elves get +2 to save against enchantment, and +2 to some perception skills; which are useful abilities, but also things you write down once and then forget about. Indeed, an issue with 3E is that during gameplay, it's pretty hard to notice mechanically what race anyone is playing.

Whereas P2 elves can indeed pick useless ribbon abilities if they want, but they can also take options like "evasion" against emotion effects, higher movement, at-will magic even if you're not a spellcaster, 10' step instead of 5' step, or a floating skill that you can change each day. Those are both stronger and more noticeable in gameplay than anything a 3E elf gets.

[StevenC21]

As a d20 system without a dedicated subforum, it likely belongs here until/unless the mods choose to split it off. Also the Pathfinder connection.

It's... Barely d20 at this point.

You don't even have hit Dice.

I think we should make a sub forum for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder. They're the two most similar systems to each other.

[Rynjin]

You should check that section again. Racial feats go way beyod those basic racial traits that everybody used to forget about.

For instance, 3E elves get +2 to save against enchantment, and +2 to some perception skills; which are useful abilities, but also things you write down once and then forget about. Indeed, an issue with 3E is that during gameplay, it's pretty hard to notice mechanically what race anyone is playing.

Whereas P2 elves can indeed pick useless ribbon abilities if they want, but they can also take options like "evasion" against emotion effects, higher movement, at-will magic even if you're not a spellcaster, 10' step instead of 5' step, or a floating skill that you can change each day. Those are both stronger and more noticeable in gameplay than anything a 3E elf gets.

But most of them are similar in power (if not identical to) to Alternate Racial Abilities the Elf gets in Pathfinder, which is not 3e. Elves in PF get, by default: immunity to sleep effects, a +2 against Enchantment, low-light vision, +2 Perception, +2 caster level to overcome spell resistance, +2 Spellcraft to identify magic items, and free Proficiency in 3-6 good weapons. If you find those boring, trade them in for stuff like constant Detect Magic (at the cost of your +2 spell penetration), the Run Feat and a +2 Initiative for the cost of your Perception bonus and weapon proficiencies (usually redundant with most classes), or one of another 50 (literally) abilities that replace various other stuff you may not care about.

And for every good Elf ability in 2e there's three trash Dwarf abilities. Dwarves even outright LOSE their best racial trait (Hardy. +2 to saves against ALL spells, SLAs, and poison, upped to +4 by a Feat if you wanted it) and get nothing that even comes close to replacing it. A bunch of the other races are in a similar boat.

I'll reiterate: Pathfinder is not 3e, and Pathfinder 2 shouldn't be compared to much else besides Pathfinder and maybe 5th Edition, since those are the markets they want to tap.

[Morty]

A quick hot take: A lot of the grab-bag of relatively weak benefits that dwarves got as racial perks in PF1 (and 3.5 D&D, etc.) are now feats...and you only get to pick one of them. This feels like a not-so-stealth nerf of an already lackluster race. Am I missing something?

I'm noticing a lot of stripping out of cruft that's being re-assigned as feats to races, but the net effect isn't buffing the races or leaving them on par, but rather nerfing them to heck and making them pick one of the ribbons they would have otherwise had. In some cases, the ribbons are competing with real useful looking choices; in others, they're just all...lackluster.

That's more or less the impression I got. The racial feats run the gamut from solid to pretty questionable. Racial feats aren't a bad idea as such, but making almost all racial features into feats and making major abilities and "ribbons" cost the same... is just weird.

[stack]

The ancestry set-up has a major plus that can fix something that has bugged me for awhile. It should be very easy to make generic planetouched heritages that can be accessed by many different ancestries, so a dwarf aasimar, and elf aasimar, and an orc aasimar are actually different. Going further, you could break it down into the sub groups, so you can have the different descents represented across all the races. There is no need for aasimar, tiefling, etc. ancestries, they can all be added to others.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by stack
There is no need for aasimar, tiefling, etc. ancestries, they can all be added to others.

Are you saying that instead of aasimar and tiefling as separate races, you’d have essentially a planetouched template for dwarfs, orcs, etc?

And is this something that PF2 has done, or just a tweak you’d like to do within the PF2 framework?

[NomGarret]

Are you saying that instead of aasimar and tiefling as separate races, you’d have essentially a planetouched template for dwarfs, orcs, etc?

And is this something that PF2 has done, or just a tweak you’d like to do within the PF2 framework?

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

[Calthropstu]

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

personally, I'd prefer a aasimar race with a simple "you qualify for another racechain, must be taken first level" option.

[Segev]

Knowing the nature of power creep and tendencies for poor design choices in early days to be hammered at all edition, I bet race feats will be things that keep coming out in increasingly potent amounts for most of PF2’s shelf life. I don’t know if they’ll try to salvage the ribbon features by combining them or not. But I suspect most of them just won’t see play except as trap options as the edition progresses.

[Morty]

It's part of what I see as a broader flaw with making too many things into feats. Feats are each worth exactly the same - the only thing that changes their value is prerequisites. It's fine for an ancestry to have features that are largely useless but add character, but when you turn them into feats, they have to compete with the rest of them. And given the way levels work, once you've taken one ancestry feat but not the other, that's it until level 5, when you get another one. Unless you can spend general feat slots on ancestry feat, which I don't remember if it's possible.

[Particle_Man]

It sounds like this is getting closer to GURPS advantages, except that they all cost the same and they are grouped in various categories and sometimes level gates. Is that the case?

[Ilorin Lorati]

It's something the framework is present for, but to my knowledge doesn't yet exit in the game. It certainly wouldn't work for everything, as you do still want some ancestries that are self-contained races and not just genetic offshoots, but it it is a cool space to play in.

Well, there is the sidebar in the human section that says playing a non-human half-elf/orc is possible, even giving specific examples and suggesting to ask your GM if you want to do that. It's not quite there, but I think it might just be them being afraid of jumping into the deep end with the CRB.

By default, half-elves and half-orcs descend from humans, but your GM might allow you to be the offspring of an elf, orc, or different ancestry. In these cases, the GM will let you select the half-elf or half-orc heritage as the heritage for this other ancestry. The most likely other parent of a half-elf are gnomes and halflings, and the most likely parents of a half-orc are goblins, halflings, and dwarves.

[Palanan]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

[JNAProductions]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

It's a feature that's not so powerful, mechanically, but adds character and is fun.

[Remuko]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

i assumed like a real ribbon it was something thats pretty but functionally (almost) useless.

[Psyren]

It's... Barely d20 at this point.

...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

I think we should make a sub forum for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder. They're the two most similar systems to each other.

Report the OP then. Until then I'll keep talking in here, thanks.

What I like about the Ancestries is that it gives us a potential framework to mechanically answer some of the questions that continually crop up around half-races, such as "what happens if an orc and a dwarf get together" or "what happens if a blue half-dragon mates with a red one."

[Morty]

What do people mean by "ribbon features"?

It sounds vaguely pejorative, like "snowflake," but I'm not sure exactly what's meant by this.

It's a feature that's not so powerful, mechanically, but adds character and is fun.

I, personally, say it to mean an ability that's there for decoration, rather than a practical purpose. Whether it's good or bad depends on the context, as usual. Racial "ribbons" are perfectly fine on their own.

...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

I continue to be bemused by the things that people will declare make a game not d20/D&D anymore.

What I like about the Ancestries is that it gives us a potential framework to mechanically answer some of the questions that continually crop up around half-races, such as "what happens if an orc and a dwarf get together" or "what happens if a blue half-dragon mates with a red one."

That is a good thing about them, certainly. Like templates, only less clunky and without weakening a character through LA. I think the issue is that they overshot with them by turning all ancestry features into feats.

[NomGarret]

My gut reaction is that an extra Ancestry feat at lvl 1 (and maybe an extra couple sprinkled through higher levels) would go a long way.

[Crake]

...The core mechanic is still a d20, it's ridiculous to claim otherwise.

So is 5e, but the "D20" system is characterised as the 3rd edition OGL. Something being/not being d20 is irrelevant of what the core mechanical dice is. "d20" is basically the genra neutral term for "dnd 3rd edition". Where dnd is fantasy, d20 modern is modern, d20 stargate is stargate, etc etc, it's all based on 3.5. Pathfinder 2e is barely reminiscent of 3.5 at all, and pretty much the only thing left to really compare the two is the use of the term "feats", the ability scoring system (kinda), and yes, the main dice being a d20. Hence, I'd say it's quite a valid thing to say that "It's... Barely d20 at this point."

[Biguds]

So, as PF2e uses the OGL, it's a d20 System.

[StevenC21]

Then 5e is a d20 game, just like 3e.

Do you really, truly believe that?

[Crake]

So, as PF2e uses the OGL, it's a d20 System.

The assertion wasn't that it wasn't a d20 system, it's that it's barely a d20 system. The base system differs so drastically from the 3.5 OGL, that, while maybe yes it's based loosely on it, it's barely reminiscent of the 3.5 OGL to the point where the two systems seem almost unrelated. And I'd say that's quite a well founded assertion, many of the core mechanics of the system have been changed, the way xp works, the way ability scores are both generated and advanced over levels, the way critical strikes scale, the way magic weapons scale, the way skills work, the way feats and races work, the entire action economy... I mean, when the system has more things that are different than the same... can you really call it being that system? Honestly, aside from some of the names of certain abilities, creatures and classes, most things are different.

[Psyren]

So is 5e,

Then 5e is a d20 game, just like 3e.

Do you really, truly believe that?

Yes, I do! The difference is that 5e already has its own subforum. If it didn't, this would be the place to talk about it - just like it was before the mods created it. Get it?

[StevenC21]

I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D20_System

"The d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, originally developed for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons."

This ties the d20 system to 3e. Not 5e.

"Much of the d20 System was released as the System Reference Document (SRD) under the Open Game License (OGL)"

This shows that d20 system and OGL licensed are not interchangeable. The OGL is just a license.

5e is not a d20 game.

[Crake]

Yes, I do! The difference is that 5e already has its own subforum. If it didn't, this would be the place to talk about it - just like it was before the mods created it. Get it?

I mean, 5e is decidedly not based on the 3.5 OGL, thus is is objectively not a d20 game. The fact that it uses a d20 as the main dice is entirely irrelevant. 1e, 2e and 4e dnd all also used a d20 as their main dice, and none of them are a d20 system game.