Skip to content
0
  • Home
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
  • Home
  • Recent
  • Tags
  • Popular
  • World
  • Users
  • Groups
Skins
  • Light
  • Cerulean
  • Cosmo
  • Flatly
  • Journal
  • Litera
  • Lumen
  • Lux
  • Materia
  • Minty
  • Morph
  • Pulse
  • Sandstone
  • Simplex
  • Sketchy
  • Spacelab
  • United
  • Yeti
  • Zephyr
  • Dark
  • Cyborg
  • Darkly
  • Quartz
  • Slate
  • Solar
  • Superhero
  • Vapor

  • Default (Sketchy)
  • No Skin
Collapse

Wandering Adventure Party

  1. Home
  2. Pathfinder
  3. A lesson so many need to learn

A lesson so many need to learn

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Pathfinder
rpgmemes
73 Posts 41 Posters 30 Views
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as topic
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
  • KichaeK Kichae

    The downside of PF2 is if you try to engage with the core of the online community with this “rules for if I want/need them” attitude, someone will come out of the shadows to shank you.

    There’s a rabid “by the rules, and all the rules” cohort within the community, and they are pretty effective at chasing new players away.

    K This user is from outside of this forum
    K This user is from outside of this forum
    kata1yst@sh.itjust.works
    wrote last edited by
    #21

    I’ve always felt the community was extremely kind and welcoming, personally. The publisher even goes out of their way to support and represent LGBTQ+ in their official worldbuilding.

    There’s always going to be elitists in every hobby of course, they do exist in PF2e as well. But it’s not the majority by any stretch.

    KichaeK 1 Reply Last reply
    6
    • S sbv@sh.itjust.works
      • Encounter design and balancing is easy for the busy GM
      • Teamwork is highly encouraged through class and ability design

      ngl, you’re selling it.

      Anything that improves combat is a win in my book. I’ve switched to Cyberpunk RED, and I’m discovering that good combat is hard to make in either system, but encouraging teamwork is a nice way to take a little load off the GM.

      KichaeK Offline
      KichaeK Offline
      Kichae
      Forum Master
      wrote last edited by
      #22

      The bestiary is also really good (and free!). There are thousands of enemies, most of which have solid gimmicks that tell you straight from the stat block how you can best run the creature. And the they’re balanced to the same levels as players, so encounter power budgets are very intuitive.

      The game gets a bit of a bad rap for having “nitpicky” rules, but people often seem to fail to recognize that the rules are spelling out how people already usually resolve things, rather than introducing something novel. It’s written in a very systematized way, and people aren’t used to reading about their intuitive experiences in systematized language.

      The game’s broader community’s obsession with rules orthodoxy doesn’t help…

      S 1 Reply Last reply
      17
      • K kata1yst@sh.itjust.works

        I’ve always felt the community was extremely kind and welcoming, personally. The publisher even goes out of their way to support and represent LGBTQ+ in their official worldbuilding.

        There’s always going to be elitists in every hobby of course, they do exist in PF2e as well. But it’s not the majority by any stretch.

        KichaeK Offline
        KichaeK Offline
        Kichae
        Forum Master
        wrote last edited by
        #23

        I don’t know. My experience with the community has been a lot of people yelling “You’re playing my fantasy XCOM board game wrong. You should probably play a rules-light game,” and no one stepping up to challenge them.

        K 1 Reply Last reply
        2
        • KichaeK Kichae

          I don’t know. My experience with the community has been a lot of people yelling “You’re playing my fantasy XCOM board game wrong. You should probably play a rules-light game,” and no one stepping up to challenge them.

          K This user is from outside of this forum
          K This user is from outside of this forum
          kata1yst@sh.itjust.works
          wrote last edited by
          #24

          Hmmm, I’m very sorry to hear that, honestly. I’d say the average PF2e player takes it a bit more seriously than the average DnD5e/N player, but not a whole lot.

          Perhaps it’s the part of the community you engaged with? Obviously every forum/chat server is going to have it’s own flavor. The older communities that started with PF1e and still focus there are going to be more elitist in general just because of how PF1e came to be and it’s target audience. But PF2e is much more widely targeted.

          Discord isn’t free, private, or open source, but it does host several great PF2e communities I participate in if you’d like a recommendation. But if you are just sharing your personal experience and aren’t looking for a “solution”, that’s totally valid and I completely respect that.

          KichaeK 1 Reply Last reply
          4
          • libertylizard@slrpnk.netL libertylizard@slrpnk.net

            Any play podcast recs? Maybe listening to a few games will give me a better sense than just reading.

            KichaeK Offline
            KichaeK Offline
            Kichae
            Forum Master
            wrote last edited by
            #25

            Mortals & Portals is very good. They made the decision to use PF2e like 2 weeks before they started recording, and learned the game on the fly. Sometimes they trip over the rules, but they also illustrate how to fail forward in that regard.

            They also run it as a Theatre of the Mind game, which a lot of people will try to convince you isn’t really feasible. They fease it just fine, so I like it as an example.

            Narrative Declaration also has several campaigns on YouTube. Rotgrind and Rotgoons are campaigns set in a gritty homebrew world. They had an aborted Abomination Vaults campaign that started off with the game’s beginner box. They’re currently running Rusthenge, which is a different beginner’s adventure. They also have a series of “teaching Pathfinder 2e to VTubers” campaigns, which… They’re good, but they’re just the beginner’s box over and over again, with different cartoon variety streamers. They use Foundry, and play gridded combat.

            1 Reply Last reply
            3
            • K kata1yst@sh.itjust.works

              Hmmm, I’m very sorry to hear that, honestly. I’d say the average PF2e player takes it a bit more seriously than the average DnD5e/N player, but not a whole lot.

              Perhaps it’s the part of the community you engaged with? Obviously every forum/chat server is going to have it’s own flavor. The older communities that started with PF1e and still focus there are going to be more elitist in general just because of how PF1e came to be and it’s target audience. But PF2e is much more widely targeted.

              Discord isn’t free, private, or open source, but it does host several great PF2e communities I participate in if you’d like a recommendation. But if you are just sharing your personal experience and aren’t looking for a “solution”, that’s totally valid and I completely respect that.

              KichaeK Offline
              KichaeK Offline
              Kichae
              Forum Master
              wrote last edited by
              #26

              Yeah, I’m mostly just… warning people to be prepared. The Paizo forums and the subreddit both house a significant number of people that actively chase people away for treating the game as a general purpose fantasy RPG. And as someone who champions PF2 as a really solid roleplaying game, and not just a tactical combat game, I’ve been repeatedly and harshly told I’m doing it wrong.

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • StametsS Stamets
                This post did not contain any content.
                Z This user is from outside of this forum
                Z This user is from outside of this forum
                ziggurat@jlai.lu
                wrote last edited by
                #27

                We’re RPG player, we have a long tradition of trolling each others, AD&D player will tell that Vampire is the opposite of a RPG while WOD player will reply that AD&D is a boardgames and that it misses the role play element to be called RPG.

                But all this trolling tend to be all fun, and not many people would straight up refuse D&D game (even I, play it like once a decade, there is so many other game out there and so few time)

                1 Reply Last reply
                1
                • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.deD dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de

                  Without saying anything negative about D&D 5e, let me tell you about two of my personal favorites:

                  The Dark Eye

                  Under the name “Das Schwarze Auge”, this is one of the most popular systems in Germany and has existed since the mid 80s and the latest edition has been available in English for about a decade now. There are dozens of source books and hundreds of official campaigns and standalone adventures, all set in the same world and a single ongoing canon (apart from a few early works that have been retconned). There are decades of detailed in-world history that you can use as a background for your own campaign if you want or selectively ignore if you want to focus on your own interpretation of what the world should look like.

                  Mechanics-wise it’s a lot less board-game-like than some 70s/80s/90s systems while not going the full “storytelling first” route that many more moderns systems seem to prefer. On top of the eight basic attributes, characters can select from a pool of skills and feats that cover everything from combat to magic to social interaction to crafts and hobbies. The system focuses a lot less on combat than other high fantasy systems and it’s absolutely viable to have a group of purely social-focused characters that never get into a single fight but still get to use a lot of the system’s mechanics.

                  Overall it’s relatively complex if you want to use absolutely every rule but at the same time very versatile and can be customized to your playstyle.

                  Opus Anima / Opus Anima Investigation

                  Sadly out of print and never officially translated to English so I’ll focus on the one thing that works without the official setting: it’s one of the simplest systems I’ve ever seen. It uses a pool of D2s (odd/even on D6, coins, red/black cards, whatever you have on hand) where the number of dice is determined by a basic attribute and a skill that can be combined however the situation requires. Dexterity + mechanics to build something, perception + mechanics to recognize a mechanism, knowledge + mechanics to understand the underlying principles or remember who invented something. To avoid experienced characters failing an easy check out of pure bad luck, everything over 10 dice is not rolled but gives half a success (rounded up) automatically. That’s it. That’s the whole system.

                  E This user is from outside of this forum
                  E This user is from outside of this forum
                  eneff@discuss.tchncs.de
                  wrote last edited by eneff@discuss.tchncs.de
                  #28

                  For anyone (thinking about) playing The Dark Eye:

                  Check out the character manager/creator Optolith, it’s wonderful!

                  dfyx@lemmy.helios42.deD 1 Reply Last reply
                  5
                  • KichaeK Kichae

                    The bestiary is also really good (and free!). There are thousands of enemies, most of which have solid gimmicks that tell you straight from the stat block how you can best run the creature. And the they’re balanced to the same levels as players, so encounter power budgets are very intuitive.

                    The game gets a bit of a bad rap for having “nitpicky” rules, but people often seem to fail to recognize that the rules are spelling out how people already usually resolve things, rather than introducing something novel. It’s written in a very systematized way, and people aren’t used to reading about their intuitive experiences in systematized language.

                    The game’s broader community’s obsession with rules orthodoxy doesn’t help…

                    S This user is from outside of this forum
                    S This user is from outside of this forum
                    sbv@sh.itjust.works
                    wrote last edited by
                    #29

                    thousands of enemies, most of which have solid gimmicks that tell you straight from the stat block how you can best run the creature

                    That’s exactly what I want. I spent so much time looking at https://www.themonstersknow.com/ when DMing 5e. I like encounter design, but I feel like I had to work hard to make it passable, rather than work hard to make it excellent.

                    NielsBohronN 1 Reply Last reply
                    7
                    • B bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org

                      If you’re looking to run a cyberpunk setting with Pathfinder, I’d recommend checking out Starfinder 2e. It’s currently wrapping up playtesting, and will be out in late July. It uses the core PF2 rules and is fully compatible with them, but a new set of classes, ancestorys and equipment for a science fantasy setting. If I ever run Shadowrun again I’ll probably use Starfinder as the rules.

                      S This user is from outside of this forum
                      S This user is from outside of this forum
                      sbv@sh.itjust.works
                      wrote last edited by
                      #30

                      Neat! Thanks for mentioning that.

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      1
                      • libertylizard@slrpnk.netL libertylizard@slrpnk.net

                        I looked into playing briefly but it seemed more complicated and confusing than 5e which my players can already barely handle.

                        B This user is from outside of this forum
                        B This user is from outside of this forum
                        bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org
                        wrote last edited by
                        #31

                        I think that the perceived complexity, particularly for people coming from 5e comes down to two issues.

                        There’s A Rule For That 5E leaves a lot of things to GM fiat, while in Pathfinder there is probably a specific rule. Now, the rule is going to be the same systemic rule that is used everywhere else and probably be the way you’d want to resolve it anyway, but there mere existence of the rule makes it seem like there is a lot of complexity.

                        Close, But Not Quite Because 5e and PF2 have a lot in common, players with a lot of 5e experience will assume that something works the same way as in 5e when it doesn’t. This can lead to gameplay feeling like walking in a field of rakes. I ran into this with a new player who had listened to a lot of 5e podcasts and picked up some 5e rules that they tried to use, like attacks of opportunity.

                        FWIW, I’ve been running a game with a group of new players, most of whom have never played an RPG before and they seem to be handling it fairly well. Well, once I talked with the person who listened to all of the 5e podcasts.

                        KichaeK 1 Reply Last reply
                        8
                        • StametsS Stamets
                          This post did not contain any content.
                          A This user is from outside of this forum
                          A This user is from outside of this forum
                          alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world
                          wrote last edited by
                          #32

                          My current DM despises 5e

                          I think it’s because 3.5 offers such a ludicrous bag of dickfuckery for the GM to employ at their leisure it’s literally like hanging out with someone who insists on cleaning their guns with company over.

                          I just want to play cyberpunk red again.

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          8
                          • KichaeK Kichae

                            The downside of PF2 is if you try to engage with the core of the online community with this “rules for if I want/need them” attitude, someone will come out of the shadows to shank you.

                            There’s a rabid “by the rules, and all the rules” cohort within the community, and they are pretty effective at chasing new players away.

                            B This user is from outside of this forum
                            B This user is from outside of this forum
                            bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org
                            wrote last edited by
                            #33

                            I haven’t seen a lot of that, but what I have seen comes down to organized play vs home games. The online community has a very strong organized play culture, which requires closely adhering to RAW and fairly strict guidelines for play in order to keep the ability to jump and character into any table of a random session. I’ve found that being clear about if this is a Society game or a home game helps to avoid those misunderstandings.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            2
                            • B bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org

                              I think that the perceived complexity, particularly for people coming from 5e comes down to two issues.

                              There’s A Rule For That 5E leaves a lot of things to GM fiat, while in Pathfinder there is probably a specific rule. Now, the rule is going to be the same systemic rule that is used everywhere else and probably be the way you’d want to resolve it anyway, but there mere existence of the rule makes it seem like there is a lot of complexity.

                              Close, But Not Quite Because 5e and PF2 have a lot in common, players with a lot of 5e experience will assume that something works the same way as in 5e when it doesn’t. This can lead to gameplay feeling like walking in a field of rakes. I ran into this with a new player who had listened to a lot of 5e podcasts and picked up some 5e rules that they tried to use, like attacks of opportunity.

                              FWIW, I’ve been running a game with a group of new players, most of whom have never played an RPG before and they seem to be handling it fairly well. Well, once I talked with the person who listened to all of the 5e podcasts.

                              KichaeK Offline
                              KichaeK Offline
                              Kichae
                              Forum Master
                              wrote last edited by
                              #34

                              Exactly this.

                              The game’s rules are, mostly, simple, intuitive, consistent, and predictable. In fact, the rules very often seem to follow from the fiction presented at the table! Sometimes, they do it too well, even – I’ve seen people complain about Trip being Athletics vs Reflex rather than Acrobatics or Fortitude, but as someone who’s taken judo and karate lessons, Athletics vs Reflex is 100% right.

                              The rules follow the fiction at the table, and that means 9 times out of 10, if you know the fiction being presented, you can just ask for the roll that makes sense to you. No need to look anything up.

                              The game is also moderately systematized, and functional. That is, a lot of what 5e DMs would just treat as “roll skill against DC” is formalized into an “Action” with a concrete name. These actions act like mathematical or programming functions, in that they can take parameters. So, it’s not “Trip”, it’s “Trip (Athletics)”. If your character comes out of left field and does something acrobatic, or even magical, that I think would cause a creature to stumble and fall, then I will leverage “Trip (Acrobatics)” or “Trip (Arcana)”, which now makes it an Acrobatics or Arcana roll vs Reflex. This means “Trip (x)” is actually “Roll x vs Reflex. On a success, the target falls prone, on a… etc.”

                              Super flexible, and super intuitive. But formalized, and only presented with the default option, so it looks both complicated and rigid.

                              I started running the game for 8 year olds, though, and they picked it up very quickly. I do my best to run sessions totally in-fiction, but that honestly gets broken every other turn or so.

                              1 Reply Last reply
                              5
                              • B bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org

                                When it come to more traditional RPGs, I really like Pathfinder 2E for the following reasons:

                                • It scales very well from level 1-20. The math just works
                                • Encounter design and balancing is easy for the busy GM
                                • All of the classes are good, there aren’t any trap classes
                                • Teamwork is highly encouraged through class and ability design
                                • Degrees of success/failure
                                • Easy, free access to the rules
                                • The ORC license
                                • https://pathbuilder2e.com/
                                • Pathfinder Society Organized play is very well done and well supported by Paizo
                                • Women wear reasonable armor
                                • The rune system for magic weapons/armor
                                • And so many more
                                C This user is from outside of this forum
                                C This user is from outside of this forum
                                crozekiel@lemmy.zip
                                wrote last edited by
                                #35

                                Plus, I don’t know any other system that lets me pull my intestines out of my abdomen and use them like a lasso to climb a cliff when I forgot my rope at home.

                                The biggest “con” to PF2 is that it is decidedly not 5e, and people expecting it to work like 5e will have a bad time. AC generally hangs within 1 or 2 points for the entire party at a specific level, same for enemies. It is rarely a good idea to just walk up to the enemy and face tank them. Moving around is big for survivability. Synergy with other party members can be huge too. Sometimes that thing you can do doesn’t sound like a big buff or debuff, but if several party members are doing complementary buffs/debuffs it can turn the tide.

                                B J 2 Replies Last reply
                                10
                                • StametsS Stamets
                                  This post did not contain any content.
                                  Øπ3ŕO This user is from outside of this forum
                                  Øπ3ŕO This user is from outside of this forum
                                  Øπ3ŕ
                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #36

                                  Modern iterations? Daggerheart. Full stop. 🤷🏼‍♂️

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  5
                                  • E eneff@discuss.tchncs.de

                                    For anyone (thinking about) playing The Dark Eye:

                                    Check out the character manager/creator Optolith, it’s wonderful!

                                    dfyx@lemmy.helios42.deD This user is from outside of this forum
                                    dfyx@lemmy.helios42.deD This user is from outside of this forum
                                    dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #37

                                    Oh yeah, big shoutout to @elyukai@mastodon.social and the whole team for creating the best ttrpg software I‘ve ever used.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    1
                                    • C crozekiel@lemmy.zip

                                      Plus, I don’t know any other system that lets me pull my intestines out of my abdomen and use them like a lasso to climb a cliff when I forgot my rope at home.

                                      The biggest “con” to PF2 is that it is decidedly not 5e, and people expecting it to work like 5e will have a bad time. AC generally hangs within 1 or 2 points for the entire party at a specific level, same for enemies. It is rarely a good idea to just walk up to the enemy and face tank them. Moving around is big for survivability. Synergy with other party members can be huge too. Sometimes that thing you can do doesn’t sound like a big buff or debuff, but if several party members are doing complementary buffs/debuffs it can turn the tide.

                                      B This user is from outside of this forum
                                      B This user is from outside of this forum
                                      bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org
                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #38

                                      The synergy part is so huge. PF2 is very strongly based around making your party as awesome as possible instead of just making your character individually powerful, which I think trips up a lot of people coming from other systems or video games.

                                      KichaeK C 2 Replies Last reply
                                      12
                                      • B bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org

                                        The synergy part is so huge. PF2 is very strongly based around making your party as awesome as possible instead of just making your character individually powerful, which I think trips up a lot of people coming from other systems or video games.

                                        KichaeK Offline
                                        KichaeK Offline
                                        Kichae
                                        Forum Master
                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #39

                                        It definitely trips up people who usually just look at RPGBot to build their characters out from levels 1 - 20 before the first session. That’s how I made my build choices, and it was a pretty significant stumbling block for me when I made the switch.

                                        The blue options aren’t always the best options, because the best options depend on what everyone else is doing.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        5
                                        • B bartydecanter@lemmy.sdf.org

                                          When it come to more traditional RPGs, I really like Pathfinder 2E for the following reasons:

                                          • It scales very well from level 1-20. The math just works
                                          • Encounter design and balancing is easy for the busy GM
                                          • All of the classes are good, there aren’t any trap classes
                                          • Teamwork is highly encouraged through class and ability design
                                          • Degrees of success/failure
                                          • Easy, free access to the rules
                                          • The ORC license
                                          • https://pathbuilder2e.com/
                                          • Pathfinder Society Organized play is very well done and well supported by Paizo
                                          • Women wear reasonable armor
                                          • The rune system for magic weapons/armor
                                          • And so many more
                                          F This user is from outside of this forum
                                          F This user is from outside of this forum
                                          festus@lemmy.ca
                                          wrote last edited by festus@lemmy.ca
                                          #40

                                          For me it’s the 3 actions per turn. So much nicer to still have a turn even after I rolled an attack and missed.

                                          B 1 Reply Last reply
                                          21

                                          Reply
                                          • Reply as topic
                                          Log in to reply
                                          • Oldest to Newest
                                          • Newest to Oldest
                                          • Most Votes


                                          • Login

                                          • Login or register to search.
                                          Powered by NodeBB Contributors
                                          • First post
                                            Last post