I like pathfinder(2e) more in every way except less people play it

OSR: oh you guys are having uh, ill see myself out

Is it still compatible with all the money I wasted on 3.x Hasbro D&D?

What are some highlights that make you feel that way? I’ve never played.

Not OP but the top 3 for me are

1. Martial - Caster balance
2. 3 action economy
3. A much better framework for GMs

3 action economy for me, I also like that the rules are much clearer and more balanced to more play styles.

2e did the 5e thing of filing down a table top game to a video game.

Doesn’t help that we’ve got metric tons of content in the old system. Why retrofit what didn’t really need fixing? Just give me more APs.

Here’s my list:

• It scales very well from level 1-20. The math just works at all levels of play.
• 3 action rounds
• Encounter design and balancing is easy for the busy GM
• All of the classes are good, flavorful, and have interesting options
• Teamwork is highly encouraged through class and ability design
• Martial/Caster/Support balance
• Degrees of success/failure
• Easy, free access to the rules
• The ORC license
• https://pathbuilder2e.com/
• Pathfinder Society Organized play is well done and well supported by Paizo
• The rune system for magic weapons/armor

Pf2e is a different system mechanically and setting wise than dnd 3.x, and this unfortunately got even worse with hasbro tried to flip the table on the OGL. That caused paizo to create their own irrevocable license and strip all ogl content from their future books now called pf2e remastered. I’m not sure your 3.x stuff would be of much use there without needing to convert things yourself.

But 3.x as i understand it was more closely aligned with pf1e. There might be some compatibility there but i never played 3.x or pf1 so I’m not sure

But… BUT… hear me out… all of the pf2e game rules, character options, and monster statblocks are available for free on archives of nethys, an official site so no high seas sailing.

Game setting info beyond some basic blurbs in those rulebooks are not published online for free, but those aren’t needed if you want to homebrew your own setting. Prewritten adventures also aren’t typically available for free, but a few are released from free rpgday . And they also have their version of adventuerers league (called pathfinder society) which you can get those adventures to run for free if you go through a participating game store (or convince a game store to participate).

All that is to say its pretty low risk to try it out.

And if you’re open to spending some money the beginner box is exceptional-- uses real rules and introduces rules to the GM and player when necessary. Available physical box, digital download, or in virtual tabletops

Two big things I love:

• Three action system: every “activity” (strike, stride, cast a spell, etc) has an action cost. On a standard turn, your character gets 3 actions to spend on those various activities. This obviates the need for DnD’s rules about spending a whole turn running since you can just spend multiple actions striding.

• Keyword system: PF2e leans more onto standardized keywords and uses them appropriately. Everything (all actions, weapons, items, even statuses) has a set of traits that (usually) briefly explains how the thing acts. It allows for standardized templates for interactions between different elements of the game. This takes a HUGE burden off the GM during game play, esp for modules that weren’t written to think about each other. All the examples I can think of would take several pages to explain, but you can look up some things on Easy Tools and see their traits.

Bonus thing I love: all the rules are openly published, leading to TONS of extra tools that just make the game easier to run. (That said you should buy a set of books to help the publishers after you’ve been converted).

Meanwhile, non D&D players are like: they’re the same picture.

Not really, PF2E is its own system that is in the D20 family but no longer directly compatible with 3.X. However, since encounter balancing is easy, if you want to convert 3.X adventures to PF2E the work is pretty simple.

No, but it is much improved and streamlined

I wish GURPS had taken off more.

As a GM i love the balance. Martial-caster balance is overall pretty good. Player options across the board seem fairly well balanced. And as a GM i love that the creatures/hazards are all balanced as well. They have this whole set of easy to use guidelines on how to build an encounter based on the party level and how challenging you want it to be. I don’t have to keep throwing monsters at the party to see what sticks, i can instead craft an encounter in a minute and know pretty darn well how tough it will be for the party. I cannot express to you how amazing that feels to take the guess work out of things. It makes my party going off the rails easier to manage because i can create fun and challenging encounters on the fly

I don’t know if I agree that all classes are good.

Oracle and Gunslinger have always (at least in my mind) seemed to be overly weak. Like, Gunslinger seems like if should be a high damage output class, but lack of Dex to Damage really seems to hinder him from being a hard hitter. Lol, not to mention, guns just feel really weak.

For Oracle, her curse seems a major downside without a compensating upside (at least until late levels; haven’t built one above lv 5).

I’d love to hear counterpoints of anyone has any.

To be clear, 95% agree with your takes though.

I was curious about this some years back.

Are there any published materials on how to run a game in a GURPS system?

but lack of Dex to Damage really seems to hinder him from being a hard hitter.

This is offset by nearly every firearm having the lethal trait, where on a crit their damage dice increase in size and they get an addition damage die.

The class is built around crit-fishing, and it works well. Granted, it gets hard to reliably crit higher-level enemies, but that’s easily offset by the party working together

Wait, your party works together??

Wish mine did that.