Restrictions are GOOD in Pathfinder 2e (Rules Lawyer)

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

(EDIT: The Remaster allows you to swap 2 items with a single Interact action!) -There's a number of links in the video description that should interest people! -Don't forget the 3 action system often allows you to do MORE on your turn, while other in systems (3e, PF1, 5e, etc.), you sometimes do only ONE thing on your turn because you only 1 main action. (And "waste" your bonus action or movement because you don't have one or don't have reason to use it) -Pathfinder 2e DOES explicitly give GMs leeway to lessen action costs sometimes, in the Gamemastery Guide under "Splitting and Combining Movement": 2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=849 It ends with: "This works only for chaining types of movement together. Doing something like Interacting to open a door or making a Strike usually arrests movement long enough that doing so in the middle of movement isn’t practical." (I would also allow, in some situations, for someone to pick up an object mid-Stride without breaking up the PC's movement.)

[@nicolasvillasecaali7662]

Funnily enough, the scenario of picking an object mid stride is something that we added quite early when we stumbled on

[@yellingintothewind]

"This *typically* works only..." (emphasis added). Not sure if the print version is different, but AoN is quite clear. GMs can and should be reasonable with this, especially since a -2 penalty is quite steep.

[@mistaree8394]

I would add that a lot of green GMs that house rule away minor effects/give minor bonuses frequently invalidate skill feats or even class feats by accident. Why take the quick draw feat when you have a house rule of a free interact each turn? Why take the barbarian feat bashing charge to smash through doors as part of your movement when there is a house rule you can open doors during your movement that anybody can do?

[@yellingintothewind]

@@mistaree8394Likely because many skill feats are content for the sake of content. Just trying to fill out things that should be possible regardless. Take bashing charge, for example. Unless you are wielding a crowbar, your barbarian is making that force open check at a net -1. (+1 from the skill feat, -2 from lack of a proper tool). This sort of pedantic sillyness does not lend itself to thinking the rules are worth looking up on the fly.

[@Phalcon777]

The more I watched this the less interesting the system feels. Every step you said adds depth just makes the game seem overly complicated for the sake of being complicated.

[@bryanstrahm9961]

Wait they were talking about house-ruling AWAY the multiple attack penalty? That would make every boss encounter infinitely more lethal, because a boss could just stand on top of you and strike strike strike and drop most people in a turn or two. This definitely smacks of one of those "we would want this for the players, but would hate this for NPCs".

[@kevindaniel1337]

Yeah I don't think they thought that one through too hard. They just wanted to hit easier themselves and didn't think of the consequences. -5e GM moving to pf2e currently

[@BlueSapphyre]

Boss Monster just gonna land 3 crits and drop most of the party round 1. lol.

[@angryguy3000]

one of the worst signs for a house rule is “this is for PCs only (without a feat or anything) and not the monsters”

[@streetstroller]

Making combat a lethal and risky choice at best? Sounds like it would make players not want to just combat their way through every situation. I like it.

[@fatboy158]

​@@streetstrollerSome people enjoy a well balanced combat

[@Lumancer]

Point of order: 5e yo-yo healing is mostly a symptom of 5e healing being seriously inefficient relative to your other options. The amount you can heal per round is almost always less than a frontline ally is _taking_ per round unless you're burning pretty significant resources, which makes trying to avoid KO less efficient than yo-yo. The genuinely worthwhile healing in pf2e is a significant contrast that I don't see stressed as often as it deserves.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

It's the combination of healing in 5e being lackluster and knockouts having little consequence. I was more focused on the action economy costs in this vid (if I expanded more on every point my videos would be even longer!)

[@Quandry1]

part of the healing problem is actually an issue of the mentality of much of the player base. They have been taught, partly by youtubers and other similar types that do things like create "character builds" who focus heavily on damage above all else and often ignore other ways to mitigate damage that make the healing much more reasonable. Thus you end up with the secondary result of the "healing yoyo" because they are only interacting with a fairly specific part of the toolset. Often with little understanding of the rest of the toolset. This is compounded even further by the fact that there are very little codified exploration type rules to help people think of things, including combat, as more than just hit the enemy, and to up that to hit the enemy harder than they hit me so that we win faster than they do. A lot of intelligent battlefield control, specially against more dumbly and poorly controlled NPC's eliminates a fair bit of the need for healing, which lessens that substantial resource cost in many instances, and can in fact lessen the attrition race mentality, but it's based heavily on the environmental interaction which is heavily missing in the 5e ruleset. One thing about the action economy of the PF2E ruleset is that it actually forces them to interact with combat and the environment differently and to a greater extent, even to the point of their own equipment as part of the equation to some extent.

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@Quandry1Thing is, dealing damage in 5e is always more effective than healing If you deal a lot of damage, you end up killing the thing that damages you faster and the vast majority of the time end up with more damage mitigated than had you healed

[@Quandry1]

@@xolotltolox7626 This actually isn't entirely true. it's a nice sentiment and it sounds great on surface level but the thing is it doesn't necessarily work as advertised a good portion of the time despite people trying to make it so. you wouldn't have yoyo healing be such a thing if it really worked up to the claims that it should. And more party members don't die only because DM's actively keep enemies from continuing to target them until dead. even after they bounce up a few times. You actually mitigate far more damage through things like CC than you do just engaging in DPS races except against poorly controlled npc's that DM's purposely make it so you can dps race down.

[@xolotltolox7626]

@@Quandry1 the whole pont i was making is that DPR>Healing CC is ridiculously overpowered in 5e everyone knows that

[@kadmii]

I can believe a lvl 15 PC climbing as fast as movement speed much more than a lvl 1 PC doing that I feel like Paizo missed an opportunity naming the Wall Jump feat as "Parkour!"

[@nobleradical2158]

They put it in sf2e don't worry

[@zeratanus]

I've moved away from 5e in the opposite direction than Pathfinder (going to more narrative/mechanically simple games instead of more granular and tactical), but I enjoy learning more about game design and this was a fun look at the design of the 3 action system and the forces at work behind those decisions.

[@thraknar3363]

I think part of the issue with 5E is that it's rules lead to constant arbitrary rulings, often in ways that punish players for narrative decisions. Honestly I would much prefer a narrative heavy game, than a 5E session that is both mechanically restrictive, and relies on DM fiat moment to moment. Plenty of other systems handle the heavier rules or rules light better.

[@Arcanyum]

as someone who practices kendo, i can tell you that's very realistic one action to restore your grip on the weapon. You can take the hand of your sword no problem, but getting the right grip on the handle takes a good second or two, especially if you consider one action to take 2 seconds

[@toodleselnoodos6738]

Not even just kendo! Happens in tennis too!

[@randomyoutubecommenterr]

It's not even just Kendo. Think of a greatsword. You can't even hold one of those things in one hand. That sword if you let go of one hand it's going to drop to the ground. It takes an action because it's a heavy ass sword that needs to be hoisted back up into a position where you can leverage and swing it. This ain't an anime where people swing giant swords around like they're light as a feather.

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@randomyoutubecommenterrgreatswords aren't nearly as heavy as ypu make them out to be

[@TheReZisTLust]

Especially when fighting monsters

[@snakeinabox7220]

​@@randomyoutubecommenterr Longsword's are around 1-1.5kg ( 2-3lbs) Greatsword's are around 2-2.5kg ( 5-7lbs) Most weapons are not that heavy, you don't need a lot of weight to have a powerful swing, you just need to hit it probably and have good edge alignment.

[@Zedrinbot]

22:15 one really funny caveat, as far as I can tell, is crossbows. If you're holding a crossbow in one hand, and you reload it, that allows you to reset your grip to two-handing it as part of the action. Cause otherwise, whenever you reloaded a crossbow, you'd remove one hand from it to grab a bolt, and you'd need to spend an action to re-grip it, which is very obviously not the intention.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Ah! Where is it written somewhere that you restore your grip on the crossbow at the same time?

[@Zedrinbot]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG From Reloading (pg 279): "Switching your grip to free a hand and then to place your hands in the grip necessary to wield the weapon are both included in the actions you spend to reload a weapon."

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

@@Zedrinbot Awesome! Thanks.

[@andrewdemarco3512]

yes, same for guns, otherwise the gunsligner would be absolutely useless. Its punishing enough to ahve to waste an action reloading after every shot, but if you ahd to waste 2 to regrip the weapon it would be unplayable

[@EquinoxDoodles]

One of the big gripes one of my players had with pf2e was the fact that they couldn’t break up movement or be as mobile. This video really helped me find a better way to explain why the system works the way it does. They have spoken how they want to have a “free movement action” alongside the three, so I’m glad this was explained in the video on why movement being an action matters.

[@chrizzlybear5565]

If they want a free move action each turn, they might be interested in a wand of haste. Let's see if they're willing to pay an appropriate price for the power that'll give them ;)

[@EquinoxDoodles]

@@chrizzlybear5565 By all means lol, I know where they’re coming from since they like making super strong builds. I gave them a magic item to at least let them cover more ground. They’re very much somebody who prefers 5e, wanting to be strong on their own rather than strong as a collective. Too each their own and they’re still having fun regardless of their qualms :)

[@christianlangdon3766]

I gave a hombrew item, that gave a single free move action once every combat. It really altered how the rogue and the others realise how busted movment is.

[@EquinoxDoodles]

@@christianlangdon3766I might have to steal that idea, at least just to show them how strong it is. However, knowing who they are as a player, I think it would just reinfornce their thinking and want that to be the norm. As I said in another comment, they like making their characters strong on their own.

[@KajtekBeary]

@@EquinoxDoodlesthen it’s not really a system for them tbh. Nothing wrong with it. Making a strong collective made of specialized individuals is one of the core pathfinder design principles. You either need to change the system or change their mindset, otherwise you won’t be having that much fun and find pf2e frustrating.

[@Synetik]

It's amazing how Paizo can be smart enough to know how important movement is but, still design so many APs as hallway simulators.

[@ampersandrew]

Different departments. The rules people do not write adventure paths.

[@Subject_Keter]

Sounds like some managers need to thrown to the magicians coastline and fireballed till they learn better. Bruh.

[@nivrap_]

Limitations often contribute more towards the identity of a game than freedoms do, because limitations (even things we don't normally think of as limitations, such as "these are your attribute scores, you cannot change them on a whim") allow the player to interact with the game in a uniquely structured way that can be shared by all players. To use an example from video games, Mario's jump has limitations. It carries momentum in certain ways, it can only reach a certain height, and you have to touch the ground before jumping again. The limitations of Mario's jump is what the core of the game is built around, platforming. If you were to give Mario's jumps in a particular game the same freedom as Kirby's jumps (freely changing momentum, infinite jumps, infinite height), then the design of the game would no longer work. Platforming challenges would become trivial. And in the games where they _do_ expand Mario's jumping options (such as Sunshine or Odyssey), the level design is _also_ altered to create new challenges under a new set of restrictions.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

One of the more insidious things in D&D 5e's design is that it encourages DMs to reward player creativity AND the only tool the system gives them to use is Advantage/Disadvantage. It often makes DM fiat (and the player's real-life Persuasion skill) matter much more than the PC.

[@davidbowles7281]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG DM fiat ruled the day for 30+ years. 5th ed was designed to be a throwback. And it is.

[@Excalibaard]

Limitations don't contribute to, they *define* the identity of game. Every rule, system, or even description of the game world, limits the freedom of different imaginations in favor of a shared and more coherent understanding/suspension of disbelief. A game with pure freedom is playing make-believe at the school playground. People should use whatever rules they want, as long as they agree it helps to inspire and create a story. Systems like PF or DnD can help as a starting template with many specifics worked out that works for most people. But Fate/Fudge can work just fine, as well as any homebrew rules that the party agrees on. Whether the game becomes 'unbalanced' is something that depends on the playing group how/if they want to resolve it. That said, I think this video is a great help to reshape the conceptions of what's possible per round from DnD5e and how to imagine your character's capabilities in PF2e

[@dramotarker1352]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I'm still new, what tools does pf2e offer to reward player creativity?

[@davidbowles7281]

@@dramotarker1352 Basically none unless there's a mechanical implementation of your idea. The GM could, in theory, hand out a circumstance bonus but I think many PF2E players would object.

[@cone13ks]

I one hundred percent agree with the shield. If I make a character that uses a shield I want to interact with it and make it mechanically part of the character as well as the flavour. It's such a disappointment that in 5e you equip it once and your done for twenty levels.

[@Trivlis]

Yeah. We tried out PF2e last week and the fighter seemed to love the block reaction for this reason.

[@Zedrinbot]

I honestly have liked the 'raise a shield' action since I tried out a champion in the playtest. It feels significant and getting the shield block reaction feels like a worthy tradeoff. It feels like you can specialize in shield as central to your build rather than just an accessory that can just let you get an extra shove.

[@duncbot9000]

I think that's why in 5e I always took the Protection Fighting Style, I want my shields to be active items

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

I mean, there is a feat tree with a 10th level feat, that allows you to reduce damage with a shield for free, which I think is pretty OP, but you have to remember that this game has a lot of OP options, and if everything is OP, nothing is. But all in all, I think this is pretty OP. Also, there is a feat which allows you to use your shield hand to interact.

[@Vyke348]

@@mr.cauliflower3536 In fairness, it's not free. Spent feats are a resource.... they're not doing anything else.

[@clanpsi]

Things that should be changed, however, are both drawing and drinking potions, and drawing two weapons, being separate actions. Reducing both down to one action improves the game a lot.

[@p3ter9000]

Drawing 2 weapons at once has consequences for thrown weapon damage per turn, which I think is the major limitation to making it more free since PF2 game design needs ranged damage to be relatively nerfed. First level fighter feat allows stowing 2 items and drawing 2 items all in a single action though

[@blocare5544]

At my table, I usually just rule that unless in exploration mode, the players always have there weapons ready. Like before they enter a house, I assume they draw there weapons. Etc etc. However if there just talking to an npc, they would have to draw there weapons. If they wanna attack.

[@TheGreatSquark]

This seems to be the default assumption in my (Society) play group as well. If the party is in a situation where they expect danger, they have their tools at the ready.

[@ghostyuki-kfpinquisitor1038]

You learn to appreciate the enemy not being able to break up movement when it comes to anything that flies which tends to have an insane fly speed (*cough* dragons *cough*) Also for that ogre example, if it's aware Valeros has reactive strike, it could just step away instead. MAP is one thing I think should never be changed. There's already plenty of ways to build around it and would negate a large number of feats with its removal (and make the flurry ranger obsolete as well). Also you're basically asking for every boss to crit you 3x per turn.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

It also gives the dragon an interesting tactical choice: fly in and do Draconic Frenzy (3 attacks at the cost of two?), or "spring attack" but only make a single attack and get more than 100' away?

[@numimio]

MANY DnD players I've talked to argue the potion rule saying that "Oh everybody makes it a bonus action" and it makes me confused because... I tell them that's not RAW, but they just parrot the exact same words. Every time. Without fail.

[@duncbot9000]

That's why my 5e potion house rule is if you want it as a bonus action, you need to roll (and risk getting a 1 for healing, flavoured as you spilling) but if you take a full action you don't need to roll and get the dice maximum. (I think I got that from Bob World Builder)

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

It's the Mandela Effect for 5e!

[@bonzwah1]

I don't understand the problem. Everyone DOES make it a bonus action...and it's not RAW. Both statements are true...where is the argument?

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

@@bonzwah1Because some players say that having to spend actions to drink a potion feels restricting in PF2e and contrast it to 5e... when they're houseruling 5e and don't know it

[@RonJomero]

I've been GMing for at least 15 years. I've ran multiple systems including 3 different versions of D&D. PF2E is one of the most balanced systems I've ever played, and it remains balanced even at higher levels. Changing anything should be met with serious consideration. One great thing about the action economy is that monsters are using the same rules. Which means if you can deny them multiple actions then you just landed a MAJOR blow to the opposition. It's why I made a grappler. He doesn't do a ton of damage. But he can deny and lock down at least two enemies at once. And when I both grapple AND trip an enemy? They MUST first try and escape my grab before they can stand up. That's two actions (minumum!) I've just taken away from them. And even if they do escape and stand, they now have a -5 to attack because an escape counts towards the multi attack penalty. Some players are just so focused on the limitations that they can't see the benefits. It helps to realize you're contributing to a team and not trying to be built to solo everything.

[@Unanimoustoo]

Hi, I know replies to 7 month+ old comments don't usually get a response but I'm curious as I and some of my players are interested in trying PF2e. In your experience, are there situations where a martial PC that doesn't normally have a free hand should, or would prefer, to free a hand and interact with an object? I mean beyond situations like closing a door and double striding away or pulling a lever that sets off a trap on the enemy. Likewise, after attacking, should they free a hand and try to grab/grapple instead of attacking?

[@RonJomero]

@@Unanimoustoo I think they technically need a free hand in order to use a potion, or to throw/catch an object (like a potion). Dual wielding in this game isn't quite as necessary if you don't have actions/talents that specifically require it, since you can just multi-attack with the same weapon (there are other use cases, like off hand being an agile weapon, different damage type, etc). So you aren't penalized as much for just having one weapon and one hand free when it comes to offensive power. Especially if you're using that hand to grab. Grabbing is a huge debuff to an enemy because it is now off-guard to all other party members and you've also denied it one of it's actions if it wants to try and escape the grab. On top of that, escape attempts are subject to the multi attack penalty so if it tries to escape as its first action then even if it succeeds it now has to take the MAP to its first attack that round. It will also have a negative to any action that is a manipulate action, like casting any spell with the somatic trait (which is most of them); they have to make a flat DC 5 check or the action falls and uses up the action/spell slot. It just all comes down to do you want to be adding more damage, defense, or utility to the fight on holding an extra weapon, wielding a shield, or keeping a hand free. Hope that answers it. I'm about to go to sleep so I'm a bit tired. Oh, and keep in mind that attempting to grab is also subject to the MAP, but it's considered to be also having an "Agile" trait (so, -4/-8 instead of -5/-10).

[@Iced333]

I explained homebrewing rules to my buddy who was about to DM for the first time this way. This game is a building and the rules are its walls. Some walls are safe to remove and they might even make the place better but you should really understand why the walls are there and what they do before you start knocking walls out.

[@TheJuicyTangerine]

The only rule I've house rules is that a nights rest fully recovers HP. No more roleplaying patching people up for several hours

[@andrewdemarco3512]

I mean, it effectively does once you ahve the relevant feats anyway. You can heal multiple people every 10 minutes as a ward medic with continual recovery, so you can hand wave full heals not only on a full rest, but any time you have an hour or more to rest

[@whiskeyhound]

@@andrewdemarco3512Having to take a feat and build a character to get the same effect as the house rule which requires no investment on the players part isn't "effectively" the same.

[@andrewdemarco3512]

@whiskeyhound I mean sure, but it's one of those things that every party that wants to be functional does. I was basically saying the house rule is not necessary.

[@whiskeyhound]

@@andrewdemarco3512 That makes the house rule sound essential, especially so someone doesn't have to waste a feat and deviate from making an interesting build to play nurse after every fight.

[@AxillaryPower2]

As someone who has played a lot more PF2 than D&d5e, then picking up BG3, the separation of "action" and "bonus action" was as cluncky as it sounds like. Attacks are actions but some attacks are bonus actions, I still have to check which is which after 100 hours since they all change with different weapon types. Then a handful of levels in and i start picking up extra attacks, suddenly the game feels easy. Still a good game, but point is, I'll take the clean action mechanics and smooth progression of PF2 anyday.

[@chavesa5]

It's an interesting difference some players have between players who want to remove friction as much as possible for performance's sake and those who are more systems-oriented

[@AlexM-is6ru]

I could see there being a fun class feat that lets you break up movement, but only the specific situation where you move to an enemy, strike them, and kill them. You can then stride for free up to the movement you hadn't used yet on the first stride. Call it something like "Murderous Momentum." It wouldn't be exploitable as a kiting tool because if the enemy is still alive, you can't use it. But it would be useful when fighting a lot of spread out weaker enemies.

[@laki7480]

There is, it's on the cavalier archetype.

[@DrowGM]

There's the advancing armor rune you can get that does this. Advancing Rune: Item 9+; Magical, Necromancy Usage: Etched onto heavy armor; Bulk --; Price 625g Free Action (Command), Requirements: Your last action or activity reduced an enemy to 0 Hit Points; Effect: You Stride up to 15 feet. This movement doesn't trigger reactions. You can Burrow, Climb, Fly, or Swim instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type.

[@francescocazzola2440]

I think the most important aspect to consider with the action restrictions is that most people who don't like them only look at how it affects them directly, when in reality everyone has to juggle with them enemies included. Monsters tend to have higher numbers than players, so no MAP would lead to many more crits being landed on the players, they also usually have higher speeds so if they could break up movement they could likely run across a good chunk of the party with a single action while still having the ability to attack them with the remaining 2. While a dragon delivering 3 no MAP attacks while flying across the entire map for just 3 actions IS cool and definitely evokes the image of a powerful creature I wouldn't exactly say it's fun to have to deal with. Having to interact with things separately is the only thing I have found really "problematic", moving 10ft next to a door, spending an action to open it, and another to stride through just feels terrible and me and my group came up with a homebrew activity creatively called "running interaction", for 2 actions you stride up to your movement and can make an Interact action at any point during it so long as the interaction doesn't require a check so it can be things like opening a door, pulling a lever, picking up an item or reloading a weapon (the running reload feat is a single action to do both). It makes movement in more "complex" eviroments a bit more dynamic while not really impacting the action economy in most cases since it doesn't "save" actions, and also helps with the fantasy a bit in my opinion, as with having to separate the actions I can't stop imagining someone running at full speed, stopping to very calmly pick up a potion from the table, and then proceed to go back running like crazy.

[@texteel]

I would argue that teh "it only affects enemies" arguement only holds water when the party is in a fight that is not difficult. If its a single difficult enemy, then it doesnt matter, because that big enemy hits you with a 2 on MAP10 anyway, critsaves against any effect you throw at it on a 2 anyway meaning you cannot reliably inflict any of the conditions on it that would be helpful. Single difficult fights are designed to be snowbally on purpose. Meaning you HAVE to throw everything at it, until it rolls a nat1 against an effect that opens a chink, then throw in everything into that opening, HOPING that you manage to inflict a debilitating condition on it before it kills the party. If its a swarm of enemies, it wont matter if they roll 1000 dice agaisnt you or just 999.

[@RSATT01]

Yeah, and important thing to do when introducing people to PF2E is to very clearly show that you're applying these things to enemies and NPCs as well. if they see that enemies need to spend an action to move to their weapons, then an action to pick up a weapon, they'll be less likely to call it bullshit because it gave them an advantage for sneaking up on the enemies.

[@Mushezable]

Talk about Familiars please. I'm playing Witch and can't figure out much use beyond the action economy benefit that it having independant gives, allowing it to knowledge check for me. But otherwise what can I do to make best use of my familiar. I'm Baba Yaga patron by the way if that's important, so my familiar is a magical loom and not an animal. Also I know that Witch changes are coming but still don't quite understand how much they change things.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

There's a couple really good guides if you type "guide to familiars in Pathfinder 2e" It's something I might cover one day but I have a long queue atm!

[@Mushezable]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG ty

[@numimio]

Something I homeruled for awhile was a miss didn't increase the multiple attack penalty. I changed that after realizing the martials did far too much damage over the casters.

[@TheGreatSquark]

This also feels like one of those things that would be terrifying when applied to Boss monsters. It feels like a lot more crits wouls happen as a result.

[@cinderheart2720]

Considering there's a level 1 fighter feat to give this ability, best to not add it to everything, yeah.

[@kendrajade6688]

@@cinderheart2720 With the Press Trait, so that's only if you already have MAP.

[@GreyGramarye]

I generally agree the design of pf2e is better, especially with the goal being tactical combat. But I will say my personal experience is this has led to a greater proportion of unsatisfying turns, where the players feel like they got nothing of value done. That sensation means players feel like they had less fun than they wanted and will cause some to bounce off the system. Maybe that’s okay, as the game doesn’t intent to capture the widest possible audience like 5e does, but it does mean this is likely to remain an eternal point of friction as 5e players experiment with pf2e.

[@Jimbo5900]

Could you explain how you get a greater proportion of unsatisfying turns?

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Yes, PF2 has a definite audience. Honest questions: 1. Were these unsatisfying turns more frequent than the times in 5e one can be out of range from an enemy so that you had to Dash to go up to them? (and did their DMs enforce the Action required to Dash rule?) Did they ever hit a bump of wanting to do a Bonus Action but only had an Action, and vice versa? 2. Sometimes you make your 1 attack in 5e and you miss, while in 2e you can make 2 or more attacks. Are they okay with that?

[@GreyGramarye]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG 1) I would say yes they were more common. Usually the dash turns are just in the first round of combat for those characters who don't have worthwhile ranged attacks. Many of the unsatisfying BG3 turns happen mid-combat, when we really wanted to be getting things done. Like one character had a scroll she wanted to use to exploit an enemy's vulnerability to fire, but realized she had to wait another round to actually use it because the spell took two actions, she had to move to get close enough, and she had to use an action to pull out the scroll. Mostly I would say item juggling has been the main culprit of unsatisfying turns - PF2E encourages you to use a bunch of interesting utility items, but then makes it difficult by taxing actions to get those items on top of the actions to activate them. 2) Well yeah. That's not really something I'd call a strength of PF2E over 5e as it seems enemies are more likely to make their saves. And while yes you can make additional attacks, MAP is pretty heavy. And of course 5e has Extra Attack and Action Surge for those who are into making attacks. I wouldn't say PF2E is weaker on this front either, the two are comparable in the situations where this leads to unsatisfying turns.

[@ShadowoftheMask]

I don't really feel like I had more satisfying turns in 5e than in 2e, but it really depends on how you play your character and what rest of characters do as well. Like, I've had lot of fun with pyromaniac druids

[@ryuteki]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I agree with GreyG that 1) Definitely those unsatisfying turns are more frequent in PF2E, but also that they became less of an issue as we leveled and picked up some mitigating feats/abilities, and also as we discarded whole-cloth some of the types of actions that fit our characters but were too painful to hammer into the 3-action rules. Also 2) in 5e your attacks are far less likely to miss horribly, as in 2e you miss ALL THE TIME (again, esp at low levels) because some idiot designer decided that you should only have a 30%-40% chance to hit something in PF2E that is supposed to be a reasonable challenge.

[@williammclyr3330]

I criticized paizo for their choices in pf2e since beginning. I really hate how stupid arms and armor work in this system. But this system is basically have strongest foundation among all popular ttrpgs. With good understanding of how action economy and character creation work you can create entirely different systems, while maintaining good balance

[@emptyptr9401]

The one thing that I would make "free" (Think should be free) is interacting with the environment. I think being able to do one environmental interaction per turn for free encourages creativity on the player side and challenges me as the DM to come up with interesting, interactable battle maps. I hope that this makes battle far more dynamic and fun. Although I haven't tried it yet, it is something I am planning to implement in the next Campaign I run.

[@duncbot9000]

I haven't actually played in a real game yet. But I am wondering if it would work as "one free interact during any movement action", it would kind of split the difference.

[@iCarus_A]

This seems like a bad idea because it promotes players pausing for way too long to come up with a way to interact with the environment, since it's free. What I do is to make explicit of the environment features (releasing a grindwheel, kicking enemies down a shaft, etc) that the PCs can take advantage of. As long as the interact cost with environment is equal to or better than doing something from their class, it's fine

[@queencrimson4750]

After playing baldurs gate 3 i am now definitely in favor of p2e multiple attack penalty. In bg3 berserker + tavern brawler feat + returning pike item = insanely overpowered yet insanely samey and boring.

[@haire.stamper5602]

I been GMing PF2E about 18 months for my group. One of my players started running a campaign using PF2E. I rolled up a druid (animal order). The very first encounter I strode up to the door and readied an action close the door the moment it was opened. The orc that went after moved up, opened the door and then had to open it again, wasting all three of its actions. The orc had to sit there while it got dismantled by our polearm fighter and our ranged Thaumaturge. The rest of the encounter was a cakewalk.

[@tomchristoffer]

I don't understand why you chose "grapple" as the example for what you can do with your actions instead of attacking, since Grapple, trip, shove also have multiple attack penalty.

[@jherron160]

I think the point was that while MAP can feel bad to the PCs, ot can also be used to your advantage. If you didnt have MAP, then grapple would be weaker

[@georgeharris6851]

Also with Assurance, you don't have to take the MAP penalty. Of course, you don't get any bonuses either, but you don't get MAP or other penalties.

[@PlatonicLiquid]

⁠@@georgeharris6851To add to this, this trick doesn't work on most creatures, but when it does its amazing. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe the best you can succeed against is certain at-level creatures with low Fortitude, but not at super low levels when monsters have more uniform stats and you don't have expert in Athletics. The Dryad is a good example, where you have to be at least level 3 with expert Athletics to use Assurance. However, against below-level creatures, even with average Fortitude, you can attack twice (probably dropping at least 1 enemy) then Grapple automatically, where that 3rd attack would have probably not hit. Basically a free attack every turn

[@josephwille6464]

The main reason I understand it is twofold. 1 : you grapple to make the enemy off guard to your allies. IE the enemy has -2 to their AC until they escape grapple. 2 : something might be more important than doing damage. if the enemy is grappled they have to use an action to escape, and escaping will inflict the multiple attack penalty on the enemy. This reduces the enemies agression So in short if you successfully grapple then you give up your damage to reduce enemy movement reduce enemy AC reduce enemy accuracy reduce enemy damage all in all i think thats a fair trade, and being a fair trade is what makes it tactically interesting

[@georgeharris6851]

Also, a grappled creature cannot get to the squishy casters in the back while grappled, and, as you said, being off-guard to melee and ranged martial attackers, especially those with precision damage is great, also.

[@mr.calamity8886]

My first character in Pathfinder is a wizard. I never played one in DnD and decided I should go with a classic for a new system. I was taken aback by Vancian casting, but I'm glad it exists. Instead of casting yet another damage spell, and contributing to the DPR race like you mentioned at around the 16 minute mark, I finally cast color spray. I was so surprised by just how debilitating the status effects in this game are. Next rest, I prepared less damage and more crowd control spells, and felt more powerful because of it. Death might be the strongest status effect, but the others really help get the enemies to reach it!

[@GadoukenRising]

About deciding what is in your character's hands at the beginning of combat: I think it's worth emphasizing that Pathfinder's options give you great reasons for having lots of different things (or nothing) in your hands. The result at the table is that, when combat starts and you say "what's in your hands?" you can comfortably allow your players to declare whatever makes sense to them. In 5e, the only meaningful options for player characters' hands is "are you holding your weapon(s) or not?" and leads to either players wanting to "fudge" their option with "of course I already drew my weapons, but i didn't declare it," or, on the other side, leads to DMs trying to trap players with a gotcha of "you never SAID you were drawing your weapon, so you start combat unarmed!" In Pathfinder, you can let your players put their best foot forward because what's in their hands in a meaningful choice, not a binary "good or bad."

[@JohnQDarksoul]

"Lots" of different things? I can't think of more than 4 and all of those are variable to whether or not a PC uses them: shield, weapon, healer's tools, and none. Some characters don't use *any* of those, let alone more than 1. Perhaps maybe exclusively for an alchemist or an investigator your choice will vary more? My fighter's probably just going to say their weapon, my monk is probably going to choose nothing, and my champion is probably going to say shield+weapon when I ask them all "what is in your hands." In 5e, it doesn't matter if you have your weapons out at the start of combat. You get a free object interact action on your turn. In neither system does it matter to make a big deal of what is in your players hands when combat starts (unless you want to be an ass, in which case go for it in pathfinder).

[@joshuawong5839]

Just to add on more detailed examples: the question of "what's in your hands?" does matter when the Fighter is carrying multiple weapons, because of the weapon traits system in Pathfinder 2e and the action cost to draw/stow weapons. The question then becomes "WHICH weapon is in your hands?" - Longspear with reach, twinned silver maces, and shortbows all have implications for tactics and positioning. (Not to mention varied resistances to damage types and weaknesses to materials, and later on different property runes placed on different magical weapons.) Shortbow can shoot flying enemies, longspear with reach can make attacks of opportunity from 10ft away as the enemy approaches, and twinned silver maces can trigger weaknesses to silver or bludgeoning damage. Not to mention certain feats only work with the appropriate weaponry (e.g. Double slice requires two one-handed weapons). Then most spellcasters also need to decide what's in their hands at the start of combat - wands, staves and scrolls play a big part in many spellcasters' action economy and spell arsenal. Whether or not you have a Wand of Heal in your hand already determines whether or not you can cast a 3-action AOE Heal that turn, or just a 2-action single-target Heal due to the need to spend one action drawing the wand. Same with Scrolls of Magic Missile, and any other spell that has a variable action cost.

[@AlexM-is6ru]

@@JohnQDarksoul Potions, scrolls, wands, staves, different types of bombs, different weapons with different traits. If they aren't buying any potions they should really start. And if you don't have a caster that's all the more reason to pick up trick magic item so they can start using scrolls and wands.

[@GadoukenRising]

@@JohnQDarksoul Of course it varies from table to table, but if you're in a 5e game that tries to do everything RAW (not that I recommend that at all), you only get one object interaction per turn and it takes an action to don/doff a shield, which can create contentious situations. While I personally haven't struggled with issues like that in 5e games, I've had fun as a player in Pathfinder 2e by deciding which potions/scrolls/wands/staves to have in my wizard's hands at the start of combat.

[@daracaex]

For a lot of these things, you keep saying the rules create “interesting choices.” I’d argue that some of them are not at all interesting. Using a potion, for example, takes basically your entire turn (including movement, unlike 5e, unless you’re a specific combat style, as you’ve pointed out). But that leads to potions just not being used in combat, cause it’s almost never worth the opportunity cost. Same is true for 5e, in this case. Full action potions means potions are almost never used in combat. (And by the way, yo-yo healing isn’t really a good idea in 5e either. Or it shouldn’t be. It’s just 5e made healing abilities and spells generally not that good compared to other combat actions unless you’re a life cleric, so people end up only using it in emergency situations even if it’s better to use it before people drop to 0). Similarly, if I’m knocked out in PF2e, I need an action to stand up, and individual actions to pick up my weapon and shield or whatever, which just makes dropping to zero even more dangerous and bad feeling to experience cause not only do you potentially miss a turn before you can be revived, you lose the turn after being healed too and can’t participate in the fight again. Recently found out this is kinda the case RAW in 5e as well if you drop two things, but I think in both these examples I can be critical of both systems for similar things. But at the end of the day, why does all of this have to be made so complicated and fiddly in PF2e? I need to know about three different actions just to use a potion? Why not just have the “drink a potion” action that costs three actions? I’m sure the answer is because there’s some feat or class feature that makes doing some of the things easier or something, but it’s just frustrating to learn and experience the process piecemeal, having to look through the rule book/archive of Nethys for all these different bits.

[@doomhippie6673]

The feats are a plus and minus for me at the same time. At level 15 being able to finally climb a wall without too much of a risk? I've never played a character to level 15 in the last 20 years. But in our games climbing is very often a thing. I get the feeling that you need feats for almost anything fun in PF2 and that means I can only be really good at one or two things. Now, you pointed out that that is an incentive to keep on playing to higher levels. But that's where I disagree. Higher levels mean more absurd monsters with even more absurd abilities. And that has always been a big turn-off to me. I admit I like games with as little magic and "flashy effects" as possible (even in computer games - please no lightning and sparks when you hit with a sword). And PF2 seems to go in exactly that direction. I know I seem like one of those grumpy guys that try to nag about PF2 (and sometimes I admittedly am). But having watched a few PF2 games I must say that the combat breaks my immersion with its many little details. It becomes a number game that tome tastes like a math lesson (not "Mathfinder", adding a few numbers is not that hard) with decisions being based on cold analytics. I've never come across a combat situation that had an organic feel to it. "I kick his leg out from underneath him, jump on his back and slash his throat" becomes a "Hm, I try to push him to the ground and he has a saving throw and I need to see if I pass an acrobatics roll to land on his back while he has the prone condition. Now I can make a melee attack but since that is my second attack I have -5 plus (I make this up as I am not really too firm with PF2 rule) +2 for attacking him from above(or maybe he is just flat footed?)... That "rules talk" just completely reminds me of all those strategy games I've played back in the 80s... It's like eating bread that has become stale, dry and... uninspiring? I'm not saying that dnd5e does it much better, but at least the "rules talk" is a lot lighter. Maybe I should play more PF2 to get a little more fluent with combat rules but I really fear I'll be bored quicker than being fascinated. And my friends really cannot be bothered to even look closer at PF2 "If I wanted to play a game like that; I'd have played DND 4e but that game looked so incredibly boring to me I never did. So why try PF2?" So we mostly play very different games with he occasional dnd5 sprinkled in there....

[@tonfa2]

Honestly, how slow abilities come online is one of the things I don't like about PF2E. Sure, it's more balanced at higher levels but it's at the cost of fun in the lower levels, especially given how much time you spend at lower levels in adventure paths (out of 12 adventure paths, two don't start you at level 1).

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

I hear there is an AP coming out that starts at Level 4 coming up?

[@tonfa2]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG 4 would be an interesting starting point. I'd like to see more in the 10+ range so if it does the normal-ish 10-level thing it would get there. And it definitely skips the level 1 (and to a lesser extent 2) deadliness that is very much anti-fun for my group.

[@davidbowles7281]

@@tonfa2 Levels 1-4 are too dangerous in PF2E.

[@Vonbrow]

For me re-gripping your 2 handed weapon seems to be the most egregious use of an action.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

It would seem so! But the only way to keep it in the system without making 1-handed weapons superfluous is to make 2-handed weapons equally as effective as 1-handed ones. I think more would be lost than gained.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

This one feels the worst. I fully understand that it's necessary for game balance, but this (followed by Reload) just feel so bad initially. They feel less bad when you start rolling two or three d12s, while the one handed person is rolling three d6s.

[@andrewdemarco3512]

As a gunsligner I really feel the relaod cost. One thing I don't like is how haste doesn't interact well with gun or crossbow users, as it only allows either a regular strike or a move, and gunsligners don't like making egular strikes if they can help it, as their special strikes are what make them good. I feel like reload should be added to the list of actions you can take for being hasted. @@utkarshgaur1942 I also really dislike how magic ammo (and presumably alchemical ammo, though the rules are ambigious here) require an additional interact to activate. I feel like it should be part of the reload.

[@couver73]

@@andrewdemarco3512 Honestly, that sounds like a really cool feat for Way of the Spellshot, where when you Interact to load a piece of magical ammunition into a firearm or crossbow, you can also Activate it as well so long as it only takes one action to do so. Hell, maybe even make it a Thaumaturge feat so there's more support for ranged weapons with it. Could use a little more in my opinion.

[@MalcolmPoindexter]

Yes. It was not fun realizing I needed a free hand for athletics actions with a 2h weapon or I'd sacrifice an attack...

[@tearsintherain6311]

The more I learn about pathfinder the more the “pathfinder lawyer” name makes sense

[@lucamonticelli267]

Like, i knoe the interact action free or coupled with movement is a common hombrew, but who is asking to hombrew out MAP? literally half of the game features for marials interacts with it in a way?

[@KajtekBeary]

Even casters interact with it a lot

[@TheGreatSquark]

If I had to guess, people felt they were penalised for failing to hit with a weaker follow up. I suspect what they probably wanted was the MAP only taking affect if you hit. But I think they'd change their mind after a few boss fights with that change!

[@Stephen-Fox]

I'd also note that coming from board games (and more narrative TTRPGs) rather than D&D, but having watched enough D&D Actual Plays to be reasonably familiar with D&D, the three action economy makes a lot more sense to me. I'm used to action points from board games, where anything you want to do is going to cost you some amounts of AP, or be something you can do as much as you want because it costs 0 actions. D&D's move/action/bonus action makes a lot less intuitive sense to me, especially with the ability to split movement.

[@sandalfury]

Enemies not having AoOs is only really true at low level. In my experience, after a certain point, nearly every enemy that you really don't want to end your turn next to has AoO. So the game sets you up for failure by teaching you early on that it's safe and smart to move around, and then literally smacking you upside the head a few levels later.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Just did some sleuthing at Archives of Nethys. Here is the # of monsters with AoO at several levels, compared to the total # of monsters: Level 1: 15/186 (8.1%) Level 5: 11/160 (6.9%) Level 10: 28/126 (22.2%) Level 15: 29/98 (29.6%) Level 20: 16/52 (30.8%) So while it definitely becomes more frequent at higher levels, I don't think "nearly every enemy" is accurate.

[@davidbowles7281]

Your GM could be adding them to them and you wouldn't necessarily know.

[@sandalfury]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG "Nearly every enemy *that you don't want to end your turn next to*" Obviously enemies that focus on ranged attacks/magic/stealth aren't likely to have AoO's

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

@@sandalfuryAh, I see. Well yeah if you're talking specifically about the "move away from a melee brute after hitting it" tactic then what you're saying makes more sense. Yes, at higher levels you are more likely to be smacked. And you still DO want to back away (or walk past) and draw an AoO sometimes for a number of reasons. And it usually becomes an occasion where the party wants to knowingly draw it on one of their tankier characters. Still, "punishing" people for what they learn at the early levels is... perhaps overstating it? Just as every monster isn't the same and calls for new tactics, the meta changes a bit as you level up which I think makes things more interesting. Adapt or die! And there is still plenty of movement in encounters.

[@bonzwah1]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I have found that a lot of my players don't move for fear of an opportunity attack. I have taken to just telling them whether or not the monster has an opportunity attack...and have occasionally homebrewed the opportunity attack feature out of particularly nasty monsters. PF2 is definitely a better tactics game than dnd 5e, but its not perfect. the way they sprinkle in opportunity attacks into monsters is definitely setting up the players to get "surprised" by opportunity attacks. I dont think "punishing" as the OP put it, is overstating it at all. I feel like the design intent is pretty clear...opportunity attacks are essentially traps, and I'm not about that as a GM. I like for my players to have as much information as possible, because players cannot make meaningful decisions without being armed with relevant information.

[@strikerdx2]

I saw a lot of 5e refugees ignore secret rolls. It's such a good idea, they miss a lot

[@gamerxzero8872]

All those are good points but i still don't think pathfinder ll' be for everyone, as fellow strategy gamer i can quickly see the appeal of the rules of one system in comparison to another on the first few pages of the game guie. My impression is that DnD players even 5e don't follow 50% porcent of the rules and are primarily focus on the theater aspect of the game, the majority of youtube videos and guies are focus on roleplay and perharps world buildinging on the gming side, with very vaugue statements about the points raised. Is really hard to find discussions about batlle maps ideias, exploration and game mechanics like carry weight, resource management, etc all those aspects are in the "tatical layer of the game" and not "on the history layer" of TTRPG's. Very unpopular opinion: DnD only have a battle system guie on the core books and there is a bunch of better system focus on the theater aspect of their game, despite the vast majority of players beeing primarily theater players in DnD. Video games caught the vast majority of explorers and strategist's players types, peaple stick with dnd by familiarity and confort and i don't think more options on the tatical layer ll' matter for the vast majority of peaple looking for a alternative system so much so that a big part of the DnD community still don't know their own rules of the tatical map for years. I think the best we can do to attract the right public is to make easier for peaple caught the rules and try to give the experience wich; Xcom, Warhammer blood ball, Dragon age and other ttrpg's gaves us on the exploration and tatical map.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

I agree with much of what you say. I would only add that some players give an automatic "Nope!" to PF2 because they think it's unapproachable or too hard to learn. I think a lot of players particularly in the 5e sphere (because it's the default first TTRPG) are relatively agnostic, and just need to get past a certain psychological hurdle of looking at other systems simply because they hear of it's reputation, or they project their current struggle understanding 5e's inconsistent and often vague rules onto crunchier TTRPGs. I venture to say that a majority of TTRPG players are not looking for a PF2-like experience, but I would also say they aren't looking for a 5e like experience either (they're better served by other systems that don't try to serve too many masters at once)

[@MVCx_xB]

"the majority of youtube videos and guies are focus on roleplay" No they are not. I watch dnd content creators all the time and it's always about build, optimization, fulfilling thematics, and balance talk. Whatever you have been watching isn't an accurate show of the majority content creation.

[@gamerxzero8872]

@@MVCx_xB Balance talks i agree with you It is beyond the theater aspect, but the other two aspects: building otimization and fulling of thematics are pure role-playing aspect, there is nothing worse than a character be only just "talk" and his sheet is far from what the player is trying to acomplish, specialy on a alredy running campain or one shoot. I even entered on anonimous bar too check If my search inst too bias, but my impression still stands. I can give you more concrete exemples, especialy on the gming side, but that could lead to very long conversation which i dont want bother you with.

[@thebitterfig9903]

Funny you should mention summoned creatures having all their actions, since that’s something D&D seems to be slowly inching away from. For example, Drakewarden Rangers, Battlesmith Armorers, or anyone casting one of the Tasha’s Summon spells (or not the spells... my bad) all have to use their bonus action to command their pet or summon (and only one of them), or else the creature will stay put and dodge to protect itself.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Ah! Interesting. Any new versions of the spells I mentioned in the "playtest" yet?

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Tasha's summon spells don't require bonus actions to command. Probably should, but I think they think that concentration is enough of a resource cost.

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@utkarshgaur1942 my bad.

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG very few new spells so far, and half of them got changed back to Status Quo, so it's up in the air.

[@bonzwah1]

​​@@thebitterfig9903 it might be worth editing your original comment to fix the mistake you made. A lot of people reading these comments might not be familiar with current DND 5e design and therefore might not spot that mistake.

[@aidanstokes3]

This video was awesome and gave me a better understand the system and its balance! Thank you :)

[@feelingfuzzied9942]

Waiving the various hand economy makes me pretty upset. It breaks the balance between weapons and held items and free hand. It's just players wanting their cake and eating it too.

[@davidbowles7281]

Why do you care what home groups do in their free time?

[@feelingfuzzied9942]

Because fuck em

[@thebitterfig9903]

Something I’ve been mulling over which I mentioned in the associated short to this video: the homebrew I’d consider (not necessarily enact, just think about) would be letting someone exchange their reaction for certain kinds of regular actions, the kinds that would tend to be free or minor in 5eDD. Probably an interact (such as stowing an object or changing a grip), but not a strike, standard move, spell, or skill action. This keeps most of the tactical decision making, but could ease a bit of tension in a few of these ways which DD-to-PF2e players struggle with, with a big trade-off. Giving up reactive strike or shield block can be pretty costly, but maybe that’s just what you have to do.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Yeah I think this is an interesting idea and a fine thing to try out

[@TheGreatSquark]

That's an interesting idea. It might be awkward given classes (especially at low levels) have differing levels of access to reactions, though.

[@Xorgrim]

As interesting as that sounds, in a way that is "punishing" characters that are designed to make good use of their reaction (like but not limited to fighters) and benefit characters that are designed without good reactions and that focused their feats on actions. It incentivizes to skip feats that use your reaction.

[@doughollingsworth6548]

Why shouldn't high Dexterity allow for extra actions per turn?

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@doughollingsworth6548 This silly little thing called "game balance."

[@PsychicSugar99]

The argument at 23:40 doesn’t make much sense to me. He’s saying that because D&D DMs homebrew interact actions to not cost an action means that you shouldn’t houserule that in pathfinder? I think using 3 actions to drink a potion is absurd! But because that rule works that way in both games means I shouldn’t house rule it? Also viewing homebrew/house rules as bearing the rule burden for the designers is a faulty take, as any ttrpg rules are merely suggestions in the first place!

[@3_14pie]

wanting to homebrew away MAP is just insane lol

[@lagautmd]

I call 'interesting decisions' 'decision angst'. Good games have decision angst on a regular basis, but not so much that the game grows to be nothing but doubting yourself. Also, the 3 action benevolent tyranny blends well with the 4 levels of outcomes. There's much less save or suck so that spending an action that rolls as a Failure can in many cases still have some impact.

[@centurion7398]

At about 2:25 you deliver some very important advice. I use a similar piece of advice for writing and playing RPG's alike. Understand the rules perfectly, so you know how to break them properly.

[@Tiparium_NMF]

Granted I've never actually played Pathfinder, but I am interested in trying it. That said, the main thing I think I'd have a problem with is just how overly crunchy all these rules make DMing and play. I think Pathfinder could qualify as the "objectively better designed and more thought out game", but that doesn't mean it's more fun. And getting bogged down in specifics and rule calls is, in my experience, a major enjoyment killer.

[@luminous3558]

DnD GMs are just very quick to homebrew or disregard rules because of how 5E is designed(or not designed). Just a look at the casters is enough to see this glaring issue. Casters are scaling classes, weak early but devastating lategame. However they are so squishy early(and everyone else is already plenty squishy) that many DMs straight up start at lv3. Components are so annoying to deal with that there are game mechanics that straight up remove them except for edge cases which make the whole thing confusing and annoying, so many people just don't use them. Martials on the other hand get served detrimental drawbacks like a hyperfocus on combat that leaves their RP stats not worth raising, bad scaling compared to casters and just a big lack of anything fun to do by comparison. So you gotta basically fix the whole class design from the ground up by bottlefeeding the martials magic items with interesting abilities while also avoiding giving them too many +1-3 atk/STR boni so they dont accidentally break the flimsy balance. On the otherside you gotta constantly watch the casters so they don't do some broken stuff that is technically RAW but extremely damaging to the continued existence of stakes and narrative in your campaign. and then there is multi classing. All of these systems and designs weren't made with much thought put into how they would interact, so here every DM is left to interpret and fix the pieces in a way they see fit.

[@bonzwah1]

Its a question of what do you want out of pf2? Do you want a tactics game? Or do you just want a lot of rules to help you adjudicate creativity from the players? Because if you don't need it to be a tactics game, then homebrew away. Some people just don't like the DND 5e mentality of "let the DM figure it out" and they came to pf2 for that reason. I think pf2 is more flexible and open to homebrew and houserules than people give it credit for. It doesn't matter if you're destroying the delicate encounter balance of the system when you start modifying rules if you don't care about encounter balance in the first place.

[@kidthegeek]

Its why i loved my leshy, he could climb in combat with ease!

[@protestthebread1046]

I made the switch from DnD as my primary TTRPG to PF2e about 3.5 years ago. I think you're a great ambassador for the game!

[@wirelessmouse9579]

TIL that PF2E allows you to suplex a train.

[@lucifael1]

Yeah, I sleep in my armor. Also I am holding my sword. Can I lean against something so that I am standing when I sleep?

[@Grangolus]

I haven't made it past level 4 in a game yet, but I have yet to find a consumable item that is worth the heavy two action cost (or three, if your hands are both occupied) to use in combat. Moonlit spellgun maybe? Anyone have good examples for the action cost being worth it in using a consumable, from item level 5 or below? Edit: Definitely not minor moonlit spellgun, since it takes two actions to activate.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Consumables are hit or miss. Some you want to have in your hand at the start, or apply beforehand. Cat's Eye Elixir is excellent and helps in many situations.

[@ostravaofboletaria1027]

I like making stowing your items a free action, in order to not have to track who dropped what where.

[@texteel]

action to interact: I could be perfectly fine with it taking 3 actions to drinking a healing potion - IF that healing potion was sufficiently powerful. Considering it wastes an entire turn, give back 50% of max hp powerful at the minimum. This cant be done because what if the potion is used outside of combat, its simply too pwoerful. Similarly, I could be perfectly fine with regripping costing an action - IF certain "fighting styles" as you called them werent taxed to hell and back. Because wielding a greatsword only OFFERS the ability to do more damage, and does barely increased damage by itself. Actually doing more damage is taxed, because power attack is 2 atctions. All these hoops to jump through, does a powerattack 1hit kill a boss? Of course not. So once again, all the floodgates in the world, and not nearly enough payoff.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Depends on your level. If at level 1 you think a d12 is not worth the action tax, then you can stick with a d8 weapon for that level. When at level 13 a power attack deals 5d12 instead of 5d8, the action tax may seem worth it. If you still value the action more, hey, stick with the d8. Others will value the damage more. Options. And some people will do it for the RP alone. Though if you are looking for a game that will let you 1 turn kill a boss, you won't find it in PF2e. Consider playing a gloomstalker/fighter/assassin in 5e, instead.

[@texteel]

@@utkarshgaur1942 considering much of pf2 is "system introduces a problem -> take a feat that solves the problem" why not give players a feat that lets the mpower attack for 1 action instead of 2? Powerattack is strong in the beginning, because 2d10>>1d8. This does nto change the fact that using a two-handed weapon doesnt have an innate plus side for taking your other hand as well - it only allows you to use something that is further taxed. As teh fighter goes up in levels, power attack becomes weaker, because its additional 1 damage die. Its relative power compared to base weapon strikes gets weaker. 1d10->2d10 is a 100% increase, 5d10->6d10 is a 20% increase. 5d12 is 32.5 on average. 5d8 is 22.5 on average. When I look at these numbers (and disregard power attack), and then I consider all the things like regripping, I find this difference to be not enough. My points stand. For all teh hassle that comes from needing 2 hands, 2 handed weapons do not offer nearly enough as an inherent pro for a ton of con. Their biggest pro (powerattack), is not inherent, its just an option that has further taxes built into it, and it scales poorly.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

@@texteel Great! You've found that the action tax is not enough to justify the increased damage. For you. For another person it is. It's nice to have justifiable choice. btw, the one extra die from Power Attack increases to two extra and then three extra. It's not always a 100% power increase (which it never was initially either considering the flat damage from STR), but it does scale. If it doesn't scale enough for your taste? Don't pick it. It scales enough that someone who (knowing the action tax) does pick it, will not regret it. Especially when they crit.

[@texteel]

@@utkarshgaur1942 I did not know power attack scaled, because none of my friends' games that I spectated went that far in levels. Thank you for correcting my misinformation.

[@isthisajojoreference]

I haven’t been playing Pathfinder for long, but it seems to me that using movement to tax enemies an action is too easy for how effective it is. Why bother will spells that might fail to debuff an enemy when just running away from them can effectively function as a partial shutdown?

[@isthisajojoreference]

And if monsters do it too then everyone’s just losing actions and the whole game just takes longer and nobody can do any powerful 3 action activities.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Trust me when I say that PF2 being too "easy" is not a prevailing complaint! What you actually described is a legit tactic that makes the game more than "I attack." And if a spell takes away 1 action, that can stack with people moving away from it. EDIT: There is plenty of damage going on to make kiting and action-denial forever not really happen. A high-level foe can take you from max HP to zero with 2 attacks. If they don't like you running away they can Grapple you and have more offense to spare. And you CAN do a 3-action activity but there is a downside.

[@BlueSapphyre]

kiting is a very important strategy. Enemies attack bonuses are much higher, such that they can land their 3rd hit. So making sure you're not getting hit 3 times is important.

[@arcanjosna]

The "Lean from cover" is a good sction go take in that first scenario

[@HuseyinCinar]

28:00 that took me out lmao

[@christopherg2347]

The reason so many things are free Actions in 5E, is because they could not find a action _small enough_ to use as a meaningful cost. That is why the 3-action econony is better. It gives them to option to give something a small but still meaningful cost.

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

3rd and 4th edition had minor actions, so it isn't a new concept

[@christopherg2347]

@@TheMinskyTerrorist Which is irrelevant because 5E _removed_ minor actions. They have Bonus actions, which are minor actions - with mutual exclusion for some reason?? Restoring minor/swift/whatever actions would be one of the first fixes I would apply. Keep Bonus as a minor action subtype with mutual exclusion, but restore minor actions to the balancing.

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

@christopherg2347 You said they couldn't "find an action small enough". When they made the system they were aware that it was done differently before, they just chose to make it that way. It wasn't an issue of finding anything. Bonus actions being one per turn was a good idea for limiting some of the craziness that results from powergaming, but it is inflexible. I think it's an area where the game's simplicity and "natural language" is helpful to new players at first but results in some frustration later.

[@christopherg2347]

@@TheMinskyTerrorist So, _after_ they destroyed minor actions with bonus actions, they couldn't find actions small enough for stuff. So they made those free actions instead?

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

@christopherg2347 I just don't think that wording or that timing makes sense. They knew what they were doing and it wasn't a surprise. They wanted those things to be free actions.

[@FlorsheimTeam]

I see there will be a lot of "empty turns" in pf2e which one of them you can only stride -> open a door -> stride again, or stand up -> take sword -> take shield, or stow weapon -> stride -> climb, release one grip from two-handed weapon -> take potion -> drink and you can't even regrip in the same turn. This not even counting when you're debuffed which may take action(s)... Tough when you cannot do things in your turn. Why even playing?

[@utkarshgaur1942]

This would be a problem if it happened frequently or if combat only lasted one or two turns. In actual play, it works out fine, especially when PCs put themselves in the advantageous position and force enemies to use up actions.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

@@utkarshgaur1942Yeah these are the occasional turn only. Most people have a positive reaction to the 3 action system and are happy they can attack twice at Level 1

[@RedlinePush]

The one thing that really irritates me about action cost is changing grip. It takes an entire action to place my off hand on my weapon's hilt. Meanwhile shooting an arrow involves grabbing an arrow, pulling the arrow, drawing the bow, aiming, and firing, all as a single action.

[@arena_sniper7869]

That action is to prevent two handed players from basically being a stronger version of one hand + free hand.

[@RedlinePush]

@@arena_sniper7869 That doesn't make it good. Imposing nonsensical limitations for the sake of balance is immersion breaking. Find a way to balance things that doesn't feel so obviously artificial and arbitrary.

[@yuven437]

26:00 my favorite loadout is neglected once again 😢 shield and free hand

[@andrewdemarco3512]

yeah, animal isntinct barb or monk are both great for this. Take combat climebr and you can always climb with a shield and still be able to fight. Also quick climb so you can climb faster

[@yuven437]

@@andrewdemarco3512 also playing a great Kholo helps

[@paulcasanova1909]

Ok but real question. Would it be detrimental to the design of the game/balance to ignore the Vancian magic system in favor of letting my players just have a set number of slots that they can choose which ones they want to spend it on throughout their adventuring day?

[@davidbowles7281]

In practice, probably not too much. Even if you have the correct spell prepared, it can usually still fail.

[@justjunk3803]

Spontaneous casters and flexible spell preparation exist as an alternative. Classes like Wizard and Cleric are balanced around spell preparation and exist for the people who do enjoy strategizing for it.

[@dylanhyatt5705]

The multiple attack penalty is not a rule to homebrew - it makes the three action economy viable. My barbarian (Helgar) in my last session struck her foe one, then twice even with the minus 5 action penalty. This made me feel over-confident so for her third action, she tried to trip her foe. Because the trip action has the 'attack trait', she was at a minus 10 penalty. I rolled low and because of the scaling +/- 10 rules for upgrading / downgrading a result, her failure was a critical failure and she fell over (her foe tripped her). This to me felt actually satisfying - it was a big risk going for a third 'attack' action. The multiple attack penalty is a great rule and in my view shouldn't be tinkered with. However, having said all that, I do miss the D&D4e days when my Barbarian, at level 1, could attack all adjacent foes with an Encounter power.

[@nicholasfoster2564]

I actually forgot about the action tax for fly. Makes it even weirder why Paizo was so allergic to it for Strix.

[@aralornwolf3140]

Out of combat, there is no action tax to fly. As Strix get permanent flight sooner than any other ancestry...

[@Phalcon777]

I find the idea of just being able to move away and using that as like well now they have to burn an action to get close to me. It just it doesn't feel good. Like what's the point in having three point economy if you're going to use one of your actions to cause them to lose one of the like it does not feel as rewarding as people make it out to be.

[@randomyoutubecommenterr]

Next time you fight a giant enemy that hits reeaaaaaally hard. Possibly one that has abilities that take multiple actions. You'll realize how big of a deal draining a powerful creatures actions is.

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

I think you're trivializing/glossing over some legitimate complaints players may be having. With the raising shield example for instance, your argument is basically "Well, that +2 bonus is so good that we have to penalize you for it." whereas a player may respond "...aren't I already taking the opportunity cost of not using a two handed weapon or dual wielding, thus dealing less damage than if I was in a two handed build? Why do I need to be additionally punished by not even being allowed to make the same number of weaker attacks if I want to actually benefit from my build?" Also, some of your arguments seem to contradict each other. You mention how taking feats etc. to enable two different builds can be powerful, and thus there needs to be a heavy cost associated to swap between styles...but in that same breath you just mentioned spending multiple feats on mutually exclusive combat bonuses. You're already going to be not as good at either style as someone who specialized in it, and the action economy is layering on another penalty by not even making it easy to take advantage of your versatility by swapping to the style that would be better for the given encounter if you clocked it wrong before the encounter started.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

You're not being punished compared to the 2-handed-weapon fighter or dual wielder. That defense will keep you on your feet longer which might lead you to doing more damage, helping your team, etc. It doesn't help you much to have a greataxe if you're dead. On the time to switch weapons: Versatility is powerful. EVERY character should consider switching up their tactics; not just the ones who choose a variety of feats. You may currently have a sword and shield, but you may find them less useful to you if facing a soldier that does less damage and has Hardness or Resistance, and you need to bring out your Zweihander to penetrate through that resistance.

[@shawncayton2889]

There could be a feat that lets you brak up your movement

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

There are feats that exist that effectively give you more "Strides/Steps" . Skirmish Strike and Spring Attack are 2 I know of.

[@TheodoreGM]

Sounds like they want to houserule 2e to be dnd 5e..

[@EchotheAndroidNeko]

A lot of the pain points you bring up in this video are actually a great vector for binging up a question most TTRPG players should be asking themselves, which is "How simulationist do I want my game to be?". Personally, a lot of the "Benevolent Tyranny" you mention here speaks to me as "Boring Tedium", but that's because the level of simulation that PF2e provides is a little too beyond what I come to TTRPG's for. Good video

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

TTRPG designers seems to really hate shields. A thing shields should absolutely be able to do as a reaction is to protect and adjacent character. It's a basic fantasy of the shield-wielding fighter to be able to protect _others_ with your shield. Acting like a bodyguard to a frail character, a line of soldiers protecting each other, etc.

[@amayasasaki2848]

See, but with Pathfinder 2e, that's totally a feat you could make. That would fit well in the PF2e design space. Using Shield Block, but for an adjacent ally.

[@GaleSilverwind]

@@amayasasaki2848 The best part is that it's already a feat that's in the game. It's called Shield Warden and it's available as soon as Level 6 to Shield Ally Champions and Fighters, and the Bastion and Knight Vigilant archetypes get it as an option at Level 8.

[@williammclyr3330]

Irl it not that easy to protect someone else with shield, you should stay between them and enemy. Large two handed weapons are just better bodyguard tool, because they are long and could be used to protect someone standing in front of you as well as behind

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

@@williammclyr3330 that's why I said "fantasy". Fantasy RPGs, are much more based on tropey fiction than HEMA.

[@Rodrigo_Vega]

​@@GaleSilverwind A defensive archetype can protect a team-mate with their shield _at level 8_ ?? oh, wow! Looking at the whole caster/martial imabalance issue, this only supports my assumption that martial cool-stuff exists but can only be attempted after investing your build in a tree of feats and picking some obscure archetype to pull out _the one trick_ you'll get to use _contextually_ . While casters get a whole new list of reality-altering powers every next level. It's not as bad in this edition of Pathfinder as I think it is in other systems, but it's still here. I think most martials, should be able to pull out from a decent list of cool weapon-and equipment actions at at much lower levels.

[@mr.cauliflower3536]

I just realised how busted haste is. You can be a hasted spellcaster, stride out of cover, use your two action spell, stride back into cover. And the enemy has no counterplay, apart from using their aoe spells. I tremble thinking you can have a martial shooting from behind the cover, and when the enemy approach, they just drop their bow and grab their melee weapon and start fighting them in melee. This comp has no counterplay when on their hometurf, unless you can lob things over the cover. Now I realised you should be able to lob things over cover, using undetected rules, but with some added penalty.

[@lelandwhitehead56]

The only significant rule I'd care about making for PF2E is spellcasting. I despise prepared vancian spellcasting.

[@christianlangdon3766]

The only hombrew i currently have in my games that mess with the action econmey is first draw, where enemies and the players for the first turn dont need to use actions to draw their primary weapons and equipment. Those who get a quickdraw function can do so at every turn. Which i also counted the alchemist quick lobber as this. Which made the player who was endlessly frustrated at alchemist despite the fantasy it never worked like it should have felt. It also makes ambushes less brutal as the players ambushed a bucnh of gaurds who had their weapons sheathed and they all died before they could even do anything becouse while only geting 1 attack through.

[@laki7480]

This might be something that's missinterpreted, but your houserule negates the power of ambushes in addition to gunslingers draw and quick draw. An adventuring party will be prepared and walk with something drawn already, they don't need to stow unless they need their hands free for something else.

[@christianlangdon3766]

@laki7480 True ambushes do suffer, but before, they weren't exactly fun either getting ambushed while most of the party was climbing wasn't fun. Nor was the party easily winning every ambush. Now it's still an advantage, just one that is less lopsided. Ambushes I found very quickly instill bad player behavior. Like one of my players became to paranoid about a grp of npcs ambushing them that he attacked a random the group so they would be on equal terms vs being ambushed. Plus the slow play etc. It wasn't fun and my sessions are only able to go for 3 hrs. So streamlining and reducing slow play is a must for anything to get done.

[@yewwowduck]

Chesterton's Fence

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Ah didn't hear this term before! Definitely will save it!

[@NotreDanish]

The action economy thing is also an interesting space to use homebrewed magic items, like a sword that has a “double strike” that lets it attack twice at the same attack bonus per action

[@teambellavsteamalice]

I agree with most of this. Pathfinder seems incredibly restricted, a non-minmax game for crunch lovers, while 5E is broken you have to restrain yourself to not minmax. But two few feats and options, so you kinda have to make those choices count. On point 6, all the minor trivial things costing actions AND trigger opportunity attacks might be a bit much. I love the idea of knockdown and getting another attack (on full skill) when a target stands up. But this triggered by drawing a weapon or restoring your grip (2H or the parry fail thing) isn't very realistic imo. I do wonder how well PF2 works from a story or world building perspective. Like DnD 5E it is so dungeon crawl focused! I'd live to go back to Mystara (made for OD&D) or Dark Sun, but feel these campaign settings would be altered to much. PF2 has so much balance, but that's all gone with a few levels difference. Probably have to bring most of the population up to between level 5-15, with kids and morons below it and demigod like people above it?

[@warmwaterpenguin]

I'd love to hear your take on healing and resting. The group I have is struggling with the very slow rate of healing even on long rest. When the campaign creates a sense of urgency, they're having trouble spending hours on medicine checks and days on long rest.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

Maybe not a fully satisfactory answer, but if you don't have Continual Recovery yet, there are focus spells like goodberry and lay on hands that make out-of-combat healing go much faster. At Level 1, PF2 makes an uneasy compromise between gritty/attrition play from previous editions, and the more balanced more-4e-like gameplay one sees after the first few levels.

[@timothyfarrell7913]

Our campaigns in PF2E have always benefited from having a character specialize in medicine and it's associated line of feats. Very useful both in and out of combat once specialized for health recovery without expending spell slots or a character build.

[@mistaree8394]

My take is that the system encourages players to invest in skills/skill feats and abilities to overcome those limitations but at the cost of other options. With a few skill feats a PC can have medicine do a high amount of guaranteed healing on multiple people every few minutes but it means they focused on being the party medic. There are also, of course, many spells and items that offer near instant healing but at the cost if limited resources.

[@TheGreatSquark]

The Devs seem to be adding more reusable healing options so players at least have more options for how they fill the "patch everyone to near full after the encounter" role.

[@warmwaterpenguin]

@@timothyfarrell7913 ​ We've started on this route. More accurately the other three players were SO averse to the slow pace and didn't talk to eachother such that all 3 have Continual recovery now (-_-)

[@simonfernandes6809]

Arguing against houseruling an rpg is a classic example of 'BADWRONGFUN!' Houseruling should be done carefully but if everyone agrees then why not?

[@Subject_Keter]

I just find it weird since it was a comp game or online that makes sense dont tamper with Game but... it your own or mates game. Why should you be held to someone else standard wheb they arent there?

[@torifort717]

​@@Subject_Keter​ I mean no one is saying you aren't allowed to, but generally people homebrew/houserule systems because they want to remove a pain point and keep playing the rest of the game they enjoy. And this list is a series of warnings that these specific parts are so core to the game that trying to modify them can easily collapse the whole thing like a house of cards. And maybe you dont care about that! It's a perfectly fair position to not care about the balance of the tactical gameplay (though in that case I do wonder why they're starting with such a tactical system). But most tables are still interested in the tactical game and for them, removing these limitations will have far more drastic consequences than they want.

[@theodorehunter4765]

Commenting as I watch: I can see how in 5e movement isn't too important, because you almost always get your move speed. However, 3.P had actions that took up your Move Action to accomplish, and those actions tended to be VERY powerful, such as a Full Attack Action or certain spells. In my opinion, it isn't fun to spend an action to attempt to knock someone over, then spend an action to walk away, just to make that foe have to spend 2 actions to stand up and walk up to you. This isn't "tactical" it's slowing down the game. From my experience with 3rd edition, I find that "homebrewing" actions is NEVER that simple. There is ALMOST ALWAYS rules in the game for what you want to do, and if you make a special exception for one player, you crap on another player who invested feats into being able to do that. Iterative attack penalties are unfun. If you are playing a martial warrior type character, you are SUPPOSED to be fighting. The iterative attack penalty, on top of the Critical system, makes iterative attacks not only ineffective, but potentially dangerous to do. Raising a shield is another, unfun action. The character is giving up the ability to have a two handed weapon, or two weapons, or a free hand to do other things, just to grant themselves an AC bonus. Now, they need to spend an Action too! It's also completely ignores how shields are used IRL. Shields are ALWAYS raised. You attack around a shield, maybe moving it slightly to cover your hand while you strike. Recall Knowledge just feels bad. I have to spend 1/3rd of my turn asking the DM if my character knows something about a creature. It's very punishing for people who either don't know anything about the enemies, or are intentional about role playing, while meta-gamers with good system knowledge get a whole extra action on their turn. It takes zero time to know if you know something. Why does it take 2 seconds in game? I don't have an issue with spending an action to interact with an object, I just do NOT like what requires that action. Requiring an action to put a second hand on a weapon is EXTREMELY egregious to me. That takes almost ZERO time, IRL. This is a roleplaying game for goodness' sake. I find the idea of having to take my ENTIRE TURN to drink a potion VERY annoying. Taking an entire turn to walk 5 feet to a door, open it, then walk through it, is also VERY annoying. I don't feel like I have bamboozled the monsters when I make them open the door. I feel like I have found an exploit in the rules. (I feel like if you only want to move 5 feet, it should be a free action.) The disadvantage of having a 2 handed weapon over having a free hand, is being unable to use your weapon if you need a hand to do something else. Try to grab someone while holding a polearm, and then try threatening them with said polearm. It doesn't work, or at least not very well. You don't need to tax someone so heavily for the choices they make. TL;DR: The 3 action system makes what you can do in a turn unrealistically restrictive. The game should err on the side of being LESS restrictive. It's more fun to pick an option than makes you super-heroic than it is to pick an option that lets you do what an average board game geek could do IRL. I get that the game is doing this for balance, but it's a roleplaying game. Acting is part of it. If you, IRL, can do something, your super-heroic character should be able to do so as well. (Within reason. Obviously if you're a aerospace engineer, your character might not be, and thus wouldn't know how to build a plane, for example.)

[@randomyoutubecommenterr]

"In my opinion, it isn't fun to spend an action to attempt to knock someone over, then spend an action to walk away, just to make that foe have to spend 2 actions to stand up and walk up to you. This isn't "tactical" it's slowing down the game." You face a large enemy that hits hard but is outnumbered in action economy, you getting rid of it's actions is 100% tactical. All the other gripes? In the words of a dude. "That's just like..... your opinion man". Or just arguments I hate to say are made out of a bad knowledge of the game. Oh remove multiple attack penalty you say? Yeah that boss monster now will one shot every player character in 1-2 turns. Those 3 little weenie kobolds surrounding your character? Yeah they make 9 attacks each round. No action to change your grip on your weapon? Then you may as well not even have 2 handed weapons because they essentially function as a 1 handed weapon. It literally penalizes any other type of dual wielding or shield usage lol. If you're holding a great sword and let go with one hand that sword is no longer in a position to swing it. The sword is leaned against the ground now. It then takes time to hoist it back into a position where you could swing it. Seriously go try to lift a greatsword IRL lol. A shield is always raised in real life? Go run 30 feet in 6 seconds while holding a shield up. Go swing a sword a couple of times and see if your shield is still raised. It takes time, effort and focus to position a shield to be effective. It's not some passive piece of armor hanging at your side. Just get rid of interact effects entirely you say? So you make it exactly like 5e where doing something like disarming someone of their weapon means nothing because they can literally just bend over and pick it back up for free lol. Everything that applies to you applies to enemies. All the things you mention that "you can do IRL" are not things you can do IRL easily lol. Go strap a drink inside a pouch on your belt. Go see if you can unstrap it, down it in 6 seconds while also slashing a sword or running 30 feet. Every decision is there for a reason. But if it's not your thing just go play 5e where you just literally stand in place and attack every turn lol (coming from a long time 5e player) And the most important point. Just because you don't think it's fun........ ..... doesn't mean it's not fun lol.

[@theodorehunter4765]

@@randomyoutubecommenterr Against a big singular monster, it might be a good idea to tie up one player's turn to effectively stun the monster. That assumes that your fighter can reliably knock the large enemy prone. You spend one action to try to knock the enemy prone. That counts as an attack. You have roughly a 50% chance of failing. If you fail, you have a 25% chance of succeeding if you try again, or a 25% chance to deal damage. On your last action, you virtually have to roll a 20 to accomplish anything, so you might as well run away, but if the goal was to tie up the monster's turn, you could have just swung your sword once, maybe hit, then spent 2 actions running away, to make the monster waste 2 actions chasing you. This isn't tactical. This is doing random stuff that sounds cool, even though a more realistic thing to do would be to just wail on the creature. Multiple Attack Penalties come from the 3rd edition of DnD. The design intent of them was to make one attack that was reasonably likely to hit, one attack that was "up in the air" and then have the rest of the attacks miss most of the time. This was abandoned in 5e, because if you are designing a mechanic with the intention that it doesn't work most of the time, it probably shouldn't be a mechanic. There are other ways to mitigate damage taken, rather than making your players futilely roll dice. Changing your grip on a weapon hasn't been an issue in any other TTRPG I have ever played. It's allowed, because it makes sense that a character should be able to take a hand off of a two handed weapon for a quick second to do something without not being able to swing their weapon again that turn. I get it's for "balance" but verisimilitude is more important than balance in a TTRPG. There are also other ways to balance that mechanic, like giving special bonuses to characters that fight with singular one handed weapons. I literally have "fought" with a "sword" and shield for about 20 minutes. The only time I dropped my shield was when no "enemies" were near me. It isn't that hard. You should try it some time. (Or you could go watch any of a dozen videos here on youtube by HEMA practitioners showing how to use a shield.) I do NOT want to get rid of interact actions in TTRPGs. In many instances, it makes sense that you need to spend a non-trivial amount of time to do something in the environment. What DOESN'T make sense is it taking 6 seconds to walk 5 feet up to a door, open it, and walk through that doorway. (Unless that door is locked or something.) In every TTRPG I have played, drinking a potion takes up about half of your turn. It takes more in 3.5 if it isn't in a belt pouch or other readily accessible place. Potions are also not huge bottles in the DnD world. They are tiny flasks that maybe hold a swallow of liquid. They are maybe half a shot of liquid. If potions were the size of a can of soda, then they would be prohibitively time consuming to use. Now, Matt Mercer made a houserule that let's players drink a potion as a bonus action in 5e. While not terribly realistic, it is an example of balancing mechanics in favor of more capable characters. Spending your action to heal 2d4+2 HP in 5e is generally not worth it. Being hit in DnD is likely going to do about that much damage past about level 3. Letting players down a potion in an almost insignificant amount of time is preferable to doing something like, I don't know, making a player spend 2 seconds raising a shield that they would realistically have up at all times in combat. On your last point, sure. SOME people find it fun to optimize the crap out of what you can do in a turn. To these people, the game is just a pile of mechanics and the goal is to optimize them at every instance. However, the target audience of TTRPGs is ROLE players. That's what the RP in TTRPG stands for. These are people who are there to act out a character in a fantasy world. The rules are they to facilitate that, not restrict it to the point that you need a Law Degree to figure out the best way to stab a goblin to death. Oh, and I'm not a HUGE fan of 5e either. I prefer 3rd edition, or Pathfinder 1e. 5e doesn't have ENOUGH nuts and bolts to customize my characters for my taste. This isn't to say 3rd edition is perfect either. I do dislike having to grab certain feats just to be able to do something that seems reasonable for anyone to attempt. Unfortunately for PF2e, that's about half the game, if not more.

[@randomyoutubecommenterr]

Agree to disagree on pretty much every point haha. Even something like HEMA fights. Those folks are actively raising their shields when brawling but either way ....... Some folks play to roleplay. Others want tactical combat. You might not feel like it is. But all I can think is you need a better player group. 2e requires far more tactics and teamwork than other games I've played (though not delving into a discussion on older systems like 3e) Either way. You do you. The rules are there for a reason and you're free to just ignore some or play a different game *shrugs

[@yellingintothewind]

It is worth noting that the game mastery guide (p14) has instructions for combining movement with other things. While it suggests restricting this to just mixing movement types, there is no strong reason to do so, as the -2 penalty imposed can easily be applied to attacks or anything else. The fact that a PC must stop and carefully reach out to open a batwing door instead of just shouldering through it is simply silly. Instead, apply that -2 penalty to trying to open the door. Normal doors open with low DCs (like 0-5 range), but having the occasional door that is barred from the other side is enough to create interesting choices here. For the batwing door, let them simply treat it as an extra 5' of movement, but doing so requires moving boldly through it. If they want to risk finding something unfortunate on the other side, again that gives meaningful choice without hammering on the verisimilitude of the system.

[@JacobGrim]

In terms of movement, I don't see why you couldn't just combine 5e and PF2. Basically make 5e movement require an action, like dashing. Your gripe seemed to be that the movement was essentially a free action (which I share your opinion on), not just that it could be broken up across a given turn (which I really like about 5e movement).

[@gabrielhenrique2639]

There's something about pathfinder that I don't know how to explain, but the more I read, the more I watch, the more I see the system as something easy to play. I'm in a 5e campaign, and we're at lv5 and I look at the monk I rode and honestly, I don't think it's easy... It's strange, so much so that I'm the only one in the campaign who thinks and feels this way

[@flipwondertoon]

I recently ran a one-shot for a group of my friends, one of whom was used to my pathfinder gamemastery style (two I had run 5e for way back in like 2017.) One of my friends was SHOCKED that I let the monsters crit since I had played with him before in another game and he was really frustrated because "they're just zombies! They shouldn't crit against us!" I was really quick to point out thar having monsters not crit denies quite a few abilities that characters would have that would let them turn their crit into a regular success, or that doing that would result in the monster never crit failing a spell saving throw. Crits are a major point in pathfinder 2e for both players and enemies! Not to mention that this was with Headshot the Rot, where if they critical striked a zombie, it counted as killing the zombie!

[@NumaPompiliy]

37:25 This "higher ceiling" may be higher than dnd 5e, but still horrendously underpowered for level 19, almost peak of your career, being as good as a mortal can be. Don't pretend this is something incredible, there are systems where starting characters can do that. Oh, and legendary heroes of myths can literally shoot a sun down from the sky or hold the sky on their shoulders. PF2 doesn't remotely do that.

[@lotrotk375]

Great video to share with my players

[@vast3394]

It’s crazy cause I play a lot of board games and also a lot of RPG’s says the three action economy was just like oh I’ve seen this before but if you’re someone where DND is the only RPG you you ever played and maybe have only played cards against humanity in Monopoly I can see how it’s disarming but also I don’t know why people were so close minded why would your house rule with the main action economy of a game

[@KhellDW]

I'd like to challenge you with a question that has been bothering me as I'm interested in getting my feet wet in pf2 and watching your videos. You mentioned that you have more to look forward to at "high levels" like lvl 20, in comparison to 5e. But every 5e game I see (and participate in) usually ends at around level 12, so I don't bother thinking about anything above level 11 "cause I'll never get to look forward to it to begin with". Is that solved in pf2? Do games "actually reach" level 20??? Ever? And even then, I don't think it'll be for long. I can't comprehend thinking of level 20 stuff, if games end long before you've even hit the half way level mark. That, is a big concern for me as a migrant (and someone that does a lot of multi classing to flesh out a concept character I envision every time I play).

[@ThatBigRedBear]

The Pathfinder 2e death/wound system is bonkers complicated mid play. Having to remember what status you have and what negatives come with it and what not. Im getting too old and its too hard to get people together consistently to spend a whole play session in one encounter doing a bunch of calculations and remembering all the detailed crap. They even found a way to make the crit system use more brain energy. I'm also 100% against moving 5 feet and moving 30 feet both using one action. If you use an action to move and you only want to move 5 feet, thats fine, but if you use a move action, you should be able to move 5 feet, use your 2 other actions, then move the rest of your speed. The amount of actions an action takes up should be dependent on how much time that action takes (because that is literally why an action limit exists at all) and running 5 feet and stopping doesnt take up as much time as running 30 feet. Its just silly. I loved 1st edition PF but when I switched to 5e, and occasionally cypher system, I realized how much time the PF crunch robbed me of. I really want to get into PF 2e because I loved the classes and the customization and absolutely hate the 5e feat/asi system, but I feel like there are pretty critical systems I would have to houserule away to make PF2e playable for me at this stage of my life. Also, the 5e Advantage/Disadvantage system was a godsend. Either way, I will probably have to switch to PF or cypher system just because WotC sucks so much ass now.

[@Hamc2811]

Only thing i could potentially see house rulling away as it just overall takes from the feeling of heroism is having to pay an action to draw items not to activate them, thats still very needed, but drawing seems like a pain for most people and like it takes away from a lot of potential consumables

[@rawnissilver2934]

I've been looking at getting into Pathfinder 2e after playing so much D&D 5e, and I've been loving your videos!

[@cory849]

There might be an elegance to this approach for a deep tactical gamer but it's really alienating/limiting for more casual players - the kind of players 5e succeeded in attracting. A lot of the discussion here is about "interesting decisions" but for so many players they are just frustrating decisions or barriers to decision. It's extremely cumbersome to *just do things* in Pathfinder. Instead of describing your heroic deeds you are sitting there carefully counting out intermediate steps on your fingers. And when you need to do this it really tilts you away from the simulationist conceit of being another person in another world. Instead it tilts towards being like chess. Basically you're right. There are good reasons for all these rules. But they are still annoying rules.

[@TheRulesLawyerRPG]

It's a tradeoff: 5e seems welcoming and easy to many, but once players want to start doing more than 1 impactful thing on their turn the rules become start saying no. I find that most people find having to juggle the action types in 5e is what to "take them out" and more "chess like," but I see how others would think differently depending on their playstyle or build. The 3 action economy is praised by the vast majority of players who try it.

[@cory849]

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Meh. The promise of the three action economy on their turn is more than one impactful thing on their turn. As you point out the reality quickly becomes less than one impactful thing on their turn. And bonus actions aren't really challenging to play with. They're typically just triggers. We are a 5e to PF2 table with a real mix of players from crunchy players to very light casual players. Most of us have played together for years (plus one real newbie). That's definitely not how our table is reacting to the 3 action economy. Remember it isn't the idea of 3 actions itself. It's all the granular rigidities. Pathfinder's approach to advancement is to put you in a straitjacket and slowly let you out of it one strap at a time.

[@jediprotector216]

27:30 This actually happened in Starfinder for me. Had to inject all my serums of healing into our tank, use field dressing, and it dragged the fight out longer, who got knocked out 5 times during this fight in an Adventure Path.

[@pacoes1974]

So how much does this slow down the combat?

[@Jermbot15]

Same as D&D. The players who are engaged and know their characters know what they're doing pretty quick. The players who aren't paying attention or know their characters take a lot longer.

[@MoonlitMongrel]

After getting through the whole video I'm more interested in playing PF2e rules as intended