PF 1e or 2e?

[TheHalfAasimar]

So, I've been prowling around on the Archives of Nethys because it is very fascinating, and I can't decide whether I'd rather DM/play PF1e or 2e. So, which one do you like more? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

[Kurald Galain]

PF1 has a lot of choices that lead to a lot of variety and have a big impact on how your character plays.

PF2 has a lot of choices that lead to very marginal differences and have almost zero impact on actual gameplay.

So yeah, I'd go with the former, all the way.

[Xervous]

Having played neither but read each extensively during spare time: I’d love to get a table to play PF1 at, and I’ll bill you my overtime rate if you want me to show up for PF2.

PF1 is very much 3.5e with a lot of sharp corners rounded off. There’s still lots of fiddly numbers but various outliers have been nudged or tugged towards center. If you want crunchy zero to superhero D&D it delivers. Note that I am including various 3rd party options in this consideration. Path of war is probably my favorite player options splatbook across all D&D and adjacent systems.

PF2e is a system that was designed with a primary goal of not being broken, and being fun didn’t make it as the secondary goal either. Progression is mostly Number Go Bigger with little player input on the matter, as character options provide minuscule gains while being siloed off in prerequisite chains. Skills do too little too late and only a few classes get anything that feels vaguely like level appropriate noncombat utility. At almost every turn it convinced me I’d rather just be playing 4e D&D, which is at least honest about Number Go Bigger and does a far better job of offering customization in character progression while rewarding archetype loyalty.

[TheHalfAasimar]

PF1 has a lot of choices that lead to a lot of variety and have a big impact on how your character plays.

PF2 has a lot of choices that lead to very marginal differences and have almost zero impact on actual gameplay.

So yeah, I'd go with the former, all the way.

Thanks! The only problem is... how to get my group to go to PF1e over 2e...

[Xervous]

Thanks! The only problem is... how to get my group to go to PF1e over 2e...

Well what does your group want out of a TTRPG? Making a blind guess is this a 5e D&D refugee group?

[TheHalfAasimar]

Well what does your group want out of a TTRPG? Making a blind guess is this a 5e D&D refugee group?

It's just my brother, sister, and me, with it all our first non-5e RPG... my brother wants Star Wars, my sister wants whatever.

[earthseawizard]

20+ years later my group still plays 3.5 after having tried 4e, 5e, PF1e and a few games of C&C and AD&D. So I'm of course going to say PF1e as it is basically 3.5.

If you're the DM then that's just what the group plays if you choose to run it, or they'll need to find another game. Otherwise, easiest thing to do would be to compile a list of the less subjective criticisms of 2e, particularly in contrast to 1e, and share that with the group and see what they think.

[Xervous]

It's just my brother, sister, and me, with it all our first non-5e RPG... my brother wants Star Wars, my sister wants whatever.

So that’s a setting desire, what about structural desires? Is it about the exploration, the challenge, the role playing, driving the plot, beating lots of powerful monsters? PF 1 or 2 is going to be a lot of the same, and both of them are heavier on crunch than 5e D&D.

[Anonymouswizard]

PF1 has a lot of choices that lead to a lot of variety and have a big impact on how your character plays.

PF2 has a lot of choices that lead to very marginal differences and have almost zero impact on actual gameplay.

So yeah, I'd go with the former, all the way.

PF1 has a lot of impactful choices, but a lot of trap choices.

PF2 has choices be a lot less impactful, but removes most of the outright traps (the big danger is persuing too many Feat lines). It also pretty significantly streamlines character creation and has some cool additions like Racial Feats. It also has a reworked action economy that sadly spellcasting doesn't play with that much.


Personally I prefer 2e, but not everybody will like the ways it differs from 1e. My big suggestion would be to nab the Advanced Players Guide/Platyer Core 2 when you can, it gives a lot of Archetypes that cover a wide range of options, and possibly use the optional Free Archetype rules.

[MonochromeTiger]

PF1 has a lot of impactful choices, but a lot of trap choices.

PF2 has choices be a lot less impactful, but removes most of the outright traps (the big danger is persuing too many Feat lines). It also pretty significantly streamlines character creation and has some cool additions like Racial Feats. It also has a reworked action economy that sadly spellcasting doesn't play with that much.

Racial Feats aren't new. What's new is that some of them are stripped out of core mechanics for the races in question and instead spread out over several levels. Similarly quite a few of the "choices" for classes are things that used to be standard features in 1e taken out and put up as Feat costs instead while most of the rest is just a +1/-1.

Yes, Pathfinder 1e had some bad choices, some Feat chains that absolutely could have and should have been shortened and likely weren't because "that's too powerful for a single Feat", but the way 2e's bounded accuracy and balance goals work they seem afraid of giving you any actual power or ability to do something individually. As you point out spellcasting doesn't really interact well with the reworked action economy, which itself just comes down to "how much can I do without wasting one of my three arrow things, oh right and using this shield that I am actively holding requires a reaction" and in many cases still manages to let you do less than you could in 1e.

Quite a bit of which of the systems people like seems to come down to how much someone values bounded accuracy and whether they're willing to accept the possibility of punching above their weight or not. 1e took 3.5's tendency to let the people who really try get absurdly powerful at the same time as some end up very weak, that understandably doesn't feel good for some people but it's undeniable that the freedom of choice and the potential to make some of those "bad choices" actually work can be very fun for some. 2e on the other hand revolves around the designer's love of very tight math, everything is highly regulated and rationed and things like magic that could potentially break out of that balance have been muzzled so the standard unit of Adventuring measurement is instead the Fighter, for some people the idea that nobody can steal the spotlight and you are actually reliant on your party as a whole for everything is amazing and the claim of "you can just set down this enemy with this rating and know roughly how the fight is going to go" appeals to GMs who hate how unpredictable CR could be.

They both have strengths and weaknesses but they also have such extremely different design goals that they're terrible comparisons for each other. Pathfinder 2 isn't like 1e, it's not even like D&D 5e which is the other common comparison because they're both the newest editions of their respective games, Pathfinder 2e is instead better compared to D&D 4e in both feel and design partially because some of the same people were in charge of both and felt they were somehow the logical evolution of 3.5's and Pathfinder 1e's mechanics.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Well, I took the advice you all had and told my sister that her Kitsune barbarian could be a lot more powerful in PF1e, so she's fine with that. Still have to ask my brother.

[earthseawizard]

Well, I took the advice you all had and told my sister that her Kitsune barbarian could be a lot more powerful in PF1e, so she's fine with that. Still have to ask my brother.

Well that didn't take much effort. Sounds like your players may not have any strong opinions about system choice?

Also, for PF1e questions moving forward you'll likely get a lot more interaction in the 3.5 sub-forum here. It is the most active.

[Kurald Galain]

It's just my brother, sister, and me, with it all our first non-5e RPG... my brother wants Star Wars, my sister wants whatever.

Star Wars... well, at a wild guess he wants to play a Jedi? PF1 offers several jedi-like classes such as the Magus. Maybe that's a good angle

[icefractal]

Of those two, I'd pick PF1 every time.

However, you do have a lot of other options as well. For example, one thing PF2 does have over PF1 is much stricter balance - CR is much more accurate and PCs vary much less in power. However, there's a family of what I'd maybe call "post-4E" games that achieve that same balance + tactical element while being much more streamlined. They don't give as wide an array of possibilities as PF1, but they're at least as good as PF2 in that regard. The ones I can think of are:

Strike!
Lancer (very different setting, but my favorite of these)
Icon (fantasy game from the makers of Lancer, haven't played it)
Fabula Ultima (maybe; haven't played it much, so this is from what I've heard about it)
13th Age (maybe, haven't played it)

Note that most (all?) of these are somewhat loose / narrative about stuff outside combat. Which is often how 5E is run, so it may not be an issue for you / your group, but be advised.

[Ignimortis]

So, I've been prowling around on the Archives of Nethys because it is very fascinating, and I can't decide whether I'd rather DM/play PF1e or 2e. So, which one do you like more? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Personally, PF1 all the way. Is it far more broken in general? Yes. Would that matter for total newcomers? Likely not, as the broken-ness comes out when people start digging into the system. A low-level group of new players isn't gonna see any issues (aside from that the game is actually rather lethal at those points!). And frankly, anything you could play in PF2 at levels 1 to 14 can be played in PF1 at levels 1 to 9 or so.

2e on the other hand revolves around the designer's love of very tight math, everything is highly regulated and rationed and things like magic that could potentially break out of that balance have been muzzled so the standard unit of Adventuring measurement is instead the Fighter, for some people the idea that nobody can steal the spotlight and you are actually reliant on your party as a whole for everything is amazing and the claim of "you can just set down this enemy with this rating and know roughly how the fight is going to go" appeals to GMs who hate how unpredictable CR could be.

I have to restate this - PF2's focal point of design is the Fighter. Not the 2e Fighter, even, but the 1e CRB Fighter - i.e. a class that interacts with the game on an equal footing with every beatstick monster ever printed (except for often worse numbers, because monsters get free STR and CON and w/e). They are subject to the same action economy costs, same limitations, and have little to no abilities that let you bypass core game rules - unlike all those spellcasters (and most non-beatstick monsters, really). They are beholden to basic game rules from level 1 to level 20, and scrambling to find a useful way to bypass them is the cornerstone of making a Fighter useful.

This results in game design where the most important thing are the numbers - if your numbers are worse than your enemy's numbers, you lose, because numbers are the only thing determining a Fighter-based design's position on the food chain. Your main goal is to manipulate numbers in such a way that your numbers are now higher and therefore you win. Now take that principle and design the whole game around that number manipulation, offload 90% of it into gameplay time rather than build time, and you will have something very much resembling PF2.

[catagent101]

Well, I took the advice you all had and told my sister that her Kitsune barbarian could be a lot more powerful in PF1e, so she's fine with that. Still have to ask my brother.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't kitsune pretty bad barbarians in 1e due to the Strength penalty?

[spectralphoenix]

Honestly, I remember buying the PF2e book, taking it home and paging through it... and immediately saying to myself "This is exactly why I ditched D&D4e for Pathfinder in the first place."

I genuinely have no idea why they thought that was what their player base wanted. Or at least my little section of it.

[Crake]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't kitsune pretty bad barbarians in 1e due to the Strength penalty?

In the grand scheme of things, -1 attack and -1.5 damage isnt that big of a deal

[Kurald Galain]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't kitsune pretty bad barbarians in 1e due to the Strength penalty?

Not really. If they start with 16 str, that's 20 in a rage; and a base melee attack for +6 / 1d12+7 has no problem contributing in most parties.

If you prefer, Barbarian has an archetype which is dex-based.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Not really. If they start with 16 str, that's 20 in a rage; and a base melee attack for +6 / 1d12+7 has no problem contributing in most parties.

If you prefer, Barbarian has an archetype which is dex-based.

Hmm, I don't know. I'll have to talk to her about that because she wants her barbarian to be really good at throwing things, and isn't throwing things by default STR?

[Kurald Galain]

Hmm, I don't know. I'll have to talk to her about that because she wants her barbarian to be really good at throwing things, and isn't throwing things by default STR?

Dex to hit, str to damage. And check out the Lesser Hurling rage power.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Dex to hit, str to damage. And check out the Lesser Hurling rage power.

Oh, I see. Thanks!

[catagent101]

In the grand scheme of things, -1 attack and -1.5 damage isnt that big of a deal

Not really. If they start with 16 str, that's 20 in a rage; and a base melee attack for +6 / 1d12+7 has no problem contributing in most parties.

If you prefer, Barbarian has an archetype which is dex-based.

Ah okay makes sense.

[Battlechaser]

Ever thought of playing spheres of power/might. I find it adds more versatility in character building.

[atemu1234]

At its core, the real difference is whether you'd rather have a system that the vast majority of the content for it (if not all) is already out or one that has new content continuously produced, at least for me.

Of course, there are gameplay differences. PF2e is more balanced, for certainty, though pretending that it's at 4e levels of same-ness for gameplay options is a bit much. I stick to 1e because that's the system I've spent almost a decade homebrewing content and updating 3e/3.5e stuff for. If I didn't have a sunk cost, I'd probably move on, but I *like* my stuff a lot more.

[Kurald Galain]

Of course, there are gameplay differences. PF2e is more balanced, for certainty, though pretending that it's at 4e levels of same-ness for gameplay options is a bit much.

I'd say 4E has way more diversity in gameplay options than PF2 does.

This is primarily because 4E doesn't shy away from big flashy effects, even at low level there are numerous powers that flat-out immobilize every enemy in a 5x5 area; whereas PF2 powers are more like giving a single enemy a 10'-penalty to speed, but only on a crit-failed save (usually about a 10% chance) because we wouldn't want to overpower anything.

[MonochromeTiger]

I'd say 4E has way more diversity in gameplay options than PF2 does.

This is primarily because 4E doesn't shy away from big flashy effects, even at low level there are numerous powers that flat-out immobilize every enemy in a 5x5 area; whereas PF2 powers are more like giving a single enemy a 10'-penalty to speed, but only on a crit-failed save (usually about a 10% chance) because we wouldn't want to overpower anything.

That is one of the big issues, magic got the legs cut out from under it as the devs' personal solution to the complaint of magic being overpowered. Instead it's so weak that its main purposes are occasional AoE damage, contributing a few more +1s to the martials, and tossing out a couple -1s so your numbers are ahead by a slightly larger margin. The actual full effect of the spell, the thing the spell is literally being cast for, is usually locked behind your target crit-failing their save which is an insultingly unlikely result so magic using classes are instead trained on the idea that what they're really doing is going for partial successes on already heavily nerfed versions of spells. Baleful Polymorph for example, or as it's renamed in Pathfinder 2 "Cursed Metamorphosis", the two most likely results are either gaining a Sickened condition which they can get a new Fortitude save on as a single action or being transformed for one minute with the option to spend a full round on a new Will save to immediately end the effect. The chance of your target actually critically failing are low so anyone using it is most likely doing so expecting a -1 that might waste an action on the enemy's next turn or the enemy very temporarily being out of the fight for one to ten rounds depending on their Will saves and the GM's rolls.

They give a much weaker standard effect than what Pathfinder 1e had but on top of that they give as many methods of ending the effects as possible so what a magic user using crowd control and disabling effects really does is make an enemy choose between keeping a couple -1s or wasting an action each turn until they're gone. their role is firmly reduced to support, and if they try to resolve that by focusing on dealing damage they still come in well behind a Fighter who has taken the role of primary damage dealer. If someone really hates magic users solving problems that has appeal but it's done in a way that honestly feels more petty and malicious than anything, "we couldn't figure out the way to let everyone keep their toys and have our idea of balance so we just changed who is on top and tell the Wizards and Clerics and Druids that what they really want is to play cheerleader."

[Gnaeus]

It's just my brother, sister, and me, with it all our first non-5e RPG... my brother wants Star Wars, my sister wants whatever.

As a side note, while it has a number of design elements I don't love, Starfinder is entirely playable, probably better balanced than 1e and I like it a lot better than 2e. Personally, I would redo the spaceship design rules, which are pretty gamist. But as long as you ignore some of the dumber RAW parts you can star wars just fine.

Alternately, the Dreamscarred Press psionic Soulknife (on the pfsrd) is a pretty cool Jedi class, although its a bit better than barbarian so you may want to consider adding small boosts to the barbarian over time if she seems underpowered.

[Snowbluff]

I'd say 4E has way more diversity in gameplay options than PF2 does.

This is primarily because 4E doesn't shy away from big flashy effects, even at low level there are numerous powers that flat-out immobilize every enemy in a 5x5 area; whereas PF2 powers are more like giving a single enemy a 10'-penalty to speed, but only on a crit-failed save (usually about a 10% chance) because we wouldn't want to overpower anything.

That is one of the big issues, magic got the legs cut out from under it as the devs' personal solution to the complaint of magic being overpowered. Instead it's so weak that its main purposes are occasional AoE damage, contributing a few more +1s to the martials, and tossing out a couple -1s so your numbers are ahead by a slightly larger margin.

The funny thing to me is that I often consider leaders to often be pretty weak in 4e. You might get a +2 to last a turn which has a 10% chance to cause something to hit instead of missing. PF2 manages to basically run with this but with smaller bonuses and applies it more broadly to all caster.

[TheHalfAasimar]

As a side note, while it has a number of design elements I don't love, Starfinder is entirely playable, probably better balanced than 1e and I like it a lot better than 2e. Personally, I would redo the spaceship design rules, which are pretty gamist. But as long as you ignore some of the dumber RAW parts you can star wars just fine.

Alternately, the Dreamscarred Press psionic Soulknife (on the pfsrd) is a pretty cool Jedi class, although its a bit better than barbarian so you may want to consider adding small boosts to the barbarian over time if she seems underpowered.

Which PFSRD? this one?