Quote from: Campbell

QuoteI'm curious as to what problems 5E have that PF2 doesn't (besides nothing to spend your gold on....)

In general I do not like to think about game designs in terms of fixing problems. I prefer to think of different games in terms of cultivating different sorts of play experiences. There are some features of 5th Edition that make it difficult for me to manage as a GM at the table and not as exciting as some other games when I am a player. These are my own issues. I do not really want to make a big deal about. I still really enjoy playing it, but not so much running it.

Here are some areas where I anticipate the Pathfinder 2 improving handling time for me.

The text is remarkably clear and concise. It uses templates, traits, and precise language to make it easy to parse and reference rules at the table. This is probably my biggest issue with 5th Edition at the table.

The action economy is a lot more fluid, intuitive, and has much fewer exceptions. It lacks things like split moves, abilities that use movement as a resource, abilities that use up one of your attacks, and the like. Because things just cost a certain number of actions there is no juggling action vs bonus action vs movement. You do a thing and costs 1, 2, or 3 actions. Done.

Almost everything that has a limited use is either a spell that uses spell slots or a focus spell that uses focus points. The way these things work is consistent across character classes. There are no class features on their own resource individual resource schedules like Channel Divinity, Bardic Inspiration, Lay On Hands, Action Surge and the like.

Rules that have a similar effect almost always use the exact same mechanic. Proficiency works the same way for weapons, armor, skills, saves, Perception, Class DC, Spell DC, and spell attack. Every score can be used as a check or a DC. Any effect that counters a spell or ability works in exactly the same way. You learn a rule once and can apply it all over the place.

Interactions between abilities are clear thanks to traits. You do not have to guess if Mind Blank will impact casting a certain spell or if a creature's immunity or resistance applies to a given attack.

Where the game expects you to apply GM judgement it flat out tells you and gives you tools to help determine things like DCs. There is strong advice and examples on how to handle things like Knowledge checks.

Here are the things that have me excited about the game as a GM

Nothing is a sure thing. Blanket player side immunities are gone. Spells have been written so that there is less certainty over the outcome. Spells like Remove Disease now give you a chance to counter the Disease. Mind Blank, Nondetection, and True Seeing now give you a chance to overcome spells and other abilities. Thanks to degrees of success and failure there is now a broader range of outcomes for most spells. They have reinvigorated the drama of playing a spell caster.

The game has a strong focus on exploration. Things like licking your wounds after battle, repairing shields, recovering focus spells, choosing to search or sneak about, and the like are clearly defined parts of the game with implications on encounters. As someone who is very found of B/X this makes me inordinately happy.

Everything is very grounded in the fiction. Abilities describe how your character is doing the thing that they are doing. Anything that is supernatural is called out as such. Martial characters have no limited use abilities. The action economy is their only playground. Focus spells are explicitly supernatural.

Many character classes have features that ground them in the larger setting. If you are a champion you have a specific set of oaths and a connection to a patron deity that impacts your behavior with a specific set of edicts and anathema. Sorcerers blood magic connects them to the setting and there is a sidebar reminding players that their bloodline will impact the way people see them. Powerful rituals require secondary casters that require players to interact with the setting to achieve. Some even require that the secondary casters are followers of the same faith.

Items and spells have an indicated rarity with anything that is Uncommon or Rare assumed to be something that must be acquired through play. It also indicates that we cannot really assume every wizard has access to spells like Mind Blank and Teleport.

The monsters look like a lot of fun. They pretty much all have unique abilities and many have weaknesses, resistances, and immunities. In many ways monsters have become like puzzles to solve. Some like the hydra even require you to kill them in a specific way.

Some advantages of Pathfinder 2e

Quote from: Shasarak;1101712The guy did not like the playtest.  Why? Because it's too Communistic.

So tell me how easy it is to please someone like that?

The joke there was that everyone gets tons of feats but none of them are good or interesting.

Boomer/conservative internet humor can be hard to parse because plenty of people legitimately believe stuff like that.

Well I can say now they are not helping themselves with some of there encounter design.

 In the first issue of there new Ap they have an encounter where two birds are being used as guard sentries only problem is there in a pitchblack room and have no darkvision this is as not a mistake as the creative director has said "consider this from the original intent that was to give characters with darkvision a chance to enjoy their advantage." and "In cases where no PC needs light, or a PC with darkvision sneaks ahead... this encounter gives that party or that PC a fun reward for a character choice and lets them use something to their advantage. That's a nice change of pace now and then for players to encounter, and makes them feel like the world isn't always perfectly poised to defeat them. Sometimes the bad guys make mistakes too.".

What makes this encounter entirly nonsensical is that from a world building perspective they wouldent be posting sentries against potential pc's (Since there not there when they arrived) but rather against the only large group that would be a threat which is the tribe of Goblins (and I suppose a couple of Kobolds) who all have darkvision. Now I dont mind bad guys making mistakes but theres making mistakes and being a pants on head moron that makes a saturday morning cartoon villain look like a tactical genius.

Quote from: Kevin197;1101770this is as not a mistake as the creative director has said

You should take such statements with a very large grain of salt.

Quote from: Shasarak;1101616Ok, lets talk a little about feat design.

Lets!

Quote from: Shasarak;1101616Some of the things that I have heard the Paizo designers talk about was trying to remove feat chains from the game, so that you did not need to pick up a crappy feat to get to the good stuff.  They also did not want you to have to sit down and plan out your character for its whole 20 level span so that you dont pick the "wrong" feats as you are leveling up.  And a third thing was trying to make sure that any one feat was so much better then anything else that it turned into a must have, which essentially destroys your choice if there is only one real choice.

These are all generally respectable goals.  In the game my friends and I play now we did exactly that.  And apparently better than Paizo...  I'll go into more detail in a moment...

Quote from: Shasarak;1101616And to be fair I think that they have hit their targets pretty well.  There are some feats that have lower level feats as requirements but they seem to be for the character that has their "thing" and want to get better at that thing.  Like, for example 2nd level Brutish Shove allows you to make an attack and push someone, 4th level Powerful shove lets you Brutish shove someone two sizes larger then you and 12th level Flinging Shove lets you push them further and even push them on a failure.

This is actually really poor design.  Let's start with the first question - are you automatically SUCCESSFUL if you have Powerful Shove against someone that's two sizes larger than you?  Assuming you're not, there's a really good chance that the 'higher level feat' actually provides less benefit than the original feat.  With the original feat you can shove some people you fight.  Even though you 'technically' can affect more targets, if you're UNLIKELY to succeed, you're not actually getting any more utility.  It's a classic trap option.  

This is the same thing with 3.x two-weapon fighting chains.  A feat a 1st level gave you another attack (100% MORE ATTACKS), likely doubling your damage output (or pretty close).  The next feat in the chain gives you another attack to the 3 you already have (only 25% more attacks) and it is already at -5 compared to your primary; definitely not DOUBLING your damage.  And when you get ANOTHER attack at -10 to go with the five attacks you have already, well, that's actually REALLY sad.  You're just looking for a chance to roll a nat 20 most of the time.  

It probably wouldn't kill Paizo to roll Powerful Shove and Flinging Shove into the same Feat.  You spend one feat, you get a bonus to the action that scales with level, so by the time you are higher level it SOMETIMES works on more powerful people, and if they fail their resist check by 5 or 10 points they go flying further.  Now maybe feats aren't precious things, but I think picking one Feat at 3rd level and finding out that it's still contributing at 15th level is better design than trying to decide if you're going to marginally upgrade an existing ability or add something new and exciting.

Quote from: Shasarak;1101616So they dont gatekeep pushing behind a feat chain instead allowing you to get better at your thing that you like your character to do.

Wouldn't you agree that GENERALLY, just making the first feat choice continue to provide those benefits is easier to grok and leaves you more options for other COOL NEW FEATS that you just KNOW are coming?

Quote from: Shasarak;1101616So some people could call Powerful shove a crappy feat and on the other hand when you realise that your Fighter can start to push Huge Ancient Dragons around the battlefield, it does not seem so crappy.

Actually, I'm not sure I see the general benefit.  Does the dragon provoke from the Fighter?  I'm pretty sure nobody else gets an AoO (at least not generally).  And with the dragon's reach and (at least) 3 actions, there's really nothing stopping it from using a breath weapon, closing the distance and biting again.  What did the dragon LOSE by being moved?  I'm not saying it isn't a good thing, but it isn't a good thing because 'moving dragons is COOL' - it has to have some UTILITY to be worthwhile.  So what is it?  What makes shoving dragons worthwhile?

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1102159Wouldn't you agree that GENERALLY, just making the first feat choice continue to provide those benefits is easier to grok and leaves you more options for other COOL NEW FEATS that you just KNOW are coming?

That's the point that I arrived at independently in my own "feat" design. Originally each style had a basic, expert and master level that was effectively a feat chain.

This spring I canned that whole pile and merged them together at roughly a two-to-one ratio (sometimes crossing the streams a bit for the odd one out of group, other times just beefing up a lone option) and making each one independently selectable. There were still about three "feats" that worked best with each weapon group or spell school and a host of general ones, but they all did different things (ex. of the three "feats" that worked best with spears; one improved its use when setting against a charge, one improved its ability when making a charge, and the third improved using the butt-end as an additional attack... the one for charging could also be combined to good effect with the one that improved mounted combat if you wanted a knight instead of a pikeman).

All my playtesters agreed it was a VAST improvement over the previous feat chains.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102193That's the point that I arrived at independently in my own "feat" design. Originally each style had a basic, expert and master level that was effectively a feat chain.

This spring I canned that whole pile and merged them together at roughly a two-to-one ratio (sometimes crossing the streams a bit for the odd one out of group, other times just beefing up a lone option) and making each one independently selectable. There were still about three "feats" that worked best with each weapon group or spell school and a host of general ones, but they all did different things (ex. of the three "feats" that worked best with spears; one improved its use when setting against a charge, one improved its ability when making a charge, and the third improved using the butt-end as an additional attack... the one for charging could also be combined to good effect with the one that improved mounted combat if you wanted a knight instead of a pikeman).

All my playtesters agreed it was a VAST improvement over the previous feat chains.

You do see this aspect with the Skill system:  Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary.

You dont just get a numerical bonus with each upgrade, they also "unlock" different things that you can do with your skills.  You can also have things like Traps that only a "Master" can disarm.

Quote from: Shasarak;1102203You do see this aspect with the Skill system:  Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, Legendary.

You dont just get a numerical bonus with each upgrade, they also "unlock" different things that you can do with your skills.  You can also have things like Traps that only a "Master" can disarm.

No, you see that PF2e retained the OPPOSITE.

To be clear by way of mild profanity... I shit-canned "Basic, Expert, Master" level crap because no one liked it.

I replaced it with "here are two packages of scaling abilities you can take independently of each other that do everything those three "feats" did and a little more." THAT was met with blanket praise from my testers.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1101700it should be really easy please someone willing to buy a play test.

Wait, it should be really easy to please people accustomed to a long-standing system with a half-built work in progress that hasn't been playtested?

Are you drunk?

Quote from: Haffrung;1102279Wait, it should be really easy to please people accustomed to a long-standing system with a half-built work in progress that hasn't been playtested?

Are you drunk?

That they bought knowing it was a playtest? Should be really easy to please that crowd.

Hell I've been happy with the "playtest" version of games that I kick-started.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1102159I'm not saying it isn't a good thing, but it isn't a good thing because 'moving dragons is COOL' - it has to have some UTILITY to be worthwhile.  So what is it?  What makes shoving dragons worthwhile?

I'm inclined to agree with some of your points here. There probably didn't need to be a 3 feat tree for this. I also don't think they succeeded in the "don't pick the wrong feats" area. There are a number of "trap" paths a character can go down that seem like legit options if you don't look under the hood, just like Starfinder. But thats a topic for another day.

So, Shove in itself is an action that everyone can do bare handed with Athletics. If you have the right weapon you can also shove while wielding that, using your weapon bonus. When you shove somebody, you can choose to make a free move to follow them, or hold your ground. It is useful to get an enemy out of/into flanking position, out of cover, etc.

Now with Brutish Shove you are adding the Shove to a regular hit, so you can have this extra effect while still doing normal damage. It is a press action so it can only be used while you have a multiple attack penalty, and most importantly causes the enemy to become flat footed even if it misses, reducing their armor class by 2. So the feat gives you some action economy and a powerful debuff. Looks pretty good to me.

Now lets put it all together. Thorgrim (who is beside himself with grief) takes all of these feats and wields a 2H Warhammer. He has access to the critical specialization effects for hammers and knocks enemies prone on a critical hit. A dragon is circling overhead, and his adventuring party including himself and a wizard/rogue/cleric are spread out in a diamond formation so they hopefully do not all get cooked by the fire breath. The dragon lands and tries to splatter the cleric, then later use his fire breath once the PCs have bunched closer for melee.

Thorgrim uses Sudden Charge to move twice, get into flanking position with the cleric, and hopefully hit the dragon with his attack. He then uses Brutish Shove to try and knock the dragon away from the party. He rolls well and gets a critical hit and knocks the dragon to the side 4 spaces and knocking it prone! He chooses to follow it, and then hits it again with an AoO when it tries to get up (knocking him prone again if its a crit). If it was an enemy without a ranged attack, he might stand his ground instead, and the enemy would be forced to take an action to stand up and then another action to move, leaving one action to attack, raise their shield, etc.

By the time dragons start showing up the Paladin and Barbarian will also have AoO, so using Trip, hammer criticals etc and then pounding the enemy with AoOs as they try to rise can be a key strategy if your group can capitalize on it.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102232No, you see that PF2e retained the OPPOSITE.

To be clear by way of mild profanity... I shit-canned "Basic, Expert, Master" level crap because no one liked it.

I replaced it with "here are two packages of scaling abilities you can take independently of each other that do everything those three "feats" did and a little more." THAT was met with blanket praise from my testers.

I playtested it just to playtest it, no house rules of any kind. We only played the one meatgrinder adventure from the playtest book (twice) otherwise I just reskinned monsters from the bestiary into other adventures within the playtest encounter budget. And I provided a lot of feedback because I liked the game and wanted it to be better.

I quite liked the TEML + crit system. If I was going to fix anything it would be the cloth casters, who don't really have a role in this game. I think using their best spells they should probably be able to kill an even level enemy with 2 of them or one critical hit. The other casters have many of these same spells but also have armor, weapons and heals so buffing the spells themselves might not be the answer. My players might choose this for the next campaign and might not, so I;m not too motivated to find "my" fix for it yet.

Quote from: Conanist;1102298I'm inclined to agree with some of your points here. There probably didn't need to be a 3 feat tree for this. I also don't think they succeeded in the "don't pick the wrong feats" area. There are a number of "trap" paths a character can go down that seem like legit options if you don't look under the hood, just like Starfinder. But thats a topic for another day.

I do like how they made retraining a core part of the game, so if you do have a "trap" option then you can just take some downtime and retrain out of it.

What is Logan trying to tell us?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3807[/ATTACH]

Too soon?

Quote from: Conanist;1102298Now lets put it all together. Thorgrim (who is beside himself with grief) takes all of these feats and wields a 2H Warhammer. He has access to the critical specialization effects for hammers and knocks enemies prone on a critical hit. A dragon is circling overhead, and his adventuring party including himself and a wizard/rogue/cleric are spread out in a diamond formation so they hopefully do not all get cooked by the fire breath. The dragon lands and tries to splatter the cleric, then later use his fire breath once the PCs have bunched closer for melee.

Thorgrim uses Sudden Charge to move twice, get into flanking position with the cleric, and hopefully hit the dragon with his attack.

I wouldn't expect the dragon to land in the middle of the group.  If they're in a diamond formation, he should land in a position with the cleric directly in front of him and the rest of the party further away (but still in front of him).  Can you flank with someone standing next to you?  

Serious question.  In my homebrew, each ally gives you a bonus to hit, regardless of relative position.  

Quote from: Conanist;1102298He then uses Brutish Shove to try and knock the dragon away from the party.

How do you activate it?  Is it automatic on every attack (with MAP)?  Does it require more than a single action?

Quote from: Conanist;1102298He rolls well and gets a critical hit and knocks the dragon to the side 4 spaces and knocking it prone!

When you say critical hit, you mean he rolled 10+ more than he needed to hit?  What does he need to roll to hit?  What does he need to get a critical?  If he hits on a 15+, does he get a critical on a 20?  Or would it require a 25 (impossible on a d20)?  

Is this ability entirely dependent on the AC of the creature?  Ie, a 2 ounce Pixie with an AC of 35 is exactly as difficult to move as a 50 ton dragon with AC 35?  There are no resist checks?