I've been playing ttrpgs from 3.0 onward but really got into the hobby in 2009 when PF first edition launched. I have played and GMd PF for a long time. When PF2E launched my group and I travelled to Gencon, bought the books, got them signed and proceeded to play the new edition. I've ran it for what? Seven years?
I recently made the decision to leave it behind, at least temporarily, to play 5E. And here is why...
- I realized that the complexity just wasn't for my players. They were too busy analyzing battle tactics and flipping through a dozen pages of feats, abilities, and rules to let themselves get lost in an adventure. So combat became a drag and became dry with no flavor.
- I don't feel like the majority of adventures Paizo is known for have been up to the quality standard that PF1E had. Or at the very least, they haven't hit the extreme highs that those adventure paths did.
- Characters have a lot at their disposal to customize but in reality, always felt like it never quite mattered. The way difficulty is balanced keeps a status quo from lvl 1 to lvl 20. So despite the numbers bloating to massive levels, the averages of success and failures change very little, if at all.
- PF2E tries to automate too much. Outside of combat you have exploration and downtime. These have systems built in that streamline that experience, especially exploration. I feel like this takes a ton of flavor out of the experience and also stifles creativity and roleplay in a part of the experience that should be more open and freeform for such things.
- Some skills and abilities suck more roleplaying opportunity away. Like Diplomacy feats that require you to talk to someone for a minute or more then make a check to improve their attitude one step a success, or two steps on a crit success. Or not being able to intimidate someone who speaks a different language without a specific feat.
- Magic items are relied on so heavily that they don't feel special.
- Some claim the work for the GM is less but I disagree completely.
The list goes on really. The crazy thing is that I think PF2E IS a wonderful game. It accomplishes what it is designed to do very well. But I think it's target audience is more niche and the game really lends itself to those looking for a tactful battle simulator more so than tools to escape reality for a while and adventure with friends. Of course it can be used for such things but I personally believe its fiddly nature sort of bucks against a more freeform and creative experience. The game's walls are clearly defined but that sort of creates a game that likes to say "no you can't do that." My group just burned out, and I wish I would have figured it out sooner that it really wasn't for the majority of my players.
All of that to say that I finally picked up 5E, the 2024 books, and it's like a breath of fresh air. We are all so enthused. I think the main thing I've noticed is that while PF2E is a huge tome of rules, Dnd is like a box of tools. The rules keep me in a box while the tools allow me to be flexible as a GM DM.
So yea, just thought I'd share an experience you don't see much on the web. Ye olden Pathfinder grognard letting his old world fall away to discover what he didn't know he was missing in a game like 5E.
My story is similar but in a much smaller time frame. I started TTRPGs for the first time during Covid and my friends and I started with Pathfinder 1e because the guy volunteering to run it had played that system before. We all hated it for a lot of the reasons you mention, what it does it does very well and if you’re that sort of player it’s probably fantastic but for us it was way too crunchy, levelling up started to feel like something to dread rather than be celebrated and we all constantly felt like we’d designed our characters wrong. We switched to 5e 2014 after the first campaign fizzled out and straight away were all much happier. It had rules where we needed them (like combat) and felt like it got out the way in the places we didn’t need rules and allowed us all to feel a lot more freedom. I took over as DM, something I don’t think I’d have had the courage to try with Pathfinder and now run four different campaigns at the same time.
I hope you and your players have a great first campaign with your new toys and if you need advice or just want to swap war stories we’re all very helpful here
That is awesome! I'm a long time forever DM. I grew up with the AD&D books and got into it all with dnd 3.0 but never had a consistent play experience due to where I was raised. But in my early twenties I was invited to a group that just got into Pathfinder 1E because it had just launched and the group was not into dnd 4e.
I do love Pathfinder. It is hard to let it go. I've spent a long time in its world of Golarion, and made countless characters and numerous adventures there. I owned every hardcover for 1e and nearly every hardcover for 2e; a substantial monetary commitment haha! I simply discovered the system was holding my group back, and myself and they were more enthused each time we picked up a lighter game to play as a side game. We are huge fans of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG!
But it also feels refreshing. I grew up reading Forgotten Realms novels and playing the og Baldur's Gate games and Neverwinter Nights. I played plenty of games at the table in that world as well, even using Pathfinder 1E rules back in the day. So that part feels like coming home. We are all pretty hyped at the cleaned-up rules and flexibility of it all.
I think pf2e really succeeds at what it tries to do. But what it is doing does not lend itself well to flexible adventure with creative actions and ideas. As a GM I always felt like I was saying NO to anyone coming in new or with a background in 5E, simply because what they were trying to do had a rule already that clearly defined what you could or couldn't do. I've watched on more than one occasion where players like that, after being told they couldn't do that because of the lack of some random feat or such, slowly stopped thinking outside of the box and slowly began to treat it like a video game at the table. Which I think is fine, if that is what you want. It's just not for me anymore.
Which is also funny because I never felt this disconnect between immersion/roleplay and combat/mechanics in PF1E or older editions of Dnd.
I've NEVER heard of a genuine reverse like this. & I'm glad SOMEONE admits that other stuff existing isn't the magic be all, end all for all the bad stuff that is TOTALLY equally bad that switching to other games is seen as. If anything, it proves that it's not about the game, it's about being a poseur. Daggerheart and Draw Steel(& DC20, if it ever finishes & releases) have a similar problem.
But given that Paizo has done Partnered Content on DND Beyond, the rivalry is effectively dead as far as the old guard meant it.
Glad you found a game that better fits what you want, vs what others want for everyone.
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DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Welcome back to DnD and welcome to the forums. In theory I have always thought the Pathfinder character building system sounded really interesting but that it seemed like ultimately once choices were made along the character path it might become a bit confining in how you could actually play. That, coupled with the fact my memory isn't the best for a system that has a lot more rules and options, has kept me firmly in the 5E camp. Nice to see some validation of those thoughts.
Clearly you know DnD well from eras past. Hopefully you and your players continue to love it now that you've made the switch.
Interesting you mention FFG's Star Wars game. That is something that has never appealed to me, probably because of the 5E familiarity of SW5E.
While i have heard some of these before, i think you articulated them more precisely than the other i have heard express it, and you are more thorough.
the ones i hadn't heard before were eye opening as well. Been trying to learn PF2E and it wasn't clicking, but i think i was just going "it can't be that, i must be missing something." but i am not. Like the Automated exploration, i was convinced it couldn't be that way.
Though i should have clocked it when paizo stream keep going on about the crunch of their system in language that had undertones of dismissal for lower crunch games.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
While we’re piling on pathfinder. I felt like the game design really more rewards system mastery than anything else. You had lots more choices when making your character, but there were really only 1-2 “correct” choices. If you didn’t make one of those, you pretty quickly fell behind the curve. Especially as you leveled and realized you needed to fill a skill prerequisite 3 levels ago if you want to take a certain feat, that kind of thing.
For some people, they like that, and I’m not saying they are wrong. It can be a really fun way to play. Just it’s not for me, and it’s kind of why I bounced off of it — and I played 1,2 and 3.x D&D. I like some crunch.
I do wish 5e had more options for character customization. Maybe 6e will hit the sweet spot for me when it eventually comes out.
Even with all feats giving a +1 ASI as of 2024, the ASI or feat split in 5e does hurt customization a lot, if only from the sense you're giving up core performance for a feat. Really I'm not sure a typical campaign rolls enough dice per level to really make ability mod value count for more than dice RNG, but there's a lot of perceived FOMO on either choice.
- I realized that the complexity just wasn't for my players. They were too busy analyzing battle tactics and flipping through a dozen pages of feats, abilities, and rules to let themselves get lost in an adventure. So combat became a drag and became dry with no flavor.
The only difference between 5e and PF2e is that you start having this problem in PF2e at about 2nd-3rd level, while in D&D it doesn't become a problem until around 4th or 5th level. But PF2e and 5e both have slow, boring combat with all manner of rules lawyer shenanigans and nonsense that drags the whole thing down.
- I don't feel like the majority of adventures Paizo is known for have been up to the quality standard that PF1E had. Or at the very least, they haven't hit the extreme highs that those adventure paths did.
"Hold My Beer" - Wizards of the Coast. You think Paizo has bad adventure writing? Wait until you get a load of what Wizards of the Coast has been up to.
- Characters have a lot at their disposal to customize but in reality, always felt like it never quite mattered. The way difficulty is balanced keeps a status quo from lvl 1 to lvl 20. So despite the numbers bloating to massive levels, the averages of success and failures change very little, if at all.
D&D has bound accuracy; it works exactly the same way, the only difference is that you make decisions about your character advancement twice, from level 1 to 20. First at 1st level when you choose your class, and then at 3rd level when you choose your sub-class. From then, the game is pretty much on rails. Nothing wrong with it in my opinion, but players used to heavy customization of PF2e will very quickly realize that character customization is a "character creation" thing in 5e, not a character advancement thing like it is in PF2e. Once you choose your path, you're pretty much on it. That is, until your players discover multi-classing and then you're back in the shit again.
- PF2E tries to automate too much. Outside of combat you have exploration and downtime. These have systems built in that streamline that experience, especially exploration. I feel like this takes a ton of flavor out of the experience and also stifles creativity and roleplay in a part of the experience that should be more open and freeform for such things.
This is the one saving grace of 5e, the thing it got right. It leaves most "out of combat" stuff up to the GM and though there are rules provided, they are almost all optional and you can adapt the game to your own style of running it. I think it's one of the best things about 5e in terms of "philosophy" about how the game operates.
- Some skills and abilities suck more roleplaying opportunity away. Like Diplomacy feats that require you to talk to someone for a minute or more then make a check to improve their attitude one step a success, or two steps on a crit success. Or not being able to intimidate someone who speaks a different language without a specific feat.
Yeah, I think 5e is a bit less instructive in this area, so there is more DM fiat stuff rather than rules stuff that govern interactions like this but you will find that where PF2e had too much rules coverage, 5e doesn't have enough.
- Magic items are relied on so heavily that they don't feel special.
I think 5e does a good job making magic items feel special. I think the problem, however, is that things like gold and treasure have no value to the players at all. So mundane stuff has no value at all. Most 5e games after about 4-5th level there is no longer any reason to track things like equipment and money, it doesn't play any relevant role in the game.
-Some claim the work for the GM is less but I disagree completely.
I think the problem with PF2e prep is that governing player characters, making sure you have interesting encounters and challenging gameplay takes a lot of work. Adventure Paths (especially those written for 2e which I agree with you haven't been as good as 1e) is a pain.
5e prep however is also a huge pain, especially encounter creation and balance, its a bit of a nightmare. Adventure prep, especially if you are using official adventures written by WOTC are an absolute and complete nightmare, they are without question the most disorganized and incoherent books ever written for an RPG. Thankfully there is a ton of great 3rd party adventures written for the game that will save your life!
All and all I think 5e prep is generally a lot easier as long as you don't rely too heavily on officially published material and once you get a feel for encounter balance which the CR system does not provide at all.
Oh I completely get the differences. Especially when it comes to PF. And don't get me wrong. I love pathfinder. And Paizo does release amazing products. I think the better way to put that is to say that what they have been releasing is not as enticing to me as what they have done in the past. One of my all time favorite campaigns ever put to page is Curse of the Crimson Throne. I've yet to see them make an adventure on that level or even close to games like Rise of the Runelords or Kingmaker (don't get me started on Kingmaker Anniversary Edition. It's a great adventure but lacks a severe amount of playtesting and the kingdom management rules should be immediately thrown into the trash.) I'm fully aware of WOTC's uneven adventure designs as well but I'm not really coming to them for a product line of modules like I did initially for Pathfinder. Paizo has a love for fiddly subsystems shoehorned into their games as well. Another issue with adding more bookkeeping complexity on top of the complexity that is already there.
I also think that there is a large difference to what I'm seeing in 5E's combat and PF2E's combat. 5E, at least so far to me, reminds me of the older Dnd editions i grew up on. Sure, every d20 game has a ton of things to keep track of in combat. But most of the time these games never quite felt like it wasn't manageable. Sure, you might forget a thing or two here or there. But the way PF2E is designed, and my experience with it for the past seven years, is that the sheer amount of wildly different options available to you very quickly becomes a true burden. Now that burden won't be the same for everyone. Some people can be efficient with it. As a player, I can. But most players I've ran into at my tables quickly get lost in it due to how most options are wildly detailed and almost demanding they be read each time they are used. Especially when you consider almost all of it having four steps of success with different outcomes. That's a different sort of slog on its own. In the past I've described the action economy of "more" that PF2E has, as more rope than a player needs. It's easy to hang themselves with it. Sure, on paper it sounds good to be able to do more in a turn. But most of the time all of that "more" amounts to very little to nothing at all and creates even more analysis paralysis in players. As a GM, I've been able to retain the information needed to run 5E so much more because it is wildly more condensed and flexible compared to the dense amount of fiddly rules pf2e has. With PF2E it sometimes felt like every time I needed to relearn a rule I was forgetting one or two others to make room for it.
I think the best way to sum up my thoughts on the differences is that both 5E and PF2E are two vehicles that are both going to the same location. 5E is a mostly straight journey to get there with very few turns. PF2E has 10 times more stops and turns on the way. But they both have the same destination. There is nothing wrong with either one. But I do think one is far more accessible than the other. And where I'm at in life and what I'm wanting out of a game is something more accessible. Especially after going on nearly 18 years of more defined complex systems. But this is just my personal experience. I love the system. It just isn't delivering the escapism we are desiring. It's pushing everyone's mindsets into a boardgame like battle simulator. But everyone's experience is different with it. I joked with one of my longtime friends the other day that if I had a table full of GMs turned players that had all GMd 2E then the game would run really smooth haha! I'm sure I'll run it again someday when I have all likeminded players for it. I've just learned that it is a game that isn't as accessible to a lot of players.
I do think there is a difference between the two systems which is that they are both part of a different sub-genre of fantasy RPG's.
Pathfinder 2e falls into the Tactical RPG Genre, and D&D 5e is closer to the Adventure RPG genre, though I find it to be a sort of blend between the Tactical RPG and Adventure RPG genres.
I think the main difference here is going to be rules coverage and mechanical depth.
I think this is easier to understand and see when you compare a full tactical RPG and a full adventure RPG.
Take Pathfinder 2e vs. Shadowdark which I think is a much clearer example.
In Pathfinder 2e, a tactical RPG, the game is a "story adventure", with a combat mini game in between it. That combat mini game is a major event in the game, you drill down to a deep level in its execution, there is a ton of tactics, strategy, and cooperation between players with various synergies in play. While you execute this combat, the story is on pause, the game becomes a story about "The Fight". Its almost a game within a game.
Shadowdark is an adventure RPG. A fight only breaks out when something has gone terribly wrong or you have been unlucky in the course of the adventure; the fight is almost a punishment for failure or bad luck, and the combat has very limited tactics or strategy, it's wildly swinging, and people's characters are going to be at high risk. It's not a mini game, you could just as well figure out who won the battle by flipping a coin. It's fast, dangerous, and pretty random. You're mostly avoiding fights in an adventure game and when you do get in a fight, its a high-stakes event.
D&D 5e is like Shadowdark in many ways but there are two exceptions.
First, fights favor the players. Meaning that the assumption is always that if a fight breaks out, the players are going to win it, it's not about challenge or danger, it's about cinematics. The purpose of the fights is to provide the spectacle of the fight, not to test the players as you would in PF2e with challenging combat, nor is it a form of punishment for failure or bad luck, as is the case in Shadowdark. It's more about having a fight for the "fight scene", it's an event in the game.
The second thing is that, unlike most adventure games, D&D 5e doesn't have any adventure game rules. Which means it's closer to PF2e tactical RPG in that way, in terms of how time passes, what it means to explore a place or consequences for any sort of activity or action are not part of a rule system, they are free form GM fiats or in the cases where your using a published adventure a "defined" circumstance based on the plot/story. Most adventure games have rules governing exploration.
I always say the only way to know if you're going to like a game is to play it and see for yourself.
One of the things about PF2E however, is that it does have rules for exploration. There is a whole chapter dedicated to "Exploration Mode" and it attempts to codify the experience pretty heavily by having the players pick an "exploration activity." Stuff like scouting, guarding, avoiding detection, investigating, and there are very defined rules for each of these activities. On paper this sounds fine. Someone can scout and give everyone a bonus to initiative for example. But I found that it battles against what players are trying to actually do, which is far more freeform, and thus it limits them and contains them in the box they picked out according to the activities available.
Exploration Mode reads as if there is an assumption that everyone is just moving together room by room and clearing it out. They move to room B, the GM makes secret checks and players make the checks they can, the GM summarizes what happens, then they move on. Of course, that is how it reads to me. I could have a completely wrong take on it. But in practice at my table, we found it very stifling. Mechanically advantageous? Sure. Flavorful and fun and immersive? Not in the slightest.
One of the things about PF2E however, is that it does have rules for exploration. There is a whole chapter dedicated to "Exploration Mode" and it attempts to codify the experience pretty heavily by having the players pick an "exploration activity." Stuff like scouting, guarding, avoiding detection, investigating, and there are very defined rules for each of these activities. On paper this sounds fine. Someone can scout and give everyone a bonus to initiative for example. But I found that it battles against what players are trying to actually do, which is far more freeform, and thus it limits them and contains them in the box they picked out according to the activities available.
Exploration Mode reads as if there is an assumption that everyone is just moving together room by room and clearing it out. They move to room B, the GM makes secret checks and players make the checks they can, the GM summarizes what happens, then they move on. Of course, that is how it reads to me. I could have a completely wrong take on it. But in practice at my table, we found it very stifling. Mechanically advantageous? Sure. Flavorful and fun and immersive? Not in the slightest.
I don't think you're misreading it. Pathfinder really is a very Tactical RPG, so it has mechanics designed to offer lots of tactical decisions. I don't want to say its "not the rpg", because clearly that is not the case, but very much like old school adventure games like 1st edition AD&D, B/X, and stuff like Shadowdark, adventure games, and/or adventure games with tactical RPG components and/or straight up tactical RPG's will often codify aspects that in more free form RPG's like 5e are simply left to the player and GM to decide..what happens. It's why I like to kind of differentiate between an RPG and a Adventure game. To me, though they share a lot in common, they are very different in a lot of ways. Pathfinder 2e is kind of an inbetween, a sort of crossover between adventure game and RPG, which is almost always the case with Tactical RPG's, which in a way is almost like a 3rd sub-genre at this point. Draw Steel is a great example of this, they codify a lot of stuff and definitely fall into the tactical RPG genre, but it also has a lot of Adventure game elements too.
In the end I guess all these games are RPG's but there are distinct sub-genres and differences that are very noticeable, especially if you play a lot of RPG's and you start to see commonalities between them.
It's really just a different style of role-playing. I think the one thing that is important to keep in mind, and I feel like I'm always reminding people of this... rules in an RPG are never presumed to be "must use" situations. Meaning that... if you don't like, for example, exploration rules... don't use them. That is a perfectly normal and expected outcome. It's a hell of a lot easier to do that than it is to switch systems entirely.
That said, whenever I hear someone saying "hey, maybe we should try a different RPG", my default answer is ... yes.. do that. Explore other RPG's, that's the hobby. You will realize later on that Pathfinder 2e is a great RPG, it has a specific style and tone, and for the right group, it's the perfect game. But every game is the perfect game for the right group. It's quite rare that I run into an RPG that is actually ... a bad RPG. Of the top of my head I can't even think of one right now.
Oh yea, I completely agree there. I frequently run different systems for my group. Sadly, not everyone is interested in everything. So, we tend to always have a "main" game going, which is almost always fantasy. Pathfinder was our go-to, but the burn out was real. Everyone is really enthused to play a fantasy game that is more flexible now. So, we will see if it continues to be that way or they miss the complexity of PF2E. I have a feeling most will not miss it.
And yea, combat is definitely almost its own mini game within the game in all of these systems. It's easy to get wrapped up in it in a totally different way that isn't conducive to roleplay. That's one of the exciting parts for most of my players though, is that 5E is a lot..."less." More efficient? Quicker? Not as burdensome? It's hard to put it into words.
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I've been playing ttrpgs from 3.0 onward but really got into the hobby in 2009 when PF first edition launched. I have played and GMd PF for a long time. When PF2E launched my group and I travelled to Gencon, bought the books, got them signed and proceeded to play the new edition. I've ran it for what? Seven years?
I recently made the decision to leave it behind, at least temporarily, to play 5E. And here is why...
- I realized that the complexity just wasn't for my players. They were too busy analyzing battle tactics and flipping through a dozen pages of feats, abilities, and rules to let themselves get lost in an adventure. So combat became a drag and became dry with no flavor.
- I don't feel like the majority of adventures Paizo is known for have been up to the quality standard that PF1E had. Or at the very least, they haven't hit the extreme highs that those adventure paths did.
- Characters have a lot at their disposal to customize but in reality, always felt like it never quite mattered. The way difficulty is balanced keeps a status quo from lvl 1 to lvl 20. So despite the numbers bloating to massive levels, the averages of success and failures change very little, if at all.
- PF2E tries to automate too much. Outside of combat you have exploration and downtime. These have systems built in that streamline that experience, especially exploration. I feel like this takes a ton of flavor out of the experience and also stifles creativity and roleplay in a part of the experience that should be more open and freeform for such things.
- Some skills and abilities suck more roleplaying opportunity away. Like Diplomacy feats that require you to talk to someone for a minute or more then make a check to improve their attitude one step a success, or two steps on a crit success. Or not being able to intimidate someone who speaks a different language without a specific feat.
- Magic items are relied on so heavily that they don't feel special.
- Some claim the work for the GM is less but I disagree completely.
The list goes on really. The crazy thing is that I think PF2E IS a wonderful game. It accomplishes what it is designed to do very well. But I think it's target audience is more niche and the game really lends itself to those looking for a tactful battle simulator more so than tools to escape reality for a while and adventure with friends. Of course it can be used for such things but I personally believe its fiddly nature sort of bucks against a more freeform and creative experience. The game's walls are clearly defined but that sort of creates a game that likes to say "no you can't do that." My group just burned out, and I wish I would have figured it out sooner that it really wasn't for the majority of my players.
All of that to say that I finally picked up 5E, the 2024 books, and it's like a breath of fresh air. We are all so enthused. I think the main thing I've noticed is that while PF2E is a huge tome of rules, Dnd is like a box of tools. The rules keep me in a box while the tools allow me to be flexible as a
GMDM.So yea, just thought I'd share an experience you don't see much on the web. Ye olden Pathfinder grognard letting his old world fall away to discover what he didn't know he was missing in a game like 5E.
Hi and welcome to the forums and to D&D
My story is similar but in a much smaller time frame. I started TTRPGs for the first time during Covid and my friends and I started with Pathfinder 1e because the guy volunteering to run it had played that system before. We all hated it for a lot of the reasons you mention, what it does it does very well and if you’re that sort of player it’s probably fantastic but for us it was way too crunchy, levelling up started to feel like something to dread rather than be celebrated and we all constantly felt like we’d designed our characters wrong. We switched to 5e 2014 after the first campaign fizzled out and straight away were all much happier. It had rules where we needed them (like combat) and felt like it got out the way in the places we didn’t need rules and allowed us all to feel a lot more freedom. I took over as DM, something I don’t think I’d have had the courage to try with Pathfinder and now run four different campaigns at the same time.
I hope you and your players have a great first campaign with your new toys and if you need advice or just want to swap war stories we’re all very helpful here
That is awesome! I'm a long time forever DM. I grew up with the AD&D books and got into it all with dnd 3.0 but never had a consistent play experience due to where I was raised. But in my early twenties I was invited to a group that just got into Pathfinder 1E because it had just launched and the group was not into dnd 4e.
I do love Pathfinder. It is hard to let it go. I've spent a long time in its world of Golarion, and made countless characters and numerous adventures there. I owned every hardcover for 1e and nearly every hardcover for 2e; a substantial monetary commitment haha! I simply discovered the system was holding my group back, and myself and they were more enthused each time we picked up a lighter game to play as a side game. We are huge fans of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG!
But it also feels refreshing. I grew up reading Forgotten Realms novels and playing the og Baldur's Gate games and Neverwinter Nights. I played plenty of games at the table in that world as well, even using Pathfinder 1E rules back in the day. So that part feels like coming home. We are all pretty hyped at the cleaned-up rules and flexibility of it all.
My own gaming group had a similar experience with it. PF2E tries to be modular about everything, but in doing so it ends up being extremely confining.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I think pf2e really succeeds at what it tries to do. But what it is doing does not lend itself well to flexible adventure with creative actions and ideas. As a GM I always felt like I was saying NO to anyone coming in new or with a background in 5E, simply because what they were trying to do had a rule already that clearly defined what you could or couldn't do. I've watched on more than one occasion where players like that, after being told they couldn't do that because of the lack of some random feat or such, slowly stopped thinking outside of the box and slowly began to treat it like a video game at the table. Which I think is fine, if that is what you want. It's just not for me anymore.
Which is also funny because I never felt this disconnect between immersion/roleplay and combat/mechanics in PF1E or older editions of Dnd.
I've NEVER heard of a genuine reverse like this. & I'm glad SOMEONE admits that other stuff existing isn't the magic be all, end all for all the bad stuff that is TOTALLY equally bad that switching to other games is seen as. If anything, it proves that it's not about the game, it's about being a poseur. Daggerheart and Draw Steel(& DC20, if it ever finishes & releases) have a similar problem.
But given that Paizo has done Partnered Content on DND Beyond, the rivalry is effectively dead as far as the old guard meant it.
Glad you found a game that better fits what you want, vs what others want for everyone.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Welcome back to DnD and welcome to the forums. In theory I have always thought the Pathfinder character building system sounded really interesting but that it seemed like ultimately once choices were made along the character path it might become a bit confining in how you could actually play. That, coupled with the fact my memory isn't the best for a system that has a lot more rules and options, has kept me firmly in the 5E camp. Nice to see some validation of those thoughts.
Clearly you know DnD well from eras past. Hopefully you and your players continue to love it now that you've made the switch.
Interesting you mention FFG's Star Wars game. That is something that has never appealed to me, probably because of the 5E familiarity of SW5E.
That sort of matches my limited experience with Pathfinder, building a character was more fun than in D&D, but actually playing the game wasn't.
While i have heard some of these before, i think you articulated them more precisely than the other i have heard express it, and you are more thorough.
the ones i hadn't heard before were eye opening as well. Been trying to learn PF2E and it wasn't clicking, but i think i was just going "it can't be that, i must be missing something." but i am not. Like the Automated exploration, i was convinced it couldn't be that way.
Though i should have clocked it when paizo stream keep going on about the crunch of their system in language that had undertones of dismissal for lower crunch games.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
While we’re piling on pathfinder.
I felt like the game design really more rewards system mastery than anything else. You had lots more choices when making your character, but there were really only 1-2 “correct” choices. If you didn’t make one of those, you pretty quickly fell behind the curve. Especially as you leveled and realized you needed to fill a skill prerequisite 3 levels ago if you want to take a certain feat, that kind of thing.
For some people, they like that, and I’m not saying they are wrong. It can be a really fun way to play. Just it’s not for me, and it’s kind of why I bounced off of it — and I played 1,2 and 3.x D&D. I like some crunch.
I do wish 5e had more options for character customization. Maybe 6e will hit the sweet spot for me when it eventually comes out.
Even with all feats giving a +1 ASI as of 2024, the ASI or feat split in 5e does hurt customization a lot, if only from the sense you're giving up core performance for a feat. Really I'm not sure a typical campaign rolls enough dice per level to really make ability mod value count for more than dice RNG, but there's a lot of perceived FOMO on either choice.
The only difference between 5e and PF2e is that you start having this problem in PF2e at about 2nd-3rd level, while in D&D it doesn't become a problem until around 4th or 5th level. But PF2e and 5e both have slow, boring combat with all manner of rules lawyer shenanigans and nonsense that drags the whole thing down.
"Hold My Beer" - Wizards of the Coast. You think Paizo has bad adventure writing? Wait until you get a load of what Wizards of the Coast has been up to.
D&D has bound accuracy; it works exactly the same way, the only difference is that you make decisions about your character advancement twice, from level 1 to 20. First at 1st level when you choose your class, and then at 3rd level when you choose your sub-class. From then, the game is pretty much on rails. Nothing wrong with it in my opinion, but players used to heavy customization of PF2e will very quickly realize that character customization is a "character creation" thing in 5e, not a character advancement thing like it is in PF2e. Once you choose your path, you're pretty much on it. That is, until your players discover multi-classing and then you're back in the shit again.
This is the one saving grace of 5e, the thing it got right. It leaves most "out of combat" stuff up to the GM and though there are rules provided, they are almost all optional and you can adapt the game to your own style of running it. I think it's one of the best things about 5e in terms of "philosophy" about how the game operates.
Yeah, I think 5e is a bit less instructive in this area, so there is more DM fiat stuff rather than rules stuff that govern interactions like this but you will find that where PF2e had too much rules coverage, 5e doesn't have enough.
I think 5e does a good job making magic items feel special. I think the problem, however, is that things like gold and treasure have no value to the players at all. So mundane stuff has no value at all. Most 5e games after about 4-5th level there is no longer any reason to track things like equipment and money, it doesn't play any relevant role in the game.
I think the problem with PF2e prep is that governing player characters, making sure you have interesting encounters and challenging gameplay takes a lot of work. Adventure Paths (especially those written for 2e which I agree with you haven't been as good as 1e) is a pain.
5e prep however is also a huge pain, especially encounter creation and balance, its a bit of a nightmare. Adventure prep, especially if you are using official adventures written by WOTC are an absolute and complete nightmare, they are without question the most disorganized and incoherent books ever written for an RPG. Thankfully there is a ton of great 3rd party adventures written for the game that will save your life!
All and all I think 5e prep is generally a lot easier as long as you don't rely too heavily on officially published material and once you get a feel for encounter balance which the CR system does not provide at all.
Oh I completely get the differences. Especially when it comes to PF. And don't get me wrong. I love pathfinder. And Paizo does release amazing products. I think the better way to put that is to say that what they have been releasing is not as enticing to me as what they have done in the past. One of my all time favorite campaigns ever put to page is Curse of the Crimson Throne. I've yet to see them make an adventure on that level or even close to games like Rise of the Runelords or Kingmaker (don't get me started on Kingmaker Anniversary Edition. It's a great adventure but lacks a severe amount of playtesting and the kingdom management rules should be immediately thrown into the trash.) I'm fully aware of WOTC's uneven adventure designs as well but I'm not really coming to them for a product line of modules like I did initially for Pathfinder. Paizo has a love for fiddly subsystems shoehorned into their games as well. Another issue with adding more bookkeeping complexity on top of the complexity that is already there.
I also think that there is a large difference to what I'm seeing in 5E's combat and PF2E's combat. 5E, at least so far to me, reminds me of the older Dnd editions i grew up on. Sure, every d20 game has a ton of things to keep track of in combat. But most of the time these games never quite felt like it wasn't manageable. Sure, you might forget a thing or two here or there. But the way PF2E is designed, and my experience with it for the past seven years, is that the sheer amount of wildly different options available to you very quickly becomes a true burden. Now that burden won't be the same for everyone. Some people can be efficient with it. As a player, I can. But most players I've ran into at my tables quickly get lost in it due to how most options are wildly detailed and almost demanding they be read each time they are used. Especially when you consider almost all of it having four steps of success with different outcomes. That's a different sort of slog on its own. In the past I've described the action economy of "more" that PF2E has, as more rope than a player needs. It's easy to hang themselves with it. Sure, on paper it sounds good to be able to do more in a turn. But most of the time all of that "more" amounts to very little to nothing at all and creates even more analysis paralysis in players. As a GM, I've been able to retain the information needed to run 5E so much more because it is wildly more condensed and flexible compared to the dense amount of fiddly rules pf2e has. With PF2E it sometimes felt like every time I needed to relearn a rule I was forgetting one or two others to make room for it.
I think the best way to sum up my thoughts on the differences is that both 5E and PF2E are two vehicles that are both going to the same location. 5E is a mostly straight journey to get there with very few turns. PF2E has 10 times more stops and turns on the way. But they both have the same destination. There is nothing wrong with either one. But I do think one is far more accessible than the other. And where I'm at in life and what I'm wanting out of a game is something more accessible. Especially after going on nearly 18 years of more defined complex systems. But this is just my personal experience. I love the system. It just isn't delivering the escapism we are desiring. It's pushing everyone's mindsets into a boardgame like battle simulator. But everyone's experience is different with it. I joked with one of my longtime friends the other day that if I had a table full of GMs turned players that had all GMd 2E then the game would run really smooth haha! I'm sure I'll run it again someday when I have all likeminded players for it. I've just learned that it is a game that isn't as accessible to a lot of players.
I do think there is a difference between the two systems which is that they are both part of a different sub-genre of fantasy RPG's.
Pathfinder 2e falls into the Tactical RPG Genre, and D&D 5e is closer to the Adventure RPG genre, though I find it to be a sort of blend between the Tactical RPG and Adventure RPG genres.
I think the main difference here is going to be rules coverage and mechanical depth.
I think this is easier to understand and see when you compare a full tactical RPG and a full adventure RPG.
Take Pathfinder 2e vs. Shadowdark which I think is a much clearer example.
In Pathfinder 2e, a tactical RPG, the game is a "story adventure", with a combat mini game in between it. That combat mini game is a major event in the game, you drill down to a deep level in its execution, there is a ton of tactics, strategy, and cooperation between players with various synergies in play. While you execute this combat, the story is on pause, the game becomes a story about "The Fight". Its almost a game within a game.
Shadowdark is an adventure RPG. A fight only breaks out when something has gone terribly wrong or you have been unlucky in the course of the adventure; the fight is almost a punishment for failure or bad luck, and the combat has very limited tactics or strategy, it's wildly swinging, and people's characters are going to be at high risk. It's not a mini game, you could just as well figure out who won the battle by flipping a coin. It's fast, dangerous, and pretty random. You're mostly avoiding fights in an adventure game and when you do get in a fight, its a high-stakes event.
D&D 5e is like Shadowdark in many ways but there are two exceptions.
First, fights favor the players. Meaning that the assumption is always that if a fight breaks out, the players are going to win it, it's not about challenge or danger, it's about cinematics. The purpose of the fights is to provide the spectacle of the fight, not to test the players as you would in PF2e with challenging combat, nor is it a form of punishment for failure or bad luck, as is the case in Shadowdark. It's more about having a fight for the "fight scene", it's an event in the game.
The second thing is that, unlike most adventure games, D&D 5e doesn't have any adventure game rules. Which means it's closer to PF2e tactical RPG in that way, in terms of how time passes, what it means to explore a place or consequences for any sort of activity or action are not part of a rule system, they are free form GM fiats or in the cases where your using a published adventure a "defined" circumstance based on the plot/story. Most adventure games have rules governing exploration.
I always say the only way to know if you're going to like a game is to play it and see for yourself.
I like the way this is stated.
One of the things about PF2E however, is that it does have rules for exploration. There is a whole chapter dedicated to "Exploration Mode" and it attempts to codify the experience pretty heavily by having the players pick an "exploration activity." Stuff like scouting, guarding, avoiding detection, investigating, and there are very defined rules for each of these activities. On paper this sounds fine. Someone can scout and give everyone a bonus to initiative for example. But I found that it battles against what players are trying to actually do, which is far more freeform, and thus it limits them and contains them in the box they picked out according to the activities available.
Exploration Mode reads as if there is an assumption that everyone is just moving together room by room and clearing it out. They move to room B, the GM makes secret checks and players make the checks they can, the GM summarizes what happens, then they move on. Of course, that is how it reads to me. I could have a completely wrong take on it. But in practice at my table, we found it very stifling. Mechanically advantageous? Sure. Flavorful and fun and immersive? Not in the slightest.
I don't think you're misreading it. Pathfinder really is a very Tactical RPG, so it has mechanics designed to offer lots of tactical decisions. I don't want to say its "not the rpg", because clearly that is not the case, but very much like old school adventure games like 1st edition AD&D, B/X, and stuff like Shadowdark, adventure games, and/or adventure games with tactical RPG components and/or straight up tactical RPG's will often codify aspects that in more free form RPG's like 5e are simply left to the player and GM to decide..what happens. It's why I like to kind of differentiate between an RPG and a Adventure game. To me, though they share a lot in common, they are very different in a lot of ways. Pathfinder 2e is kind of an inbetween, a sort of crossover between adventure game and RPG, which is almost always the case with Tactical RPG's, which in a way is almost like a 3rd sub-genre at this point. Draw Steel is a great example of this, they codify a lot of stuff and definitely fall into the tactical RPG genre, but it also has a lot of Adventure game elements too.
In the end I guess all these games are RPG's but there are distinct sub-genres and differences that are very noticeable, especially if you play a lot of RPG's and you start to see commonalities between them.
It's really just a different style of role-playing. I think the one thing that is important to keep in mind, and I feel like I'm always reminding people of this... rules in an RPG are never presumed to be "must use" situations. Meaning that... if you don't like, for example, exploration rules... don't use them. That is a perfectly normal and expected outcome. It's a hell of a lot easier to do that than it is to switch systems entirely.
That said, whenever I hear someone saying "hey, maybe we should try a different RPG", my default answer is ... yes.. do that. Explore other RPG's, that's the hobby. You will realize later on that Pathfinder 2e is a great RPG, it has a specific style and tone, and for the right group, it's the perfect game. But every game is the perfect game for the right group. It's quite rare that I run into an RPG that is actually ... a bad RPG. Of the top of my head I can't even think of one right now.
Oh yea, I completely agree there. I frequently run different systems for my group. Sadly, not everyone is interested in everything. So, we tend to always have a "main" game going, which is almost always fantasy. Pathfinder was our go-to, but the burn out was real. Everyone is really enthused to play a fantasy game that is more flexible now. So, we will see if it continues to be that way or they miss the complexity of PF2E. I have a feeling most will not miss it.
And yea, combat is definitely almost its own mini game within the game in all of these systems. It's easy to get wrapped up in it in a totally different way that isn't conducive to roleplay. That's one of the exciting parts for most of my players though, is that 5E is a lot..."less." More efficient? Quicker? Not as burdensome? It's hard to put it into words.