FIRST OFF I still love 5e but imo it lacks in soo many areas that pathfinder2e fixes! AGAIN MY OPINION feel free to disagree. also I just switched over
1 character options im skipping over customization because everyone has heard that race/ ancestry options
5e has your classics & so does pathfinder BUT pathfinder also does really cool stuff that I don't understand why WOTC hasn't done it already considering they are the bigger rpg. examples
A damphir half vampires the ability to play essentially a vampire & have it work with both benefits & flaws is awesome !
B plant spirits. (again haven't gotten to play or run a game yet i think they're called leashy) but just the idea is cool !
C kitsune (spelling )comes out next month
D androids (yes they are different than warforged)
E sprites aka fey no info yet but again just that the option is thier
F spider race again same as above
5e your standards +mtg races (which from what I understand alot of people don't allow just because its mtg)
2 Classes again new haven't looked through everything
Classes like oracle alchemist summoner (a marshal wizard is coming) gunslinger all standard or new & cool
again why isn't WOTC coming up with cool new ideas like this!!!!
Marshall Classes don't get outclassed by magic unlike 5e
some say magic is nerfed in 2e (secrets of magic should fix this if true)
3 Monsters
pathfinder2e
unique things like
chinese dragons
the fates from greek/norse mythology
basilisk dragon hybrids
titan stats like the hundred handed one's of greek mythology
multiple unique elementals & oni
a dragon thats the reason vorpral blades exist
dracoliches have a soul eating combat mechanic
multiple celestials
cool undead like a undead golem when it rolls a crit it puts a chunk of flesh from you on its body to heal itself
the freaking grim reaper!
oh & monsters have weaknesses ever thought oh a red dragon hey Mr wizard can you prepare a bunch of cold spells so we have an advantage ? then it does nothing. well now alot of monsters have a weaknesses to what you expect fire is weak to ice demons &devils get hurt by radiant ect.
5e
in my experience (been playing since release) all the really cool monsters are in mtg books
crafting & cr & xp
omg finally a decent damm crafting & item system with prices for everything & special metals
metals
darkwood quicksilver mythril adimantine time metal with prices for.
ore ingots
high standard & low grade items made of the material
items even magic have hp n repair thresholds so nothing it totally safe
you can MAKE your own magic items
your dwarf want a +2 returning frost& fire quicksilver warhammer to specifically hit fey you can make it or find it in game !
or how about a +3. bleeding deadly (more damage dice) holy chain whip for your Asia inspiration fighter to take on undead. yup.
or how about cool poison like gorgon poison that poisons & turns ur enemy to stone?
a potion to heal undead
the elixir of life
someone wants to play a non magic healer thiers stuff like lesser & greater antiplauge
wotc. crafting abstract as hell item prices inconsistent
CR. WOTC high lvl stuff isn't supported
pathfinder all adventures except single one's are designed to end at high lvl
the cr system actually works
xp is just a static 1000 xp to lvl up easy to keep track of
monsters xp is dependent on if its equal to party lvl or 1 to 4 lvls above or below easy
big numbers this is one that scared me initially n probably alot of ppl too thiers a rule that brings numbers within 5es limits
settings potential
with pathfinder. thiers eventually ( end of this year ) going to be enough content release thats official that you can easily run the following setting ideas
norse vikings
far east
magic wizard school
Renaissance pirates or steam punk (thery are doing a technology book that includes gunslinger) (gunslinger was in pathfinder 1e thats what crs home game was)
rule your own kingdom (with rules)
fey centric
vampire pc centric
colonial conquest (think chronicles of Narnia prince Caspian )
egypt
antagonist celestials campaign
alchemy vs magic campaign
other things
hp for stone walls (good condition crumbling) prison bars ect
different lvls of locks (for idk a bank hiest quest)
if your good at a skill it shows because a barbarian can't roll a 19 on the dice n somehow unlock it even though he's never used lockpicks before
again why am I posting this knowing that ill probably get down voted to hell? because I wish WOTC would do most of this cool stuff but they just don't seem to want to try new things or things that people complain about (cr especially)!
but they should they are the bigger company ! I don't understand why they don't try new things
d&d is at its most popular but imo 5e is just too limiting compared to pf2e in almost every aspect which is why I'm probably switching permanently
AGAIN MY OPINION feel free to disagree and hey if you have counter points please I WANT to here them & have a fruitful discussion between the two systems :)
Okay, so, I haven't actually played PF 2e, but from what I have seen...
Its aiming to be just as complex as its predecessor, as well as its spiritual predecessors 3e and 3.5 D&D. For people who like that kind of game, great. I'm glad you've got a game that you enjoy playing. Pathfinder caters to the crowd that loves that kind of complexity and detail.
Meanwhile, 5e was designed towards the more streamlined rules, and ease of access for new people to join the hobby.
There's really nothing more to say. The two are aiming at two fundamentally different audiences despite their similar origins. If you like Pathfinder, more power to you.
5e, I think, is rather similar to the old warhammer fantasy game, in that it removes a lot of the complex rules and allows a flow of rp that the older editions didn't.
I think my group and I would probably like P2, but we'd need to be seriously disgruntled with 5e to justify the amount of time and energy it takes to switch over. So far 5e (and the easy incorporation of homebrew to it thanks to DDB) is working out for us.
For people torn between the two, I think the Level Up project to make a 5.5e is pretty interesting. Again, too much hassle to switch over for me, but I do like how they have more social/exploration class features for classes like Fighter who RAW often have no applicable features outside of combat.
I don't think you demonstrated much outside of identity stuff, and I'm not impressed. Every game is going to have some unique monsters, naturally a newer release will try to expand on the status quo, but those are frivolously easy to add and skin to existing content.
The real meat are mechanics, and some pros have demonstrated the monotony of action economy in PF2... so yeah, not winning awards.
I would have been more impressed if they added stuff that's dramatically unique, like creature and monster PC rules, tactically diverse actions, and so forth. Even at best, it's trying to compete with an established product which can mirror any successful content PF2 pioneers. That doesn't seem like reasonable pickings.
Crafting isn't really an RP thing to be done at the table anyway, it is mostly something done in downtime, which probably means between sessions.
Yeah. 5e is actually awesome at crafting, using tool proficiency, during downtime or between sessions such as during a long rest.
Actually most of the stuff in the first post is already doable. Custom lineage can cover the player races.
The viking stuff is Bard, Paladin, Rogue (Swashbuckler), and Fighter. Barbarian is ok but needs to be more shamanic for a Berserkr. Druid works for troll magic.
I think some of the responses in this thread are not being entirely fair to Pathfinder SECOND edition. It is very different and much more balanced and streamlined by comparison to it's 3.5 and first edition counterparts and there are so many things 5e can learn from 2e.
1. LEVEL 1: If you are playing 5e I can almost garauntee that you rarely start level 1 today. It is not fun to die from something sneezing on you at this level and there are not nearly enough character options to make this level feel good. By adding level 1 class feats and having additional health at level 1 2E solves both of these issues. I actually have brought this into 5e by granting all level 1 characters an addtional 6+ con modifier health at 1 and by giving everyone a feat (no lucky feat) at level 1.
2. Ability boosts: the 2e method of ability boosts feels much easier to calculate and explain than the 5e point buy system and ends up being similarly balanced.
3. More accurate CR's I am not sure those that have said it is easier to plan and GM 5e have ever been a new time GM picking up both these games. The encounter rules in the 5e DMG are famously inadequate and CR famously inaccurate. Meanwhile PF 2e is extremely tight mathmatically and can be quite accurate making it very easy for new gm's to plan encounters without either side getting ridiculously stomped.
4. The lack of the short rest feature means more types of adventures as you arent trying to balance the game with a certain number of encounters and short rest opportunities throughout the game.
5. Martial vs Magic classes 5e has 13 classes and of those classes 9 of them are either full or half casters and of the 4 that arent only rogue and fighter have more than 2 that aren't leaking magic type abilities out of a majority of their subclasses.
This said there are a few things that is keeping 2e down and those are.
1. Squandered action system. The 3 action system looks super good, but the feats system and lack of interesting tactical options makes you likely to do the same trick over and over as you feel you have to overly specialize to feel good at whatever it is you do.
2. Skill feats. Now the concept of skill feats is amazing, the problem is the implementation. Many things that you should just be allowed to try are barriered behind skill feats. In this case if a player picks up one of those skill feats I will tell them they can just try that normally abd they can pick another feat that actually feels good to have. Example of bad feat is the diplomacy feat that allows you to use make an impression on a group and an examble of a good one is cat fall where you can only get it if trained in acrobatics and it decreases fall damage increasing when you are expert in it, master in it and allowing you to fall any distance for no damage at legendary skill level. That is a skill feat.
3. Circumstance, conditional, status bonuses. They did these as a way to limit stacking bonus what they managed to do was make it to where there were even more things players had to keep track of bogging things down.
Personally I think it's great that we have multiple TTRPG systems to choose from. I'm sure I'd enjoy P2e if I got into it, but some of my friends balk at the relative complexity of P2e and 5e is working for me.
Personally I think it's great that we have multiple TTRPG systems to choose from. I'm sure I'd enjoy P2e if I got into it, but some of my friends balk at the relative complexity of P2e and 5e is working for me.
If you are looking for another system and like star wars try FFG'S star wars RPG'S they use a different dice system and I have found them to be incredibly fun and have been running the narrative dice system for 5 years.
Crafting isn't really an RP thing to be done at the table anyway, it is mostly something done in downtime, which probably means between sessions.
My players roleplay out downtime, things like crafting we run at the table, but then my players like to turn a shopping trip into a 4 hour roleplay session lol.
The way I see the split having read the Pathfinder rules and deciding it was not the game I wanted to DM is as follows.
Pathfinder is a game for people who like to stick to RAW and who want a rule for every situation they can think of. They want a defined mechanical universe to play in and don't want any ambiguity, they don't want to be worrying about how to let a player do X or Y they would rather have a rule they can reference for it. That is fine, I know people who like that.
DnD 5E is more creative, as a DM you have to make stuff up, you need to be flexible and use the framework of the rules to guide things but accept things will happen there are no rules for in almost every session. It allows the DM to focus on the story rather then the mechanics
Paizo's adventure paths all run lvls 1 through 20. Sure, most of the play is found at lower levels but the disparity is a lot less than on the D&D 5E side, at least in my experience. It cuts both ways: publishers may focus less on high level play because there's a bigger market at lower levels, but doing so in turn makes "people don't play much at T3-T4" a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't offer content for it, people won't play it as much. And Paizo's T4 content tends to be pretty good, while WotC seems to shy away from such content because that's hard to create in 5E. Leaning on DMs becoming good at providing their own content flies in the face of the regular demands for more high level adventures voiced by the 5E player base. Also, PF2 was released in April of 2019, a good two years ago only and a major part of those years plagued by covid, and Paizo has 5 complete adventure paths out (would have been 6 if not for covid) as well as a handful of low-level shorter adventures and a bunch of organized play material. WotC certainly hasn't released 3.5 times as much adventure content since 5E was released.
"Another point along this line is that PF2 has more rules in the Core books, which are not optional, they are part of the game, and if you don't use them, you are playing something else entirely that is merely based on the game." BS. Everything is optional. Many rules in the core books explicitly so too - feats in 5E, for instance. PF2's Advanced Player's Guide also has more content than Xanathar's and Tasha's combined, at a lower cost. I'd even throw in Volo's and Mord's if we look only at player options and disregard lore (which I enjoy very much, but that's not rules).
I'm not saying PF2 is perfect and 5E blows chunks. Neither of those statements is remotely true. But your comparisons of adventures and player content are unfair and incorrect.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Erm... MSRP on the PHB is $49.95. Same for the DMG and MM. Currently on Amazon for $31.30 (just the PHB), where the PF2 Core rulebook is $36.49. The "DMG" for PF is part of the core book too, so not as great a deal if you only wanted a PHB but a pretty sweet deal in comparison if you wanted a full set of core rules. And as much as we can discuss the relative merits of each ruleset (they both have their strengths and weaknesses), for me the 5E DMG in terms of being a guide on being a good DM is a pretty big letdown.
Edit: for completeness' sake, PF2 also has a separate Gamemastery Guide (which I recommend) if you're looking for info beyond what's in the core book, and has pocket editions of most of the books if you want a cheaper physical version.
All the PF2 books can be bought for $14.95 as official .pdfs. Sure, DDB adds more functionality but if you’re buying content PF2 is clearly cheaper. That’s why I assumed we were talking physical books and comparing those prices, because otherwise I don’t see how that argument can be construed as favorable towards D&D.
Two factors for me A.) if I'm going to play a different ttrpg I want one that doesn't just do what 5e does a little differently give me monster of the week, all flesh must be eaten, mutants and masterminds or city of mist just to name a few and B.) I'd loose half my group I got a pdf of pf 2e for cheap on humble bundle and half my group pretty much were incredibly disinterested in it got told reading it felt like homework. and the others already have been talking to me about wanting to change stuff they don't like in it to be more like 5e. Not saying it's a bad system it's just not different enough for me and to much of a headache for my group.
I play Mechwarrior when I want to big myself down in technicalities... The 3e/3.5e/pf/pf2 line went down a completely different branch and isn’t really comparable to DnD 5e anymore. They appeal to very different audiences typically so I just don’t see the point in trying to have one influence the other, especially when you’re better off just switching to the more preferred system.
I also don’t see a market for a 5.5 system that re-complicates things to the level of pf2 from a marketing standpoint either. Pf2 already does technical combat WAY better than 5e, so why not let them? DnD is played now by WAY more people than ever before, why not capitalize on this new path instead of dragging it down?
I played in a Pathfinder 2e game (published adventure path) and while it was OK, I ended up dropping out of it because it just wasn't a fun system. Several of the players were very dismissive of 5e because it is like an "RPG for babies," "too simple," "not tactical enough," "not enough choices."
What I saw:
Combat was slow, lots of discussion of "what kind of bonus is that?" "How does that work?" "how many actions does that take?" Lots of arguments over rules, partly because the core rulebook is very poorly organized, there are too many types of magical systems, etc.
The supposed freedom of having more action flexibility was just an illusion - very quickly, it was clear what the "best" thing to do is. Yes, you could RP doing something sub-optimal but you could do that in ANY system.
Character creation also felt like the illusion of choice - yeah, many feats and skills you can take, but some are clearly way better than others - so again, you can choose to be suboptimal, but I didn't feel suddenly like "I can create any character I want!"
This is a more personal issue, but I felt like I had to STUDY to understand the world. I have no history with the world of Golarion, its factions, locations, history, etc. but it sure felt like I needed to know (at least for AP we were doing).
I didn't hate Pathfinder 2e, but I had no sense that it was more fun than 5e. I both DM and play 5e and it is just more polished and streamlined - I play with a few people, who like me, have been playing TTRPG's for 30+ years as well as a bunch who are new to RPG's. The old-timers enjoy 5e and don't feel restricted. I can't imagine introducing a new player to RPG's via Pathfinder - yikes. I remember flipping back and forth in 4 different sections to try to understand how Paladin spellcasting worked in Pathfinder.
Different strokes for different folks and all, but there are reasons Pathfinder 2e is basically a niche game now compared to 5e, and it isn't just critical role and the like.
[5E and PF2] appeal to very different audiences typically ...
Really? I mean, they're both fantasy TTRPGs. How different can these audiences be? People have preferences, sure, but that doesn't mean two TTRPGs with the same flavour and coming from the same stock can't both appeal to the same people. It gets even more astounding when I look at the different types of players I see on these forums who all like 5E but often for different reasons and who play very different styles of games. Is this a Beatles vs Stones thing where you supposedly had to pick but in reality most people just liked both?
sorry if formatting is shit in tired & on mobile
FIRST OFF I still love 5e but imo it lacks in soo many areas that pathfinder2e fixes! AGAIN MY OPINION feel free to disagree. also I just switched over
1 character options im skipping over customization because everyone has heard that race/ ancestry options
5e has your classics & so does pathfinder BUT pathfinder also does really cool stuff that I don't understand why WOTC hasn't done it already considering they are the bigger rpg. examples
A damphir half vampires the ability to play essentially a vampire & have it work with both benefits & flaws is awesome !
B plant spirits. (again haven't gotten to play or run a game yet i think they're called leashy) but just the idea is cool !
C kitsune (spelling )comes out next month
D androids (yes they are different than warforged)
E sprites aka fey no info yet but again just that the option is thier
F spider race again same as above
5e your standards +mtg races (which from what I understand alot of people don't allow just because its mtg)
2 Classes again new haven't looked through everything
Classes like oracle alchemist summoner (a marshal wizard is coming) gunslinger all standard or new & cool
again why isn't WOTC coming up with cool new ideas like this!!!!
Marshall Classes don't get outclassed by magic unlike 5e
some say magic is nerfed in 2e (secrets of magic should fix this if true)
3 Monsters
pathfinder2e
unique things like
chinese dragons
the fates from greek/norse mythology
basilisk dragon hybrids
titan stats like the hundred handed one's of greek mythology
multiple unique elementals & oni
a dragon thats the reason vorpral blades exist
dracoliches have a soul eating combat mechanic
multiple celestials
cool undead like a undead golem when it rolls a crit it puts a chunk of flesh from you on its body to heal itself
the freaking grim reaper!
oh & monsters have weaknesses ever thought oh a red dragon hey Mr wizard can you prepare a bunch of cold spells so we have an advantage ? then it does nothing. well now alot of monsters have a weaknesses to what you expect fire is weak to ice demons &devils get hurt by radiant ect.
5e
in my experience (been playing since release) all the really cool monsters are in mtg books
crafting & cr & xp
omg finally a decent damm crafting & item system with prices for everything & special metals
metals
darkwood
quicksilver
mythril
adimantine
time metal
with prices for.
ore
ingots
high standard & low grade items made of the material
items even magic have hp n repair thresholds so nothing it totally safe
you can MAKE your own magic items
your dwarf want a +2 returning frost& fire quicksilver warhammer to specifically hit fey you can make it or find it in game !
or how about a +3. bleeding deadly (more damage dice) holy chain whip for your Asia inspiration fighter to take on undead. yup.
or how about cool poison like gorgon poison that poisons & turns ur enemy to stone?
a potion to heal undead
the elixir of life
someone wants to play a non magic healer thiers stuff like lesser & greater antiplauge
wotc. crafting abstract as hell item prices inconsistent
CR. WOTC high lvl stuff isn't supported
pathfinder all adventures except single one's are designed to end at high lvl
the cr system actually works
xp is just a static 1000 xp to lvl up easy to keep track of
monsters xp is dependent on if its equal to party lvl or 1 to 4 lvls above or below easy
big numbers this is one that scared me initially n probably alot of ppl too thiers a rule that brings numbers within 5es limits
settings potential
with pathfinder. thiers eventually ( end of this year ) going to be enough content release thats official that you can easily run the following setting ideas
norse vikings
far east
magic wizard school
Renaissance pirates or steam punk (thery are doing a technology book that includes gunslinger) (gunslinger was in pathfinder 1e thats what crs home game was)
rule your own kingdom (with rules)
fey centric
vampire pc centric
colonial conquest (think chronicles of Narnia prince Caspian )
egypt
antagonist celestials campaign
alchemy vs magic campaign
other things
hp for stone walls (good condition crumbling)
prison bars ect
different lvls of locks (for idk a bank hiest quest)
if your good at a skill it shows because a barbarian can't roll a 19 on the dice n somehow unlock it even though he's never used lockpicks before
again why am I posting this knowing that ill probably get down voted to hell? because I wish WOTC would do most of this cool stuff but they just don't seem to want to try new things or things that people complain about (cr especially)!
but they should they are the bigger company ! I don't understand why they don't try new things
d&d is at its most popular but imo 5e is just too limiting compared to pf2e in almost every aspect which is why I'm probably switching permanently
AGAIN MY OPINION feel free to disagree and hey if you have counter points please I WANT to here them & have a fruitful discussion between the two systems :)
discuss!.
Okay, so, I haven't actually played PF 2e, but from what I have seen...
Its aiming to be just as complex as its predecessor, as well as its spiritual predecessors 3e and 3.5 D&D. For people who like that kind of game, great. I'm glad you've got a game that you enjoy playing. Pathfinder caters to the crowd that loves that kind of complexity and detail.
Meanwhile, 5e was designed towards the more streamlined rules, and ease of access for new people to join the hobby.
There's really nothing more to say. The two are aiming at two fundamentally different audiences despite their similar origins. If you like Pathfinder, more power to you.
Crafting isn't really an RP thing to be done at the table anyway, it is mostly something done in downtime, which probably means between sessions.
5e, I think, is rather similar to the old warhammer fantasy game, in that it removes a lot of the complex rules and allows a flow of rp that the older editions didn't.
I think my group and I would probably like P2, but we'd need to be seriously disgruntled with 5e to justify the amount of time and energy it takes to switch over. So far 5e (and the easy incorporation of homebrew to it thanks to DDB) is working out for us.
For people torn between the two, I think the Level Up project to make a 5.5e is pretty interesting. Again, too much hassle to switch over for me, but I do like how they have more social/exploration class features for classes like Fighter who RAW often have no applicable features outside of combat.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I don't think you demonstrated much outside of identity stuff, and I'm not impressed. Every game is going to have some unique monsters, naturally a newer release will try to expand on the status quo, but those are frivolously easy to add and skin to existing content.
The real meat are mechanics, and some pros have demonstrated the monotony of action economy in PF2... so yeah, not winning awards.
I would have been more impressed if they added stuff that's dramatically unique, like creature and monster PC rules, tactically diverse actions, and so forth. Even at best, it's trying to compete with an established product which can mirror any successful content PF2 pioneers. That doesn't seem like reasonable pickings.
Yeah. 5e is actually awesome at crafting, using tool proficiency, during downtime or between sessions such as during a long rest.
Actually most of the stuff in the first post is already doable. Custom lineage can cover the player races.
The viking stuff is Bard, Paladin, Rogue (Swashbuckler), and Fighter. Barbarian is ok but needs to be more shamanic for a Berserkr. Druid works for troll magic.
Adamantine and mithral are magic items.
And so on.
he / him
I think some of the responses in this thread are not being entirely fair to Pathfinder SECOND edition. It is very different and much more balanced and streamlined by comparison to it's 3.5 and first edition counterparts and there are so many things 5e can learn from 2e.
1. LEVEL 1: If you are playing 5e I can almost garauntee that you rarely start level 1 today. It is not fun to die from something sneezing on you at this level and there are not nearly enough character options to make this level feel good. By adding level 1 class feats and having additional health at level 1 2E solves both of these issues. I actually have brought this into 5e by granting all level 1 characters an addtional 6+ con modifier health at 1 and by giving everyone a feat (no lucky feat) at level 1.
2. Ability boosts: the 2e method of ability boosts feels much easier to calculate and explain than the 5e point buy system and ends up being similarly balanced.
3. More accurate CR's I am not sure those that have said it is easier to plan and GM 5e have ever been a new time GM picking up both these games. The encounter rules in the 5e DMG are famously inadequate and CR famously inaccurate. Meanwhile PF 2e is extremely tight mathmatically and can be quite accurate making it very easy for new gm's to plan encounters without either side getting ridiculously stomped.
4. The lack of the short rest feature means more types of adventures as you arent trying to balance the game with a certain number of encounters and short rest opportunities throughout the game.
5. Martial vs Magic classes 5e has 13 classes and of those classes 9 of them are either full or half casters and of the 4 that arent only rogue and fighter have more than 2 that aren't leaking magic type abilities out of a majority of their subclasses.
This said there are a few things that is keeping 2e down and those are.
1. Squandered action system. The 3 action system looks super good, but the feats system and lack of interesting tactical options makes you likely to do the same trick over and over as you feel you have to overly specialize to feel good at whatever it is you do.
2. Skill feats. Now the concept of skill feats is amazing, the problem is the implementation. Many things that you should just be allowed to try are barriered behind skill feats. In this case if a player picks up one of those skill feats I will tell them they can just try that normally abd they can pick another feat that actually feels good to have. Example of bad feat is the diplomacy feat that allows you to use make an impression on a group and an examble of a good one is cat fall where you can only get it if trained in acrobatics and it decreases fall damage increasing when you are expert in it, master in it and allowing you to fall any distance for no damage at legendary skill level. That is a skill feat.
3. Circumstance, conditional, status bonuses. They did these as a way to limit stacking bonus what they managed to do was make it to where there were even more things players had to keep track of bogging things down.
Personally I think it's great that we have multiple TTRPG systems to choose from. I'm sure I'd enjoy P2e if I got into it, but some of my friends balk at the relative complexity of P2e and 5e is working for me.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
If you are looking for another system and like star wars try FFG'S star wars RPG'S they use a different dice system and I have found them to be incredibly fun and have been running the narrative dice system for 5 years.
My players roleplay out downtime, things like crafting we run at the table, but then my players like to turn a shopping trip into a 4 hour roleplay session lol.
The way I see the split having read the Pathfinder rules and deciding it was not the game I wanted to DM is as follows.
Pathfinder is a game for people who like to stick to RAW and who want a rule for every situation they can think of. They want a defined mechanical universe to play in and don't want any ambiguity, they don't want to be worrying about how to let a player do X or Y they would rather have a rule they can reference for it. That is fine, I know people who like that.
DnD 5E is more creative, as a DM you have to make stuff up, you need to be flexible and use the framework of the rules to guide things but accept things will happen there are no rules for in almost every session. It allows the DM to focus on the story rather then the mechanics
Counterpoint: Paizo has plenty of high level content, and in terms of release frequency and volume WotC has a slower schedule.
All books are books with optional rules, in both (all) systems.
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Paizo's adventure paths all run lvls 1 through 20. Sure, most of the play is found at lower levels but the disparity is a lot less than on the D&D 5E side, at least in my experience. It cuts both ways: publishers may focus less on high level play because there's a bigger market at lower levels, but doing so in turn makes "people don't play much at T3-T4" a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't offer content for it, people won't play it as much. And Paizo's T4 content tends to be pretty good, while WotC seems to shy away from such content because that's hard to create in 5E. Leaning on DMs becoming good at providing their own content flies in the face of the regular demands for more high level adventures voiced by the 5E player base. Also, PF2 was released in April of 2019, a good two years ago only and a major part of those years plagued by covid, and Paizo has 5 complete adventure paths out (would have been 6 if not for covid) as well as a handful of low-level shorter adventures and a bunch of organized play material. WotC certainly hasn't released 3.5 times as much adventure content since 5E was released.
"Another point along this line is that PF2 has more rules in the Core books, which are not optional, they are part of the game, and if you don't use them, you are playing something else entirely that is merely based on the game."
BS. Everything is optional. Many rules in the core books explicitly so too - feats in 5E, for instance. PF2's Advanced Player's Guide also has more content than Xanathar's and Tasha's combined, at a lower cost. I'd even throw in Volo's and Mord's if we look only at player options and disregard lore (which I enjoy very much, but that's not rules).
I'm not saying PF2 is perfect and 5E blows chunks. Neither of those statements is remotely true. But your comparisons of adventures and player content are unfair and incorrect.
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Erm... MSRP on the PHB is $49.95. Same for the DMG and MM. Currently on Amazon for $31.30 (just the PHB), where the PF2 Core rulebook is $36.49. The "DMG" for PF is part of the core book too, so not as great a deal if you only wanted a PHB but a pretty sweet deal in comparison if you wanted a full set of core rules. And as much as we can discuss the relative merits of each ruleset (they both have their strengths and weaknesses), for me the 5E DMG in terms of being a guide on being a good DM is a pretty big letdown.
Edit: for completeness' sake, PF2 also has a separate Gamemastery Guide (which I recommend) if you're looking for info beyond what's in the core book, and has pocket editions of most of the books if you want a cheaper physical version.
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All the PF2 books can be bought for $14.95 as official .pdfs. Sure, DDB adds more functionality but if you’re buying content PF2 is clearly cheaper. That’s why I assumed we were talking physical books and comparing those prices, because otherwise I don’t see how that argument can be construed as favorable towards D&D.
edit: $14.99, not 14.95
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Two factors for me A.) if I'm going to play a different ttrpg I want one that doesn't just do what 5e does a little differently give me monster of the week, all flesh must be eaten, mutants and masterminds or city of mist just to name a few and B.) I'd loose half my group I got a pdf of pf 2e for cheap on humble bundle and half my group pretty much were incredibly disinterested in it got told reading it felt like homework. and the others already have been talking to me about wanting to change stuff they don't like in it to be more like 5e. Not saying it's a bad system it's just not different enough for me and to much of a headache for my group.
I play Mechwarrior when I want to big myself down in technicalities... The 3e/3.5e/pf/pf2 line went down a completely different branch and isn’t really comparable to DnD 5e anymore. They appeal to very different audiences typically so I just don’t see the point in trying to have one influence the other, especially when you’re better off just switching to the more preferred system.
I also don’t see a market for a 5.5 system that re-complicates things to the level of pf2 from a marketing standpoint either. Pf2 already does technical combat WAY better than 5e, so why not let them? DnD is played now by WAY more people than ever before, why not capitalize on this new path instead of dragging it down?
Have to agree to disagree.
I played in a Pathfinder 2e game (published adventure path) and while it was OK, I ended up dropping out of it because it just wasn't a fun system. Several of the players were very dismissive of 5e because it is like an "RPG for babies," "too simple," "not tactical enough," "not enough choices."
What I saw:
Combat was slow, lots of discussion of "what kind of bonus is that?" "How does that work?" "how many actions does that take?" Lots of arguments over rules, partly because the core rulebook is very poorly organized, there are too many types of magical systems, etc.
The supposed freedom of having more action flexibility was just an illusion - very quickly, it was clear what the "best" thing to do is. Yes, you could RP doing something sub-optimal but you could do that in ANY system.
Character creation also felt like the illusion of choice - yeah, many feats and skills you can take, but some are clearly way better than others - so again, you can choose to be suboptimal, but I didn't feel suddenly like "I can create any character I want!"
This is a more personal issue, but I felt like I had to STUDY to understand the world. I have no history with the world of Golarion, its factions, locations, history, etc. but it sure felt like I needed to know (at least for AP we were doing).
I didn't hate Pathfinder 2e, but I had no sense that it was more fun than 5e. I both DM and play 5e and it is just more polished and streamlined - I play with a few people, who like me, have been playing TTRPG's for 30+ years as well as a bunch who are new to RPG's. The old-timers enjoy 5e and don't feel restricted. I can't imagine introducing a new player to RPG's via Pathfinder - yikes. I remember flipping back and forth in 4 different sections to try to understand how Paladin spellcasting worked in Pathfinder.
Different strokes for different folks and all, but there are reasons Pathfinder 2e is basically a niche game now compared to 5e, and it isn't just critical role and the like.
Really? I mean, they're both fantasy TTRPGs. How different can these audiences be? People have preferences, sure, but that doesn't mean two TTRPGs with the same flavour and coming from the same stock can't both appeal to the same people. It gets even more astounding when I look at the different types of players I see on these forums who all like 5E but often for different reasons and who play very different styles of games. Is this a Beatles vs Stones thing where you supposedly had to pick but in reality most people just liked both?
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