I played a short demo of Starfinder 2e at GenCon and it seemed solid. Looking for more information as I start reading the player handbook, notably flaws, all I got was hugbox responses effective saying the only issues were from grogs that didn't like new things. That's always bullshit. Other than being d20 based what is actually known to be wrong with the PF2e system?

>>96270583 (OP)
It's fine. The bigger problem is that it operates on the player performing optimized actions using optimized builds and what should be a varied system gets to feeling very samey incredibly fast.

>>96270583 (OP)
>the only issues were from grogs that didn't like new things
lmao PF2e players became 4e D&D players, ironic.

>>96270583 (OP)
>Other than being d20 based
I forgot - OP you are a dipshit anyway.

For a game that prides itself in its supposed breadth of options, very often there is one optimal play for your character and doing anything else means you shoot yourself in the foot.
The three actions economy might sound nice at first, but also results in characters being completely cucked by sets of doors.

>>96270880
>>96271207

These guys got it.
After a certain point of playing with the same crew you will know what everybody will do on any random turn with pretty much no variety.
There is variety in the system, however, the game will punish you for using that variety. Every SINGLE published adventure and organized play operates on that logic being the correct logic to use and, as a result, players and GMs alike don't even try to play or run it differently. If YOU try to play or run it differently, you are gonna upset the rest of the table.

>>96271271
oh also nearly every published adventure is easy mode outside of a few dedicated pain points but that's been the same since 1e and Rise of the Runelords, but I would argue that final save or die or be blinded and deafened forever was actually easy to hit at the time if you built "correctly".

the three action economy lends itself into very similar designs for its classes, and Paizo hates casters so all the spells fucking suck

have you tried playing Psychic or Magus? I fucking hope not. It sucks DICK.

>>96270583 (OP)
My two complaints are about astounding amount of feats and spells that are unexciting, and about the Incapacitation tag.

But despite those I still had fun playing the system and creating the character build. I have to however mention that my GM didn't "punish" unoptimised characters.

>>96270583 (OP)
You basically need to use the Free Archetype rule to get any variety in your character build, and even then, you very quickly establish optimal movesets.

>>96270583 (OP)
>what is actually known to be wrong with the PF2e system
Found the video explaining it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_582tbKz4E0

The utility falloff from picking the second best option is too great.

>>96270583 (OP)
I don't like its clerics. They're very bland.

>>96270583 (OP)
>Nocticula' symbol
What did they mean by this?

>>96274422
Video makes a lot of bad claims, guy is generally pozzed up by 5e faggotry and does not understand the rules of Pathfinder 2e.

>>96274422
Video makes alot of correct claims, guy is clearly experienced with pf2e's issues and understands the game well.

>>96276312
5e is worse than PF2, PF2 is still kinda shit because it gives the illusion of choice making it about a third as variable as it might seem.
Kinda pissed they made SF2 just copy PF2 instead of fixing the economy, having more variety in AC vs EC, and other shit that would have fixed the core flaws with that system, but I understand them wanting people to just plug and play anything from any setting even though being able to cross SF and PF physically shit REALLY hard on SF lore.

>>96271301
I'm playing that wushu/cultivator subclass I'm having fun

>>96274422
>>96276472
Turns out the guy was going through a messy divorce at the time and he pretty quickly left the internet after this. A player of his debunked him after this video and said that he was just a bad gm. Generally, he was just wrong about this

>>96278158
>Turns out the guy was going through a messy divorce at the time and he pretty quickly left the internet after this.
He still made videos for two years after the video. And what does this have to do with the content?
>A player of his debunked him after this video and said that he was just a bad gm.
Might be, if he pulled that analysis on the table.
>Generally, he was just wrong about this
What's wrong about the video itself, rather than him as a husband and GM?

>>96270583 (OP)
>all I got was hugbox responses effective saying the only issues were from grogs that didn't like new things
Pathfinder's community is the RPG equivalent of Mormon missionaries

>>96276274
I once saw a porn video of some skyrim argonian fucking the star of azura
This reminds me of that

>>96270583 (OP)
Pf2e has a good sense of scaling that makes it feel like a good skirmish wargame. It struggles as an RPG, though, because picking optimal choices is necessary if you don't want to feel incompetent or do the same thing you've been doing the next level.
My character went from level 1 to level 5, and I didn't feel like he changed at all. He did the same things, just against different enemies.

>>96276312
Then what is the correct % drop in damage from best combo option to second best?

>>96271288
Except for the early run of Starfinder adventures where they ported over the skill DCs from Pathfinder but forgot there's no such thing as a belt of greater starship piloting.

>>96278594
Does this make Savage Worlds Jehovah's Witnesses?

>>96282839
I was confused as fuck when I first played Starfinder until I realized it only uses skill rank for piloting checks. Not your attribute bonus, not the +3 class-skill bonus, just the single point my 1st-level character put into piloting. The other modifiers came from the ship alone.

>>96270583 (OP)
Here are some core issues
>I don’t really get the way people mythologize 2E Pathfinder’s action economy, because it’s so obvious to me that it has you doing less with more. You have three actions, sure, but your action economy is being fettered by competition with movement and trivial operations like opening doors, drawing your weapon, and politely asking your shield to do its job for the next few seconds. If 5E were to adopt an action-point model, it would need to be freed from these goofy restrictions.
>The movement aspect is my greatest concern. Whenever movement competes with action, static play is encouraged, even if the effect is minor. I don’t think movement should be interchangeable with any type of lesser action, and I don’t think you should be able to sacrifice movement for any benefit. It’s also just not very fun when you regularly find yourself in a scenario where you don’t get to do much because you had to spend most of your turn moving.
>There is definitely a disconnect between 2e's desire to move away from attrition-based gameplay, while having mechanics like spell slots and alchemical reagents being hard caps on the daily adventuring party. Especially for players using APs where long adventuring days and dungeons crawls are the norm
>Oh absolutely, Paizo is very careful not to release anything OP, but is happy to make things terrible instead, often seemingly deliberately if they think an actually good version would be too strong (e.g. vampire Archetype). Its even in the rules. In the case there is an option that is ambiguous the rules actively tell you to pick the worst option.
>fixed DCs make something like half of pathfinder items a fool’s errand to ever purchase, they’re one of the biggest problems with the game
>PF2e is incredibly concerned with its precious balance. And for good reason. But I often feel like I'm at disney world when playing the system. Fun in moderation. Safety first. Don't peek behind the curtain.

>>96270583 (OP)
>3 action system, while novel, isn't actually ideal for the game
>compared to 1e, most casters and their spells suck dick
>compared to 1e, most APs and their splatbooks suck dick
>it doesn't actually fill a niche between 3.5efinder and 5e for a slightly crunchy, but more streamlined experience, instead, it takes the least optimal route between the two paths and mostly exists in a limbo that satisfies few
It's not technically a "bad" game. But it is nothing compared to its direct predecessor or its direct competitor.

>>96283877
>>compared to 1e, most casters and their spells suck dick
It moved from spells as the be all end all to spells as tools. I like this change as someone who rarely plays casters

3 Action system is whatever, its no different than Move Attack Swift in 1e. Its marginally better when you have to move and cant full attack over 1e, by giving you 1 iterative, but addressing the 5' and full attack dependency could be done in a far better way
Theres a bunch of scenarios where IN THEORY it would be more flexible over 1e, but paizo has put in so many chore/action taxes that it hasnt added any notable benefit and makes a lot of stuff overtaxed

Casters suck, period. Again you could neuter 9th level casters from 1e without ruining them

Setting and modules are notably worse in all regards. Golarian isnt good to begin with but it really pushes it to utter dogshit now. There hasnt been a single decent AP in 2e yet

Spheres, Path of War, Akashic and Psychic 3rd party stuff in 1e is simply better, by far. If youre really concerned about 1e balance you only use 2/3 casters and things flow just fine, while a DC focused bard is still gonna run circles around any 2e caster trying to useful

>>96285481
>Spheres, Path of War, Akashic and Psychic
I want a d20 system that can house all of that but doesn't have 1e's problems.

>>96285599
its funny how most of 1es's problems are basically right out of the core rulebook
Tweak a few core mechanics and then STOP RUSHING OUT UNDERTUNED DOGSHIT and it would be fine
instead they gutted all the fun mechanics to be gay and keep rushing out undertuned dogshit in 2e

>>96285599
Mutants & Masterminds. It should be able to do most of them as powers.

>>96285481
>3 Action system is whatever, its no different than Move Attack Swift in 1e
All they had to do was 3 action plus a move. Move Attack Swift would typically be 4 actions in PF2e.

>>96285670
nah it goes much deeper than that, 2e has way more things to spend what would be a swift action on every single turn or every other turn, its an insane action tax, all so they could make action condensing gains more common for attacks
Its a lot like how in 1e bards would go from their song being a standard action to a swift to a free action, but jammed into every single part of the game

>>96270583 (OP)
There are a bunch of problems with PF2e. I've been running it for some years now.

One of the big problems is how video game treadmill-y it feels. Monsters fall off in power fairly quickly, and you can't use lower level monsters in higher encounters. Likewise, throwing a higher level monster at a party can be instantaneous death.

I call the former problem the "Infinite Kobold Problem". If you have a lvl 20 fighter who is asleep and wearing their full armor, no amount of kobolds will be able to hit the sleeping fighter. If they roll a Nat 20, they upgrade their attack step from "Critical Fail" to "Fail". This problem scales up to Lvl/CR 3 monsters such as Ogres.

Likewise, if you want the party to fight a tough encounter at Lvl 1 like say a Lvl 5 Monster, that's basically instant death even with the raised HP values for Lvl 1 PCs. You have to pull your punches or let your players play outside the box because they'll get turbofucked otherwise.

This is all due to the -10/+10 system they have in place. This system alone, while conceptually not a bad idea, has fucked over the entirety of balance in PF2e.

The reason why Spellcasters feel like hot dogshit is not because their spells are bad, their spells are actually devastating at times, but because you have a limited resource ability that can be entirely negated by the enemy.

Take a Lvl 5 Wizard. Min/Maxed they have 21 DC and +11 to hit with their spells.

A Lvl 5 Monster can have anywhere between +7 (Troll) to a saving throw to +17 (also Troll) to a saving throw. That means a Troll has between a 5% to 35% chance of negating, as in 0 damage and 0 everything, for a limited usage ability and that's an even fight.

A Lvl 9 Monster, a suggested very hard encounter for a lvl 5 party, can have between +9 (Murder of Crows) to +23 (Orc Hunter) to their saving throw, so between a 5% to a 95% chance of absolute failure.

Meanwhile Martial classes get the benefit of having an infinite resource to hit the enemy.

>>96287406
Wow I fucked up my own shit ass formatting. Sorry about that.

Just to cap it off, that doesn't mean martials get it easy. PF2e combat works like this for Martials: 1 Action to move or to activate a Combat Ability, 1 Action to Attack, 1 Action to either use Intimidate or a Combat Ability.

Example: Ranger uses Hunt Prey (1 Action), Use Hunted Shot (Get 2 Attacks for the cost of 1 Action), 1 Action Remaining to Move or use Intimidate. From this point onwards they can use 1 Action for Hunted Shot, 1-2 Actions to Move or Intimidate (You can Intimidate twice!), or 1 Action to attack again for a -10 To Hit Penalty.
Hunted Shot is a level 1 Feat, people. The Archery Ranger does not gain any other attack better than this for pure damage. And many of the Feats they gain, like Greater Distracting Shot, are actually additional modifiers to this Lvl 1 Feat. If you do not use Hunted Shot, you are playing wrong. A Lvl 20 Ranger plays dangerously close to a Lvl 1 Ranger, except your damage is higher and you get modifiers and 5% increments to this effect and a 0.5% increment to that effect only if you use your main Attacking ability. This is Ivory Tower Design 101, which was birthed in 3.x DnD and whose influence is still seen in a lot of modern TTRPGs.

And to circle it back, Spellcasters don't have it much better: 2 Actions for Most Spells, 1 Action to Move, Intimidate or Activate a Feat/Ability they may have that costs 1 Action. I have described every Spellcaster interaction in PF2e with the occasional "Can I Counterspell if I have the appropriate feat and the exact spell in my spell list for said spell being counterable?" (No seriously, Counterspell is an optional Feat you can choose. If you don't pick it, you don't have it.)

For a system about the ability to build a character however which way you want, all paths lead to the quantum ogre/PC.

>>96287441
>Birthed in 3.x

Turns out making an OGL just made people extremely lazy at designing games. Someone else did the math aspect, so just copy that and for 25 years and counting that exactly what people have done.

Other systems definitely exist, not saying otherwise, but good golly did the OGL cause a lot of stagnant game design.

>>96270880
It kind of sucks because conceptually I do like the 3 action system more than how other games do it. Is it just a PF2e Problem or will any 3 action economy devolve into this?

>>96287406
>One of the big problems is how video game treadmill-y it feels. Monsters fall off in power fairly quickly, and you can't use lower level monsters in higher encounters. Likewise, throwing a higher level monster at a party can be instantaneous death.
Maybe proficiency without level should have been the default after all.

>>96288211
>Maybe proficiency without level should have been the default after all.
It is well known that CR gets worse if you do this. The system even tells you it gets worse in the rules on PwL. The mathematical tightness of the system is what allows CR to work, remove that mathematical tightness and it devolves into a poor system of approximation.

Also the dude is wrong. It is trivially easy to upscale monsters or to make level appropriate ones. If he wants to use more of the same monsters throughout a campaign some style of "e6" type game is possible. Besides all of that, no monster should be used from level 1 to fucking 20. You should be changing what monsters you use across levels, not just because of getting more power but for simple variety so nothing becomes stale. Two dozen raids on goblin camps across 5 levels is boring shit and Id have words for the DM who did it. Its a stupid suggestion and "problem" for PF2e.

Hell if you want the players to stick in an area without leveling from killing a ton of monsters, just run a fucking milestone xp campaign, which is in the fucking rules. This entire "problem" is idiotic.

>>96288301
It IS still a problem though. Because you can't use weaker monsters as chaff or have a particularly tricky monster pull something off. The example given being Kobolds not even being able to DO anything to a sleeping level 20 fighter. Sure in PF1e a couple of Kobolds trying to deliver a Coup de grace to a sleeping level 20 fighter probably still won't kill him, but he's going to be hurting from it and have a chance to just outright die.

>>96288343
>a level 20 fighter can die from a couple low level kobolds before waking up
>this is good and exactly what I want in my games

>>96288394
If Fighter man is dumb enough to sleep in a place where that can happen, he deserves to die regardless of level.

>>96288394
>my character is functionally immortal to enemies if they're a low enough level, which means that them stabbing at my neck with knives while i sleep will do me no harm despite those same attacks being able to kill the peasant sleeping in the room next to mine.

>this is good design btw

>>96288401
>he's serious, that's actually what he wants

In either edition, how are these kobolds sneaking up on a level 20 fighter without waking him?

>>96288343
>The example given being Kobolds not even being able to DO anything to a sleeping level 20 fighter.
Why should weak little assholes who survive on trickery and traps be able to kill a demigod level warrior and one man army? This is idiotic to the extreme. Hell, shit like this doesn't even happen in fucking fiction, the warrior is always aware of shit and trained by many long years of combat to wake and thwart his would be killers.

This is a stupid and extremely contrived scenario desperate to find some flaw in the system from people with contradictory notions, who want heroic fantasy but also "real-world" scenarios. Your expectations of what a real heroic warrior from a fantasy world would be like are dumb and shitty. This isn't ASoIaF.

>>96288411
The demigod level warrior would wake upon hearing their footsteps and kill them before they even got close to hurting him. This scenario is stupid.

>>96288444
you're the twinkie guy, arent you?

>>96288450
No. But he had a point that was always perfectly illustrated within the threads it was posted in.

>>96288444
Darth Sidious was killed in his sleep. Powerful people die to trickery in fiction all the time.

>>96288461
His master I meant, I don't remember his name.

I bet these "level 20 fighter can die to kobolds" people would get really mad if the same thing happened to a level 20 wizard.

>>96288471
If they play like complete dumbasses, yes.

>>96288471
i think an legendary wizard shouldn't be allowed to wander into a kobold camp, strip naked, and go to sleep while ignoring the threats around him because the game design disallows for the low level enemies to harm him

>>96270583 (OP)
>what's wrong
Certain options are just shit, just like in PF1. There's a ton of bloat because it's so easy to cram shit in with variants and module-specific items.
Otherwise the only real issue is that a lot of the gameplay is call-response and the difficulty is incredibly tuned, so your GM can't just fall asleep at the wheel like in say 5e. It can be incredibly lethal if your GM is a dick or too stupid to balance right. If one player knows the system they can blow the party's balance out too. The familiar rules also feel half-baked and suck since every other pet is just a spend 1 action to get 2 weaker actions from a pet.
All that being said the 3-action economy is really fucking good, and there are a lot of grogs that don't like new things.
Also the OGL shit really fucked up the SRD since there's a million legacy versions of everything.

>>96283521
>drawing your weapon, and politely asking your shield to do its job for the next few seconds. If 5E were to adopt an action-point model, it would need to be freed from these goofy restrictions.
This is so you can have classes that can do these actions without using up an action. It's intentionally more 'game-y' than 5e's 'lol just move' design.
at least unlike 5e it doesn't feel like many levels are just a waste of time either.

>>96288461
>>96288468
You mean Plagueis who was murdered by Sidious, his apprentice, who himself was a powerful Sith. Aka level 15 sith master got murdered by a level 10 to 15 Apprentice, who then went on to become the level 20 threat.

You're really not helping your argument here.

>>96288480
Why not? He's trained in combat alongside the fighter, he's got the skills to kill all of the kobolds bare fisted, and knows how to dodge primitive or simple weapons with ease from many long dungeon runs and crazy combat scenarios. The kobolds should be quaking in fear from his mere presence.

In any actual scenario, the wizard would here them sneaking up, wake up, punch the closest, kill it immediately, scare off the rest, and go back to sleep. Why do you think they would be able to sneak up and do damage in any form?

>>96288480
You know I thought you were excaggerating but I went and checked and lmao a level 20 wizard with 10 dex would have 35 AC and only suffers a -4 AC penalty for sleeping. This system is fucking trash.

>>96288506
why would the wizard waste his time punching enemies when they cannot harm him?

hes found a campsite that has a fire, they cannot harm him, and he's safe to rest without lifting a finger.

>>96288520
It's probably fine for low to mid levels. It honestly kind of sounds like the same 5e problem where high levels go off the rails.

>>96288458
>No, but
Kek Anon spotted you immediately

>>96288526
>why would the wizard waste his time punching enemies when they cannot harm him?
You're right, he'd glare at them and scare them off. Like any powerful protagonist of a story encountering a weak group.

>>96288548
The level of self-delusion that goes on here is astounding, and its utterly futile to even try to convince you I'm not now that you're deadset on me being him. God, I hate anonymity sometimes.

>>96288540
Nah it's not really like 5e's problem. The bounded accuracy shit creates an opposing issue where high level characters can get easily swamped by lower level enemies through sheer numbers.

>>96288563
I'm not the anon who called you out, I'm just having a laugh that you immediately revealed yourself by having to argue a random accusation with no meaning to it.

>>96288506
We're all talking about weak kobolds attacking PCs, but what about the other way around? A group of PCs taking on something way more powerful than them? In 2e that just won't happen due to the way the scaling works. Even if you plan well you have 0 chance. Your only option is to either die or run, and you might not even get a chance to run.

>>96288506
>Aka level 15 sith master got murdered by a level 10 to 15 Apprentice, who then went on to become the level 20 threat.
Source on these numbers?

>>96288577
Sounds like you have a GM skill issue then. I haven't thrown a boss at my players yet that wasn't 5+ levels above them.

>>96288565
It always irritated me at the time, but some of my best DM memories of 5e are my players taking on shit they had no right being able to kill. They just worked well together and had good plans. It's kind of a good and bad aspect of 5e now that I think about it.

>>96288583
So it's fine as long as you quantum ogre everything and scale the world around them like a fucking video game. Lovely.

>>96288589
Do you not scale threats up or do your players keep fighting little goblins all the way until level 20? I'd hate to sit at your table if that's the case.
My players will keep setting off to deal with dragons at level 1 because it's cool and it works if you're not a shit GM.

>>96288570
>immediately revealed yourself
As I said, you've convinced yourself I'm him (whether youre the original poster or not is meaningless for this) and no matter what I say nothing will convince you otherwise. Every statement I make will only further your delusion and reinforce to you that I'm the Twinkie guy. Have fun with your trollery.

>>96288579
Vibes and Feels. Because there are no hard numbers for either character and both are described as powerful, so I simply used an approximate "D&D" level to represent their power. It doesn't matter if they are level 50 or 5, the argument is the same. One powerful sith killed his powerful master and isn't reflective of the scenario for a powerful guy getting killed by weak guys in his sleep.

>>96288577
Well, they run or die. It really is that simple. But scenarios like that shouldn't happen unless the GM is a sadist or the party has done something stupid in a West Marches campaign. Things like this are nonissues used to try and show how idiotic it is, but there are a myriad of ways to run them that don't result in instaTPKs and bad feelings. A level 5 warrior shouldn't be facing a demonlord, and absolutely should have no chance, no matter the system.

>>96288605
>Vibes and Feels.
Oh so your argument is just that you don't want to admit you're wrong, got it.

>>96288605
No, anon, you did all the convincing.

>>96288632
No, I'm sure thats you. If I had ignored it, you'd continue saying I was him. If I had said yes, well that's obvious. And my no was obviously insufficient. There was no way to convince you otherwise, in any way. It is merely a surefire way to distract from the conversation and start up an entirley disconnected avenue of trolling as a means of discrediting any arguments I bring forth.

Your whole line of trolling is easy to understand and plainly obvious to see. And due to the anonymous nature of the site and the way its built, there is no way to refute your allegations in any way that matters. I'll leave you to your delusions now.

>>96288649
If you'd ignored it, I wouldn't have cared because there'd have been nothing to laugh at, duh. Just like I'd not care if you stopped losing your mind at me.

>>96288605
Like I said, quantum ogres. Why should dangerous monsters only appear when the players are an appropriate level? It should be a living world where players pick and choose their battles. On the other side why should goblins disappear entirely from the world because you get past a level like it's Oblivion? Sure they're not going to attack the party, not directly at least. If they're desperate enough they might try to steal from the party or stab them in their sleep. There's opportunities for encounters of all kinds when you stop looking at the world as a series of stat blocks.

>>96288444
It is an extremely contrived scenario, I know that, it's the point of having 100 kobolds, or an entire village of goblins that could number in the hundreds.

>>96288461
To this point...

A well prepared Warrior could, and should, be able to take out that many goblins. Not while asleep, however. It's more a scenario to point out the flaws of the system, and how you have to constantly ramp up what the encounters are so you can't use weaker monsters as easily, if at all, because they're not even footnotes.

I'm not saying you should get stabbed in the neck by a Lvl 0 goblin and die as a Lvl 20 fighter because fuck you. What I'm saying is let's say a Lvl 20 Fighter is up against a Lich with a Goblin Army, y'know, for flavor, and the Lich casts Paralyzed at 7th Level to AoE cast it on the Fighter and the party.

You are Immobile and Off-Guard. The Lich commands his 100 goblins (Think Battle of Helm's Deep) to open fire on the paralyzed fighter.

Every single attack would miss if you used anything lower than Lvl 3 goblins. They'd have to be lvl 4 for a general to hit to be able to hit on a Nat 20, and higher to be able to hit at all. So you either scale the goblins up to be absolute units that your average peasant or infantry soldier who is an average Lvl 2 schmuck get absolutely dominated by, or you don't and get de nada.

>>96288520

>wizard
Exactly this. Hell, being unconscious gives you a -4 penalty to Reflex saves as well. You can be unconscious, but you somehow can backflip over a fireball to completely negate damage while you're bleeding out, on the ground dying. Not even in 5e can you 100% avoid a fireball while making Death Saves, you get ticked for another death save.

>>96288583
I've also thrown things that are 5+ levels above my players because I try and create various mechanics within the game to help weaken bosses and to try and promote doing actions beyond "I attack". That's not PF2e, that's me though.

>>96288667
>Every single attack would miss if you used anything lower than Lvl 3 goblins. They'd have to be lvl 4 for a general to hit to be able to hit on a Nat 20, and higher to be able to hit at all. So you either scale the goblins up to be absolute units that your average peasant or infantry soldier who is an average Lvl 2 schmuck get absolutely dominated by, or you don't and get de nada.
Not very hard to do this. I don't see why some people here don't grasp that scaling enemies up to challenge the PCs is fine.
>But muh world muh peasants
I forgot that you're painstakingly simulating every single interaction that happens in an entire setting rather than playing a tabletop roleplaying game my bad.

>>96288677
Having an army of level 4 Goblins doesn't really make a whole lot of sense though. Unless you try to reason that they're all powered up by dark magic or some shit. Scaling their levels up just makes me question the point of the whole system in the first place and strikes me as just stat bloat for the sake of number go up.

>>96288677
dude we know you can scale up enemies, thats not the issue

>>96288705
Clearly not or you wouldn't have an issue.

>>96288702
>Having an army of level 4 Goblins doesn't really make a whole lot of sense though.
BUT MUH WORLD
>Unless you try to reason that they're all powered up by dark magic or some shit.
You're already recognizing there are ways to make it make sense AND be more interesting.
>Scaling their levels up just makes me question the point of the whole system in the first place and strikes me as just stat bloat for the sake of number go up.
You get more than "number go up!" when you level up, anon.

>>96288666
>Why should dangerous monsters only appear when the players are an appropriate level?
Do you understand what a West Marches campaign is? Because big nasty monsters of high CR are going to be obvious and going off as a low level party to fight the Omnimongler of Death Forest is suicide. The monsters exist but shouldn't be common or should be in obviously well designated areas people avoid because "there be death".

Also, why the fuck are you springing massively deadly monsters on your PCs and expecting them to fight it? Absolutely no edition of D&D recommends doing this. Most systems in fact say to not do this. Why are you nitpicking PF2e for following the advice of literally every other system?

>>96288715
"Muh Realism" is basically it. Stupid expectations born of conflating very different genres and expecting PF2e to follow them when its explicitly Heroic Fantasy with its own genre expectations, which include powerful protagonists unable to be harmed by weak mosnters.

>>96288715
>quantum goblin that is simultaneously godly enough to rule an entire village by itself is squashed by peasants when the hero isnt around

>>96288738
>which include powerful protagonists unable to be harmed by weak mosnters.
Nah this is stupid. Again just scale things up. There's no reason enemies and threats shouldn't grow stronger too, then it's a non-problem.

>>96288744
Again crying about
>MUH WORLD
>MUH SETTING
>I MUST SIMULATE EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION IN THE ENTIRE WORLD AT ONCE!!!!
Before you bother replying, post your copy of the rulebook with a timestamp.

>>96288750
>There's no reason enemies and threats shouldn't grow stronger too
Congratulations, you've discovered why the elite template exists. Also why there's rules for giving "class levels" to various monsters. And the whole section on upgrading nonhumanoid monsters. The game expects you to fight new things, but it gives you the tools to also keep fighting those damned goblins.

>>96270583 (OP)
Still no ninjas
Some weird wording changes for political ("woke" if you must) reasons
Tons of weird wording changes to avoid using the same words as WotC and the rest of the industry
Very mathy progression like 4e
Everyone at the table has to either be following a build or pioneering one

I mean it's certainly better than most of the market.

>>96288779
Yep, thanks for agreeing with me.

>>96288779
yea, youre the guy who struggled with the twinkie argument

>>96287406
>>96287441
Seems like the same problem Mutants & Masterminds has in theory. If you do not have powers or power applications that target enemy weak spots you are fucked. Only where in M&M you always have glaring weaknesses, since it's impossible to cover every possible angle of attack and there are ways to fuck you up anyway even if you turtled, PF decided to smooth those "rough" angles leaving little in way of striking at enemy vulnerabilities. Those vulnerabilities still exist but in many cases they are not that crippling.

>>96288667
>You are Immobile and Off-Guard. The Lich commands his 100 goblins (Think Battle of Helm's Deep) to open fire on the paralyzed fighter.
>Every single attack would miss if you used anything lower than Lvl 3 goblins. They'd have to be lvl 4 for a general to hit to be able to hit on a Nat 20, and higher to be able to hit at all. So you either scale the goblins up to be absolute units that your average peasant or infantry soldier who is an average Lvl 2 schmuck get absolutely dominated by, or you don't and get de nada.
How is that different from say 3.5, where fighter by that point has most of AC provided from armor and magic items? Losing 4-8 points from AC won't make goblins suddenly able to pierce through full plate.
Hell, even level 1 fighter/paladin in full plate is 18 AC against a +0-2 attack bonus.

The sleeping shit is dumb, but it is a result of PF creators being shitters and not being willing to split AC into dodge/armor to keep their sacred cows.

>>96288594
>Do you not scale threats up or do your players keep fighting little goblins all the way until level 20?
That's the reason why Pathfinder APs throw level 17 brigands at you.

>>96289058
That's fine, why shouldn't Brigands be able to level up?

>>96289033
Correct me if I'm wrong but even in 3.5 getting paralyzed would make those hits auto hit and maybe auto crit? Which kind of makes it dumb in the OTHER direction because getting paralyzed in that situation would basically be the same as instant death.

>>96289156
Close. They'd be at -5 AC and attacking them nets a +4 bonus unless it's a ranged attack. You'd have to coup de grace them to auto-hit (which does auto crit and has a save vs death roll).
So if Anon meant they were using a ranged attack, it doesn't really change much because they still only hit on 20s. They'd need to get up into melee, and then could launch 8 Coup de Grace's a turn on the Fighter by surrounding him.

He'll take an average of 7 damage per Coup de grace, so 56 damage around, and need to pass 8 fortitude checks without crit failing, which he has a 66% of doing so.
Survivable, but still very dangerous.

>>96289156
No, you get +4 in melee and nothing for ranged attacks and a target is flat-footed (part of helpless).

What you can do is Coup De Grace as a full round action which would auto-hit. In which case you deliver a critical hit and target must do 10+Damage Fort save or die. Problem is if your target is immune to critical hits it does nothing, fortification on armor can fuck it up, damage reduction can fuck it up and so on.

Assuming your GM allows a goblin to coup de grace with morningstar it's 2d6 damage vs most likely DR 3+ so a save of 14-19. Up to 8 per round if completely surrounded.

>>96285638
No amount of time, care and playtesting will make 3.5 anything but 3.5, Core will always be broken as fuck.

>>96287406
>I call the former problem the "Infinite Kobold Problem". If you have a lvl 20 fighter who is asleep and wearing their full armor, no amount of kobolds will be able to hit the sleeping fighter
PF2 doesn't have Coup de Grace rules?

>>96289303
Nope, you only have a modest AC penalty and at high levels it only makes a difference against like leveled enemies.

>>96289303
Coup de Grace was considered problematic and removed.

>>96270583 (OP)
Ran it for like 6 sessions and was a player for many months for the Kingmaker adventure and few other homebrew adventures.
I had fun, but it's not my kind of game. Biggest offender to me how many bad and boring options there were in the game. Sure there's like +90 feats to choose from when you level a skill or something but most of them are of the caliber "get a +2 to squeeze through tight spaces". Either too specific to be useful, bad, or boring.
I was playing a ranger with a pet specialization and I chose a wolf because the character was a royal kennelmaster but the wolf option SUCKED. It had no redeeming qualities compared to other options and I DESPISE that kind of "trap" based gamedesign where it feels like the designers purposefully put bad options into the game.

Also to my interpretation learning the rules and talking with my DM, the action economy is crazy. For example here's how many actions it takes to Climb a 20ft cliff to attack a skeleton,
>run to cliff (action), sheath weapon (action), climb cliff (1-2 actions if you roll well), mantle ledge (action), draw weapon (action), attack (action)
That's just not my vibe man. And if you have a two handed weapon it takes more actions and there might even be another I'm missing from standing up after the mantle. That's like 2 turns of combat which can easily be a 30 minute total wait before actually rolling to hit that damn skeleton.

>>96289434
OH and I was bummed out how many combat actions trigger the multitple attack penalty. I thought that with a 3 action economy it would allow me to spice up my attacks and maneuvers (espcially for martials) but I found so many non damaging attack moves trigger the multiple attack penalty which is so punishing you might as well just play it safe and do a normal attack.

Like if I'm in melee with a bandit and I trip them (action) then attack them (action), even though they are proned and I get a +2 bonus to the attack I'm still at an overall -3 to the attack because of the -5 from the MAP.

So you almost never want to use those cool moves like grapple, disarm, trip, shove, because of how heavily they punish your other attack actions that do damage. For gods sake you gave me 3 actions please stop punishing me for wanting to mix and match them to do cool shit!

>>96289201
>vs most likely DR 3+
I forgot that the Fighter automatically gets damage reduction as his class feature at level 18.
Oh wait he doesn't lmao

>>96289509
He doesn't. But if you do not have at least some DR at level 20 you are probably an idiot.

And without equipment there is not even a question what happens to fighter in 3.5. He just fucking dies. Paralysis or no paralysis.

>>96289524
>He doesn't
Concession accepted, you should've stopped your post there the rest is unnecessary cope or redundant

>>96289529
Dude you don't have to do this mega cope that PF2e is so much better than other systems. If you like it that's fine. But we're just talking about it's flaws.

>>96289600
Someone's mad that he's an unskilled GM kek

>>96282844
SWfags are more like the Mormons to me, being generally amiable while wanting you to get into this system that's like yours but nothing like it at all in reality
PF/SF is more like some millenarian cult doing its own autistic thing and waiting for the end where they'll reign supreme

>>96289604
Unskilled DM, uh huh. With a system that necessitates using level 17 brigands.

>>96282844
No, that's GURPS.
Savage Worlds is more like scientology. It used to be relevant but isn't anymore, and it's not as popular as its few but dedicated proponents would have you believe.

>>96289623
>That necessitates
Unskilled GM indeed.

>>96289631
That's from an adventure path my friend.

>>96289626
I do unironically like GURPS but I do hate how it always comes up first when people ask what system to use.

>>96289633
Oh, you mean the things they make for unskilled newbie GMs? Yeah I can see why you're obsessed with them kek.

>>96289638
It's a meme but the difference between 2008 and now is that now people will actually admit to playing it (and it isn't tainted by the memory of 3e as hard)

>>96289474
The secret to those maneuvers is reliance (athletics). You just take 10 + proficiency, which becomes better than rolling when you get the MAP.
It's kind of stupid and only works against mooks weaker than you, but that's how you reliably grapple.

Based thread
Fuck pf2e
Pf1e and dnd 3.5 are best systems
TTGs are dead as concert last 2 decades

>>96271288
>>96271207
So the problem is optimized builds, that do not need to be used and are a choice by the player, presumably because the obsession with rendering dice rolls obsolete or minimal is too ingrained?

>>96287406
>If they roll a Nat 20, they upgrade their attack step from "Critical Fail" to "Fail".
Iirc, a nat 20 on an attack roll is a success regardless.

>>96289925
Nope.
>If you rolled a 20 on the die (a “natural 20”), your result is one degree of success better than it would be by numbers alone. If you roll a 1 on the d20 (a “natural 1”), your result is one degree worse. This means that a natural 20 usually results in a critical success and natural 1 usually results in a critical failure. However, if you were going up against a very high DC, you might get only a success with a natural 20, or even a failure if 20 plus your total modifier is 10 or more below the DC. Likewise, if your modifier for a statistic is so high that adding it to a 1 from your d20 roll exceeds the DC by 10 or more, you can succeed even if you roll a natural 1!
You're thinking of 5e.

>>96270583 (OP)
Autists can't cope with being unable to solve the game at character sheet and become irrationally angry with it.
That's it. It's just nogamer playeronlies. It's just the guys who go
>I love building characters but I would NEVER EVER EVER play one

Which is most of everybody online unfortunately.

>>96289969
PF2e is a game where it's more fun to theorycraft a character than actually play one. In real play, nothing really feels good. You get an intimidate or a bon mot off and they face a -1 on one round. This just helps you hit/crit the enemy to deal damage.

Planning a build requires at least a semblance of creativity to figure out something different from the meta choices that you have to pick to have an impact in actual play.

Found one.

>>96289918
>making dice rolls obsolete
In 1e, sure. In 2e every DC keeps pace with you so despite that +27 Master skill bonus you're still shooting for an 18 or 19 to trip this baddie! The predetermined DCs for prewritten adventure hazards may seem easy but the game itself tells you to bake these rolling DCs that only serve to punish those untrained in the particular skill rather than reward builders for achieving Legendary or Master skills.

>>96271207
>completely cucked by sets of doors
Explain, please

>>96290565
1 action to move to the door, 1 action to open the door, 1 action to move beyond the door

>turn over

>>96290565
Assume enemy runs into room and closes the door.
You chase (Stride 1 action), Interact (1 action), and presumably Stride again inside again to continue the chase. Worse if the door is locked, slightly better if the enemy is just on the other side of the door because they are just as action cucked as you (unless they locked it, in which case, good luck getting over a lock that needs multiple successes at Pick a Lock in a timely fashion). Force Open will also work in place of interact but its another skill roll.

>>96290587
>>96290605
So a bunch of closed doors down a hallway can absolutely fuck both the party and the sanity of the players

>>96290044
>PF2e is a game where it's more fun to theorycraft a character than actually play one.
NTA but people said this of 3e and I played 3e/PF1e, albeit not exclusively, for 20 years and the "build" was 20% of the attention the rest was campaign exploration story etc as always.

>>96290116
>In 1e
IS this an issue? High-level characters should be able to carry out certain tasks automatically.
Even in older editions the DM guides recommended that by "name level" simple dungeoneering stuff shouldn't be described in detail - many will disagree tho.

>>96288411
That's what being a 20th level Fighter means. If you don't like it, you could play a system which doesn't use levels, which generally have much smoother and flatter power curves.

Why people keep trying to beat this flat power curve into D&D-alikes, when OD&D literally calls a level EIGHT Fighter a "Superhero", I will never understand.

>>96290727
That's because builds in 3e actually matter, so they change the way you can play the game.

>>96276772
Problem is both PF2E and 5E are approximately the same level of bad. The gap in quality isn't enough to result in picking PF2E over 5E. You already know how to play 5E, all your players already know how to play 5E, and it has a large community. PF2E is for hipsters who still want to play a modern D&D, but want to pretend they are better than the 5E players.
If you are going to stop playing 5E because it is bad, there is a wide world of TTRPGs that are better choices than Pathfinder.

>>96288211
>Maybe proficiency without level should have been the default after all.
It should have. It's pretty great and it works out.
>Hell if you want the players to stick in an area without leveling from killing a ton of monsters, just run a fucking milestone xp campaign
This is awful advice. It feels terrible to play in a campaign with this.

>>96290772
i dont play pf2e because those things are an issue.

>OLD D&D USED THE TERM 'SUPERHERO' SO ALL CHARACTERS SHOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO SUPERMAN OR WOLVERINE
fuck off marveltard

>>96290755
In 2e the nature of the proficiency bonus rolling with level leads to either outrageous circumstances wherein what would otherwise be simple creatures and statblocks must be inflated to match play character level to stand a chance. Many simple tasks should likewise be relegated to simple DCs as indicated by the GM core guidelines but hazards are also written under the same structure leading many new or first time GMs to over rely on this.

>>96290901
It's D&D. 20th level characters are, and have always been, stronger than Wolverine. If you don't like this then play a different system, don't whine that the D&D-alike game lets you solo a dragon and ignore goblins if you're high enough level.

>>96288589
>scale the world around them like a fucking video game
Yah in APs suddenly everyone everywhere starts using adamantium locks for their doors because all the lower level locks are trivial for the PCs

>>96290937
most editions of d&d allow for your heroic guy to get hit while they sleep, its only d&d bootleg copies that dont

>>96290957
Point out the rule for this in OD&D.

>>96290984
standard AC rules?

So far the issues raised definitely confirm i was right to not buy the hardback books spur of the moment. I will probably run some one shots locally in SF2e and see how that shakes out. I am already homebrewing in coup de grace rules since you should be able to slit the throat of a sleeping man.

>>96290957
Anon, in reality, you are talking about your mudcore game where no one ever gets past level 5.

>>96289058
Name the AP.

>>96292309
>5e is mudcore
never heard that before

>>96278370
Here is a based woke queer filipino lawyer dude's 5 hour dive into this subject. I provided a timestamp to a relevant section where a player of his tells about his experience.

https://www.youtube.com/live/1wk9R31MBGg?si=ow9cl50r0TBjr53k&t=9782

This nigga is actually really good for information about pf2. He occasionally posts about his activism and whatever but his gaming content is not tainted by that political shit, and it is great.

>>96292335
i watched that section and i have no idea what the issue was other than pf2e was new to the Dm / group and some people might not have enjoyed it

>>96292316
Age of Ashes, for example
https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=1582
https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=1579

>>96290605
>it's a players/gm are too stupid to attack the door/ready/delay episode
If it's not on my character sheet I can't do it??

>>96292513
>I know how to avoid using actions to open a door, i'll use these other actions!!! i'm very smart

>>96292456
>Be Level 15 enforcer
>Leave group and goes to a town with guards that max out at 5
>Slaughter everyone and take no damage
Look I can buy the enforcer of a secret society being better than your average guy, but THAT much better to the point where he can fight high tier demons on an equal basis? It makes me wonder how high level threats or dragons even exist when normal people like this exist.

>>96292758
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=137
>An Adult Red Dragon is only level 14
Random bandit is higher level than a dragon!

>>96292772
A random bandit is a higher level than a World Ender Lvl 16 https://2e.aonprd.com/NPCs.aspx?ID=3622

But it can get more silly- there is of course the Lycanthropes where you go from Lvls 1 to Lvl 4 (Weretiger), then you skip to Lvls 16-19 for generic Wereants.

But that's not as buck wild as a large red guard ant being lvl 15 https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1836 and is a higher level than any adult dragon.

It's actual MMO logic.

>>96270880
>>96271207
>>96271271
Not really? You can approach encounters in lots of different ways, along with each table and adventure has their own meta at different levels with different items/variant rules in play

> If YOU try to play or run it differently, you are gonna upset the rest of the table.

Sounds like a Reddit problem and I don't play APs, I just homewbrew my own adventures. GM Core is very explicit on rule of cool, variant rules, subsystems, rewarding bonus feats and instructive on how to modify and homebrew your own monsters/items/feats. The designers also have videos on how to do it

>>96293167
I GUESS you can try and reason it as being an abstraction in the same way that HP is but it seriously doesn't feel right.

>>96293198
nobody is arguing that the character op isn't decent in pf2e, its that once you've designed your character / party you kind of fit into a cycle and now that you've mastered a few things, you focus on those to succeed

>>96289434
>mantle ledge (action)

That's not an action, it's apart of climb movement

If you dropped the item as a free action or threw the weapon it'd be faster. Along with a long jump+ character reach you could clear it in 1 round instead of whatever you're doing

>>96289474
>So you almost never want to use those cool moves like grapple, disarm, trip, shove

Attack-skills are extremely powerful in the meta-- action denial is the name of the game

>>96287406
>A Lvl 9 Monster, a suggested very hard encounter for a lvl 5 party

PL+4s are not recommended as 'very hard' they are considered extreme with character deaths likely, they are for end of adventure solo bosses

>>96271207
>>96290565
>>96290638
Its actually worse in 1e. To open a door is a move action. You can turn a standard into a move, so a 1e turn will be move action to door, move action to open door, and take a 5 ft step (swapped move action extra). Second turn, move toward enemy who has fled already.

2e you get to full move, open the door, and then either attack the enemy or full move toward it. You get better action economy in 2e in regards to doors. This is regardless of the doors condition.

>>96293167
>as a large red guard ant being lvl 15
Gigantic Ant
Source Pathfinder #174: Shadows of the Ancients pg. 72
When the heroes are particularly small, an ordinary red ant can pose an impressive combat challenge. Against high-level heroes, though, simply making a mundane animal very large doesn't usually incorporate the quirks and tricks that make high-level fights so satisfying.

The ants are nasty because the heroes are fucking tiny, ala the Grounded games or Honey I Shrunk the Kids movies. They are also under the effects of a magic artifact that will rebirth a powerful variant worm-that-walks composed of ants.

>>96270583 (OP)
The problem is the perception that PF2E is a super tactical skirmishing game that must be ran 100% RAW when it's tacticool one that wants you to homebrew and improvise actions

The GM Core and designers are very explicit about this but all the plebbitor think you can't had ad hoc or reward bonus feats out; everything must be ran player core RAW and PFS legal! While of course, never reading the GM manual itself
It makes sense why they would do that: it's because they all want to play online in pick up groups for running APs

My 2 cents is the system is a dream to GM, I've been able to train and play in all of my players games in my 1-20 campaign. I have never been able to do that with any other system

>>96293532
>wants you to homebrew and improvise actions
Not seeing how expecting you to invent fun combat instead of providing it is a strength, Anon.

>>96293587
Homebrewing adventures is normal

Most ttrpgs do not have the design space and math to homebrew well I find, often it needs constant tweaking

5e for example doesn't even share its monster creation rules, just tells you to modify existing one

>>96274422
Imagine getting filtered by Pf2e feats

>>96293587
It's especially non-compelling when you can do it with every system, and most are better suited for it and make you do less work.

>>96293717
Yeah, but neither I nor the post I was responding to was about homebrewing adventures or monster creation rules. He specifically said 'actions'.

>>96293532
Hey if you made it work more power to you. It just seems like a lot of extra work for not a whole lot of benefit to me. Especially when a lot of other systems just work. I'd probably have a more positive opinion of it with a DM like you though.

>>96294305
It's not bad at all, it's very easy on the GM. If players knew how much work homebrew 5e is to get working with all the things they want to do, especially online, they would understand why GMs push PF2E. That's why I switched, because 5e, 4e and 3.5e was too much damn work to get going for what I wanted to do

Yes, PF2E puts work on players to know basic rules of their character but it also rewards players for obtaining system mastery instead of always depending on the 'mother may I?' of the GM to make a ruling every time they want to do anything

Low engagement players are not something I really want at my table, maybe I'll invite them to boardgame night. So if they get filtered by selecting between half a dozen feats for something I plan on running for months or years-- good

>>96292316
>>96292456
What about Agents of Edgewatch?

>>96294480
>5e is hard to homebrew
youre just an idiot

>>96293532
>that must be ran 100% RAW
God I hate how the internet has turned "play the game without houserules or homebrew first to get a feel for how the rules work and why things are the way they are, then you can homebrew" into this stupid bullshit.

And then they ignore the many improvisation rules and cool subsystem rules that can be implemented or created.

>super tactical skirmishing game
Also this stupidity, its tactical but not super tactical. Its less than fucking 4e and that wasn't terribly tactical. Still more than 5e's " I stand next to the creature and full attack until its dead" on repeat.

>>96294502
i was told to try out obviously bad rules before changing them and surprise surprise they sucked and made playing the system worse

>>96292456
>>96294492
For some context, these are some of the earliest APs and none in the last few years do this sort of thing, age of ashes was written before there was a bestiary to work from. Yes, they exist and it's stupid but this isn't a design goal of the system. It's just a result of people working with limited frameworks. Between these is extinction curse and it has the same problem but with increasingly high level troggs instead of humans.

But this hasn't been an issue since 2020.

>>96294492
The warden to a jail that holds powerful adventurers, dangerous maniacs, and the dregs of a city filled with people from level 1 to 20. Why the fuck would he be low level or weak?

>>96294500
5E is objectively horrible for homebrew, WotC does not even publish their monster creation rules ffs. The system wants you to play adventures they publish

The lack of design space is unreal too. Want to make custom feats? You're competing with ASI and Lucky. Want to add modifiers? You just broke the entire Bound Accuracy system
You basically have to gut the baseline entire system to homebrew and port over other subsystems from other games for things such as crafting and stealth, then you can have some design space

After a certain point of porting over a dozen subsystems, you might as well just play that game

>>96294571
>monster creation rules [the entire ruleset has been datamined and theres been dozens books by 3rd party authors who've published content for monsters.]

>The system wants you to play adventures they publish
wotc wants to sell books, same does paizo.

>You're competing with ASI and Lucky
youre an idiot, confirmed

>>96294588
>muh 3pp

And the monsters they create are jank, don't get me started on Tome of Beasts of badly ported over 3.5 monsters

Only way to run 5e is to use combat as punishment ngl

>>96294162
>>96294118
What might constitute an action, ruling on exploring activity or downtime activity that isn't listed
It is the GM's role to rule on that just like any other system

>>96294692
So, its strength is something that can be done in any system. I see.

>>96294700
Yes, as a GM you can just make shit up

>>96294544
Cope.

>>96294571
>You just broke the entire Bound Accuracy system
This bound accuracy shit is so stupid when even the official rules include shit like +3 attack weapons or +3 save dc totems or whatever the fuck

>>96270880
No? PF2e is one of the games where optimization has the least impact on gameplay because the math of the progression systems is very tight. As long as you understand your class mechanics and resource management, you will be fine.
In fact, I’d say this predictability is its biggest flaw as all choices just end up feeling like window dressing for a linear path:

>>96294571
If this had even a slight hint of truth about it you wouldn't have literal tens of thousands of homebrewers who stick exclusively to 5e.

>>96294859
Prove me wrong

>>96294938
>make a claim
>get proven wrong
>"o-oh yeah? well prove this other claim wrong too!"
Don't think so. You lost.

>>96294921
They go to 5e because there’s where the market is. But it is an awful trash system.

>>96294947
What are you talking about, I set really clear parameters, "This hasn't been an issue since 2020". Give me any egregiously high level jobber, a cutpurse or basic soldier. People have been talking about level 17 brigands for 6 years like a broken record, if this is such a big systemic problem, it should be easy.

>>96294969
Nice try, but the first claim was this >>96292316

What's your next lie going to be?

>>96294964
>They go to 5e because there’s where the market is.
There isn't a "market" for free rules, retard. It's easy to modify and make shit for and is popular, that's the primary reason why. If a decent competitor showed up it'd be overthrown in a year, but every competitor is somehow as or more incompetent than wotc kek

>>96295008
>If a decent competitor showed up it'd be overthrown in a year
Delusion. Perfect competition doesn’t exist in practice. It’s not the inherent qualities of a product that determine their success. Junior level economics.

>>96295057
>Delusion, [Incoherent rambling]

>>96295057
or we can just assume that 5e is pretty easy to brew and people like the game, so they brew it

>>96295087
5e isn't easy to brew, it's easy to fudge. The CR system makes no sense and just sticking one good spell onto an enemy caster can make them go from trivial (some poor fucker with vampiric touch) to potentially party-ending (Hypnotic pattern). The numbers in the system are based on basically nothing and a single attack-making wall of hit points bruiser is given the same relative threat level as something with the tools to take a PC down in one round.

>But anon, just use your system knowledge to cook up an appropriate threat-level encounter

That's fucking work and it's tedious work at that. I moved from d&d5e to pf2e because the creature levels and encounter guidelines in the latter mostly just function. So long as you don't make a PL+3 enemy that can grossly debilitate the party with every turn they take because they will probably succeed at every attempt. Looking at you, Vordakai in Kingmaker (2e).

>>96294571
>he thinks "design space" is just scribbling in the margins of existing mechanics
How do you think 3.X managed a book almost every month for seven years?

>>96295149
>Not all abilities are perfectly balanced against eachother
Wow, you don't say? Do you have any other fresh insights, retard?

>>96295149
seems like you can figure out it pretty easily and you're a fucking idiot, so i doubt that 5e is hard to brew at all.

>>96290638
There are workarounds.

>>96288411
What should happen is
>kobolds sneak up to fighter
>swing knife down at fighter's throat
>sound of the knife cutting through air wakes up the fighter
>the shockwave from his eyelids opening blasts the kobold into giblets

>>96293167
>villains
>huge majority of them are niggers
top kek, unexpected self-awareness

Thank God Paizo came in and monopolized all the shitty Wayne Reynolds art...

>>96295008
5e is entirely brand. If you play 5e, you go in expecting zero balance and just hope the DM is a cool dude that isn't reading too much plebbit for rulings

>>96294921
The 2014 era of homebrew is mostly dead because VTTs have come to dominate and software. If it's not D&D Beyond or Roll20 it doesn't exist

Most serious DMs have graduated to GMs

>>96295166
I hate the stereotype of DMs not understanding basic game design, while also trying to design a game

3.5 had design space: it had more mechanics to hook in subsystems, feats, items and classes with strict sets and functions
When you overly simplify, create imbalances and homogenate designs you reduce design space. This is why players and GMs do not like imbalances or overly bland systems, it reduces novelty

>>96295314
That's a 1e spell.

>>96289788
I bought into the assurance bait and it's a total scam. Sure you can do it without caring for MAP, but it will only ever work on enemies that your are unlikely to be threatened by, so much so that another attack, even with MAP, may mean you just kill the guy instead of having to spend more turns to finish him off on the ground.

>>96290565
NTA but I once had an entire combat devolve into people stacking prepared close door actions to essentially drain enemies of their actions and had similar things done to us by the GM. It's absolute cancer and feels like you are abusing a video game exploit.

Not to mention also how great majority of feats you can pick are filler. Things that feel like not necessarily useless, but also hardly something you'd go out of your way to pick up.

I only keep playing PF2 because other players and GM are cool people to hang out with and regularly play other systems as well, but I would lie if I said it didn't test my patience few times.

>>96290772
>when OD&D literally calls a level EIGHT Fighter a "Superhero"
Not this retarded argument again holy SHIT

>>96294904
In fact I am baffled, the criticism I usually hear is
>In fact, I’d say this predictability is its biggest flaw as all choices just end up feeling like window dressing for a linear path
Which fits with PF2e being a mix between 3e and 4e and being closer to 4e philosophically, so to speak.

>>96294492
This is fucking insane.
At high level, a prison for powerful beings should be a wizard's maze or Tartarus. Not "Alcatraz, but bigger numbers".
Wanna write an "Escape from Alcatraz" adventure? Great, it's levels 1-3 tops.

>>96295166
>How do you think 3.X managed a book almost every month for seven years?
3e had many, many subsystems and an intrinsic variability.
If you consider THAT a huge flaw i disagree but I understand. But currently, you are just making shit up.

>>96293493
>Its actually worse in 1e. To open a door is a move action. You can turn a standard into a move, so a 1e turn will be move action to door, move action to open door, and take a 5 ft step (swapped move action extra). Second turn, move toward enemy who has fled already.
I am trying to understand what happened here. The enemy moved to flee, but the door is closed?
If they closed the door, at least one of them wasted time doing so.
If you use your round to open the door, the other party members can run and go after the enemy.

You are a bunch of clueless retards. Of all the issues these systems have, you focus on the fact that closing a door in a Dungeon is, thankfully, a consequential mechanic?
Holy SHIT

>>96296943
The problem is that the statblock is not badass enough to justify his AC and saves.
There could totally be a lvl 20 gigachad guarding the prison but it just doesn’t fit with what we see.

>>96295529
You are joking but this is the type of weaboo shit these people want.

>>96296991
I also observe the sadness of a more or less standard grappling move in other systems presented as special attack.
PF2e is spiritually D&D 4e.
Ironic.

>>96297002
>PF2e is spiritually D&D 4e.
Yes, this is the core of it right here, and it hurts so fucking bad.

>>96297002
What a surprise, the same problems resulted in the same pressure resulted in a similar game being made to address them. You can't even say 'but it was le FORUM PLAYERS who don't play the game complaining!!!' because it was actually the CEO yelling at the design team every single day because their fucked up balance kept shitting up a game she was in.

>>96297156
>the CEO yelling at the design team every single day because their fucked up balance kept shitting up a game she was in.
Story time, please

>>96296828
Just smash the door, unless it was a weak nerd you can shove in the locker

>>96297156
>resulted in a similar game being made
Resulted in the same type of lazy, gamist, dipshit designer being hired. Hire 4rries, get 4ed.

>>96297208
That's the entire story.

>>96289788
You should always use grapple on your first attack because critting is so huge but damage dealers shouldn't be focusing on grapple, it's more a tank and controller thing

Close ranged shapeshifting casters such as animists and untamed druids are really good grapplers as well

>>96270583 (OP)
Too gay

>>96292513
Yes it's another common sense episode. You can force open a wooden door easily with untrained skill. DC 10 maybe 15 lets call it. You can attack the door. The system framework has many rules you can apply in most situations if you use some thought as with any game.
>hypothetical
Okay cowboy, you swing your Axe Musket at the wooden door 2d8+4 it still has 5 hardness/dr with 20hp broken at 10. It could break if you swing hard enough but this still doesn't make it any easier until you have some feat or class ability offering a relevant action compression, so it's still an action to move up to the door and another to swing.

>>96297002
>PF2e is spiritually D&D 4e

In some aspects yes, like traits and rituals. The lead designer use to be the lead designer of some of the better 4e books such as MM3, Dark Sun, Eberron and Player Handbooks 1-3 until he was laid off when Mike Mearls was brought onboard to design 4EE and 5E

PF2E everything is time based rather than some gamist one much like PF1E, so it's entirely possible to run simulationist style games unlike 4e which was tied to le Adventuring Day and le Encounter
That is why it is easier to translate PF1E stuff to PF2E than 4E to PF2E

>>96297443
>like traits and rituals
Traits are a minor thing and rituals (present since 3e as incantations) are a great thing.
PF2e shares the dissociation and immersion breaking of mechanics that serve the encounter first and the gameworld last, so one ends up with le epic prison director posted above.

>>96297463
Every edition of D&D has mechanics that serve the encounter first and the gameworld last.

>>96297482
Not at the point of breaking immersion like PF2e and 4e do.
Hence they are, on a conceptual level, very close.

Also the whole threadmill map. All these things are way closer to each other than muh rituals.
You have absolutely no fucking clue.

>>96297463
>immersion breaking of mechanics

Like?

>>96297487
If you can accept one but not the other, the problem's you.

>>96297491
>>96297495
It's so easy to spot 4rries holy shit

>>96297487
No I absolutely had my immersion fucked by D&D long before 4E.

>>96297499
Your complaint about high level humans doesn't make sense since the players can level, that implies others can as well

It all depends on your setting

>>96297487
I will format your favorite TTRPG into 4e style actions to trigger you

>>96297487
I never played 4e or PF2e. I'm a 3.5e guy.
Looking at 4e I can see how it's incredibly homogenized and gamey. Can you elaborate more on that front regarding PF2e?

>>96297708
As someone who played PF2E, 5e and 4E as a both as a player and GM they're very different style campaigns styles

4e is hardcoded with PC/Monster roles and Adventuring Day/encounters with little to no utility skills/magic for exploring and downtime outside of dungeoneering. The game is very narrow in it's scope, it would not be good for running an open world but wants to be ran as a lampoon with strict time frames due to the attrition meta-- a model that 5e inherited

PF2E is more simulationist where everything is time based much like 3.5e where you have enough utility to run an entire non-combat campaign with social encounters, investigations and non-combat NPCs

PF2E is less gamist than 5e because of the lack of an Adventuring Day(tm) but not more simulationist than 3.5e; it would between the two. I hope that helps

>>96297558
The format itself is the least of the issues but then again >>96297499
I am talking with 4rrie retards.

>>96294492
The real LOCAL LORD, he doesn't even need hundreds of men at arms in full harness or dozens of highly trained scouts and trackers

>>96296828
>I once had an entire combat devolve into people stacking prepared close door actions to essentially drain enemies of their actions and had similar things done to us by the GM. It's absolute cancer and feels like you are abusing a video game exploit.

As a no games / solo gamer this is extremely bizarre to me. I don't know many systems, but my impression is that you can always come up with this kind of retardation given the nature of these kinds of rules. People just don't because... Why would you?

I'm sure you could do the same in GURPS and just keep redying to close doors or whatever. What's the point?

>>96297814
>r u dum
You're a pussy who can't defend anything and hasn't played shit you no-book viber

Not even a fan of 4e, GSL killed it from ever having post-life support. I dislike 5e because of the same Adventuring Day model 4e has, makes it so it's very harder to run anything outside of dungeoneerig

>>96297802
>with little to no utility skills/magic for exploring and downtime outside of dungeoneering
You mean rules, anon.
Older editions of D&D also didn't have 'rules' for 'downtime', the DM was expected to make judgment calls, rather than resort to texts.
What 3e actually did was create a generation of shitty DMs that rely on being told what to do, rather than solving their own situations at the table.

>>96297884
The idea that 'I'll just smash the door' never crosses their mind

TTRPG space has been flooded with morons who don't get you can do more than what your character explicitly says. This especially true for the containment game such as 5e where it has the most new players. But PF2E does have good rules on smashing stuff and recommended DCs/HP

>>96297907
>noooo there were no downtime rules in my made up retro world

Old School TTRPGs players loved tables, obsessed with them, I still use some old ones from Dragon Magazines to this day for downtime
Downtime was basically gambling and rolling on big ass tables

>>96297933
But like... Why would you make this a problem in the first place, lol. Just don't do it.

>>96298018
Players/GMs want to be cheeky

Actually, it would be a good tutorial on smashing objects, a gremlin or spirit just opening and closing a door

>>96295149
In order to fudge you have to make most roll secret which is lame, I want to see the monster roll a nat 1 on a save damn it

>>96298002
These sad trolls never heard of Role Master or played any japanese ttrpg. Im honestly more shocked there isnt a new rpg with more reliance on vtt yet.

>>96298151
I love when OSRfags play an actual old school game

We gambling tonight for 6 hours, everything you do is going to be a table

>>96297802
>>96297887
>5e because of the same Adventuring Day model
Not a thing.

>>96298366
Page 84 of the 2014 5e DMG

https://archive.org/details/dungeon-masters-guide/Dungeon%20Master%27s%20Guide/page/n83/mode/2up

Now kindly sit down and read

>>96298390
Re-read it yourself. The section is an observation how much characters can handle before running out of steam, not something the game is designed around.

>>96298405
>The section is an observation
No, these are rules on how to balance resource management of the entire system. The entire balance of 5e is attrition based, wearing down your HP and spells as limited resources

A lot of newbie tables go outside these guidelines then get confused while all prep casters are s tier by giving them 5 minute work days
Better of making a long rest a week and short rest a day if you need the narrative

>>96298405
Reread it, came to the same conclusion. You're a dumbass.

>>96298551
Adventuring Day cursed 5e, it will always feel like a stripped down version of 4e:essentials with Vancian magic duck taped on

>>96298390
Crawford asserts that their monster design assumes the party is at full strength because an encounter can happen at any time.

>>96298686
Yeah the designers were schzio as fuck with 5e, Mike Mearls also says bonus actions were a mistake

>>96296554
Most of the skeleton of that survives in 5e, just stripped of the meat using it for anything interesting. It still has skills, they're just missing DCs. It still has modifiers, it just intends to rubber-band the combat ones. It still has feats with prerequisites, but they're competing with raw ability score numbers.

It's certainly EASIER to add on to the 3.5 baseline because of its wider range and higher volume of build resources, but in a great deal of cases you can fit them onto 5e without much conflict. The worst of it is the not-actually-that-well-managed combat math bounds, but that has little bearing on re-introducing action depth through the qualitative ability frameworks.

>>96296949
The point is that vast reams of the supplements were introducing new subsystems springboarding in wildly different directions from the core rules they touched, often repeating sizable chunks of them in multiple books because of content needing functions missing from core. This is "design space" from a blank canvas, the core rules don't have overwater travel so we get that in Stormwrack complete with a relative positioning system for 1v1 ship combat, the core rules don't cover selling your soul for power so we get Faustian Pacts in Fiendish Codex II, the core rules don't have Psionics so we got the Psionics Handbook.

>>96297907
...No? 3.X has a chapter's worth of rules on how to fuck with objects and terrain and expected weekly incomes/value-added for crafting and professions, and one of the main points of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was consolidating rules covering as many eventualities as the writers could think of. To say nothing of how many of the OD&D spells are fiddly utility space.

If you're in the BUSINESS of TTRPGs, thoroughly defining everything you expect to be relevant and clearly establishing what isn't are essential to maximize your network effect value proposition, as these are how you get inter-playgroup operability for the LGS PUG.

>>96299348
> these are how you get inter-playgroup operability for the LGS PUG.

This is something I have to stress about crunchy systems: it way easier to have interoperability between GMs.

Ruling based ones always tend to have forever GMs. It's really nice to be a player sometimes

>>96297264
And a lot of the time it wasn't even balance so much as just caster players with an IQ above room temperature coming up with unsanctioned solutions to problems and making her actually be a gm instead of just reading the book.

>>96299348
In 2014, I would have agreed with you about the stripped down 3.5e with a 'just homebrew it' attitude like it's Skyrim, but not in 2025 with what players expect: they want digital apps. What was once a strength now feels like a limitation because it demands more labor-intensive digital adaptations; anything else comes off as cheap and awkward to use

Homebrewing takes a lot more work now for to be considered good. Now, homebrewing has to be incorporated into software, markdown documents, JSONs, VTT automation or else it doesn't exist. If it doesn't show up on a players phone or computer it might as well not exist, the days of jank macro spreadsheets, chessex vinyl mats, pdfs and ring binders is long dead to the majority of players
it's a different world compared to 2014 when it first came out, books and PDFs are collector items rather than table aids. It's fairly normal to have laptops and phones with a VTTs open for even in person rather than spending hundreds on props, maps and minis. God speed to those that have the time to make wargame terrain with their 3D printers

>>96301576
this sounds like your not homebrewing but a 3rd party publisher worried about sales.

>>96301641
Nah I just develop VTT modules for fun and run an online game; good software makes or breaks a TTRPG system post-covid as a lot of FLGS closed table space and people went remote to keep in touch with friends

My point being is that something like PF2E is better than many other systems simply because it has better and cheaper software. Which matters a lot for online, hybrid and zoomer groups. When you select a TTRPG system you are now selecting a tech stack as well, just keep that in mind

>>96301576
If 5E and 4E were switched 4E would be the biggest RPG of all time.

>>96301707
>Nah I just develop VTT modules for fun
youre not the average user / homebrewer / dm. this has less to do with

>better and cheaper software
like roll20 / foundryvtt or archive of nethrys ?

>>96301738
>If 5E and 4E were switched 4E would be the biggest RPG of all time.
doubt

>>96301738
Yeah, you are right but with some changes such as making encounters/dailies time based 'mana' instead for example it might have worked for players more. 5e was saved by Netflix and streamers honestly, it's launch was lukewarm

It's crazy to me that 4e originally was designed for VTTs before they were much of a thing back in 2007 pre-smart phones

>>96285481
>Golarian isnt good to begin with
What's wrong with it?

>>96302196
NTA but probably how kitchen sink the setting is. They throw literally anything and everything in without regard to how it fits.

Pic related. Is this from an official Paizo book or from Shadowrun?

>>96296331
>5e is entirely brand
This cope is always funny because it has no basis in reality and the "brand" was dead and nearly buried thanks to two bad editions in a row.

It dominated, and still dominates, because despite frustrating build autists and being too popular for contrarians, 5e is a great game for roleplayers and was extremely appealing to the market.

>>96302922
5E is an awful game for roleplayers.

>>96293532
My GM also recommends the system for the ease of running the game.

>>96302922
'on-brand' and 'lifestyle' still gives WotC designers PDST flashblacks from all the meetings. They viewed it as a 'nerd lifestyle brand'
D&D right now is managed by brand and franchise managers that want to license out the brand to casinos

C-levels blame the failure of 4e on Paizo stealing their brand image and why they comfortably fired their entire game design team for 5.5e. It doesn't matter what the mechanics and designs are, it just has to be 'on-brand'

>>96303303
>dude is sad Crawford is gone

>>96271301
what is "action complressor" and "map reducer"?

>>96293198
You CAN do all kinds of shit, but you WILL do the most optimal shit on any given turn because it makes sense to play optimally. The result is having a tool bag with dozens of useful tools, but every problem is a nail or screw, so you will be reaching for the hammer or screw driver 999 times out of 1000.

>>96304215
Some actions are about taking several actions that you'd need to do in sequence and compressing them into fewer actions. Like "Stride twice and then attack, but with only two actions". Those are action compressors

Other actions are about making multiple attacks without triggering the MAP (Multiple Attack Penalty). Like "Make two attacks but don't consider the MAP for those two". Those are MAP reducers.

here's an action compressor for example. You move and then reload but in a single action.

>>96270583 (OP)
It's basically D&D 4e except worse in every way.

>>96301738
I find amazing how 4rries cannot grasp why their game failed, it's all misfortune and conspiracies for these retards.
Such a bunch of fascinating cretins.

>>96297907
>Older editions of D&D also didn't have 'rules' for 'downtime'
One peculiarity of the 4rrie mindset is history rewriting, see >>96304962

>>96304923
>except worse in every way.
Come one now.

>>96304895
this is too crunchy wtf lol

>>96305156
IT'S ONE LINE NIGGA

>>96270583 (OP)
In actual play it's like, fine to good. It works pretty well, it's fun to do things, you get a decent number of base actions and fundamentally a lot of shit works. Just hopping on to casually play or run is a pretty good time.

It's character creation and progression aspects just feel kind of miserable to me, and it feels like Paizo is terrified of giving you anything too cool. It manages to thread the needle of feeling like I simultaneously have to pick too many things, but also don't have enough slots compared to how low impact all my choices are. Class feats always feel like a game of "spot the core feature we stripped out to resell you", and the actual balance of feats of all categories feels laughable. Itemization is a dull slog, too.

GM side is sick as fuck though, still have to be careful, but way easier to avoid making things swing wildly too hard or too easy.

Awful chargen minigame on player side, great tools for a GM, but decently fun to actually play.

>>96288720
>BUT MUH WORLD
I'm sure PF2e is a fine game if you drop the RP part.

>>96270583 (OP)
too many splats bloating the spelllist with dogass spells because they decide to play it safe so it's hard for anything to be stronger than phb/core books. If it is the redditors cry that x or y is op and needs to be nerfed in errata
which is another point of contention that errata are now balance passes too. Or even subclass redesigns, like slapping nerfs on runelord because people read the charges RAW without some mental jump that designer made

>>96305341
Relic, crafting, talismans and runes items are awesome. Your GM must have sucked desu

Class feats are categorized into encounter types. Not all feats are for combat, some are for social, exploring or downtme that you will want to retrain into later as your action econ changes for different tiers of play but it all really depends on the class
But yes, get action compressors and MAP reducers early on but you will replace them later. For casters get as many focus points as possible