All My Problems With D&D 5e Fixed? Pathfinder 2e First Impressions

[@miasmacaron]

There was always this weird wall between me, a Pathfinder player, and d&d players that I didn’t really understand for such a long time. Then it clicked, it was homebrew. When I would ask them about their characters and they sounded neat I would go “oh, you can do that in 5E? Cool!” And they would respond “it’s homebrew.” They would then ask me about what homebrew resources there are for Pathfinder and I would say I didn’t know, I’ve never used them. In their view I was playing a rigid game with no community, and in mine they were playing a game they had to design themselves.

[@Nonat1s]

Something I've loved about Pathfinder 2e is that everyone has a different aspect that eventually "Clicks" with them. Like you said, the "Wealth By Level" table is what clicked for you. Tons of people click with the action economy, or the rarity system, etc. Everyone I meet has a different reason for what finally sold them on the system, and I think that's the sign of an incredible system.

[@IcarusGames]

Totally agree! I know loads of folks who really dig the three action economy, and I've always liked the notion of it, but it was definitely the wealth table that tipped me off the already interested edge.

[@henriquessmil]

hey look what I found here, some strange Pathfinder content creator with beautiful smile. Love you Nonats S2

[@JazzyBassy]

For me it was the exploration activities and subsystems section

[@davidwilliams4837]

Awesome. Intuitive math & scalability for homebrew & encounter ease. To be truthful, the 3 action economy IS all that...

[@reactionarydm]

@@JazzyBassy Absolutely, the same! I've always been in/run campaigns where research is an activity people do- and to actually have rules for it? Beautiful!! Ditto for social stat blocks, exploration, businesses (everyone wants to run businesses in my groups and DM's just have to wing it!) So good, so well thought out.

[@TheDevicer]

As an ex -5 GM who has now ran two long-term campaigns of PF2e for more than a year now, the thing I love the most about PF2e is how GM-friendly it is. The system and game mastery guide provide astonishingly good tools, support, and even system agnostic advice. Encounter building and monster design just works. At all levels. I get advice on giving out loot in appropriate levels and amounts. All monsters do something unique and cool out of the box. I need to do very little homebrewing at all when running this game. All this support makes it so I spend less time on prep for PF2e than for 5e by a long shot. Everything just works.

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

That's it for me as well! PF2 really shines on the GM side

[@varenoftatooine2393]

And I'd say it's as good on the player side too, with myriad options for character creation, to a kinda ridiculous degree. At the same time, I don't think it's a difficult system to learn, if you're willing to read and not be so intimidated by options that you can't even pick yet.

[@davidwilliams4837]

Yup! I now LOVE homebrewing which I seldom dared in DND. And the 2 sessions went AMAZING.

[@Shrilack]

Do not forget that Paizo also makes god tier level campaign modules with monthly releases and the whole pathfinder society community.

[@armorclasshero2103]

The reason wotc doesn't publish their 'internal encounter math' is because it doesn't exist. They just eyeball it.

[@dswanick]

DM: "WotC- give my your internal CR mathematics" WotC: "Roll a d20 and add the number of letters in your first name"

[@HeatherVerhagen]

Eeek, I actually don't doubt this.

[@craigjones7343]

I came here to say this exact thing. Take that like and run. 👍

[@mushroomcloud9924]

What I really like about Pathfinder 2e is that when I have a character concept it is so much easier to create. I find PCs in 5e too narrow in their builds.

[@IcarusGames]

Yep. I bent over backwards to let a recent barbarian act like a wrestler in 5e. Open up the grand bazar and there's the PF2 wrestler archetype just sitting there...

[@mushroomcloud9924]

@@IcarusGames I had an idea of a character that was sensitive to the spirit world and would help spirits find their way to the afterlife. There was at least a half dozen ways to approach this design in Pathfinder 2E. I ended up going with a kitsune sorcerer with the Duskwalker heritage and Seer of the Dead background. As I was digging through the options I could start to think about my characters flaws, strengths, and motivation. I even considered the summoner with an ancestor as the eidolon or an investigator that did a lot of research on the dead. Of course, then the Book of the Dead dropped and the options just multiplied in a great way.

[@mcullennz]

The wrestler sounds like a Pugilist subclass and spirit sounds like a Shaman class. (I am biased as I've only played 5e)

[@LastFootnote]

@@mcullennz Did you just cite two examples of homebrew? I'm not a 5e expert but I can't find official rules for either of those things.

[@RSanfins]

@@LastFootnote Yep, both homebrew.

[@sarhodes87]

Another thing you sort of touched on but could expand on is that all of the rules of PF2E are totally free and can therefore be used by apps like pathbuilder 2e. So, whereas if you wanted to make a character using D&D online you might have to spend $100s on rulebooks, Pathbuilder 2E can make any character, with feats/items/options from any of the books completely for free. So, you can totally make a set of characters and run the game without having to buy or illegally download anything. - But, the artwork inside - especially the bestiarys is absolutely gorgeous.

[@steventatum9327]

I'm so grad its offered in both I have a hard time learning by jumping back and forth to different web pages but The book works for me so I will gladly give them my money for printed items.

[@yuh6050]

I think you have to look at another thing, look at any monster in PF2E. You’ll notice they all have unique and flavorful abilities based on the monster. Something MCDM is writing an entire book for so the monsters are “action oriented” and all I could do was laugh cause it’s literally how Pathfinder 2e is already played.

[@Null507]

One of my favorite things is that while monsters have weaknesses they also have things that just drive them crazy. Like a Div hates Beauty and will take damage if it is physically prevented from attacking the character with the highest CHA

[@IcarusGames]

Yeah, one look at something like the owlbear and it's easy to see why PF2 monsters are so cool.

[@yuh6050]

@@kateslate3228 yep! It took a lot of aspects from 4e for the better.

[@ArioTBP]

@@kateslate3228 Yeah. There are 4e people in PF2e design team. They knew what worked and what didn't

[@a_pet_rock]

@@ArioTBP thankfully they also left behind all the 4e stuff that didn't work

[@jltheking3]

Welcome to the club! I’ve also recently joined last month, and also because of how amazing the GM support for PF2 is! I was incredibly burnt out GMing 5e, with the never-ending number of homebrew “fixes” and third-party content I had to pull in just to have our campaign work. It is absolutely AMAZING how easy it is to run PF2 as a GM. Everything you could ever want, ever need, is right there at your finger tips. Need item prices? It’s there. Need a crafting system? It’s there. Suddenly need a magic shop? Grab something from the Grand Bazaar. Want to restrict players from grabbing potentially game-breaking abilities like teleportation? Just restrict players from purchasing / crafting / learning anything that is uncommon or rare. I dreaded preparing games in 5e due to the amount of work that had to be done. In PF2, it’s a breeze. I no longer need to fudge dice or adjust monster damage / hp in the fly because of a broken CR system. I can trust the math and I can spend the combat having fun actually trying to play my monsters as optimally as possible, without worrying about combat being too easy or accidentally killing my PCs. It just works! And the very, very, best part? IT’S. ALL. FREE. Not sure if you want to get a book? Preview all of its contents freely on archives of Nethys, then get the book if you want the sweet art and great page layout. No need to buy the book again on a digital website. No need to buy the book a third time on Virtual VTTs. Buying the book grants you a free PDF, which you can then run through a converter and it’s imported straight into Foundry VTT. You get everything in a single purchase. The ecosystem is great, the community is great, the game itself is great. And I haven’t even started on the 3-action economy or the vast amount of player options. I could go on and on about how this is pretty much the perfect version of D&D. I’d really wish I learned about Pathfinder 2 sooner! We really need to spread awareness about this amazing product.

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

That is a very good summary, sir.

[@natanoj16]

Sadly they are kinda changing the "no buying digital products again" due to the new service Demiplane

[@jltheking3]

@@natanoj16 Archives of Nethys and the SRD aren’t going away. You can just choose not to use whatever their new digital tool is

[@RecallKnowledge]

I agree with so many of these points. Pathfinder 2e solves so many problems I came to have with 5e, but issues that only came after playing it for so long. It can be daunting to give 2e a try... but its so much more rewarding as a result!

[@darksavior1187]

You make a good point, 5E is great at hiding its cracks and flaws until you have played it for awhile.

[@WolforNuva]

Exactly how I feel! After a decent bit of time playing 5e the realization about how shallow the system actually is starts to show. The biggest thing for me is the content available for players, cause I had long resorted to homebrew content to keep me interested in new characters made in 5e, but P2e just has so many options and fun ancestries that even when I don't have a core idea I can just slap a few things together and immediately be inspired. Just the other day I made a Beastkin (spider) Fleshwarp who came from the future to prevent the rise of their spider overlords. All book legal stuff that helped inspire a character in a way 5e hasn't done for me in years.

[@gameraven13]

Funny that you mention you want 6e to pull from 4e. A month or two ago I found a Giffyglyph monster system for creating monsters for 5e that uses 4e monster building concepts and mechanics and it has done WONDERS for making my homebrew monsters easier to balance and easier to run. From what I've seen of PF2e so far, it seems like an AMAZING system. If it uses encounter building like 4e/Giffyglyph (which based on it using levels and difficulty compared to party level, it sounds like it does), I feel I would thoroughly enjoy it for sure. Now to get my players on board with it as well haha.

[@gosubilko]

Go get the beginner box a look. It's more expensive than the d&d box but it has so much more in it. The rules are light and presented in easy to digest chunks. Watch out for that corner room in level 2 though. :)

[@linus4d1]

You seem to be really excited about the reward table from the CRB. I suggest you check out the Treasure by Encounter table from GMG as well.

[@TheSound0fThunder]

I've been way into Pathfinder 2e for the last couple years and the system is sooooo much easier to run. The gamemastery section of the Core Rulebook gives you everything you need to understand how to run the game, what the average flow of rewards for players looks like, how to build encounters to your desired difficulty, and a whole bunch more. The Game Mastery Guide has a ton of great advice not only for GMing Pathfinder but honestly any RPG. They go over table dynamics, some ideas on how to do ad-hoc rulings, and a bunch of stuff for how you can build your own adventures and settings. It's wonderful. Player expression and choice is accentuated in the game and I love just making characters with how many bells and whistles you get to play with. All the classes have something cool to dig into and are generally pretty well balanced when sat next to each other, and while some may be less straightforward none of them are bad. (sorry PHB Ranger) Multiclassing is totally different as opposed to just straight up taking levels in another class. You get to steal some early level feats and a main feature or two from your class of choice. Multiclass characters will never outshine a their full-bodied counterpart but you can do that without sacrificing any of your primary class' progression. It also clamps down on the completely busted stuff that multiclassing brings. (lookin' at you, Warlocks...) Paizo puts a great amount of care into the game, making absolutely bonkers adventures for the game that go all the way to level 20. When they put out playtest material they put a great amount of care into listening to feedback, directly addressing the things they heard and respond when they do the wrap-ups afterwards. They do solid errata passes on their books, and sometimes that includes balance changes. It feels like the people at Paizo really care about the game and the people that play it. I could go on for a long time about the things I enjoy about the system. To put a point on it, it feels like Pathfinder WORKS. I feel like I'm not trying to trick the system into working or making weird homebrew band-aid fixes for the things that are horribly easy to exploit. I can look at the book and see the guidelines and choose when to deviate. I don't have to fear for the stability of the game if I ever let my players have the ability to purchase a magic item by their choice. I have *fun* when I'm running it.

[@karrthmoonblade2467]

I've been tempted to give PF2 a go by this video. It sounds like it fixes a lot of the things I am not a fan of in DnD 5e

[@IcarusGames]

I definitely think it's worth taking a look at, if for nothing else, just steal the things you like and port them to 5e.

[@darksavior1187]

I am feeling the same way. Having run 5E for a couple of years now, with campaigns that have reached almost cap level, the cracks and just unfinished and incomplete parts of the system really make it a guessing game on too many things. Having to completely homebrew or find 3rd part support for magic item economy and crafting, the guessing game that is building encounters because CR just doesn't work, the thin content above level 15, the game just isn't a complete enough system. It does a great job on the base mechanics, but leaves too much for the DM to just build it/figure out for themselves that they shouldn't have to.

[@Crazyhands777]

I heard the first 5 seconds and I was like "Yeeeeeaaaaah!". I've been waiting for this moment for awhile now. Can't wait to see PF2 content from you and hear your opinions on system comparatively.

[@IcarusGames]

I think maybe next week we'll build a fighter from the core book of each system and see how different they end up!

[@nilseanchai4256]

@@IcarusGames You should compare at various points. Level 1 and 3 are good ones because in 2e you start with your defining things for most classes (fighter doesn't have subclasses in 2e mind you) while in 5e that's often at third. Then maybe higher level jumps. Another tip to make the video bombastic: Exclude archetypes from the intial comparison, then do a segment at the end where it's like, "But wait... There's more! 2e has these things called archetypes, so let me take a second to blow your mind with this fighter that is a pro-wrestler, this fighter that can trap ghosts and fire them at people, this fighter that is a detective, this fighter that is a field medic darting across the field and treating wounds in one action, etc". I think holding aside archetypes for a big whammo could be fun.

[@IcarusGames]

@@nilseanchai4256 great minds! That was almost exactly my plan!!

[@cheezeofages]

@@IcarusGames There's also potential for a follow-up video there since archetypes are kinda 2e's multiclassing. A followup Archetypes/Multiclassing comparison could be interesting. 5e multiclassing has weird imbalanced bits where it sets back ASI and Extra Attack but actually empowers spellcasters in a lot of ways. For example the classic nonsense of going level 1 Cleric into nothing but Wizard after that (which I once used to create the broken mess that is a bladesinger with a couple levels of zeal cleric, which can pretty much be every class without losing any significant Wizard power). Meanwhile with 2e you kinda don't ever leave your first class and instead can just unlock more lists of options to take as class abilities and you can get a spicy chunk of other classes, but not get the full power of the class that a full member of it gets. And archetypes aren't limited to the other classes either. There's stuff like Trick Driver for being fancy in a vehicle, Undead Slayer, archetypes to become undead with thematic attacks, arcehtypes to turn your charisma into innate enchantment and illusion magic, etc. Another interesting vid to follow that one could be an 'optional rule that is very popular' comparison between 2e's Free Archetype rule and 5e's Feats. Though 2e's Free Archetype isn't so widely used as Feats (which are practically default).

[@matongu]

I'm planning to run pf2e after my current 5e campaign wraps up. I'm looking forward to it

[@VorpalMethod]

Wow...I'm convinced. Off to buy the PF2 book!

[@IcarusGames]

You can pick up the softback pocket edition for a pretty decent price I think.

[@simpu83]

you dont actually need to buy if if you're ok with online stuff ^^ Paizo put out all their rules for free over at Archives of Nethys

[@LastFootnote]

@@simpu83 It really is great to have the book though, especially for learning the system. The online archive is a great reference resource, but I don't think it's great for somebody who knows nothing about the system.

[@simpu83]

@@LastFootnote That's fair ^^ but the archive also has all the rules in the book structured the same ways as it is in the book (with art and feats taken out afaik) so I think it's still good if you dont mind reading from a screen Tho I agree with the whole "I prefer physical book over online" reason. Some people just love the sensation of a book

[@tabletopbroski9074]

Please let us know of your travels in these new lands. Godspeed.

[@HCSR2]

For people who have never played TTRPGs and you need something out of box you might wanna look into the Beginner Box. Otherwise, yeah some homebrewed 5e game where you already have everything ready to "tutorial" them through the game would be good too.

[@ollywright]

Interesting breakdown and good video! Personally I found 5e tiring to run having to make so many tricky judgement calls, pathfinder 2e is a much more consistent system by comparison. The monster building rules in 2e are also one of the best parts of it.

[@IcarusGames]

I'm excited to convert all my homebrew creatures to PF2 down the line!

[@SwingRipper]

@@IcarusGames I would say that converting from 5e 1 to 1 is hard since you need to add more detail... I would restart from the same concepts!

[@laserlemons1577]

I was very lucky that PF2e was just released when my friends and I were getting into TTRPGs. We researched the different DnD-like systems and PF2e was overwhelmingly the best system for us.

[@bmardiney]

The more I watch KZbinrs talk about TTRPGs, the more glad I am I didn't even touch D&D 5e and went straight for Pathfinder 2e. Never done TTRPGs before and my family and I are about to run Troubles in Otari (after playing the beginner's box dungeon). When I hear people talk about the rules in 5e, I cringe.

[@pascalwust6075]

Same me. It baffels me when in hear its not balanced and choices are few. Considering how thick the rulebook is.

[@cidlunius1076]

7:38 If you read through the bestiaries you'll find there's rules for customizing zombies or making anything into a vampiric monster. So the suggestions and building advice is there if you DO want to make custom enemies.

[@misterbxiv]

The spell find traps would include the mimic. The spells says something like “for the purposes of this spell, traps include anything sudden or unexpected that you consider harmful or undesirable” You can rules lawyer if you want, but it’s pretty clear given a charitable reading that it’s not like a literal mechanical trap, it would also detect an ambush

[@cheezeofages]

Coming back to this vid to reminisce about this start to a legend. As a side note I had to google how to spell reminisce because I forgot. :(

[@harrisc1977]

As a “forever GM” I have to say that the PF2E system is so much fun to actually run from my side of the screen. All the creatures are unique and have fun things that I can do too. Plus with the level system that pathfinder has for building encounters I never really have to worry about if an encounter is too much or too little for my players to handle. Plus the way it scales up and down for more or less players is also super awesome. And once again. I never feel like encounters are dull because every single creature has something unique and interesting that they can do.

[@IcarusGames]

That's great to hear! I'm really excited to make the switch over!

[@timjohnson2533]

I've had a lot of problems with 5e over the last year myself, and have moved over to Savage Worlds for the games I run, and play in a PF2e game and I find both far, far more to my liking. 5e is okay on a lot of fronts. It does nothing 'excellently' in my view, but it's decent enough in a lot of areas that its not off-putting. My personal breaking point was the monster creation and CR rules for 5e. I'm an 'old' ttrpg player. I 've been playing since 1984 out of the red box, so we've seen it all when it comes to monsters and abilities. Thus, I like making my own enemies and tweaking abilities to keep things fresh. But the 5e rules for this just feel utterly slapdash. The approximation is so swingy that I regularly find that I have to 'fudge' all sorts of bonuses onto anything I create at the table. The last occurrence being that I ended up adding just over 100hp to a creature that I thought was balanced against a party that used point-buy and still, without critting much and with no magical weaponry, beat the hell out of this thing in a couple rounds. Its not the only problem I have but it was the deal breaker. I've found Everything from their designers seeming terrified of designing anything and playing 'mother may I' with playtesters who, to be frank, aren't designers, to the fact that they're incredibly hands-off with magic item creation and economy rules just kind of left us want something else. I agree, 5e isn't terrible. It is good for onboarding folks (though there are better systems for that as well). But I find in terms of systems it keeps a lot of the random nonsense that old editions had for legacy reasons that get in the way for arbitrary reasons. One thing 5e _does_ have is an incredible marketing engine behind it. So more people know it, and those just coming into it are bombarded with D&D and only D&D from sheer volume of what's out there in the media about it. I haven't run PF2e yet myself. But I'm having a lot of fun playing in it, and partly for reasons you list. Money means something again, which was refreshing when you are a poverty-stricken goblin spellcaster trying to scratch out a living :D

[@KnuthMaestro]

I have been watching videos on P2E trying to find a good break down and this is DEFINITELY the best one. Thank you for the introduction, I am intrigued and will check out these rules!

[@IcarusGames]

Glad you found it useful :D

[@brianbowersox2634]

For item levels, they can also be used to determine what is available in a settlement. In a small village you might only be able to buy items up to level 6, in the capital you can find items up to level 15 on store shelves. Anything higher could require use of the crafting mechanics.

[@snowpython]

I left 5e for pf2e. I love it and I started with 5e. I decided to try gm'ing in 2e and it's super easy. I spend less time figuring out rules and mechanics and more time story building.

[@archmagemc3561]

I'm starting a pathfinder game myself and thanks to how detailed pathfinder is, even super edge case stuff has explanation that you don't need to look for a jeremy tweet for. The edge case? "How does an alchemist heal undead party members?" 5e? it would be up to DM's interpretation in most cases. In pathfinder? We found that if it doesn't have the positive tag, it works on dhampires. If it doesn't have the positive tag and doesn't state it only works on the living, it works for skele bois as well. So elixir of life works on dhampires, tonic of healing works on skele bois. All RAW which is nice.

[@nilseanchai4256]

One thing to snatch from PF2e that is easy to adapt and fixes an issue often brought up is how 2e handles Opportunity Attacks. First, take Opportunity attack away from everything that isn't a disciplined warrior or weapon themed, both player and enemy side. Now have it work like 2e Attack of Opportunity. Next have any feats that interact with Opportunity Attacks only work on Attacks of Opportunity in the situation the feat mentions specifically, no others. Next give everyone the ability to Step as a Move or Bonus action (your choice) to safely move 5ft without provoking. Done. Now use the flanking rules in 5e that are optional as written. Now what problems does this address? Well many have problems with using flanking rules because Opportunity Attacks only trigger when leaving melee reach so you can always just easily have it always. Now if that thing has Attack of Opportunity, which doesn't create that weird safety ring around people, it's hard to get it without careful movement. Speaking of the weird safety ring, this removes that. No more Opportunity Attack where you all just get into the ring and stay in it until thing's dead. If it has AoO you have to carefully move around it, but many things don't so everyone can move around even enemies. Also it makes it so reach weapons actually increase a martial's ability to control the field with Attacks of Opportunity rather than lowering it because he made the area enemies can move around him safely larger. So the fighter can say "Get behind me, Wizard!" and not have to mean "Get behind me but a bit back so the enemy doesn't just walk around my safety ring and hit you because I can't stop him." If an enemy walks up to the fighter and then around him in 2e, that enemy would get smacked. In 5e, he wouldn't.

[@jessmontgomery3454]

My group is still playing through a huge backlog of pathfinder 1st edition adventures, might eventually get into 2nd edition but we just really like 3/3.5/3.e it's crunchy but that's something my group enjoys. A lot of the positive points you make of pf2 are echoes of d&d 3rd and older editions, it's funny how d&d moved away from so many popular things in the name of simplicity.

[@jamesbeck5866]

Hello! My name is James, I'm from the deadly d8 animated Pathfinder KZbin channel. I've been GMing 2e since it's playtest and it's absolutely amazing. I love how simple it is to throw 2 or 3 variables into the encounter builder and instantly have a balanced encounter. It's streamlined a bunch of stuff that I think 1e and 5e tried to do but failed at and what 4e was attempting to do. Overall, this was a great video, putting into words of a lot of my opinions that Twitter cannot fit into a thread. Great job, I hope to see more 2e content from you as you start going through the books further. Once you get into books like Secrets of Magic or Guns and Gears, I think that's where you're going to have a lot of fun

[@enrikozartajuz9702]

I've only played 5e (not run it) and while it was fun at the start, the lack of options really started chafing me. I was like level 5 before I realized that I was never going to get any additional skill proficiencies unless I took a feat or multi-classed (both of which are optional rules). And one reason I never wanted to run 5e was the lack of guidance in the GMG as you mentioned. I have run PF1 and honestly found it only slightly better in regards to GM guidance, but the balance on the system was so off that it really just boiled down to "try to figure out what works for your group". PF2e was just what I wanted. Plenty of options as a player and solid balance as a GM. It even makes creating monsters/NPCs pretty easy (or at the very least you never have to worry if the stats are going to be too strong or too weak). So yeah, I agree for a short series of games, 5e is great and easy to jump into and a player doesn't get the chance to notice how locked in everything is with their character. But for longer games, I'm enjoying PF2e!

[@BasementMinions]

Having run 5e for a hot minute switching over to 2e was oddly relaxing. I was having to spend a bit more time learning the rules on the fly with my players but so much time was saved when it came to shopping and encounter building. The stuff that makes up the bulk of any campaign, I don't think I can ever go back to a long-term 5e campaign.

[@EtienneGoyer]

Not a D&D 5e DM. I was under the impression I would stick to what I know and like, PF1e, for the rest of my life. But I've been invited to a PF2 game as a player tonight, and you got me pumped about it. Thanks for the thoughtful presentation!

[@darkroselight3835]

Time to start learning Pathfinder. My groups dropping 5e and Wizards all together.

[@andreigurandaofficial]

I am a GM for D&D, and I am more and more intrigued / nostalgic about the 3.5e, since 5e seems to lack a lot of the aspect that my players want in the game: tactics, more rules, more options, more diversity. So I am really thinking of slowly switching to Pathfinder, OR at least incorporating the best of both worlds into my game.

[@bookwormbeth380]

Plus, the foundry module for p2e is so good, its the preferred online vtt for the community!

[@ThePandaReaper]

Feels like the simplest way to explain PF2 is its to hit a nice balance between PF1/3e choice/tactics and 5e simplicity/modernization. It's not for everyone (nothing is) but I appreciate the effort.

[@yuh6050]

PF2E is starting to get that bonkers amount of content! You can play as undead even now lol.

[@IcarusGames]

Hell yeah you can. As soon as the book of the dead came out I did rush over to Pathbuilder to make an undead gunslinger :P

[@GunManGunHand]

Come on baby "crown of the world" content. I want a half giant viking excamo race.

[@rjs72191]

I’m beginning the process of trying to convince my players to make the switch. I’m starting to hit a wall with 5e, since it’s really not tuned for parties above 4 players. This video is going to be a really great resource when I make my case.

[@questmarq7901]

Im going to wait for your review on the variant rules, such as the excellent "Free Archetype", or the Secrets of Magic advanced magic rules

[@SirRayos]

I began playing and running PF2e at the tail end of the core rules playtest. It is the game I've spent the most time with since. I love the clarity the books provide for the GM. Combat difficulty, items, tags, and customization options. The weight of the burdens that I've had to deal with for years was lifted off. It is in fact not necessary for me to do everything by feel, though I do more and more now that the books have first taught me how to! The not-so-high points of the system for me are definitely new player onboarding and the level of complexity created by some tags having implied effects. I don't think the play experience of PF2e is as much of an upgrade over 5e as it might seem from the GM's side. It's certainly more suitable for me and my group, but I think many players don't experience the magic of the system from their side of the screen, especially if they are less mechanically minded. edit: I enjoyed your first impressions quite a bit. I look forward to seeing more from you as you explore the system, and what conclusions you draw from your time with it!

[@Jasonwfd]

Glad you're giving PF2 a shot! Hope you enjoy it!

[@a.d.malcolmson3759]

I picked up the PF2e Core Rulebook at Books a Million in 2020, just to look through it. Within 5 minutes, my wife was telling me I needed to go ahead and buy it. Since then, the only other system I've used to run a game has been Trail of Cthulhu, and that's not even comparable. PF2e is a FANTASTIC system to work in, especially for my purposes (my wife and I use our games to outline future novels).

[@HeatherVerhagen]

This is really helpful. I'm a new DM for Dungeons and Dragons, but I've only found a few campaigns I want to run (Curse of Strahd and Waterdeep: Dragonheist), so I want to find new systems/campaigns to use. Really like that Pathfinder encounter rules seem easier than using CR. Made my first encounter using CR and I'm afraid that I'll TPK my party or that it will be too easy for them. I ended up with a Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin and Ranger for my party, which is kind of unusual. Tried to make the encounter low magic/no magic, but I'm still nervous.

[@jimdnew]

I'm a little late to this party but I recently switched from trying to run 5E to running PF2E and it seems we had a lot of the same reasons. I mostly wanted my players to be able to do all of the things they wanted to do and invariably someone wants to make their own poisons, potions, or do something not covered (or poorly covered) in the 5E rules. Not to knock on 5E too much, but I just found big frustrating gaps in the rules and wasn't very keen on buying a ton of third party content just to have a workably complete rule set. With PF2E I found a more complete system with a lot of internal consistency and it made me confident in letting my players have the fun they wanted. If they came up with something cool, it was usually covered or easy to homebrew in because the other systems in the game have a real logic and it's easy to follow that logic in making your own homebrew content. Letting my players do what they want without having to design large parts of the rule system myself was the key to me switching. Also, I feel your pain on the economy. Most of my time was spent in PF1e and to go from that system to 5e and be told that I can't buy and sell magic items was a real head scratcher. It felt like they couldn't figure out how to balance something so they just said "You can't do that." Magic items are part of the fun and I consider them a part of character customization. They were too important to me to be so limited.

[@Lordchronos]

I’ve been running pf2 since alpha and I always tell new players 2 things. 1) it’s like 5e with steady character progression that doesn’t require a conversation of 350pg backstory. 2) 5e is checkers and PF2 is chess. Both great games one just has you thinking more.

[@mizzrum7591]

As a player love PF2e and as DM it is just not for me and that is down to my poor health playing a big part in that. But saying that I did enjoy running the PF2e Starter Box on Foundry VTT, so there is still some hope for me to run games in the future. With all its faults I find D&D 5e easier to run as DM and that down to great 3rd party books, plus being easy to homebrew for. Excellent video and it is always good to try new TTRPG games out. :)

[@mrraisbeck]

Explained so well, running my first session tomorrow. Beginner box time!

[@aamirhussain26]

There's a lot of player created monster building tools that should make it easy to homebrew a monster.

[@DirkMcThermot]

I’m definitely interested in trying PF2e one day but I think 5e still has a lot of gas left in the tank for our group. Maybe, I’ll ask my players. I know one of my friends loves playing martials and obviously 5e isn’t exactly known for its love of martials, lol. I’d be interested in hearing some downsides about this system, aside from the greater degree of complexity (which is arguably not a downside for me since I’m pretty good about learning new rules). I just hear sooo much praise for it that I think people tend to overlook the negatives. I mean, I’m assuming there must be *some* negatives right?!

[@just_izayah4532]

After playing PF2e for a while, there are a few downsides. The first is that since there the balancing is so well done, if you homebrew something without knowing the system well it usually ends up in a disaster. The second one is that spellcasters 'FEEL' weaker, especially if you are coming from 5e. Spellcasters aren't weaker, its just that they are properly balanced with martials, making them weak by most other system standards. As a side note, I'd say PF2e is simpler than 5e, at least from a GM perspective. Since in 5e the GM is expected to shoulder a lot of the game, while PF2e takes most of the work off of the GMs hands.

[@IcarusGames]

So far, complexity it the only "downside" I've run into reading through. I know a lot of folks say casters feel less powerful in comparison to other editions, but I don't have first hand of that.

[@simpu83]

Pf2e sure does have some downsides, but it's not because part of the system is broken (looking at you 5e CR), just how the system works For example, it's not the best for "combat as war" mentality, it is very much built as a "combat as sport" game with how the scaling works. so no killing tarrasque at level 5 or something via super weird and niche set up, you need to actually have the gear and levels to beat tarrasque

[@DirkMcThermot]

@@simpu83 That's pretty interesting, I think the combat as sport mentality would probably work just fine with our group. We take turns GMing at a pretty even rate, and I think that an unexpected side effect of this is that each one of us are sort of "afraid" to break each other's encounter design, so we all end up playing 5e with the combat as sport mentality anyway. Which of course leads to more failures than you'd expect due to unlucky rolls. Our group enjoys combat a lot so I think that's just another reason for me to give PF2e a try!

[@simpu83]

@@DirkMcThermot AH also I heard the CRB is structured suuuuper badly, idk cuz I dont own it ( I read the rules from Archives of Nethys) so do be patient if you do decide to buy pdf/physical book Good luck on your gameeeee

[@rapturedmourning]

How do other DMs handle the party resting? It feels contrived to regularly design situations where the party has 4-8 encounters before resting.

[@IcarusGames]

If I were to run another 5e campaign I'd be really tempted to use the hardcore rules where a short rest is 8 hours and a long rest is 7 days!

[@carloscaro9121]

A benefit of PF2e; the main storybreaker spells that 3.5 and 5e let you abuse to just ignore challenges are made without letting you just ignore the story. The idea that you're going to go Scry-Teleport-Calcific Touch is not going to fly.

[@michaelvonhasseln8932]

My experience as a DM/GM goes back to AD&D. Wizards of the Coast lost me with 4E. The complete destruction of the Realms (IMO) was the reason I left. I tried 4E, but it felt like it lacked something that previous editions of D&D had. I've been a Pathfinder GM since the Beta test, and was roped into running Pathfinder Society Organized Play with its inception, eventually becoming a regional coordinator (i.e. "Venture Captain") and holding that position for now over 10 years. Like you, I was underwhelmed by the playtest version of Pathfinder Second Edition. I contemplated leaving both Paizo and Organized Play with the announcement that all future games would be utilizing that system. But... then the actual Core Rulebook came out. And I tried it, both as a player and GM. Now, I can't see going back! In fact, PF2 impacted my enthusiasm for Starfinder; I end up comparing the two systems and unfortunately, Starfinder falls short afterwards. We are heading into Year 4 of Pathfinder Society play, and I am having the time of my life. The game balance makes it amazing, and as you pointed out, tags make rule referencing easier than any other system I've ever ran before. Rarity makes it intuitive to decide what items to include in any home game I run, a problem I had previously in both D&D and Pathfinder 1E. Best of all, the monsters feel unique and inspired, having actions tailored to their niche. If you are a D&D 5E player and are uncertain what will work in your own game, I recommend taking a look. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find!

[@erjavier1995]

Hello from Spain, I started GMing 2e 1year ago. Pf2e for me was everything that you said plus an incredible combat system. Now pf2e is my favourite fantasy game.

[@IcarusGames]

I'm glad that you're enjoying PF2! I'm really excited to dive into it fully.

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

Great job! Like others here, I encourage you to do a review/comparison of the GM guide! There's a ton of phenomenal stuff in there

[@mastertenshi]

You and I were basically in the same situation. I had a lot of the same issues you did with 5e. And after WotC announced some of their upcoming changes that I didn't care for, I ended up deciding to research Pathfinder 2e again. I came across a video that made the case for why PF2e is easier to run than 5e, and I was hooked. I started buying up all the books, and my group will be starting our first PF2e campaign in just a few days. Another thing that PF2e handles better than 5e is crafting. It's far more fleshed out and supported in PF2e. And as a GM, instead of giving the PCs specific items, I can just give the currency and/or materials for them to just make their own items all in accordance to that Treasure per Level table. Also I've heard many people say that Paizo's Adventure Paths are much better written and require less filling-in-the-gaps/homebrewing than WotC's campaign books. I started my group off in 5e with Hoard of the Dragon Queen and HATED it. To their credit though, Curse of Strahd is pretty darn good. But after looking into the adventure paths, the main thing that personally turns me off to them is that the PCs need to assume certain roles, such as every PC being part of a travelling circus, or members of a school for magic. At least, that's my understanding. I'm excited (and nervous...I always get nervous before a session) to dive deep into the system. I'm even hoping to someday adapt it for use in a kind of homebrew Shadowrun game (because the setting is awesome, but the system is terrible).

[@linus4d1]

Welcome to the family

[@IcarusGames]

Can't wait to make more videos and dive headlong into the system!

[@Fabric_Hater]

I'm still kinda new (3 years) to TTRPG. Played 1 DND story and 1 starfinder story. By the time I got to lvl 2 druid in a PF2e story, I was hooked. I knew PF was superior.

[@SuperEagle112]

We are starting the final session of the 2E starter campaign and as someone that played 5e for a little over a year I can objectively say it’s incredible. The actions and team play is incredibly fun.

[@thunderflare59]

This video is a huge mood. I already homebrewed stuff that makes 5e like Pathfinder without knowing it. I suspected it might be the case.

[@camiloguadalupetorres2442]

Excellent review!! Do your magazine includes PF2e content?

[@IcarusGames]

Not at the moment, but the plan is to start including PF2 content within the next few months!

[@kyrnsword72]

I love D100 DUNGEON MAPPING books and hope y'all get a chance to get and play a simple awesome game system.

[@hanskrill5625]

As a DM for over 2 years I found that DnD was great to get the hang of things. I quickly realised though, that I wanted more out of my encounters, both social and confrontational. Right from the start I designed several abilities as well as magic items for my players to stimulate creative gameplay because I quickly found out how minimalistic the DnD rule set is. It's been great in the sense of that DnD is actually super easy and allows for a lot of freedom by the DM to create and adapt items, monsters, gameplay etc. But of late, I actually find that I've set the bar quite high with all these adaptations and where I expected higher level DnD to require less of my own personal effort, it just continues to be so...stale. So I'm now looking into Pathfinder 2e. I'm super pleased to see that I as a GM don't have to come up with ways to facilitate my player's creativity, that there's actually rules for a lot of these things to fall back on. At the same time I fear the effort that went into creating all of this stuff for DnD will now go into learning all of these rules!!! :P I have yet to play my first actual Pathfinder game, so take all of this with a grain of salt :)

[@Forge_n_Brush]

Welcome aboard. I think you will find PF2e is everything your looking for. I love it. ~Fritz

[@IcarusGames]

I'm excited to explore the system some more!

[@EricSRiley]

Pathfinder 2E GM Here! I've been running it since the playtest and my players love it, and oh man do I love it too. For me, the best part was the encounter builder. That was my biggest complaint about Pathfinder 1E, with swingy CR encounters that were inherited from D&D 3.5 and still exist in 5E. I can't begin to express my absolute joy of building encounters with all different kinds of monsters of different levels and abilities, and special attacks! It just makes the whole experience super interesting. Especially the way they tier encounters with the XP budget to be trivial to extreme. I feel like every encounter I've put together has been 100% the level of threat that I wanted it to be. And weaving them into existing adventure paths is pretty seamless. Unless I throw something completely out of left field, I can have my homebrewed encounters have the same feel as the pre-written modules. Chef's Kiss. Also, if you haven't looked at the monster creation rules from the GameMastery Guide, they are even better. Straight up tables for core stats and ability mods, general damage output all by level. Sometimes I've even invented monsters and NPCs on the fly using just the table and a bit of imagination and blam. Something they've never seen before that is an appropriate difficulty. Just a note on the playtest. I ran all but the last adventure of the playtest module and I saw how every two weeks or so something changed in the rules based on the player and GM feedback reports. I could see in real time the iterative process they were using to make this game better. It was really a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach combined with massive amounts of stress testing. Every single adventure in that packet had a purpose, and they gave a ton of interviews about what each of them meant and how the feedback from that session was used to alter the design of the game. It was an amazing process to be a part of, but it turned a lot of people off. Playtesting a game is meant to push and pull the system to see where it fails and they found a lot of failures in those initial runs of the game. It was so fantastic to see the changes come out in these errata for each subsequent game. It was an incredible experience and it just solidified my position that Paizo had made a fantastic game. So it always hurts a little when people say they tried it during the playtest phase and come away unsatisfied. I get it. And I'm glad you gave it a second look. It's a system I truly love and advocate for to everyone I know. (along with many other amazing games).

[@anubismacc8165]

4:50 In my opinion, Mimics are an ambush, because technically they hide to attack by surprise, not a trap, which by definition is a THING, not a being, that constitutes a danger

[@danmonster2002]

You touch upon rarity in your video. It is use on more then just items. Monsters, spells and other stuff have the tag. I think it is mostly used as a GM check or an expression how common things can be in the setting.

[@IcarusGames]

That's true! Excellent point.

[@clayw1656]

Classes and ancestries and such also have that.

[@brokenserenity01]

the gamemastery guide for pf2 was a huge surprise to me when i began looking thorough it, almost every few pages i caught myself saying ''this is the sort of thing the dmg should be teaching dms in 5e' or 'wow this is such useful information for newbie dms, why didnt wotc put stuff like this in the dmg?' it's like paizo are 5 steps ahead of wotc when it comes to knowing what players and gms need to know and how best to do things.

[@IcarusGames]

I completely agree!!

[@liquidcitrus145]

PF2E was very much worth the investment in time to learn. all the resources and options are free online and it fixed every issue i had with 5e.

[@xezzee]

After a little google from all Pathfinder 2e's flaws I like it more than D&D 5e but that is probably because I have not yet played PF2e ^^

[@Jombo56]

I DM'd a 5E campaign on-and-off for about a year and a half and the amount of times players would ask to do something or ask if something could work a certain way and then I would have to go find what Crawford or Mearles had said online was staggering. The rules arguments were frustrating as hell, too. I'm GMing a PF2E campaign now and good GOD the ability to just say oh look, there are rules for crafting that function! Oh my god, all these items have their own prices! A hostile action is CLEARLY DEFINED!! YOU CAN SNEAK IN COMBAT AND IT MAKES SENSE!!!! It's crazy how much more I look forward to GMing Pathfinder 2E than I did 5e. Don't even get me started on actually building encounters and playing the monsters. Everything has a fun lil thing it can do and it's awesome.

[@michaelturner2806]

I'm a GM hoping to run a Pathfinder 2e game here soon. I haven't had a regular gaming group for years, and I'm itching to get back into rolling some dice and making a fool of myself. I've been most familiar with D&D and most comfortable with 5e, but only ever played or run in the lower levels of 1-5 or so. I've played 3/3.5e, the tactical skirmish game that came between 3 and 5, and Pathfinder 1 extensively, as well as dabbling in a few other d20 based systems. Because of what WotC did recently (this may be an evergreen statement) I'm avoiding D&D. I liked the near super-heroic action of 4e, 5e, and pf1, so the OSR inspired things that emphasize grittiness didn't appeal to me. The more freeform games like FATE, PbtA, BitD, etc were a little far outside my comfort zone. After a lot of looking around, I narrowed my game choice to d20 based systems, then to two. If I wanted to lean more into the collaborative narrativist play style, 13th Age looked wonderful. The same underlying d20 system I'm familiar with, and from two lead designers of previous editions of D&D that took their experiences and made what a lot of people say "What 5th Edition Might Have Been", with gridless combat and easy encounter building sticking out as major selling points to be. On the other hand, if I want to stick with more familiar territory, a system like Pathfinder 2e that's focused on what it does with a lot of useful subsystems (like the tags you mention) would take a lot of the worry off my hands of encountering ambiguous situations and making a GM ruling, or getting the table to agree on what "makes sense". My only hangup with the system is ptsd from playing pf1 and facing analysis paralysis when faced with a giant table of two thousand available feats and being told to pick two quickly. I figure if I'm GM, I can avoid that headache and shove the responsibility of character creation and advancement as the players' problem.

[@iankinnell5643]

As an old school D&D player I prefer the older systems but may try pathfinder 2

[@g00se99]

I really like the 3 action economy. I find character creation very confusing, not because of having lots of choices, but how the creation process is described. Cleric for example you kind of bounce all over the book.

[@IcarusGames]

Yeah, having to flit between spells and such can be disorienting. I think the ABC (Ancestry, background, class) approach is pretty good and easy to comprehend. I think having bookmarks in your book to make flipping between would make things easier

[@LightPink]

Yeah, it's known that if you don't use Pathbuilder or a similar tool to there's a 90% chance you'll make at least one character creation mistake

[@soeffner6833]

Economy has always been frustrating. Even back in 1rst ed ADD me and my friends scaled gold, silver and copper values to relflect real world scale. Dependant of course on the game world. Pricing was based on real world value of gold and platinum. Everything else scaled down from there. E.G. 1800$ gold per ounce. A coin was 1 10th oz. 180$. Silver then became 18$ oz. A coin was 1 10th oz at 1.80$ etc. Pricing in game was variable to supply.

[@darksavior1187]

Everyone praises less rules and less specificity because its a lower barrier for entry, but I agree with what you pointed out discussing tags, the lack of specificity creates ambiguities that need to be handled on the fly and adjudicated when a more specific rule would settle the question, and not leave so much to DM arbitration and interpretation. This would also make different tables/games more consistent, because the rules standardize them. 5E hides the gaps in its content pretty well, but after a few games, or years, the content gap and lack of rules for some very basic TTRPG stuff (like the non-existence of a magic item economy or clear crafting rules for example). Having to use Sane Item Prices pdf to complete what should be in the game already is a problem. These aren't small issues, they very much make 5E feel incomplete as a system.

[@IcarusGames]

Yeah, the approach of "the DM will figure it out" is mostly fine for an experienced DM who is good at reacting to things on the fly or creating these sub systems, but it's a nightmare for a brand new DM who isn't bringing any of that pre existing knowledge. To me, 5e feels very much like a system made for long-time DMs to onboard new players.

[@ColdNapalm42]

5e does not have a working magic item system...like at all. If you run it as they suggest and magic items are not tradable items, then basically gold becomes useless pretty much after level 3 unless you give them like 5 gold rewards at level 20...which is to say stupid silly. If they are tradable, you as a GM has to either create your own table (i.e. not part of the game) or come up with a price in a WIDE range each time...which leads to stupidity when an item is 25 gold once and 250 the next time.

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

I agree with you, but I'll use your example to make a different point: I encourage PF2 GMs to not actually take those very well balanced tables to the letter and allow for prices to fluctuate based on where you are, what market and in what context you are trying to buy/sell an item, especially for uncommon and up. For example it shouldn't be the same to buy a magic potion in Absalom than it is in a remote village in the middle of the Mwangi jungle, obviously

[@LastFootnote]

@@lorenzovaletti4951 While I think it can be fun to sometimes have the costs of items fluctuate a bit based on circumstances, I don't know if your example makes sense to me. Probably the remote village just doesn't have very many high-level items for sale. But I wouldn't expect e.g. a minor potion of healing to cost more in that village. It may look different and be made from different materials, but probably the cost should be the same. Also that kind of price fluctuation is fun to think about, but I bet it would annoy players and characters who aren't really into bargain hunting and/or fictional economies.

[@Taylor_Lindise]

This whole video is like what I'll use to counter those people who say "The more you tell me to try pf2 the more I won't" Because they never were going to do so. And It's frustrating. 90% of the 5e content on youtube is about "fixing 5e" in some way. And that's a content mill to make money and it's so weird and frustrating. I'm so happy you found this and are seeing how good this system is.

[@IcarusGames]

I spoke about this on Twitter recently, but I know a lot of content creators, and a lot of them have expressed desires to branch out into other systems, but we don't because 5e is where the views and ultimately money, are. That's why in every one of these videos I've made a point to say that as long as they keep performing well, I'll keep making them, because it doesn't make sense for me to make videos about non-5e stuff if no one is watching it!

[@jasondarbe80]

I switched over from 5e when Pf2e came out and I love it monsters are easy to convert 3 action eceonmy is a God send and even though I've played DnD since 1e I find the base Golarion setting as better for me than the Realms

[@lorenzovaletti4951]

What made me switch to Pathfinder after 3.5 was the ruleset, but what made me stay in PF2 at the time of 5e was actually the setting! I love it so much that I think I would play PF2 even if it wasn't as exceptionally good as it is system wise!

[@dylanhyatt5705]

Sums up my frustrations (as a DM) with D&D5 - great vid

[@Jason-ji8ql]

PF2E offers more versatility in my opinion. You can play the super High Fantasy setting, or you can go the more Low Fantasy via the Proficiency without Level variant. And this plays fairly close to how 5E numbers pan out, but lets you play it in the Pathfinder system, which from what I've heard from other 5E players, is arguably more exciting from a player perspective.

[@IcarusGames]

Yeah, the 3 action economy alone is more exciting than 5e. Then when you through in skill actions, and all the different feat abilities, there should always be *something* for you to do with all your actions each turn.

[@harrythefish4593]

Xp and leveling. I think to make the point slightly better. Since each level needs 1000 xp and the amount of xp earned each battle is based on the relationship of your level vs monster level, the amount of encounters per level will feel around the same. In 5e early levels tend to feel like 1 to 2 encounters per level and later levels it's shot up to 10-15++ encounters so you are leveling slower. In a system like PF2E if it takes on average 12-13 encounters to go from level 1 to 2, then assuming you are fighting level appropriate level creatures each level will take the same amount of encounters. This is an important feature of PF2E as each level you get something new added to your character and most players learning the system might need this time to fully wrap their heads around the interactions of their abilities and the rules.

[@PinoGraham]

the rarity system is really good about helping with things that can pull a narrative in vastly different directions. The game where one pc is a ghoul is probably not the same campaign where another one is the crowned princess of the land.

[@enrikozartajuz9702]

Agreed. After running PF1 campaigns, some spells can completely derail or trivialize an adventure and a majority of those are now uncommon so characters don't have immediate access to them (ie: Zone of truth and Speak with Dead during a murder mystery etc). As as much as I might like them, some GMs don't want a game filled with the more "exotic" ancestries like aasimar and dhampir.

[@adminanonymous1521]

@@enrikozartajuz9702 another thing I found is that it helps new GMs. When they can say "We are going to stick with just common choices" it gives them confidence that they will run into less weird situations they aren't ready for. For experienced GMs we can say "Oh yeah, you can use any ancestry" because we have the practice dealing with more rare ancestries or options in a setting.

[@hawkonroyale431]

Yeaaaaaassss, join us........ seriously I am just glad people are interested to try pf2e. Also all the rules, monsters and equipment are available for free.

[@Metal-Spark]

It sounds like you have a similar experience with PF2e as me, I had to make a call a few years ago about whether to switch from lesser known systems to 5e or PF2e and made the call to go with 5e. Now my group are a few years on and I'm burnt out, currently taking a break from DMing. While I think the reason for that is mostly just life and being busy, having a system that does more of the work for you would certainly help prevent future burnouts. I'm currently learning about PF2e and trying to decide if we should make the switch, I do have a few concerns though that hopefully you can help with? I'm excited at the prospect of more tactical combat, but my group is very RP focused, we're not war-gamers or min-maxers, and while you can optimise the fun out of any system, is this mindset something PF2e encourages or can you take a more laid back approach to combat? I'm also feeling a little lost with the actions you can take in exploration mode. So, let's say one of the PCs wants to walk along a wooden rafter, in 5e I'd have them roll an acrobatics and adjudicate the result. Simple, quick, effective. In PF2e how would you handle this? Call specifically for a 'balance action roll'? Look up the action in the rulebook to see the consequences of all the different levels of success or failure? Doesn't this massively slow down the game and also force the DM to remember every single action to determine which is applicable to what a PC is trying to do at any given time?

[@IcarusGames]

I don't think you'll find many combinations that are "bad". The books give quite a lot of advice to GMs for giving out rewards and such to make sure player power level remains consistent with what the system assumes for encounter building. Things will be a little slower as you learn the system, but once you've gone through a few sessions and are familiar with the common actions and their degrees of success, things shouldn't be significantly slower. But, the benefit is when a rules question does come up, chances are a solution is written in the PF2 rules, whereas in 5e a lot of the time you have to go to forums, sage advice columns, or JC's twitter to try and find clarity.

[@aralornwolf3140]

You can play a "gimped" character in Pathfinder 2e with some success, so long as you use the ASI (Ability Score Increases) to increase the "gimped" ability scores. The worst "gimped" character I want to try out is a Goblin Warpriest of Torag. As a goblin has a - 2 to wisdom and the Cleric class gives a +2 to wisdom, they cancel out leaving the Goblin with 10 wisdom -- if I don't use the increases one could get from background or from the 4 free boosts at character creation. So... divine magic proficiency down by +4 compared to the min-maxed cloistered cleric at level 1. This is okay as the Goblin _isn't_ casting offensive spells or she's up against opponents who can dispel/counter spell magic. At level 20, if I used all the ASI to increase her Wisdom, her divine magic proficiency would be +2 less than a 22 wisdom Warpriest and a +4 less than a min-maxed 22 wisdom Cloistered Cleric (who has legendary magic proficiency compared to the Warpriests' Master). As Warpreists are built-in multiclass clerics, they wouldn't want to have 18 Wisdom to start with, as that's taking away from their combat capability, so they should have 16, or even 14, wisdom at level around level 10 does this Goblin start catching up with her peers in spell casting ability. I made a Halfling Barbarian with 14 Strength... with the ASI that +2 strength bonus can become a +5 strength bonus. Which is equal to other barbarians which start with 16 strength and 1 less than barbarians which start out with 18 strength at level 20. That's probably the worst, reasonable, character your players could make. If they find that their character isn't working for them, there are rules regarding retraining aspects of a character... so no choice a character makes can be undone! If the encounters the GM is using is too hard for the players to handle, the GM can lower the difficulty easily with the guidelines on change the CR of monsters in the Gamemastery Guide. Regarding your balance check... not all checks have a critical fail and a critical success. If the player falls, they fall, if they don't fall, they don't fall. This is a binary outcome... not a did "you succeed/failed and how well/bad did you do?" situation. Balance is part of the Acrobatics skill and can be used untrained. If they fall off, they can make a reflex save (same DC as used in the Acrobatics check) to "grab a ledge" to prevent falling to the ground. If they fail that... well... they take the falling damage as described in the falling damage rules. As traps and hazards are almost always part of the game and Paizo didn't neglect them, your answers can be found in the Game Mastering section regarding hazards.

[@janwillemgunneman2235]

I'm Running a second edition Pathfinder campaign since 2020 it's called bloodlands and My own setting but the System i'm using is Pathfinder second edition, so except for the World setting I use perfinder for everything and it's amazing of course of small hickups but Nothing mature so Great to keep discovering that characters can be different even their Fifth go with the same character it's like playing Dark Souls with Goku I can recommend this to everyone.

[@unowild]

My group just stayed with AD&D, we kept it simple for decades.

[@petersmith1190]

Hey Anto, is there a way to copy a wonderdraft map onto a onenote page? Want to have everything in one place with onenote hyperlinks laid on top of map, working out whether to buy wonderdraft

[@IcarusGames]

Onenote isn't really the best app for having a map with pins like that. Something like legendkeeper or world anvil would be better.

[@petersmith1190]

@@IcarusGames Thank you! I'll investigate those. Love the channel man.

[@matthewhughes1950]

I could see the tag system working VERY well for VTTs for setting up triggers and macros from the nuts and bolts side of things. Programmers and scripted love indexes ;p

[@matthewhughes1950]

Huge love for the economy breakdown. It's how I've ended up skewing my own economy too. Also since my players now own business ventures and craft as well. The lackluster 5e system has had me making my own more tiered system and homebrew

[@matthewhughes1950]

Honestly after listening to this in depth like you have...I'm going to give it a deeper look. I'll still use 5e for my newbie games. But for some of my player groups with more expertise....definately going to give this a look.

[@IcarusGames]

Even without switching systems, it's well worth looking to see whether there are elements or subsystems you can pull from PF2 to add a little more complexity and depth to 5e without getting your whole group to change systems. From what I hear, the VTT integration for PF2 in things like Foundry is excellent.

[@matthewhughes1950]

@@IcarusGames ....you mad lad. I'm already homebrewing things anyway...*looking at you panicked 10 minute "how do banks work" snack break when all my players said they wanted to open up accounts and take out loans and start buying land and putting bids on businesses...so putting on some more economy strata would be welcome. XD. Currently in my 5e, a gold piece is worth roughly like a 20 dollar bill, a silver is like dropping a 5er, and a copper is like a dollar. Roughly. I gave USD comparisons because correlation is helpful for my players. I do really like the coin breakdown for pf2 though. Also HOW HAVE I NOT BEEN SUBSCRIVED TO YOUR NEWSLETTER YET. Fixing that when I get home. God dang.

[@IcarusGames]

@@matthewhughes1950 I feel you. Just last week I was looking up the cost of building houses (and castles) in the medieval period :P For me in PF2 its more that the cost of general goods is lower than 5e, so it makes more "sense" that a commoner is spending silver vs having to spend multiple gold for fairly average purchases. I think giving the starting wealth in silver will go such a long way to helping players appreciate the value of gold in those early levels too!

[@JacksonOwex]

I see that Pathbuilder is linked in the description, and while it IS good it doesn't have ALL of the published material available for making characters unless you pay for something! Wanderer's Guide on the other hand has EVERYTHING, even playtest stuff, that has been published for free! There is even a pretty large group making homebrew stuff that you can grab and use for free as well! The only limit that I have seen so far is the number of characters that you can have at once! This is easily fixed if you "Export" the file, I don't think the "Export PDF" works just yet(or it just takes a REALLY long time to do) but the regular works just fine, and it's SUPER easy to import the character if/when you need it again so you never have you limit of characters filled!

[@mattlawson3623]

Thanks for the video! I've heard of Pathfinder but not really anything about it, so this definitely peaked my interest! I will definitely take a deeper dive in the near future.

[@IcarusGames]

Glad I could help! I'm going to make a video next week making level 1 fighters in both PF2 and 5e and comparing the 2.

[@mattlawson3623]

@@IcarusGames Can't wait!

[@cheezeofages]

Beginner Box for 2e is highly recommended. Especially if you can get it local so shipping isn't an issue. Even past the excellent tutorial adventure (which can link to a couple other available adventures) just the physical stuff it comes with is worth the price of the thing (comes with study standees of common monsters you can use for minis, a map that has pretty reusable parts on it, a set of decent dice, and some okay sheets).

[@mattlawson3623]

@@cheezeofages amazing! Thanks so much! I'm going to try and track it down.

[@IcarusGames]

+1 for the beginner box. I got the PF2 and starfinder beginner boxes for Christmas and they are great.

[@lawrencecelestino3444]

I did already once try to create an "economy" for the 3.5e D&D system and what I've found is that that sort of thing generally doesn't work. I prefer D&D 5e's foundational assumption that no magic item is essential to any character to be playable in any game. Pathfinder 2e maintains the idea that you offload some essential PC functionality to magic items, so they are absolutely necessary to use for encounter balance. The numerical balance is fine and all, but then you get problems where players can demand everything, and Pathfinder solves that by just obfuscating it under the "Uncommon" tag which is essentially the same as the entire D&D Magic Item system. DM's prerogative, basically. No fantasy economy generally stands up to any scrutiny. This is further complicated by the assumptions of guild economies in most D&D worlds, where the price of every item is basically determined by fiat anyway. Like, literally, the prices are in-game narratively controlled by the guilds. D&D's approach of making all of this plainly "funny money" is the most sensible one, IMO. Your character is narratively wealthy. They have influence and can command luxury and respect - and that's it. That is all money is anyway, even IRL. It's agreed-upon value, nothing more.

[@misomiso8228]

Thoughts 1. Tags. Completely agree. Standardised tags make everything easier 2. Encounter Building. Mindboglling that WotC has a DIFFERENT internal system for building encounters than the one published for other users. Perhaps it’s a business decision thing, to give their products a competitive advantage. 3. XP and Rewards. This I think is very hard. Xp is the hardest thing to sort out in RPGs, but it sounds like PF 2e is at least doing it better. 4. The Economy. Yes yes a thousand times yes. 5. More detailed Weapons and weapon effects. Agree, but the game gets WAY more complex, and not all players enjoy combat. 6. Level 20 Options. Yes, but 5e did make some improvements from previous systems. 7. 10th level spells. Here is a heresy, spell levels should be renamed to correspond with caster level, so 2nd level spells become 3rd levels spells, 5th level spells 9th level spells etc. Then we can have 20th level spells! 8. Magic Item rarity. Yep. but I like how 5e did Magic items. They made them a bit more special I think. And yes the character building is better etc The BIG negative however, is Pathfinder 2e is a lot more complex than 5e, and a lot of 5e’s appeal has been it’s simplicity (Before the rules bloat). Great vid though dude. I too am from the UK so your joyful English Accent is a great oasis in the American dominated youtube! 
best

[@nabmcfeegle]

As someone who has played and GMed (and enjoy!) both referenced systems, I think they are going for a different 'fantasy' with each magic item economy. In D&D 5e these items are relics of bygone times and (at least in the Forgotten Realms) magic item creation is extremely rare...although PCs are too so there's always an argument. Artificer clouds the situation a bit but that was primarily developed for Eberron, that does have magic item creation rules through the schema mechanics (though these are still quite vague). If players want specific magic items for specific builds/effects then it's not well suited and the computer game grind/create feel really bounces off. The +1 sword found in the tomb is likely a rich family's heirloom and that was handed down from an age where dwarven smiths forged great arms and armour. Pf2e is more in the realm of a bustling economy of magic items that are part of day to day life. These things are made by people as a business and, thus, are less special. Only apex items and artifacts are exceptionally special with increased weapon/armour runes there to balance a mechanical equation to keep martial classes relevant. This is a hugely different fantasy that the system is well suited for which makes the game feel more complete to those who feel like that is part of the 'build'. Both approaches have merits but I think Pathfinder is a better end to end experience that's more mechanically challenging as a game whereas 5e has some high spots but needs some really advanced skills to run good high level (and arguably levels 1-2) games. Pathfinder supports GMs through heavy codification of systems that support GMs and players. Great video and well discussed points! Subscribing as I'm impressed by the content and looking forward to seeing more.

[@vlastalicajaime5107]

I really appreciate your videos and try to watch them all. 5e for my group has been a rough go as the levels come way to fast and you burn by the lower level mobs so fast and they are pointless in a sense for game use. I'm an old school player that started in the late 70s. Anyhow I grew up with 2 3 year games and you would enjoy level 1 for probably 3 sessions. 5e seams to be more about modules than campaigns. Either or man keep up the great info I truly enjoy your stuff.

[@IcarusGames]

Thanks! I appreciate the support :)

[@aaronagostini7377]

Just curious if you had checked out some of the other systems with beginner/starter boxes (e.g. Runequest, Warhammer Fantasy, One Ring), especially when bringing people into gaming.

[@IcarusGames]

I haven't unfortunately. I've played Cyberpunk RED and Stars Without Number enough to know how I feel about them, and have read Starfinder which looks loads of fun!

[@aaronagostini7377]

@@IcarusGames I've picked up the Pathfinder and Starfinder starter sets, and plan on playing them with my kids, they do look like loads of fun, and much more flushed out than the current D&D starter sets.

[@guardian_of_the_rune]

I would have to say that it's actually easier to GM Pathfinder than it is to GM 5e (for me at least). The balance is always on point but be careful with slimes that have the engulf ability at low levels. If anything my biggest complaint is that it's too balanced so I like to let my players find consumable items 2+ their level.

[@shoulung6203]

I think my least favorite thing about PF2E is the incremental power bumps; +/-1s to things just don't feel very impactful, but I suppose that's the price you pay for having something new each level.

[@IcarusGames]

I was talking with one of the designers the other day and they said originally they wanted proficiency in PF2 to be 1-4 and go up 1, but gamers don't like small numbers, and +2 *feels* disproportionately better than +1, hence PB being in 2s. The +1 is actually significant, because it improves both your hit and crit chance, but it's not as immediately sexy as an ability or larger number.

[@SuperMattMart]

Play a game of pf2e... And then play one with a bard spending an action to give everyone a +1 to hit... Then find out how many beers the other players buy the bard at the end of the night. You'd be surprised. The action economy and balancing makes the little bits actually matter. Everything feels more impactful.