What's pathfinder 2e like?

[Kurald Galain]

The DCs in PF1 that scaled which I can remember off the top of my head are any opposed checks (scales with opponents' bonuses), knowledge about creatures (scales with CR), spellcraft and some UMD (scales with spell/caster level), acrobatics (scales with opponents' CMD or how far/high you want to jump).

Yes, and the catch is that far from all enemies have maxed out checks, either.

As opposed to 4E/P2, where everything scales equally with the party level; and to 5E, where basically nothing scales. Personally I find that the approach that some things scale, some things don't leads to more variation.

[Psyren]

Yes, and the catch is that far from all enemies have maxed out checks, either. As opposed to 4E/P2, where everything scales equally with the party level; and to 5E, where basically nothing scales. Personally I find that the approach that some things scale, some things don't leads to more variation.

This is a good point too. Not every CR 3 opponent is going to have a +10 Perception mod to counter your +10 Stealth, even the ones that have it as a class skill.

[Firechanter]

Oh yeah, keep in mind that PF2 doesn't have Take 10. You can buy a feat for _one_ skill that allows you to take 10 - but if you do that you forgo your ability bonus or any other bonuses apart from Proficiency, so its value is in reality a lot less than 10. And I say again: one feat. Per skill. This is ridiculous.

[do note that it was even way worse in the playtest - there it would be a fixed result of 10 for the entire _check_, which meant it was worth about Take 5 at first level and became completely useless by level 4. But still, the final version simply doesn't cut it either.]

[stack]

Assurance has a use for combat maneuvers against mooks, since you ignore the multiple attack penalty, but yeah, paying for take 10 hurts.

[NomGarret]

Which just leads to another seemingly needless restriction: why should combat maneuvers suffer the multiple attack penalty? I might occasionally Shove an opponent if it has a 10 point better chance of succeeding than just trying to hit it a third time that round. If both are a long shot I’ll take the damage every time.

[Crake]

In P1, at level 1, a barbarian is untrained at a skill and has an average attribute (total +0). If he chooses to attempt a DC 15 skill, he has a 5% chance to critically fail, 65% chance to fail and a 30% to succeed. In most circumstances, it is worthwhile for him to at least try.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in p1, there was no critical fail on skills by default. There were some skills where things went extra wrong if you failed by a certain degree (swim and climb being the most obvious ones, where if you failed by 5 or more, you sank/fell), but none of that was tied to your dice roll specifically, only your final result.

[Kurald Galain]

Which just leads to another seemingly needless restriction: why should combat maneuvers suffer the multiple attack penalty?

A better question may be, why have the multiple attack penalty in the first place? Especially when about one-third of the combat feats are about removing the penalty in highly specific circumstances.

I get that they don't want characters to stand still and "full attack" each round... but then, why not simply forbid that, like in 4E or 5E? The penalty is just a kludge.

[Kitsuneymg]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in p1, there was no critical fail on skills by default. There were some skills where things went extra wrong if you failed by a certain degree (swim and climb being the most obvious ones, where if you failed by 5 or more, you sank/fell), but none of that was tied to your dice roll specifically, only your final result.

UMD. If you failed and rolled a natural 1, you can’t use that item for 24 hours.

[Alexvrahr]

Assurance is weird. '10 + your proficiency bonus (do not apply any other bonuses, penalties, or modifiers).' means that ability bonuses do not apply and that blows a hole in verisimilitude. No idea why they made it work that way.

A better question may be, why have the multiple attack penalty in the first place? Especially when about one-third of the combat feats are about removing the penalty in highly specific circumstances.

I get that they don't want characters to stand still and "full attack" each round... but then, why not simply forbid that, like in 4E or 5E? The penalty is just a kludge.

It is odd, but it's a development of a kludge in a PF1 book, Pathfinder Unchained. Having found that to more or less work they developed that rather than try something else I guess.

Three actions and a reaction is a simpler and easier to learn system than D&D 3.x/PF1's plethora of action types. In play it does seem to be popular. It's not the worst idea they've had.

[Kurald Galain]

Three actions and a reaction is a simpler and easier to learn system than D&D 3.x/PF1's plethora of action types. In play it does seem to be popular. It's not the worst idea they've had.

It's a great idea, and clearly simpler than what 4E and 5E are doing.

It's just too bad that many feats arbitrarily cost two or three or zero actions to use; there's no rhyme or reason to that.

[Serafina]

The multiple attack penalty is a perfect example of legacy code in 2e. 3.5/PF had BAB-Iteratives, and the multi-attack penalty is somewhat reminiscent of that.
But ultimately, if the designers wanted to disincentivize multiple attacks except for people who invest feats into them - well, then they could have just restricted you to one attack action per turn!

What to do with the other actions you have in the three-action system?
Well, move, use the help action, defend yourself better, feint or maybe some other combat maneuvers that don't count as an attack, cast a spell (oh hey something that benefits gishes), the system can offer a lot of options.

And all the martial classes can then offer really good Two-Action Attacks that offer two attacks and a move, or three attacks, or throw in a bonus, or some combination of all of that.
But no, instead they built martial classes around reducing a penalty on something everyone can do.

[Crake]

UMD. If you failed and rolled a natural 1, you can’t use that item for 24 hours.

Bolded for emphasis. If you don't fail on a 1, you don't still automatically get penalized for rolling badly like you do in pf2.

[patchyman]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in p1, there was no critical fail on skills by default. There were some skills where things went extra wrong if you failed by a certain degree (swim and climb being the most obvious ones, where if you failed by 5 or more, you sank/fell), but none of that was tied to your dice roll specifically, only your final result.

I’m not principally a Pathfinder 1 player, but if true: this reinforces my point. In many circumstances, a skill check is worth trying even if you only have a 25% chance of success.

In P2, a 25% chance of success means a 25% chance of a crit fail, so you are better off not even trying.

In my games, I want to encourage players to try things outside of their specialty, not punish them for doing. (Also, past level 5, a player is highly unlikely to succeed on an untrained check, which compounds the issue).

[Firechanter]

I don't know if it's prescribed by the rules what happens on a crit fail. Maybe it just means "not only have you lost time, you also can't try again", whereas a regular fail just means "you lose time but can try again". If you handle it that way, it still never hurts to try. But of course, if crit fails mean "Bad Things Happen", then you are probably better off not risking it.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't know if it's prescribed by the rules what happens on a crit fail. Maybe it just means "not only have you lost time, you also can't try again", whereas a regular fail just means "you lose time but can try again". If you handle it that way, it still never hurts to try. But of course, if crit fails mean "Bad Things Happen", then you are probably better off not risking it.

Bad things happen.

The diplomacy and intimidate skills, for instance, explicitly worsen the target's attitude on a crit-fail.

(edit) Crit-failing any knowledge check, including decipher, identifying magic, and gather info, gives misleading info. Crit-failing medicine or repair deals damage to whom/whatever you're trying to fix. Crit-failing to pick a lock breaks your picks, crit-failing to handle an animal makes it misbehave, and crit-failing a day job gets you fired.

That's actually a good point that these rules discourage people from contributing if they aren't the expert.

[EldritchWeaver]

Some characters just want to have a +10 bonus to UMD to take 10 with wands outside of combat, not a +30 to reliably use 9th level scrolls in combat.

You can't take 10 for UMD.

[Xervous]

On a related topic to crit fails are crit successes. One big thing about PF2e that hasn’t been dredged up yet are the degrees of success that spell effects are shackled to. Many of the classic effects of notable 3.5/pf1 spells are gated behind the enemy critically failing their save, and even then at a reduction vs their legacy counterparts. With reduced spell slots you’re looking at casters lobbing fireballs for consistency, rolling unfavorable dice for a slim chance at trading their actions for proportionally more of team monster’s actions, or popping in with a spell here and there while banking their slots for the plot solving spells they still have a monopoly on. Also many of the noteworthy BFC spells have a cute little tag that downgrades the spells degree of success by 1 vs monsters above your level effectively giving them +10 to the save.

While it’s an exaggeration it’s not far off the mark to paint pf2e as a game of “smack it until it stops moving”. 4e had some BFC gems, marks etc. and even still tended to devolve into numeric slogs.

[Jack Eisenworth]

I completely agree. The class descriptions are full of how you BECOME LEGENDARY!!!1! at anything from attack rolls to saving throws, which in all cases means "you get a +2 bonus".

"Legendary feats" in P2 (i.e. level 15+) include such utter marvels as

• getting a cryptic hint from a religious book
• earning more money when performing
• ignoring class/spell prerequisites when crafting
• making someone shaken for two rounds
• communicating with someone if you don't share a language

Whooo! Legendary!!! Incredible!!!!!

It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

[Psyren]

Bad things happen.

The diplomacy and intimidate skills, for instance, explicitly worsen the target's attitude on a crit-fail.

(edit) Crit-failing any knowledge check, including decipher, identifying magic, and gather info, gives misleading info. Crit-failing medicine or repair deals damage to whom/whatever you're trying to fix. Crit-failing to pick a lock breaks your picks, crit-failing to handle an animal makes it misbehave, and crit-failing a day job gets you fired.

That's actually a good point that these rules discourage people from contributing if they aren't the expert.

Agreed - the scaling is a problem, like they took the worst parts of 5e and 3e and mashed them together. I might dislike 5e's bounded accuracy on a conceptual level, but at least it dovetails nicely with autoscaling, because bounded accuracy means untrained folks still have a shot, and trained folks can more readily dispense with rolling altogether. In PF2, not only is the roll more warranted because the ranges are bigger, your shot is correspondingly much smaller, and you can actively be penalized for failing.

On one hand, I can certainly see the realism there - being really bad at medicine does mean you can actively do more harm trying to help than by doing nothing. Breaking your picks if you're bad at lockpicking also makes sense, and while I buy this last one the least, being really uninformed on a topic could in theory mean you believe any urban legend or rumor you hear about it.

On the other hand, I don't know if they stopped to think about how fun these mechanics are to actually play - especially when the chance of such a drastically negative result can get to be so crazy high. I don't think fidelity should be such a primary focus when designing a game that is ultimately escapist, and I think that the d20 distribution might ultimately be at odds with that kind of fidelity anyway.

[Troacctid]

If PF1 was based on 3.5e, PF2 seems like it's based more on 4e. Aesthetically, its classes are presented almost the exact same way, with pages and pages of class-specific powers sorted by level and everyone using the same basic progression for everything. They cribbed the feat-based multiclassing system and the scaling, proficiency-based skill system from 4e. And everything has tags, and rules are generally tight and unambiguous, etc.

I've only ever built one PF2 character, but honestly, it felt a lot like I was making a 4e character, except instead of choosing from different varieties of cool and impactful combat powers each level, I was choosing from different varieties of marginal numerical bonuses. To put it another way, in 3.5e terms, PF2 is the fighter to 4e's warblade.

[patchyman]

Bad things happen.

The diplomacy and intimidate skills, for instance, explicitly worsen the target's attitude on a crit-fail.

(edit) Crit-failing any knowledge check, including decipher, identifying magic, and gather info, gives misleading info. Crit-failing medicine or repair deals damage to whom/whatever you're trying to fix. Crit-failing to pick a lock breaks your picks, crit-failing to handle an animal makes it misbehave, and crit-failing a day job gets you fired.

That's actually a good point that these rules discourage people from contributing if they aren't the expert.

To add to the list: crit failing a Trip means you fall, crit failing a Grapple also has quantiable negative effects.

[Kurald Galain]

My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed

Being able to climb and swim well is hardly legendary. It's also something that in PF1, you can do at first level (and in P2, with a second-level spell). (edit) Turns out there's a level 2 feat that gives a swim speed in P2, so clearly that's not a level 15 ability.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness

Remove Blindness is a 5th-level ability, not 15th level. Again, how is that legendary?

literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

Ok, that's pretty legendary, I'll give you that. Still, you can also do that at first level, with Feather Fall.

...looks like you're proving my point for me t

[Rynjin]

It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

Be real. A.) Are you ever going to get that far? The typical Pathfinder game ends at level 10-12, and Adventure Paths typically end at 15-16 as well. I see no reason PF2 will be any different. B.) What exactly are you using that for which is meant to be a challenge for a 15th level Rogue? People have been able to fly for 10 levels already still, and being able to climb and swim is nice,

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

Neat I guess, but if these are the better options I'm still not impressed. These are low level class abilities in Pathfinder.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

People are used to Pathfinder. So when you're stating things that can already be done in Pathfinder as if they're revolutionary cool options, and they're higher level locked than those same options (and yes the dispelling strikes thing is in Pathfinder; not as bloat, but as a Core Rulebook Rogue Talent) people are going to look at you weird. Most of the "legendary" stuff is neat at best, but typically not very USEFUL, like sneaking through a pinhole (which again is a thing that can be done at level 3 with a simple scroll of Gaseous Form).

PF2 doesn't provide any reason to want to swap to it, is the issue. I would take these options on a character if they were available at a reasonable level in Pathfinder, but they are not going to draw me away from a game which is superior in most ways. They are not "legendary" enough to make me want to swap games.

The game needed to have a lot more killer apps, cool things (UNIQUE things, not just reprints of old abilities) classes can do at every level range, not just the "legendary" levels to make a lot of people want to switch.

[Segev]

Conceptually, the "class feats" are something Paizo was doing in a LOT of classes in PF1. And DSP's works seem to follow similar patterns.

But each class had a unique list of "class feats," and most were named something different.

• Rogue Talents
• Investigator Talents
• Soulknife Blade Skills
• Magus Arcana
• Occultist Focus Powers
• etc.

But in PF1, especially towards later efforts, there was less fear of these being interesting and useful than there seems to be in PF2. In PF2, all the bonuses are smaller. All the features are broken up between multiple feats. And the chains of feats - from what I'm reading, as I haven't studied this closely enough - seem more rigid if you want anything good out of them. Most of the "talent" type things in PF1 were equally good across the board, and at worst were level-gated. I don't think many were more than one deep in talent prereqs, and few even were that far without being extremely obviously useless without the prereq. Very few prereqs weren't worth taking on their own, too.

I think part of the issue, too, is that these "talent" things that are sort-of like PF2 "class feats" offered more flexibility in internal class design than these "class feats" do. By trying to universalize "class feats" as a concept, PF2 gave up the ability to, for exampe, tie Occultist Focus Powers to Occultist Implements. No, not practically; you really could say "Prerequisite: Occultist level 3, Necromancy Implement" to fit a Class Feat as an Occultist Focus Power. But when PF1 left these as things that were not mandatory for every class, and were just a generalizable build mechanic (which can have different pacing by level, and different implementations and costs, and different presentations where the structure made sense), they felt more natural to shape to the class, rather than to shape the class to accommodate them.

If PF2 had gone further in allowing cross-feat-tree selection, it might have done better. There's a relatively old idea of making feats worth a number of "points," and giving characters, instead of feat slots, "feat points" at various levels to spend. If PF2 had done that, making the lower-ranked feats have lower costs in feat points, and giving MORE feat points at higher levels, characters could either buy the expensive, high-end feat at the next stage of their tree, or buy a couple of feats from lower down in a new tree, "catching up" with their current one. It'd be more akin to how old-school multiclassing worked, where you have lower overall level, but more classes at that level.

PF2's problem seems to be that it tried to go more general, then lock everything down tighter than PF1 had it. It tried to create a structure where you have more choices to make, but then fled from inventing interesting choices and made you choose between things you got all of in PF1. It tried to be very open to freeform design and mix-and-match, and then cowered away from letting those choices be meaningful. Numbers got smaller, feats got broken up, and even with more choices, you have fewer options and less oomph at the end of the design process.

It has some interesting ideas, but seems afraid to exercise them.

[GrayDeath]

It has some interesting ideas, but seems afraid to exercise them.

This, I think, sums it up perfectly.

Paizo did receive a lot of feedback in the playtests (not just in PF 2 mind!) regarding "you dont need to make it all suck so badly (paraphrasing) out of fear that a nonwizard, noncleric/nonX might actually have cool stuff too"....but alas, it seems they merely wanted to make the game THEY wanted to make. (also see their iron refusal to do anything like Tome of Battle themselves).

I guess as soon as PF2 fails to sell even half as well as PF1 did they MIGHT understand that its usually not the best idea for a game you intend to sell....but well, it might be too late by then.

Shame. PF 1 games were my overall favourite D&D Experience....

[Elves]

What were they even trying to do with Pathfinder 2? Was there any reason to make it other than their slowing revenue streams from the previous one? The way it's worked out it seems like they've fractured their brand pretty badly.

If they were going to do a Pathfinder 2, and they wanted it to be a very different system, it needed to be framed as a 5e alternative. Pathfinder was made as a D&D alternative and they should have embraced that -- it actually lends them more legitimacy than most original fantasy RPGs. Otherwise, they should have kept the changes small.

[NomGarret]

It feels like you might have nitpicked the worse options.
My rogue at level 15 will have climb speed and swim speed equal to his base land speed, that's nothing to scoff at from Athletics and two skill feats, his stealth and exploration will benefit greatly.

With medicine he can cure a dozen people of permanent status like Blindness with a basic med-kit. Or literally fall from orbit and suffer no damage with just Acrobatics.

From class feats, he can hide in plain sight, or dispel magic with his strikes. At 18th level a rogue can choose to be able to sneak through a hole the size of a coin. If that's not legendary enough, it could be that people are used to the bloat and expect mythic level shenanigans perhaps?

I mean, those are cool abilities, but they come online not only later than they do in P1, but at a higher level than they do in just about any similar game. What cool things can I do at levels 1-5, or 5-10? These are the levels most people spend most of their time playing. And a lot of them are neat, but situational. How many of these situational abilities does a character actually have in their toolkit?

[patchyman]

I mean, those are cool abilities, but they come online not only later than they do in P1, but at a higher level than they do in just about any similar game. What cool things can I do at levels 1-5, or 5-10? These are the levels most people spend most of their time playing. And a lot of them are neat, but situational. How many of these situational abilities does a character actually have in their toolkit?

In Jack’s defence, the question was about Legendary skills, i.e. skills only available in the final tier of the game.

Martials are pretty cool in the game and have a variety of options. It’s just a shame that it feels like you are fighting for each +1.

[Psyren]

What were they even trying to do with Pathfinder 2? Was there any reason to make it other than their slowing revenue streams from the previous one? The way it's worked out it seems like they've fractured their brand pretty badly.

If they were going to do a Pathfinder 2, and they wanted it to be a very different system, it needed to be framed as a 5e alternative. Pathfinder was made as a D&D alternative and they should have embraced that -- it actually lends them more legitimacy than most original fantasy RPGs. Otherwise, they should have kept the changes small.

It's painful, but sometimes that's the best way to find out what most people actually want. WotC listened to the online echo chambers that valued balance above all else and we got 4e. Only after it cratered (no offense 4e fans) were they truly able to get the feedback they needed to make 5e, and that proved to be a roaring success. I expect a similar progression with PF2 going into PF3 and SF2, both of which I expect to look a lot more similar to PF1 than P2 currently does, and make better use of digital tools.

Shame. PF 1 games were my overall favourite D&D Experience....

Uh, P1 hasn't gone anywhere and they're even still making material for it, it just won't be hardcover releases. No need to get out the bagpipes yet.

[GrayDeath]

Uh, P1 hasn't gone anywhere and they're even still making material for it, it just won't be hardcover releases. No need to get out the bagpipes yet.

I know.

Its jsut that I see quite a big potential for Paizo to...shall we say be much less successful, and hence many a product not to come out.

And the only store here hosting Pathfinder has switched to PF exclusively already ...so yeah, less a "oh woe is me" and more a "Oh, woe may be Paizo..." ^^