Pathfinder 2e vs. D&D 5e

[Ismaul]

But the thing here is that when you try to climb with DC 15 and roll a 14, it doesn't necessarily mean you fall. Let me quote you the rules:

If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success--the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it's a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

I thought you were going to highlight the other part of the quote: makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

If the roll fails, either there should be an interesting consequence, or there shouldn't have been a roll. You don't roll if there aren't multiple possible outcomes. A failed roll can be a pure consequence that still moves the story forward (an obstacle or setback that creates new challenges, or a fork in the story because a door has closed but other paths are open, or just a miss/HP taken in combat), or a success / partial success with a consequence/setback if failure doesn't make sense.

Lagi your GM definitely sucks. Especially for determining outcomes beforehand. I'd never come back to his table unless he was willing to learn and change.

 

[DavidBVal]

But the thing here is that when you try to climb with DC 15 and roll a 14, it doesn't necessarily mean you fall. Let me quote you the rules:

If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success--the creature overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it's a failure, which means the character or monster makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

I thought you were going to highlight the other part of the quote: makes progress combined with a setback determined by the GM.

Yeah, both possibilities work. One thing I tend to do is, design challenges that eventually will make a future encounter harder or easier to the players. If they manage to sneak during a dungeon assault, or if they are smart enough to disable certain traps, or if they obtain information or kill enemies, probably certain future battle will be easier. This works especially well if your battles are often deadly, players are very focused on trying to get every possible advantage.

 

[Simple Simon]

I've played a lot of 1st edition and have both played and GM'ed 2nd edition from levels 1-4. In many ways the game feels the same but mixed with Starfinder in the sense that many abilities have cooldowns. Having to rest to get focus spells back, no more wand spamming, limiting healing ability. The move action economy is what everyone talks about but it hasn't changed that much from a gameplay perspective except nobody does knowledge checks on enemies anymore. Biggest change I've seen is the balance of the classes: by far the most optimal class combination for any adventure is fighter-cleric-wizard-rogue, basically in that order. All of the other classes are weaker versions of those 4.

 

[deuxhero]

As early as the playtest it was clear Starfinder (and the non-class parts of PF Unchained) were all just prototypes for PF2E.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Pathfinder 2e vs D&D 5e?
The winner is obviously D&D 3.5e

 

[Elex]

Pathfinder 2e vs D&D 5e?
The winner is obviously D&D 3.5e

you mean pathfinder 1e?

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Pathfinder 2e vs D&D 5e?
The winner is obviously D&D 3.5e

you mean pathfinder 1e?

Only if you like fluff where no man has a strength score more than 14 and other assorted sjw cancer.

 

[catfood]

Pathfinder 2e vs D&D 5e?
The winner is obviously D&D 3.5e

you mean pathfinder 1e?

Only if you like fluff where no man has a strength score more than 14 and other assorted sjw cancer.

No such thing in the 1e CRB.

 

[deuxhero]

Indeed, even though he's built in the most utterly incompetent way possible, the iconic fighter still has a strength score of 16.

 

[Bohrain]

I was reading through PF 2e edition rules and liked the action economy stuff on paper. Multiattacking doesn't seem automatically the obvious thing to do in every scenario and making the enemy waste action to movement to prevent 3 action specials and such seem like a big upgrade compared to 5th edition. But did I understand this correctly that both weapon and armor proficiency scale linearly through level, giving +1 to attack rolls and AC respectively? Why on earth is that kind of number bloat in there?

 

[FalloutBR]

I was reading through PF 2e edition rules and liked the action economy stuff on paper. Multiattacking doesn't seem automatically the obvious thing to do in every scenario and making the enemy waste action to movement to prevent 3 action specials and such seem like a big upgrade compared to 5th edition. But did I understand this correctly that both weapon and armor proficiency scale linearly through level, giving +1 to attack rolls and AC respectively? Why on earth is that kind of number bloat in there?

I think they made that change in the 2e edition because in 1e if you wanted to keep being effective in higher levels you had to keep taking the same boring feats all the time to keep your AC and attack bonus on the same level as the scaled enemies. Having those stats "bloat" automatically as you level leaves you free to spend your feats on more interesting abilities to actually customize your fighting style or pick some roleplaying feats.

 

[Caim]

At first I wondered why on Earth would Paizo make the Leshy a core race. I mean Ancestry.

But then I realized they did that for the sole reason of picking the Fruit Leshy heritage, style yourself after a hazel tree or the like and on a daily basis invite your fellow party members to eat your nuts.

Bravo Paizo.

 

[Caim]

So I've been going over Player Core 2.

I'm a bit torn. Splitting the player book in two just so you can make more money include new stuff is a bit of a dick move. Sure, Core 1 is already over 450 pages, and slapping 1 and 2 together would result in a 780-ish page book, which is over 100 pages more than the chunky Pathfinder 1e core book and 150 more than the Pathfinder 2e core book (which both pulled double duty as the GM book). It's pretty much if they took the core book and stapled on the Advanced Player's Guide, then jumbled things around a bit to make more money.

The classes are the four missing ones from the D&D 5e roundup (Barbarian, Monk, Paladin and Sorcerer), the base 2E core Alchemist, and three taken from the APG: Investigator, Oracle and Swashbuckler. While these were also in Pathfinder 1e, I'm not a big fan of them. Oracle is a Divine sorcerer but with spooky side effects based on the source of their power, Swashbuckler is just a combo-heavy Bard who finishes you off with his sword instead of a your mom joke, and Investigator feels more like a highly specialized Rogue who gets extra mileage out of combat. And the Alchemist... eh, someone's gonna keep the legacy of the IRA alive. Core 2 is also where you find the Archetypes, a list of alternate options for all classes to give them a little bit of flavor. These range from getting animal companions or familiars for non-casters, the ability to become a healer or a leader and help your team that way, but also the stripped versions of the Arcane Archer (the 3e prestige class), but also Pathfinder 1e classes like the Cavalier (secular Paladin with a horse) and the Vigilante (fantasy Batman, who should have been a Rogue subclass from the start).

I'm not really sold on the new races ancestries either. The list is catfolk, hobgoblin, kholo (rebranded gnolls), kobolds, lizardfolk, ratfolk (the Ysoki from Starfinder), Tengu and Tripkee (rebranded gripplis). Most of these are incredibly niche, and I'm not fan of the kobold redesign. New versatile heritags are the Dhampir, Duskwalker (planar linked to the True Neutral psychopomps) and the Dragonblood, the first time you can play a dragon-like PC. The first seem like they would be better at home in some kind of horror supplement rather than a core book, but the dragon's nice. Remember, these can go onto any of the core ones, so you can have a dragonblood gnome that looks like a kobold. The last third of the book is new feats, some new magic items and other stuff, everything the Alchemist can make, a whole slew of new spells and that's it.

I fully understand why the split was done, and the place it happened also made sense for having to do a split. But this also means that to get the whole experience you need to have two books, making it twice as expensive. And if you want to lure new players over telling them that the Barbarian or the Sorcerer they want to play is not in the main book they bought is a mood killer if anything.

But with all the core stuff out now it remains to be seen what comes next. We're getting a new sourcebook next month which is going to be a revamp of the Mythic Adventures book from 1e, whcih will also have two new classes (a divine caster who can get extra spells by attuning to certain spirits, and a class that can attune to shards of divinity for a variety of bonuses). They're also revising Guns & Gears with a release in February. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a Monster Core 2 somewhere down the line, but we'll see.