Pathfinder 2e House Rules (and Homebrew) in 7 Minutes or Less
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- čas přidán 21. 01. 2024
- What!? People are saying Pathfinder 2e is unfriendly to house rules and homebrewers!? Well, yes...compared to other TTRPGs, that might be true. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible, easy and fun to house rule and homebrew Pathfinder 2e. Here's a quick guide how to do it.
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My recommendation for GM's is to revisit the same creatures after the party has leveled up a bit so they can really feel that vertical progression
Excellent tip! Let them feel the increase.
Great video. In summary "Coming from 5e and feel like you need to House Rule everything?" "Don't, before looking at / trying the existing Variant Rules that already exist within the rulebooks." To add to the mataphor of PF2 being a sturdy structure, they already give you a lot of the spare building blocks that can be substituted to keep the foundation intact!
Yeah my advice is always, play RAW from level 1 to level 6 first. Then, you'll know enough to mess around with houserules.
In my experience
When I first started playing PF2e I thought the amazing balance would make the system fragile to modification, but after a few years of playing I have realised that it instead makes the system absurdly easy to modify and play around with homebrew without breaking it.
As long as the Homebrew follows the general mechanics and progress in the game, the homebrew will most likely be mostly balanced itself :)
It might be a bit stronger or a bit weaker, but it will most likely not be game breaking :)
I now modify cool items, improvise item effects when my players want to craft new stuff. Allow them to invent new spells, rituals and more. And the game as still not even creaked from the pressure :)
also for people saying: "If you have to homebrew why not just play a different game?"
- Because I love the way this system feels and it is easier to change rules than invent news.
But I do also have almost 15 years of experience with being a GM in 30+ different systems ^^
Best advice i ever got: read the f*ckin GM core. Solved everything. Lol
I love writing homebrew for D&D5e and I feel like this kind of explanation is useful even if it's not intended for that system. I'm slowly learning PF2e and I think this taught me more than just homebrewing, because now I can see the reasoning behind a lot of the parts of the system. Thank you!
Thank you, I think this helps explain a lot of why I think Pathfinder 1e and 5e players coming into Pathfinder 2e don't like the system. In those games their is more focus on accelerating your vertical progression to very high degrees, whereas for 2e it's much more focused on Horizontal progression. So to them it feels "bad" because instead of having them choose to make their stats go higher, it's instead more about finding more options or cheaper ways of performing actions
Amazing video! I love how you broke down the mechanics and explained the beauty of the system. It really does help people on what makes and doesn't make good homebrew.
Greatly detailed you explain perfectly
Almost perfect. The example of +1 to the key attribute as something you shouldn't homebrew isn't great.
So long as you recognize fights will be easier if you do that it's fine. A lot of tables aren't looking for challenge and hitting/critting more is more fun for them.
You really nailed the reason PF2e is so fascinating to me right there at the end: player options. I can't help but try and create a story for why this mountain dwarf monk/kineticist has stopped his medications to go adventure, or why his new best friend is an android bard /gunslinger with a wife and kids. Other more rules light systems are great, but I like having the starting point to drive from. What I don't like about PF2e is already addressed in the variant rules and your excellent "player facing rolls" video.
The kind of Homebrew I make most is Setting and Monsters. That includes Deities, Languages, and planes. I’ve also make some Homebrew for wild magic and some subclasses.
Brilliant, as always. Your videos are informative and entertaining. Cheers!
Absolutely amazing video!
Dming my first campaign, love the system so i hombrew every monsyer, boss, etc. while using standard stat blocks as a base/inspiration
Console commands and mods are house rules for video games. Checkmate.
Touché
0:04 All my Minecraft(this was just the first of MANY, MANY games to come to mind) mods would like to say "Well, hello there!"
Another commenter brought that up, fair point!
One house rule we have is that traversal actions like jump and climb can be done as part of your stride action as long as the total distance is no more than your speed.
That might have to be tweaked if someone took some of those wire-fu feats.
Aha!!! Your next class video will be Psychic!!
I would slightly debate that General Feats have more room on minor vertical progression, with things like Initiative, a couple proficiency bumps, speed, and HP. And I kinda wish it would lean even more into that, jump to give more ways to catch up to other classes if an idea doesn’t fully fit your role (like giving mages that HP or weapon proficiency that’s better but still behind, or martials spellcasting that is better but still behind).
But yeah! Love the video and I wish more PF2E youtubers would talk about homebrew and houseruling beyond the GMG ones more
It's true, and not all feats are created equal, since General Feats are better than Skill Feats, etc.
@@KingOogaTonTon That's what dedication and archetype feats are for.
I like to have run a system for a long time to understand all the parts of it before I feel comfortable with major homebrew, the tough part with pathfinder is how much of it there is to learn, as many mechanics and conditions don't even show up much until later levels. It makes it an easier learning curve though to not have it all show up at once though.
My King: At about 5:20 you mention in passing, “…without messing up your Core Loop.” I feel there’s a future video in that statement because WTH is Core Loop!?
It seems like an Emergent Property of 2E that others may not be aware of, and I’ll bet there are others. The Meta within the Meta, if you will.
This reads as a somewhat indirect response to that reddit post from the other day that immediately rotted my brain (great summary for the new folks)
Remember the greatest rate limiter to your ability to do damage is if you or another party member is unconscious, you aren't doing damage!
just read through what I could find of Player-Facing Rolls and I would like to know more. It didn't seem very clear to me. Do you have any recommendations?
There is a video on this channel titled "should Pathfinder gamemaster roll dice" or something like that
that ending
psychic leshy with an elven inventor is quite unic to pf2e,
This video was probably produced bedore the incident, but it is still very much on the toes of that one reddit post where a GM banned the players' third action.
That's right, I started back when there was a bit of a Brewhaha [(c), Rules Lawyer] on the subreddit about house rules, but it is still marginally relevant!
What incident?
0:03 You can do it in pc games! we call our house rules "Mods"
well, general feats like fleet, +2 initiative toughness are rare exampl6of vertical power and definitely not horizontal
"With this many house rules why even play pathfinder 2e" is why I started working my ideas for house ruling pathfinder into a new system. Akin to keeping the building blocks but knocking down the foundations.
One point is that it is actually ok to mess make PCs stronger or weaker. So long as you tune the combats to be slightly easier or harder. In general, Pathfinder 2e is not nearly as fragile as a lot of people think. Just don't mess too much with attack rolls, AC and the action economy and you should be good. And as usual with house rules, it's ok to tell the players you want to try something out but might revert it if it turns out broken.
The game definitely allows easy homebrew in the form of custom monsters, magic items, new spells and custom scenarios. But yes, messing with the fundamental math will most likely take away one of the benefits of PF2E.
Tldr; no, it's already under the variant rules or you'll break the math
What is unfriendly to houserules and homebrewers is the pf2e community actually. Anyone who dares even ask if something has been done before is dogpiled on and explicitly and in no uncertain terms are told that if they want to change even one thing, they should drop this game and go play something else.
Great video, I like it and will keep revisiting it while I work on my pathfinder homebrews. It explains the key aspects well.
TTRPcheese
Idk dude I used to play 1e. That system was imbalanced as heck, and despite the massive gaps in power between PCs everyone still had fun. 5e is designed in such a way that range just is better, but people still enjoy being fully melee. Balance is towards the bottom of my list of concerns tbh. The diagonal grid rules make the game more balanced? I'll gladly throw them out to not have to constantly stumble over a rule my players just find irritating to remember. Nobody even noticed the difference balance wise, just appreciated not having to deal with it.
I don't think so, it's not that important, just a speed boost
Well, to each their own I guess. I personally quit 5e because I found playing martial classes unbearable and DMing is even worse
Yesterday I ran my first PF2e session for my bf and we had a lot of fun. Although I do not care for diagonal movement, it's obnoxious lol
@@lazurrlunaIsn't diagonal movement the same as 5e?
@@Dharengo PF2e raw the first square of diagonal movement you make in a turn counts as 5 feet, but the second counts as 10 feet, and your count thereafter alternates between the two.
In 5e diagonal movement is always 5 feet
@@lazurrluna What are you smoking? 5E movement is exactly the same as the PF2E. Are you playing with some kind of house rule that makes diagonal movement faster than horizontal or vertical?
EDIT: Apparently the rules I described are in the DMG. The PHB uses these really stupid rules that make diagonal movement faster than horizontal or vertical movement. Which is stupid because the rules should then turn circles into squares, which they don't. Otherwise you can easily outrun circle effects by moving diagonally.
Damn even a short 7 minute video really shows how it seems like pf2e is just twice as complicated as 5e...
This has been one of the main issues I see coming from D&D players. I get that you’re used to rules being “guidelines” but it seems VERY hard for them to stop thinking that way. And it starts to border on hubris when you tell them “the developers have thought this through way more than you have and this stuff matters” and they just don’t care/believe you. D&D seems to attract and/or create megalomaniacs :p
I generally agree.
A lot of 5e rules, especially the original PHB, feel like first drafts that you can throw out without many consequences, since the rules aren't as interwoven as PF2's.
easy to justify the dogpiling, aren't you?
@@ar3klis Huh?
@@TheL0rd0fSpace D&D 5e is baby's first tabletop game. And it attracts babies, thereby. There, I said it.
@@bmardiney The amount of hate anyone even entertaining the idea of a variant gets is overwhelming. And here you are, casually dismissing the targets of this hate as "megalomaniacs" and "committing hubris" since anything that have not already be thought of by the developers, or some already pre-approved entity, must be stoned to oblivion.
Video games can be modded though, that is the equivalent to house ruling them. Otherwise this video is great for reminding me why I am not interested in Pathfinder!
That isn’t vertical progression if everything stays the same, that is stagnant progression, why even have level ups at that point if they essentially don’t matter
All is horizontal progression until a dwarf has the best feats for ancestry lol. Jokes aside, good video.