RPG Story: I've been running Pathfinder 2E for over a year now

Around the time this video was uploaded my own group switched to pathfinder and had a similar situation. We started running pf1 and we are still having a blast in an ongoing campaing since sesion 1, the thing is, that we the players really liked pf1 while the DM prefered pf2, and we tried it out just for the sake of him; and so we did a session 0, a session 1 and...you already know where this is going. Even the DM thought that that game went very poorly and since then we have stayed in pf1.

The first thing were the character options...I swear that even trying to build our favourites classes from d&d, and pf1 (things like knights, paladins, necromancers and the such) we were so underwhelmed by the character options that the game gave us at lvl 1 and the oncoming levels that in my case I just picked up the character options that I disliked the least and I felt that for most of the other players that sentiment was shared.

Still, we tried to make the most of it just because we love our DM and went along into session 1. We roleplayed for a while, went into a dungeon, had a long fight and by the time it ended the DM started apologizing for the session. Even thought the pf1game started with a very similar first sesion, the mood by the end was the total opposite.

Despite that, I'm still waiting for another opportunity to play again pf2, maybe that was just a bad session and we had fun waiting in the coming sessions that never happened. I've heard that Paizo is making somewhat of a general revision of the core rules and I'm pretty much interested in how that turns out.

So after running pf2e for a few months, and having run 5e since it was released, I actually find PF2E runs faster than 5E, especially at high levels. No legendary actions, silvery barbs, counterspell spam, etc etc. That on top of 5e relying on having many enemies (even vs solo bosses) really slows down the game.

I respect pf2e for the detailed mechanical system that has a rule for e v e r y t h i n g, but man, I just could not enjoy playing it. It really cemented that type of system isnt for me and that for now at least, 'lite' OSR style games are where my heart is.

That’s pretty bad on the players’s if they have to have an online tool for making a character and fill out their character sheet.

Maybe this is why I run into so many players now when I run that don’t know anything about how their characters work or what they can do.

Wow, your players really are THAT dependent on online character makers?

I seriously feel like I'm some sort of Luddite or hipster because I still use a paper character sheet in my live game. And I wouldn't have it any other way. There's a real visceral feel to the paper when scribbling notes or checking stats.

When I play online I'm definitely going to use an online system, but live? There just isn't the same crunch when you tap your screen or type on a keyboard than when you scribble with a pencil.

I think the main difference between them is that pf2e is designed around the players learning the system, which is more in-depth and "crunchy," and having classes that build off of the system. As opposed to 5e where the players focys more in learning their character, as classes introduce whole new systems on top of relatively simple core one. Once you learn the core system of 2e, which takes some time, it (mostly) universally applies to all classes. Whereas in 5e you have stuff like wild shape.

A good example of this would be to compare the pf2e fighter feat Knockdown and the 5e Battlemaster Fighter's Trip Manuever. Both allow you to Trip an enemy while also attacking with your weapon. The difference is that in 5e all the rules are self contained to the Battlemaster, whereas pf2e is referencing existing rules and giving them modifications. Understanding what makes Knockdown work, and why it's good, first requires understanding the core system. I think this is, as you said, the systems greatest strength and weakness. In essence, pathfinder 2e has a higher skill floor for the game.

Been playing d&d for 26 years. I like pathfinder more. If they complain than play advanced d&d and teach them THACO system. They'll behave. Try vampire masquerade also.

I've come to love 2E after the Wizards debacle at the beginning of the year. I ran with a group for my first time as a fighter to learn the rules for about 6 sessions before the group fell apart but I had a good time with PF2E. PS-I was replacing another new character who died in the first session after the DM crit twice in a row on a level 1 character.

As someone who doesn't like PF2e very much, i think this video really describes the experience well. Pf2e clearly satisfies different needs in the TTRPG experience compared to Dnd 5e. As a player, i enjoy the faster, more explosive combat encounters of 5e, compared to the tactical, meticulous and precise combat of pf2e. Pf2e has some great stuff that id like to steal and add as homebrew rules for my 5e game, but its clear that it's not a system made for players and DMs like myself, and thats okay.

Oh jeezus, not you too 🤬another toxic shill is born

so wait this friend has put up with a system they don't like for over a year? dang, that guy really sacrifices for the friendship. I would've just peaced out from the campaign and hung out with the friend group some other way.

Glad to see you've gotten a more nuanced opinion of the system. It's nice that you posted another video about this instead of that take down video you made of PF2 some time ago. I don't agree in principle with a number of the 'issues' you point out about the system, but I'm not going to get into it a lot of this stuff is due to trying to bring in experience from other systems.

Some suggestions for players that struggle with combat:
* Use recall knowledge. You should be getting information you want when you succeed, so make sure when you use it your asking the DM about saves, AC, strong abilities, weakness, immunities, and resistances. Recall knowledge absolutely allows you to know things about it's stat block.
* Make sure you stack debilitation. dazzled, sick, fear, clumsy etc. A lot of penalties don't stack because they are status bonuses, but having multiple debilitations keeps enemies stats down when one wears off, and some only effect certain stats.
* +1's and -1's are a really big deal in PF2. More importantly than effecting chance to hit something (or nor be hit by something) it effects the chance to crit something (or not be crit).
* Kind of part of the previous point, unlike any other system you have a great deal of control over your chance to crit though a combination of buffing, rebuffing, positioning, and using certain abilities. When players start thinking in terms of triggering crits (or a fumble on an enemies saving throw), instead of just trying to hit, combat starts making more sense I think.
* Use skill actions, they are very strong. Bon mot, trip, shove, feint, tumble through, demoralize etc.

G'luck, and have fun!

Fights taking twice as long is a disingenuous take. If you and your players are new to a system, it will be harder to play as you learn.

As a longtime GM of a table that switched to pf2e during the OGL crap we've found that all of us could never go back. Combat is much clearer, characters are much deeper and everyone feels unique, combat is far more tense and dangerous even at high levels, casters are actually BALANCED in pf2e isntead of becoming demigods at level 11, theres less things that players can auto-succeed on unless they've really specialized in it especially later on...Looking at you 5e charisma casters with +11 in persuasion/intimidation and anyone making DC 20 arcana checks even though they've never touched a book or spell...bounded accuracy/checks in 5e are doing a disservice to people that like 'realism'...I digress.

Theres a LOT of good in PF2e, and the main bad is that its complicated to learn compared to 5e. You trade ease of learning for players for clarity in the rules. In PF2e, nearly EVERYTHING has a rule for it to make the game feel like well...a game instead of a loose framework like 5e.

For example in 5e, as a DM I CONSTANTLY had to worry about the insane abilities the party had and how to make combat balanced around their growing collection of magical gear...the system for 5e literally doesnt tell you how to balance combat encounters you just have to feel it out and fudge rolls in combat to make it work when you make mistakes (every 5e dm knows CR is a barely a guideline after level 5 and meaningless entirely after level 10). In pf2e it has rules for the dm to tell them how many permanent items, consumables, and treasure to give per party level per number of players including how much total wealth they should have and further the game EXPECTS you to give them magic gear that they upgrade (or gold to get/craft it) and scales the content around that expectation. BUT if you dont like all that theres a rule set for making players automatically scale without loot called automatic bonus progression.

What I don't really get about 5e is that if I want a game that isn't primarily about combat, dice and stats, I could play an actual rules light system. But if I want a game that is about combat and crunch, it doesn't deliver that well either.

Same

My buddy that I run my home game for is an app developer and he's well on his way to making a comprehensive online assistant exclusively for PF1e. He got his start there and felt the same way, that there's just too much to manage without one. So he opted to make his own. It's called Pathcompanion. Highly recommend.

I love pathfinder 2e!

I love Pathfinder 1E, just for the shear amount of customization available compared to 5E. However I grew up with it and my players know the system well enough. However trying to teach the system to someone without any prior knowledge is not a task I would wish upon my worst enemy xD I also hate what 5E did to my beloved Sorcerer compared to Pathfinder 1E.

I’d heavily recommend pf2e over 5e. Why? Because it’s tactical, you have way way way way way more options for how to tackle a situation and the game rewards you for thinking things through and working with your team as opposed to 5e which barely requires teamwork and a lot of times the same hammer will solve most solutions. Don’t get me wrong I get 5e is easier, advantage disadvantage seems good for a bit until suddenly most things just don’t matter because once you have one application no other advantacious thinking, tactics or planning makes any difference as one advantage is the same as 12 and one disadvantage cancels out all of those etc. The only thing I’d say makes pf2e difficult is conditions because there’s so many and tracking them all can be a hassle on hand, but in person I’ve just made cards for it which has done wonders and most my games are on VTT now which handle all of that autonomously making it a complete non-issue that way.

As a GM I like that every monster feels fairly unique. They all get special abilities as opposed to 5e where the vast majority might have slightly different numbers but often not a lot else going on. Similarly 5e kinda falls apart as you hit higher levels with the DM having to manually fudge Hp higher if they want challenges to be difficult because the CR system in 5e is pretty near worthless at actually scaling things right where as in pf2e the CR system is damn near perfect and keeps a consistent challenge feeling throughout 1-20.

PF 1e is my favorite system I've ever played personally, though I understand it's very much not for everyone. Every time I've ever run a campaign for it, I've homebrewed shit, for the party, for the enemies, everything had aspects of homebrew, because otherwise it gets unbalanced, and fast. That being said, it's a system that's very flexible in my opinion, it can do a lot of cool things, and it's easy to homebrew content for it (though as ever, homebrew is still hard to balance)

I've tried several times to be that "friend who puts up with the nonsense" (i.e play pf2e because otherwise having friends isn't a thing I can do) and I just.. can't.
Character creation is the big thing for me. It's simultaneously way too open and feels extremely fenced-in.

So, the classes feel a lot more well-defined than in 5e. In 5e the Barbarian for example is more of an archetype. He's a suggestion, a big, beefy dude with typically a big weapon and some kind of emotion-based powerup. In PF2E the Crusader has a full page and a half of extremely specific text by comparison and it feels like you're picking a person as opposed to a general playstyle.
On the other end you have the feat system. God, the feat system. Is it neat that they took 5e's subclass system and put each individual trait onto a feat and let players pick and choose? Sure. But now I have to sit here and practically take a college class figuring out how to do what I want without hamstringing myself 6 levels in, and I feel no attachment to my abilities. How did I get this stuff? Why can I suddenly become a bear or fling a fireball? It's no longer a part of my character's identity, it's just a feat I picked up like Alert.

And yes there's valid arguments for how to approach this differently, it's just doesn't work for me.

Puffin I love your content but pathfinder 2e is so painful to go through if you're coming from 5e D&D. I love my group and if I didn't promise to finish that campaign I would have left ao long ago. It's literally something I need time to mentally prepare and recover from. How do you manage to develop a taste for it?

I stopped watching when you said “my players need online character creation helpers..” good god you people are sad.

woah maybe your players just sucked at pathfinder and THIS IS DARK SUN

I've been using Foundry VTT with my group, and I've noticed that the combats were significantly faster than 5e. In 5e we'd have 1-2 combats each session, but I've had upwards of 5 in pf2e. I think the speed is more so from the system, since I've noticed my players have found good strategies mechanics wise, which makes them apply to more situations. In 5e, a lot of our strategies are based around what we notice in narration or presentation, and then the GM gets stressed and needs to make a ruling, which takes a lot more time than making three snappy actions.

The VTT makes board state a trivial issue though, and I absolutely adore that as a GM. If we are able to play in person, we usually wouldn't use a VTT, but with foundry, we've been using it since it makes it so easy to run and play

Flumpfin forest

Flumpf or Flying Spaghetti Monster?

(Really long comment warning)

I had a similar "was skeptical at first, but gradually came around" experience with Pathfinder 2E as a player. After so many years of being used to 1E (and to a lesser extent, D&D 5E), 2E's rules were hard to wrap my head around, particularly in regards to building a character. I think a lot of those issues came from the core rules being written in a way that sometimes just assumes you understand how they're trying to make something work, and end up only half-explaining it, or some rules even being worded in a way that seems self-contradictory. It was only when I tried using an online character-building tool that most of it finally clicked for me.

Now that I understand it better, as a player, I have a somewhat-positive-but-mixed opinion on the modular character-building (Picking class feats is cool, but there's a lot of feat tree stuff where you need to pick something you might not like just to qualify for another ability you want, not all of which seem properly connected), and I think the high point of the system is how they did multi-classing. I've been able to use multi-classing to really open up my options when making characters, and even functionally recreate classes that haven't been ported into 2E, like Bloodrager. The lower power ceiling of most abilities does make leveling up a lot less exciting, though. Some classes also definitely suffer from being trapped in a very specific archetype regardless of your choices, which can make team comp difficult if you play in smaller groups. Aside from that, my opinions pretty much mirror what Puffin said. Whether the more play-by-play, "make every hit count" style of gameplay appeals more to you than 5E's "figure out when to use your gamechanger move" approach is better largely depends on what kind of player you are. Some people have the patience for the more careful tactical stuff, others don't. I personally wouldn't place one system above the other, as I like both for different reasons.

I would like 100% recommend playing on foundry if possible, makes the game much less crunchy. Things like diagonal movement and a lot of the persistence stuff is tracked for you. It turns what normally would be a crunchy experience for some to combat that’s based on mostly critical thinking for the players. It also puts a lot of emphasis he stress of the GM. The foundry system is also super well supported and is only a one-time purchase (assuming you’re not using adventure paths).

Honestly im kinda mixed on VTTs, it doesn't feel the same and getting people to play something that doesn't have one is a pain.
On the other hand it does make the hobby more accessible which is great.

Can we get a story, from pathfinder

You should try shadow run if you haven’t

Pathfinder is Protestant D&D

I find Pathfinder is the game I wanted 5e to be when I first got into it. After level 3 I was looking for more interesting leveling choices than I was finding in 5e. I also realized I had spent my first couple sessions of D&D wasting time trying to sell everyone the perfect tactical plan, that of course fell apart after 1 round. Suffice to say, I was already a patsy for this game.

More broadly though, PF's strengths lead to a game style that is certainly not for everyone, but if I'm looking for lighter more agile game, I prefer Shadowdark or ICRPG (which are also better entry points into the hobby for new players).

I continue to have a lot of fun with 5e, but it ends up being a jack of all trades, and a master of none for me.

My experience as a DM is pretty much the opposite. Pathfinder characters are much more powerful, and enemies are much more dangerous in the amount of damage they can deal.

A level 3 player had been nearly one shotted by a kobold.

The biggest difference is in style. Unlike 5e, Pathfinder actually encourages players to get extremely aggressive and use their abilities and spells. Or extremely creative

5e's big problem and why they were "punchy" was spells were often times suck or save. Meaning, on failure the spell did absolutely nothing. You lost a valuable resource. Combine that with legendary actuons and you have players holding onto spells. And many of the spells were near useless due to them targeting common saves like wisdom, or simply were outdone by something else.

PF2E, once the players got used to the idea that their spells will almost always have value - they started machine gunning spells with abandon.

Martials were also the same. Players were so used to the idea that that in 5e you'd get to melee and stay there because you'll take an opportunity of attack. Another habbit they had to get out of. And suddenly I have the barbarian bull rushing through a line of dudes. Snatch the fuckin mage hanging in the backline. And use him bodily as a weapon.

Players coming from 5e were too used to the idea of their abilities being a thing they can only use maybe once or three times a day. So they don't use them. Then once they hit PF2E and realize they can just... Use them every round, you suddenly have things like shadow stepping rogues. Monks and Barbarians playing catch using a hobgoblin like a ball. And the fighter just airing out a room of goblins in a single turn

You know, I just realised I’M the character building tool my players use for pathfinder 1e…

D&D is dead. 5e is bad, and 4e is terrible. WoTC is also a garbage company. That pretty much leaves Pathfinder for your D&D fix - there is no other option in my mind.

Pathfinder 2e is good, but one thing I don't like is the 10 Over the DC/AC is a Crit Success and 10 under is a Crit Fail. It makes it so you HAVE to play Optimized characters.

One encounter we are level 3 was with a I guess mid boss enemy and it had an AC of 24. Most characters had a +8 to hit so we had to roll a 16 or higher to even hit this thing, and any roll between 1-6 is a Crit fail. So as a fighter I would attack once, raise shield action and end my turn throwing away my last action because the creature had Attack of opportunity if I moved and the Multi attack penalty made it so my next attack is a +3, and taking a second attack is a VERY BAD Idea because I will only hit on a 20. Which is NOT a crit it moves results up by one, 23 would miss, but it gets bumped to a normal success and anything below a 11 is a Critical Fail. So 5% of a success and 55% of critically failing. Even if we got the enemy flat footed the odds were still very stacked against the second attack and you still risk a much higher chance of crit failing then hitting it. I did intimidated it, but it failed and could not do anything else as the Penalty also affecting other actions like push, grab etc.

Also even with an AC of 20 we were getting hit by crits by the enemy EVERY turn, because it kept rolling 10 Over our AC even when boosted with abilities like Raise shield. In the end we "won" because it ran away after X amount of turns, but honestly if it just stayed that one character itself would've been able to wipe the party easily. The fight was not fun and did not feel like a victory. Also any side battles with regular enemies usually ended up with the enemy landing a crit once or twice in the encounter while we really only landed a crit IF we rolled a 20. We NEVER landed a crit below a 20 (ie never got 10 over enemies AC under a 20) So ALL the enemies got to enjoy the critical success of 10 over but we never did... unless it was out of combat skill checks.

Hmmm, Puffin's players sound like kind of "if I can cheat the system I'm going to do it". Not my kind of players. But why Pathfinder (1 and 2)? Can't you think of any other kind of system other than D&D? Pathfinder is D&D 3.6 and Pathfinder 2.Ed. is D&D 4.5. Why not a totally different kind of system than D&D?
And why an online character-builder? Is a pencil too difficult to use?
D&D 3.5 is a rules-heavy system and Pathfinder streamlines it. D&D 4 is sort of Diablo RPG but I haven't tried Pathfinder 2.ed. but I have heard that it streamlines D&D 4.

I've been a GM for over 35 years. I started with D&D BECMI, then AD&D, then all kinds all systems: FASA's MechWarrior (BattleTech) and Star Trek, West End Games' Aliens and Star Wars, Steve Jackson Games' GURPS, I.C.E.'s MERP/Rolemaster, Chaosium's Call of Chrtulhu, GDW's Twilight 2000, Fantasy Flight's Rogue Trader and I could go on.

It seems to me that modern players have gone lazy and don't want to try new systems; or they don't know that the multitude of fantastic systems that exist. D&D will always have a special place in my heart but I will not play it continuously. That is too boring. In my club I have a Birthright campaign that runs on Pathfinder and a MechWarrior campaign. Birthright was the last campaign setting that TSR published before Wizards bought them and is AD&D. But a kind soul have published a D&D 3.0 conversion to it.

The last mini-dungoen that I had my players go through had three encounters that we did on one session in 3.5 to 4 hours. And a two puzzles.

I still 100% prefer 3.5 and pathfinder it's just hard to find people to take part now adays.

Pathfinder 2e fights are normally shorter than 5e. How are you running it? What are your players doing?

For Pathfinder 2e if your players aren't really getting attached to their characters at all you should try letting them use the free archetype rules. It helps add a lot more flavor instead of just 'Fighter' or 'Rogue' or 'Cleric' while also adding a whole new avenue of utility in the character playstyle.

Weird, I had the opposite experience with pathfinder 2e. Fights were much easier and faster than 5e. Where in 5e it could take an hour to fight 5 goblins, in 2e it could be 5-10 mins.

So instead of actually learning the game you throw it at a character builder and blame your refusal to learn on the game? This is why 5e's comical mediocrity is making money, people refuse to use two brain cells.

Pathfinder 2e is best described as a co-op tactics game. You have things to handle outside of combat but it doubles down on being a game about tactical decisions. It's philosophy is optimize on the battlefield and not on the character sheet.

The downside is that if combat is just not your thing and such.... it has rules outside but you aren't at it's core and strength. If a co-op tactics game doesn't sound like your system then that's perfectly fine!

They should use a hex grid to not have to do the diagonal move thing.

Pathbuilder is a great app we use or RPG Scribe. We play Pathfinder 1E because of the unbelievable differences that you can have per character. You could have two paladins that are very different. I feel in 5E everything blends two paladins are very alike for example

“BUT! But, but, but, but, but…”