The reason for flat footed being an AC penalty rather than a bonus to attack is due to the way bonuses work-it's split between Status, Item and Circumstance. Generally speaking bonuses don't stack, the same as Advantage and Disadvantage in 5e. If you're getting a +1 status bonus to attack from, say, a bless spell, and someone casts a different spell that also grants +1 status bonus to attack, you'd only get +1 to attack total, not +2. You just take the highest bonus you have available. Enemies having penalties to their AC instead of giving you circumstance/status bonuses to attack means that you can stack both together, when normally stacking bonuses is more difficult. This is super important because it means you really want to game the system, gaining as high of a status/circumstance bonus and as much of a penalty to the enemies AC as possible to increase the chance of a critical hit, since 10 above or below your target is a crit/crit fail.
Great explanation! In addition, it just makes more sense logically. Your opponent being flat footed doesn't make YOU any better on your aim. What it does is reduce your opponent's ability to evade, which is 100% AC. I never understood having it applied any other way.
Yeah I get why its done as a penalty, my group applies it as a bonus to the attack while keeping in mind it can technically double up such that +2 circumstance to attack and -2 circumstance penalty to the AC are properly applied as an effective +4 knowing they normally would not stack if both were truly bonuses to the attack. It's just much easier and quicker to apply this way when coming from 5e.
Glad to see you had fun! -The advice to not just attack multiple times is more important when you're facing higher-level enemies, who have higher stats, and there is more of a premium placed on debuffing them to bring their math down to your level and/or to deny them actions. -Your criticism about not pointing new players to Skill Actions is totally right, and they should improve that in a next printing. I teach PF2 regularly, and I bring up Skill Actions as opportunities come up, but that's my experience teaching supplementing what's not pointed-out in the set. -On the "mathfinder" complaint, the BB *should* print out all 3 attack bonuses and give space to write that in the empty ones... -I think the reason Flat-footed is a circumstance penalty to AC is to not crowd out other things the designers wanted to stack with it: Aid can give a circumstance bonus to an attack roll, and there are virtually no untyped bonuses in the system. As for 4e's Combat Advantage, maybe they think it's more straightforward to have a named Condition that other effects can refer to. I also think there's a good amount of modifiers also affecting the attack roll (including the MAP) and they wanted to make your 3 attack bonuses that are written down more 'reliable.' -I think the adventure SHOULD have had ways for the GM to handle non-violent approaches toward the kobolds. They should have known that people might approach them differently, especially with their cute redesign! On a similar note, I also make sure to put in clues that the barrels were broken open and that there are non-rat-like claw marks and footprints. (EDIT: Another reason for the Multiple Attack Penalty is that, as you level up, you will encounter larger level differences between you and the monsters. Against creatures 4 levels below you, you can be quite accurate with all 3 attacks! And you definitely will be HAPPY for the Multiple Attack Penalty when facing a boss solo monster!) Anyway, I'm thrilled that you had fun and I hope you get to take more opportunities to play PF2! =D
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that MAP can be applied to enemies too. You may want to attack multiple times without penalty, but imagine if big bosses just destroy your team that way Maybe some tables would enjoy that but that's not me
16:38 I am new to pathfinder as well, so I will just use a quote from the core rulebook. "Typically, you’ll roll a Perception check to determine your initiative-the more aware you are of your surroundings, the more quickly you can respond. Sometimes, though, the GM might call on you to roll some other type of check. For instance, if you were Avoiding Notice during exploration, you’d roll a Stealth check. A social encounter could call for a Deception or Diplomacy check."
The multiple attack penalty is there to encourage you to do other things. It's fixing the D&D "fighters do nothing but attack 3 times each turn." It means it's mathematically better to help an ally, demoralize an enemy, or some special ability. Also, mathematically, your crit and hit chance on the first attack is really high. The first -5 brings you down closer to 50/50. Also, for the +1s, that's both a +5% chance to hit AND +5% chance to crit. So every +1 is like a bonus to hit and expanded critical. People who have played more can probably get more in-depth. I've mostly studied it from a design standpoint.
Yup, I was coming here to say this. I played a few games of pathfinder 1e, and that system basically actively discouraged skills being used by making attack and attack bonuses be so effective. Why bother fainting or intimidating when you can get a 58 to hit, and 5 extra bonus attacks, by dumping all your social skills to 5 and ignore 4/5th of the game?
Tis I guy who played more! This basically hits the nail on the head, first strike is balanced to be MASSIVELY powerful and all the actions are designed to be roughly equal in value to the 2nd attack This encourages people to always try and push damage on enemies at least once so *fights can end* while also heavily incentivising people to use the support elements... A game where strike is worse than support actions would be likely to have every fight be a slog and if there was no or a massively reduced MAP the best tactic would be to treat 3 actions as "Multiattack 3 sword strikes" There is no clean way to get rid of MAP and have a system like PF2 play with a lot of diverse situational bonuses that rely on spending actions without either having fights be a slog or everyone doing nothing but pushing damage
@@SwingRipper it would probably sound less annoying if it was "the first attack action has a +5 (stacking) bonus to it, with all other actions being made at base level. This makes players feel less like they are being "penalized" constantly. It also simplifies the math on all other actions.Though in general I think DnD 5e hit the nail on the head with the advantage/disadvantage and cutting 80% of the math out of the play. That said I think pathfinder hit the nail on the head with having 3 "flexible" actions rather than fixed actions that just get wasted if you can't take them for some reason like D&D. I could see some wiseguy making a pretty good hybrid system with the best of both worlds /Cough DaggerHeart Cough/ .
@@jakeroon It might sound less annoying, but it would make implementing the Agile property (not to mention features like the Flurry Hunter's Edge for Rangers) a lot wordier and more complicated.
Something I like about Pathfinder 2e combat more than 5e is not having attacks of opportunity unless you’re a fighter. It means you can move around a lot more and combat felt more dynamic. I didn’t think I’d like not having opportunity attacks but it was great.
If everyone has an AoO by default it forces people to move into melee and refuse to leave because they don't want to suffer AoOs. Leads to less dynamic combat as the fighter and monster trade Attack Rotations until one of them dies. Pathfinder 2 wants the Fighter to move into flanking position, or run away and force the boss to waste actions chasing them.
Couple of helpful points: Multiple attack penalty strongly encourages turns that aren’t entirely attacking with all 3 actions. There are far more things to do with those actions the higher levels you go. Additionally, it is far easier to manage when you have each attack bonus written down ahead of time, instead of trying to calculate your bonus on the fly for each attack. Spellslots do exist in pf2e, but the beginner box does not go into detail about them. The reason the cleric had once per day spells is due to the way prepared casters work, where each slot is prepared with a specific spell for it. That slot can only be used for the spell you prepared for it. If you want to cast the same spell more than once, you have to prepare it in multiple slots. Spontaneous (known spells) casters function differently in that they can freely cast spells with each slot on the fly, though it comes with some downsides that prepared casters don’t suffer. Also, the cleric heal spells come from a class feature they get where they get a number extra slots dedicated to healing spells equal to 1 + charisma modifier. The bonuses aren’t as hard to track as it initially seems. The flat footed condition is a penalty to ac so that it can stack with the bonuses other things can grant. A small +1 may seem useless, but a +1 in pf2e can mean the difference between a success or a critical success, or failure and critical failure, where as in 5e it would only be the difference in success or failure. Bonuses are more helpful than they seem.
I love that you guys hit on the usefulness of every single skill in and out of combat, it's definitely my favorite part of PF2 coming from 5E. I wish they'd put that on display a little more in the beginner box, but the usefulness of skills (even the knowledge skills mid combat!) is definitely something my players are really enjoying. The first thing any of them do in combat is clamber to figure out what knowledge to use so they can strategize and play more tactically.
That would be nice. A big part of why it isn't is most likely due to the focus being on helping new players understand the core loop. Adding creativity happens fairly naturally. For example, I have run new players through a few times and every single time a player who hasn't played any RPGs before comes up with something unique to do. Like harvesting an eye from the spider as a trophy, then casting light on it and rolling it into the next room.
@@adminanonymous1521 agreed. Ironically, I find DnD players coming over to PF2 have more trouble coming up with creative things to do in and out of combat because of their assumptions about what will work. I ran the BB for my family (totally new to TTRPGs) and some friends who had 5e experience. I found that my 50 year old parents and 14 year old little sister were brimming with creativity and coming up with fun things to do in and out of combat, while my 20something friends who played a lot of DnD were bogged down by 5e baggage and thought they knew what works and what doesn't, so they tried less new things.
@@totallynottoby I am glad you had a blast with your family. Did you add some Social and Roleplay encounters from the box to make it more memorable or did you go by the book? Either way is actually great since this is a Beginner Box after all. My Dad and I, as DnD players, both enjoyed this BB and I was the Game Master and as I read through the Adventure, I felt like I could do anything thanks to the godlike advice the Game Master Guide gave me as I read through it. When my Dad then asked the Kobolds to take his characters (He used two btw, The Wizard and Cleric) to the Final Boss, he persuaded them by offering a Thickshake and the Speech Check Passed. Then he made the Dragon Wyrmling relocate it's feeding grounds to an Orc Encampment (Our Cliffhanger, We also love LOTR stuff hahahaha). This Beginner Box to me needed more Social Encounters and Roleplay elements but thankfully Myself and Dad used our imagination to spice it up into full fledged comedy.
I'm generally a forever DM but got a chance to be a player with a first time DM in the BB. I had a great time and even with a first time DM (though she is a player in my PF1e and in another GM's Savage Worlds campaign) we were able to have social encounters with the kobolds.
On the topic of +1 bonuses. A +1 is actually very valuable because it not only increases the chance for success/hit but also for critical successes or hits. So it seems to be just a small bonus but it's actually quite impactful.
something can be mathematically impactful without being fun. you can tell someone that, but if it’s on a d20 roll then the only time you’re going to feel it is on that 1/20 chance that you hit instead of missing (or crit instead of hitting, which for a lot of characters like kelly’s cleric might not affect them at all)
@@Hazel-xl8in A +1 modifier has a 10% chance to impact a roll. 5% to turn a fail to a success, and 5% to turn a success into a crit. The idea is that maybe a single +1 might not change a roll, but by working together as a team and stacking different types of bonuses and penalties, you can give yourself a major advantage through teamwork.
But the gripe isn't necessarily with a +1, but a circumstantial +1 that doesn't really matter. Thinks like "specialty crafting: pottery" which gives you a +1 when crafting a ceramic vase.
@@Hazel-xl8in You say that but quite often does a +1 actually become impactful. My group uses a module for foundry that highlights the bonus that turned a success to a crit success or a crit fail to a failure and it's always a really hype moment that makes the person using bless feel amazing.
One of the things about not attacking at -8/10, it becomes more of a thing when you have more abilities to use later on, early game it's often a very decent thing to do. Early on, you limited player options. If you have intimidation, sure you can use demoralize. If you can recall knowledge that works (usually only 1-2 times). With Deception, feint is a fairly good way. Another generally good option can be to take a step action back, the monster will usually have to waste an action in turn to re-engage, thus wasting an action of theirs as well (and monsters will still fairly often have multi-action abilities on the early levels). But to reiterate, it's not always bad to attack at -8/10, it's also not always good. As with all things, it depends on the situation, the monsters, abilities etc. The flatfooted thing being a penalty for the enemy and not a bonus for the attacker. It's because of how bonuses work. You have Item/Status/Circumstance bonuses/penalties. You can't have two seperate bonuses of the same kind, only taking the higher of the two. (Say you have a +2 and a +1 circumstance, you get +2 circumstance and NOT +3. But you CAN get +2 circumstance and +1 status for a combined total of +3.) But because you can also penalize the target with debuffs, you can get a circumstance debuff of -2 (flatfooted), Frightened (Status penalty equal to frightened value), whilst you yourself can have a circumstance and status bonus. This way you can wind up with an effective difference of like 6. +2 circumstance, +1 status on the attacker, -2 circumstance on the target, -1 status on the target. Thank you for the video.
As I understand it there are 3 types of bonuses/penalties. Status, circumstance and item. For example flat-footed is a circumstance penalty. There is also a rule of only 1 of each bonus and penalty can be applied to the same role. So when for example a Ranger uses their Hunt Prey action against a creature that is flat-footed against them they get +2 to hit and the target gets a -2 to their AC making it a +4 chance to hit/crit. If flat-footed were a feature that gave the attacker a +2 bonus it wouldn't interact well with other features that also give them circumstance bonus.
Technically there are four, with the 4th just called untyped. Your MAP one your follow up attacks or a barbarians -1 to AC when they rage is an example of an untyped debuff.
To be clear, I think it's fine to not present everything to a new player at once. If someone has never play a TTRPG before, knowing about all the actions and choices can be overwhelming.
I agree, there is a very thin line between "this was a great card to have as a beginner" and "I just felt overwhelmed by the number of options when I looked at the card". It's a short 4 hour introduction into the system. I'm glad they kept to some basics.
Heal is one of the few spells that people actually cast with a 1, 2 or 3 actions. Magic Missile is another. I wish PF2 had a lot more spells that used that mechanic.
100% agreed. We really liked that mechanic, and were generally disappointed to discover that other than Heal and a couple 1-action focus spells, nearly every spell takes 2 actions to cast. Definitely a lazy oversight by the design team.
@@ryuteki They mentioned this recently on one of their remastered edition videos, that they liked leaning into the 3 action economy that way and wished they had done more of it. Hopefully they will.
2 tips about Pathfinder 2e 1- you can have all materials for free in Archives of Nethys (1e and 2e, everything for free, not about the world, but all rules, monsters, itens, etc...) 2- the App Pathbuilder 2 can help a lot to create characters and export then for your DM
The reason that Flat-Footed is an AC penalty is so it doesn't take up your circumstance bonus. You have a set of bonus (Training, Ability, Circumstance, Status and Item). You can only benefit from each type once. So if you have something that gives you a +1 and a +2 circumstance bonus, you ONLY get the +2 since you take the largest. So It's an AC penalty so that you can use actions or features to also give yourself a circumstance bonus. Just a short note: there are lots of ways to make the target flat footed to your attacks. It's somewhat an assumed bonus at higher levels. The multiple attack penalty does indeed exist to make other actions on your turn viable. Generally the -5 is ok, but the -10 is kinda of a last resort, and should never be done.
I got the beginner box too and ran it as a DM, and at the very least there is a section where it says "if the players return after defeating the rats, Tamily indicates she doesn't think the rats ate that much fish, and urges the party to continue further if they want the reward" I will admit though, I just did a 1-success check for scaling the slick cliff. It felt like too much as you indicated, and I just made an executive call at that point
I've run it twice, and both times the players investigated the storage room, looking for signs of who or what might have stolen the fish. Both times, they rolled well (I often forget or don't care to do secret checks), so after they dealt with the rats and entertained the notion of the rats being the thieves, I just told them that their previous investigations indicated that the rats probably weren't responsible. That way, they didn't have to go talk to Tamily and get spanked back into the adventure, lol
Yes! More Pathfinder content please! ❤ I'm bored as hell with 5e. Been playing 30. / 3.5 for years but people don't play it anymore. So I'm really happy to learn about this system that could be a good and realistic compromise for me.
My group is in the same boat. Been unhappy with the direction wotc has been going for some time. Last few campaigns we played were 3rd party, Drakkenheim being the best of them. Thinking about Pathfinder or some OSR options.
Tales of the Valiant might be a nice replacement. Pathfinder 2e is definitely nice... makes me wanna try dnd 4e There are many systems to try. Maybe some reteo-clones or retro dnd style systems, which have high lethality and such. Maybe different stufd
Arguably one of tbe best things about pathfinder is the DM support. Making an encounter is easy due to monster lvls working as advertised. You wanna make rhe players feel the growth in strength, bring back old enemies and watch them basically explode as the PCs crit everything. You want them to fear enemies, have them be 3 lvls higher and watch them barely keep up.
one of the worst things about pathfinder is that it uses dragonball z scaling, and the players become actual gods fairly early, despite often being incredibly mundane in presentation. A swashbuckler that still just kind of stabs but an entire army can unload with arrows and siege equipment and they bounce off his skin it only works if you want to play a superhero game
This has been true of many editions of many TTRPGs, PF leans into it. That said, it isn't hard to have a higher level version of a weak enemy if you are so inclined.
@@override367 Don't *you* want to feel powerful in a roleplaying game? I thought that was rather the point. To live out a fantasy of being an extraordinary hero capable of supernatural feats fighting incredible odds. Well, for this genre at least, I have a hard time imagining that's how, like, Call of Cthulhu plays for example, but that's apples to oranges. Pathfinder lets you feel like an actual experienced adventurer pretty early levels, to be sure, but I don't see why that's wrong. Although if you feel this is too much, you could always use the Proficiency Without Level optional rule from the GMG. It's not _perfect,_ it's a variant rule for after all, but it's still tighter over all than, say, D&D 5e and its "bounded accuracy."
For recommendations of what to play next, I'd recommend the first book of either the Abomination Vaults or Strength of Thousands adventure paths/campaigns. Both will take you from level 1 to 3/4. Strength of Thousands is (if played in full) a 6-part 1st-20th campaign set against the backdrop of an awesome magical school. Abomination Vaults is a more digestible 3-part 1st-10th megadungeon, but it also features cool NPCs and a handful of factions in the dungeon, so it's not just fighting and traps. I'm glad your experience with the Beginner Box was fun! I've been running PF2 since it came out (the PCs are hitting 14th soon, it's been quite the ride) and I've been having a blast. Looking forward to hearing more about you guys experiencing Pathfinder, but I hope you guys keep having fun, whatever adventure or system you play in 👍
On degrees of success and the climb in the second room: the other part that got missed is that players can use a rope to modify the DC of the climb from 15 to 10. That room doesn’t just teach degrees of success, it teaches modifying difficulty checks. =) The “training level” critique is fair but also the BB is designed to be a PF2 tutorial, much like a video game tutorial. You can complete the BB in 1-2 sessions and then go right into a proper adventure. I really do think how concise the BB is makes it very effective as a teaching tool. I actually learned PF2 on my own and ran the Fall of Plaguestone adventure 3x as my starter for parties. It was a lot of fun 1-3 adventure and usually took 4-6 sessions. But I feel the BB teaches PF2 more effectively in a single session than a level 1 adventure does in two months. Still could be improved upon, but I think the linearity of the BB is a strength, and the other adventures are at your finger tips in a week or two. Also I think the best adventure path to run for every DM is Abomination Vaults. It is Paizo at its very best and coming from D&D it was incredible having an adventure that was so COMPLETE. It’s also very well organized, and offers a surprising amount of variety. For context, I am someone that used to haaaate dungeon crawls in D&D, but the PF2 rule set makes them so much more enjoyable and AV makes the RP, exploration, and combat experience of the dungeon crawl so very rewarding. Also recommend AV 10x more so if doing a VTT and you do it on Foundry with the premium module which is one of the best VTT adventure setups I’ve ever seen.
The Training Level Stuff to me actually added more accessibility to the BB. I still think it needed more Social Encounters that were "Written" in the book.
My GM introduced our group to degrees of success with a series of Recall Knowledge checks, and it really felt like my witch had her moment in the spotlight then. The martials and the cleric also had their time to shine on a fight against a group of skeletons, so we all had our moment in the spotlight. About flat-footed, it's designed that way to be able to stack it with other bonuses on the attacker's side, otherwise spells like the Bless spell and the bard's Inspire Courage cantrip wouldn't be as useful as simply feinting or demoralizing
The thing with the backround, if you are a new player. Getting to have a one page about your character will make it easier to start roleplaying or at least bringing the character to life
Actually I agree with the Dudes on this one. The Background segment on the Pre-Made Characters pretty much should have been a Page worth of more helpful information.
@Simoun O'Brien It could have, but take into account that this is the tutorial to teach brand new players ttrpgs. Having a background for each character makes sense. From what they say, the adventure seems to be written in a way to learn everyone around the table how to play a ttrpg and just not pathfinder. This is the tutorial we have all played in games where they teach you basic movement ect.
@@lordchrispo1439 Well yeah, I get what you are saying. If it makes you feel better, I do think the Adventure did a "Perfect" job as an introduction to the System. As for the Background stuff, I still think that it isn't really necessary because players can simply make up their own backgrounds for their characters. Then again, once more, if it makes you feel better, I could actually add maybe 2 more pages on the Pre-Made Character Sheets and then at the Back, use the Background just for style. 2 more pages of Helpful information and that pretty much solves the problem. Thank you for replying btw buddy. I hope you have fun with PF2E
Concerning the Flat-Footed, I'll add to what the other viewer already said that it's actually nice not to have to deal with too many +/- as a player. As a player, I take care of the bonuses (or penalties) for my actions, and the AC (including the FF -2) is entirely handled by the GM. Hence it isn't "mathfinder" that much (and by the way, the term applies more to PF1E than 2E in my opinion). Great to see you had a good time overall!
Great video guys, glad you’re sticking with your pledge to play other systems, and overall I think you’ve done a really thorough and thoughtful job of presenting your thoughts on Pathfinder so far.
Regarding how simplistic the adventure of the Beginner’s Box is, it’s actually really good when you realize that its intended audience isn’t DND experts like you guys. Both it and the character creation chapter of the CRB presuppose zero experience with TTRPGs, or even RPGs in general. In that respect, a trite dungeon delve with a few fights in it works out really well for literally introducing someone to what a TTRPG is and what it’s like.
I actually think it needed more Roleplaying and Social Encounters. If you want to introduce New Players to a TTRPG, Having Roleplaying and Social Elements into the game is vital for making the adventure memorable and engaging. After all, The Beginner Box (I ran this btw) actually lacked the Roleplay and Social elements from the book. You can pretty much look at the DnD 5e Starter Sets as superior Adventures since they add all the intended elements of a Roleplaying Game into one Adventure. PF2E Beginner Box is exactly what the Dudes said, it is literally a Training Session with Lack of Stakes and Not alot of Story behind it.
It would also still fall flat once the rats are dealt with. Barring curiosity, what would motivate complete amateurs to venture down a tunnel dug into the wall?
@@EricJAllain you can simply add more dialogue from Tamily by saying, that something else is disturbing our seafood supplies and rats couldn’t be the main problem. What I did was litter that moment with rumours of something beneath Otari and if the players succeed on the quest, they get a full level up plus extra equipment and gold. How they finish it is up to them to decide.
This is a great video! It's really great to hear criticism/comments from people who have never played the game before! Regarding flat-footed, it's both what paul said, bonuses don't stack, plus it's less to add for the players. Effectively *some* of the math is done by the players and *some* of the math (cover, prone, slow effects) is done by the GMs, so neither one is having to tally too many numbers. There's a maximum of 3 types of bonuses/penalties (plus the multiple attack penalty) on any single roll, so it doesn't get to be too much number crunching.
You can play Troubles in Otari, which is a direct continuation of Beginner's Box adventure and it fleshes out the town more. Abomination Vaults is a lot of fun too (and also partly takes place in Otari), but it's mainly a dungeon crawl (very good but still). Abomination Vaults will also soon have its conversion to 5e rules so it would be interesting to see how the same adventure changes from system to system.
I second for Abomination Vaults. It's shorter (only three books or Levels 1-10) and relatively simple for the DM as there's no hoping between exotic locations or anything. It's also a pretty normal campaign premise compared to stuff like "You're a traveling circus" or "You're a part of a hunter-gatherer tribe on the tundra."
@@michaelramon2411 May I ask, why are there three books for adventure paths? Personally, I prefer the DnD 5e style with the modules all in one book. Saves money.
@@simounobrien9096 Most adventure paths are issued in smaller chucks over a few months and then get rereleased in one big book later. This happened with Abomination Vaults and recently with Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, so if you want to have everything in one place you just need to wait for a bit.
@@simounobrien9096 Paizo (Pathfinder's company) also produces stand-alone modules, but their core business is issuing one Adventure Path book a month (usually as a part of a set of 3 or 6), which they've done for about 15 years. That has given them a larger and more varied supply of prewritten content than 5e. Paizo also doesn't sell player handbooks (though they are writing some for an upcoming system revamp thing) and makes basically all of their mechanical content (class features and the like) available for free online. So their business model demands a little more total money for their prewritten adventures in exchange for savings elsewhere. It's also sometimes nice when a specific book in an AP really hits it out of the park with its concept or execution that an informed buyer can go and purchase that book alone and not have to get the whole thing.
Paizo got shait under the nails aswell. Still be it WotC( Hasbro guaranteed had a commanding hand in pinkerton travesty ), Paizo I dont blame ALL the employes for a few utter degenerates decicions, to spoil our fun!
I think that part of the reason the Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP) is so high, is to encourage those non-direct attack actions you mentioned like demoralize. By encouraging things like demoralize, you also encourage party team work and coordination as all players can take advantage of the monster being demoralized. Stacking penalties from circumstance (flat-footed) and conditions (like demoralize) onto monsters make it easier for the whole party to hit the monster. Also, since the +10 rule for crit is also in PF2e, each +1 for your actions OR each -1 for the enemies actions, means you gain a +5% bonus to hit, +5% bonus to crit, a -5% chance to miss, AND and -5% chance to critically miss. Each +1 really does matter in PF2e. With a +1 to your attack from bless and a -2 to the enemies AC from flat-footed, you just gave yourself a +15% chance to hit and crit....and a -15% chance to miss and critically miss.
As others have mentioned, I’m quite happy to see you guys starting your Pathfinder journey. I’ve been playing D&D since 2e, but the recent crap Hasbro has pulled caused me to boycott the game. I’ve switched my games to Pathfinder and I’m glad you’re making content that will continue to be useful to our group. 😊
Abomination Vaults is 100% the adventure path you want to play. Not only is it fantastic with opportunity for dope combat, fun roleplay, and alliance making, it's set in the town of Otari (where the beginner box is set in) and actually helps better explain what the kobolds were doing in the beginner box in the first place. Furthermore, you can run Troubles in Otari pretty much side by side with Abomination Vaults to even further flesh out the region and add optional sidequests. The first book of AV ends on a pretty good note, so you can call it off there, or if you want to keep going there are 2 extra books that will bring you to around level 10 or so upon the conclusion. Yes, it's a dungeon crawl, but it's also sooo much more than that.
I really appreciate and enjoyed your perspectives on this. Though it is pretty clear (and i dont say this as a bad thing) that yall are reviewing this from the POV of people who are comfortable and well versed in TTRPGs in general. I think things like the backstories being given is more helpful for a player who isnt well versed in creating and playing a character already. Or the first adventure feeling like a training level. Thats kinda what it set out to do, so like, boo its not even better, but it sounds like a starter adventure for someone new to pathfinder AND/OR new to TTRPGs in general. No shade, in fact i love your opinions BECAUSE yall know what you are talking about. I appreciated Kelly pointing out that some of yall issues were gonna resolve themselves as you get more comfortable playing this system. Great video!
Another comment as I am watching, the gripe at 26:35 about +1s in circumstantial bonuses being something to wince at, it basically boils down to a +1 being less a matter of success/fail, and more often that +1 is the difference between whether you crit succeed/fail or not. The existence of crits coming from +/- 10 from the DC means that EVERY +1 matters SO MUCH
From what I've observed, a huge difference between Pathfinder and DnD 5E is the leveling up philosophy. Pathfinder keeps power level in a tight range, and instead focuses on giving you more tools as you level up. You learn to play the action economy better and more intricately. Teamwork is the difference between strong and weak players. 5E encourages you to optimize your character build to take advantage of rule interactions, which lead to wide variations in power level. That can easily lead to boring combat (especially for martials) where you execute the same combo round after round. It can also lead to characters vastly outshining others. This is because the build is the most important answer.
22:40 the reason it's a penalty is because bonuses of different types don't stack you just take the best one. There are 3 kinds of bonuses/penalties Status Circumstances and Items. So this way you can have someone take advantage of flatfooted and gain a bonus from aid or some of the feats and spells in the game. That said at my table we just calculate it as a +2 to hit but we know that technically it's a -2 to AC in case it comes up.
15:00 on the spell slot system, in full play, a cleric would take their spell slots and fill each one with a cast of a divine spell every daily preparation. So you might fill each slot with a different spell, or maybe take multiple casts of spells you prefer. This is my favorite part of playing a prepared caster. I love building my toolkit for the upcoming adventure and finding how to make the best use of it during the day. If you prefer 5e’s spell prep, there is an archetype in Secrets of Magic that makes it work like that. Edit: should have mentioned that the 3 heals are a class features called the divine font. A cleric gets 1+charisma mod bonus spell slots at their highest level that are only filled with Heal or Harm based on your deity. Generally, evil deities grant harm, good grant heal, and neutral deities give you a choice. Its not a hard and fast rule, but a decent rule of thumb.
i feel like it’s silly to use the language of spell slots if you’re playing a character who prepares spells like that. when i hear slots, i imagine that i can put whatever i want into those slots (like the spontaneous casters, 5e, slots in real life etc) so to keep calling them slots when there’s nothing “slot” about them is misleading
@@Hazel-xl8in It makes sense to my brain. I have slots that I fill with spells when I prepare them. Thats why its a prepared spellcaster. The spontaneous casters know a list of spells (called their spell repertoire) that they can use in the moment with one of their spell slots, hence the name. I like that it differentiates the types pretty clearly. But the archetype I mentioned, flexible spellcaster, is completely valid and fine. I was mainly explaining why the cleric had some spells they could cast once a day on the premade sheet. Clerics don’t get their spellcasting in the form of one a day casts, the premade just had every slot prepared with a different spell.
@@castrochris94 I find it to be a completely arbitrary limitation that makes very little sense if you think about it. If every spell had material components that would have to be prepared in advance, then it would make sense. But spells that only have verbal/somatic components? What exactly is forcing me to decide how many times in a particular day I'm gonna be able to say those specific verbal components or perform those specific somatic gestures?
@@PanzerYeena In vancian casting (not just in D&D/PF, but also in the writings of Jack Vance), you're literally trapping individual spells inside your mind. Think of every spell as a kind of memetic parasite which you have to "memorize" in order to use. Casting a spell releases it, so it means losing memory of it.
Yes, it specifically says that if they do return they are told by the person that hired them that the number of fish missing couldn’t be explained by rats or even a small number of kobolds. There are also further clues like footprints leading further into the cave.
I have to say, I still wish they'd done a little more to set up a "mystery" here. Having Tamily push back is a good fallback option, but even something like saying "upon closer inspection, the barrels appear to have been cut open with straight lines rather than nibbled or scratched open -- the rats couldn't have done it" would have skipped the issue entirely. But then again, my groups didn't seem to mind as much as the DDs did, so YMMV.
I’m glad you guys got a chance to play this. I enjoyed the beginner box, even with the limited social encounter breadth (and a particular boss fight tail-whacking my pre-generated Wizard Ezren around like a piñata). Looking forward to the revised Core Books coming out over the next year so I can get more players on the fence to try it out.
Just a heads up, anything with the attack trait is affected by the MAP for stuff like the Shove action. That attack roll is the athletics check. "When you use a Strike action or any other attack action, you attempt a check called an attack roll (CRB 446)" Almost every single roll with a d20 is a check including attacks.
Almost every d20 _using athletics_ is an attack, stuff like demoralize or feint isn't Edit: Nevermind, I misread what that last sentence was saying, so I'm gonna reiterate your statement with hopefully some added clarity: Most d20 rolls are "checks", meaning that you roll against a DC - the only contested roll is the initiative roll (which, as a sidenote, any skill could be used for if appropriate, Perception is just the default). This saves some time and makes skills a bit more reliable, as e.g. opponents can't just randomly roll high to resist your grapple. The important bit: With all of these checks you want to look at their traits. If it has the attack trait, you apply MAP as if it were a strike.
I've been playing dungeons and dragons since the first edition, but after the Pinkerton incident I've been looking for a new system. hope to see more pathfinder 2 content in the future!
As someone looking to break into pf2e, I love that you’re doing this. And I hope you eventually get a pf2e campaign running parallel to Drakkenheim. (Call it iunno, Caverns of the Castlewyrm)
I learned to love the +1. Overall, a +1 bonus is worth about 12% on average. Having multiple +1 bonuses stack Multiplicitavely, giving stacking +1 bonuses exponential returns. A +2 is worth about 25%, a +3 is worth about 39%, and a +4 is worth about 55%.
I think the easiest way to see the effect of and appreciate the +1 is to play a bard. Inspire courage is quite powerful and you can feel impactful even without attacking anything.
One thing that you probably missed about the monsters is that, even though it doesn't say it on their sheet, they can do all things that players can do as well. A monster can also use one action to Demoralize (intimidate basically), to Feint, whatever else. All monsters can do all the same things as the Players. Also, there is a Critical Failure on attacks, it just doesn't affect much. There are features that you can use only when someone critically fails an attack, or features that you can use when YOU fail an attack but not critically fail.
15:00 - you do have spell slots. The beginner box might not make that as clear because the characters are only level 1. But the Pathfinder spell system is a lot like the D&D one was up until the end of 3E. To that point, Pathfinder has a Sorcerer which is very distinct from it's Wizard in that the Wizard has to prepare specific spells every morning into specific slots, while the Sorcerer has a number of slots and can cast anything out of them of that slot's spell rank or lower. Both classes, as well as all other spell casters, can then heighten some spells by putting them into a higher spell rank slot than they were made for (some classes can do this on the fly, some have to learn the higher version). All Cantrips are automatically heightened - making them remain very useful through the entire 1-20 leveling experience. There are also a variety of ways to learn spells from spell lists other than the one your class normally uses. And some classes like the Sorcerer pick which spell list they use at character creation (so you can have a sorcerer that uses the Divine list just like clerics, or the primal list just like druids, or the occult list just like bards, or the arcane list just like wizards).
I have heard that various supplements after the PHB did fix the Sorcerer to not just be a weaker Wizard but to finally have some use if the right option is used. But for PF2E - right out of the box in the core rulebook the Wizard and the Sorcerer are very different and equally potent. To that point - the so-called Vancian system of old-school D&D that PF2E uses for some casters (excepting for cantrips) serves to keep the Wizard balanced with the Sorcerer. I've always strongly disliked the 'Vancian system', so when I got into a PF2E game... I made a Witch, which uses that Vancian system (it's essentially a Wizard built around a familiar), just to test the waters. I'm liking it now that I'm used to it. But I've also never played D&D past 3E. I do hear that players coming off of 5E can feel a bit of shock at not being as powerful. PF2E aims for tight balance. It's not perfect, and where it fails at that it does so by leaving casters a little weaker than martials (mostly in the 5-7 level range) in exchange for having more options. I've been told that in D&D 5E - Wizard dominates in power, which is not at all true for PF2E (where the common belief is that Fighter has that role).
Once you get to higher levels and see the way martial classes hit you’ll start to understand why it’s a -5 for consecutive attacks. You will also notice at some point. There is an optional rule where your bonuses can remove your character level to the calculation making the entire systems number set feel a lot more like 5ED.
Not sure this has been said, but yes the Beginner's box is totally a opening tutorial level as you're meant to take what you've learned and basically start the Troubles in Otari adventure the next session, which then leads to the Abomination Vaults adventure. It's like a trilogy of adventures that take you from first session ever to ending in a grand dungeon crawl.
I think a lot of your criticisms of the box are spot on. Putting Feint actions on the Rogue sheet and Demoralize/Trip on the Fighter would have helped a lot. And there isn't enough opportunity to engage in the social aspect. There's one encounter in the lower level that I particularly recommend turning from combat to social encounter. Regarding the similarities between 5e and 2e, the biggest difference for me was ease-of-prep for the GM. Encounter building, monster selection, reward selection, everything is neatly laid out with oodles of options. It makes the mechanical part of preparation a LOT easier. Frees me up to focus on preparing the social side. On the players side, I imagine you guys will go through a similar rollercoaster of emotions that many new players do - first, joy and curiosity at the wealth of character options available. Then, the too-much-sugar stomach aches from having too many options - if you try to build an optimized level 20 character before even starting play. Then, an appreciation for how cool martial classes are in this edition. Followed by a sinking feeling that spellcasters are perhaps too-much-nerfed in this edition. Ending with the contentment of realization that actually everything in the game is either balanced or under-powered by design. If the GM wants a character to be overpowered, they can always hand out a powerful item or homebrew to help them do so.
yeah the multi attack penalty is to help promote other action use during combat, and balance action spamming. but is an implementation of PF1e's base attack bonus mechanic.
Great video! Man that 10ft cliff thing is ridiculous lol. I agree it's about knowing when to use degrees of success. Someone wise once said only roll when failure is interesting. Keep up the good work!
I would strongly encourage looking at the Troubles in Otari module with personally built characters. It flows directly from the beginner box, but each of the stories are discrete adventures that all take place in the town. And then there is the megadungeon Abomination Vaults that is a 1-10 adventure on the outskirts of the same town. Glad to see you all had such a good time! :D
To answer/address you guys minor complaints: Flatfooted: it’s a partial hold over from 3.5/1E and because it does confer some differences versus just +2 (or -3/-2 to MAP) it was to future proof and prevent future material from interacting in any odd ways. If you have a monster flatfooted they lose two to AC, but mechanically this is supposed to be separate from your MAP. Which on certain classes and with certain abilities you can mitigate (flurry rangers eventually make subsequent attacks at lower map for example). And lastly everything in the system is either a penalty or a bonus, it’s a condition afflicted on the monster and therefore a penalty to it. Because you can get +’s to hit, but only the highest modifier is applied. So if you made flatfooted a bonus to the players their bards/clerics and magic weapons or striking runes or anything else may not apply. It all works out in the end. It’s just to give the players more ways to buff themselves. As for the rock climbing thing? Must be an adventure thing, the DC is also supposed to go up or down on successive failure/success so you either make it down or fall I would guess. As for skills and circumstance bonuses from ancestries, it’s to basically give you the flavor, remember a +1 is 5% increased chance of critical successes or successes. These also blend with downtime and exploration activities to really make the character what you want and help improve those things your character could be good at or excel at if you really focus into it.
I have anxiously been waiting for this for so long! Apparently the climb down section is a common complaint. The intention is that the party uses a rope to lower the DC and then aid each other to give bonuses making it pretty impossible to fail. No way it should have taken 10 minutes! But the adventure kind of has the training wheels on a little too tightly here that the intent goes over people's head things like that happen. Not exactly the teaching moment they intended. The degrees of success is so crucial to so many design choices that it is hard to see the big picture and it takes some time for it to all come together. Every +1 bonus is important because it isn't just a 5% difference between failure and success but also a 5% difference between success and critical success as well as the 5% difference between critical failure and normal failure. Which means a +1 often feels more impactful than other D20 RPGs. Then the reverse is true for a -1. When the party applies several debuffs to the enemy boss and they are taking a huge penalty to their AC or Saves which means a roll is exactly turned from hit to a critical hit it feels incredibly awesome! This plays into the multiple attack penalty. It definitely takes some time getting used to and I too question if it was even needed or needed to be so big. But when the big bad boss attacks, it is likely that his first attack will probably critical, his second attack will probably hit, and his third attack will probably miss. So it makes it very interactive to use reactions around this logic or apply buffs/debuffs know this. By the same token the Fighter could take a 3rd attack with -10 and probably miss unless they roll a 20 but they could also demoralize (probably before the first attack honestly) and now the enemy has a -1 AC for an entire round which means by the fighter giving up that longshot 3rd attack they enabled the rest of their party to be more likely to hit on their attacks. It is a great sense of teamwork. That being said, I think it is less important at lower levels when people have less feats/spells/options and it is just fun to swing an attack 3 times in one turn even if you know the 3rd will likely miss. So have fun with it but just understand the logic behind why the veterans discourage it. I will second that low-levels probably do feel fairly similar. But I think when you make your own characters and level them up a bit then it will start to diverge. Going back to 5E from PF2 is hard because the character options just feel so much more restrictive. But I won't beat that dead horse and let you dudes discover that on your own. Just going to say that I am currently 18th level in a PF2 campaign and the entire progression has been so fun and smooth the entire time. Lastly for adventure recommendations. I am sure everybody will say Abomination Vaults or Troubles In Otari. But I haven't played those yet as I am nearly done playing in Agents Of Edgewatch and just started GMing Outlaws Of Alkenstar. Both are realy cool examples of how to do a cool city campaign! Maybe not the next thing for your group to play but something you might be interested in down the line. PF2 is pretty focused on their level 1-20 or level 1-10 & 11-20 adventure paths. But there are some smaller standalone adventures that cover 4 levels which includes one that starts at 11th level and one that starts at 16th level if you are looking to just test out high-level play so keep them in mind too.
Its worth noting that small bonuses or debuffs can not only change a fail into a success, but can also turn a success into a critical success or a critical fail into a normal fail. This is why those small bonuses are so important. They do more than one thing. The reason people recommend not using all 3 actions for attacking is because these effects are mathematically more impactful than the third strike. Consider using the feint action to get someone flat footed, or taking that Bon Mot skill so you can debuff enemies' perception and will saves. Perhaps most importantly using those little tricks to help other team mates is a lot of fun, and changes the battlefield into a place where players are helping each other and fighting as a team in a much more obvious and integrated way.
So excited for Pathfinder content from the Dudes. I loved yall's material when i was dabbling in 5e groups, and theres a good bit thats not system specific, but i've been a pathfinder fan since 1e, and 2e has been our playgroup's system for a couple real fun runs so far. Glad you liked it, fingers crossed for more!
I've a mixed feeling on them not putting all the actions down. The beginner box is supposed to get you through basic play. Most of those actions that you would be using that third action on become important as you level up, and add various bits of complexity to the game. Some of them are useful right out of the gate at level 1 - but it's a question of information overload. They did put them in the book, but not on the sheets. That implies they wanted people to see and learn about them, but not get bogged down with them on the first play through. What I'm on the fence over is whether or not that is the right call to make. After all - the many ways you can use the three action economy is what makes Pathfinder such a great tRPG. Not showing it to people right away is somewhat underselling the product. It's like taking a Tesla out for a test drive and not trying out auto-pilot. It might be confusing, but it's also a major feature.
I recently ran Dinner at Lionlodge with my family as their introduction - they started at level 4, which I thought was nice coming from 5e (spoiler: it's not great because characters have unique feels and abilities from level 1, unlike 5e where you are all pretty generic until level 3). It definitely opens up, and the first encounter they went from just walking up and smacking like you tend to do in 5e to moving around the battle and using those combat skills in meaningful ways later on. It's definitely more dynamic, and the item/status/circumstance bonus and penalty bit really helped simplify what math was happening as they began to do more complicated things. Having a handful of well-defined bonuses and penalties made things so much easier with not having to do the comparably ridiculous amount of math from 3.5 or Pathfinder 1. They've really enjoyed how the combat encounters are more engaging and flowing are compared to 5e, and I appreciate the rules as a GM because it takes a lot of cognitive burden off my shoulders - especially when I'm also learning the game
People have already recommended good campaigns. Troubles in Otari and Fall of Plaguestone are two pretty good starter adventures which have all the three pillars well represented. If you want to start at a slightly higher level check out Malevolence (3rd - 6th level).
Really great to see you guys doing some PF2e content! As my 5e campaign winds down, i'm looking at switching to PF2e and I'm excited to sort of follow along in your journey in learning Pathfinder!
I would keep in mind that the Beginner box is meant for people who have never played a ttrpg before, not necessarily people with a lot of 5e experience.
The little cliff at the begining of the adventure is to highlight some really simple stuff: + Using a rope lowers the DC, this is to instruct new players that some action the take might favourably change the situation + Some PCs are better than other on some tasks, this again is something kind of obvious but it helps to highlight the importance on skills + You can help other PCs at tasks, rather than try to go down all at the same time, it makes more sense to help each other The cliff also helps to punish those players that move foward when the others are lagging behind...
Given that Aid is a DC 20 check and at best a first level character will have a a 45% of success it's generally going to teach characters that using Aid is risky.
@@Norade "The typical DC is 20, but the GM might adjust this DC for particularly hard or easy tasks." Plus you can also handle circumstantial bonuses. I would say the possibility of a Critical Failure is low if the one helping is good at it.
Point on the Initiative, funny thing you mention using other skills for initiative. Yes that is a thing, if you are sneaking before a fight, you actually roll Stealth as initiative!
I recently started running the Pathfinder 2E beginner box with my wife and three kids. We all have a bit of experience with 5E. They all used Pathbuilder to create custom characters, and it was a bit of a learning curve, especially learning all of the options each player has in combat. We're two short sessions in, and they just beat the first kobolds.
Great to hear the view that the people is a main factor (although not named that directly, but implied). In my view, good RPGs are 40% the players, 40% the DM, 15% the story or adventure itself, and 5% the system. If the DM is a jerk, if other players are bad, it doesn't matter what else is going on. I've never had a game break down from the game system. I've only seen that from a bad DM or bad player(s), and rarely, the adventure was lousy. A good DM and players can fix the problems and make play fun. That said, I am happy to hear about PF2 and I want to play it myself. To me, DnD is in the rear view mirror.
I just ran this box the other day and I have a few notes: 1. My group was 2 PCs and a GM and we were looking stuff up in the book a lot. For us, this was not a single-session adventure. We got up to the first group of kobolds in about 3 hours of play. I think it will take us 2 or 3 more sessions to finish it. 2. I agree there's not much for a player who's mostly into roleplaying. I could see one of my players getting visibly bored by the dungeon-crawliness of it, so I homebrewed the kobolds into a social encounter to make them happy. 3. I didn't know about skill actions until watching your video. That would have made things a lot more fun for the fighter and probably also the cleric. I think each pre-made character sheet should have some kind of "here's what a round of combat looks like for this class" with a quick bullet-point list of how you might use your 3 actions on a typical turn. 4. My players didn't go back for their reward after the rats, but they did go top-side to long-rest after every encounter. Which, I guess there's nothing stopping or even discouraging them from doing that. Are they supposed to do that? I don't know, the GM guide didn't say. If they're not then there should be a cave-in at some point that traps them down there maybe. If so, tell the GM. I definitely had a lot of fun with it though and I think I'll be using Pathfinder as my primary system for awhile.
Good insight! One thing that struck me is that movement count as 1 of 3 actions f.ex. Not separate as in D&D. Oh if you want a heftier combat? Try Dragonbane! Im in love! You get to move and an action. You can use the action to attack BUT then you wont be able to parry a possible counter attack. And your Con ability score IS the health points you have. And armor subtracts damage done and different dmg types like piercing/ slashing/ bludgeoning counters vs different armor. Armor dont degenerate but tools, weapons have HP
I believe, might be wrong, that the -5 penalty on extra attacks is from dnd 3/3.5. When a class was granted an extra attack it would be at a minus 5 penalty for each attack. So first one was at -5 2nd one was at -10 and so on.
@22:39 - Flatfooted (a circumstance penalty) can be applied in many ways. In some ways they only affect you, and some affect anyone trying to hit that flatfooted creature. You (or any other creature) can only have 1 of each type (circumstance, status, or item) of bonus and penalty, always taking the highest value one. Untyped ones can stack though, like MAP + range increment penalty.
Regarding Flat-footed being a negative to the enemy AC, instead of a positive To Hit for the players: it comes down to the fact there are only 3 types of modifiers in PF2E, so the enemy having a -2 circumstance penalty allows for the players to have a +X circumstance bonus from something else like being aided by a fellow party member.
The reason why you don't want to just use all 3 actions attacking every turn is that, there genuinely are so many things you can do in order to give allies a benefit or enemies a penalty that it's rarely, if ever, worth it to make an attack that you're likely to miss unless you roll a nat 20. The single biggest example I can give is Aid. Aid is an action that you prepare on your turn, and then use a Reaction to do. When you Aid an ally, you can give them a +1, or a +2 on a critical success, at the risk of giving them a -1 on a critical fail. You can also Aid allies with their attacks. So, you're probably not going to hit anyway, may as well make it so you're ally has a better chance. As I'm finishing watching this video, I'm just going to keep editing this comment. Pathfinder 2e does have a Critical Fumble and a Critical Hit deck, but they are optional rules that you don't have to do at all and I personally would recommend against. A group I played with used to use them, and they stopped when one of the Critical Fumbles nearly outright killed a PC because of how badly designed they are. It is an optional rule that exists if you want to use them, but it's just not great. As for MAP, the purpose of it is exactly that: to make multiple attacks a turn worse so that you want to do something else with your actions. There is always something else you can do to give an ally a bonus or an enemy a penalty, even without a skill check. The aforementioned Aid is a good one, but it is a flat DC of 20, so it can be less ideal for lower level players. However, it's almost always a good idea to move into a flanking position or to do a skill check for your first action or 2, as opposed to just attacking. Yes, the -5/-10 penalty is steep, but it's designed that way. A Flurry ranger can get the penalty all the way down to -1/-2 later on in the game, so there's that. They are the "I want to attack 6 times a turn" class though, and yes, they can do that with the right feat build. And as for the coke and pepsi comparison, yeah, I can kinda see that. I will say though that the two are not exactly identical, I can taste a very distinct difference between them, and I'll be happier if a restaurant has pepsi products because mountain dew is so much better than mello yello, but regardless. For me personally, between having been a Pathfinder player for years now and understanding the system well, as well as the OGL stuff and the Pinkertons stuff with WotC, I can't see myself going back to play a WotC made TTRPG ever again. But that's also largely because I don't want to support the company at all. Before the OGL stuff, if a buddy of mine said that he was gonna start running a DND 5e campaign, I woulda been completely down to join. Now I'm just glad that I can more easily convince my friends to try out Pathfinder. Talking about Pathfinder adventures and AP's, a lot of them are really difficult. And it's hard for me to recommend one that would be good for new players because of that. Like, Agents of Edgewatch is a really good story, but it also has 12 combats in a row and the first one is a cockatrice, which if it hits any players at all, can leave them permanently down on actions until they can get the curse removed. And all of this is at level 1. I did change things with my group, making it so that instead of defeating these monsters, you have to find a way to trap them somewhere they can't get out and you have to save NPC's. I gave the players the tools necessary to build a makeshift trap for the creature there, and I told them, your objective in this is not to defeat the enemy, but to contain it and get people to safety. Having that alternate win condition there made the encounters so much easier to deal with without burning daily limited resources, so even though there are a lot of them, it becomes a lot more manageable. If I had to pick one AP to suggest, it would be Quest for the Frozen Flame. It's a very solid adventure that doesn't seem at least to be too difficult with my limited time running it, and it doesn't add complicated additional rules like Strength of Thousands, which is routinely noted as one of Paizo's best adventure paths. Having run it myself, it is great, but both having the free multiclassing in the Free Archetype variant rule and having the academia system on top of that, it's fairly complex and gives players a lot of additional options for their characters that total noobs might not be ready for. If you want something higher level, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix starts at level 11 and is another strong AP.
Just checking but IIRC, Aid has a DC of 20, making it unlikely that lower-level characters will succeed at it. I agree with the principle but in practice, Aid doesn't seem worth doing at low levels (though maybe still better than a third attack if your attack bonus is a bit pants.)
@@BlueTressym More than anything, I was just giving an example, but yes, Aid does have a DC of 20. But that being said, it's still possible for a Human Fighter with the Cooperative Nature feat to succeed at Aiding his allies' attacks on a 7, whereas that last attack for that fighter is still being made at a -1 and likely to hit only if he approaches 20. Better to have a moderate chance at helping the party than a low chance of dealing more damage.
Great review! So glad you're sharing your journey in Pathfinder (I'm having a similar journey converting to it). I appreciate your comments on this adventure, though I don't think that more roleplaying/social encounters would have been very useful for accomplishing the goals of this particular adventure. As you said, they do a great job of introducing core mechanics like ranged attacks, stealth, poison, etc. - and the risk of giving too many social "outs" to encounters is that players could inadvertently skip these important mechanical tutorials. It reminds me a lot of Defiance in Phlan, which is my preferred "beginner tutorial" adventure module for new players and new DMs - it also does "baby steps" by introducing specific mechanics one by one in a limited environment for ease of learning. I see it very much like the tutorials at the start of a lot of games - you're totally railroaded, but it's meant to be a practical tutorial about the controls and how to do the basic game loop. Then the game opens up and you get more options. I suspect this BB was designed for people completely new to TTRPGs rather than for transitioning experienced players like you and the rest of us from another system to PF2e. It would be interesting to figure out if there would be a good way to design such an adventure. I've moved on to some Adventure Paths (The Extinction Curse) and listened to some actual play (MnMaxed is great), and there is definitely a LOT of story and background in those to give players a lot more flexibility in play. Extinction Curse has a neat start - players are in a circus - and there are some cool mechanics for running the circus and shows that could be interesting. There is a lot of creativity in it.
when you said ", though I don't think that more roleplaying/social encounters would have been very useful for accomplishing the goals of this particular adventure.", I was like "So when my Dad actually negotiated with the Kobolds to take his party straight to their Master, that isn't necessary for learning to roleplaying a Game?" You do realize that Roleplaying and Social Encounters are CRUCIAL for any form of TTRPG. You can pretty much use your imagination to run any adventure. Just because the Adventure wasn't designed to include Roleplay and Social Encounters, doesn't mean the Player's Choices needed to be railroaded. Let your players Dictate their own decisions and if my Dad somehow convinced the Green Dragon Wyrmling to leave Otari and find another food source by offering Thickshakes, I think you can make anything possible with your imagination and having a fun time. Roleplaying and Social Encounters are just as Vital as Combat, Action and Skill Checks.
@@simounobrien9096 Yes, you are right that roleplaying and social encounters are (or should be) important for TTRPGs. However, there are fewer specific mechanics for those that are likely to trip up new players compared to understanding mechanics like tracking the poison condition, dealing with traps, and other things that particular module is meant to show us. You can throw together or add on social interactions in anything to teach social encounter mechanics - you don't need to buy an adventure for that. You sound very experienced, so I'm sure you could homebrew interactive encounters to teach those rules just fine. The standard tavern meet-and-greet is a great way to teach social dynamics, and you don't have to pay anyone to build that for you. I have no problem with players being creative and bypassing some encounters. But it means that they won't get what they were supposed to out of the module. It's like learning multiplication tables in math - it may not seem necessary at the time, but it is an important tool that you'll have to use later, and if you know about it beforehand, then it will be easier. A tutorial adventure is designed to teach certain things. It's not about "beating" it; it's about getting what you need from it. If your table does primarily social encounters and doesn't mind having to take 10 minutes to learn certain combat mechanics if they come up, that's totally fine for your table. But you probably wasted your money buying the beginner box in that case. Also, bypassing the entire dungeon will mean you got to the boss underleveled, which in Pathfinder can be deadly. Sure, you could get lucky with a roll, but in most cases, going straight to the boss without getting XP and gear (assuming you followed the XP per encounter system they had) means they were at a huge disadvantage. I'm sure you're passionate about this topic and feel you are right. But I've been GMing for a long time - since Red Box days. And I try to appreciate what the creators of an adventure are trying to do and give us, and I also know that teaching TTRPGs can involve a lot of different approaches. There are some really bad tutorial adventures out there; the Pathfinder BB is not one of those. But I get that many tables, like yours, have different playstyles that won't benefit from playing this adventure as much, and that's cool. You do you, friend.
@@simounobrien9096 It just sounds like you and your group aren't the target audience for this particular adventure. You would probably do great just jumping into one of their regular Adventure Paths. :)
@@domenceuspriest hahaha, I actually have deep respect for your reply. (Sorry for the late Reply, Busy Times) Though personally, if it does make you feel better my friend, my Dad and I are known to have amazing chemistry in terms of playing not just TTRPG's but Gaming in general and we do love our Comedy mixed with Storytelling and sprinkled with Action. What we did with the PF2E beginner box, if anything, improved the experience and we never said the Adventure was Boring, my Dad just made a decision that I personally found more entertaining that made the Adventure more memorable. Even the Game Master's Guide Encouraged this (Even the DnD 5e Starter sets) Now, I apologize if I sounded rude from my Initial Statement. But I actually was being honest. Thank you for being very respectful and yes, I am a DM/GM who actually is more about the Story and Social Encounters over Combat. This is why I love the DnD 5e modules like Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Curse of Strahd, and my personal favorite, Icewind Dale Rime of The Frostmaiden. With regards to "bypassing the entire dungeon will mean you got to the boss underleveled, which in Pathfinder can be deadly. Sure, you could get lucky with a roll, but in most cases, going straight to the boss without getting XP and gear (assuming you followed the XP per encounter system they had) means they were at a huge disadvantage." Actually, Dad didn't go to the Green Dragon Wyrmling Underleveled, He actually was using a Speech Check to convince the Dragon to move out of Otari thanks to bribing it with Thickshakes (The Speech Check worked btw). Under leveling with my style only applies when it is a Combat Encounter, not a Social encounter unless I choose the DC of that Social Encounter based on how the Stat Block of the Monster/NPC is . Since my Dad was having a Roll of 19 over a DC of 15, he succeeded. He didn't want to fight the Dragon in the first place, he wanted a more Peaceful Solution to the problem. That ended up being much more rewarding than what the Adventure presented from the Book. But yep, I still maintain that adding Social and Roleplaying elements in a Beginner Box from the Book would have made it amazing but the Adventure itself, while very beginner friendly, needed more weight on the Narrative rather than just "Let's Find out who is Eating all the Fish" Now I get what you said I wasted my money on the Beginner Box just because we didn't play by the book. Actually, I didn't waste my money at all, I actually bought the Box mainly for the Pawn Miniatures (Was that a waste of money to me? Heck no.) And I also Read the entire Adventure before the Session even started so did that mean I wasted my time and money? Nope. All it did was give me versatility and prep time for anything. I also read the Hero's Handbook for the Classes and such so I can help my Dad read all the Spells and Skills for his characters. Did that mean I wasted money? Nope it actually made me more knowledgeable about the Pathfinder System. Once again, Thank you for your Honest Reply. Friend :)
The way they're dealing with Flat-Footed is a callback to its origins in 3.5e, where if a target is caught Flat-Footed, then they can't benefit from their Dex bonus in their AC (and they had a similar rule for Touch Attacks, that ignored armor). That's why it's a penalty to the target instead of a bonus to the attacker.
As far as the spell slots thing goes. Kyra does have spell slots. its just Being a "Prepared" caster at the beginning of they she chooses which spells from her list (which is all common divine level 1 spells) go into which slot. Which is different from 5e where you just pick a number of spells for the day and can use any slot to burn them. Her being able to use heal multiple times is just the healing font ability clerics get. And of course the spells you could cast as often as you wanted to cantrips. Now I can't wait for all of this to get explained later in the vid :)
Thank you guys for trying it out, my groups are also looking for other TTRPG and seeing your insights from veteran 5e players means a lot to understand :) and of course, thanks to your wonderful followers that explains PF2 in the comments like the GOAT they are :)
So glad for PF2 content! Your attitude towards ttrpgs is very in line with mine and I'm starved for supporting content for my own getting into the game.
Hey guys, next time, try a Cleric with Battle Medicine, you can cast Heal with 2 actions to heal 1d8+8 and 1 action try medicine for more 2d8 (4d8 on a critical)
So on the whole thing of extra mechanics not being on the sheets I think it was good of them to not put too many things on the sheets for new players since one of the main things people say about the system is that its "complex" so less things being the things you absolutely need to play is better in my eyes. Though as mentioned it should have been mentioned as "hey you can find extra stuff on thses pages its just not especially recommended because it can be a lot to digest at once"
I feel like it is a good representation of the PF2 core rulebook, as we were constantly finding rules that were scattered across two-three different sections of the book, and we wouldn't always find the third part of the rule until later when learning the system.
I played the Beginner Box at a weekend organised by The Rules Lawyer back in late Jan/early Feb and enjoyed it a lot. I think you're right about the reasoning; they didn't want to overwhelm brand-new players with too many options.
Really excellent insight! I absolutely love this system and have had a lot of fun with the beginner box but definitely ran into a similar issue regarding the adventure's roleplay potential. I agree with you that it is absolutely incredible as a teaching tool in how it slowly teaches the system and encounter by encounter. I just wish there was more room for roleplay and character expression. If the players are using default characters they can't actually talk to the kobolds as they don't speak draconic... I think that isn't very fun, as players naturally want to speak to sentient creatures. Maybe if they had swapped them out for some other type of more violent monsters it would have worked just fine, but if you're going to have intelligent creatures and not leave room to role play with them I see that as a failing as an adventure. Which as you mention Paizo nocks that stuff out of the park in their adventure paths and other short adventures. So seeing it stumbling and fall flat in the beginner box feels weird. Would love to see how your opinions change if you choose to play more of the system. :)
As a new GM, the way it built up the encounters, and explained what it was trying to show to the players was very useful. Being able to get the players to go through the included choose your own adventure prologue book while you went through the adventure book was also nice.
I love your guys dnd vids , been thinking about looking at pathfinder (even though my table has no want to learn another system lol ) so thanks for the vid dudes
Great video, guys. I really like this type of video: you're trying to figureeverything out, understand the system and all. It takes a lot of courage to get in front of the camera and say what you think about a system you don't quite know yet. Hope you continue to have fun on the PFe journey.
First quick note⚠️PLEASE review and play Dragonbane! Our swedish neighbours have done an outstanding job with bringing that system to the rest of the world! Also the art is by a highly talented illustrator and writer Johan Egerkrans!! I love indulging myself in D&D, Dragonbane and PF. Each for different reason. Im playing the PF2e beginner campaign with 3 others. Me a copper kobold sorcerer with different dragon ancestries and love for acid, a leashy druid dude with a shroom companion that act as a healing helper with goodberries, a catfolk rogue being all clever and supportive sneak she is, an orc barbarian that absolutely destroyed most enemies and made it waay easy for us😂 We came past the skeletons for Session 1. The catfolk and orc werent avaiable for Session 2 but me little kobold and little leashy friend with fungi friend went on and are currently dealing with a kobold+fish+ possible squid god problem 😂 The missing PC are " at a tavern with urgent matters "
As a Pathfinder First Edition main, let me just tell you that "Multiple Attack Penalty + Agile Weapon + Flat-Footed" gives you only the BAREST INKLING of why the game got the name "Mathfinder." While 2e is far more streamlined on that front, high-level play can still demand a calculator when something that is Enfeebled 1, Frightened 2 with a buff spell active rolls for a DC 43 saving throw. As for 2e adventure paths, "Abomination Vaults" is probably your best bet to start, as it's a relatively normal/simple concept (megadungeon discovered under the weird lighthouse outside of town), that still has a decent mix of the pillars of play and is only 3 books covering Level 1 to 10. "Age of Ashes" is a 6-book AP that takes you to a different country ever book, so it is a good introduction to Pathfinder's Golarion setting (but maybe demanding a little research from the GM on the Pathfinder Wiki) and it has an atypical major villain. "Strength of Thousands" has a more varied setting and concept (the PCs are students and later teachers at a Hogwarts/Strixhaven-like school in an African-inspired setting), but really demands the rather pricy "Mwangi Expanse" setting book to fully appreciate. "Agents of Edgewatch" isn't a typical adventure, but the PCs are cops in the largest city in the world, so that vibe might be your speed. Most of the other 2e APs have unusual concepts, which is not a bad thing, but might make them poor choices for a first-time campaign. Examples include a high-level martial arts tournament ("Fist of the Ruby Phoenix"), scouts in a tundra hunter-gatherer tribe ("Quest for the Frozen Flame"), climbing the social ranks of a land ruled by the undead ("Blood Lords") and an X Files-like mystery where the PCs are essentially alien abductees ("Gatewalkers").
I never played that adventure. The first time I played pathfinder 2E was because a friend had experience and he was the GM, and I really liked it. Now I am GMing a homebrew campaign in Pathfinder 2E, and I am playing another campaign (as player) in D&D 5e. I think pathfinder is more complex, but with the help of VTT it is actually easier to run than D&D as a GM. Mainly because monster level in pathfinder is not broken, while CR in DnD means nothing.
Obviously it doesnt help with the beginner box as is, but tools like Pathbuilder or Foundry VTT do have options to see all of the different skill actions, feat uses, etc. Theres also fan-made documents listing all of the skill actions. Clerics do get attack cantrips, but they're admittedly kinda ass. A lot of them are alignment based, so the wrong god choice can just make them useless (I'm playing a cleric of Grandmother Spider, and because she's Neutral I just cant use any spell that is based on the deity's alighment) I'm sure beyond the different bonus/penalty categories the logic behind flat-footed is the enemy is off balance and are less capable of defending themselves (AC) instead of the attacker being more accurate (Attack bonus)
Might be a GM oversight, but the book does kinda assume the players might ask for the reward after fighting the rats, it gives some lines from Tammy in this instance.
The reason for flat footed being an AC penalty rather than a bonus to attack is due to the way bonuses work-it's split between Status, Item and Circumstance. Generally speaking bonuses don't stack, the same as Advantage and Disadvantage in 5e. If you're getting a +1 status bonus to attack from, say, a bless spell, and someone casts a different spell that also grants +1 status bonus to attack, you'd only get +1 to attack total, not +2. You just take the highest bonus you have available. Enemies having penalties to their AC instead of giving you circumstance/status bonuses to attack means that you can stack both together, when normally stacking bonuses is more difficult. This is super important because it means you really want to game the system, gaining as high of a status/circumstance bonus and as much of a penalty to the enemies AC as possible to increase the chance of a critical hit, since 10 above or below your target is a crit/crit fail.
Thanks for the explanation, this really helps!
Was editing my comment throughout watching it and missed this. But I think your explanation is more clear than my own rambling. Great job. ^^
Great explanation! In addition, it just makes more sense logically. Your opponent being flat footed doesn't make YOU any better on your aim. What it does is reduce your opponent's ability to evade, which is 100% AC. I never understood having it applied any other way.
Yeah I get why its done as a penalty, my group applies it as a bonus to the attack while keeping in mind it can technically double up such that +2 circumstance to attack and -2 circumstance penalty to the AC are properly applied as an effective +4 knowing they normally would not stack if both were truly bonuses to the attack. It's just much easier and quicker to apply this way when coming from 5e.
You nailed it, said it much clearer than I could have. :)
Glad to see you had fun!
-The advice to not just attack multiple times is more important when you're facing higher-level enemies, who have higher stats, and there is more of a premium placed on debuffing them to bring their math down to your level and/or to deny them actions.
-Your criticism about not pointing new players to Skill Actions is totally right, and they should improve that in a next printing. I teach PF2 regularly, and I bring up Skill Actions as opportunities come up, but that's my experience teaching supplementing what's not pointed-out in the set.
-On the "mathfinder" complaint, the BB *should* print out all 3 attack bonuses and give space to write that in the empty ones...
-I think the reason Flat-footed is a circumstance penalty to AC is to not crowd out other things the designers wanted to stack with it: Aid can give a circumstance bonus to an attack roll, and there are virtually no untyped bonuses in the system. As for 4e's Combat Advantage, maybe they think it's more straightforward to have a named Condition that other effects can refer to. I also think there's a good amount of modifiers also affecting the attack roll (including the MAP) and they wanted to make your 3 attack bonuses that are written down more 'reliable.'
-I think the adventure SHOULD have had ways for the GM to handle non-violent approaches toward the kobolds. They should have known that people might approach them differently, especially with their cute redesign! On a similar note, I also make sure to put in clues that the barrels were broken open and that there are non-rat-like claw marks and footprints.
(EDIT: Another reason for the Multiple Attack Penalty is that, as you level up, you will encounter larger level differences between you and the monsters. Against creatures 4 levels below you, you can be quite accurate with all 3 attacks! And you definitely will be HAPPY for the Multiple Attack Penalty when facing a boss solo monster!)
Anyway, I'm thrilled that you had fun and I hope you get to take more opportunities to play PF2! =D
Hey, it's Ronald the Rules Lawyer! You are my favorite PF2 creator, love your stuff!
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that MAP can be applied to enemies too. You may want to attack multiple times without penalty, but imagine if big bosses just destroy your team that way
Maybe some tables would enjoy that but that's not me
16:38 I am new to pathfinder as well, so I will just use a quote from the core rulebook.
"Typically, you’ll roll a Perception check to determine your initiative-the more aware you are of your surroundings, the more quickly you can respond. Sometimes, though, the GM might call on you to roll some other type of check. For instance, if you were Avoiding Notice during exploration, you’d roll a Stealth check. A social encounter could call for a Deception or Diplomacy check."
The multiple attack penalty is there to encourage you to do other things. It's fixing the D&D "fighters do nothing but attack 3 times each turn." It means it's mathematically better to help an ally, demoralize an enemy, or some special ability.
Also, mathematically, your crit and hit chance on the first attack is really high. The first -5 brings you down closer to 50/50.
Also, for the +1s, that's both a +5% chance to hit AND +5% chance to crit. So every +1 is like a bonus to hit and expanded critical.
People who have played more can probably get more in-depth. I've mostly studied it from a design standpoint.
I just realized how many "alsos" I used 😅
Yup, I was coming here to say this. I played a few games of pathfinder 1e, and that system basically actively discouraged skills being used by making attack and attack bonuses be so effective. Why bother fainting or intimidating when you can get a 58 to hit, and 5 extra bonus attacks, by dumping all your social skills to 5 and ignore 4/5th of the game?
Tis I guy who played more!
This basically hits the nail on the head, first strike is balanced to be MASSIVELY powerful and all the actions are designed to be roughly equal in value to the 2nd attack
This encourages people to always try and push damage on enemies at least once so *fights can end* while also heavily incentivising people to use the support elements...
A game where strike is worse than support actions would be likely to have every fight be a slog and if there was no or a massively reduced MAP the best tactic would be to treat 3 actions as "Multiattack 3 sword strikes"
There is no clean way to get rid of MAP and have a system like PF2 play with a lot of diverse situational bonuses that rely on spending actions without either having fights be a slog or everyone doing nothing but pushing damage
@@SwingRipper it would probably sound less annoying if it was "the first attack action has a +5 (stacking) bonus to it, with all other actions being made at base level. This makes players feel less like they are being "penalized" constantly. It also simplifies the math on all other actions.Though in general I think DnD 5e hit the nail on the head with the advantage/disadvantage and cutting 80% of the math out of the play. That said I think pathfinder hit the nail on the head with having 3 "flexible" actions rather than fixed actions that just get wasted if you can't take them for some reason like D&D. I could see some wiseguy making a pretty good hybrid system with the best of both worlds /Cough DaggerHeart Cough/ .
@@jakeroon It might sound less annoying, but it would make implementing the Agile property (not to mention features like the Flurry Hunter's Edge for Rangers) a lot wordier and more complicated.
Something I like about Pathfinder 2e combat more than 5e is not having attacks of opportunity unless you’re a fighter. It means you can move around a lot more and combat felt more dynamic. I didn’t think I’d like not having opportunity attacks but it was great.
If everyone has an AoO by default it forces people to move into melee and refuse to leave because they don't want to suffer AoOs. Leads to less dynamic combat as the fighter and monster trade Attack Rotations until one of them dies. Pathfinder 2 wants the Fighter to move into flanking position, or run away and force the boss to waste actions chasing them.
Couple of helpful points:
Multiple attack penalty strongly encourages turns that aren’t entirely attacking with all 3 actions. There are far more things to do with those actions the higher levels you go. Additionally, it is far easier to manage when you have each attack bonus written down ahead of time, instead of trying to calculate your bonus on the fly for each attack.
Spellslots do exist in pf2e, but the beginner box does not go into detail about them. The reason the cleric had once per day spells is due to the way prepared casters work, where each slot is prepared with a specific spell for it. That slot can only be used for the spell you prepared for it. If you want to cast the same spell more than once, you have to prepare it in multiple slots. Spontaneous (known spells) casters function differently in that they can freely cast spells with each slot on the fly, though it comes with some downsides that prepared casters don’t suffer. Also, the cleric heal spells come from a class feature they get where they get a number extra slots dedicated to healing spells equal to 1 + charisma modifier.
The bonuses aren’t as hard to track as it initially seems. The flat footed condition is a penalty to ac so that it can stack with the bonuses other things can grant. A small +1 may seem useless, but a +1 in pf2e can mean the difference between a success or a critical success, or failure and critical failure, where as in 5e it would only be the difference in success or failure. Bonuses are more helpful than they seem.
I love that you guys hit on the usefulness of every single skill in and out of combat, it's definitely my favorite part of PF2 coming from 5E. I wish they'd put that on display a little more in the beginner box, but the usefulness of skills (even the knowledge skills mid combat!) is definitely something my players are really enjoying. The first thing any of them do in combat is clamber to figure out what knowledge to use so they can strategize and play more tactically.
That would be nice. A big part of why it isn't is most likely due to the focus being on helping new players understand the core loop. Adding creativity happens fairly naturally.
For example, I have run new players through a few times and every single time a player who hasn't played any RPGs before comes up with something unique to do. Like harvesting an eye from the spider as a trophy, then casting light on it and rolling it into the next room.
@@adminanonymous1521 agreed. Ironically, I find DnD players coming over to PF2 have more trouble coming up with creative things to do in and out of combat because of their assumptions about what will work. I ran the BB for my family (totally new to TTRPGs) and some friends who had 5e experience. I found that my 50 year old parents and 14 year old little sister were brimming with creativity and coming up with fun things to do in and out of combat, while my 20something friends who played a lot of DnD were bogged down by 5e baggage and thought they knew what works and what doesn't, so they tried less new things.
@@totallynottoby I am glad you had a blast with your family. Did you add some Social and Roleplay encounters from the box to make it more memorable or did you go by the book? Either way is actually great since this is a Beginner Box after all.
My Dad and I, as DnD players, both enjoyed this BB and I was the Game Master and as I read through the Adventure, I felt like I could do anything thanks to the godlike advice the Game Master Guide gave me as I read through it. When my Dad then asked the Kobolds to take his characters (He used two btw, The Wizard and Cleric) to the Final Boss, he persuaded them by offering a Thickshake and the Speech Check Passed. Then he made the Dragon Wyrmling relocate it's feeding grounds to an Orc Encampment (Our Cliffhanger, We also love LOTR stuff hahahaha).
This Beginner Box to me needed more Social Encounters and Roleplay elements but thankfully Myself and Dad used our imagination to spice it up into full fledged comedy.
I'm generally a forever DM but got a chance to be a player with a first time DM in the BB. I had a great time and even with a first time DM (though she is a player in my PF1e and in another GM's Savage Worlds campaign) we were able to have social encounters with the kobolds.
On the topic of +1 bonuses. A +1 is actually very valuable because it not only increases the chance for success/hit but also for critical successes or hits. So it seems to be just a small bonus but it's actually quite impactful.
something can be mathematically impactful without being fun. you can tell someone that, but if it’s on a d20 roll then the only time you’re going to feel it is on that 1/20 chance that you hit instead of missing (or crit instead of hitting, which for a lot of characters like kelly’s cleric might not affect them at all)
@@Hazel-xl8in A +1 modifier has a 10% chance to impact a roll. 5% to turn a fail to a success, and 5% to turn a success into a crit. The idea is that maybe a single +1 might not change a roll, but by working together as a team and stacking different types of bonuses and penalties, you can give yourself a major advantage through teamwork.
First rule of Pathfinder 2e: Every +1 matters. You might not notice it immediately , but the longer you play you start noticing pretty quickly.
But the gripe isn't necessarily with a +1, but a circumstantial +1 that doesn't really matter.
Thinks like "specialty crafting: pottery" which gives you a +1 when crafting a ceramic vase.
@@Hazel-xl8in You say that but quite often does a +1 actually become impactful. My group uses a module for foundry that highlights the bonus that turned a success to a crit success or a crit fail to a failure and it's always a really hype moment that makes the person using bless feel amazing.
One of the things about not attacking at -8/10, it becomes more of a thing when you have more abilities to use later on, early game it's often a very decent thing to do.
Early on, you limited player options. If you have intimidation, sure you can use demoralize. If you can recall knowledge that works (usually only 1-2 times). With Deception, feint is a fairly good way. Another generally good option can be to take a step action back, the monster will usually have to waste an action in turn to re-engage, thus wasting an action of theirs as well (and monsters will still fairly often have multi-action abilities on the early levels).
But to reiterate, it's not always bad to attack at -8/10, it's also not always good. As with all things, it depends on the situation, the monsters, abilities etc.
The flatfooted thing being a penalty for the enemy and not a bonus for the attacker.
It's because of how bonuses work. You have Item/Status/Circumstance bonuses/penalties.
You can't have two seperate bonuses of the same kind, only taking the higher of the two. (Say you have a +2 and a +1 circumstance, you get +2 circumstance and NOT +3. But you CAN get +2 circumstance and +1 status for a combined total of +3.)
But because you can also penalize the target with debuffs, you can get a circumstance debuff of -2 (flatfooted), Frightened (Status penalty equal to frightened value), whilst you yourself can have a circumstance and status bonus. This way you can wind up with an effective difference of like 6. +2 circumstance, +1 status on the attacker, -2 circumstance on the target, -1 status on the target.
Thank you for the video.
As I understand it there are 3 types of bonuses/penalties. Status, circumstance and item. For example flat-footed is a circumstance penalty. There is also a rule of only 1 of each bonus and penalty can be applied to the same role. So when for example a Ranger uses their Hunt Prey action against a creature that is flat-footed against them they get +2 to hit and the target gets a -2 to their AC making it a +4 chance to hit/crit. If flat-footed were a feature that gave the attacker a +2 bonus it wouldn't interact well with other features that also give them circumstance bonus.
It's the same reason that it's extremely annoying for Samurai Fighters to play in games with advantage-flanking. It just kills your subclass ability.
Technically there are four, with the 4th just called untyped. Your MAP one your follow up attacks or a barbarians -1 to AC when they rage is an example of an untyped debuff.
@@MadpupYT An Inventor's Overdrive is also an untyped damage bonus, and you can share that untyped bonus with feats at higher levels.
To be clear, I think it's fine to not present everything to a new player at once. If someone has never play a TTRPG before, knowing about all the actions and choices can be overwhelming.
We agree, which is why we suggest a few specific skill actions -- not ALL of them.
I agree, there is a very thin line between "this was a great card to have as a beginner" and "I just felt overwhelmed by the number of options when I looked at the card". It's a short 4 hour introduction into the system. I'm glad they kept to some basics.
Heal is one of the few spells that people actually cast with a 1, 2 or 3 actions. Magic Missile is another. I wish PF2 had a lot more spells that used that mechanic.
100% agreed. We really liked that mechanic, and were generally disappointed to discover that other than Heal and a couple 1-action focus spells, nearly every spell takes 2 actions to cast. Definitely a lazy oversight by the design team.
@@ryuteki They mentioned this recently on one of their remastered edition videos, that they liked leaning into the 3 action economy that way and wished they had done more of it. Hopefully they will.
Yeah! I took Kinetic Ram for my new bard just because of this mechanic :)
One of my favourite spells for that sort of flavour is Horizon Thunder Sphere can be cast with 2, 3, or effectively 6 actions
2 tips about Pathfinder 2e
1- you can have all materials for free in Archives of Nethys (1e and 2e, everything for free, not about the world, but all rules, monsters, itens, etc...)
2- the App Pathbuilder 2 can help a lot to create characters and export then for your DM
The reason that Flat-Footed is an AC penalty is so it doesn't take up your circumstance bonus. You have a set of bonus (Training, Ability, Circumstance, Status and Item). You can only benefit from each type once. So if you have something that gives you a +1 and a +2 circumstance bonus, you ONLY get the +2 since you take the largest. So It's an AC penalty so that you can use actions or features to also give yourself a circumstance bonus.
Just a short note: there are lots of ways to make the target flat footed to your attacks. It's somewhat an assumed bonus at higher levels.
The multiple attack penalty does indeed exist to make other actions on your turn viable. Generally the -5 is ok, but the -10 is kinda of a last resort, and should never be done.
Maybe as a boss. Or just when fighting way weaker enemies.
Otherwise yeah, near guaranteed fail. Or worse.
I’m looking forward to more videos from you guys about Pathfinder 2e.
I got the beginner box too and ran it as a DM, and at the very least there is a section where it says "if the players return after defeating the rats, Tamily indicates she doesn't think the rats ate that much fish, and urges the party to continue further if they want the reward"
I will admit though, I just did a 1-success check for scaling the slick cliff. It felt like too much as you indicated, and I just made an executive call at that point
I've run it twice, and both times the players investigated the storage room, looking for signs of who or what might have stolen the fish. Both times, they rolled well (I often forget or don't care to do secret checks), so after they dealt with the rats and entertained the notion of the rats being the thieves, I just told them that their previous investigations indicated that the rats probably weren't responsible. That way, they didn't have to go talk to Tamily and get spanked back into the adventure, lol
Yes! More Pathfinder content please! ❤
I'm bored as hell with 5e.
Been playing 30. / 3.5 for years but people don't play it anymore.
So I'm really happy to learn about this system that could be a good and realistic compromise for me.
In the wake of the pinkerton thing, my group are debating throwing off d&d completely, so this video came at the perfect time!
The camel's back is broken.
PF2 is a good system to graduate to.
My group is in the same boat. Been unhappy with the direction wotc has been going for some time. Last few campaigns we played were 3rd party, Drakkenheim being the best of them. Thinking about Pathfinder or some OSR options.
You know you’re all going to get a visit from the Pinkertons for these comments, right ?
@@paullambert9720 I'd be interested to see how the pinkertons try to flex their authority in another country...
Tales of the Valiant might be a nice replacement.
Pathfinder 2e is definitely nice... makes me wanna try dnd 4e
There are many systems to try.
Maybe some reteo-clones or retro dnd style systems, which have high lethality and such.
Maybe different stufd
Arguably one of tbe best things about pathfinder is the DM support. Making an encounter is easy due to monster lvls working as advertised.
You wanna make rhe players feel the growth in strength, bring back old enemies and watch them basically explode as the PCs crit everything.
You want them to fear enemies, have them be 3 lvls higher and watch them barely keep up.
one of the worst things about pathfinder is that it uses dragonball z scaling, and the players become actual gods fairly early, despite often being incredibly mundane in presentation. A swashbuckler that still just kind of stabs but an entire army can unload with arrows and siege equipment and they bounce off his skin
it only works if you want to play a superhero game
This has been true of many editions of many TTRPGs, PF leans into it. That said, it isn't hard to have a higher level version of a weak enemy if you are so inclined.
@@override367 Don't *you* want to feel powerful in a roleplaying game? I thought that was rather the point. To live out a fantasy of being an extraordinary hero capable of supernatural feats fighting incredible odds. Well, for this genre at least, I have a hard time imagining that's how, like, Call of Cthulhu plays for example, but that's apples to oranges. Pathfinder lets you feel like an actual experienced adventurer pretty early levels, to be sure, but I don't see why that's wrong. Although if you feel this is too much, you could always use the Proficiency Without Level optional rule from the GMG. It's not _perfect,_ it's a variant rule for after all, but it's still tighter over all than, say, D&D 5e and its "bounded accuracy."
For recommendations of what to play next, I'd recommend the first book of either the Abomination Vaults or Strength of Thousands adventure paths/campaigns. Both will take you from level 1 to 3/4. Strength of Thousands is (if played in full) a 6-part 1st-20th campaign set against the backdrop of an awesome magical school. Abomination Vaults is a more digestible 3-part 1st-10th megadungeon, but it also features cool NPCs and a handful of factions in the dungeon, so it's not just fighting and traps.
I'm glad your experience with the Beginner Box was fun! I've been running PF2 since it came out (the PCs are hitting 14th soon, it's been quite the ride) and I've been having a blast. Looking forward to hearing more about you guys experiencing Pathfinder, but I hope you guys keep having fun, whatever adventure or system you play in 👍
On degrees of success and the climb in the second room: the other part that got missed is that players can use a rope to modify the DC of the climb from 15 to 10. That room doesn’t just teach degrees of success, it teaches modifying difficulty checks. =)
The “training level” critique is fair but also the BB is designed to be a PF2 tutorial, much like a video game tutorial. You can complete the BB in 1-2 sessions and then go right into a proper adventure. I really do think how concise the BB is makes it very effective as a teaching tool. I actually learned PF2 on my own and ran the Fall of Plaguestone adventure 3x as my starter for parties. It was a lot of fun 1-3 adventure and usually took 4-6 sessions. But I feel the BB teaches PF2 more effectively in a single session than a level 1 adventure does in two months. Still could be improved upon, but I think the linearity of the BB is a strength, and the other adventures are at your finger tips in a week or two.
Also I think the best adventure path to run for every DM is Abomination Vaults. It is Paizo at its very best and coming from D&D it was incredible having an adventure that was so COMPLETE. It’s also very well organized, and offers a surprising amount of variety. For context, I am someone that used to haaaate dungeon crawls in D&D, but the PF2 rule set makes them so much more enjoyable and AV makes the RP, exploration, and combat experience of the dungeon crawl so very rewarding. Also recommend AV 10x more so if doing a VTT and you do it on Foundry with the premium module which is one of the best VTT adventure setups I’ve ever seen.
The Training Level Stuff to me actually added more accessibility to the BB. I still think it needed more Social Encounters that were "Written" in the book.
My GM introduced our group to degrees of success with a series of Recall Knowledge checks, and it really felt like my witch had her moment in the spotlight then. The martials and the cleric also had their time to shine on a fight against a group of skeletons, so we all had our moment in the spotlight.
About flat-footed, it's designed that way to be able to stack it with other bonuses on the attacker's side, otherwise spells like the Bless spell and the bard's Inspire Courage cantrip wouldn't be as useful as simply feinting or demoralizing
The thing with the backround, if you are a new player. Getting to have a one page about your character will make it easier to start roleplaying or at least bringing the character to life
Actually I agree with the Dudes on this one. The Background segment on the Pre-Made Characters pretty much should have been a Page worth of more helpful information.
@Simoun O'Brien It could have, but take into account that this is the tutorial to teach brand new players ttrpgs. Having a background for each character makes sense.
From what they say, the adventure seems to be written in a way to learn everyone around the table how to play a ttrpg and just not pathfinder. This is the tutorial we have all played in games where they teach you basic movement ect.
@@lordchrispo1439 Well yeah, I get what you are saying. If it makes you feel better, I do think the Adventure did a "Perfect" job as an introduction to the System.
As for the Background stuff, I still think that it isn't really necessary because players can simply make up their own backgrounds for their characters. Then again, once more, if it makes you feel better, I could actually add maybe 2 more pages on the Pre-Made Character Sheets and then at the Back, use the Background just for style. 2 more pages of Helpful information and that pretty much solves the problem.
Thank you for replying btw buddy. I hope you have fun with PF2E
Concerning the Flat-Footed, I'll add to what the other viewer already said that it's actually nice not to have to deal with too many +/- as a player. As a player, I take care of the bonuses (or penalties) for my actions, and the AC (including the FF -2) is entirely handled by the GM. Hence it isn't "mathfinder" that much (and by the way, the term applies more to PF1E than 2E in my opinion). Great to see you had a good time overall!
Great video guys, glad you’re sticking with your pledge to play other systems, and overall I think you’ve done a really thorough and thoughtful job of presenting your thoughts on Pathfinder so far.
Regarding how simplistic the adventure of the Beginner’s Box is, it’s actually really good when you realize that its intended audience isn’t DND experts like you guys. Both it and the character creation chapter of the CRB presuppose zero experience with TTRPGs, or even RPGs in general.
In that respect, a trite dungeon delve with a few fights in it works out really well for literally introducing someone to what a TTRPG is and what it’s like.
I actually think it needed more Roleplaying and Social Encounters. If you want to introduce New Players to a TTRPG, Having Roleplaying and Social Elements into the game is vital for making the adventure memorable and engaging. After all, The Beginner Box (I ran this btw) actually lacked the Roleplay and Social elements from the book.
You can pretty much look at the DnD 5e Starter Sets as superior Adventures since they add all the intended elements of a Roleplaying Game into one Adventure. PF2E Beginner Box is exactly what the Dudes said, it is literally a Training Session with Lack of Stakes and Not alot of Story behind it.
It would also still fall flat once the rats are dealt with. Barring curiosity, what would motivate complete amateurs to venture down a tunnel dug into the wall?
@@EricJAllain you can simply add more dialogue from Tamily by saying, that something else is disturbing our seafood supplies and rats couldn’t be the main problem.
What I did was litter that moment with rumours of something beneath Otari and if the players succeed on the quest, they get a full level up plus extra equipment and gold. How they finish it is up to them to decide.
This is a great video! It's really great to hear criticism/comments from people who have never played the game before! Regarding flat-footed, it's both what paul said, bonuses don't stack, plus it's less to add for the players. Effectively *some* of the math is done by the players and *some* of the math (cover, prone, slow effects) is done by the GMs, so neither one is having to tally too many numbers. There's a maximum of 3 types of bonuses/penalties (plus the multiple attack penalty) on any single roll, so it doesn't get to be too much number crunching.
You can play Troubles in Otari, which is a direct continuation of Beginner's Box adventure and it fleshes out the town more. Abomination Vaults is a lot of fun too (and also partly takes place in Otari), but it's mainly a dungeon crawl (very good but still). Abomination Vaults will also soon have its conversion to 5e rules so it would be interesting to see how the same adventure changes from system to system.
I second for Abomination Vaults. It's shorter (only three books or Levels 1-10) and relatively simple for the DM as there's no hoping between exotic locations or anything. It's also a pretty normal campaign premise compared to stuff like "You're a traveling circus" or "You're a part of a hunter-gatherer tribe on the tundra."
Trouble in otari? 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢
@@michaelramon2411 May I ask, why are there three books for adventure paths? Personally, I prefer the DnD 5e style with the modules all in one book. Saves money.
@@simounobrien9096 Most adventure paths are issued in smaller chucks over a few months and then get rereleased in one big book later. This happened with Abomination Vaults and recently with Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, so if you want to have everything in one place you just need to wait for a bit.
@@simounobrien9096 Paizo (Pathfinder's company) also produces stand-alone modules, but their core business is issuing one Adventure Path book a month (usually as a part of a set of 3 or 6), which they've done for about 15 years. That has given them a larger and more varied supply of prewritten content than 5e. Paizo also doesn't sell player handbooks (though they are writing some for an upcoming system revamp thing) and makes basically all of their mechanical content (class features and the like) available for free online. So their business model demands a little more total money for their prewritten adventures in exchange for savings elsewhere.
It's also sometimes nice when a specific book in an AP really hits it out of the park with its concept or execution that an informed buyer can go and purchase that book alone and not have to get the whole thing.
After the Pinkerton debacle and wotc proving they're a corrupt company, this video is much appreciated. Still love the dudes and all their content.
Paizo got shait under the nails aswell. Still be it WotC( Hasbro guaranteed had a commanding hand in pinkerton travesty ), Paizo I dont blame ALL the employes for a few utter degenerates decicions, to spoil our fun!
I think that part of the reason the Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP) is so high, is to encourage those non-direct attack actions you mentioned like demoralize. By encouraging things like demoralize, you also encourage party team work and coordination as all players can take advantage of the monster being demoralized. Stacking penalties from circumstance (flat-footed) and conditions (like demoralize) onto monsters make it easier for the whole party to hit the monster. Also, since the +10 rule for crit is also in PF2e, each +1 for your actions OR each -1 for the enemies actions, means you gain a +5% bonus to hit, +5% bonus to crit, a -5% chance to miss, AND and -5% chance to critically miss. Each +1 really does matter in PF2e. With a +1 to your attack from bless and a -2 to the enemies AC from flat-footed, you just gave yourself a +15% chance to hit and crit....and a -15% chance to miss and critically miss.
As others have mentioned, I’m quite happy to see you guys starting your Pathfinder journey. I’ve been playing D&D since 2e, but the recent crap Hasbro has pulled caused me to boycott the game. I’ve switched my games to Pathfinder and I’m glad you’re making content that will continue to be useful to our group. 😊
Abomination Vaults is 100% the adventure path you want to play.
Not only is it fantastic with opportunity for dope combat, fun roleplay, and alliance making, it's set in the town of Otari (where the beginner box is set in) and actually helps better explain what the kobolds were doing in the beginner box in the first place.
Furthermore, you can run Troubles in Otari pretty much side by side with Abomination Vaults to even further flesh out the region and add optional sidequests.
The first book of AV ends on a pretty good note, so you can call it off there, or if you want to keep going there are 2 extra books that will bring you to around level 10 or so upon the conclusion.
Yes, it's a dungeon crawl, but it's also sooo much more than that.
Thanks to you. I am planning to get Abomination Vaults. It sounds like a perfect way to truly experience PF2E.
Met you guys at Crews over the weekend! it was nice chatting with Monty for a bit, thanks for all your videos!
Lovely chatting with you as well! Thanks for saying hi!
I really appreciate and enjoyed your perspectives on this. Though it is pretty clear (and i dont say this as a bad thing) that yall are reviewing this from the POV of people who are comfortable and well versed in TTRPGs in general. I think things like the backstories being given is more helpful for a player who isnt well versed in creating and playing a character already. Or the first adventure feeling like a training level. Thats kinda what it set out to do, so like, boo its not even better, but it sounds like a starter adventure for someone new to pathfinder AND/OR new to TTRPGs in general.
No shade, in fact i love your opinions BECAUSE yall know what you are talking about. I appreciated Kelly pointing out that some of yall issues were gonna resolve themselves as you get more comfortable playing this system.
Great video!
Super excited to see more content from y’all on my new favorite TTRPG. I Love Your D&D Content and I’m glad to see your interest in PF2!
Another comment as I am watching, the gripe at 26:35 about +1s in circumstantial bonuses being something to wince at, it basically boils down to a +1 being less a matter of success/fail, and more often that +1 is the difference between whether you crit succeed/fail or not. The existence of crits coming from +/- 10 from the DC means that EVERY +1 matters SO MUCH
From what I've observed, a huge difference between Pathfinder and DnD 5E is the leveling up philosophy. Pathfinder keeps power level in a tight range, and instead focuses on giving you more tools as you level up. You learn to play the action economy better and more intricately. Teamwork is the difference between strong and weak players.
5E encourages you to optimize your character build to take advantage of rule interactions, which lead to wide variations in power level. That can easily lead to boring combat (especially for martials) where you execute the same combo round after round. It can also lead to characters vastly outshining others. This is because the build is the most important answer.
22:40 the reason it's a penalty is because bonuses of different types don't stack you just take the best one. There are 3 kinds of bonuses/penalties Status Circumstances and Items. So this way you can have someone take advantage of flatfooted and gain a bonus from aid or some of the feats and spells in the game.
That said at my table we just calculate it as a +2 to hit but we know that technically it's a -2 to AC in case it comes up.
15:00 on the spell slot system, in full play, a cleric would take their spell slots and fill each one with a cast of a divine spell every daily preparation. So you might fill each slot with a different spell, or maybe take multiple casts of spells you prefer. This is my favorite part of playing a prepared caster. I love building my toolkit for the upcoming adventure and finding how to make the best use of it during the day. If you prefer 5e’s spell prep, there is an archetype in Secrets of Magic that makes it work like that.
Edit: should have mentioned that the 3 heals are a class features called the divine font. A cleric gets 1+charisma mod bonus spell slots at their highest level that are only filled with Heal or Harm based on your deity. Generally, evil deities grant harm, good grant heal, and neutral deities give you a choice. Its not a hard and fast rule, but a decent rule of thumb.
Dnd players apparently loathe having to pick which spells you prepare
i feel like it’s silly to use the language of spell slots if you’re playing a character who prepares spells like that. when i hear slots, i imagine that i can put whatever i want into those slots (like the spontaneous casters, 5e, slots in real life etc) so to keep calling them slots when there’s nothing “slot” about them is misleading
@@Hazel-xl8in It makes sense to my brain. I have slots that I fill with spells when I prepare them. Thats why its a prepared spellcaster. The spontaneous casters know a list of spells (called their spell repertoire) that they can use in the moment with one of their spell slots, hence the name. I like that it differentiates the types pretty clearly. But the archetype I mentioned, flexible spellcaster, is completely valid and fine. I was mainly explaining why the cleric had some spells they could cast once a day on the premade sheet. Clerics don’t get their spellcasting in the form of one a day casts, the premade just had every slot prepared with a different spell.
@@castrochris94 I find it to be a completely arbitrary limitation that makes very little sense if you think about it. If every spell had material components that would have to be prepared in advance, then it would make sense. But spells that only have verbal/somatic components? What exactly is forcing me to decide how many times in a particular day I'm gonna be able to say those specific verbal components or perform those specific somatic gestures?
@@PanzerYeena In vancian casting (not just in D&D/PF, but also in the writings of Jack Vance), you're literally trapping individual spells inside your mind. Think of every spell as a kind of memetic parasite which you have to "memorize" in order to use. Casting a spell releases it, so it means losing memory of it.
As I recall the book does say that the quest giver says there was no way the rats are responsible for the sheer amount of food missing.
Yes, it specifically says that if they do return they are told by the person that hired them that the number of fish missing couldn’t be explained by rats or even a small number of kobolds. There are also further clues like footprints leading further into the cave.
Or, just add a Rumour that rewards the players for completing the Quest.
I have to say, I still wish they'd done a little more to set up a "mystery" here. Having Tamily push back is a good fallback option, but even something like saying "upon closer inspection, the barrels appear to have been cut open with straight lines rather than nibbled or scratched open -- the rats couldn't have done it" would have skipped the issue entirely.
But then again, my groups didn't seem to mind as much as the DDs did, so YMMV.
I’m glad you guys got a chance to play this. I enjoyed the beginner box, even with the limited social encounter breadth (and a particular boss fight tail-whacking my pre-generated Wizard Ezren around like a piñata). Looking forward to the revised Core Books coming out over the next year so I can get more players on the fence to try it out.
Just a heads up, anything with the attack trait is affected by the MAP for stuff like the Shove action. That attack roll is the athletics check.
"When you use a Strike action or any other attack action, you attempt a check called an attack roll (CRB 446)"
Almost every single roll with a d20 is a check including attacks.
Almost every d20 _using athletics_ is an attack, stuff like demoralize or feint isn't
Edit: Nevermind, I misread what that last sentence was saying, so I'm gonna reiterate your statement with hopefully some added clarity: Most d20 rolls are "checks", meaning that you roll against a DC - the only contested roll is the initiative roll (which, as a sidenote, any skill could be used for if appropriate, Perception is just the default). This saves some time and makes skills a bit more reliable, as e.g. opponents can't just randomly roll high to resist your grapple. The important bit: With all of these checks you want to look at their traits. If it has the attack trait, you apply MAP as if it were a strike.
*in combat
I've been playing dungeons and dragons since the first edition, but after the Pinkerton incident I've been looking for a new system. hope to see more pathfinder 2 content in the future!
Awesome video! It's great to see you guys covering PF2!
Congrats on adding another game into your schedule :)
As someone looking to break into pf2e, I love that you’re doing this. And I hope you eventually get a pf2e campaign running parallel to Drakkenheim. (Call it iunno, Caverns of the Castlewyrm)
PF2 is all about action economy. use your actions wisely and a -1 to the enemy is worth a lot. have fun
I learned to love the +1. Overall, a +1 bonus is worth about 12% on average. Having multiple +1 bonuses stack Multiplicitavely, giving stacking +1 bonuses exponential returns. A +2 is worth about 25%, a +3 is worth about 39%, and a +4 is worth about 55%.
Indeed, and critically (heh) this also applies to chance to crit, not just hit!
I think the easiest way to see the effect of and appreciate the +1 is to play a bard. Inspire courage is quite powerful and you can feel impactful even without attacking anything.
One thing that you probably missed about the monsters is that, even though it doesn't say it on their sheet, they can do all things that players can do as well. A monster can also use one action to Demoralize (intimidate basically), to Feint, whatever else. All monsters can do all the same things as the Players.
Also, there is a Critical Failure on attacks, it just doesn't affect much. There are features that you can use only when someone critically fails an attack, or features that you can use when YOU fail an attack but not critically fail.
15:00 - you do have spell slots. The beginner box might not make that as clear because the characters are only level 1. But the Pathfinder spell system is a lot like the D&D one was up until the end of 3E. To that point, Pathfinder has a Sorcerer which is very distinct from it's Wizard in that the Wizard has to prepare specific spells every morning into specific slots, while the Sorcerer has a number of slots and can cast anything out of them of that slot's spell rank or lower. Both classes, as well as all other spell casters, can then heighten some spells by putting them into a higher spell rank slot than they were made for (some classes can do this on the fly, some have to learn the higher version). All Cantrips are automatically heightened - making them remain very useful through the entire 1-20 leveling experience. There are also a variety of ways to learn spells from spell lists other than the one your class normally uses. And some classes like the Sorcerer pick which spell list they use at character creation (so you can have a sorcerer that uses the Divine list just like clerics, or the primal list just like druids, or the occult list just like bards, or the arcane list just like wizards).
I have heard that various supplements after the PHB did fix the Sorcerer to not just be a weaker Wizard but to finally have some use if the right option is used. But for PF2E - right out of the box in the core rulebook the Wizard and the Sorcerer are very different and equally potent. To that point - the so-called Vancian system of old-school D&D that PF2E uses for some casters (excepting for cantrips) serves to keep the Wizard balanced with the Sorcerer. I've always strongly disliked the 'Vancian system', so when I got into a PF2E game... I made a Witch, which uses that Vancian system (it's essentially a Wizard built around a familiar), just to test the waters. I'm liking it now that I'm used to it. But I've also never played D&D past 3E. I do hear that players coming off of 5E can feel a bit of shock at not being as powerful. PF2E aims for tight balance. It's not perfect, and where it fails at that it does so by leaving casters a little weaker than martials (mostly in the 5-7 level range) in exchange for having more options. I've been told that in D&D 5E - Wizard dominates in power, which is not at all true for PF2E (where the common belief is that Fighter has that role).
Once you get to higher levels and see the way martial classes hit you’ll start to understand why it’s a -5 for consecutive attacks. You will also notice at some point. There is an optional rule where your bonuses can remove your character level to the calculation making the entire systems number set feel a lot more like 5ED.
Not sure this has been said, but yes the Beginner's box is totally a opening tutorial level as you're meant to take what you've learned and basically start the Troubles in Otari adventure the next session, which then leads to the Abomination Vaults adventure. It's like a trilogy of adventures that take you from first session ever to ending in a grand dungeon crawl.
I think a lot of your criticisms of the box are spot on. Putting Feint actions on the Rogue sheet and Demoralize/Trip on the Fighter would have helped a lot. And there isn't enough opportunity to engage in the social aspect. There's one encounter in the lower level that I particularly recommend turning from combat to social encounter.
Regarding the similarities between 5e and 2e, the biggest difference for me was ease-of-prep for the GM. Encounter building, monster selection, reward selection, everything is neatly laid out with oodles of options. It makes the mechanical part of preparation a LOT easier. Frees me up to focus on preparing the social side.
On the players side, I imagine you guys will go through a similar rollercoaster of emotions that many new players do - first, joy and curiosity at the wealth of character options available. Then, the too-much-sugar stomach aches from having too many options - if you try to build an optimized level 20 character before even starting play. Then, an appreciation for how cool martial classes are in this edition. Followed by a sinking feeling that spellcasters are perhaps too-much-nerfed in this edition. Ending with the contentment of realization that actually everything in the game is either balanced or under-powered by design. If the GM wants a character to be overpowered, they can always hand out a powerful item or homebrew to help them do so.
yeah the multi attack penalty is to help promote other action use during combat, and balance action spamming. but is an implementation of PF1e's base attack bonus mechanic.
Thanks for the coverage. I was actually thinking about switching to Pathfinder thanks to WotC shenanigans.
Great video! Man that 10ft cliff thing is ridiculous lol. I agree it's about knowing when to use degrees of success. Someone wise once said only roll when failure is interesting. Keep up the good work!
I would strongly encourage looking at the Troubles in Otari module with personally built characters. It flows directly from the beginner box, but each of the stories are discrete adventures that all take place in the town. And then there is the megadungeon Abomination Vaults that is a 1-10 adventure on the outskirts of the same town. Glad to see you all had such a good time! :D
To answer/address you guys minor complaints:
Flatfooted: it’s a partial hold over from 3.5/1E and because it does confer some differences versus just +2 (or -3/-2 to MAP) it was to future proof and prevent future material from interacting in any odd ways. If you have a monster flatfooted they lose two to AC, but mechanically this is supposed to be separate from your MAP. Which on certain classes and with certain abilities you can mitigate (flurry rangers eventually make subsequent attacks at lower map for example). And lastly everything in the system is either a penalty or a bonus, it’s a condition afflicted on the monster and therefore a penalty to it. Because you can get +’s to hit, but only the highest modifier is applied. So if you made flatfooted a bonus to the players their bards/clerics and magic weapons or striking runes or anything else may not apply. It all works out in the end. It’s just to give the players more ways to buff themselves.
As for the rock climbing thing? Must be an adventure thing, the DC is also supposed to go up or down on successive failure/success so you either make it down or fall I would guess.
As for skills and circumstance bonuses from ancestries, it’s to basically give you the flavor, remember a +1 is 5% increased chance of critical successes or successes. These also blend with downtime and exploration activities to really make the character what you want and help improve those things your character could be good at or excel at if you really focus into it.
Im so glad that you guys are open yo trying PF2e because I used to watch a bunch of your channel in the past but stopped because I switched to PF2e.
Kelly hits the nail on the head in the beginning: a good group of people will make just about any game enjoyable.
I have anxiously been waiting for this for so long!
Apparently the climb down section is a common complaint. The intention is that the party uses a rope to lower the DC and then aid each other to give bonuses making it pretty impossible to fail. No way it should have taken 10 minutes! But the adventure kind of has the training wheels on a little too tightly here that the intent goes over people's head things like that happen. Not exactly the teaching moment they intended.
The degrees of success is so crucial to so many design choices that it is hard to see the big picture and it takes some time for it to all come together. Every +1 bonus is important because it isn't just a 5% difference between failure and success but also a 5% difference between success and critical success as well as the 5% difference between critical failure and normal failure. Which means a +1 often feels more impactful than other D20 RPGs. Then the reverse is true for a -1. When the party applies several debuffs to the enemy boss and they are taking a huge penalty to their AC or Saves which means a roll is exactly turned from hit to a critical hit it feels incredibly awesome!
This plays into the multiple attack penalty. It definitely takes some time getting used to and I too question if it was even needed or needed to be so big. But when the big bad boss attacks, it is likely that his first attack will probably critical, his second attack will probably hit, and his third attack will probably miss. So it makes it very interactive to use reactions around this logic or apply buffs/debuffs know this. By the same token the Fighter could take a 3rd attack with -10 and probably miss unless they roll a 20 but they could also demoralize (probably before the first attack honestly) and now the enemy has a -1 AC for an entire round which means by the fighter giving up that longshot 3rd attack they enabled the rest of their party to be more likely to hit on their attacks. It is a great sense of teamwork. That being said, I think it is less important at lower levels when people have less feats/spells/options and it is just fun to swing an attack 3 times in one turn even if you know the 3rd will likely miss. So have fun with it but just understand the logic behind why the veterans discourage it.
I will second that low-levels probably do feel fairly similar. But I think when you make your own characters and level them up a bit then it will start to diverge. Going back to 5E from PF2 is hard because the character options just feel so much more restrictive. But I won't beat that dead horse and let you dudes discover that on your own. Just going to say that I am currently 18th level in a PF2 campaign and the entire progression has been so fun and smooth the entire time.
Lastly for adventure recommendations. I am sure everybody will say Abomination Vaults or Troubles In Otari. But I haven't played those yet as I am nearly done playing in Agents Of Edgewatch and just started GMing Outlaws Of Alkenstar. Both are realy cool examples of how to do a cool city campaign! Maybe not the next thing for your group to play but something you might be interested in down the line. PF2 is pretty focused on their level 1-20 or level 1-10 & 11-20 adventure paths. But there are some smaller standalone adventures that cover 4 levels which includes one that starts at 11th level and one that starts at 16th level if you are looking to just test out high-level play so keep them in mind too.
Its worth noting that small bonuses or debuffs can not only change a fail into a success, but can also turn a success into a critical success or a critical fail into a normal fail. This is why those small bonuses are so important. They do more than one thing.
The reason people recommend not using all 3 actions for attacking is because these effects are mathematically more impactful than the third strike. Consider using the feint action to get someone flat footed, or taking that Bon Mot skill so you can debuff enemies' perception and will saves.
Perhaps most importantly using those little tricks to help other team mates is a lot of fun, and changes the battlefield into a place where players are helping each other and fighting as a team in a much more obvious and integrated way.
Much like Kelly, I really like both systems. So excited to see more pathfinder content on your channel since I’m newer to it
So excited for Pathfinder content from the Dudes. I loved yall's material when i was dabbling in 5e groups, and theres a good bit thats not system specific, but i've been a pathfinder fan since 1e, and 2e has been our playgroup's system for a couple real fun runs so far. Glad you liked it, fingers crossed for more!
I've a mixed feeling on them not putting all the actions down. The beginner box is supposed to get you through basic play. Most of those actions that you would be using that third action on become important as you level up, and add various bits of complexity to the game. Some of them are useful right out of the gate at level 1 - but it's a question of information overload. They did put them in the book, but not on the sheets. That implies they wanted people to see and learn about them, but not get bogged down with them on the first play through. What I'm on the fence over is whether or not that is the right call to make. After all - the many ways you can use the three action economy is what makes Pathfinder such a great tRPG. Not showing it to people right away is somewhat underselling the product. It's like taking a Tesla out for a test drive and not trying out auto-pilot. It might be confusing, but it's also a major feature.
I recently ran Dinner at Lionlodge with my family as their introduction - they started at level 4, which I thought was nice coming from 5e (spoiler: it's not great because characters have unique feels and abilities from level 1, unlike 5e where you are all pretty generic until level 3).
It definitely opens up, and the first encounter they went from just walking up and smacking like you tend to do in 5e to moving around the battle and using those combat skills in meaningful ways later on. It's definitely more dynamic, and the item/status/circumstance bonus and penalty bit really helped simplify what math was happening as they began to do more complicated things. Having a handful of well-defined bonuses and penalties made things so much easier with not having to do the comparably ridiculous amount of math from 3.5 or Pathfinder 1.
They've really enjoyed how the combat encounters are more engaging and flowing are compared to 5e, and I appreciate the rules as a GM because it takes a lot of cognitive burden off my shoulders - especially when I'm also learning the game
People have already recommended good campaigns. Troubles in Otari and Fall of Plaguestone are two pretty good starter adventures which have all the three pillars well represented. If you want to start at a slightly higher level check out Malevolence (3rd - 6th level).
Really great to see you guys doing some PF2e content! As my 5e campaign winds down, i'm looking at switching to PF2e and I'm excited to sort of follow along in your journey in learning Pathfinder!
I would keep in mind that the Beginner box is meant for people who have never played a ttrpg before, not necessarily people with a lot of 5e experience.
The little cliff at the begining of the adventure is to highlight some really simple stuff:
+ Using a rope lowers the DC, this is to instruct new players that some action the take might favourably change the situation
+ Some PCs are better than other on some tasks, this again is something kind of obvious but it helps to highlight the importance on skills
+ You can help other PCs at tasks, rather than try to go down all at the same time, it makes more sense to help each other
The cliff also helps to punish those players that move foward when the others are lagging behind...
Given that Aid is a DC 20 check and at best a first level character will have a a 45% of success it's generally going to teach characters that using Aid is risky.
@@Norade It is not automatically 20, "level-appropriate DC" is the other way
@@Norade "The typical DC is 20, but the GM might adjust this DC for particularly hard or easy tasks."
Plus you can also handle circumstantial bonuses. I would say the possibility of a Critical Failure is low if the one helping is good at it.
@@estebanrodriguez5409 If the beginner's adventure doesn't call that out I'd expect the beginner GM to use a flat 20 DC in that situation.
Point on the Initiative, funny thing you mention using other skills for initiative. Yes that is a thing, if you are sneaking before a fight, you actually roll Stealth as initiative!
I recently started running the Pathfinder 2E beginner box with my wife and three kids. We all have a bit of experience with 5E. They all used Pathbuilder to create custom characters, and it was a bit of a learning curve, especially learning all of the options each player has in combat. We're two short sessions in, and they just beat the first kobolds.
Great to hear the view that the people is a main factor (although not named that directly, but implied). In my view, good RPGs are 40% the players, 40% the DM, 15% the story or adventure itself, and 5% the system. If the DM is a jerk, if other players are bad, it doesn't matter what else is going on. I've never had a game break down from the game system. I've only seen that from a bad DM or bad player(s), and rarely, the adventure was lousy. A good DM and players can fix the problems and make play fun.
That said, I am happy to hear about PF2 and I want to play it myself. To me, DnD is in the rear view mirror.
I just ran this box the other day and I have a few notes:
1. My group was 2 PCs and a GM and we were looking stuff up in the book a lot. For us, this was not a single-session adventure. We got up to the first group of kobolds in about 3 hours of play. I think it will take us 2 or 3 more sessions to finish it.
2. I agree there's not much for a player who's mostly into roleplaying. I could see one of my players getting visibly bored by the dungeon-crawliness of it, so I homebrewed the kobolds into a social encounter to make them happy.
3. I didn't know about skill actions until watching your video. That would have made things a lot more fun for the fighter and probably also the cleric. I think each pre-made character sheet should have some kind of "here's what a round of combat looks like for this class" with a quick bullet-point list of how you might use your 3 actions on a typical turn.
4. My players didn't go back for their reward after the rats, but they did go top-side to long-rest after every encounter. Which, I guess there's nothing stopping or even discouraging them from doing that. Are they supposed to do that? I don't know, the GM guide didn't say. If they're not then there should be a cave-in at some point that traps them down there maybe. If so, tell the GM.
I definitely had a lot of fun with it though and I think I'll be using Pathfinder as my primary system for awhile.
Good insight! One thing that struck me is that movement count as 1 of 3 actions f.ex. Not separate as in D&D. Oh if you want a heftier combat? Try Dragonbane! Im in love! You get to move and an action. You can use the action to attack BUT then you wont be able to parry a possible counter attack. And your Con ability score IS the health points you have. And armor subtracts damage done and different dmg types like piercing/ slashing/ bludgeoning counters vs different armor. Armor dont degenerate but tools, weapons have HP
I believe, might be wrong, that the -5 penalty on extra attacks is from dnd 3/3.5. When a class was granted an extra attack it would be at a minus 5 penalty for each attack. So first one was at -5 2nd one was at -10 and so on.
@22:39 - Flatfooted (a circumstance penalty) can be applied in many ways. In some ways they only affect you, and some affect anyone trying to hit that flatfooted creature.
You (or any other creature) can only have 1 of each type (circumstance, status, or item) of bonus and penalty, always taking the highest value one. Untyped ones can stack though, like MAP + range increment penalty.
Regarding Flat-footed being a negative to the enemy AC, instead of a positive To Hit for the players: it comes down to the fact there are only 3 types of modifiers in PF2E, so the enemy having a -2 circumstance penalty allows for the players to have a +X circumstance bonus from something else like being aided by a fellow party member.
The reason why you don't want to just use all 3 actions attacking every turn is that, there genuinely are so many things you can do in order to give allies a benefit or enemies a penalty that it's rarely, if ever, worth it to make an attack that you're likely to miss unless you roll a nat 20.
The single biggest example I can give is Aid. Aid is an action that you prepare on your turn, and then use a Reaction to do. When you Aid an ally, you can give them a +1, or a +2 on a critical success, at the risk of giving them a -1 on a critical fail. You can also Aid allies with their attacks.
So, you're probably not going to hit anyway, may as well make it so you're ally has a better chance.
As I'm finishing watching this video, I'm just going to keep editing this comment.
Pathfinder 2e does have a Critical Fumble and a Critical Hit deck, but they are optional rules that you don't have to do at all and I personally would recommend against. A group I played with used to use them, and they stopped when one of the Critical Fumbles nearly outright killed a PC because of how badly designed they are. It is an optional rule that exists if you want to use them, but it's just not great.
As for MAP, the purpose of it is exactly that: to make multiple attacks a turn worse so that you want to do something else with your actions. There is always something else you can do to give an ally a bonus or an enemy a penalty, even without a skill check. The aforementioned Aid is a good one, but it is a flat DC of 20, so it can be less ideal for lower level players. However, it's almost always a good idea to move into a flanking position or to do a skill check for your first action or 2, as opposed to just attacking. Yes, the -5/-10 penalty is steep, but it's designed that way. A Flurry ranger can get the penalty all the way down to -1/-2 later on in the game, so there's that. They are the "I want to attack 6 times a turn" class though, and yes, they can do that with the right feat build.
And as for the coke and pepsi comparison, yeah, I can kinda see that. I will say though that the two are not exactly identical, I can taste a very distinct difference between them, and I'll be happier if a restaurant has pepsi products because mountain dew is so much better than mello yello, but regardless. For me personally, between having been a Pathfinder player for years now and understanding the system well, as well as the OGL stuff and the Pinkertons stuff with WotC, I can't see myself going back to play a WotC made TTRPG ever again. But that's also largely because I don't want to support the company at all. Before the OGL stuff, if a buddy of mine said that he was gonna start running a DND 5e campaign, I woulda been completely down to join. Now I'm just glad that I can more easily convince my friends to try out Pathfinder.
Talking about Pathfinder adventures and AP's, a lot of them are really difficult. And it's hard for me to recommend one that would be good for new players because of that. Like, Agents of Edgewatch is a really good story, but it also has 12 combats in a row and the first one is a cockatrice, which if it hits any players at all, can leave them permanently down on actions until they can get the curse removed. And all of this is at level 1. I did change things with my group, making it so that instead of defeating these monsters, you have to find a way to trap them somewhere they can't get out and you have to save NPC's. I gave the players the tools necessary to build a makeshift trap for the creature there, and I told them, your objective in this is not to defeat the enemy, but to contain it and get people to safety. Having that alternate win condition there made the encounters so much easier to deal with without burning daily limited resources, so even though there are a lot of them, it becomes a lot more manageable.
If I had to pick one AP to suggest, it would be Quest for the Frozen Flame. It's a very solid adventure that doesn't seem at least to be too difficult with my limited time running it, and it doesn't add complicated additional rules like Strength of Thousands, which is routinely noted as one of Paizo's best adventure paths. Having run it myself, it is great, but both having the free multiclassing in the Free Archetype variant rule and having the academia system on top of that, it's fairly complex and gives players a lot of additional options for their characters that total noobs might not be ready for. If you want something higher level, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix starts at level 11 and is another strong AP.
Just checking but IIRC, Aid has a DC of 20, making it unlikely that lower-level characters will succeed at it. I agree with the principle but in practice, Aid doesn't seem worth doing at low levels (though maybe still better than a third attack if your attack bonus is a bit pants.)
@@BlueTressym More than anything, I was just giving an example, but yes, Aid does have a DC of 20. But that being said, it's still possible for a Human Fighter with the Cooperative Nature feat to succeed at Aiding his allies' attacks on a 7, whereas that last attack for that fighter is still being made at a -1 and likely to hit only if he approaches 20. Better to have a moderate chance at helping the party than a low chance of dealing more damage.
You guys should run a pathfinder campaign and stream it
Great review! So glad you're sharing your journey in Pathfinder (I'm having a similar journey converting to it). I appreciate your comments on this adventure, though I don't think that more roleplaying/social encounters would have been very useful for accomplishing the goals of this particular adventure. As you said, they do a great job of introducing core mechanics like ranged attacks, stealth, poison, etc. - and the risk of giving too many social "outs" to encounters is that players could inadvertently skip these important mechanical tutorials. It reminds me a lot of Defiance in Phlan, which is my preferred "beginner tutorial" adventure module for new players and new DMs - it also does "baby steps" by introducing specific mechanics one by one in a limited environment for ease of learning.
I see it very much like the tutorials at the start of a lot of games - you're totally railroaded, but it's meant to be a practical tutorial about the controls and how to do the basic game loop. Then the game opens up and you get more options.
I suspect this BB was designed for people completely new to TTRPGs rather than for transitioning experienced players like you and the rest of us from another system to PF2e. It would be interesting to figure out if there would be a good way to design such an adventure.
I've moved on to some Adventure Paths (The Extinction Curse) and listened to some actual play (MnMaxed is great), and there is definitely a LOT of story and background in those to give players a lot more flexibility in play. Extinction Curse has a neat start - players are in a circus - and there are some cool mechanics for running the circus and shows that could be interesting. There is a lot of creativity in it.
when you said ", though I don't think that more roleplaying/social encounters would have been very useful for accomplishing the goals of this particular adventure.", I was like
"So when my Dad actually negotiated with the Kobolds to take his party straight to their Master, that isn't necessary for learning to roleplaying a Game?"
You do realize that Roleplaying and Social Encounters are CRUCIAL for any form of TTRPG. You can pretty much use your imagination to run any adventure. Just because the Adventure wasn't designed to include Roleplay and Social Encounters, doesn't mean the Player's Choices needed to be railroaded. Let your players Dictate their own decisions and if my Dad somehow convinced the Green Dragon Wyrmling to leave Otari and find another food source by offering Thickshakes, I think you can make anything possible with your imagination and having a fun time.
Roleplaying and Social Encounters are just as Vital as Combat, Action and Skill Checks.
@@simounobrien9096 Yes, you are right that roleplaying and social encounters are (or should be) important for TTRPGs. However, there are fewer specific mechanics for those that are likely to trip up new players compared to understanding mechanics like tracking the poison condition, dealing with traps, and other things that particular module is meant to show us.
You can throw together or add on social interactions in anything to teach social encounter mechanics - you don't need to buy an adventure for that. You sound very experienced, so I'm sure you could homebrew interactive encounters to teach those rules just fine. The standard tavern meet-and-greet is a great way to teach social dynamics, and you don't have to pay anyone to build that for you.
I have no problem with players being creative and bypassing some encounters. But it means that they won't get what they were supposed to out of the module. It's like learning multiplication tables in math - it may not seem necessary at the time, but it is an important tool that you'll have to use later, and if you know about it beforehand, then it will be easier.
A tutorial adventure is designed to teach certain things. It's not about "beating" it; it's about getting what you need from it. If your table does primarily social encounters and doesn't mind having to take 10 minutes to learn certain combat mechanics if they come up, that's totally fine for your table. But you probably wasted your money buying the beginner box in that case.
Also, bypassing the entire dungeon will mean you got to the boss underleveled, which in Pathfinder can be deadly. Sure, you could get lucky with a roll, but in most cases, going straight to the boss without getting XP and gear (assuming you followed the XP per encounter system they had) means they were at a huge disadvantage.
I'm sure you're passionate about this topic and feel you are right. But I've been GMing for a long time - since Red Box days. And I try to appreciate what the creators of an adventure are trying to do and give us, and I also know that teaching TTRPGs can involve a lot of different approaches. There are some really bad tutorial adventures out there; the Pathfinder BB is not one of those. But I get that many tables, like yours, have different playstyles that won't benefit from playing this adventure as much, and that's cool. You do you, friend.
@@simounobrien9096 It just sounds like you and your group aren't the target audience for this particular adventure. You would probably do great just jumping into one of their regular Adventure Paths. :)
@@domenceuspriest hahaha, I actually have deep respect for your reply. (Sorry for the late Reply, Busy Times)
Though personally, if it does make you feel better my friend, my Dad and I are known to have amazing chemistry in terms of playing not just TTRPG's but Gaming in general and we do love our Comedy mixed with Storytelling and sprinkled with Action. What we did with the PF2E beginner box, if anything, improved the experience and we never said the Adventure was Boring, my Dad just made a decision that I personally found more entertaining that made the Adventure more memorable. Even the Game Master's Guide Encouraged this (Even the DnD 5e Starter sets)
Now, I apologize if I sounded rude from my Initial Statement. But I actually was being honest. Thank you for being very respectful and yes, I am a DM/GM who actually is more about the Story and Social Encounters over Combat. This is why I love the DnD 5e modules like Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Curse of Strahd, and my personal favorite, Icewind Dale Rime of The Frostmaiden.
With regards to "bypassing the entire dungeon will mean you got to the boss underleveled, which in Pathfinder can be deadly. Sure, you could get lucky with a roll, but in most cases, going straight to the boss without getting XP and gear (assuming you followed the XP per encounter system they had) means they were at a huge disadvantage." Actually, Dad didn't go to the Green Dragon Wyrmling Underleveled, He actually was using a Speech Check to convince the Dragon to move out of Otari thanks to bribing it with Thickshakes (The Speech Check worked btw).
Under leveling with my style only applies when it is a Combat Encounter, not a Social encounter unless I choose the DC of that Social Encounter based on how the Stat Block of the Monster/NPC is . Since my Dad was having a Roll of 19 over a DC of 15, he succeeded. He didn't want to fight the Dragon in the first place, he wanted a more Peaceful Solution to the problem. That ended up being much more rewarding than what the Adventure presented from the Book.
But yep, I still maintain that adding Social and Roleplaying elements in a Beginner Box from the Book would have made it amazing but the Adventure itself, while very beginner friendly, needed more weight on the Narrative rather than just "Let's Find out who is Eating all the Fish"
Now I get what you said I wasted my money on the Beginner Box just because we didn't play by the book. Actually, I didn't waste my money at all, I actually bought the Box mainly for the Pawn Miniatures (Was that a waste of money to me? Heck no.) And I also Read the entire Adventure before the Session even started so did that mean I wasted my time and money? Nope. All it did was give me versatility and prep time for anything. I also read the Hero's Handbook for the Classes and such so I can help my Dad read all the Spells and Skills for his characters. Did that mean I wasted money? Nope it actually made me more knowledgeable about the Pathfinder System.
Once again, Thank you for your Honest Reply. Friend :)
@@domenceuspriest Btw, if I may ask, what adventure Paths do you think might fit my Style? :D!!!!!!
The way they're dealing with Flat-Footed is a callback to its origins in 3.5e, where if a target is caught Flat-Footed, then they can't benefit from their Dex bonus in their AC (and they had a similar rule for Touch Attacks, that ignored armor). That's why it's a penalty to the target instead of a bonus to the attacker.
As far as the spell slots thing goes. Kyra does have spell slots. its just Being a "Prepared" caster at the beginning of they she chooses which spells from her list (which is all common divine level 1 spells) go into which slot. Which is different from 5e where you just pick a number of spells for the day and can use any slot to burn them.
Her being able to use heal multiple times is just the healing font ability clerics get.
And of course the spells you could cast as often as you wanted to cantrips.
Now I can't wait for all of this to get explained later in the vid :)
Thank you guys for trying it out, my groups are also looking for other TTRPG and seeing your insights from veteran 5e players means a lot to understand :) and of course, thanks to your wonderful followers that explains PF2 in the comments like the GOAT they are :)
So glad for PF2 content! Your attitude towards ttrpgs is very in line with mine and I'm starved for supporting content for my own getting into the game.
Hey guys, next time, try a Cleric with Battle Medicine, you can cast Heal with 2 actions to heal 1d8+8 and 1 action try medicine for more 2d8 (4d8 on a critical)
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I wanna try and pick it up myself!
I'm getting ready to run this. Session 0 was yesterday. I'll let you know how it goes!
So on the whole thing of extra mechanics not being on the sheets I think it was good of them to not put too many things on the sheets for new players since one of the main things people say about the system is that its "complex" so less things being the things you absolutely need to play is better in my eyes. Though as mentioned it should have been mentioned as "hey you can find extra stuff on thses pages its just not especially recommended because it can be a lot to digest at once"
I feel like it is a good representation of the PF2 core rulebook, as we were constantly finding rules that were scattered across two-three different sections of the book, and we wouldn't always find the third part of the rule until later when learning the system.
I played the Beginner Box at a weekend organised by The Rules Lawyer back in late Jan/early Feb and enjoyed it a lot. I think you're right about the reasoning; they didn't want to overwhelm brand-new players with too many options.
Really excellent insight! I absolutely love this system and have had a lot of fun with the beginner box but definitely ran into a similar issue regarding the adventure's roleplay potential. I agree with you that it is absolutely incredible as a teaching tool in how it slowly teaches the system and encounter by encounter. I just wish there was more room for roleplay and character expression. If the players are using default characters they can't actually talk to the kobolds as they don't speak draconic... I think that isn't very fun, as players naturally want to speak to sentient creatures. Maybe if they had swapped them out for some other type of more violent monsters it would have worked just fine, but if you're going to have intelligent creatures and not leave room to role play with them I see that as a failing as an adventure. Which as you mention Paizo nocks that stuff out of the park in their adventure paths and other short adventures. So seeing it stumbling and fall flat in the beginner box feels weird.
Would love to see how your opinions change if you choose to play more of the system. :)
As a new GM, the way it built up the encounters, and explained what it was trying to show to the players was very useful.
Being able to get the players to go through the included choose your own adventure prologue book while you went through the adventure book was also nice.
I love your guys dnd vids , been thinking about looking at pathfinder (even though my table has no want to learn another system lol ) so thanks for the vid dudes
I very much look forward to more P2E stuff from you guys!
Great video, guys. I really like this type of video: you're trying to figureeverything out, understand the system and all. It takes a lot of courage to get in front of the camera and say what you think about a system you don't quite know yet. Hope you continue to have fun on the PFe journey.
First quick note⚠️PLEASE review and play Dragonbane! Our swedish neighbours have done an outstanding job with bringing that system to the rest of the world! Also the art is by a highly talented illustrator and writer Johan Egerkrans!!
I love indulging myself in D&D, Dragonbane and PF. Each for different reason. Im playing the PF2e beginner campaign with 3 others. Me a copper kobold sorcerer with different dragon ancestries and love for acid, a leashy druid dude with a shroom companion that act as a healing helper with goodberries, a catfolk rogue being all clever and supportive sneak she is, an orc barbarian that absolutely destroyed most enemies and made it waay easy for us😂 We came past the skeletons for Session 1. The catfolk and orc werent avaiable for Session 2 but me little kobold and little leashy friend with fungi friend went on and are currently dealing with a kobold+fish+ possible squid god problem 😂 The missing PC are " at a tavern with urgent matters "
Definitely would like to see your take on character creation in Pathfinder 2E
As a Pathfinder First Edition main, let me just tell you that "Multiple Attack Penalty + Agile Weapon + Flat-Footed" gives you only the BAREST INKLING of why the game got the name "Mathfinder." While 2e is far more streamlined on that front, high-level play can still demand a calculator when something that is Enfeebled 1, Frightened 2 with a buff spell active rolls for a DC 43 saving throw.
As for 2e adventure paths, "Abomination Vaults" is probably your best bet to start, as it's a relatively normal/simple concept (megadungeon discovered under the weird lighthouse outside of town), that still has a decent mix of the pillars of play and is only 3 books covering Level 1 to 10. "Age of Ashes" is a 6-book AP that takes you to a different country ever book, so it is a good introduction to Pathfinder's Golarion setting (but maybe demanding a little research from the GM on the Pathfinder Wiki) and it has an atypical major villain. "Strength of Thousands" has a more varied setting and concept (the PCs are students and later teachers at a Hogwarts/Strixhaven-like school in an African-inspired setting), but really demands the rather pricy "Mwangi Expanse" setting book to fully appreciate. "Agents of Edgewatch" isn't a typical adventure, but the PCs are cops in the largest city in the world, so that vibe might be your speed.
Most of the other 2e APs have unusual concepts, which is not a bad thing, but might make them poor choices for a first-time campaign. Examples include a high-level martial arts tournament ("Fist of the Ruby Phoenix"), scouts in a tundra hunter-gatherer tribe ("Quest for the Frozen Flame"), climbing the social ranks of a land ruled by the undead ("Blood Lords") and an X Files-like mystery where the PCs are essentially alien abductees ("Gatewalkers").
I never played that adventure. The first time I played pathfinder 2E was because a friend had experience and he was the GM, and I really liked it. Now I am GMing a homebrew campaign in Pathfinder 2E, and I am playing another campaign (as player) in D&D 5e. I think pathfinder is more complex, but with the help of VTT it is actually easier to run than D&D as a GM. Mainly because monster level in pathfinder is not broken, while CR in DnD means nothing.
Obviously it doesnt help with the beginner box as is, but tools like Pathbuilder or Foundry VTT do have options to see all of the different skill actions, feat uses, etc. Theres also fan-made documents listing all of the skill actions.
Clerics do get attack cantrips, but they're admittedly kinda ass. A lot of them are alignment based, so the wrong god choice can just make them useless (I'm playing a cleric of Grandmother Spider, and because she's Neutral I just cant use any spell that is based on the deity's alighment)
I'm sure beyond the different bonus/penalty categories the logic behind flat-footed is the enemy is off balance and are less capable of defending themselves (AC) instead of the attacker being more accurate (Attack bonus)
Might be a GM oversight, but the book does kinda assume the players might ask for the reward after fighting the rats, it gives some lines from Tammy in this instance.
Never watched you two before. Loved this. I hope you have more PF2 videos for me to binge on. Keep up the awesome