One thing that you talk a little bit, but in my opinion is the most interesting part about pf 2e is that most of the spells have been reworked with the critical succes or failure mechanic, so now the saving throw ones are much more dinamic, because they basically can do 4 things instead of 2, for example there is a spell that even if the enemy succes the save stil affect them but only for one round, so you could choose to be secure and cast that or choose a more potent spell, but if they save you dont get as much. And the critical succes, although in a video game could be scary, it makes you feel the difference in power more clearly, and makes working to get a crit much more rewarding, instead of simply having a 5% chance.
@Novem's Natural Roll I know, I am actively playing a 2E campaign right now and I am looking forward to the Psychic and Thaumaturgist this fall. There is a lot of crunching to be done if one feels so inclined, but it does not reach the level of 1E in regards to what you can do with your numbers. Overall, I like them both equally.
@Novem's Natural Roll I was not trying to insinuate that 2E is lacking in options, 1E is a way older system and has over the course of its life accumulated thousands of feats. If you can think of it, there is probably a feat for it. I like that. True 90% of them can be disregarded as inefficient or suboptimal, but they are there. Most of these options won't matter for a video game either. It is unlikely to see most of these feats even taking modders into account. I enjoy crunching, the numbers and seeing what nonsensical interaction I can produce. 2E has an entirely different appeal to me. It does away with the 1 level monk dips and +1 here, +1 there, +1 from that archetype and +1 from that buff. It is condensed and fun. Class and Heritage identity are fare more tangible and more expressive. I LOVE the focus point system. I do hope there will be 2E games in the future. I had not planned on writing an essay on a short 2 sentence comment I made but apparently I have offended you. Sorry.
While not in the Core Rulebook (CRB), the coolest part of the Archetype system is that there are non-class based archetypes, generally themed feat groups that replace some of your class feats (at least 1, with your choice between generally 4-8 others). This adds various faction feats via archetypes, like Hellknight Armiger, Pathfinder Agents, or Aldori Duelists. There are also thematic archetypes that just add a new way to play to your character, such as Juggler, Pirate, or Beastmaster. There are also some that let you specialize in a specific aspect of your kit, like Dual-Wield Warrior, Elementalist, Familiar Master or Medic. The book that introduces most of these is the Advanced Player's Guide, which introduces new ancestries, classes, new feats for existing ones, non-class archetypes and lots more.
Another big change to 2e is that not many characters can make an attack of opportunity. For players, usually its Fighters only that start with it at level 1, with Barbarians and other martials taking it as a class feat at level 6. Because of this, combat is much more mobile since you aren't locked into melee with every creature. Great video!
PF2e is less a development of PF1e, and more bringing all of the good stuff that has been developed since D&D 3.5. You can see elements from D&D 5th edition, D&D 4th edition, and Paizo's Starfinder. I think it's stronger for that.
That's not a bad take , I thought it was a safe bet on Paizo's behalf. They looked at WotC 5th ed and copied their homework and just check forums for what players thought 5th ed was missing. Compared to what Paizo has done with Starfinder , that is impressive, all new classes and new races/species with main streamed 1st ed Path rules and better item progression and crafting rules for using monster/alien for components and rules for building star ships. I thought it was really cool and showed much more rain taking and creativity and was a product I was satisfied with purchasing. Unfortunately for me , Path 2nd ed was the opposite , I wish I could have gotten a refund on their very expensive lack luster product called an TTRPG. But if you're enjoying 2nd ed then more power to you man. 👍
@@gaming4life551 I think pf2e is better then 5e in many ways but did a few thing poorly. The stealth rules need to be changed because it’s done to silly for a tabletop. In a video game it is fine but not for a tabletop group. Spell casting is a bit annoying but the action system for casting and power level is far superior. Magic items should be changed as well. Having the option seems like it be fun but it feels like a tax you have to get certain items or be useless. Auto progression fixes this. Downtime and social encounter rules is a bit annoying and could be simplified or made loser for the fact it is a role playing game which appears to focus way too much on the game part. Besides these things it is better then 5e in every way.
@@richardmenz3257 Most of my gripes are with some areas of the rules being lacking. Namely Recall Knowledge has rather poor guidance and what is 'acceptable' information to give. Crafting I find silly since no matter what things will always take 4 days minimum. And holy shit, as much as I love the system, the actual layout of the books themselves is so bizarre, especially with the new Dark Archive Release from what I've been hearing about from people who got their pdfs early (there's a mini adventure you'll have to skip over at the end of each chapter and I don't understand why they didn't put all of them at the end of the rest of the book instead of at the end of each section so players don't accidentally read/glimpse them so easily). I'm not particularly bothered by the mandatory magic items since ABP fixes it, I agree it's weird certain magic items are assumed, but since the fix is super easy it's not really a big deal to me. I don't...really have a problem with the way stealth is done either? I think it works well enough and I think that one just boils down to personal preference unlike an action not giving enough guidance or books being laid out poorly. Some of my personal gripes are rooted far more in preference are that I dislike the way you're expected to play alchemist to be 'effective', and I think they're almost too afraid of making any more classes with a wisdom main stat (jesus christ intelligence used to be a big 'dumpstat' (and is for some classes still) but now we have like 7 classes that want it to be good if not their main stat now, we probably would have been fine making some of the Psychic options wisdom based). I get that Wisdom is initiative by default now but I don't think that means we can't have classes other than druid, cleric, and some monks and rangers that want it outside of the initiative, will, and some skill bonuses.
Foundry VTT also has a great PF2E community that has created a system and mods that handle a lot of the complexity automatically, its really cool to play
Its weird, because PF2e IS more complicated than 5e since i does have more comprehensive rules, but I also find it easier to understand tha DnD5e because PF2e is much more intuitive in its game logic. For axample, the action economy is so much easier to understand for a newcomer than 5e that I honestly cant even say that PF2e is not as good a starting system as 5e
I was originally interested in 2E, but I feel like they made a major mistake in their game design. 5E had already come along and said, 'we're gonna make a simpler, more new player friendly version of D&D.' Then Paizo tried to do make what was essentially, a simplified version of Pathfinder. The problem, I feel, was that anyone who wanted a 'simpler' version of D&D had already moved to 2E. Personally, I greatly dislike 5E - its feels too much like baby's 1st RPG for me to ever be interested. Everything that I, personally liked from 2E I just turned into house rules for 1st Ed. Pathfinder, like I did with the Advantage rules from 5E.
@@SouthernGuy5423 PF2e is still fairly robust. It's simply less confusing and obtuse than 1e, witch honestly just feels so... Old in it's structure, and I'm saying that as someone that enjoys that style of system. PF2e feels like a more dynamic game, not necessarily a simpler one.
@@rafafr9 I agree, I think the TTRPG community sees complexity as a binary scale between Depth and Simplicity, but it's absolutely possible to have rules with more depth that are also simpler to actually understand and arbitrate if a designer is just careful about being consistent and sensible.
As to the degrees of success & attacks beating AC by 10+ = crit. Coming from PF1e I can see how that would appear to be unbalanced because of min-maxing. But here's the thing Mortismal, PF2e is so well balanced that the difference between someone who builds a character well and a player who min-maxes, is *very* small. There is a ton of customization but it it is all very well balanced. Even the handful of options that are a little over balanced, are only by a small amount.
I've been playing D&D since the 80s. Pathfinder 2E is super great. I personally think Extinction Curse would adapt to the Kingmaker/WotR gather resources and allies while also completing your epic quest style extremely well.
@@Unikatze I'd love to see Strength of Thousands or the Mammoth Lord AP made into a CRPG. But I expect it will be Abomination Vaults when PF2 gets a game one day.
@@kryptonianguest1903 I have not played any of those. Abomination Vaults seems it could be a DLC since it's shorter. The little I know about Strength of Thousands does sound like it would make a great video game.
We are entering last book of extinction curse and I completely agree! The entire time we were playing I thought about how it would be a great follow up to kingmake before wotr came out.
I really like the sound of the 3-action system. Not only is it more realistic than the ubiquitous move->action system (in most TTRPGs, CRPGs, and even squad tactics games), more importantly it opens up greater tactical depth, particularly if they focus on action interactions (i.e. an action is modified by the other actions taken in the same round). I don't know to what extent action interactions are present in PF2e, because I haven't read the handbook (I plan on buying it now), but this could be a breakout system if they do implement them well. It could even shift the entire RPG and tactics genres away from the shallower move->action system.
I'd like to note that considering magic specifically, low level spells do not become useless in 2nd edition. Since the spell DC for the saves etc is the same for all of your spells you can keep utility and control spells that do not have heightened effects in your lower spell slots and still make use of them (things like grease, gust of wind, telekynetic manoeuver...)
This becomes even more important in a video game like WotR and Kingmaker since the amount of combat per day is significantly higher than playing at a table.
Having played a couple tabletop campaigns of 1E & 2E, I'd say that 1E's advantages are entirely in character creation. PF2E has far more engaging moment to moment combat & general gameplay due to not being able to just min-max your way out of needing to play tactically. Much of the time I was playing 1E I would activate my class abilities at the start of combat then move up to a target and Full-Attack each turn. Combat in 2E is more mobile due to lack of Full-Attacks, attacking as much as you possibly can is discouraged due to stacking penalties, encouraging you to mix in different moves such as skill actions or class feats. Enemy design in 2E is also very weakness oriented, there is usually a better and worse way to approach each enemy. One weakness I would level against 2E is that combat against one single powerful enemy tends to strain the maths - combat against multiple enemies usually feels a lot more fun.
A few points I wanna touch on are: 1. Usually it's advised to not go for the 3rd attack because of the +/- 10 crit system, because in 2e if you roll 10 more (or crit fail if 10 less) than an enemy's AC value you get a crit. And this applies to anything from skills to spell. And Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP) is a thing. 2. While you wouldnt see things like 11 attacks, there are feats that evolve your action economy (which is a very important thing in 2e). Feats that either allow you to attack twice for one action with multiple attack penalty, feats that allow 2 attacks for no multiple attack penalty, or feats that allow a sort of movement and an attack for 2 actions 3. If you wanna get a tad bit deeper in 2e, I would reccomend the Advanced Player Guidebook(APG) and the Secrets of Magic book. Both add new classes and pretty intresting features or lore.
I think item damage for shields specifically might be implemented but streamlined as "gets repaired after the fight". As for the criticals, I think it would work fine in a video game version. Fights would be balanced around what level the party is supposed to be, getting cumulative bonuses to increase attack rolls is much, much harder in 2e compared to 1e.
I'm an avid PF1 player. I've tried 2e a bit and while I didn't hate it, it never grabbed me. I'm not likely to switch to 2e but this video did a great job of making me challenge my thinking and introducing the concepts that changed. This is to say great job and keep up the good work!
As someone who dont play 1e i think the biggest flaws of the owlcat games is that fact that the ruleset for 1e is absolutely bonkers and horrendeous for new people. I think 2e is a much simpler system to get people into in that regard.
I like PF2 far more than D&D 5e for tabletop and I would love to see a PF2 video game. Starfinder is too crunchy for me personally for tabletop, but a Starfinder video game would be much more palatable just like D&D 3e/PF1 is easier for me as a video game because there's so much to keep track of I feel like I'd have to be a human computer to run them properly at the table. PF2 is much easier to GM for compared to the other systems mentioned (yes, even 5e).
I was actually watching some gameplay of Chaosgate, and instantly thought about the PF2E system. I'm not super familiar with the way its coded, but it looks like a lot of the tactical fundamentals are already inline with the ttrpg rules. Both follow a 3 action approach, both have a tactical grid, they have equipment that modify stats (albeit vastly fewer between) and the character progression lends itself toward a more conventional approach like Pathfinder. If nothing else, I think that'd be a good place to start for a potential CRPG version of Pathfinder 2E's system.
critting by rolling over 10 will not happen often, since if the CRPG will take rules from the system itself, buffs & debuffs are limited to 3 categories and only take the highest of each. min-maxing will never guarantee crits, because in the system itself has a limitation to prevent that from happening.
I really love the 2E system especially compared to DnD, i really hope that we can see it in a video game as well, from what i have seen 2E has a lot more rules and systems in place that allow players and DMs to have a lot of options for interesting gameplay, it is more complex and requires more understanding of the systems so you can fully take advantage of it but when you get it it will be hard to live without it, my personal favorites are the 3 action combat system and ancestory system DnD 5e in comparison is more streamlined, it's relatively simple to pick up and play what probably also made it as popular as it is now but it requires a lot more improvising and homebrewing if you want to do more complex scenarios
@@b.d.a.8719 You are just objectively wrong, though. Literally every day the Pathfinder 2e reddit and discords are flooded with people converting to the system from 5e largely because it doesn't offer as many options and doesn't have the longevity because of it. Combine that with WotC already putting out a new edition in about a year and a half, and I don't know how you can take yourself seriously saying that they're "losing" to 5e.
So, 2e is as far as i can tell from a older players POV a simplified version of 3.5 (which 1e was based on). Most long term players i know like some parts but do not like the system as a whole though much of that may be resistance to change. 5e is DnD lite, once again imo and not a jydgement of people. I feel that 5e being the "most popular of all time" is a question of player base and amount of interest in this new gaming culture 10 years later. I would agrue that in a market share perspective 1e is far more popular that pf2e or dnd5e without question. I'm a gamer from adnd into 3.0 and 3.5 and pathfinder 1e was the best version, i may be stuck in the past but why change what isn't broken.
@@b.d.a.8719 It's not an "admission" of anything, because there's nothing to admit. While I don't like them converting two of their adventures to 5e, it's a very easy way to double your profits, and plenty of people in support of it say it will make it easier to convert players to Pathfinder. And when 6e(because let's be real, it's going to be a functionally separate system even if they call it 5.5) comes out in a year and a half, it will just speed up the people coming over to Paizo, just like 4e did, because WotC are genuinely incompetent. Without Critical Role, 5e would have already died off, because they are the main reason for it's success. But that's proving to not be enough, by WotCs own "admission", since they're abandoning 5e already come 2024.
@@b.d.a.8719 With all due respect, I could care less what you admit. It's not a secret that Critical Role is the catalyst that keeps 5e going. Talk to any of the thousands of people who entered the tabletop world purely because of it, one of whom, I'm not ashamed to admit, is me. But their popularity has stopped growing, they're branching away from their show, and WotC is getting nervous, hence the new edition. None of that is hypothetical or up for debate.
@@b.d.a.8719 You pretentious, sell absorbed little gremlin, this is not some academic or professional debate. You do not get points for critiquing my grammar. You have been right about one thing: you are being foolish. If you spent less time looking at numbers and more time actually engaging with the community blindly lambast, you might have realized it sooner. If it wasn't clear, I'm done with this. There is apparently no getting through to you. Why try?
Best thing about 2E is that while many might object to it. 5E crowd might think it's too complex (looking at you PuffinForrest). Pathfinder one fans think it's too simple or not enough choices yet. In the end, it doesn't really matter because PF2ed is actually really fun to play if you put aside your biases and embrace it's strengths. My groups, coming from either system love the PF2Ed compared to all other d20 systems. It's simply no contest, it's a better designed game. It's not flawless, but it's a way better system than most in the genre, both in terms of balance but also in running and enjoying. So no matter the press or the lackluster start, it's going to win people over. Because it's just fun to play.
Yeah, from my cursory look at it, it feels like a really nice middle ground between older systems and 5e. And should a game dev decide to pick it up, it looks like a system much nicer to design encounters for, since the different between someone who integrates roleplay into their character build options, and munchkin, is astronomically smaller than in 1e. Honestly, I really hope that Owlcat moves to 2e if they want to continue making Pathfinder games. If only because one of my personally biggest gripes with their last two games is encounter balance, which I believe stems from specifically the massive gulf between optimal and non-optimal builds. And hey, maybe if they do move, it would entice more people to pick up PF2e for their tabletop needs as well.
Pf2e is way more fun for sure. I do think stealth, magic items(most fell like must do you cannot do a no magic compaign or anything. Auto progression fixes this and adds thing like people using improvised weapons), spell casting(just the restrictions of putting spells into just that one slot everything else is way better then 5e), social encounter rules are a little wonky. Besides there things I think the game is perfect.
The 4 levels of success, the 3 action economy, and the lack of attacks of opportunity on most monsters are in and of themselves revolutionary. Movement matters, turns are varied, bonuses are more impactful.
@@quint3ssent1a AoO on everything means there is almost no movement. Everybody is worried about movement and battles become static. If you can move, then you will move freely, yes. Repositioning is a thing you can do without worrying about it killing you. They are not counter, they are complimentary. Opening up movement means people will move. Movement becomes important to the action economy as you try and out maneuver bosses and use your action economy surplus as an adventuring party, against them.
@@quint3ssent1a Ok, but in 2e you're weighing your ability to move against the bosses ability to move, and figuring that into the action economy. Since you get 3 actions to use how you please (there's no "movement/action/bonus action", it's 3 actions to use however you want) movement is just as important a tactical decision, but for different reasons which don't include, "if I move I might die." What becomes more important is, "if I move this far, the boss can choose to follow or go after this ally, I can pull the boss out of position, force them to use an action they'd otherwise use on a devastating attack or ability, just to reposition." Combat becomes much more fluid and focused around movement by definition.
@@quint3ssent1a that true, but the main purpose of an AoO is to prevent movement. In 2e both monsters and players have a lot better/more options that target different saves. AoO for AC, trips for reflex, grapple for fortitude. Instead of just trading hp to move, you trade bonuses and penalties for action economy.
@@quint3ssent1a a party of 4 players has 12 actions vs. A boss with 3 actions. It is almost always beneficial for a player to spend an action even if all it does is force the boss to spend an action to move. With your 3 actions, you can move up to the boss, attack at full bonuses, and run past them. The boss needs to spend 1 action it might otherwise use on a very powerful attack or as part of a 2-action ability, and use that action moving to you (even 5 feet). That's just one example, another commenter laid out many other examples.
As someone who has been playing 2e for a while and loves crpgs, you have me stoked for a future where we have a crpg based in 2e. I feel like the combat could feel similar to divinity os 1 & 2 in terms of flow due to the action mechanics.
Regarding the crit system being abusable, pf2e combat is designed around exploiting that system. Bonuses are conservative and tough to stack, with the main strategic focus of combat being to assemble those bonuses.
Thanks for making this. pf2e is great and it´s made in a way that is fair and consistent across 1-20 levels. It´s modular in nature and that´s much easier to code. I think it all comes to Owlcat wanting to do it. Pf2e has proven that it´s a solid choice.
I'm glad you made this one! Character choice at creation and archetype-multiclassing, and of course the 3-actions system, are the best parts of the system in my opinion. I've always used the basic step-by-step abilities repartition, i find it good after using it (i had my reservations about it at first, before playing the system). In a system quite bound in terms of difficulty of succeeding actions in game, it's best to be able to control and not feel like being useless in a party because of rolling low ability scores.
Fun fact: I found your channel from me looking for help on how to understand the “rules of the universe” with WOTR. So good point on how it can be hard to learn.
Looks like it could make a solid foundation for a next game. Some streamlined aspects of it have the potential to attract more players. One thing I noticed though is that there are less classes in 2e, but perhaps with enough archetypes, most of the play styles could be covered. Now, if only in the next game they added a Gunslinger class with Spellshot archetype, that would be great!
PF2 already plays more like a video game than any ttrpg I've played and I can't wait for a developer to give a direct adaptation of the system a go. Still, lot of lessons that can be learned from the system in general.
So, late game experience both running and playing? It holds up incredibly well. Due to things expanding out as opposed to becoming rocket tag, when a party does well it's less on their feat choices and more on just how well they worked together to create a good combat team.
Honestly I can see why this would get 1E fans offside because it changed quite a bit. But these changes sound like they would transfer into a video game perhaps better than 1E. Would be interesting to find out.
I don't know, the community I used to be a part of really got mad when 2E came out because apparently when Pathfinder came out something was said about never needing a new edition, I'm not that naive I know things can be improved and made better, truth is only worry I had with 2E is I hear there isn't much depth and characters all end up the same in the end depending on there class, I haven't played so I don't know.
It's not at all true. The level of depth is the same, and because of the different types of feats you get each level, it's almost literally impossible to make two characters feel the same by accident
@@MortismalGaming Long time Pathfinder player here. I was interested in 2E, but I absolutely hated how they did Feats. Having most Feats - at least in the original PHB, being class specific was a change I greatly disliked. What it all came down to for me was why would I swap from a system I know and really enjoy top a system with a fraction of the material available for it, that I consider worse in several ways? Especially since most of the things that were improvements can be simply House Ruled into 1E! Additionally, simplification is the opposite of what I want in my RPGs - its the whole reason I rejected D&D 5E.
Well I'm convinced. The multiclass stuff is very apealing and such, but really if this can just make it a bit easier to more consistently balance the game so I only need to set my difficulty once rather than having to raise it up for most of the game, and then drop it to something more reasonable whenever I find a boss that is just effectively immune to magic effects at higher levels that would be quite nice.
Yes! I want the next Owlcat RPG to use Pathfinder 2e so, so much. It's an amazing system with excellent balance that doesn't sacrifice any customisation depth ♥️
@Novem's Natural Roll the biggest point in 1e favor is retrocompatibility. 3.5 has a lot of classes and entire systems that just weren't attempted outside of it at all and that can reasonably be modded into 1e but not 2e. Half of my favourite classes are only playble in 3.5 because nobody else even tried to make them classes.
The crit rule works because you can't min-max 2e, pretty much at all. The game doesn't have a bunch of floating modifiers and what have you. You'll always have level+proficiency+item+ability mod+status bonus+circumstance bonus as the result of your stats. Status and circumstance bonuses really don't go above 2 and are primarily from taking certain actions or casting certain spells. In leveling your primary stat goes from 18 to 22 and then you can equip one item which increases it to 24 and it cannot go higher than that at all. You end up with 20level+7ability+6prof(8 if legendary)+3item for +36 to rolls for every martial but gunslingers and fighters, and +38 for fighters and gunslingers. Spellcasters end up with +35 because they get no item bonuses, and then another +2 and +2 can be gained from spells or actions. Spell DCs end up at 45, and AC for the tankiest character the Champion ends up around 10+6+3+20+8, resulting in 47 without a shield or status/circumstances bonuses. The math is absurdly tight here. You get to these numbers no matter what you pick in terms of feats and what not. Min-maxing is almost non-existent so the crit rule would work
PF2E sounds a lot like 5th edition dungeons & dragons. Also, I acknowledge that 4th edition dungeons & dragons was a commercial failure. But I enjoyed it; there was so much to do with each character in combat. Each character would get two or three at will powers, and build up encounter powers and daily powers as they progressed. Even a level 1 fighter would have three or four different attacks that they could make, with different effects and parameters. It's a real shame that it hasn't been adapted into any video games; the rules and mechanics probably lend themselves better to a video game format than they do table top.
About the character creation in 1E vs 2E, this might just be myself, but I actually love the complexity that Kingmaker/WotR have due to them being rather rule heavy. To me it's kinda what distinguishes those games from other cRPGs, and also lets them be more replayable than almost any other game in the genre. Not the rules in and of themselves, but the game that came about because they had to adhere to those rules. The complexity is a bit of a barrier for new players, and I wouldn't fault Owlcat for going in the direction of trying to bring in new players; but for me personally, the complex system allows for so much freedom and variety in your character builds, it's just fun. Also I think just the fact that it's a video game rather than PnP means a lot of the tedium that can come from it being rules-heavy is removed because the computer (or console) is doing all of the boring math automatically for you.
I think that character creation in PF2E is still plenty complex; I don't know if Mortismal made that especially clear. At level 1, you pick: Ancestry ("Race") - Your choice of ancestry generally gives you +2 to two fixed stats, -2 to another stat, and then a +2 stat bump of your choice. At this point, you can also decide whether you want to take voluntary flaws, taking two additional -2's (reducing no stat below 8) in order to get another +2 (increasing no stat above 12.) This actually allows you to play an Ancestry that normally gets a penalty to their key Ability Score to get up to a net +2 instead. Heritage ("Subrace") - As Mort says, this includes variants for your Ancestry as well as all the traditionally Planetouched ancestries like Tiefling and Genasi. An Ancestry Feat - Selected from your Ancestry and/or Heritage. You get another every additional 4 levels. Background - Your background typically provides a +2 to a specific stat, and +2 to the stat of your choice. Your background often makes you Trained in a specific skill, and grants you a Skill Feat. Class - Your class generally has you making decisions on your subclass, gives you +2 to your Key Ability Score (sometimes several to choose from) and you gain a Class Feat from your class. Your class also tells you how many Skills you become Trained in. Determine Ability Scores - Next, you get 4 more +2 Ability Boosts to apply as you see fit (you can't apply more than one to any one score, meaning a "Standard Array" for PF2E often ends up looking like 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, arranged as desired.) Equipment - Purchase 15gp worth of starting gear. So, as you can see, there's as much mechanical depth in character creation for PF2E as there is in PF1E. It's just a streamlined presentation.
This sounds like it would be a much easier set up. It sounds like there will be other trade-offs but I spend far too much time on the character screen right now.
Appreciate the vid, it's an interesting topic and I'd love to see a PF2E video game someday. That being said, I wanted to respond to some of the history of the tabletop systems you laid out in the beginning, and especially with regards to the perceived popularity of the different systems. I think it's important to keep in mind that things like the popularity of TTRPG systems are very hard to track, and sometimes a narrative takes hold regardless of whether it can be proven to be true. First of all there's the issue of what metric you're using. It is playing time? Number of people playing each system? Books sold? Total revenue? Companies don't release definitive sales data, so there's a lot of speculation. Best metrics we have for games played come from places like Roll20, but there's probably a biased sample there. There is certainly a vocal part of the Pathfinder fanbase that stuck with 1E and rejects 2E, but it seems like 2E is pretty popular overall, at least by the evidence that they continue to release new content at a good rate, plus growth of things like the 2E subreddit.
As for Pathfinder vs DnD 4E, the narrative is that Pathfinder "outsold" 4E, but that might be apocryphal. Fairly credible sources have claimed that 4E still outsold Pathfinder overall, just not in the specialized hobby stores where the diehards were most likely to shop at the time. 4E definitely didn't do as well as WotC wanted, and the narrative is that all the 3.5 players hated it and switched to Pathfinder, but there were other problems with 4E that contributed to it's underperformance. For example, they stopped allowing 3rd party publishers to make content for DnD, a decision they reversed with 5E. 4E was also designed for use with a digital tabletop, which WotC was planning to release along with the game and charge a subscription for, but it never materialized. Additionally, major design shifts at the last minute led to big balance problems at release, like monsters that had way too many hitpoints and didn't do enough damage, so battles were a slog. There was definitely a large and vocal set of 3.5 purists who rejected 4E, but that wasn't the whole story.
Mortismal, understandably having played Kingmaker and WotR you would assume there were means for PC's to get to hit rolls 10 higher than you should have at your tier and crit 80% of the time. PF2e doesn't really work that way. Assuming appropriate tiered magic items for your tier of play your attacks could only theoretically be made up to a roughly 6 higher, 2 for having an ally flanking, 2 for having that same ally use aid (which requires an action, a reaction, AND a roll to grant bonuses), and a divine spell buff I forget the name of that grants a +2. All of that together on a fighter would be really strong for sure but the game is designed around the players doing stuff like that (I call it the "buff the fighter" strat, using probably a monk and cleric with the former flanking and setting up aids and the latter applying buffs for the fighter to do 100+ dmg a turn)
It has a few similarities but has a lot more structure than 5E. However, when playing Solasta I also thought the style and system they used would be brilliant with PF2. Much more than a game that was designed at its core as a RTWP like Kingmaker was.
The 3 action economy is great, although the trap to attack three times will remain lol. I'd like to see how they would handle being concealed and hiding and taking cover, could be really great in a game
Regarding the Degrees of Success system. I don't think it would be as broken in a video game as it may seem at first. The way that bonuses stack makes it so you can only ever really get a plus +3 to your roll and min maxing to make one stat super high like in 1e is not really possible.
The thing that i enjoy the most about the games is how much you're able to multiclass and make these goofy builds that ended up being more effective than theyd appear. Also, perhaps I missed you saying this, but did they rework the way that feats are given out? It sounds like you need a lot more feats with this system, especially if you want to "multiclass", which sounds like you need to invest multiple feats to multiclass. I don't really have a problem with the other systems, but specifically the character creation and feat stuff sounds negative to me, despite the good points you brought up
tbf the vanilla way of doing it isn’t really used all that much in the PF2e community from what I’ve seen. Instead, the variant rule Free Archetype is treated as the defacto way of multiclassing Basically, at lv2, and every even level thereafter, you take a free archetype feat on top of your class feat. So if you wanted to multiclass into Rogue, you would, at level 2, take the Rogue Archetype Dedication Feat. This locks you into having to take 2-3 more Rogue Archetype feats until you can take another Archetype Dedication Feat. Using the Free Archetype variant rule, you’d be taking these archetype feats on top of your class feats, so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of ur core abilities. This ruling doesn’t affect the balance of the game in any significant light, and has proven itself to be the more popular way of using archetype feats in the pf2e community, so if pf2e is used as the backbone for a game, it’d most likely be included as an optional feature you can use at character creation If you want to learn more, all of the rules are hosted free on Archives of Nethys. Nethys is an official supported database of everything paizo, including PF1e ans Starfinder. And by official, I mean it’s recognized and supported by Paizo themselves. The website has literally everything that has come out of Paizo, ruling wise, like all 20 of the currently released classes. It you’re curious to learn more about the system, I’d definitely take a look there
@@nohi3619 I was thinking after I wrote my comment that there must be sth to balance it out. That makes a lot of sense and on the surface sounds like a decent system. I'm sure you can tell, but almost all of my experience with PF comes from the games, with a little from TT years ago. Thanks for the explanation :)
I'm a huge fan of tabletop rpgs. Played a bit of pathfinder 2e, fun game. I found some of the elements of the game to be a bit cumbersome for play at the table. A computer tracking all of the conditions would be great. I think it's a strict improvement of 1e though. I think forbidden lands would also be a really good game to look at for this sort of thing.
There is a lot to like, and if its really as good and balanced in character gen as you'd review, id be all in. I love the idea of mixing and matching a few mechanics from classes together and in most games just struggle to stick to what the core classes because i want to trade out things. Toybox has been very helpful for wotr (as has the greatradiance mod that i struggled with till learning c# cares if its a tab or 4 spaces...) but having a game that not only allows my mix n match but it can keep up with the other 'traditional' builds? Shut up and take my money!
I have to disagree on the point that 2E supposedly retains the core pillars of Pathfinder/3.5E. 3.5E - as its predecessor 3E - were still much more concerned about role-playing as a simulation of a world with systems. By that I mean they were more concerned with "fluff" like detailed tables that describe walls, doors, windows, masonry and give so many features of the world statistics to simulate a tangible game world. In my experience 2E (like 5E) is far more of a "super hero" style system that successfully focuses on making every moment "exciting" rather than the more grounded older editions.
THanks for the video Mortismal. I wanted to ask few things about Pathfinder 2E 1) do we still get flat-footed AC touch AC, regular AC, or is it just one type of AC? 2) How does flanking work? Do we need just more than 1 attacker, or does one of the attackers have to be at the opposite direction , as it is with 5e? 3) Do we get advantage disadvantage mechanics? 4) How does sneak attack work? 5) Is the conceilment system simplified as well, or is it the same? 6) if multiclassing is done by feats, does that mean that if we pick another class feat we don't gain any progression in our own class? That is to say, for example if my main class is a wizard and I start picking up fighter class feats, will that hamper my wizzard spell progression levels? Overall the 3 point system sounds really cool and I think it will make the game much easier, because speaking in practical terms it is very difficult to have more than 3 martial characters in one party, since the game forces you to have utility casters in 1E. This leads to the event of being outnumbered in every fight, since most enemies are martial types as well. That 3point system sounds like martial classes get nerfed and spell casters get buffed, which means that enemies will get nerfed as well. (no longer getting flanked by 2 meriliths and eating 20 hits per round, for example...), while at the same time casters will be as strong if not stronger than martials late game, which I personally find a nice touch :)
I'd like to add that in Core PF1, flanking also requires attackers to be across from each other. Having just more than one attacker is something they changed specifically for the video games.
@Novem's Natural Roll Thanks for the reply. I can't argue, since I never played 2E. If we get a game on it, I try it I will find out. It just sounds to me that martials will be nerfed, since currently you can reach about 10 attacks and with all the crazy synergies in WotR you can have a cavalier for example charging for 25k acumulative damage in 1 round and these are numbers, you simply can never beat with spells. If the system culls down the number of attacks to 5 ( I assume that sine we have haste and class passives, so we can probably get more than 3 attacks in 2E?), while spells remain the same pretty much, it only makes sense that casters will become stronger relative to martial classes.
@@zyfryth Martials in 2e are the best I've ever seen. Their accuracy and damage output is insane compared to casters. Less attacks than 1e, sure, but that's true of monsters and casters too, and spells aren't wildly broken like 1e and 5e
@@pizza725 I am actually happy to hear that, since martial classes have always been my favourite :) Again, unless I actually play 2E I can't say anything concrete. I just shared vague impressions, based on very general information that I have. There are so many questions to be answered + I need to look at the numbers and scale of numbers in 2E, to get a better idea. For example, do we still get all those different type of stacking bonuses like: enhancement / sacred / profane / insight / inherent / untyped etc. or do we get only one source of increase? Also, if my understanding is correct and we can keep our spell progression as a wizzard by getting fighter feats for example, then wouldn't that make an OP class? Since you can just pick all the buff spells and not care about DC or spell damage, while at the same time getting most of the fighter stuff as well? Again... without playing it, or at least see a video of the system in computer game, I can't have a strong opinion on it.
@@zyfryth Totally fair. I recommend checking out the channels Deadlyd8, How It's Played, and Team Player Gaming for more info, but I can answer real quick; in 2e there are only three types of bonuses you can get, typically. Circumstance, Status, and Item, and you can only have on of each on a given roll. And you keep your spell progression as a wizard, but you do only get the fighters feats, none of their features. You also still only have so many actions you can use in a turn, so buffing yourself and taking advantage of fighter abilities isn't always idea. And because you don't get their features, you still only have a wizards HP and AC, and you won't get a fighters accuracy, which is a big deal, because with the new crit system, fighters are expected to crit more than any other class.
PF2E so far (few sessions deep into a campaign) seem bit more of a system where you have problem hitting monsters when you don't make character with a good idea before-hand.
I genuinely want to try out a pnp game of 2E for the experience. Through from the distance there are a few little things here and there I don't likem race is probably the weirdest change and I'm not terribly fond of it. That said im nit against moving on to a new system if it works and isn't like DnD 4E. Honestly I'm surprised Wotr even used 1E as 2E has been out for a while. I guess at least Paizo didn't pressure Owlcat to use 2E as is base, but it's still kinda surprising.
I like to read TTRPGs books for fun, to discover new sistems and cool rules to import. I remember reading 2E core and just thinking It was very different, but also the core rulebook was, like "scattered". So many options, around the book, you had to frantically go back and forth multiple times to complete a character . Maybe If you play online and use 3rd party tools it's easy. But I prefer to play with actual pen and paper. I tried to create a test charachter, and after an hour of reading through feats and rules I realized I missed a bunch of things from my race and ancestry and I had to basically start from the beginning, because my ancestry changed some of my skills and so on.
Pathfinder 2e is my favorite system, but I agree - the editing of the system is atrocious! I saw someone comment that they felt like the rules resembled programming language, and when the Pathbuilder app launched, it was an instantaneous hit! LOL! There may be a reason for that... My group has adapted & we love the game, but yeah, the book layout is not well done at all.
ngl I tend to the Archives of Nethys for pf2e and the books for Golarion Lore And if you don’t know what Nethys is, it’s a database of all of the rules of everything Paizo, including PF1e, PF2e, and Starfinder It’s official supported by Paizo, so it’s not piracy, and is freely available to anyone curious to visit it. Plus the layout of the site is pretty decent and is being given constant updates
If they would somehow implement this into the WoTR, I would actually try to get into it for like a fifth time and maybe actually succeed at something in the game
1e is too unapproachable to beginners, ever since the Critical Role era, who started with pathfinder but switched to 5e DnD because there was so much to track, 2e is way easier to play and introduce to new players, of course it doesn't have the decades of content 1e has but the new things 2e is putting out is great ngl.
But computer games are not tabketop games. Computer games can seamlessly keep track on a milion systems without the players even realizing that they are. This is a strenght that should not be understimated when decideng wich games use as a base for a CRPG.
I have been looking to get into the Pathfinder: WOTR video game. Do you recommend reading the 1E rule book first or just learning the rules from playing the game? I have basic knowledge of how cRPGs work but have never played Pathfinder.
I'd just play the game, and pay attention to the tutorials, and I'd recommend normal or below for a first time until you learn the rules, there's a lot to know and you aren't going to know what questions to even ask until you run into them
From the video it wasn't clear how PF2e could fix this, but just cut down on the dips into thematically unrelated classes. Like a hunter who also has a single level of vivisectionist. Or a sorceror who is also sneaky... but _also_ has a single level of vivisectionist. It was like someone had offered every character free Skillshare classes on vivisection or something. It made no thematic sense. Basically, you could tell the players who had spent hours planning out their characters before starting from the players who just wanted to get playing. And nobody likes homework.
My cons for Pathfinder is; that it’s a more colorful, lighthearted and also bland experience.. it’s the more goody two-shoes approach, compared to DnD… The pro for me is variety. I love the DnD system, and WoTC has really bothered me lately and it has shown deterioration and I don’t see it getting better. It’s great to have just one true alternative, that still has some grit to it. I personally like a darker, mature, gritty experience, like Baldur’s Gate 2 is. Your companions are complex (despite an alignment system), that has been traumatized by some pretty dark stuff, and you experience how they cope and improve, I’m a sucker for that. If I can get the atmosphere of Bg2 as my standard rpg, I’d be content all the time.
@@JohahnDiechter It’s not deprived of dark subjects, luckily enough, I’m also speaking about Pathfinder as a whole… but the games in general also have a lighter and cartoony tone comparatively to a BG or Pillars. But they do have those darker moments as well, which breaks up the pace in a good way. The games probably goes into the category of realistic-cartoony and WOTR is also more akin to what I prefer. It got a notch more grittier, darker and mature.. still feels cartoony, but it helps.. it’s tolerable! Even though they usually mix up the races quite a bit, and when you do that, all races tends just to be like humans anyway. Tolkien said, that coming up with fantasy races in how they act and how they think is incredible difficult, because you most likely wound up with a watered down human in a way, so you want to mitigate that, for as much as possible, and humanoids will have something similar always, but in general you want desperately between them, what makes them different from humans etc. and that’s a huge problem in world building in general.. DnD was actually really good at it.. however in the later years they’ve managed to undone it and make everyone human again… so..
Yeah, I really dig that. You know what else I like - the spell system in D&D 5E. I still enjoy 3.5 and PF 1/2; however, I think 5E made some great changes. I'm specifically talking about spell preparation.
You also get benefits from archery feats like point blank shot and precise shot. Precise shot is a must have on casters. You won't take a -4 attack penalty when doing a ranged attack against a monster that's engaged in melee combat with another party member. Means no -4 penalty when using scorching ray on that goblin your fighter is currently fighting.
honestly pf1e was always the worst part about the pathfinder games for me and 2e seems to fix a lot of those issues, I really hope owlcat implements 2e in the future
I'd not play a crpg on xbox personally, however I'd 1000% not play kingmaker on xbox, while most bugs have been ironed out you still get some and the lack of mods and easy pc fixes will destroy your experience.
Tried playing it on Xbox Series X a few months ago. Didn't run into any major bugs that I can remember, but the slow loading times were what killed it for me so I went back to the PC version. Lack of mods is also a bummer for Xbox.
I think the multiclassing issue is a bit overblown. A lot of the builds that multiclass into a bunch of classes aren't really viable until later levels. So you're either not going to have much fun for a long time or you'll have to use a different build to get to a high level and then respec.
As someone who's just coming from the perspective of a gamer, in other words from playing Kingmaker and WotR, there's 2 things I really don't like about base pathfinder, or really just one, buff stacking. Like, by endgame if you don't have 10-15 active buffs on every character you're doing it wrong. The rules for stacking are obnoxious too, like, do you have a source of armor AC and shield AC? How many sources of dodge and natural armor AC can you get? 5e completely solves the issue of buff stacking with concentration, it simplifies buffing, but at the same time it adds a strategic layer to combat by making you decide what you really want to concentrate on. Don't get me wrong though, there are definitely things I like more about Pathfinder too. Like there are more archtypes. For example the gith type sword mage archtype isn't very well represented in 5e compared to pathfinder. In Pathfinder I can play a magus (Eldritch scion being my preference) and do a lot of cool things, but in 5e equivalents like the Eldritch knight just feel like slightly spicier versions of their base class. I also happen to like some of the complicated rules, like needing dex for your ranged touch attacks on your mage. Or like how certain types of attacks can bypass some armor, like ranged touch attacks bypass armor AC, or attacks against flat footed opponents bypass dodge AC. I'm not sure from this video if 2e really fixes my main issue with Pathfinder which is the buff stacking, but I'd like to play some 2e games anyways just to see what they would be like.
PF2E is "Fine", it's a perfectly serviceable game, but it suffers from trying to simplify PF1E but remain more complex than 5E. The hope was probably that they would pull people from both games into this middle point, but I think it more likely that people who like complexity are happy with PF1E and the people who like streamlined play are happy with 5E, and this leaves PF2E as kind of an awkward hybrid. I love PF1E because the mechanics allow you to create characters that are actually good at what their story tells. That includes things like being an athlete, a skilled artisan, and can create characters that are mechanically diverse despite having many points of similarity. I abhor 'dedicated stats' for this reason: Imagine two wizards: One is bookish, studious, a person who exists mostly in the realm of their mind. The other is much more physical, they enjoy field research, collects observational data, and perhaps enjoys sports and nights out on the town. The first may not have the dexterity to lay out precise attacks, and may instead rely on powerful spells to overwhelm the mind or body of their opponents, while the second shoots rays with deadly accuracy, forms and flings blades of elemental force; in short two wizards that may be the same race, same gender, same age... yet are completely different both narratively and mechanically. Dedicated stats just homogenize the game mechanically. If you're a Wizard, pump intelligence... end of story. I do get it though. A lot of people who play PF1E just play it as an optimization game, and I've seen 'rules as written' vs 'rules as intended' arguments completely derail a session or even disband gaming groups permanently, so rules streamlining is something I can see the appeal of. Even Owlcat games, as much as I love Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous (and I do love both), it never fails to amaze me the amount of work Owlcat put into breathing as many options and choices as they could into their games, only to invalidate the bulk of the options through their gameplay choices (especially in Wrath of the Righteous). Their choice to embrace min-maxing and optimization, even at fairly low difficulty settings, makes me think they may not be listening to enough people.
I like a lot of 2E *on paper.* The three action system is great, and I love the changes to magic weapons and armor. In pracitce... eh. In my experience, you never feel strong or heroic. You will never reach a point where your attacks have a *very good* chance of hitting, or your enemies have a *very good* chance of missing. It feels like you have to min-max in order to have a 50% chance of success at the thing you're supposed to be good at. AC is more about avoiding crits than avoiding hits, and when (not if) you get hit, enemies deal huge damage, which means a healing session after every single fight, which would be unacceptably tedious in a video game (I'm my party's healer). I'm not sure why spells have an entry for when the target rolls a critical failure, because that will never happen. It feels like they emphasized balance so much, they forgot about the fun.
The math is broken in 2e. I still play but I stoped to GM the game. I was tired to one shot players in the first round cause I crit them rolling a 7 on the dice. Sometimes the tank of the group. And that was in a oficial adventure.
Are you exclusively fighting enemies two or three levels higher? Because that is the only reason for most of the issues you are giving. Healing after every fight is expected, though... because it's generally one or two dice rolls, that could easily be automated in a video game
The maths in 2e isn't broken. However some of the adventures ignore the maths. My understanding is that this is because the early adventures were written before the rules were set in stone.
The only problem I see with 2e, in a vídeo game scenario, is lack of baggage. 1e has close to ten years of stuff, don't remember the exact number now, but it's SO MUCH STUFF. It would be hard to not make it seem like a downgrade from WotR. Unfortunately this is a problem with any "New Edition" and the why 1e was so popular on tabletop, as you could slap 3.0/3.5 material on It with little effort.
Paizo needs to stop letting the pathfinder games to be developed in Unity, it's not built for a game like that and WotR really suffers for it. Develop an engine, it will be so much smoother.
My opinion on 2e is: its fine. I love the 3 action system and success levels with crit etc etc. i like the skill approach and proficiency levels of trained, expert etc etc and skill feats are often cool additions. I absolutely hate caster changes; from my experience no matter the level casters are inferior combat wise to physical builds and before level ~7 they're abolutely useless, especially if theres more than 1-2 combats per ingame rest. Wizard has always been my fav class, but here its so bad :( I also hate the balance. player characters are very limited with hard caps on specific values; bonus to attack, ac etc etc. Monsters arent. you often find monsters at level where lets say maxed out ac for pc is 25, the monster has +19 attack and abilities to attack multiple times without penalties. simply not fun to be critted 2 times every turn as a full ac tank. Saves on mosnters are also realy weird. theres cr -1 or 0 monster (mephis or sth) that has saves of 19! fucking nineteen! my team's sorcerer has not hit a successful spell on non trash(one that does not appear in big groups, like hobgoblin or so) mob last 4 session. sure spells usually have some minor effects even on succesful save but thats a lot of strain on the rest of the team. Also without optional rule of free archetype/dedication feat alongside class feat the character progression and variety of builds is so poor that 5e without supplements felt like a intricate character buildier
If you're worried about spells there's a million different options. You have wands, scrolls, staves, archetyping to another caster (not for free), using things like demoralise and bon mot to lower saves. If you're feeling tight on resources and ineffective there are ways around that. If you're expecting to end encounters with a single spell then sure you'll have less fun, but that's incredibly boring to me and there's still enough utility spells to actually use creative problem solving.
@@feral_orc i'd say pf 2e strongly supports ending fights with one spells at least at mid levels as nukes are the only spells that didnt get nerfed (they got buffed actually) while buffs and debuffs got nerfed.
@@Thalaranthey I'm not very experienced with 1e so I don't have a great comparison in power levels, so I was just trying to address some of the other things you mentioned. High level play in 2e is also beyond me right now, but I do enjoy theory crafting so that was kind of where I'm coming from
@@feral_orc well i might sound harrash, but i like 2e, i Play IT. I just think it could be so much better with character progroession, enemies balance and casters
if Creatures are hitting drastically above your AC/Saves, your GM is using way too strong of creatures for your level. If someone is a 'full ac tank', 25 AC suggests to me you are level 5 without an armor potency rune. Creatures with a +19 to hit are going to be creature 8, so of course they're going to hit hard, you're not supposed to fight creatures 3 levels above your party's level frequently. Air Mephits (and only the air mephits) have +19 to Reflex, but uh, 16 AC, and +3 to fort saves. Casters should be capable of targetting more than 1 save, it's why they don't get potency runes, since they can target different defenses. Monsters mostly follow the same limitations, and when they do break that mold, they often have a very exploitable weakness to make up for that fact.
The combat system was and still is my main problem with D&D and Pathfinder-based RPGs. Combat success is 95% based on having the most important buffs and debuffs up, which is a chore because many of them only last for a short time, and you can't cast them willy-nilly because of spell slots and the need for resting. Player HP is not a resource but something that ideally shouldn't even get touched. It's fiddly and complicated and doesn't translate well into video games. The most exciting thing for most players is finessing builds to make combat less boring and static.
@Novem's Natural Roll Yes, but also no. 2E has other annyoing mechanics. I think I'd love if they stopped trying to hamfist a system that is designed for tabletop session play into video games.
Mortismal, I really like your videos. Don't want to be rude, but do you think 2E's frosty reception has anything to do with all the wokeness talk? Curious, 'cause I think you didn't mentioned anything about that topic
Not a fan of the 2nd Edition rules. It seems to me that Paizo tried to make Pathfinder more like DnD 5E, which I don’t like at all, most of the time. It is also funny that, Pathfinder which was embraced by people who did not like the supposed dumbing down of DnD 4E is now also dumbing down to appeal to the most common denominator. It is telling that most pen and paper groups and Owlcat stuck with Pathfinder 1E.
@Novem's Natural Roll I should probably have clarified that when I say “most pen and paper groups” I meant those groups that played 1E instead of 5E. Among those groups, most prefer 1E rather than 2E. Also, when I said “more like 5E” I didn’t mean that 2E has no depth, as is the case for 5E, just that 2E doesn’t have the amount of depth that 1E has. Streamlining is good and 2E does that. Dumbing down is bad and 2E does that too. Finally, yes it is telling that people resist some changes 2E made because, the same people didn’t resist the change from ADnD 2E to 3E/3.5 and finally Pathfinder 1E.
wait! it's a 30-minunte+ video. Well, i'm just gonna say as a long-time ttrpg player, no system is truly great. Developers catering to a specific RPG system simply because they want to capture its audiences nowadays. Pathfinder game series and BG3 as recent examples have shown that in pursuit of a popular system, they are willing to sacrifice its meaningful progressing, pacing. I play these for the story and the experience but when its RPG system brings only monotony, mediocrity to the equation, it will never be the same.
2e is decidedly more boring and it turned off a lot of the older players that moved from 5e to pathfinder in the first place. Combat is the worse off as it felt like step 1, step 2, step 3 rinse and repeat until you end combat in the majority of scenarios. The lack of character customization also killed off a lot of the RP flavor
Saying that 2e lacks character customization just shows bias towards the bloat of 1e, no shit if something has been out for a long time there is "more stuff" but 2e has an entire focus on support mechanical concepts while leaving the RP parts to you, if you cant make an RP character work with all the support it has just because you cant make some crazy character who uses broken rules to do 8 million damage per round, then that is on you, not the system.
@Novem's Natural Roll Power attack Weapon Focus Dodge Precise Shot Rapid Shot Manyshot Etc. And heaven's forbid you take a Roleplay or skill based feat in a slit that could have used a combat one.
the lack of true multiclassing, the amount of ability points gained/allocated, weapon rune system, feat scaling, and skill balance are more of the issue than the fluff. By mid to high level almost everyone has a character with no real handicap, a single mid level rouge or investigator in a party can effectively replace several characters with the skill and ability progression as it is, the scaling of cantrips removes a large element of urgency and planning from casters, with the ability leveling characters feel less unique all throughout until you reach higher levels
I mean that's just blatantly wrong. 2e combat gives dozens of unique ways to handle it. The "rinse and repeat" problem is much more something 5e and 1e have in common, since there's a few options and one is always objectively the best
2E is repetitive and boring. Same 3 actions. They took the micromanagement and small tweaks out and made it so linier; that you can't really create you own hero.
No? They didn't take any creativity out of builds, and you can viably handle combat with never making the same actions two rounds in a row. Did you even look at the CRB, or did you just see that it's not a complete clone of 1e and work off of that information?
@@pizza725 I did. Seems as though they took the small details out and made them, general abilities just with a different name. I will admit there are some feats they fixed/improved but its too specific for my taste. I like options that don't make me feel as "these are the feats, you must take to be viable". I could throw greatswords many of them in 1e. The reworking of the classes fit the abilities and feats well, only because you don't have a choice to go another way or your just bad. The spell casting is an improvement though. I think I don't like the game is because, barbarians ain't fun in it. Titan mauler for life. And I don't like the action economy. Even though its slightly better by a small margin. I wanna attack and roll lots of dice. 2e ain't as fun.
@@cuspofexposure8242 Genuinely none of your complaints make sense. There are no examples of feats you have to take to be good in 2e, every option is equally viable in almost every case. And you still get to roll a shit ton of dice when attacking, more than 1e, frankly, with striking runes and feats giving you additional damage dice. Barbarians not being fun is subjective, I guess, but since you didn't give any reasoning, only mentioning Titan Mauler, which the Giant Instinct does most of the same stuff as, I'm not sure where to go with that.
@@cuspofexposure8242 In what way? There are plenty of great ways to multiclass. It's frankly better than 5es system because you don't lose any progression in your main class
@@nohi3619 Lore, and the pruning of the feats, which is necessary to bring in new blood, but less fun for a player like me who loves dedicating time to combine feats to get lots of random things working like whips and other such things.
One thing that you talk a little bit, but in my opinion is the most interesting part about pf 2e is that most of the spells have been reworked with the critical succes or failure mechanic, so now the saving throw ones are much more dinamic, because they basically can do 4 things instead of 2, for example there is a spell that even if the enemy succes the save stil affect them but only for one round, so you could choose to be secure and cast that or choose a more potent spell, but if they save you dont get as much.
And the critical succes, although in a video game could be scary, it makes you feel the difference in power more clearly, and makes working to get a crit much more rewarding, instead of simply having a 5% chance.
I believe the 3 action system would be great for a game. I love 1E for it's crunchyness and many options, but 2E has more exciting turns IMO.
@Novem's Natural Roll I know, I am actively playing a 2E campaign right now and I am looking forward to the Psychic and Thaumaturgist this fall. There is a lot of crunching to be done if one feels so inclined, but it does not reach the level of 1E in regards to what you can do with your numbers. Overall, I like them both equally.
@Novem's Natural Roll I was not trying to insinuate that 2E is lacking in options, 1E is a way older system and has over the course of its life accumulated thousands of feats. If you can think of it, there is probably a feat for it. I like that. True 90% of them can be disregarded as inefficient or suboptimal, but they are there.
Most of these options won't matter for a video game either. It is unlikely to see most of these feats even taking modders into account.
I enjoy crunching, the numbers and seeing what nonsensical interaction I can produce. 2E has an entirely different appeal to me. It does away with the 1 level monk dips and +1 here, +1 there, +1 from that archetype and +1 from that buff. It is condensed and fun. Class and Heritage identity are fare more tangible and more expressive. I LOVE the focus point system. I do hope there will be 2E games in the future.
I had not planned on writing an essay on a short 2 sentence comment I made but apparently I have offended you. Sorry.
While not in the Core Rulebook (CRB), the coolest part of the Archetype system is that there are non-class based archetypes, generally themed feat groups that replace some of your class feats (at least 1, with your choice between generally 4-8 others). This adds various faction feats via archetypes, like Hellknight Armiger, Pathfinder Agents, or Aldori Duelists. There are also thematic archetypes that just add a new way to play to your character, such as Juggler, Pirate, or Beastmaster. There are also some that let you specialize in a specific aspect of your kit, like Dual-Wield Warrior, Elementalist, Familiar Master or Medic.
The book that introduces most of these is the Advanced Player's Guide, which introduces new ancestries, classes, new feats for existing ones, non-class archetypes and lots more.
@@quint3ssent1a In a sense, yea. Only they don't have strict requirements like prestige classes did.
Another big change to 2e is that not many characters can make an attack of opportunity. For players, usually its Fighters only that start with it at level 1, with Barbarians and other martials taking it as a class feat at level 6. Because of this, combat is much more mobile since you aren't locked into melee with every creature.
Great video!
yeah, entire system is just one big middle finger to casters xd
PF2e is less a development of PF1e, and more bringing all of the good stuff that has been developed since D&D 3.5. You can see elements from D&D 5th edition, D&D 4th edition, and Paizo's Starfinder. I think it's stronger for that.
That's not a bad take , I thought it was a safe bet on Paizo's behalf. They looked at WotC 5th ed and copied their homework and just check forums for what players thought 5th ed was missing. Compared to what Paizo has done with Starfinder , that is impressive, all new classes and new races/species with main streamed 1st ed Path rules and better item progression and crafting rules for using monster/alien for components and rules for building star ships. I thought it was really cool and showed much more rain taking and creativity and was a product I was satisfied with purchasing. Unfortunately for me , Path 2nd ed was the opposite , I wish I could have gotten a refund on their very expensive lack luster product called an TTRPG.
But if you're enjoying 2nd ed then more power to you man. 👍
@@gaming4life551 What made PF2e 'lackluster' to you?
@@gaming4life551 I think pf2e is better then 5e in many ways but did a few thing poorly. The stealth rules need to be changed because it’s done to silly for a tabletop. In a video game it is fine but not for a tabletop group. Spell casting is a bit annoying but the action system for casting and power level is far superior. Magic items should be changed as well. Having the option seems like it be fun but it feels like a tax you have to get certain items or be useless. Auto progression fixes this. Downtime and social encounter rules is a bit annoying and could be simplified or made loser for the fact it is a role playing game which appears to focus way too much on the game part. Besides these things it is better then 5e in every way.
@@omegalink8does anything annoy you with pf2e. I listed mine above.
@@richardmenz3257 Most of my gripes are with some areas of the rules being lacking. Namely Recall Knowledge has rather poor guidance and what is 'acceptable' information to give. Crafting I find silly since no matter what things will always take 4 days minimum. And holy shit, as much as I love the system, the actual layout of the books themselves is so bizarre, especially with the new Dark Archive Release from what I've been hearing about from people who got their pdfs early (there's a mini adventure you'll have to skip over at the end of each chapter and I don't understand why they didn't put all of them at the end of the rest of the book instead of at the end of each section so players don't accidentally read/glimpse them so easily).
I'm not particularly bothered by the mandatory magic items since ABP fixes it, I agree it's weird certain magic items are assumed, but since the fix is super easy it's not really a big deal to me. I don't...really have a problem with the way stealth is done either? I think it works well enough and I think that one just boils down to personal preference unlike an action not giving enough guidance or books being laid out poorly.
Some of my personal gripes are rooted far more in preference are that I dislike the way you're expected to play alchemist to be 'effective', and I think they're almost too afraid of making any more classes with a wisdom main stat (jesus christ intelligence used to be a big 'dumpstat' (and is for some classes still) but now we have like 7 classes that want it to be good if not their main stat now, we probably would have been fine making some of the Psychic options wisdom based). I get that Wisdom is initiative by default now but I don't think that means we can't have classes other than druid, cleric, and some monks and rangers that want it outside of the initiative, will, and some skill bonuses.
P2e is more complicated than 5th ed D&D. However in a CRPG context, PF2e seems just about right, and indeed rife, for adaptation to a CRPG.
Foundry VTT also has a great PF2E community that has created a system and mods that handle a lot of the complexity automatically, its really cool to play
Its weird, because PF2e IS more complicated than 5e since i does have more comprehensive rules, but I also find it easier to understand tha DnD5e because PF2e is much more intuitive in its game logic. For axample, the action economy is so much easier to understand for a newcomer than 5e that I honestly cant even say that PF2e is not as good a starting system as 5e
I was originally interested in 2E, but I feel like they made a major mistake in their game design. 5E had already come along and said, 'we're gonna make a simpler, more new player friendly version of D&D.' Then Paizo tried to do make what was essentially, a simplified version of Pathfinder. The problem, I feel, was that anyone who wanted a 'simpler' version of D&D had already moved to 2E.
Personally, I greatly dislike 5E - its feels too much like baby's 1st RPG for me to ever be interested. Everything that I, personally liked from 2E I just turned into house rules for 1st Ed. Pathfinder, like I did with the Advantage rules from 5E.
@@SouthernGuy5423 PF2e is still fairly robust. It's simply less confusing and obtuse than 1e, witch honestly just feels so... Old in it's structure, and I'm saying that as someone that enjoys that style of system. PF2e feels like a more dynamic game, not necessarily a simpler one.
@@rafafr9 I agree, I think the TTRPG community sees complexity as a binary scale between Depth and Simplicity, but it's absolutely possible to have rules with more depth that are also simpler to actually understand and arbitrate if a designer is just careful about being consistent and sensible.
As to the degrees of success & attacks beating AC by 10+ = crit. Coming from PF1e I can see how that would appear to be unbalanced because of min-maxing. But here's the thing Mortismal, PF2e is so well balanced that the difference between someone who builds a character well and a player who min-maxes, is *very* small. There is a ton of customization but it it is all very well balanced. Even the handful of options that are a little over balanced, are only by a small amount.
I've been playing D&D since the 80s. Pathfinder 2E is super great. I personally think Extinction Curse would adapt to the Kingmaker/WotR gather resources and allies while also completing your epic quest style extremely well.
Extinction curse is actually one of the less well regarded PF2 APs
@@Unikatze I'd love to see Strength of Thousands or the Mammoth Lord AP made into a CRPG. But I expect it will be Abomination Vaults when PF2 gets a game one day.
@@kryptonianguest1903 I have not played any of those.
Abomination Vaults seems it could be a DLC since it's shorter.
The little I know about Strength of Thousands does sound like it would make a great video game.
We are entering last book of extinction curse and I completely agree! The entire time we were playing I thought about how it would be a great follow up to kingmake before wotr came out.
I really like the sound of the 3-action system. Not only is it more realistic than the ubiquitous move->action system (in most TTRPGs, CRPGs, and even squad tactics games), more importantly it opens up greater tactical depth, particularly if they focus on action interactions (i.e. an action is modified by the other actions taken in the same round). I don't know to what extent action interactions are present in PF2e, because I haven't read the handbook (I plan on buying it now), but this could be a breakout system if they do implement them well. It could even shift the entire RPG and tactics genres away from the shallower move->action system.
I'd like to note that considering magic specifically, low level spells do not become useless in 2nd edition. Since the spell DC for the saves etc is the same for all of your spells you can keep utility and control spells that do not have heightened effects in your lower spell slots and still make use of them (things like grease, gust of wind, telekynetic manoeuver...)
well, those without the incapacitation trait atleast
@@Agarwaen Those aren't that common either, especially at low spell levels.
This becomes even more important in a video game like WotR and Kingmaker since the amount of combat per day is significantly higher than playing at a table.
@@Unikatze Yeah that's why cantrips scaling is so good. It'll shine even more in a video game format
but spells and casters are so weak (due to medicine, aoo, spell and save changes) that it doesnt matter that spells scale
Having played a couple tabletop campaigns of 1E & 2E, I'd say that 1E's advantages are entirely in character creation. PF2E has far more engaging moment to moment combat & general gameplay due to not being able to just min-max your way out of needing to play tactically.
Much of the time I was playing 1E I would activate my class abilities at the start of combat then move up to a target and Full-Attack each turn. Combat in 2E is more mobile due to lack of Full-Attacks, attacking as much as you possibly can is discouraged due to stacking penalties, encouraging you to mix in different moves such as skill actions or class feats. Enemy design in 2E is also very weakness oriented, there is usually a better and worse way to approach each enemy. One weakness I would level against 2E is that combat against one single powerful enemy tends to strain the maths - combat against multiple enemies usually feels a lot more fun.
I enjoy the PF2E system, but star finder would make a great setting to change things up
A Starfinder crpg would be really unique and interesting imo.
Exactly! We aren't getting any RPGs like this, so it would stand out from the rest.
A few points I wanna touch on are:
1. Usually it's advised to not go for the 3rd attack because of the +/- 10 crit system, because in 2e if you roll 10 more (or crit fail if 10 less) than an enemy's AC value you get a crit. And this applies to anything from skills to spell. And Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP) is a thing.
2. While you wouldnt see things like 11 attacks, there are feats that evolve your action economy (which is a very important thing in 2e). Feats that either allow you to attack twice for one action with multiple attack penalty, feats that allow 2 attacks for no multiple attack penalty, or feats that allow a sort of movement and an attack for 2 actions
3. If you wanna get a tad bit deeper in 2e, I would reccomend the Advanced Player Guidebook(APG) and the Secrets of Magic book. Both add new classes and pretty intresting features or lore.
theres also flurry(ranger) + agile weapon who has max penalty of -4 ;p
I think item damage for shields specifically might be implemented but streamlined as "gets repaired after the fight".
As for the criticals, I think it would work fine in a video game version. Fights would be balanced around what level the party is supposed to be, getting cumulative bonuses to increase attack rolls is much, much harder in 2e compared to 1e.
I'm an avid PF1 player. I've tried 2e a bit and while I didn't hate it, it never grabbed me. I'm not likely to switch to 2e but this video did a great job of making me challenge my thinking and introducing the concepts that changed. This is to say great job and keep up the good work!
As someone who dont play 1e i think the biggest flaws of the owlcat games is that fact that the ruleset for 1e is absolutely bonkers and horrendeous for new people.
I think 2e is a much simpler system to get people into in that regard.
I like PF2 far more than D&D 5e for tabletop and I would love to see a PF2 video game.
Starfinder is too crunchy for me personally for tabletop, but a Starfinder video game would be much more palatable just like D&D 3e/PF1 is easier for me as a video game because there's so much to keep track of I feel like I'd have to be a human computer to run them properly at the table. PF2 is much easier to GM for compared to the other systems mentioned (yes, even 5e).
I was actually watching some gameplay of Chaosgate, and instantly thought about the PF2E system. I'm not super familiar with the way its coded, but it looks like a lot of the tactical fundamentals are already inline with the ttrpg rules. Both follow a 3 action approach, both have a tactical grid, they have equipment that modify stats (albeit vastly fewer between) and the character progression lends itself toward a more conventional approach like Pathfinder. If nothing else, I think that'd be a good place to start for a potential CRPG version of Pathfinder 2E's system.
critting by rolling over 10 will not happen often, since if the CRPG will take rules from the system itself, buffs & debuffs are limited to 3 categories and only take the highest of each. min-maxing will never guarantee crits, because in the system itself has a limitation to prevent that from happening.
TIL never edit your comment or else it'll remove the heart, oop :P
Simplified action economy seems juicy for CRPGs on PC for sure. I love 2e.
I really love the 2E system especially compared to DnD, i really hope that we can see it in a video game as well, from what i have seen 2E has a lot more rules and systems in place that allow players and DMs to have a lot of options for interesting gameplay, it is more complex and requires more understanding of the systems so you can fully take advantage of it but when you get it it will be hard to live without it, my personal favorites are the 3 action combat system and ancestory system
DnD 5e in comparison is more streamlined, it's relatively simple to pick up and play what probably also made it as popular as it is now but it requires a lot more improvising and homebrewing if you want to do more complex scenarios
@@b.d.a.8719 You are just objectively wrong, though. Literally every day the Pathfinder 2e reddit and discords are flooded with people converting to the system from 5e largely because it doesn't offer as many options and doesn't have the longevity because of it. Combine that with WotC already putting out a new edition in about a year and a half, and I don't know how you can take yourself seriously saying that they're "losing" to 5e.
So, 2e is as far as i can tell from a older players POV a simplified version of 3.5 (which 1e was based on). Most long term players i know like some parts but do not like the system as a whole though much of that may be resistance to change.
5e is DnD lite, once again imo and not a jydgement of people. I feel that 5e being the "most popular of all time" is a question of player base and amount of interest in this new gaming culture 10 years later. I would agrue that in a market share perspective 1e is far more popular that pf2e or dnd5e without question.
I'm a gamer from adnd into 3.0 and 3.5 and pathfinder 1e was the best version, i may be stuck in the past but why change what isn't broken.
@@b.d.a.8719 It's not an "admission" of anything, because there's nothing to admit. While I don't like them converting two of their adventures to 5e, it's a very easy way to double your profits, and plenty of people in support of it say it will make it easier to convert players to Pathfinder. And when 6e(because let's be real, it's going to be a functionally separate system even if they call it 5.5) comes out in a year and a half, it will just speed up the people coming over to Paizo, just like 4e did, because WotC are genuinely incompetent. Without Critical Role, 5e would have already died off, because they are the main reason for it's success. But that's proving to not be enough, by WotCs own "admission", since they're abandoning 5e already come 2024.
@@b.d.a.8719 With all due respect, I could care less what you admit. It's not a secret that Critical Role is the catalyst that keeps 5e going. Talk to any of the thousands of people who entered the tabletop world purely because of it, one of whom, I'm not ashamed to admit, is me. But their popularity has stopped growing, they're branching away from their show, and WotC is getting nervous, hence the new edition. None of that is hypothetical or up for debate.
@@b.d.a.8719 You pretentious, sell absorbed little gremlin, this is not some academic or professional debate. You do not get points for critiquing my grammar. You have been right about one thing: you are being foolish. If you spent less time looking at numbers and more time actually engaging with the community blindly lambast, you might have realized it sooner.
If it wasn't clear, I'm done with this. There is apparently no getting through to you. Why try?
Best thing about 2E is that while many might object to it. 5E crowd might think it's too complex (looking at you PuffinForrest). Pathfinder one fans think it's too simple or not enough choices yet.
In the end, it doesn't really matter because PF2ed is actually really fun to play if you put aside your biases and embrace it's strengths. My groups, coming from either system love the PF2Ed compared to all other d20 systems.
It's simply no contest, it's a better designed game.
It's not flawless, but it's a way better system than most in the genre, both in terms of balance but also in running and enjoying.
So no matter the press or the lackluster start, it's going to win people over. Because it's just fun to play.
Yeah, from my cursory look at it, it feels like a really nice middle ground between older systems and 5e. And should a game dev decide to pick it up, it looks like a system much nicer to design encounters for, since the different between someone who integrates roleplay into their character build options, and munchkin, is astronomically smaller than in 1e.
Honestly, I really hope that Owlcat moves to 2e if they want to continue making Pathfinder games. If only because one of my personally biggest gripes with their last two games is encounter balance, which I believe stems from specifically the massive gulf between optimal and non-optimal builds. And hey, maybe if they do move, it would entice more people to pick up PF2e for their tabletop needs as well.
Pf2e is way more fun for sure. I do think stealth, magic items(most fell like must do you cannot do a no magic compaign or anything. Auto progression fixes this and adds thing like people using improvised weapons), spell casting(just the restrictions of putting spells into just that one slot everything else is way better then 5e), social encounter rules are a little wonky. Besides there things I think the game is perfect.
The 4 levels of success, the 3 action economy, and the lack of attacks of opportunity on most monsters are in and of themselves revolutionary. Movement matters, turns are varied, bonuses are more impactful.
@@quint3ssent1a AoO on everything means there is almost no movement. Everybody is worried about movement and battles become static. If you can move, then you will move freely, yes. Repositioning is a thing you can do without worrying about it killing you. They are not counter, they are complimentary. Opening up movement means people will move. Movement becomes important to the action economy as you try and out maneuver bosses and use your action economy surplus as an adventuring party, against them.
@@quint3ssent1a Ok, but in 2e you're weighing your ability to move against the bosses ability to move, and figuring that into the action economy. Since you get 3 actions to use how you please (there's no "movement/action/bonus action", it's 3 actions to use however you want) movement is just as important a tactical decision, but for different reasons which don't include, "if I move I might die."
What becomes more important is, "if I move this far, the boss can choose to follow or go after this ally, I can pull the boss out of position, force them to use an action they'd otherwise use on a devastating attack or ability, just to reposition." Combat becomes much more fluid and focused around movement by definition.
@@quint3ssent1a that true, but the main purpose of an AoO is to prevent movement. In 2e both monsters and players have a lot better/more options that target different saves. AoO for AC, trips for reflex, grapple for fortitude. Instead of just trading hp to move, you trade bonuses and penalties for action economy.
@@quint3ssent1a a party of 4 players has 12 actions vs. A boss with 3 actions. It is almost always beneficial for a player to spend an action even if all it does is force the boss to spend an action to move.
With your 3 actions, you can move up to the boss, attack at full bonuses, and run past them. The boss needs to spend 1 action it might otherwise use on a very powerful attack or as part of a 2-action ability, and use that action moving to you (even 5 feet).
That's just one example, another commenter laid out many other examples.
If you add a "0:00" timestamp in the description, CZcams will show the timestamps on the player bar too
As someone who has been playing 2e for a while and loves crpgs, you have me stoked for a future where we have a crpg based in 2e. I feel like the combat could feel similar to divinity os 1 & 2 in terms of flow due to the action mechanics.
Love seeing my Mortismal videos right in front tab. Also, through the ashes is really good so far out of the caves.
Really looking forward to the starfinder video.
Regarding the crit system being abusable, pf2e combat is designed around exploiting that system. Bonuses are conservative and tough to stack, with the main strategic focus of combat being to assemble those bonuses.
Thanks for making this.
pf2e is great and it´s made in a way that is fair and consistent across 1-20 levels.
It´s modular in nature and that´s much easier to code.
I think it all comes to Owlcat wanting to do it. Pf2e has proven that it´s a solid choice.
I'm glad you made this one!
Character choice at creation and archetype-multiclassing, and of course the 3-actions system, are the best parts of the system in my opinion.
I've always used the basic step-by-step abilities repartition, i find it good after using it (i had my reservations about it at first, before playing the system). In a system quite bound in terms of difficulty of succeeding actions in game, it's best to be able to control and not feel like being useless in a party because of rolling low ability scores.
Fun fact: I found your channel from me looking for help on how to understand the “rules of the universe” with WOTR. So good point on how it can be hard to learn.
Looks like it could make a solid foundation for a next game. Some streamlined aspects of it have the potential to attract more players. One thing I noticed though is that there are less classes in 2e, but perhaps with enough archetypes, most of the play styles could be covered. Now, if only in the next game they added a Gunslinger class with Spellshot archetype, that would be great!
Why is this so interesting?? I can’t stop watching!
PF2 already plays more like a video game than any ttrpg I've played and I can't wait for a developer to give a direct adaptation of the system a go. Still, lot of lessons that can be learned from the system in general.
So, late game experience both running and playing? It holds up incredibly well. Due to things expanding out as opposed to becoming rocket tag, when a party does well it's less on their feat choices and more on just how well they worked together to create a good combat team.
HOLY. I had no idea you made videos of this length! Intriguing!
I have no idea what you’re talking about but it is extremely interesting.
Honestly I can see why this would get 1E fans offside because it changed quite a bit. But these changes sound like they would transfer into a video game perhaps better than 1E. Would be interesting to find out.
I would love to see Pathfinder 2e's Blood Lords campaign made into a video game. It'd rival tyranny in the whole "You get to be the bad guy" theme
I really enjoyed the first two parts, third book was eh, curious to see where the back half of it goes
@@MortismalGaming I've actually only read through the player's guide, I guess I meant more like the concept of Blood Lords haha
I don't know, the community I used to be a part of really got mad when 2E came out because apparently when Pathfinder came out something was said about never needing a new edition, I'm not that naive I know things can be improved and made better, truth is only worry I had with 2E is I hear there isn't much depth and characters all end up the same in the end depending on there class, I haven't played so I don't know.
It's not at all true. The level of depth is the same, and because of the different types of feats you get each level, it's almost literally impossible to make two characters feel the same by accident
From what I've seen there's still a lot of depths and options, but less for min/maxxers to exploit
@@MortismalGaming Long time Pathfinder player here. I was interested in 2E, but I absolutely hated how they did Feats. Having most Feats - at least in the original PHB, being class specific was a change I greatly disliked. What it all came down to for me was why would I swap from a system I know and really enjoy top a system with a fraction of the material available for it, that I consider worse in several ways? Especially since most of the things that were improvements can be simply House Ruled into 1E!
Additionally, simplification is the opposite of what I want in my RPGs - its the whole reason I rejected D&D 5E.
Well I'm convinced. The multiclass stuff is very apealing and such, but really if this can just make it a bit easier to more consistently balance the game so I only need to set my difficulty once rather than having to raise it up for most of the game, and then drop it to something more reasonable whenever I find a boss that is just effectively immune to magic effects at higher levels that would be quite nice.
Yes! I want the next Owlcat RPG to use Pathfinder 2e so, so much. It's an amazing system with excellent balance that doesn't sacrifice any customisation depth ♥️
What changed from the beta? I tried it back then, and I thought it severely lacked depth.
Many would agree it sacrificed a lot of depth.
I'd say very little of value was lost in anything sacrificed, personally
@Novem's Natural Roll a system with less manuals and no retrocompatibility is bound to lose depth.
@Novem's Natural Roll the biggest point in 1e favor is retrocompatibility. 3.5 has a lot of classes and entire systems that just weren't attempted outside of it at all and that can reasonably be modded into 1e but not 2e. Half of my favourite classes are only playble in 3.5 because nobody else even tried to make them classes.
The crit rule works because you can't min-max 2e, pretty much at all. The game doesn't have a bunch of floating modifiers and what have you. You'll always have level+proficiency+item+ability mod+status bonus+circumstance bonus as the result of your stats. Status and circumstance bonuses really don't go above 2 and are primarily from taking certain actions or casting certain spells. In leveling your primary stat goes from 18 to 22 and then you can equip one item which increases it to 24 and it cannot go higher than that at all. You end up with 20level+7ability+6prof(8 if legendary)+3item for +36 to rolls for every martial but gunslingers and fighters, and +38 for fighters and gunslingers. Spellcasters end up with +35 because they get no item bonuses, and then another +2 and +2 can be gained from spells or actions. Spell DCs end up at 45, and AC for the tankiest character the Champion ends up around 10+6+3+20+8, resulting in 47 without a shield or status/circumstances bonuses. The math is absurdly tight here. You get to these numbers no matter what you pick in terms of feats and what not. Min-maxing is almost non-existent so the crit rule would work
PF2E sounds a lot like 5th edition dungeons & dragons.
Also, I acknowledge that 4th edition dungeons & dragons was a commercial failure. But I enjoyed it; there was so much to do with each character in combat. Each character would get two or three at will powers, and build up encounter powers and daily powers as they progressed. Even a level 1 fighter would have three or four different attacks that they could make, with different effects and parameters. It's a real shame that it hasn't been adapted into any video games; the rules and mechanics probably lend themselves better to a video game format than they do table top.
PF2e is such a good system.
About the character creation in 1E vs 2E, this might just be myself, but I actually love the complexity that Kingmaker/WotR have due to them being rather rule heavy. To me it's kinda what distinguishes those games from other cRPGs, and also lets them be more replayable than almost any other game in the genre. Not the rules in and of themselves, but the game that came about because they had to adhere to those rules. The complexity is a bit of a barrier for new players, and I wouldn't fault Owlcat for going in the direction of trying to bring in new players; but for me personally, the complex system allows for so much freedom and variety in your character builds, it's just fun. Also I think just the fact that it's a video game rather than PnP means a lot of the tedium that can come from it being rules-heavy is removed because the computer (or console) is doing all of the boring math automatically for you.
I think that character creation in PF2E is still plenty complex; I don't know if Mortismal made that especially clear.
At level 1, you pick:
Ancestry ("Race") - Your choice of ancestry generally gives you +2 to two fixed stats, -2 to another stat, and then a +2 stat bump of your choice. At this point, you can also decide whether you want to take voluntary flaws, taking two additional -2's (reducing no stat below 8) in order to get another +2 (increasing no stat above 12.) This actually allows you to play an Ancestry that normally gets a penalty to their key Ability Score to get up to a net +2 instead.
Heritage ("Subrace") - As Mort says, this includes variants for your Ancestry as well as all the traditionally Planetouched ancestries like Tiefling and Genasi.
An Ancestry Feat - Selected from your Ancestry and/or Heritage. You get another every additional 4 levels.
Background - Your background typically provides a +2 to a specific stat, and +2 to the stat of your choice. Your background often makes you Trained in a specific skill, and grants you a Skill Feat.
Class - Your class generally has you making decisions on your subclass, gives you +2 to your Key Ability Score (sometimes several to choose from) and you gain a Class Feat from your class. Your class also tells you how many Skills you become Trained in.
Determine Ability Scores - Next, you get 4 more +2 Ability Boosts to apply as you see fit (you can't apply more than one to any one score, meaning a "Standard Array" for PF2E often ends up looking like 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, arranged as desired.)
Equipment - Purchase 15gp worth of starting gear.
So, as you can see, there's as much mechanical depth in character creation for PF2E as there is in PF1E. It's just a streamlined presentation.
This sounds like it would be a much easier set up. It sounds like there will be other trade-offs but I spend far too much time on the character screen right now.
Appreciate the vid, it's an interesting topic and I'd love to see a PF2E video game someday. That being said, I wanted to respond to some of the history of the tabletop systems you laid out in the beginning, and especially with regards to the perceived popularity of the different systems.
I think it's important to keep in mind that things like the popularity of TTRPG systems are very hard to track, and sometimes a narrative takes hold regardless of whether it can be proven to be true. First of all there's the issue of what metric you're using. It is playing time? Number of people playing each system? Books sold? Total revenue? Companies don't release definitive sales data, so there's a lot of speculation. Best metrics we have for games played come from places like Roll20, but there's probably a biased sample there.
There is certainly a vocal part of the Pathfinder fanbase that stuck with 1E and rejects 2E, but it seems like 2E is pretty popular overall, at least by the evidence that they continue to release new content at a good rate, plus growth of things like the 2E subreddit.
As for Pathfinder vs DnD 4E, the narrative is that Pathfinder "outsold" 4E, but that might be apocryphal. Fairly credible sources have claimed that 4E still outsold Pathfinder overall, just not in the specialized hobby stores where the diehards were most likely to shop at the time.
4E definitely didn't do as well as WotC wanted, and the narrative is that all the 3.5 players hated it and switched to Pathfinder, but there were other problems with 4E that contributed to it's underperformance. For example, they stopped allowing 3rd party publishers to make content for DnD, a decision they reversed with 5E. 4E was also designed for use with a digital tabletop, which WotC was planning to release along with the game and charge a subscription for, but it never materialized. Additionally, major design shifts at the last minute led to big balance problems at release, like monsters that had way too many hitpoints and didn't do enough damage, so battles were a slog. There was definitely a large and vocal set of 3.5 purists who rejected 4E, but that wasn't the whole story.
Mortismal, understandably having played Kingmaker and WotR you would assume there were means for PC's to get to hit rolls 10 higher than you should have at your tier and crit 80% of the time. PF2e doesn't really work that way. Assuming appropriate tiered magic items for your tier of play your attacks could only theoretically be made up to a roughly 6 higher, 2 for having an ally flanking, 2 for having that same ally use aid (which requires an action, a reaction, AND a roll to grant bonuses), and a divine spell buff I forget the name of that grants a +2. All of that together on a fighter would be really strong for sure but the game is designed around the players doing stuff like that (I call it the "buff the fighter" strat, using probably a monk and cleric with the former flanking and setting up aids and the latter applying buffs for the fighter to do 100+ dmg a turn)
Sounds A LOT like DnD 5e tbh. That said, Solasta uses that system and it works pretty well and is very fun. so yeah, lets try PF2E baby!
It has a few similarities but has a lot more structure than 5E.
However, when playing Solasta I also thought the style and system they used would be brilliant with PF2. Much more than a game that was designed at its core as a RTWP like Kingmaker was.
The 3 action economy is great, although the trap to attack three times will remain lol. I'd like to see how they would handle being concealed and hiding and taking cover, could be really great in a game
Ohhh a longer video. Awesome
Regarding the Degrees of Success system. I don't think it would be as broken in a video game as it may seem at first. The way that bonuses stack makes it so you can only ever really get a plus +3 to your roll and min maxing to make one stat super high like in 1e is not really possible.
The thing that i enjoy the most about the games is how much you're able to multiclass and make these goofy builds that ended up being more effective than theyd appear. Also, perhaps I missed you saying this, but did they rework the way that feats are given out? It sounds like you need a lot more feats with this system, especially if you want to "multiclass", which sounds like you need to invest multiple feats to multiclass. I don't really have a problem with the other systems, but specifically the character creation and feat stuff sounds negative to me, despite the good points you brought up
tbf the vanilla way of doing it isn’t really used all that much in the PF2e community from what I’ve seen. Instead, the variant rule Free Archetype is treated as the defacto way of multiclassing
Basically, at lv2, and every even level thereafter, you take a free archetype feat on top of your class feat. So if you wanted to multiclass into Rogue, you would, at level 2, take the Rogue Archetype Dedication Feat. This locks you into having to take 2-3 more Rogue Archetype feats until you can take another Archetype Dedication Feat.
Using the Free Archetype variant rule, you’d be taking these archetype feats on top of your class feats, so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice any of ur core abilities.
This ruling doesn’t affect the balance of the game in any significant light, and has proven itself to be the more popular way of using archetype feats in the pf2e community, so if pf2e is used as the backbone for a game, it’d most likely be included as an optional feature you can use at character creation
If you want to learn more, all of the rules are hosted free on Archives of Nethys. Nethys is an official supported database of everything paizo, including PF1e ans Starfinder. And by official, I mean it’s recognized and supported by Paizo themselves. The website has literally everything that has come out of Paizo, ruling wise, like all 20 of the currently released classes.
It you’re curious to learn more about the system, I’d definitely take a look there
@@nohi3619 I was thinking after I wrote my comment that there must be sth to balance it out. That makes a lot of sense and on the surface sounds like a decent system. I'm sure you can tell, but almost all of my experience with PF comes from the games, with a little from TT years ago. Thanks for the explanation :)
I've been saying it for a year now that I'm using the rules in tabletop. PF2 is the perfect set for a videogame if you ask me
Paizo watching this going "write that down, write that down"
Sounds good second ed ftw🥳 Good show sir!
Long. Form. Content. Hell yeah :]
Great video :D
I'm a huge fan of tabletop rpgs. Played a bit of pathfinder 2e, fun game. I found some of the elements of the game to be a bit cumbersome for play at the table. A computer tracking all of the conditions would be great. I think it's a strict improvement of 1e though. I think forbidden lands would also be a really good game to look at for this sort of thing.
Great video
There is a lot to like, and if its really as good and balanced in character gen as you'd review, id be all in. I love the idea of mixing and matching a few mechanics from classes together and in most games just struggle to stick to what the core classes because i want to trade out things. Toybox has been very helpful for wotr (as has the greatradiance mod that i struggled with till learning c# cares if its a tab or 4 spaces...) but having a game that not only allows my mix n match but it can keep up with the other 'traditional' builds? Shut up and take my money!
it would be nice if owlcat converted their games to 2e.
I have to disagree on the point that 2E supposedly retains the core pillars of Pathfinder/3.5E. 3.5E - as its predecessor 3E - were still much more concerned about role-playing as a simulation of a world with systems. By that I mean they were more concerned with "fluff" like detailed tables that describe walls, doors, windows, masonry and give so many features of the world statistics to simulate a tangible game world. In my experience 2E (like 5E) is far more of a "super hero" style system that successfully focuses on making every moment "exciting" rather than the more grounded older editions.
The proficiency system is insanely OP. One house rule in the DM's guide that fixes the issue is removing the level bonus to proficiency.
THanks for the video Mortismal. I wanted to ask few things about Pathfinder 2E
1) do we still get flat-footed AC touch AC, regular AC, or is it just one type of AC?
2) How does flanking work? Do we need just more than 1 attacker, or does one of the attackers have to be at the opposite direction , as it is with 5e?
3) Do we get advantage disadvantage mechanics?
4) How does sneak attack work?
5) Is the conceilment system simplified as well, or is it the same?
6) if multiclassing is done by feats, does that mean that if we pick another class feat we don't gain any progression in our own class? That is to say, for example if my main class is a wizard and I start picking up fighter class feats, will that hamper my wizzard spell progression levels?
Overall the 3 point system sounds really cool and I think it will make the game much easier, because speaking in practical terms it is very difficult to have more than 3 martial characters in one party, since the game forces you to have utility casters in 1E. This leads to the event of being outnumbered in every fight, since most enemies are martial types as well. That 3point system sounds like martial classes get nerfed and spell casters get buffed, which means that enemies will get nerfed as well. (no longer getting flanked by 2 meriliths and eating 20 hits per round, for example...), while at the same time casters will be as strong if not stronger than martials late game, which I personally find a nice touch :)
I'd like to add that in Core PF1, flanking also requires attackers to be across from each other.
Having just more than one attacker is something they changed specifically for the video games.
@Novem's Natural Roll Thanks for the reply. I can't argue, since I never played 2E. If we get a game on it, I try it I will find out. It just sounds to me that martials will be nerfed, since currently you can reach about 10 attacks and with all the crazy synergies in WotR you can have a cavalier for example charging for 25k acumulative damage in 1 round and these are numbers, you simply can never beat with spells. If the system culls down the number of attacks to 5 ( I assume that sine we have haste and class passives, so we can probably get more than 3 attacks in 2E?), while spells remain the same pretty much, it only makes sense that casters will become stronger relative to martial classes.
@@zyfryth Martials in 2e are the best I've ever seen. Their accuracy and damage output is insane compared to casters. Less attacks than 1e, sure, but that's true of monsters and casters too, and spells aren't wildly broken like 1e and 5e
@@pizza725 I am actually happy to hear that, since martial classes have always been my favourite :) Again, unless I actually play 2E I can't say anything concrete. I just shared vague impressions, based on very general information that I have. There are so many questions to be answered + I need to look at the numbers and scale of numbers in 2E, to get a better idea. For example, do we still get all those different type of stacking bonuses like: enhancement / sacred / profane / insight / inherent / untyped etc. or do we get only one source of increase? Also, if my understanding is correct and we can keep our spell progression as a wizzard by getting fighter feats for example, then wouldn't that make an OP class? Since you can just pick all the buff spells and not care about DC or spell damage, while at the same time getting most of the fighter stuff as well? Again... without playing it, or at least see a video of the system in computer game, I can't have a strong opinion on it.
@@zyfryth Totally fair. I recommend checking out the channels Deadlyd8, How It's Played, and Team Player Gaming for more info, but I can answer real quick; in 2e there are only three types of bonuses you can get, typically. Circumstance, Status, and Item, and you can only have on of each on a given roll. And you keep your spell progression as a wizard, but you do only get the fighters feats, none of their features. You also still only have so many actions you can use in a turn, so buffing yourself and taking advantage of fighter abilities isn't always idea. And because you don't get their features, you still only have a wizards HP and AC, and you won't get a fighters accuracy, which is a big deal, because with the new crit system, fighters are expected to crit more than any other class.
I think Archquest uses pf2e. There is a demo out. I saw it on some yt channel, never played it myself.
Now I really wanna play wrath of the righteous in 2E. maybe there will be a mod overhaul someday.
PF2E so far (few sessions deep into a campaign) seem bit more of a system where you have problem hitting monsters when you don't make character with a good idea before-hand.
I genuinely want to try out a pnp game of 2E for the experience. Through from the distance there are a few little things here and there I don't likem race is probably the weirdest change and I'm not terribly fond of it. That said im nit against moving on to a new system if it works and isn't like DnD 4E. Honestly I'm surprised Wotr even used 1E as 2E has been out for a while. I guess at least Paizo didn't pressure Owlcat to use 2E as is base, but it's still kinda surprising.
WotR was well into development when 2E released, it would've been a bad move to use it at that point
@@MortismalGaming That kind makes sense.
I play PF2 and its awesome. Will be great in a video game
About crits you are kinda right, but big monsters can crit too and it reaaaaly hurt
Sounds like 5ed and 3,5ed mix. Dont know how I feel about it, 5ed is too simplistic and primitive, this might be more fun
I don't like the idea to have to use action to benefit from a shield.
I like to read TTRPGs books for fun, to discover new sistems and cool rules to import. I remember reading 2E core and just thinking It was very different, but also the core rulebook was, like "scattered". So many options, around the book, you had to frantically go back and forth multiple times to complete a character . Maybe If you play online and use 3rd party tools it's easy. But I prefer to play with actual pen and paper. I tried to create a test charachter, and after an hour of reading through feats and rules I realized I missed a bunch of things from my race and ancestry and I had to basically start from the beginning, because my ancestry changed some of my skills and so on.
Pathfinder 2e is my favorite system, but I agree - the editing of the system is atrocious! I saw someone comment that they felt like the rules resembled programming language, and when the Pathbuilder app launched, it was an instantaneous hit! LOL! There may be a reason for that...
My group has adapted & we love the game, but yeah, the book layout is not well done at all.
ngl I tend to the Archives of Nethys for pf2e and the books for Golarion Lore
And if you don’t know what Nethys is, it’s a database of all of the rules of everything Paizo, including PF1e, PF2e, and Starfinder
It’s official supported by Paizo, so it’s not piracy, and is freely available to anyone curious to visit it. Plus the layout of the site is pretty decent and is being given constant updates
If they would somehow implement this into the WoTR, I would actually try to get into it for like a fifth time and maybe actually succeed at something in the game
No
@@brc3967 Yes.
@@pizza725 no
@@brc3967 Yes. :)
@@pizza725 yeah, nope.
1e is too unapproachable to beginners, ever since the Critical Role era, who started with pathfinder but switched to 5e DnD because there was so much to track, 2e is way easier to play and introduce to new players, of course it doesn't have the decades of content 1e has but the new things 2e is putting out is great ngl.
Honestly with the release schedule they are following, we're not that far to feel a hefty bunch of content in front of you as a first timer.
But computer games are not tabketop games. Computer games can seamlessly keep track on a milion systems without the players even realizing that they are. This is a strenght that should not be understimated when decideng wich games use as a base for a CRPG.
I have been looking to get into the Pathfinder: WOTR video game. Do you recommend reading the 1E rule book first or just learning the rules from playing the game?
I have basic knowledge of how cRPGs work but have never played Pathfinder.
I'd just play the game, and pay attention to the tutorials, and I'd recommend normal or below for a first time until you learn the rules, there's a lot to know and you aren't going to know what questions to even ask until you run into them
@@MortismalGaming Thank you!
From the video it wasn't clear how PF2e could fix this, but just cut down on the dips into thematically unrelated classes. Like a hunter who also has a single level of vivisectionist. Or a sorceror who is also sneaky... but _also_ has a single level of vivisectionist.
It was like someone had offered every character free Skillshare classes on vivisection or something. It made no thematic sense. Basically, you could tell the players who had spent hours planning out their characters before starting from the players who just wanted to get playing. And nobody likes homework.
My cons for Pathfinder is; that it’s a more colorful, lighthearted and also bland experience.. it’s the more goody two-shoes approach, compared to DnD… The pro for me is variety. I love the DnD system, and WoTC has really bothered me lately and it has shown deterioration and I don’t see it getting better. It’s great to have just one true alternative, that still has some grit to it. I personally like a darker, mature, gritty experience, like Baldur’s Gate 2 is. Your companions are complex (despite an alignment system), that has been traumatized by some pretty dark stuff, and you experience how they cope and improve, I’m a sucker for that. If I can get the atmosphere of Bg2 as my standard rpg, I’d be content all the time.
There are seeds that rip out of a woman's stomach in Kingmaker. The game gets pretty dark.
@@JohahnDiechter It’s not deprived of dark subjects, luckily enough, I’m also speaking about Pathfinder as a whole… but the games in general also have a lighter and cartoony tone comparatively to a BG or Pillars. But they do have those darker moments as well, which breaks up the pace in a good way.
The games probably goes into the category of realistic-cartoony and WOTR is also more akin to what I prefer. It got a notch more grittier, darker and mature.. still feels cartoony, but it helps.. it’s tolerable! Even though they usually mix up the races quite a bit, and when you do that, all races tends just to be like humans anyway. Tolkien said, that coming up with fantasy races in how they act and how they think is incredible difficult, because you most likely wound up with a watered down human in a way, so you want to mitigate that, for as much as possible, and humanoids will have something similar always, but in general you want desperately between them, what makes them different from humans etc. and that’s a huge problem in world building in general.. DnD was actually really good at it.. however in the later years they’ve managed to undone it and make everyone human again… so..
casters not using dex, please! xD
Yeah, I really dig that. You know what else I like - the spell system in D&D 5E. I still enjoy 3.5 and PF 1/2; however, I think 5E made some great changes. I'm specifically talking about spell preparation.
And also there are skill feats…
So Casting is dependent on Dex and [Caster Magic stat]? Didn't know that.
Yeah in 1E ranged touch attack rolls are used for most projectile spells which uses dex, so Dex on most casters is pretty important
You also get benefits from archery feats like point blank shot and precise shot. Precise shot is a must have on casters. You won't take a -4 attack penalty when doing a ranged attack against a monster that's engaged in melee combat with another party member. Means no -4 penalty when using scorching ray on that goblin your fighter is currently fighting.
honestly pf1e was always the worst part about the pathfinder games for me and 2e seems to fix a lot of those issues, I really hope owlcat implements 2e in the future
Those mechanics are so hard to completely understand, I play without knowing 70 percent of things. Stil have a blast though
I'm a little curious. Is Kingmaker still a buggy mess on Xbox? I want to play it but don't want to waste time redownloading if it's still a mess.
I'd not play a crpg on xbox personally, however I'd 1000% not play kingmaker on xbox, while most bugs have been ironed out you still get some and the lack of mods and easy pc fixes will destroy your experience.
Tried playing it on Xbox Series X a few months ago. Didn't run into any major bugs that I can remember, but the slow loading times were what killed it for me so I went back to the PC version. Lack of mods is also a bummer for Xbox.
@@NickScott86 I can do without mods. All I need is to have the game better than it was when I bought on day 1.
Pathfinder game idea video that’s 30 mins long??? *cracks knuckles*. Let’s do this haha
I think the multiclassing issue is a bit overblown. A lot of the builds that multiclass into a bunch of classes aren't really viable until later levels. So you're either not going to have much fun for a long time or you'll have to use a different build to get to a high level and then respec.
As someone who's just coming from the perspective of a gamer, in other words from playing Kingmaker and WotR, there's 2 things I really don't like about base pathfinder, or really just one, buff stacking. Like, by endgame if you don't have 10-15 active buffs on every character you're doing it wrong. The rules for stacking are obnoxious too, like, do you have a source of armor AC and shield AC? How many sources of dodge and natural armor AC can you get?
5e completely solves the issue of buff stacking with concentration, it simplifies buffing, but at the same time it adds a strategic layer to combat by making you decide what you really want to concentrate on.
Don't get me wrong though, there are definitely things I like more about Pathfinder too. Like there are more archtypes. For example the gith type sword mage archtype isn't very well represented in 5e compared to pathfinder. In Pathfinder I can play a magus (Eldritch scion being my preference) and do a lot of cool things, but in 5e equivalents like the Eldritch knight just feel like slightly spicier versions of their base class. I also happen to like some of the complicated rules, like needing dex for your ranged touch attacks on your mage. Or like how certain types of attacks can bypass some armor, like ranged touch attacks bypass armor AC, or attacks against flat footed opponents bypass dodge AC.
I'm not sure from this video if 2e really fixes my main issue with Pathfinder which is the buff stacking, but I'd like to play some 2e games anyways just to see what they would be like.
PF2E is "Fine", it's a perfectly serviceable game, but it suffers from trying to simplify PF1E but remain more complex than 5E. The hope was probably that they would pull people from both games into this middle point, but I think it more likely that people who like complexity are happy with PF1E and the people who like streamlined play are happy with 5E, and this leaves PF2E as kind of an awkward hybrid.
I love PF1E because the mechanics allow you to create characters that are actually good at what their story tells. That includes things like being an athlete, a skilled artisan, and can create characters that are mechanically diverse despite having many points of similarity. I abhor 'dedicated stats' for this reason: Imagine two wizards: One is bookish, studious, a person who exists mostly in the realm of their mind. The other is much more physical, they enjoy field research, collects observational data, and perhaps enjoys sports and nights out on the town. The first may not have the dexterity to lay out precise attacks, and may instead rely on powerful spells to overwhelm the mind or body of their opponents, while the second shoots rays with deadly accuracy, forms and flings blades of elemental force; in short two wizards that may be the same race, same gender, same age... yet are completely different both narratively and mechanically. Dedicated stats just homogenize the game mechanically. If you're a Wizard, pump intelligence... end of story.
I do get it though. A lot of people who play PF1E just play it as an optimization game, and I've seen 'rules as written' vs 'rules as intended' arguments completely derail a session or even disband gaming groups permanently, so rules streamlining is something I can see the appeal of.
Even Owlcat games, as much as I love Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous (and I do love both), it never fails to amaze me the amount of work Owlcat put into breathing as many options and choices as they could into their games, only to invalidate the bulk of the options through their gameplay choices (especially in Wrath of the Righteous). Their choice to embrace min-maxing and optimization, even at fairly low difficulty settings, makes me think they may not be listening to enough people.
I like a lot of 2E *on paper.* The three action system is great, and I love the changes to magic weapons and armor. In pracitce... eh. In my experience, you never feel strong or heroic. You will never reach a point where your attacks have a *very good* chance of hitting, or your enemies have a *very good* chance of missing. It feels like you have to min-max in order to have a 50% chance of success at the thing you're supposed to be good at. AC is more about avoiding crits than avoiding hits, and when (not if) you get hit, enemies deal huge damage, which means a healing session after every single fight, which would be unacceptably tedious in a video game (I'm my party's healer). I'm not sure why spells have an entry for when the target rolls a critical failure, because that will never happen. It feels like they emphasized balance so much, they forgot about the fun.
The math is broken in 2e. I still play but I stoped to GM the game. I was tired to one shot players in the first round cause I crit them rolling a 7 on the dice. Sometimes the tank of the group.
And that was in a oficial adventure.
Are you exclusively fighting enemies two or three levels higher? Because that is the only reason for most of the issues you are giving. Healing after every fight is expected, though... because it's generally one or two dice rolls, that could easily be automated in a video game
The maths in 2e isn't broken. However some of the adventures ignore the maths. My understanding is that this is because the early adventures were written before the rules were set in stone.
The only problem I see with 2e, in a vídeo game scenario, is lack of baggage. 1e has close to ten years of stuff, don't remember the exact number now, but it's SO MUCH STUFF. It would be hard to not make it seem like a downgrade from WotR.
Unfortunately this is a problem with any "New Edition" and the why 1e was so popular on tabletop, as you could slap 3.0/3.5 material on It with little effort.
Paizo needs to stop letting the pathfinder games to be developed in Unity, it's not built for a game like that and WotR really suffers for it. Develop an engine, it will be so much smoother.
free comment.
Hopefully someone makes a game cause apparently owlcats has no interest in making a 2e game.
When did they say that?
My opinion on 2e is:
its fine.
I love the 3 action system and success levels with crit etc etc.
i like the skill approach and proficiency levels of trained, expert etc etc and skill feats are often cool additions.
I absolutely hate caster changes; from my experience no matter the level casters are inferior combat wise to physical builds and before level ~7 they're abolutely useless, especially if theres more than 1-2 combats per ingame rest. Wizard has always been my fav class, but here its so bad :(
I also hate the balance. player characters are very limited with hard caps on specific values; bonus to attack, ac etc etc. Monsters arent. you often find monsters at level where lets say maxed out ac for pc is 25, the monster has +19 attack and abilities to attack multiple times without penalties. simply not fun to be critted 2 times every turn as a full ac tank.
Saves on mosnters are also realy weird. theres cr -1 or 0 monster (mephis or sth) that has saves of 19! fucking nineteen!
my team's sorcerer has not hit a successful spell on non trash(one that does not appear in big groups, like hobgoblin or so) mob last 4 session. sure spells usually have some minor effects even on succesful save but thats a lot of strain on the rest of the team.
Also without optional rule of free archetype/dedication feat alongside class feat the character progression and variety of builds is so poor that 5e without supplements felt like a intricate character buildier
If you're worried about spells there's a million different options. You have wands, scrolls, staves, archetyping to another caster (not for free), using things like demoralise and bon mot to lower saves. If you're feeling tight on resources and ineffective there are ways around that. If you're expecting to end encounters with a single spell then sure you'll have less fun, but that's incredibly boring to me and there's still enough utility spells to actually use creative problem solving.
@@feral_orc i'd say pf 2e strongly supports ending fights with one spells at least at mid levels as nukes are the only spells that didnt get nerfed (they got buffed actually) while buffs and debuffs got nerfed.
@@Thalaranthey I'm not very experienced with 1e so I don't have a great comparison in power levels, so I was just trying to address some of the other things you mentioned. High level play in 2e is also beyond me right now, but I do enjoy theory crafting so that was kind of where I'm coming from
@@feral_orc well i might sound harrash, but i like 2e, i Play IT. I just think it could be so much better with character progroession, enemies balance and casters
if Creatures are hitting drastically above your AC/Saves, your GM is using way too strong of creatures for your level. If someone is a 'full ac tank', 25 AC suggests to me you are level 5 without an armor potency rune. Creatures with a +19 to hit are going to be creature 8, so of course they're going to hit hard, you're not supposed to fight creatures 3 levels above your party's level frequently.
Air Mephits (and only the air mephits) have +19 to Reflex, but uh, 16 AC, and +3 to fort saves. Casters should be capable of targetting more than 1 save, it's why they don't get potency runes, since they can target different defenses.
Monsters mostly follow the same limitations, and when they do break that mold, they often have a very exploitable weakness to make up for that fact.
The combat system was and still is my main problem with D&D and Pathfinder-based RPGs. Combat success is 95% based on having the most important buffs and debuffs up, which is a chore because many of them only last for a short time, and you can't cast them willy-nilly because of spell slots and the need for resting. Player HP is not a resource but something that ideally shouldn't even get touched. It's fiddly and complicated and doesn't translate well into video games. The most exciting thing for most players is finessing builds to make combat less boring and static.
@Novem's Natural Roll Yes, but also no. 2E has other annyoing mechanics. I think I'd love if they stopped trying to hamfist a system that is designed for tabletop session play into video games.
Mortismal, I really like your videos. Don't want to be rude, but do you think 2E's frosty reception has anything to do with all the wokeness talk? Curious, 'cause I think you didn't mentioned anything about that topic
what
No, at most they changed a couple names and if someone didn't like it they could just call it what they always have
Not a fan of the 2nd Edition rules. It seems to me that Paizo tried to make Pathfinder more like DnD 5E, which I don’t like at all, most of the time.
It is also funny that, Pathfinder which was embraced by people who did not like the supposed dumbing down of DnD 4E is now also dumbing down to appeal to the most common denominator. It is telling that most pen and paper groups and Owlcat stuck with Pathfinder 1E.
@Novem's Natural Roll I should probably have clarified that when I say “most pen and paper groups” I meant those groups that played 1E instead of 5E. Among those groups, most prefer 1E rather than 2E. Also, when I said “more like 5E” I didn’t mean that 2E has no depth, as is the case for 5E, just that 2E doesn’t have the amount of depth that 1E has. Streamlining is good and 2E does that. Dumbing down is bad and 2E does that too.
Finally, yes it is telling that people resist some changes 2E made because, the same people didn’t resist the change from ADnD 2E to 3E/3.5 and finally Pathfinder 1E.
Except that 2e dumbs down nothing, and plenty of 1e players continue to transition to- or at least also play- 2e.
wait! it's a 30-minunte+ video. Well, i'm just gonna say as a long-time ttrpg player, no system is truly great. Developers catering to a specific RPG system simply because they want to capture its audiences nowadays. Pathfinder game series and BG3 as recent examples have shown that in pursuit of a popular system, they are willing to sacrifice its meaningful progressing, pacing. I play these for the story and the experience but when its RPG system brings only monotony, mediocrity to the equation, it will never be the same.
2e is decidedly more boring and it turned off a lot of the older players that moved from 5e to pathfinder in the first place. Combat is the worse off as it felt like step 1, step 2, step 3 rinse and repeat until you end combat in the majority of scenarios. The lack of character customization also killed off a lot of the RP flavor
Saying that 2e lacks character customization just shows bias towards the bloat of 1e, no shit if something has been out for a long time there is "more stuff" but 2e has an entire focus on support mechanical concepts while leaving the RP parts to you, if you cant make an RP character work with all the support it has just because you cant make some crazy character who uses broken rules to do 8 million damage per round, then that is on you, not the system.
PF1 has millions of choices for your characters. But 95% of them are garbage.
@Novem's Natural Roll
Power attack
Weapon Focus
Dodge
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Manyshot
Etc.
And heaven's forbid you take a Roleplay or skill based feat in a slit that could have used a combat one.
the lack of true multiclassing, the amount of ability points gained/allocated, weapon rune system, feat scaling, and skill balance are more of the issue than the fluff. By mid to high level almost everyone has a character with no real handicap, a single mid level rouge or investigator in a party can effectively replace several characters with the skill and ability progression as it is, the scaling of cantrips removes a large element of urgency and planning from casters, with the ability leveling characters feel less unique all throughout until you reach higher levels
I mean that's just blatantly wrong. 2e combat gives dozens of unique ways to handle it. The "rinse and repeat" problem is much more something 5e and 1e have in common, since there's a few options and one is always objectively the best
2E is repetitive and boring. Same 3 actions. They took the micromanagement and small tweaks out and made it so linier; that you can't really create you own hero.
No? They didn't take any creativity out of builds, and you can viably handle combat with never making the same actions two rounds in a row. Did you even look at the CRB, or did you just see that it's not a complete clone of 1e and work off of that information?
@@pizza725 I did. Seems as though they took the small details out and made them, general abilities just with a different name. I will admit there are some feats they fixed/improved but its too specific for my taste. I like options that don't make me feel as "these are the feats, you must take to be viable". I could throw greatswords many of them in 1e.
The reworking of the classes fit the abilities and feats well, only because you don't have a choice to go another way or your just bad.
The spell casting is an improvement though.
I think I don't like the game is because, barbarians ain't fun in it. Titan mauler for life. And I don't like the action economy. Even though its slightly better by a small margin. I wanna attack and roll lots of dice.
2e ain't as fun.
@@cuspofexposure8242 Genuinely none of your complaints make sense. There are no examples of feats you have to take to be good in 2e, every option is equally viable in almost every case. And you still get to roll a shit ton of dice when attacking, more than 1e, frankly, with striking runes and feats giving you additional damage dice. Barbarians not being fun is subjective, I guess, but since you didn't give any reasoning, only mentioning Titan Mauler, which the Giant Instinct does most of the same stuff as, I'm not sure where to go with that.
@@pizza725 and multiclassing is punished to much.
@@cuspofexposure8242 In what way? There are plenty of great ways to multiclass. It's frankly better than 5es system because you don't lose any progression in your main class
I personally dislike 2E so really hoping this doesn't become a thing but I guess we'll see.
What about pf2e do you not like?
@@nohi3619 Lore, and the pruning of the feats, which is necessary to bring in new blood, but less fun for a player like me who loves dedicating time to combine feats to get lots of random things working like whips and other such things.