It will always baffle me when "adjust your game to suit your players to ensure people enjoy themselves" is met with anything other than resounding support.
I would hazard to say because it is easier said than done and opens up the pitfall of conflicting wants from participants. Be it any form of group entertainment from sports to RPG. It is easy to say change it to make it more fun, less easy to explain how and even less so to please everyone. Hence the push to have the most agreeable base rules, and the base rules is the first point of agreement to have a group to agree to play and the more deviations the great the task to get the original concordance needed to begin.
@@Vasious8128 It's really not that hard. Just try different encounters and see what kind they like best. Until my parties hit level 4 I generally run just easy to moderate encounters, and ease them into harder fights as they get more room for error and more options.
I couldn't agree more! It's literally one of the first rules in the core rulebook. "Feel free to alter or throw a rules to ensure that you have the most fun with the game"
The problem comes when one player loves that martials and castors are more ballanced in pathfinder 2e, but another player wants fun by buffing the castor to make it easier to play. You cannot please both players in this instance. and the greater weight should go to the player whos playstyle is more in line with the system you all agreed to play in session 0. Please note that i am not saying the player that prefers a ballanced game should be the side the gm sides with all the time every time. I just mean that in a complex scenario more weight should be given to the player whos fun is in line with the core rules and values of the system you all agreed to play. If after a careful and respectful discussion you determine that the castors need a buff that should be the route you go. I just don't think changing things to suit a single player, without considering other consequences of the decision, is always a net gain.
@@josephwille6464 The topic was on the difficulty of how games are run and encounter design, and in the thread featured it was referring to a party's general feel, not the opinions of a single player. This comment was not made in a vacuum, it was in response to the scenario in the video.
I'm learning pf2e along with my old dnd5e group, and after one (not that great) first session, they requested of me to take things more slowly. Which includes gradually building up encounters to normal difficulty. Which I did for session 2, and now everyone is much more looking forward to session 3 than they ever did for session 2
Hey, you did the game wrong by elitists. And you know what? Your players had more fun. Please keep being an awesome GM. In the end of the day, nobody will remember the HP, but everyone will remember the scene.
Thank you. In my group since I am the research everything before even trying type I advised our group to come up with possible action combinations while and after creating a character This way we mostly eliminated the 3rd action problem some players have (everyone would find one or two actions their statblock or items would allow them to use their third action on, so that the game doesn't stop after the second action to look at the action rules to find something) effectively the game for the start became more like baldur's gate where people had some extra actions, but this helped a lot with the flow and getting into it now with more experience this is ofc no longer needed, but is still a good idea when creating characters
@@davidbowles7281 I legit had a TPK on the first session of the beginner box. And looking at the kobold encounter they died in I was thinking: "how is this encounter severe? should I ramp it up a little since it's the final fight of the session?". I didn't ramp it up and they still died.
Same, my group is also in the midst of a transition from 5e to PF2e, and its been rough. As the group by in large are fairly new to ttrpg's. Which small stuff such as builds is far more daunting for those new players.
The whole video made me think of Fire Emblem. Some people will play on casual. Others won't consider the game beaten until they've cleared lunatic. One way is more of a challenge, but neither is playing the game "better" than the other.
@@littlegiantj8761 There can be only one single true mantra for DnD/Pathfinder: " Almighty DM, our daily Tomb of Horrors give us, today!" - Whoever believes otherwise not only commits obvious terrible heresy, no, far worse, he is also objectively(!) wrong. ^^ - Edit: Praised be our spiritual overlord; Gary "GG" Gygax. 😁
I can definitely see the parallels. When it comes to fire emblem I tend to play on hard mode, not lunatic. Not that I can't handle lunatic, but that difficulty is designed to be overly punishing and just blatantly unfair at times. In short, I am not having fun on lunatic, I'm just torturing myself.
Megan's in the bottom right corner! EDIT: Awesome comment from @timjohnson2533 ! "I've come across more than a few Pathfinder player comments on the internet that absolutely dunk on 5e and/or it's players, and those that aren't playing optimally. Gatekeeping in games always amused me more than anything. Imagine these people, arms crossed, standing in front of a gate that has no wall attached to it. They squeal, they try to 'smug' at everyone who doesn't play what they play, or play how they play, and most sane people avoid the weirdos spouting this nonsense and walk around the gate into the open garden. Gaming is an open garden. Sure, there are people desperately guarding those gates they erected themselves, but the truth is they block nothing. They're simply a traffic cone on this highway of awesome games and fun. Sure, you have to swerve, and roll your eyes, but it's fleeting, and they'll simply be left with their anger, leaning on their gate, wondering why nobody is doing what they say. I'm old hat. I've been doing this for nearly 40 years. These types have always been in the gaming scene. They now just have the internet as a soapbox. But they're still pylons. Little more than people desperate to up their status by standing on the heads of others. In the end, they are forgotten. Joy is to be celebrated. Games are to be celebrated. It's a privilege to be able to play games with friends. The gatekeepers? They'll simply be the cobweb strewn skeletons leaned against ancient rusted gates in the middle of a forest that your players' characters will stumble upon :)"
One thing I like to do with for less tactical players is instead of using severe encounters for bosses, I give boss creatures +20 max hp and -2 to AC and saves. Results in players needing more damage to kill the bosses, yet also being more acurate, giving the illusion of difficulty while things are still managable for them.
That's fair; I just wouldn't call it an illusion of difficulty because it is a desired amount of difficulty for the group. I save that term for fudging HP behind the GM screen and similar practices
Mhm! Absolutely do this too. Not to make things “easier”, as if they have more HP and hit harder it can still be hard, but because it makes the versatile risks and options more satisfying. 40 to 60% chance of succeeding is technically strong but it doesn’t *feel* strong. And if they do have tactics or teamwork, they absolutely still deserve those fat stacks to set up crits.
I think that's a very interesting idea. Hitting feels more satisfying then missing and the higher chances can mathematically compensated by more HP. It also makes results more predictable and less random.
This reminds me of a some testing they did for the original Halo AI. They had two groups of testers play the game. For one group, they gave the Elites more health, and for the other, Elites had less health. There was NO difference in the AI, but the group that played against the Elites who had more health rated their AI higher. In other words, players perceived the enemy to be smarter and more challenging simply because it lived longer, not because it did more damage or had better armor or even behaved more intelligently. It simply had time to do interesting things before it died.
The tactical assumptions of pathfinder 2e should be more/better presented in the book Without the community a lot of people would be lost in the dark, me included
I think people generally exaggerate how tactical this game is. There's a lot of cool things some characters can do, but there's also a lot of characters that just don't do much, and can't. I'd LOVE to see more options for some skills that aren't strength/charisma based (or just medicine). You can only max 3 skills to legendary, and if you're a dex fighter that chose to do dex/con/wis and int, focusing skill upgrades on arcane, thievery and stealth, what are you doing in combat other than striking? Well, in the encounters where you are allowed to try recall knowledge you can, but you've only got 1 of the 5 recall knowledge skills. You could try to hide, but in the APs I've played it's not always easy to do, and if an ally is doing things to make enemies flat footed, it's not that helpful. I like the game, I love a lot of the options, but I do think most characters should have better third action options, and would love some non-strength based maneuvers.
@GuybrushTThreepwood in home games where the GM makes the encounters, the game can be as tactical or not as you and your table wants. However, APs are written with some assumptions in place...because they have to. One of these assumptions is that some level of teamwork and tactics happen to swing things in the players favor. That assumptions becoming bigger the higher level you are. PFS scenarios are written with some assumptions as well...that being that in a PUG scenario you won't have much teamwork or tactics.
@@GuybrushTThreepwood when I say "tactical assumptions" I'm not talking only about playing tactically, but the rules interactions, encounter actions etc Like, demoralize. It's an encounter action, but it's in the skill section of the book and if you didn't read what Frightened do in the glossary you wouldn't know it's one of the mainstay actions in the game
Another point on this: it's not like you're locked into a lower difficulty level in your campaign. You can start it off a bit easier while players come to grips with their characters and the rules, and then when they're consistently walking over every encounter with ease you can bump up the difficulty one notch at a time. I find most players enjoy a game where they feel challenged without being punished, and where they feel like they earned their victories through being clever, not just because the enemies were underpowered. A good GM can tweak difficulty on the fly, which is made SO MUCH easier by PF2E's encounter building guidelines.
I’m one of the 5e converts, had it not been for the WotC nonsense this year we would likely just kept going as I was one that felt that the PF community was largely unwelcoming. For my main group we’ve been together for 5 years now solely playing 5e. This is a group who is unconventional when playing together and there were a lot of concessions I had to make with 5e to keep it fun. In PF2 they had a difficult transition with the options they had at the table. It took a few sessions and knowing my table was key. It was a matter of reducing die size and toning down my own tactics for a few sessions and dialing it back to normal over a period of sessions. We’re also doing Alkenstar so a game with useable firearms was new to them too. Since I got hooked to the PF2 bug, I started a second group of majority new players to TTRPGs. I didn’t know many of them and I flat out told them on session zero, “hey we’re all new to this, we’re going to get things wrong but we’re going to fail forward together.” We’re six sessions in and the players brought in 3 new players in their same boat of being totally new. The training wheels came off quickly, and they’ve requested to ramp up the difficulty a bit more. It just takes a group a little while to gel together and get used to the new system. But I’ve actually had an easier time teaching PF2 than 5e. It’s the weirdest thing, there are more rules and more crunch with PF2 but I find it has a hell of a lot more freedom to do cooler things than 5e. I wish the community felt more welcoming like you are, or we would’ve been playing PF2 years ago. Seriously, I brought 11 people with me, and one of players is a DM for his own group of 7. This is how we grow the game, “don’t be a dick.”
I find that more rules gives a better framework to go by. Everybody is on the same page as to what you can do, how it works, and what your rough chances are. In a game with less rules, you need to rely on the GM. If you don't know their specific style it can be hard to figure out what will work. Or even worse, if they aren't consistent with their style. I've made an effort to try and say "I like X about this game system because of Y" instead of making general statements about what is better. I can't say I'm perfect, but I'm trying to be better.
I'd suggest a phenomenon that you are probably aware of, yet might not be thinking of in the moment, is likely responsible. Most groups (especially when not a majority or the most popular) often resent when a more popular/better supported/majority shows interest in "your" less well known interest. It's not unique to PF fans. If you were TTRPG "neutral", instead of coming from 5e, there's a decent chance that you would have had a better perception of PF2 players and reception from the online community. That doesn't excuse any gatekeeping or bad behavior, but it does help explain why you might have seen it happen. 5e players have given some in the hobby a bad experience themselves with gloating, media coverage/resources/actual play, or similar "bullying" tactics and majority/popular attitudes. Although it's prejudicial thinking to extend that to everyone from a group, it's also understandable. There are several popular YTers who went out of their way to essentially write "hit pieces" against PF2 to discourage their own followers from showing interest in a new thing and jumping ship. Either that, or they didn't understand things and instead of asking for advice, assumed the worst. It leads to some being defensive when people come from the "big boy" company, and bring their attitudes and expectations with them. Anecdotally, I could describe numerous similar assumptions as you had about the PF2 community from some people in the 5e community. When I presented myself as someone interested in 5e as a new player, I had a usually warmer reception than if I presented myself as someone coming from PF1. We have to work on empathy, and also work to not attribute malice to everyone just because some people might be defensive/protective/aggressive when an "outsider" wants to play with your toys. For every unwelcoming defender of PF2, there are several more who are supportive and encouraging like RulesLawyer. Keep in mind that it's often human nature to compare a new thing to what we are already familiar with. "It works this way over here, why not also over there?" That being said, it's often important to not let those previous experiences/ideas prevent us from learning from changes in a new system, game or otherwise. Some interested players come over from a different game [say Civilization], play/strategize for [Galactic Civilizations] how they are used to from the other one, and get frustrated when they think it should work since it did over there. Not everyone is as patient as others in explaining misinformed assumptions or repeated mistakes, but the PF2 Reddit community has seen the same threads started nearly every week from new players with similar complaints. They often look like "I ignored the encounter building rules and made everything harder like I do in 5e, and my party died...this game is busted/stupid/hard without power gaming." After a while, it becomes exhausting to walk people through the same situations over and over. Some people get frustrated and shout "it's NOT D&D, stop tying to play like it is", instead of "The designers built the encounter building system specifically to prevent problems like D&D has with theirs. Go a little lighter for difficulty than the guide suggests at first until you see how everyone handles the new intricacies, then you can mostly trust that an extreme encounter is an extreme (read deadly) encounter."
@@kevinbarnard355 That's really well put. I think you've a great empathetic take on the issue. I never realized 5e only fans might look down on pathfinder for it asking the players to optimize and read a little. As silly and animalistic of a reaction that it is, I think it's true. Probably due to worry of getting hurt first, like many do, they put on a defensive mentality and find offense to be a better defense. It seems silly, but that's life.
@@philopharynx7910 I was in that same boat, I have to be honest that I was likely the sort of 5e DM / player that likely was insufferable as well, I'm all about eating that crow. I'm a little bitter with myself that I didn't give PF2 an honest try until Wizards reminded me who they were, I could've been more persistent with asking people about PF2 as well, but a lot of the discourse I got back was a lot of "It's just better!" and I kept asking "but how!" until I gave up, then the OGL happened and I ran into someone cool on Twitter that broke everything down to a toddler level for me and explained the "but how" questions I had and a few weeks later my group was fumbling through PF2. When I was able to tell a couple people in my group that the three action economy would allow them to live their professional wrestler character concepts I had to say no more, it's crazy how little it takes. I had 1 5e group for 5 years. I've been in PF2 since February and I've got 2 groups running and I have more people asking me to run more. So over here, on my end, I want to be that ambassador to the system for people that were like me, I'm loving the system and the groups are both having a blast. Honestly, WOTC kinda fucked up at the right time, we were getting pretty bored with 5e and I was homebrewing so much it was barely 5e anymore anyway.
@@kevinbarnard355 It has been my experience that people are not hostile to a new group wanting to come in and play with their toys. However, there is a whole heaping ton of earned resentment toward people who come in to your play room, grab your toys out of your hands, explain to you why your toys suck and you are trash for playing with them, and then throw themselves on the floor and have a tantrum when you say they are unwelcome and ask them to leave.
It's a fine line between welcoming new folks and being open about Pathfinder being crunchy and not necessarily for everyone. It's about what kind of story you want to tell, and how you want to tell it, and different systems lend themselves to different stories. As a fan of pathfinder's fantasy and a lover of mathy, crunchy games, it's perfect for me, and I love having a system in place for each thing. Other folks may get turned off by all of the specifics and rules, and that's cool too. It's about what the individual table is looking for and how that works out for them. Whether that's Pathfinder by the book, built to be more complicated and difficult than usual, made easier, or a different system entirely, that's on what the group wants, and that needs to be a discussion. We shouldn't try to lock folks out entirely because they don't want the same level of difficulty we do, and should give them the best chance possible to enjoy the game. This is all just telling stories as a group, at the end of the day, and should be FUN, first and foremost.
I experienced this on RUclips comment when I posted that I wanted to make sure I didn't TPK my young (early teen) players who were totally new to TTRPGs. I got a good bit of the same BS. I think it's because some people view their characters as mere tools/pawns on the board, they are not invested in role-playing. Others do invest in the fictitious person/creation and want to see where they can take it, what growth and managing difficulties looks like. Death of a pawn is no big deal. Death of a growing creation brings emotion. They have to love the game enough to create a new character. Otherwise, they are lost forever.
Expecting deadly consequences for characters does not mean someone only views them as pawns and has no investment in the story... Far more attachment to a character that has grown and COULD have died than one that was never in any danger. Not sayin to kill your kids but... Death of a growing creation brings emotion, AND lessons.
When my son is ready for a more rules-intensive system, I want him to learn pf2. You can bet I won't be expecting him to be strategic on the level of a 30+ y/o strategy gamer. He'll be a kid. But I'll still use a tuned down pathfinder.
One of the reasons I really enjoy ttrpgs is that you can get really cinematic moments that come about organically through people telling stories collaboratively and improvising. The thing is, when you're in combat, what's tactical isn't always cinematic and what's cinematic isn't always tactical. It's alright to prioritize one over the other, but as with everything, talk to your table about what they want out of the game
I had a chat about difficulty with my group about a very story heavy game that we played for a long time. We like the game so much that we switched it over from 5e to PF2e! After some trial time, we decided that only really special encounters will include enemies who are above party level, since those tend to the biggest challenges out there
I think Ancestry HP should be higher. Like... doubled. Instead of being a 6-12 range, be a 10-20 range. This would make the super low levels feel much closer to higher levels in terms of damage-to-HP ratios and swinginess... and have literally NO effect on higher levels.
I might have cut it from this vid, but Mark Seifter himself said that one could do a "Beginner" version of the game that awards Level 2 hit points at Level 1, and then lessen gained HP at Level 2 by one-half until they get to "par" at Level 3.
Honestly, I think it is a major flaw and should be changed to be that way by default. 1st level RAW is the hardest level there is. And it is quite boring also, where your character does not have options and the healing is bad
As a DM of over 37 years (started at 13 in high school) I have recently come over to PF2e from 5e. Most of my 5e games were winged (mostly due to this being the preferred play style of my players) and worked great. I'm getting, slowly, used to the more constructive way of playing PF2e to 5e but would say that its a DM role to make the game fun for their players. If that means making slight adjustments here and there and being rewarded with smiles and laughter at the end of the session, then you have done your job. If your players rock tactically then all good, if they don't then tweak. Whatever works for you and your table. Pushing people away from the game may push them away from gaming and that is such a pity. We have new generations of gamers coming and we want to embrace them regardless of their play style (so long as its supportive) not push them out. Also, thanks @TheRulesLawyerRPG for all your useful and informative videos I have consumed over the past 3 months to aid me in GMing PF2e.
That’s first rule of Pathfinder: "The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours [...] If any other rule gets in the way of your fun, as long as your group agrees, you can alter or ignore it to fit your story. The true goal of Pathfinder is for everyone to enjoy themselves." You are playing as Pathfinder is meant to, unlike gatekeepers 😂
I love playing tactically as well (shoutout to xcom legendary ironman completers lol). But sometimes I just wanna build a janky character that makes no tactical sense but seems super fun, and having a group and GM that accomodates that style is great!
This problem is so old and I've never understood it, even back in the AD&D days I ran into a guy who wouldn't play unless the weapon speed rules were being used. Sure, I've played a few games that weren't to my taste, but I've always made a point to back out gracefully without shitting on the people running or playing it. I have one player that suffers from decision paralysis and he's gone from "what should I do" to "what if I do this?" in just a few sessions, I think the system is for anyone who wants to play it.
@12:58 Amusingly, this is actually good advice if someone wants to play a strategy game but isn't comfortable with Chess due to age, attention span, etc. But cooperative roleplaying games like Pathfinder have far more dials and knobs to adjust gameplay, so a system change isn't necessary.
This is the type of content that i wanted to make with my channel which i had to leave behind for awfully timing when I launched it. These are the types of things that need to be said across yhe ttrpg community. Thank you for taking the stand.
"It's like those people who say 'the only acceptable sex is between a man and a woman and in the missionary position', but there's many ways to party!" Laughed out loud. What a great line in a great video, as a new PF2E diehard i didn't know that people were gatekeeping the difficulty of the game. There's so many reasons to play PF2E over other games outside of the combat!
I have unironically seen people (as in, actual PF2e players on the Paizo forums!) refer to PF2e as "a tactics game with roleplaying elements", instead of a roleplaying game. Even though exploration and downtime modes exist, and even though the game has _far_ more rules for handling, say, the way your world's economy works, than 5e does.
@peterstedman6140 Then shouldn't they have made it a variant rule? The core rulebook is meant to cater to new players especially. In that case, it really shouldn't have the very first level, the player's first experience with the game, is the most difficult
@@TheNeoanomally So someone suggesets low levels are hard, your proof they are not is that you run high level games, thast not good evidence, its the opposite evidence, you need to talk about low level campaigns.
The optimal way to play any ttrpg is to have fun at your table, simple as. If someone else is playing it differently but still having fun, that's a good thing and shows what a great product it is. Live and let live. Great video @theruleslawyer
My issue with casters boils down to one sentiment, there shouldn't only be one 'right way' to play a caster. Right now so much of the design makes assumptions that hinder character/build diversity. I don't care about small damage loss. I care that Paizo hasn't specifically address the community's concerns. The annoyingly loud minority of the community saying "git gud" isn't providing anything to the discussion.
I agree so much with you! I am not a fan of blasters and melee casters (those pretty much never worked in any system though), but I do understand that you should at least give the options. If to build an all around team of thaumaturgers or other martial classes is so easy, why is to make a wizards only party work so clunkily?
I've gm'ed the BB for friends of my 5e group, purposely giving them a bit more power (or in the case of the cleric, mistakenly way more) and they had a blast; at first neither of us understood all the actions and strategies, but in the final battle everyone remembered how to position, use their reactions and when to heal and was reaaaaally awesome to experience that progression; We are now playing AV with 1-level over characters and they try a lot more strategies and risky moves, just because this system allows a lot of interesting things; so in my experience, PF2 does not need to be this hardcore souls-like thingy, players can enjoy the strategy, the awesome feeling of remembering and using something cool that the team can do (ie, planing to flank an enemy and looking other ways to get that off-guard bonus) and be the powerful main characters of the adventure. (And, just in case it's not obvious, 5e is really fun to play too, but i feel that pf2 makes way more enfasis in teamwork and cool strategies).
13:30 Yes this is an example of behavior that 5e communities have to deal with from the PF2e space, yet PF2e players don't have to deal with the same from 5e. PF2e just has a toxicity problem in general. It may not be something most people in the PF2e community have, but it's definitely higher than it is in other communities. I've tried telling you guys this since before the OGL debacle, that if you want more players to try PF2e, you should clean house more seriously.
I too have noticed this sense of elitism growing in the PF2 community, especially in certain groups within. In discord when I asked at one point heavy homebrew item advice while staying within the games item creation guidelines, I got heavy verbal abuse for even trying to homebrew an item that "would not fit" the playstyle of 2e and "would break the game and the economy". I did not take it badly, but I certainly noticed that some people have very big issues with handling their perception of the game and the community.
This is to be expected, though. A lot of PF2e players play PF2e instead of other TTRPGs for a reason and there had been an unspoken agreement in the PF2e community, that I could be sure most people would be fine with RAW. A migration of DnD players with a known very different attitude towards RAW makes them afraid, they are now forced to play a game they know, they do not enjoy, so they become overly defensive. It's the same fear of the unkown which fuels xenophobia in real life and it's sadly a very natural reaction. At the very least the last few months have shown a much more vocal debate about how PF2e should be played. It's not unfair to assume, that this is actually a negotiation about the community's and game's future culture. Some people will get afraid PF2e's culture will change into a direction not bearable for them. I wish I would have advice on this issue, but considering we are already not able to find good solutions for this regarding migration in the real world, we just have to try and keep the debate as civil and understanding as we can. I wonder, what those people would have answered to the question: Why is me homebrewing my game such a concern for you? Although it likely sucks and will seldomly lead to constructice answers, we might need to get these people to voice their true frustrations and fears under this defensive behaviour.
@@JoniWan77 Yes I can see that. The issue was that I am experienced in 2e and knew how to make items and how they might affect the game. I just wanted arrows of slaying in my game. :b
@@Nyug3rto be fair, with how solidly RAW Pf2e works it's often kinda scary to homebrew 'cause you're afraid of breaking a perfectly balanced game. I have dabbled into homebrewing since the party's Champion so she can have her "Final Fantasy vibes," but I admit I'm always nervous when doing so. Still, that's why you went to ask for advice in the first place.
Totally agree! Man but the shift to pf2e's difficulty is scary exciting. The first time we had someone critted with ongoing damage there was an awful scene where we were trying to stop their bleeding and it came down to the flat DC15 to recover. It was my character, and I made it, but it could've gone differently. We adapted, and found anti-bleeding equipment to use, but the fear is there.
Paizo themselves say including trivial and easy encounters are super important and I feel this gets ignored. Choose the difficulty you want for sure. I worry that many GMs are overstraining their players with PL+1 or greater being more the default when the game itself describes PL+1 as a low level boss and it creates a fatigue.
TBF for a lot of the early APs that were published, Paizo themselves didn't really follow their own "easing in" guidelines. (Light Spoilers for Extinction Curse below) Extinction Curse has you going through a whole-ass temple of Gozreh at expected character level 3, dealing with corrupted cultists. Many of these cultists have a special ability akin to Rage which gives their tridents a Striking rune and Fatal d10 - and these creatures are themselves level 2 or 3, and since they're given monster stats (which are tilted in the monster's favor when compared 1:1 with a PC) they can easily crit someone, which would deal 5d10 damage, an amount able to down a squishy from full - in fact, it did just that, downing our Rogue and our Summoner. It's a pretty common wipe zone from my understanding asking around the forum, since the area is chock-FULL of them, and it's a notable problem in many of the earlier APs. They really wanted to lean in on harder encounters out-of-the-box without really pushing forward any of the tools in the APs to help ease the players into the idea. We did end up wiping there, but we are the type of group who didn't fuss too bad and simply made new PCs and pushed on with a vengeance. It's a real onboarding problem when, since the beginning, 2e is going for a nice, easily customizable encounter system that can make any kind of party feel satisfied, but then the first APs (published and vetted by the same company and likely the first, most-obvious things most people want to test the system out with) really seem to want to grind you into paste and don't seem to hint to potentially-new GMs ways of making it less brutal.
The real optimal way to play a pre-written campaign or module begins with reading it, memorizing stat blocks and placements of important items and traps. This also buffs casters, since you already know what spells you should prepare at any point in the campaign, and what all the resistances and saving throws are. This is how videogames are played at the highest level, after all. But I don't think many people would like to participate in a TTRPG game like this.
100% agree with adjusting difficulty. Sometimes the party has a messed up party comp and sometime it’s not even their fault! I built my barbarian to help assist our fighter but he ended up quitting the campaign. Suddenly I was the sole front liner and was built to support someone who wasn’t there! Adjusting difficulty would have helped a lot
Teacher, PF2E GM, and one of the people who feels mages are nerfed too hard. Thank you! Everytime I post about the house rules we use to lower the difficulty curve, and bring casters up to martials, I have these people commenting.
Same, I switched to PF2E a little before WoTC shit the bed, because I was having issues inherent to 5E, and I immediately felt spellcasters are too weak. I won't go into my points, because that isn't the point, but I meet the same resistance. The community is super insular, xenophobic, and into heavy gatekeeping. It was the first thing I noticed on the PF2E reddit and also on Paizo's own forum. Any criticism is treated like you area secret WoTC agent who just wants to shit on the game and Paizo. So I play PF2E heavily modified with houserules, almost more than I needed for 5E at this point because honestly my group has found the game to not be all that fun as is. It works out of the box, but it instead has issues with meeting expectations for us. We are only still using it because it is way better with its Foundry integration than 5E was, and without all the bullshit of subscribing to D&D Beyond or some such. Its got alot going for it, but there are some big areas it falls flat too. Unfortunately, none of that can be productively discussed in any major forum because of the PF2E community being so defensive and uninviting.
Taking this a step further - I find that different people in my party expect different levels of difficulty. So I switch up the difficulty of fights, social encounters etc throughout my campaigns to try to keep everyone interested. I do my best to advertise when something is more or less difficult, so the players know what to expect, and who should take the lead and when.
I find that the problem newer or less tactical players face isn’t necessarily “I hate being challenged” or even “I hate failure”, but rather that they dislike the inability to express their character’s abilities using the mechanics. If you feel like your character is useless in a combat encounter, that isn’t fun. If you feel like you have to stick to certain “optimal” abilities to succeed, that can feel limiting to your expression and role playing. In my experience, challenging encounters or the threat of failure or even a TPK can be fine as long as the players feel like they have a chance, and feel like every action they take contributes in some way to their potential success. When the difficulty is too high, players may feel like they are forced to take certain actions or use certain party setups or they won’t even have a chance, which might be fine for the tactical minded players who get enjoyment out of finding those optimal strategies and solving the puzzle of how to survive, but for players who are more focused on the role playing aspect and want to see their imagined concepts carried out in game, it won’t be as fun to feel like your freedom of expression is limited in the name of strategy. I understand that every ttrpg is going to be limiting to some degree; that’s just the nature of having a rule system in the first place. And yes, I think some players may be better off finding a game that suits their playstyle more. But I think every ttrpg should be trying to give the players the freedom to play their concepts in a viable way, as long as that concept isn’t breaking the game in some way (ie creating an alien with a spaceship in a fantasy game). Bit of a ramble but TLDR; the problem is less that combat can be challenging, more so that it can make players feel useless or restricted to certain “correct” paths, rather than giving them the freedom to create a concept and have it be viable.
One of my favorite rpgs is GURPs because it combines the ridiculously crunchy (arguably the most crunchy mainstream ttrpg on the market) aspect with a huge amount of freedom. It can be very difficult to learn at first, and puts a pretty heavy burden on the GM, but you can create so many different viable builds and concepts with so many different paths to success without sacrificing the tactical and problem solving aspects. Pathfinder 2E has the same potential within it, but gatekeepers refuse to accept that freedom in favor of having a “right way” to play? If that’s what you care about, play a video game, or a strategy game like warhammer, rather than a role playing game, where the whole point is freedom of expression
So I personally am one of the mentioned 5e vagabonds. I played the system, invested a lot of money, and no longer wanted to support the company. And it's a shame that that is what it took for me to find pf2e because I love the system, the lore, and the flavor (not to mention the art style and item design) of pf2e vastly more. The community seems so fractured which is hard to believe when there's such a strong system that everyone in the community is behind. The beauty of a ttrpg is that the GM can tailor that game for their table. So why is everyone so up in arms what happens at other people's tables? I believe they might worry that if "popular opinion" of the core consumer base starts demanding changes to move it towards what 5e is they will lose the game they have. And I understand that concern, but at the same time if people want 5e but don't want to support WotC, the PF2E community shouldn't be gatekeeping, they should welcome people in and say "I hear you, and we've got a lot that's similar to hold you over, but while we're doing that why don't you check out all these ancestries real quick" Welcome people in, show them what you've got to offer, and grow your friggin' community. Show them that you're better and they'll naturally follow.
I have read quite a few post and complaints which could be boiled down to "the DM ramped up the difficulty because that's what they do in 5e and now everyone is dying" or "I don't know there is a thing that RAW allows me to do the thing my 5e DM homebrewed for me". Pretty much no one plays D&D 5e everyone is just playing "something like" D&D 5e. Many people carry this expectation of I'm the game designer and this is my game into Pf2e. This then often has unforeseen and bad consequences. If this then comes up time and time again people develop an annoyed don't temper with the rules you don't understand attitude. This attitude then leads to some rude comments and these really leave a bad impression of the Pf2e community. I haven't tried yet but I think Pf2e is easier to teach to players who don't know D&D5e.
I run pf2e, and my combats are puzzles, but I would not characterize them as a challenge in the sense these people understand it. I use pf2e because it has a lot of support and flexibility when creating puzzle encounters, I love the way the weakness/ resistance system works, I love the way buffs/ debuffs interact, it gives me many tools to play with and piece together in strange convoluted ways. So am I playing wrong? I haven;t lost a PC yet, they're not ever in any real risk of dying, they got many tools and options on their side, and they use them to figure out each puzzle thoroughly and hten sovle it, I give them the time for that... They can lose encounters of course, so as to not have them spent 20 turns on one combat, but this tends to happen because they challenged something they just were not ready for. It's an rpg game, with a DM explicitly, rule 0 is the DM is right, so definitly there are correc ways to play, but there's as many correct ways to play, as there are players to play the game.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG With all the curtains drawn back, my design philosophy for each puzzle is basically as follows: Set up a big problem, and then attach to this central problem appropiate smaller problems, depending on the complexity (and the amount of sessions I aim for) this can be as simple as 1 big problem and 1 small problem (A boss creature and a scheming minion) or a great many small problems (We have a mad necromancer on the other side of this crypt and he's controlling way more undead than he should, and this place is huge oh dear.) The goal though is always the same: solving the "small problem" should be worth doing in the strictest interpertation. In the example of the boss and minion, the minion buffs the boss, and lends it more powerful actions, kill the minion, boss becomes weaker, and weaker to the degree where killing the minion is faster than if you kept it alive. The key difficulty with this (though I find it very rewarding if it works out) is naturally that what makes sense to me, may not make sense to you. Often players can more or less grasp that "solve small then big" makes sense, but the sticking point can be the small problem... that said, it's not all that different than teaching people how combat works, after all we both do still follow the line "That thing is being bad, let's do something about it", and we even do largely use the same tools (though admittedly, in a different ratio, I think my fighter has spent more actions throwing his small party members around rooms with gliders than he spent on the strike action...) A worked example would be an outer entity worshiped by a cult, the cultists collected souls of sacrifices to make bulk offerings to their master. This was naturally a bad thing to do, so stopping this cult was the main problem. Te smaller problems were, the cult itself, the soul totem to which the sacrificed souls were enslaved awaiting their devouring, artifacts and teachings. In this example, the players managed to overcome the cult by corrupting its doctrine, taking out one key member, and hiding a favoured artifact. The outer entity got pissed at the head priest and devoured him instead. During the chaos of which the party managed to steal the totem and have it be purified at the temple.
I really prefer playing this way as well. I think of it as degrees of success rather than failure and character death. I'd rather take a character through several ups and downs where encounters weren't resolved "optimally" but nobody died than having to throw out all the investment in a character and start from scratch.
My GM plays the game at the default difficulty and we feel like we earn our victories. I kind of wish the difficulty was a little lower so less optimal fun builds could thrive. If I was running a game with more casual players I would probably have all the characters get a +1 to AC, all saves, attack rolls, and skills and give them an extra level worth of hp. I wouldn't level them up since that effects spell ranks(levels) the players have access to. Alchemist getting expert attacks at lvl 5 and master at lvl 13. Yea Alchemist love the idea of making bombs that martial classes can throw better. +1 to spell attack rolls for casters at lvl 11 or 13; or let them buy something to keep their spell attack rolls even with martials. For the most part I like the rules. It depends on what is meant by gate keeping. I like Pathfinder 2e and I would like more people to play it. Gate keeping people out of game bad. In this context bad. Other times it is used against fans who wants the IP owners to stay consistent with the tone and quality of an IP. I was in a game where we were 3 to 6 months in and a player tried to convince everyone else to switch to 5e D&D instead. We didn't change games and he still played with us. So we were kind of gate keeping there.
The subreddit is downvote happy if you express any opinion not in complete agreement with the system being perfect as is. Which is why they're having meltdowns with the remaster's rule changes
^This, they will not tolerate any criticism, because according to them PF2E is flawless, so obviously changes made for the remaster causes cognitive dissonance for them.
@@davidbowles7281 personally classes and levels aren’t flaw if those support system. While those cause limits, those also help to create roles which have unique features while being easier to learn.
honestly, having all your encounters be Trivial-to-Moderate or Moderate-to-Extreme aren't even variants, they're just pacing options like choosing 10 VP or 15 VP thresholds for a skill challenge
I love tactical combat, but I'm not a fan of how Pathfinder's primary measure of difficulty seems to be increasing failure rates. Having a creative and tactically sound plan fail because the D20s are cold isn't very fun, nor challenging me to step up.
love your channel, ive ran path 1st ed for years (since it came out really) and have been playing 2nd ed online for a few months now and looking forward to running the new one for my table, this has given me the confidence i need. still worried but getting there!
I think that like anything else RPGs form camps. Both around the game, and even game minutiae. Especially in games where continual tinkering and multiple paths are present. Like you said, everyone has different expectations for their play, but many players in the various games approach it from different levels of fixation. The only right way to play is one that allows fun for you but also the other folks at the table. The “get good” crowd has pulled their mentality from video games into RPGs, which viewing the cross over is probably natural but not necessarily compatible to ttrpgs.
The "get good" crowds are honestly probably coming from older editions of D&D games when you died in one hit from a kobold spear. They believe anything else is not in the spirit of the game.
I've been playing Pf2e now for almost a year and have been GM-ing it for a while too (GM-ing AP's specifically), and my personal opinion on the system has honestly swung quite wildly from one area to another... A few months ago I would have said I prefer 2e, now after playing it even more I'm honestly not so sure I like it over 1e, and one of the things that is impacting my experience is the difficulty... To give an example, I was GM-ing Agents of Edgewatch and noticed that in the last dungeon there's a room with a mimic in it and the party is lv 3... Now, the DC to notice it is a mimic is so high it's almost impossible outside of a nat 20 (DC 28 unless you lower the DC for obvious conditions, but even then it's extremely difficult). Now, the party is lv 3 and the Rogue, who has the highest reflex save at a +11 can only keep his weapon from getting stuck on the mimic with a DC 23 Reflex save, which is less than half the time... Even giving that mimic the 'weak' template just for the purposes of that gives him a 50/50 shot at doing what he felt as a player he was supposed to be good at and it frustrated him as a player, and if it's only a 50/50 shot for him, that's nearly impossible for anyone else... And I thought back to a lot of my encounters in 2e as a player and it made me realize... I don't ever feel like I'm actually 'good' at anything in 2e. That math, the design around AP's giving you about a 50/50 shot at something that you are as good as you can be at it, remains quite consistent throughout AP's in my experience, and the result is I never feel it is worth it doing anything other than what I have basically min-maxed at, and even then I don't feel good about it because I know it working is still basically just a coin flip, and the ways to stack the cards in your favor is immensely restricted in 2e... That lack of agency is very frustrating to me and my players, especially when I see the DC's and rolls that enemies have... I don't 'feel' like I'm a 'master' at things because I know being a 'master' at it really means toss and coin and hope for heads. I know this is solvable by homebrew, but it's still fairly irksome... I'm not looking to succeed at literally everything, but I at least want to feel like I'm actually good at the things I'm supposed to be good at.
The great thing about pf2 is not the difficulty (I agree is way to hard on baseline) but how easy is to lower or increase the difficulty. Give your players +1 level vs an AP, or apply the weak template to every monster. I currently have 3 groups, 1 plays on standard hardcore diff, 1 with a free additional character (No adjustment on difficulty + more hero points) and 1 group with every monsters on -1 level. Some people like the difficulty, others like to feel more powerful, 2e is the easiest game to tune up or down imo
Mimic is a pretty special case, it's meant to do those things and without them it's not really much off a monster at all. That is the issue it always suffered from in pathfinder 1e, players being able to auto-succeed against it's gimmick. It's fine if that doesn't vibe with you game design wise, but in 2e you don't auto-succeed at things as much anymore. The dice matter a bit more, and it makes small bonuses more impactful. But I can understand where you're coming from. 1e may be more your style, or a system like FATE that allows the dice to be more in your favor for things you've chosen to be good at. 2e's focus is on teamwork, and if you can't do something, the team can usually make up for it by trying different things. In the case of the mimic, you've got 4 party members to fight it. If it can't get it's signature ability off SOMETIMES wheres the threat?
If you don't like an AP then you don't like an AP. How does that have anything to do with the system at all? Not saying this is my opinion but I'll use this as an example: If you hate baldurs gate 3 because the skill checks are too high, is that DNDs problem? No, it's Larion Studio's problem.
I for one can defo feel this. Pf2e is less of an individual powerfantasy. And after trying Abomination Vault, I really don't see the value in APs, outside of getting ideas to homebrew into your own games.
PF2E is a collection of rules and at most tables not all rules should be applied. I tend to try to use as many as i can, for example though if I have a group good at roleplaying encounters i don't use the turn based social encounters rule for example. Play it the way you want and find people that also find that fun. 😊
My only real addition to the whole Caster business is that right now it feels like the overwhelming majority of casters have "Versatility" as their fantasy. Psychic and Kineticist seem to break the mold, but certain casters should have had an identity; supportive, debuffing, control, damage, etc. Imagine if all martials could /only/ do damage. Because dealing damage was the 'martial fantasy'. There's not a 'type' fantasy, there's a 'class' fantasy. Versatility/"The Batman Caster" should be an option, or the focus of ONE class, not all of 'em
Ultimately, I agree with the message that it's OK to make the game easier, but the implication that people complaining about casters just aren't as good at the game, or even that the majorwof the complaints are about them being to weak, is a bit dismissive.
GMs, regardless of what game they're running, are allowed to adjust the difficulty of the game as needed to keep the game fun. The "rules" aren't rules, they're guidelines.
i am hardocre dumb with my games, i did a SL1 run in dark souls and DS3, so yes, i like the difficulty in games and hitting my head until the wall breaks (killed the first assylum demon with only fists in DS for the LOLs), and beat xcom 2 in ironman hard mode (not in impossible, because im not that good) a couple of times, but not only i know, it is obvious, that not everyone likes that kind of thing, and that you arent obligated to play hardcore strategy as a DM with a group that prefers chill roleplay. And more importantly, just make sure that your players are having fun, because if they dont like to play in that style, its easy to see and feel they arent having fun in the moment, and that campaign you "enjoy" so much will probably get cut short Also, even if you have to dial down the tactical combat and do more exploration and conversations and other things, you still have in your arsenal your tactical mind for when you need to make a really hard encounter, if you foreshadow a hard combat, and they crash into it, the game gives you the tools to make it as hard as you wanna and to know how hard it is beforehand also also, a lot of people are trying pf2e coming from 5E, and its not easy to change the perception of things, casters are bad in pf2e because en 5E they have a full keyboard of "i win" buttons, combat is hard because the combat in 5E is marcial=i walk to them and hit, caster=i win button number X, buffs are weak in pf2e because they give you a higher chance of doing something while in 5E you do what you want and what your friends want and remove curse has no upper limit. (Im sorry if this feels like im attacking 5e but its just how i felt playing it related to combat, i'm not saying that 5E is bad, on the contrary, i think it gives a lot more freedom to roleplay, but it doesnt come from the rules written, but from the culture of homebrewing, and say what you want, but 5E evolved by itself into a new version where everyone feels comfortable homebrewing things to play whatever they like, and that is like the biggest freedom, because if you want info in how to do something in DnD you dont get as much "do as the rules say" as you get "my DM homebrew this, i'll link you the document") so please, just have patience, its not something that you can change in one day, and i know it can be frustrating, and some people simply dont want to change systems, but im sure the majority of players arent like that, and if you make it fun for them, sooner or later they will start to feeel more comfortable with the system
What's really concerning about the posts in the beginning are that both of them are "Top Contributors". I love the difficulty of Pathfinder and how it requires teamwork but I also totally understand that it's not for everyone.
Well said. I have two groups, one is 6 players of 20 yr veterans, they love the standard difficult and are very tactical. They love Severe encounters. My other group of 5 are all new to RPGs and less savvy. I tend to give them more Moderate and Low encounters. Challenging is fun, deadly is not.
Well said. As a fellow strategy/tactics lover, it also never ceases to amaze me there are some (only some) judgey people in the optimization community that will never have an original thought, download a build/watch a streamer, and then engage with the power fantasy of a strong character while pretending they are somehow an extra analytical player. Play how you and your table agree is right for you and don't judge what is right for other players.
I will say it's not just an optimization community issue, either - I've seen plenty of casual gamers (and even caught myself engaging in) trying to make assumptions about how the system "should" be run, as it is a fairly well-oiled machine. Therefore it can be easy to forget that what some might find as funny quirks in the system - such as the basic Vancian caster lineup being best played as generalists with a splash of specialization - others find annoying to the point of wanting to fix. Hell, I've gotten into debates with my own group about certain topics of our likes and dislikes of the system. Everyone can fall to assuming and, therefore, "making an ass out of you and me". The important part is to try and catch one's self before attempting to assert one's way of play on another.
"Git gud" Doesn't grow a large community. I can't argue that. I was raised on "Nintendo hard" and really enjoy the souls games, so sometimes I can be a bit of a dick. This video puts some things into perspective, like it's not just a tactical game. I will try to keep that in mind for my online discussions. I left 5e because of the Ogl thing. Watched some videos on Pf2e and saw the complexity with a tight rule system. It appeals to my appreciation of needing good tactics with amazing character options. The game working at high levels is even a stronger draw to me. I am here to stay now and will try to politely drag others here with me.
A major issue is how you find the resources as a new player. Finding the reddit and going to the reddits PF2E discord was a MAJOR mistake, I've never in my life experienced such a gatekeeping, aggressive and disgusting community. Thankfully I found another discord that's much better.
I find it really funny when I see these types of toxic comments about Pathfinder 2e being a super tactical and difficult. This is because my friend groups all kind of run it in a way that can be tough at times, but overall prioritizes the fun and empowerment of the whacky and very themed characters. So to me it's a little weird to hear about how hard and grueling this system is because I've always played it and ran it the way my groups enjoy it. It's a ttrpg. You can customize, homebrew, and make changes that are tailored to your group. Pathfinder 2e is exceptional in having rules and resources that help you do that without the DM needing to do all the work.
One thing to add into this: often game groups include some amount of compromise. Very rarely have I been in a play group where everyone has the same strengths as players and are coming to the game for the same reason. Maybe I'm an outlier but I've mostly just played with people I'm already friends with. Some of them are crunchier, some of them are better at improve and roleplaying, and they are each more familiar with some systems over others. I'm sorry if you have a GM and 3 or 4 players who are able to coordinate there schedules to play a weekly game, if the difficulty needs to be lowered a bit because you have some less tactical players and you want to keep everyone happy then that sounds like a no-brainer. Granted, it is good to include some more tactical elements for the players who enjoy that, but it doesn't have to be every fight or you can lean into the types of decisions that there character would be making.
Great video i think a lot of people (to some extent myself included!) need to hear this. Also i have come to love low threat encounters myself and can definitely get behind not always wanting to make the most tactical fight ever. Sometimes you just want to bonk some bad guys on the head. :) Thanks for the video!
Yeah - in video games with levels (and without that auto-level encounter BS), it's often fun to drop in unexpectedly to a lower-level area/encounter and absolutely wreck things that gave you a tough time five levels ago... and the same is true in a TTRPG. It really drives home the progression of your character(s).
5:30 I personally ran a tutorial-like campaign for my players over the course of 4-6 sessions to acclimate them to the game. Some are more tactical in their choices, but one of them still doesn't have that "mind and heart" to overcome a challenge. So I'm doing my best to get them there. It's not that the game is overwhelming them, it's more about having the perseverance to see a bad situation through. 7:13 XCOM has proven to me that when it rains it will most certainly pour. 15:13 And this phrase is the one black mark on the video. Thanks for the video.
Man a video about how to make a good caster would be great. Im a beginner in pf2e and I like the difficulty but I also dont like to be a weak character or to make poor decisions.
This feels a lot like the discussion and gatekeeping around Dark Souls or Elden Ring. "Why would you use summons, multiplayer, spellcasting etc, you're taking away the challenge and ruining the game" as if these games are only defined by their difficulty and not the awesome worldbuilding and level design, fascinating take on storytelling, fun rpg elements / character building and everything else that goes into them. I feel like this attitude sells these games way short. Same with PF2e which is far more than just "harder 5e"
It's like the baby boomer symptom of "You're not worthy if you didn't suffer like us". Simply, put it. These are people with fragile egos that want others to experience the same thing they had experienced because they consider that experience "superior" and anything that deviates from the path they took are "worthless" or "trash". A very toxic mindset which unfortunately tarnishes a community, as these individuals, need to be vocal about their preferences to satisfy their own egos.
@@ashrunzeda4099 To be fair, sometimes there is the argument to be made, that some go to behaviour to win and ease the challenge makes a game objectively more boring and less fun (this is usually a mistake some video games do by giving you "safe" options, which are in effect both boring AND less safe). So trying to get people out of their own comfort zone may be beneficial to their fun. E.g. Dark Souls is probably more fun and a better game if you engage in the evasion and parry mechanics instead of relying on range, summons and/or shields. HOWEVER, this argument always stands on VERY shaky boots. You have to be really sure other people want to get the same out of the game and are merely limiting their fun by engaging in evasive behaviour. So the argument always has to begin like this: "IF you play X for Y, then you should probably do Z." This is almost never the case for TTRPGs, since the gameplay mechanics are not nearly catered around a certain playstyle enough to make such a take or argument worthwhile.
In defense of the Soulsborne community, a lot of the times people get upset over this is because by using stuff like summons and multiplayer, you end up not engaging with a lot of the mechanics of Elden Ring, why bother with figuring out the bosses attack pattern and dodging all of his attacks, or time your party just right to get a riposte, when you could just summon and stand at a distance with spells. I'm not saying you're wrong for playing that way, I did the same on my first playthrough, however at the end of the game, and after going through it again on a vagabond playthrough, I realized I robbed myself of experiencing all the game has to offer with it's mechanics. While it is cringe for fans to be like "you don't play this specific way you're not a real fan" I do also believe that fans should ENCOURAGE newcomers to at least try to engage with the game more. Because when you're actively engaging with timed dodging, parrying, riposte, backstabbing, and just going ham with melee weapons, it can be really fun, and I highly encourage newcomers to give it a try.
@@desmondnomad5319 But you still engage in the mechanics though. In the early game, ashes are too weak to kill bosses themselves. It requires player intervention to kill Morgott or Radahn. Attacking these bosses at least once will trigger aggro away from the ashes, and that's the point where the player, by using your point, "engages" with a lot of the mechanics in Elden Ring. Don't act like the player can finish the game without figuring out the mechanics nor act like the ashes have the capability of carrying players whilst they do nothing. One simply cannot beat the major bosses of this game using the mimic tear alone without a ton of build optimization, and even then, build optimization requires players to engage in the mechanics of Elden Ring as stats alone, is by no means an indicator that you can have success/avoid death in the game. Just see all those people who use cheats in PvP being killed by non-cheating players. At the end of the day, there is no defense in forcing people to play a certain playstyle. One can encourage others yes, but that requires typing persuasive and thoughtful comments that most of the community simply cannot do, as they're too focused in spamming "git gud" in comments and forums. In the end, ER is a game where fun matters the most. We just need to mind our own business and allow others play however they want to play, for as long are they have fun with it. ESPECIALLY if they just stick to OFFLINE/SINGLE PLAYER MODE. If they don't heed our suggestions, then it's fine for there are a multitude yet valid reasons for them NOT to change their playstyle.
Loved the video Ronald, and always appreciate your passion inclusiveness in the hobby. I know we could all do a better job of being good ambassadors, myself included.
I haven't had a chance to play 2e (we're still on 1.5E), but having read through the 2e rules, there is a well detailed section on tailoring the difficulty of the game for your players. Seems that if the game was designed for its difficulty to be tailored to its players, than the default difficulty is a "rule of thumb", not a set feature.
I think the first question asked and issue taken up by a game group is always "Are we here to have fun, and what is fun for us?" Remember that the rules and the game difficulty is only a part of the full gaming experience. Our group specifically enjoys playing our stories and making our achievements (even if only by dumb luck sometimes). Once in a while, a GM we encounter tries to make the game GM vs players, and we try to muddle through having fun until they get it and we all start having fun together. Sometimes, though, one might get upset and become vindictive and upset that we would rather have fun than "win" the campaign. If they set the thumbscrews on the campaign, we get upset, change our characters, completely demolish the campaign, and then nobody's having fun. It's not that we do not like "crunchy" games, or that we are not tactically minded, we just like to follow our character's stories first. We still play Pathfinder 1.5E because one of our friends prefers crunchy games and we are accommodating him, and we can still do tactics. Once I created a bladesinger in d&d 5e that took zero damag dealing spells, and she was still terrifyingly effective, because spells plus good tactics always works. The only time I got in trouble was when the bad guys threw two fireballs at me to put a stop to my shenanigans, and a wizard still only has a wizard's hit points.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Ah! Sorry about the slow reply. Swapped out my CPU on my PC and added RAM, so it's down for the count right now. Seems I have misspoken. Scanned the game mastery section in the core rulebook, and the game mastery guide, and didn't find it. I'm used to adjusting encounters on the fly, so I guess I saw the nice difficulty and xp chart and automatically assumed the rest. If you want, I could write up a short article about setting up ones game to adjust difficulty on the fly, which you could give to your viewers.
I fully agree. One thing though is that there's fine line between reasonable suggestions about adjusting to the system in order to get the most out of it vs accepting the need to accomodate different people's playstyles. Saying "don't play a spellcaster in PF2 unless you're ok with taking on more of a utility/support role compared to spellcasters in other systems" is justified, even though it is a sort of gatekeeping. Whereas "if your character dies you aren't allowed to be upset because it's your fault for not getting good" is unjustified gatekeeping (in addition to obviously being rude).
It is an under-appreciated feature of pf2 that the game rules include a robust system for tuning the difficulty level. If we like the rules, why wouldn’t we use them? Unless you don’t want to use them. That’s okay too.
I started GMing my first campaign a few months ago with every player either 100% new to 2e, or 100% new to TTRPG's. But I had the benefit of 5 players, and we ran through the Beginners Box to start. One of my players purchased the entire Age of Ashes adventure path, so we're now running that, keeping the custom characters they made in the Beginners box, but the players are still level 2, so the opening parts of the adventure is much easier (because there are 5 of them, and they're over leveled for the early stuff).
There actually is only 1 way to play PF2e ... the way the group is having fun playing it and it likely will be a different way from most other groups. And that is good!
One of my first experiences after deciding to run PF2e was joining the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Facebook group to help learn the system and ask questions of other GMs. With so many leaving 5e, as I was, I asked people about character builds in Pathfinder that fulfilled the popular architype of the hard hitting paladin smite builds from 5e. The post got hundreds of comments with, not all but, the majority being negative and attacking me even bringing up such a thing. To the point that the moderators banded me from the group. That was such a negative experience that I haven't interacted with a single person that also plays Pathfinder 2e since; other than my players. Who are all having a great time with the system despite the seemingly large amount of terrible people in the Pathfinder community.
To be fair, I find the FB groups to be more toxic and less well-moderated than the Pathfinder subreddit (which isn't without its own issues). And to be perfectly honest, I've heard that the best community to talk PF2 is my own Discord server! =D (Link in description)
I'm just frustrated that because the majority of spells have the manipulate trait that my magus spellstrikes trigger reactive strikes. And honestly, that's more of an issue with magus not getting something protecting them from reactive strikes when using spellstrike.
If I wanted to be told that I play my rpgs the wrong way, I would have stayed with D&D or the OSR. Although I have not had the pleasure of playing Pathfinder, just reading the book makes me understand that there are more possibilities than just a tactical dungeon crawler. So I don't understand why people are so obsessed with "this is how the game should be played" when the game itself says otherwise.
Great video. I think it's always good to be reminded that just because a player doesn't vibe with the system, even if they genuinely aren't tactically minded, doesn't give anyone the right to talk down to them like they're children who need to be "coddled," as that one commenter said.
Ronald, it feels like you've been talking about making the "how to caster good" video forever now. Is making this video turning out to be harder than you expected? I'm excitedly waiting for it to finally release
It wouldn't be the only video that keeps getting pushed back due to other things needing to be done first! My monk series was initially planned in January!
The argument around lowering the difficult of encounters should be around reducing combat time to increase exploration time overall. In time, the "normal" encounter is going to feel a lot more tough, and the hard encounter like a boss fight.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I'd love 2e's tacticalness and build-a-party for success instead of build-a-character for success as a cRPG where I was running all the characters myself. My TTRPG group on the other hand, has one person who insists on "doing his own thing", one person who is too risk-adverse to engage given the difficulty, and a couple of people who fell into the myth of "you can't make a bad character" that tends to get sold on the various 2e social media outlets so our first attempt at the system with AV has been a lot of frustration.
Yeah I 100% agree with your take on the tactics and build-a-party nature of PF2. Would be great for a cRPG where I control everything. At the tabletop it's a huge turnoff and puts extra unneeded pressure on players to not do what they want, and instead do what the meta needs for the party. I feel like ttrpg's most of the time should be, or at least facilitate, a party of people "doing their own thing". Should not EXPECT a well oiled machine of teamwork and precision.... can play that way sure, but should not be the default expectation.
I think the you can't build a bad character myth is misrepresented, you can make a character that doesn't fit into a campaign so you can't utilize the character to the full potential in the current game, for your example of AV, it is why I really like the player guides that advise players what to expect. Whenever I do a homebrew game I use those as a rough template to advise my players what to expect and what classes and ancestries would really excel in the game. (However, this list is still only suggestions usually).
Also I think any ttrpgs first few sessions are always a little frustrating as you are all learning at the same time. Learning it together after a short while it becomes less cumbersome and I still get rules wrong 2 years into it. (Happened Monday)
@@gitrekt-gudson If you don't want to play as team them then why play as team? I don't think you need a well oiled machine but you need a machine that somewhat functions. You should fill certain roles in your team and that goes for every aspect of life. How do you want to extinguish a fire if no one wants to hold the hose? How do you want to cook if no one knows how to use the oven? When we were playing the PF2e beginners box I told my players you want someone at the front and they would very much appreciate not being alone at the front. I also told them that doesn't has to be another player it can also be a companion. I mentioned that healing is important in this game and they would need a healer but I also told them about the medicine skill. They didn't played the pregen characters and they certainly weren't a well oiled machine but they still manged to handle the encounters.
I think two things here. Gatekeeping can and is a healthy thing for a community. A good community should be for anyone, not for everyone. Some things need to be preserved for a community to be a community. That said, there is no reason to be an asshole, and lots of assholes will try to hide being assholes behind gatekeeping. There is nothing wrong with running lower difficulty encounters for a party that wants them or is struggling. Different campaigns and such play differently. I'd be concerned if my grittier sandbox played like another person's superhero epic.
Thsnk you..That line "a community should be for anyone not everyone" is perfect and puts into words what i've been trying to do for aages..and i'd say nerd culture/community very much was that originally but been pretty heavily made to be for everyone instead of anyone over time.
I post advice on the Paizo Pathfinder 2nd Edition forums under the name Mathmuse. I cannot describe a one true way to play PF2, because I learned most of my PF2 tactics from my players and have more to learn. They are quite creative, and I have to raise the difficulty of Adventure Path encounters due to their creative tactics. What is especially weird is that their characters are built around personalities and fun roleplaying rather than for optimized combat. Having an intuitive feel for what the other PCs want to do makes for fantastic teamwork. Nevertheless, I wonder how much of a "Learn the Game Properly" vibe I give when I provide tactical advice. I have been a mathematics professor and know that some styles of teaching mathematics turn people away from mathematics. Is the message, "You CAN play at high difficulty," intimidating? Also, I liked the reference to Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus.
Depends on the listener, context, how it's said. If you're worried you are piling on too much advice, just ask -- I do this -- "may I give a tip? Is this too much?" Thanks for recognizing the poem!
Honestly I feel like casters need a pure damage option - a class that focuses exclusively on dealing big damage and forgoes utility and support. It's the one thing keeping me from playing pf2e
I do feel Pathfinder 2E is far too difficult by default in it's balance. Being so dedicated to making it balanced and tactical it just ends up punishing newer or less 'optimized' (mostly meaning with party comp and tactical minded) players or given the dice are cruel to the players just able to make encounters players could do easily suddenly a life and death struggle. I think making it easier just by default is the best option and perhaps giving simple tools or suggestions to up the difficulty for groups capable of taking on harder challenges. It tends to be easier to add on for the sake of difficulty compared to taking things away.
It's not optimal but I'm one of the fellas that believe (against many people in my groups) that a dedicated healer is NOT necessary to the party. We're all veteran players and all I ask from them is: don't play in kamikaze mode and in most situations we're gonna be fine without a dedicated healer. That being said, I know that heals are important, but Pf2 offers a few ways to heal your group without the need of someone who's the whole purpose in life is to cast the heal spell.
There were alot of people posting on reddit simular oppinions to you, trying to be polite, and reason logically why gatekeeping was bad. They got downvoted into oblivion.
Honestly I've seen the exact opposite. Anyone who posts "casters bad" gets upvotes and awards, and anyone who says casters don't need to do more damage gets downvoted into oblivion.
If a game is tactical, I think it is better to encourage the players to adapt to a scenario not just to craft every encounter for "optimisers" who do the same "optimal" thing every time, only making each encounter more deadly than the last. Perhaps with more buy in, such as making it clear that certain special consumable resources should be gathered before a fight, or have a quest giving commander order the players to prepare the ground.
that does leave the problem of debuffing/applying conditions in pf2e is...well the most boring time I have ever had in an TTRPG, watching success after success from monsters, even targeting the supposed weaknesses, with crits being so rare that I can't remember any significant ones...yea, not fun.
Honestly, someone mentioning you might want to try a system better suited to your group’s needs COULD be solid advice IF it was coming from a helpful place instead of an elitist place. Such changes like that should come from the group itself generally. My group ultimately left PF1E for 5E after some of my players struggled to learn the rules and do well, even with help from the more proficient players and the GMs.
I've played TTRPG's since the early 2000's. I love crunchy tactical games. I was playing with a group going through Abomination Vaults. It was a group of 5, so the DM was adding a bit of extra difficulty to account for that. We were not having fun so he decided to run the encounters as is (for a group of 4). They were therefore slightly easier for a group of 5, but we had a much better time. PF2e difficulty is a nice finely tuned thing, but for some groups and some AP's it's not appropriate. And THATS OKAY. These commenters, these gate keepers, are so quick to forget that Rule 0 ALWAYS applies and FOR ANY REASON. If The GM would like to make sure players are having a good times, sometimes that means not following the suggested encounter difficulties and tuning them down a little bit. If these commenters don't like that, DONT PLAY IN THOSE GAMES.
Cardboard Mountain has a RUclips Video that I think presents the core of this issue. In his video called "D&D's Intentional Design Flaw (Its Cursed)," he describes how the game has two competing promises: the promises of meaningful tactical combat and the promise of effective story telling experiences. It is in balancing this two that D&D has one of it's biggest core problems and divides the player base from "casual" to "min-maxers" (or the various other terms that is levied at the two. As pf2e has many of the same origins, it would follow that it would have some of the same problems. It is unfortunate that in my experiences with many of the pf2e community the loudest individuals take on a purist mindset which emphasizes rising to meet the demands of the game rather that a more gradual progression. "Be like us or maybe don't play/maybe this game isn't right for you."
Continuing on to my personal experience with the caster discussion. There is a lot of thematic and mechanical expression of choices that can be meaningful in the game. However, pf2e does appear very aware of what it wants to be, and that is combat-oriented strategy game . As such, the weighted majority of its design prioritizes combat effectiveness and making optimal decisions in and out of combat. I feel like this is a bit of a false promise to story and role-playing folks: presenting systems which are interesting but take a back seat to overcoming adversaries. Caster classes seem to suffer a “utility/versatility tax”, having options to have multiple solutions to solve problems other classes may not have access to but at the expense of combat effectiveness. Worse, the breadth of spells makes it easy to load up on situational spells which will make for a narrow character, even if it fits the concept. For example, how often do you see mages value having Approximate, Sigil, or Dancing Lights, when spells like Electric Arc, Telekinetic Projectile, and Light exists? As pf2e is about choices and making meaningful decisions with those choices it seems very keen on creating scenarios where people will be suboptimal unless they are tactically minded, have had past experience, or are wired in the pf2e discussion.
This reminds me of when I played the Witcher 3. Everyone says it’s only good if you play on highest difficulty. Guess what? I don’t play a lot of video games and I enjoyed playing it at low difficulty. And I still needed to repeat some of the boss fights 😅 Not everyone starts at the same level and that’s okay
I like personally focusing more on weak mook encounters than minibosses early on to ease party in :'D I hundred percent agree with that "take it easy on new players and understand what they like" take, it shouldn't even be hot take
And the part that sucks I say is that this is almost facilitated by Paizo's encounter writing. Case in point, an encounter with two monsters: one dangerous on its own boss monster, and an electric lizard whose only purpose is to get scared and shock the bigger monster (hastening it) before fleeing. That's too Gary Gygax for someone like me.
I don't understand how that might encourage snobbish or condescending behavior. Drawing fans of any kind will also draw the a-holes of that same selection of people too, but both 5e and PF2 are tactical roleplaying games drawing players from the same selections save for one difference. One happens to be seen as the underdog going up against a top dog. Personally that's where I see that angst and pissy behavior coming from, at least.
I am new to Pathfinder. Coming from D&D due to the whole WOTC villain arc. I enjoy learning the tactical side of the game and trying to get better at it. My biggest challenge at the moment is finding another game to join. My LGS doesn't have Pathfinder Society and groups I'm apart of on social media seem to be more D&D focused.
It will always baffle me when "adjust your game to suit your players to ensure people enjoy themselves" is met with anything other than resounding support.
I would hazard to say because it is easier said than done and opens up the pitfall of conflicting wants from participants. Be it any form of group entertainment from sports to RPG. It is easy to say change it to make it more fun, less easy to explain how and even less so to please everyone.
Hence the push to have the most agreeable base rules, and the base rules is the first point of agreement to have a group to agree to play and the more deviations the great the task to get the original concordance needed to begin.
@@Vasious8128 It's really not that hard. Just try different encounters and see what kind they like best. Until my parties hit level 4 I generally run just easy to moderate encounters, and ease them into harder fights as they get more room for error and more options.
I couldn't agree more! It's literally one of the first rules in the core rulebook. "Feel free to alter or throw a rules to ensure that you have the most fun with the game"
The problem comes when one player loves that martials and castors are more ballanced in pathfinder 2e, but another player wants fun by buffing the castor to make it easier to play. You cannot please both players in this instance. and the greater weight should go to the player whos playstyle is more in line with the system you all agreed to play in session 0.
Please note that i am not saying the player that prefers a ballanced game should be the side the gm sides with all the time every time. I just mean that in a complex scenario more weight should be given to the player whos fun is in line with the core rules and values of the system you all agreed to play. If after a careful and respectful discussion you determine that the castors need a buff that should be the route you go.
I just don't think changing things to suit a single player, without considering other consequences of the decision, is always a net gain.
@@josephwille6464 The topic was on the difficulty of how games are run and encounter design, and in the thread featured it was referring to a party's general feel, not the opinions of a single player. This comment was not made in a vacuum, it was in response to the scenario in the video.
I'm learning pf2e along with my old dnd5e group, and after one (not that great) first session, they requested of me to take things more slowly. Which includes gradually building up encounters to normal difficulty.
Which I did for session 2, and now everyone is much more looking forward to session 3 than they ever did for session 2
Hey, you did the game wrong by elitists. And you know what? Your players had more fun. Please keep being an awesome GM. In the end of the day, nobody will remember the HP, but everyone will remember the scene.
@@stormlord1984 Most electronic RPGs start off very easy and ramp up. PF2E almost does the opposite. Level 1 is insanely dangerous.
Thank you. In my group since I am the research everything before even trying type I advised our group to come up with possible action combinations while and after creating a character
This way we mostly eliminated the 3rd action problem some players have
(everyone would find one or two actions their statblock or items would allow them to use their third action on, so that the game doesn't stop after the second action to look at the action rules to find something)
effectively the game for the start became more like baldur's gate where people had some extra actions, but this helped a lot with the flow and getting into it
now with more experience this is ofc no longer needed, but is still a good idea when creating characters
@@davidbowles7281 I legit had a TPK on the first session of the beginner box. And looking at the kobold encounter they died in I was thinking: "how is this encounter severe? should I ramp it up a little since it's the final fight of the session?". I didn't ramp it up and they still died.
Same, my group is also in the midst of a transition from 5e to PF2e, and its been rough. As the group by in large are fairly new to ttrpg's. Which small stuff such as builds is far more daunting for those new players.
The whole video made me think of Fire Emblem. Some people will play on casual. Others won't consider the game beaten until they've cleared lunatic. One way is more of a challenge, but neither is playing the game "better" than the other.
Adventure Paths certainly feel like Lunatic sometimes
Encounters feel very Gygax...
@@littlegiantj8761 There can be only one single true mantra for DnD/Pathfinder: " Almighty DM, our daily Tomb of Horrors give us, today!" - Whoever believes otherwise not only commits obvious terrible heresy, no, far worse, he is also objectively(!) wrong. ^^ - Edit: Praised be our spiritual overlord; Gary "GG" Gygax. 😁
Nothing to report, professor!
Accessibility options (including difficulty) are not a downside. Being "hard" is not a virtue.
I can definitely see the parallels.
When it comes to fire emblem I tend to play on hard mode, not lunatic. Not that I can't handle lunatic, but that difficulty is designed to be overly punishing and just blatantly unfair at times. In short, I am not having fun on lunatic, I'm just torturing myself.
Megan's in the bottom right corner!
EDIT: Awesome comment from @timjohnson2533 !
"I've come across more than a few Pathfinder player comments on the internet that absolutely dunk on 5e and/or it's players, and those that aren't playing optimally. Gatekeeping in games always amused me more than anything. Imagine these people, arms crossed, standing in front of a gate that has no wall attached to it. They squeal, they try to 'smug' at everyone who doesn't play what they play, or play how they play, and most sane people avoid the weirdos spouting this nonsense and walk around the gate into the open garden.
Gaming is an open garden. Sure, there are people desperately guarding those gates they erected themselves, but the truth is they block nothing. They're simply a traffic cone on this highway of awesome games and fun. Sure, you have to swerve, and roll your eyes, but it's fleeting, and they'll simply be left with their anger, leaning on their gate, wondering why nobody is doing what they say.
I'm old hat. I've been doing this for nearly 40 years. These types have always been in the gaming scene. They now just have the internet as a soapbox. But they're still pylons. Little more than people desperate to up their status by standing on the heads of others. In the end, they are forgotten. Joy is to be celebrated. Games are to be celebrated. It's a privilege to be able to play games with friends. The gatekeepers? They'll simply be the cobweb strewn skeletons leaned against ancient rusted gates in the middle of a forest that your players' characters will stumble upon :)"
and we're all better for it
4 dashes too much in thumbnail, other than that I agree!
@@migol_net I was aware! But it visually didn't look right given how tiny the hyphens were
@@TheRulesLawyerRPGBring in longer hyphens! If you use windows tho, you can try combo Ctrl + Alt + - which sometimes give you a longer one :)
One thing I like to do with for less tactical players is instead of using severe encounters for bosses, I give boss creatures +20 max hp and -2 to AC and saves. Results in players needing more damage to kill the bosses, yet also being more acurate, giving the illusion of difficulty while things are still managable for them.
That's fair; I just wouldn't call it an illusion of difficulty because it is a desired amount of difficulty for the group. I save that term for fudging HP behind the GM screen and similar practices
Mhm! Absolutely do this too. Not to make things “easier”, as if they have more HP and hit harder it can still be hard, but because it makes the versatile risks and options more satisfying. 40 to 60% chance of succeeding is technically strong but it doesn’t *feel* strong. And if they do have tactics or teamwork, they absolutely still deserve those fat stacks to set up crits.
I think that's a very interesting idea. Hitting feels more satisfying then missing and the higher chances can mathematically compensated by more HP. It also makes results more predictable and less random.
that's nice, also tbf that's something the creature building rules also state
This reminds me of a some testing they did for the original Halo AI. They had two groups of testers play the game. For one group, they gave the Elites more health, and for the other, Elites had less health. There was NO difference in the AI, but the group that played against the Elites who had more health rated their AI higher.
In other words, players perceived the enemy to be smarter and more challenging simply because it lived longer, not because it did more damage or had better armor or even behaved more intelligently. It simply had time to do interesting things before it died.
The tactical assumptions of pathfinder 2e should be more/better presented in the book
Without the community a lot of people would be lost in the dark, me included
I agree with this
I think people generally exaggerate how tactical this game is. There's a lot of cool things some characters can do, but there's also a lot of characters that just don't do much, and can't.
I'd LOVE to see more options for some skills that aren't strength/charisma based (or just medicine).
You can only max 3 skills to legendary, and if you're a dex fighter that chose to do dex/con/wis and int, focusing skill upgrades on arcane, thievery and stealth, what are you doing in combat other than striking? Well, in the encounters where you are allowed to try recall knowledge you can, but you've only got 1 of the 5 recall knowledge skills. You could try to hide, but in the APs I've played it's not always easy to do, and if an ally is doing things to make enemies flat footed, it's not that helpful.
I like the game, I love a lot of the options, but I do think most characters should have better third action options, and would love some non-strength based maneuvers.
@@GuybrushTThreepwood This is why I prefer classless systems.
@GuybrushTThreepwood in home games where the GM makes the encounters, the game can be as tactical or not as you and your table wants. However, APs are written with some assumptions in place...because they have to. One of these assumptions is that some level of teamwork and tactics happen to swing things in the players favor. That assumptions becoming bigger the higher level you are. PFS scenarios are written with some assumptions as well...that being that in a PUG scenario you won't have much teamwork or tactics.
@@GuybrushTThreepwood when I say "tactical assumptions" I'm not talking only about playing tactically, but the rules interactions, encounter actions etc
Like, demoralize. It's an encounter action, but it's in the skill section of the book and if you didn't read what Frightened do in the glossary you wouldn't know it's one of the mainstay actions in the game
Another point on this: it's not like you're locked into a lower difficulty level in your campaign. You can start it off a bit easier while players come to grips with their characters and the rules, and then when they're consistently walking over every encounter with ease you can bump up the difficulty one notch at a time. I find most players enjoy a game where they feel challenged without being punished, and where they feel like they earned their victories through being clever, not just because the enemies were underpowered. A good GM can tweak difficulty on the fly, which is made SO MUCH easier by PF2E's encounter building guidelines.
I’m one of the 5e converts, had it not been for the WotC nonsense this year we would likely just kept going as I was one that felt that the PF community was largely unwelcoming.
For my main group we’ve been together for 5 years now solely playing 5e. This is a group who is unconventional when playing together and there were a lot of concessions I had to make with 5e to keep it fun. In PF2 they had a difficult transition with the options they had at the table. It took a few sessions and knowing my table was key. It was a matter of reducing die size and toning down my own tactics for a few sessions and dialing it back to normal over a period of sessions. We’re also doing Alkenstar so a game with useable firearms was new to them too.
Since I got hooked to the PF2 bug, I started a second group of majority new players to TTRPGs. I didn’t know many of them and I flat out told them on session zero, “hey we’re all new to this, we’re going to get things wrong but we’re going to fail forward together.” We’re six sessions in and the players brought in 3 new players in their same boat of being totally new. The training wheels came off quickly, and they’ve requested to ramp up the difficulty a bit more. It just takes a group a little while to gel together and get used to the new system. But I’ve actually had an easier time teaching PF2 than 5e.
It’s the weirdest thing, there are more rules and more crunch with PF2 but I find it has a hell of a lot more freedom to do cooler things than 5e. I wish the community felt more welcoming like you are, or we would’ve been playing PF2 years ago. Seriously, I brought 11 people with me, and one of players is a DM for his own group of 7. This is how we grow the game, “don’t be a dick.”
I find that more rules gives a better framework to go by. Everybody is on the same page as to what you can do, how it works, and what your rough chances are. In a game with less rules, you need to rely on the GM. If you don't know their specific style it can be hard to figure out what will work. Or even worse, if they aren't consistent with their style.
I've made an effort to try and say "I like X about this game system because of Y" instead of making general statements about what is better. I can't say I'm perfect, but I'm trying to be better.
I'd suggest a phenomenon that you are probably aware of, yet might not be thinking of in the moment, is likely responsible. Most groups (especially when not a majority or the most popular) often resent when a more popular/better supported/majority shows interest in "your" less well known interest. It's not unique to PF fans. If you were TTRPG "neutral", instead of coming from 5e, there's a decent chance that you would have had a better perception of PF2 players and reception from the online community. That doesn't excuse any gatekeeping or bad behavior, but it does help explain why you might have seen it happen.
5e players have given some in the hobby a bad experience themselves with gloating, media coverage/resources/actual play, or similar "bullying" tactics and majority/popular attitudes. Although it's prejudicial thinking to extend that to everyone from a group, it's also understandable. There are several popular YTers who went out of their way to essentially write "hit pieces" against PF2 to discourage their own followers from showing interest in a new thing and jumping ship. Either that, or they didn't understand things and instead of asking for advice, assumed the worst. It leads to some being defensive when people come from the "big boy" company, and bring their attitudes and expectations with them.
Anecdotally, I could describe numerous similar assumptions as you had about the PF2 community from some people in the 5e community. When I presented myself as someone interested in 5e as a new player, I had a usually warmer reception than if I presented myself as someone coming from PF1. We have to work on empathy, and also work to not attribute malice to everyone just because some people might be defensive/protective/aggressive when an "outsider" wants to play with your toys. For every unwelcoming defender of PF2, there are several more who are supportive and encouraging like RulesLawyer.
Keep in mind that it's often human nature to compare a new thing to what we are already familiar with. "It works this way over here, why not also over there?" That being said, it's often important to not let those previous experiences/ideas prevent us from learning from changes in a new system, game or otherwise. Some interested players come over from a different game [say Civilization], play/strategize for [Galactic Civilizations] how they are used to from the other one, and get frustrated when they think it should work since it did over there. Not everyone is as patient as others in explaining misinformed assumptions or repeated mistakes, but the PF2 Reddit community has seen the same threads started nearly every week from new players with similar complaints.
They often look like "I ignored the encounter building rules and made everything harder like I do in 5e, and my party died...this game is busted/stupid/hard without power gaming." After a while, it becomes exhausting to walk people through the same situations over and over. Some people get frustrated and shout "it's NOT D&D, stop tying to play like it is", instead of "The designers built the encounter building system specifically to prevent problems like D&D has with theirs. Go a little lighter for difficulty than the guide suggests at first until you see how everyone handles the new intricacies, then you can mostly trust that an extreme encounter is an extreme (read deadly) encounter."
@@kevinbarnard355 That's really well put. I think you've a great empathetic take on the issue. I never realized 5e only fans might look down on pathfinder for it asking the players to optimize and read a little. As silly and animalistic of a reaction that it is, I think it's true. Probably due to worry of getting hurt first, like many do, they put on a defensive mentality and find offense to be a better defense. It seems silly, but that's life.
@@philopharynx7910 I was in that same boat, I have to be honest that I was likely the sort of 5e DM / player that likely was insufferable as well, I'm all about eating that crow. I'm a little bitter with myself that I didn't give PF2 an honest try until Wizards reminded me who they were, I could've been more persistent with asking people about PF2 as well, but a lot of the discourse I got back was a lot of "It's just better!" and I kept asking "but how!" until I gave up, then the OGL happened and I ran into someone cool on Twitter that broke everything down to a toddler level for me and explained the "but how" questions I had and a few weeks later my group was fumbling through PF2.
When I was able to tell a couple people in my group that the three action economy would allow them to live their professional wrestler character concepts I had to say no more, it's crazy how little it takes. I had 1 5e group for 5 years. I've been in PF2 since February and I've got 2 groups running and I have more people asking me to run more.
So over here, on my end, I want to be that ambassador to the system for people that were like me, I'm loving the system and the groups are both having a blast. Honestly, WOTC kinda fucked up at the right time, we were getting pretty bored with 5e and I was homebrewing so much it was barely 5e anymore anyway.
@@kevinbarnard355 It has been my experience that people are not hostile to a new group wanting to come in and play with their toys. However, there is a whole heaping ton of earned resentment toward people who come in to your play room, grab your toys out of your hands, explain to you why your toys suck and you are trash for playing with them, and then throw themselves on the floor and have a tantrum when you say they are unwelcome and ask them to leave.
It's a fine line between welcoming new folks and being open about Pathfinder being crunchy and not necessarily for everyone. It's about what kind of story you want to tell, and how you want to tell it, and different systems lend themselves to different stories. As a fan of pathfinder's fantasy and a lover of mathy, crunchy games, it's perfect for me, and I love having a system in place for each thing. Other folks may get turned off by all of the specifics and rules, and that's cool too. It's about what the individual table is looking for and how that works out for them. Whether that's Pathfinder by the book, built to be more complicated and difficult than usual, made easier, or a different system entirely, that's on what the group wants, and that needs to be a discussion. We shouldn't try to lock folks out entirely because they don't want the same level of difficulty we do, and should give them the best chance possible to enjoy the game. This is all just telling stories as a group, at the end of the day, and should be FUN, first and foremost.
I experienced this on RUclips comment when I posted that I wanted to make sure I didn't TPK my young (early teen) players who were totally new to TTRPGs. I got a good bit of the same BS.
I think it's because some people view their characters as mere tools/pawns on the board, they are not invested in role-playing. Others do invest in the fictitious person/creation and want to see where they can take it, what growth and managing difficulties looks like. Death of a pawn is no big deal. Death of a growing creation brings emotion. They have to love the game enough to create a new character. Otherwise, they are lost forever.
Expecting deadly consequences for characters does not mean someone only views them as pawns and has no investment in the story... Far more attachment to a character that has grown and COULD have died than one that was never in any danger. Not sayin to kill your kids but... Death of a growing creation brings emotion, AND lessons.
When my son is ready for a more rules-intensive system, I want him to learn pf2. You can bet I won't be expecting him to be strategic on the level of a 30+ y/o strategy gamer. He'll be a kid. But I'll still use a tuned down pathfinder.
One of the reasons I really enjoy ttrpgs is that you can get really cinematic moments that come about organically through people telling stories collaboratively and improvising. The thing is, when you're in combat, what's tactical isn't always cinematic and what's cinematic isn't always tactical. It's alright to prioritize one over the other, but as with everything, talk to your table about what they want out of the game
I had a chat about difficulty with my group about a very story heavy game that we played for a long time. We like the game so much that we switched it over from 5e to PF2e! After some trial time, we decided that only really special encounters will include enemies who are above party level, since those tend to the biggest challenges out there
I think Ancestry HP should be higher. Like... doubled. Instead of being a 6-12 range, be a 10-20 range.
This would make the super low levels feel much closer to higher levels in terms of damage-to-HP ratios and swinginess... and have literally NO effect on higher levels.
I might have cut it from this vid, but Mark Seifter himself said that one could do a "Beginner" version of the game that awards Level 2 hit points at Level 1, and then lessen gained HP at Level 2 by one-half until they get to "par" at Level 3.
Honestly, I think it is a major flaw and should be changed to be that way by default. 1st level RAW is the hardest level there is. And it is quite boring also, where your character does not have options and the healing is bad
This. Is. Amazing! Ronald, you are a true inspiration and a valuable asset to this game and this community.
As a DM of over 37 years (started at 13 in high school) I have recently come over to PF2e from 5e. Most of my 5e games were winged (mostly due to this being the preferred play style of my players) and worked great. I'm getting, slowly, used to the more constructive way of playing PF2e to 5e but would say that its a DM role to make the game fun for their players. If that means making slight adjustments here and there and being rewarded with smiles and laughter at the end of the session, then you have done your job. If your players rock tactically then all good, if they don't then tweak. Whatever works for you and your table. Pushing people away from the game may push them away from gaming and that is such a pity. We have new generations of gamers coming and we want to embrace them regardless of their play style (so long as its supportive) not push them out. Also, thanks @TheRulesLawyerRPG for all your useful and informative videos I have consumed over the past 3 months to aid me in GMing PF2e.
That’s first rule of Pathfinder: "The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours [...] If any other rule gets in the way of your fun, as long as your group agrees, you can alter or ignore it to fit your story. The true goal of Pathfinder is for everyone to enjoy themselves."
You are playing as Pathfinder is meant to, unlike gatekeepers 😂
I love playing tactically as well (shoutout to xcom legendary ironman completers lol). But sometimes I just wanna build a janky character that makes no tactical sense but seems super fun, and having a group and GM that accomodates that style is great!
This problem is so old and I've never understood it, even back in the AD&D days I ran into a guy who wouldn't play unless the weapon speed rules were being used. Sure, I've played a few games that weren't to my taste, but I've always made a point to back out gracefully without shitting on the people running or playing it. I have one player that suffers from decision paralysis and he's gone from "what should I do" to "what if I do this?" in just a few sessions, I think the system is for anyone who wants to play it.
That's an amazing turn around and always great to see the players turn around like that! I give huge props as I work with my players to get there.
@12:58 Amusingly, this is actually good advice if someone wants to play a strategy game but isn't comfortable with Chess due to age, attention span, etc. But cooperative roleplaying games like Pathfinder have far more dials and knobs to adjust gameplay, so a system change isn't necessary.
This is the type of content that i wanted to make with my channel which i had to leave behind for awfully timing when I launched it. These are the types of things that need to be said across yhe ttrpg community. Thank you for taking the stand.
"It's like those people who say 'the only acceptable sex is between a man and a woman and in the missionary position', but there's many ways to party!"
Laughed out loud. What a great line in a great video, as a new PF2E diehard i didn't know that people were gatekeeping the difficulty of the game. There's so many reasons to play PF2E over other games outside of the combat!
I have unironically seen people (as in, actual PF2e players on the Paizo forums!) refer to PF2e as "a tactics game with roleplaying elements", instead of a roleplaying game. Even though exploration and downtime modes exist, and even though the game has _far_ more rules for handling, say, the way your world's economy works, than 5e does.
The worst "problem" of this is that the lower levels are harder. Its a gamedesign flaw
I don't think that's true in 2e from running multiple high level campaigns
It was intentional, the designers like the feel of the more dangerous lower levelsm
@peterstedman6140 Then shouldn't they have made it a variant rule? The core rulebook is meant to cater to new players especially. In that case, it really shouldn't have the very first level, the player's first experience with the game, is the most difficult
@@TheNeoanomally So someone suggesets low levels are hard, your proof they are not is that you run high level games, thast not good evidence, its the opposite evidence, you need to talk about low level campaigns.
The optimal way to play any ttrpg is to have fun at your table, simple as. If someone else is playing it differently but still having fun, that's a good thing and shows what a great product it is.
Live and let live. Great video @theruleslawyer
I love this video! And I just want to add that what truly draws me to Pathfinder 2e (and 1e) is the setting. I love Golarion.
My issue with casters boils down to one sentiment, there shouldn't only be one 'right way' to play a caster. Right now so much of the design makes assumptions that hinder character/build diversity. I don't care about small damage loss. I care that Paizo hasn't specifically address the community's concerns. The annoyingly loud minority of the community saying "git gud" isn't providing anything to the discussion.
I agree so much with you! I am not a fan of blasters and melee casters (those pretty much never worked in any system though), but I do understand that you should at least give the options. If to build an all around team of thaumaturgers or other martial classes is so easy, why is to make a wizards only party work so clunkily?
I've gm'ed the BB for friends of my 5e group, purposely giving them a bit more power (or in the case of the cleric, mistakenly way more) and they had a blast; at first neither of us understood all the actions and strategies, but in the final battle everyone remembered how to position, use their reactions and when to heal and was reaaaaally awesome to experience that progression; We are now playing AV with 1-level over characters and they try a lot more strategies and risky moves, just because this system allows a lot of interesting things; so in my experience, PF2 does not need to be this hardcore souls-like thingy, players can enjoy the strategy, the awesome feeling of remembering and using something cool that the team can do (ie, planing to flank an enemy and looking other ways to get that off-guard bonus) and be the powerful main characters of the adventure. (And, just in case it's not obvious, 5e is really fun to play too, but i feel that pf2 makes way more enfasis in teamwork and cool strategies).
13:30 Yes this is an example of behavior that 5e communities have to deal with from the PF2e space, yet PF2e players don't have to deal with the same from 5e. PF2e just has a toxicity problem in general. It may not be something most people in the PF2e community have, but it's definitely higher than it is in other communities. I've tried telling you guys this since before the OGL debacle, that if you want more players to try PF2e, you should clean house more seriously.
I too have noticed this sense of elitism growing in the PF2 community, especially in certain groups within. In discord when I asked at one point heavy homebrew item advice while staying within the games item creation guidelines, I got heavy verbal abuse for even trying to homebrew an item that "would not fit" the playstyle of 2e and "would break the game and the economy".
I did not take it badly, but I certainly noticed that some people have very big issues with handling their perception of the game and the community.
This is to be expected, though. A lot of PF2e players play PF2e instead of other TTRPGs for a reason and there had been an unspoken agreement in the PF2e community, that I could be sure most people would be fine with RAW. A migration of DnD players with a known very different attitude towards RAW makes them afraid, they are now forced to play a game they know, they do not enjoy, so they become overly defensive. It's the same fear of the unkown which fuels xenophobia in real life and it's sadly a very natural reaction. At the very least the last few months have shown a much more vocal debate about how PF2e should be played. It's not unfair to assume, that this is actually a negotiation about the community's and game's future culture. Some people will get afraid PF2e's culture will change into a direction not bearable for them. I wish I would have advice on this issue, but considering we are already not able to find good solutions for this regarding migration in the real world, we just have to try and keep the debate as civil and understanding as we can. I wonder, what those people would have answered to the question: Why is me homebrewing my game such a concern for you? Although it likely sucks and will seldomly lead to constructice answers, we might need to get these people to voice their true frustrations and fears under this defensive behaviour.
@@JoniWan77 Yes I can see that. The issue was that I am experienced in 2e and knew how to make items and how they might affect the game. I just wanted arrows of slaying in my game. :b
@@Nyug3rcan I ask what you tried to homebrew? And I'm really just curious.
@@Nyug3rto be fair, with how solidly RAW Pf2e works it's often kinda scary to homebrew 'cause you're afraid of breaking a perfectly balanced game. I have dabbled into homebrewing since the party's Champion so she can have her "Final Fantasy vibes," but I admit I'm always nervous when doing so.
Still, that's why you went to ask for advice in the first place.
@@heyfell4301 It's not perfectly balanced. Alchemist exists.
Totally agree! Man but the shift to pf2e's difficulty is scary exciting. The first time we had someone critted with ongoing damage there was an awful scene where we were trying to stop their bleeding and it came down to the flat DC15 to recover. It was my character, and I made it, but it could've gone differently. We adapted, and found anti-bleeding equipment to use, but the fear is there.
Paizo themselves say including trivial and easy encounters are super important and I feel this gets ignored. Choose the difficulty you want for sure. I worry that many GMs are overstraining their players with PL+1 or greater being more the default when the game itself describes PL+1 as a low level boss and it creates a fatigue.
TBF for a lot of the early APs that were published, Paizo themselves didn't really follow their own "easing in" guidelines. (Light Spoilers for Extinction Curse below)
Extinction Curse has you going through a whole-ass temple of Gozreh at expected character level 3, dealing with corrupted cultists. Many of these cultists have a special ability akin to Rage which gives their tridents a Striking rune and Fatal d10 - and these creatures are themselves level 2 or 3, and since they're given monster stats (which are tilted in the monster's favor when compared 1:1 with a PC) they can easily crit someone, which would deal 5d10 damage, an amount able to down a squishy from full - in fact, it did just that, downing our Rogue and our Summoner. It's a pretty common wipe zone from my understanding asking around the forum, since the area is chock-FULL of them, and it's a notable problem in many of the earlier APs. They really wanted to lean in on harder encounters out-of-the-box without really pushing forward any of the tools in the APs to help ease the players into the idea. We did end up wiping there, but we are the type of group who didn't fuss too bad and simply made new PCs and pushed on with a vengeance.
It's a real onboarding problem when, since the beginning, 2e is going for a nice, easily customizable encounter system that can make any kind of party feel satisfied, but then the first APs (published and vetted by the same company and likely the first, most-obvious things most people want to test the system out with) really seem to want to grind you into paste and don't seem to hint to potentially-new GMs ways of making it less brutal.
The real optimal way to play a pre-written campaign or module begins with reading it, memorizing stat blocks and placements of important items and traps.
This also buffs casters, since you already know what spells you should prepare at any point in the campaign, and what all the resistances and saving throws are.
This is how videogames are played at the highest level, after all. But I don't think many people would like to participate in a TTRPG game like this.
100% agree with adjusting difficulty. Sometimes the party has a messed up party comp and sometime it’s not even their fault! I built my barbarian to help assist our fighter but he ended up quitting the campaign. Suddenly I was the sole front liner and was built to support someone who wasn’t there! Adjusting difficulty would have helped a lot
Teacher, PF2E GM, and one of the people who feels mages are nerfed too hard. Thank you! Everytime I post about the house rules we use to lower the difficulty curve, and bring casters up to martials, I have these people commenting.
Same, I switched to PF2E a little before WoTC shit the bed, because I was having issues inherent to 5E, and I immediately felt spellcasters are too weak. I won't go into my points, because that isn't the point, but I meet the same resistance. The community is super insular, xenophobic, and into heavy gatekeeping. It was the first thing I noticed on the PF2E reddit and also on Paizo's own forum. Any criticism is treated like you area secret WoTC agent who just wants to shit on the game and Paizo. So I play PF2E heavily modified with houserules, almost more than I needed for 5E at this point because honestly my group has found the game to not be all that fun as is. It works out of the box, but it instead has issues with meeting expectations for us. We are only still using it because it is way better with its Foundry integration than 5E was, and without all the bullshit of subscribing to D&D Beyond or some such. Its got alot going for it, but there are some big areas it falls flat too. Unfortunately, none of that can be productively discussed in any major forum because of the PF2E community being so defensive and uninviting.
What house rules do you use exactly?
@@darksavior1187 They can be very defensive and almost cult-like.
Taking this a step further - I find that different people in my party expect different levels of difficulty. So I switch up the difficulty of fights, social encounters etc throughout my campaigns to try to keep everyone interested. I do my best to advertise when something is more or less difficult, so the players know what to expect, and who should take the lead and when.
I find that the problem newer or less tactical players face isn’t necessarily “I hate being challenged” or even “I hate failure”, but rather that they dislike the inability to express their character’s abilities using the mechanics. If you feel like your character is useless in a combat encounter, that isn’t fun. If you feel like you have to stick to certain “optimal” abilities to succeed, that can feel limiting to your expression and role playing.
In my experience, challenging encounters or the threat of failure or even a TPK can be fine as long as the players feel like they have a chance, and feel like every action they take contributes in some way to their potential success. When the difficulty is too high, players may feel like they are forced to take certain actions or use certain party setups or they won’t even have a chance, which might be fine for the tactical minded players who get enjoyment out of finding those optimal strategies and solving the puzzle of how to survive, but for players who are more focused on the role playing aspect and want to see their imagined concepts carried out in game, it won’t be as fun to feel like your freedom of expression is limited in the name of strategy.
I understand that every ttrpg is going to be limiting to some degree; that’s just the nature of having a rule system in the first place. And yes, I think some players may be better off finding a game that suits their playstyle more. But I think every ttrpg should be trying to give the players the freedom to play their concepts in a viable way, as long as that concept isn’t breaking the game in some way (ie creating an alien with a spaceship in a fantasy game).
Bit of a ramble but TLDR; the problem is less that combat can be challenging, more so that it can make players feel useless or restricted to certain “correct” paths, rather than giving them the freedom to create a concept and have it be viable.
One of my favorite rpgs is GURPs because it combines the ridiculously crunchy (arguably the most crunchy mainstream ttrpg on the market) aspect with a huge amount of freedom. It can be very difficult to learn at first, and puts a pretty heavy burden on the GM, but you can create so many different viable builds and concepts with so many different paths to success without sacrificing the tactical and problem solving aspects.
Pathfinder 2E has the same potential within it, but gatekeepers refuse to accept that freedom in favor of having a “right way” to play? If that’s what you care about, play a video game, or a strategy game like warhammer, rather than a role playing game, where the whole point is freedom of expression
So I personally am one of the mentioned 5e vagabonds. I played the system, invested a lot of money, and no longer wanted to support the company. And it's a shame that that is what it took for me to find pf2e because I love the system, the lore, and the flavor (not to mention the art style and item design) of pf2e vastly more. The community seems so fractured which is hard to believe when there's such a strong system that everyone in the community is behind. The beauty of a ttrpg is that the GM can tailor that game for their table. So why is everyone so up in arms what happens at other people's tables? I believe they might worry that if "popular opinion" of the core consumer base starts demanding changes to move it towards what 5e is they will lose the game they have. And I understand that concern, but at the same time if people want 5e but don't want to support WotC, the PF2E community shouldn't be gatekeeping, they should welcome people in and say "I hear you, and we've got a lot that's similar to hold you over, but while we're doing that why don't you check out all these ancestries real quick"
Welcome people in, show them what you've got to offer, and grow your friggin' community. Show them that you're better and they'll naturally follow.
I am still a newbie, I left dnd before the ogl, around 2021, but it felt a bit more united
I have read quite a few post and complaints which could be boiled down to "the DM ramped up the difficulty because that's what they do in 5e and now everyone is dying" or "I don't know there is a thing that RAW allows me to do the thing my 5e DM homebrewed for me". Pretty much no one plays D&D 5e everyone is just playing "something like" D&D 5e. Many people carry this expectation of I'm the game designer and this is my game into Pf2e. This then often has unforeseen and bad consequences. If this then comes up time and time again people develop an annoyed don't temper with the rules you don't understand attitude. This attitude then leads to some rude comments and these really leave a bad impression of the Pf2e community. I haven't tried yet but I think Pf2e is easier to teach to players who don't know D&D5e.
I run pf2e, and my combats are puzzles, but I would not characterize them as a challenge in the sense these people understand it.
I use pf2e because it has a lot of support and flexibility when creating puzzle encounters, I love the way the weakness/ resistance system works, I love the way buffs/ debuffs interact, it gives me many tools to play with and piece together in strange convoluted ways.
So am I playing wrong? I haven;t lost a PC yet, they're not ever in any real risk of dying, they got many tools and options on their side, and they use them to figure out each puzzle thoroughly and hten sovle it, I give them the time for that... They can lose encounters of course, so as to not have them spent 20 turns on one combat, but this tends to happen because they challenged something they just were not ready for.
It's an rpg game, with a DM explicitly, rule 0 is the DM is right, so definitly there are correc ways to play, but there's as many correct ways to play, as there are players to play the game.
very cool way of running things. puzzles should really be more common
Interesting - what's an example of how you make one of these encounters?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG
With all the curtains drawn back, my design philosophy for each puzzle is basically as follows:
Set up a big problem, and then attach to this central problem appropiate smaller problems, depending on the complexity (and the amount of sessions I aim for) this can be as simple as 1 big problem and 1 small problem (A boss creature and a scheming minion) or a great many small problems (We have a mad necromancer on the other side of this crypt and he's controlling way more undead than he should, and this place is huge oh dear.)
The goal though is always the same: solving the "small problem" should be worth doing in the strictest interpertation. In the example of the boss and minion, the minion buffs the boss, and lends it more powerful actions, kill the minion, boss becomes weaker, and weaker to the degree where killing the minion is faster than if you kept it alive.
The key difficulty with this (though I find it very rewarding if it works out) is naturally that what makes sense to me, may not make sense to you. Often players can more or less grasp that "solve small then big" makes sense, but the sticking point can be the small problem...
that said, it's not all that different than teaching people how combat works, after all we both do still follow the line "That thing is being bad, let's do something about it", and we even do largely use the same tools (though admittedly, in a different ratio, I think my fighter has spent more actions throwing his small party members around rooms with gliders than he spent on the strike action...)
A worked example would be an outer entity worshiped by a cult, the cultists collected souls of sacrifices to make bulk offerings to their master. This was naturally a bad thing to do, so stopping this cult was the main problem.
Te smaller problems were, the cult itself, the soul totem to which the sacrificed souls were enslaved awaiting their devouring, artifacts and teachings.
In this example, the players managed to overcome the cult by corrupting its doctrine, taking out one key member, and hiding a favoured artifact. The outer entity got pissed at the head priest and devoured him instead. During the chaos of which the party managed to steal the totem and have it be purified at the temple.
I really prefer playing this way as well. I think of it as degrees of success rather than failure and character death. I'd rather take a character through several ups and downs where encounters weren't resolved "optimally" but nobody died than having to throw out all the investment in a character and start from scratch.
Wayward 5e player here, gonna have to check out your series where you run pathfinder for 5e youtubers. I really loved all your takes in this video.
My GM plays the game at the default difficulty and we feel like we earn our victories. I kind of wish the difficulty was a little lower so less optimal fun builds could thrive.
If I was running a game with more casual players I would probably have all the characters get a +1 to AC, all saves, attack rolls, and skills and give them an extra level worth of hp. I wouldn't level them up since that effects spell ranks(levels) the players have access to. Alchemist getting expert attacks at lvl 5 and master at lvl 13. Yea Alchemist love the idea of making bombs that martial classes can throw better. +1 to spell attack rolls for casters at lvl 11 or 13; or let them buy something to keep their spell attack rolls even with martials. For the most part I like the rules.
It depends on what is meant by gate keeping. I like Pathfinder 2e and I would like more people to play it. Gate keeping people out of game bad. In this context bad. Other times it is used against fans who wants the IP owners to stay consistent with the tone and quality of an IP. I was in a game where we were 3 to 6 months in and a player tried to convince everyone else to switch to 5e D&D instead. We didn't change games and he still played with us. So we were kind of gate keeping there.
The subreddit is downvote happy if you express any opinion not in complete agreement with the system being perfect as is. Which is why they're having meltdowns with the remaster's rule changes
^This, they will not tolerate any criticism, because according to them PF2E is flawless, so obviously changes made for the remaster causes cognitive dissonance for them.
@@darksavior1187 Its far from flawless; it still has classes and levels.
If people make any thing core part of their personality, any criticism towards it feels like personal attack.
@@davidbowles7281 personally classes and levels aren’t flaw if those support system. While those cause limits, those also help to create roles which have unique features while being easier to learn.
As one of those migrants from 5e, I appreciate your videos trying to make the game more accessible
honestly, having all your encounters be Trivial-to-Moderate or Moderate-to-Extreme aren't even variants, they're just pacing options like choosing 10 VP or 15 VP thresholds for a skill challenge
The Optimal Way to play PF2 (or any RPG) is to play in a way where everyone have fun.
I love tactical combat, but I'm not a fan of how Pathfinder's primary measure of difficulty seems to be increasing failure rates. Having a creative and tactically sound plan fail because the D20s are cold isn't very fun, nor challenging me to step up.
love your channel, ive ran path 1st ed for years (since it came out really) and have been playing 2nd ed online for a few months now and looking forward to running the new one for my table, this has given me the confidence i need. still worried but getting there!
I think that like anything else RPGs form camps. Both around the game, and even game minutiae. Especially in games where continual tinkering and multiple paths are present. Like you said, everyone has different expectations for their play, but many players in the various games approach it from different levels of fixation. The only right way to play is one that allows fun for you but also the other folks at the table. The “get good” crowd has pulled their mentality from video games into RPGs, which viewing the cross over is probably natural but not necessarily compatible to ttrpgs.
The "get good" crowds are honestly probably coming from older editions of D&D games when you died in one hit from a kobold spear. They believe anything else is not in the spirit of the game.
I've been playing Pf2e now for almost a year and have been GM-ing it for a while too (GM-ing AP's specifically), and my personal opinion on the system has honestly swung quite wildly from one area to another... A few months ago I would have said I prefer 2e, now after playing it even more I'm honestly not so sure I like it over 1e, and one of the things that is impacting my experience is the difficulty...
To give an example, I was GM-ing Agents of Edgewatch and noticed that in the last dungeon there's a room with a mimic in it and the party is lv 3... Now, the DC to notice it is a mimic is so high it's almost impossible outside of a nat 20 (DC 28 unless you lower the DC for obvious conditions, but even then it's extremely difficult). Now, the party is lv 3 and the Rogue, who has the highest reflex save at a +11 can only keep his weapon from getting stuck on the mimic with a DC 23 Reflex save, which is less than half the time... Even giving that mimic the 'weak' template just for the purposes of that gives him a 50/50 shot at doing what he felt as a player he was supposed to be good at and it frustrated him as a player, and if it's only a 50/50 shot for him, that's nearly impossible for anyone else... And I thought back to a lot of my encounters in 2e as a player and it made me realize... I don't ever feel like I'm actually 'good' at anything in 2e.
That math, the design around AP's giving you about a 50/50 shot at something that you are as good as you can be at it, remains quite consistent throughout AP's in my experience, and the result is I never feel it is worth it doing anything other than what I have basically min-maxed at, and even then I don't feel good about it because I know it working is still basically just a coin flip, and the ways to stack the cards in your favor is immensely restricted in 2e... That lack of agency is very frustrating to me and my players, especially when I see the DC's and rolls that enemies have... I don't 'feel' like I'm a 'master' at things because I know being a 'master' at it really means toss and coin and hope for heads.
I know this is solvable by homebrew, but it's still fairly irksome... I'm not looking to succeed at literally everything, but I at least want to feel like I'm actually good at the things I'm supposed to be good at.
The great thing about pf2 is not the difficulty (I agree is way to hard on baseline) but how easy is to lower or increase the difficulty. Give your players +1 level vs an AP, or apply the weak template to every monster. I currently have 3 groups, 1 plays on standard hardcore diff, 1 with a free additional character (No adjustment on difficulty + more hero points) and 1 group with every monsters on -1 level. Some people like the difficulty, others like to feel more powerful, 2e is the easiest game to tune up or down imo
Mimic is a pretty special case, it's meant to do those things and without them it's not really much off a monster at all. That is the issue it always suffered from in pathfinder 1e, players being able to auto-succeed against it's gimmick. It's fine if that doesn't vibe with you game design wise, but in 2e you don't auto-succeed at things as much anymore. The dice matter a bit more, and it makes small bonuses more impactful. But I can understand where you're coming from. 1e may be more your style, or a system like FATE that allows the dice to be more in your favor for things you've chosen to be good at. 2e's focus is on teamwork, and if you can't do something, the team can usually make up for it by trying different things. In the case of the mimic, you've got 4 party members to fight it. If it can't get it's signature ability off SOMETIMES wheres the threat?
If you don't like an AP then you don't like an AP. How does that have anything to do with the system at all?
Not saying this is my opinion but I'll use this as an example:
If you hate baldurs gate 3 because the skill checks are too high, is that DNDs problem? No, it's Larion Studio's problem.
I for one can defo feel this. Pf2e is less of an individual powerfantasy. And after trying Abomination Vault, I really don't see the value in APs, outside of getting ideas to homebrew into your own games.
PF2E is a collection of rules and at most tables not all rules should be applied. I tend to try to use as many as i can, for example though if I have a group good at roleplaying encounters i don't use the turn based social encounters rule for example. Play it the way you want and find people that also find that fun. 😊
My only real addition to the whole Caster business is that right now it feels like the overwhelming majority of casters have "Versatility" as their fantasy. Psychic and Kineticist seem to break the mold, but certain casters should have had an identity; supportive, debuffing, control, damage, etc.
Imagine if all martials could /only/ do damage. Because dealing damage was the 'martial fantasy'. There's not a 'type' fantasy, there's a 'class' fantasy. Versatility/"The Batman Caster" should be an option, or the focus of ONE class, not all of 'em
Ultimately, I agree with the message that it's OK to make the game easier, but the implication that people complaining about casters just aren't as good at the game, or even that the majorwof the complaints are about them being to weak, is a bit dismissive.
GMs, regardless of what game they're running, are allowed to adjust the difficulty of the game as needed to keep the game fun. The "rules" aren't rules, they're guidelines.
i am hardocre dumb with my games, i did a SL1 run in dark souls and DS3, so yes, i like the difficulty in games and hitting my head until the wall breaks (killed the first assylum demon with only fists in DS for the LOLs), and beat xcom 2 in ironman hard mode (not in impossible, because im not that good) a couple of times, but not only i know, it is obvious, that not everyone likes that kind of thing, and that you arent obligated to play hardcore strategy as a DM with a group that prefers chill roleplay.
And more importantly, just make sure that your players are having fun, because if they dont like to play in that style, its easy to see and feel they arent having fun in the moment, and that campaign you "enjoy" so much will probably get cut short
Also, even if you have to dial down the tactical combat and do more exploration and conversations and other things, you still have in your arsenal your tactical mind for when you need to make a really hard encounter, if you foreshadow a hard combat, and they crash into it, the game gives you the tools to make it as hard as you wanna and to know how hard it is beforehand
also also, a lot of people are trying pf2e coming from 5E, and its not easy to change the perception of things, casters are bad in pf2e because en 5E they have a full keyboard of "i win" buttons, combat is hard because the combat in 5E is marcial=i walk to them and hit, caster=i win button number X, buffs are weak in pf2e because they give you a higher chance of doing something while in 5E you do what you want and what your friends want and remove curse has no upper limit.
(Im sorry if this feels like im attacking 5e but its just how i felt playing it related to combat, i'm not saying that 5E is bad, on the contrary, i think it gives a lot more freedom to roleplay, but it doesnt come from the rules written, but from the culture of homebrewing, and say what you want, but 5E evolved by itself into a new version where everyone feels comfortable homebrewing things to play whatever they like, and that is like the biggest freedom, because if you want info in how to do something in DnD you dont get as much "do as the rules say" as you get "my DM homebrew this, i'll link you the document")
so please, just have patience, its not something that you can change in one day, and i know it can be frustrating, and some people simply dont want to change systems, but im sure the majority of players arent like that, and if you make it fun for them, sooner or later they will start to feeel more comfortable with the system
What's really concerning about the posts in the beginning are that both of them are "Top Contributors". I love the difficulty of Pathfinder and how it requires teamwork but I also totally understand that it's not for everyone.
Awesome video! I love how you say there are many ways to play the same game and don't shoot down others for wanting to have fun their own way.
You are not the hero we deserve, but you are the hero we need.
A much needed video
Well said. I have two groups, one is 6 players of 20 yr veterans, they love the standard difficult and are very tactical. They love Severe encounters. My other group of 5 are all new to RPGs and less savvy. I tend to give them more Moderate and Low encounters. Challenging is fun, deadly is not.
Well said. As a fellow strategy/tactics lover, it also never ceases to amaze me there are some (only some) judgey people in the optimization community that will never have an original thought, download a build/watch a streamer, and then engage with the power fantasy of a strong character while pretending they are somehow an extra analytical player. Play how you and your table agree is right for you and don't judge what is right for other players.
I will say it's not just an optimization community issue, either - I've seen plenty of casual gamers (and even caught myself engaging in) trying to make assumptions about how the system "should" be run, as it is a fairly well-oiled machine. Therefore it can be easy to forget that what some might find as funny quirks in the system - such as the basic Vancian caster lineup being best played as generalists with a splash of specialization - others find annoying to the point of wanting to fix. Hell, I've gotten into debates with my own group about certain topics of our likes and dislikes of the system.
Everyone can fall to assuming and, therefore, "making an ass out of you and me". The important part is to try and catch one's self before attempting to assert one's way of play on another.
"Git gud" Doesn't grow a large community. I can't argue that. I was raised on "Nintendo hard" and really enjoy the souls games, so sometimes I can be a bit of a dick. This video puts some things into perspective, like it's not just a tactical game. I will try to keep that in mind for my online discussions. I left 5e because of the Ogl thing. Watched some videos on Pf2e and saw the complexity with a tight rule system. It appeals to my appreciation of needing good tactics with amazing character options. The game working at high levels is even a stronger draw to me. I am here to stay now and will try to politely drag others here with me.
A major issue is how you find the resources as a new player. Finding the reddit and going to the reddits PF2E discord was a MAJOR mistake, I've never in my life experienced such a gatekeeping, aggressive and disgusting community. Thankfully I found another discord that's much better.
I find it really funny when I see these types of toxic comments about Pathfinder 2e being a super tactical and difficult. This is because my friend groups all kind of run it in a way that can be tough at times, but overall prioritizes the fun and empowerment of the whacky and very themed characters. So to me it's a little weird to hear about how hard and grueling this system is because I've always played it and ran it the way my groups enjoy it. It's a ttrpg. You can customize, homebrew, and make changes that are tailored to your group. Pathfinder 2e is exceptional in having rules and resources that help you do that without the DM needing to do all the work.
One thing to add into this: often game groups include some amount of compromise. Very rarely have I been in a play group where everyone has the same strengths as players and are coming to the game for the same reason. Maybe I'm an outlier but I've mostly just played with people I'm already friends with. Some of them are crunchier, some of them are better at improve and roleplaying, and they are each more familiar with some systems over others. I'm sorry if you have a GM and 3 or 4 players who are able to coordinate there schedules to play a weekly game, if the difficulty needs to be lowered a bit because you have some less tactical players and you want to keep everyone happy then that sounds like a no-brainer.
Granted, it is good to include some more tactical elements for the players who enjoy that, but it doesn't have to be every fight or you can lean into the types of decisions that there character would be making.
Great video i think a lot of people (to some extent myself included!) need to hear this.
Also i have come to love low threat encounters myself and can definitely get behind not always wanting to make the most tactical fight ever. Sometimes you just want to bonk some bad guys on the head. :)
Thanks for the video!
Yeah - in video games with levels (and without that auto-level encounter BS), it's often fun to drop in unexpectedly to a lower-level area/encounter and absolutely wreck things that gave you a tough time five levels ago... and the same is true in a TTRPG. It really drives home the progression of your character(s).
5:30 I personally ran a tutorial-like campaign for my players over the course of 4-6 sessions to acclimate them to the game. Some are more tactical in their choices, but one of them still doesn't have that "mind and heart" to overcome a challenge. So I'm doing my best to get them there. It's not that the game is overwhelming them, it's more about having the perseverance to see a bad situation through.
7:13 XCOM has proven to me that when it rains it will most certainly pour.
15:13 And this phrase is the one black mark on the video.
Thanks for the video.
Man a video about how to make a good caster would be great. Im a beginner in pf2e and I like the difficulty but I also dont like to be a weak character or to make poor decisions.
This feels a lot like the discussion and gatekeeping around Dark Souls or Elden Ring.
"Why would you use summons, multiplayer, spellcasting etc, you're taking away the challenge and ruining the game" as if these games are only defined by their difficulty and not the awesome worldbuilding and level design, fascinating take on storytelling, fun rpg elements / character building and everything else that goes into them. I feel like this attitude sells these games way short.
Same with PF2e which is far more than just "harder 5e"
It's like the baby boomer symptom of "You're not worthy if you didn't suffer like us". Simply, put it. These are people with fragile egos that want others to experience the same thing they had experienced because they consider that experience "superior" and anything that deviates from the path they took are "worthless" or "trash".
A very toxic mindset which unfortunately tarnishes a community, as these individuals, need to be vocal about their preferences to satisfy their own egos.
@@ashrunzeda4099 To be fair, sometimes there is the argument to be made, that some go to behaviour to win and ease the challenge makes a game objectively more boring and less fun (this is usually a mistake some video games do by giving you "safe" options, which are in effect both boring AND less safe). So trying to get people out of their own comfort zone may be beneficial to their fun. E.g. Dark Souls is probably more fun and a better game if you engage in the evasion and parry mechanics instead of relying on range, summons and/or shields.
HOWEVER, this argument always stands on VERY shaky boots. You have to be really sure other people want to get the same out of the game and are merely limiting their fun by engaging in evasive behaviour. So the argument always has to begin like this: "IF you play X for Y, then you should probably do Z." This is almost never the case for TTRPGs, since the gameplay mechanics are not nearly catered around a certain playstyle enough to make such a take or argument worthwhile.
Wait, there’s multiplayer in dark souls?
In defense of the Soulsborne community, a lot of the times people get upset over this is because by using stuff like summons and multiplayer, you end up not engaging with a lot of the mechanics of Elden Ring, why bother with figuring out the bosses attack pattern and dodging all of his attacks, or time your party just right to get a riposte, when you could just summon and stand at a distance with spells.
I'm not saying you're wrong for playing that way, I did the same on my first playthrough, however at the end of the game, and after going through it again on a vagabond playthrough, I realized I robbed myself of experiencing all the game has to offer with it's mechanics.
While it is cringe for fans to be like "you don't play this specific way you're not a real fan" I do also believe that fans should ENCOURAGE newcomers to at least try to engage with the game more.
Because when you're actively engaging with timed dodging, parrying, riposte, backstabbing, and just going ham with melee weapons, it can be really fun, and I highly encourage newcomers to give it a try.
@@desmondnomad5319 But you still engage in the mechanics though. In the early game, ashes are too weak to kill bosses themselves. It requires player intervention to kill Morgott or Radahn. Attacking these bosses at least once will trigger aggro away from the ashes, and that's the point where the player, by using your point, "engages" with a lot of the mechanics in Elden Ring. Don't act like the player can finish the game without figuring out the mechanics nor act like the ashes have the capability of carrying players whilst they do nothing. One simply cannot beat the major bosses of this game using the mimic tear alone without a ton of build optimization, and even then, build optimization requires players to engage in the mechanics of Elden Ring as stats alone, is by no means an indicator that you can have success/avoid death in the game. Just see all those people who use cheats in PvP being killed by non-cheating players.
At the end of the day, there is no defense in forcing people to play a certain playstyle. One can encourage others yes, but that requires typing persuasive and thoughtful comments that most of the community simply cannot do, as they're too focused in spamming "git gud" in comments and forums.
In the end, ER is a game where fun matters the most. We just need to mind our own business and allow others play however they want to play, for as long are they have fun with it. ESPECIALLY if they just stick to OFFLINE/SINGLE PLAYER MODE. If they don't heed our suggestions, then it's fine for there are a multitude yet valid reasons for them NOT to change their playstyle.
Loved the video Ronald, and always appreciate your passion inclusiveness in the hobby. I know we could all do a better job of being good ambassadors, myself included.
I haven't had a chance to play 2e (we're still on 1.5E), but having read through the 2e rules, there is a well detailed section on tailoring the difficulty of the game for your players. Seems that if the game was designed for its difficulty to be tailored to its players, than the default difficulty is a "rule of thumb", not a set feature.
I think the first question asked and issue taken up by a game group is always "Are we here to have fun, and what is fun for us?" Remember that the rules and the game difficulty is only a part of the full gaming experience. Our group specifically enjoys playing our stories and making our achievements (even if only by dumb luck sometimes). Once in a while, a GM we encounter tries to make the game GM vs players, and we try to muddle through having fun until they get it and we all start having fun together. Sometimes, though, one might get upset and become vindictive and upset that we would rather have fun than "win" the campaign. If they set the thumbscrews on the campaign, we get upset, change our characters, completely demolish the campaign, and then nobody's having fun. It's not that we do not like "crunchy" games, or that we are not tactically minded, we just like to follow our character's stories first. We still play Pathfinder 1.5E because one of our friends prefers crunchy games and we are accommodating him, and we can still do tactics. Once I created a bladesinger in d&d 5e that took zero damag dealing spells, and she was still terrifyingly effective, because spells plus good tactics always works. The only time I got in trouble was when the bad guys threw two fireballs at me to put a stop to my shenanigans, and a wizard still only has a wizard's hit points.
Ah! It's been a while since I've read the CRB through. Do you have a page number? If it exists, I'd like to include a pinned comment with it.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Ah! Sorry about the slow reply. Swapped out my CPU on my PC and added RAM, so it's down for the count right now. Seems I have misspoken. Scanned the game mastery section in the core rulebook, and the game mastery guide, and didn't find it. I'm used to adjusting encounters on the fly, so I guess I saw the nice difficulty and xp chart and automatically assumed the rest. If you want, I could write up a short article about setting up ones game to adjust difficulty on the fly, which you could give to your viewers.
@do_not_want_to Don't worry, response times don't need to be fast on YT!
No need (I have a lot of my own hacks), but thanks for looking!
I fully agree. One thing though is that there's fine line between reasonable suggestions about adjusting to the system in order to get the most out of it vs accepting the need to accomodate different people's playstyles.
Saying "don't play a spellcaster in PF2 unless you're ok with taking on more of a utility/support role compared to spellcasters in other systems" is justified, even though it is a sort of gatekeeping. Whereas "if your character dies you aren't allowed to be upset because it's your fault for not getting good" is unjustified gatekeeping (in addition to obviously being rude).
I agree a lot with your takeaways
It is an under-appreciated feature of pf2 that the game rules include a robust system for tuning the difficulty level. If we like the rules, why wouldn’t we use them?
Unless you don’t want to use them. That’s okay too.
I started GMing my first campaign a few months ago with every player either 100% new to 2e, or 100% new to TTRPG's.
But I had the benefit of 5 players, and we ran through the Beginners Box to start.
One of my players purchased the entire Age of Ashes adventure path, so we're now running that, keeping the custom characters they made in the Beginners box, but the players are still level 2, so the opening parts of the adventure is much easier (because there are 5 of them, and they're over leveled for the early stuff).
There actually is only 1 way to play PF2e ... the way the group is having fun playing it and it likely will be a different way from most other groups. And that is good!
One of my first experiences after deciding to run PF2e was joining the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Facebook group to help learn the system and ask questions of other GMs. With so many leaving 5e, as I was, I asked people about character builds in Pathfinder that fulfilled the popular architype of the hard hitting paladin smite builds from 5e. The post got hundreds of comments with, not all but, the majority being negative and attacking me even bringing up such a thing. To the point that the moderators banded me from the group.
That was such a negative experience that I haven't interacted with a single person that also plays Pathfinder 2e since; other than my players. Who are all having a great time with the system despite the seemingly large amount of terrible people in the Pathfinder community.
To be fair, I find the FB groups to be more toxic and less well-moderated than the Pathfinder subreddit (which isn't without its own issues). And to be perfectly honest, I've heard that the best community to talk PF2 is my own Discord server! =D
(Link in description)
I'm in Facebook jail in the PF2E Facebook group right now; l'm still not 100% sure what I did that was so offensive.
@@davidbowles7281 I just left after my issue. Didn't feel it was worth wading through that nonsense.
I'm just frustrated that because the majority of spells have the manipulate trait that my magus spellstrikes trigger reactive strikes. And honestly, that's more of an issue with magus not getting something protecting them from reactive strikes when using spellstrike.
I stopped running 5e at Xmas. I enjoy pf2e & Golarion. That full casters are more supportive than gunships is fine. Its a different flavour.
If I wanted to be told that I play my rpgs the wrong way, I would have stayed with D&D or the OSR.
Although I have not had the pleasure of playing Pathfinder, just reading the book makes me understand that there are more possibilities than just a tactical dungeon crawler. So I don't understand why people are so obsessed with "this is how the game should be played" when the game itself says otherwise.
Great video. I think it's always good to be reminded that just because a player doesn't vibe with the system, even if they genuinely aren't tactically minded, doesn't give anyone the right to talk down to them like they're children who need to be "coddled," as that one commenter said.
Ronald, it feels like you've been talking about making the "how to caster good" video forever now. Is making this video turning out to be harder than you expected? I'm excitedly waiting for it to finally release
It wouldn't be the only video that keeps getting pushed back due to other things needing to be done first! My monk series was initially planned in January!
The argument around lowering the difficult of encounters should be around reducing combat time to increase exploration time overall.
In time, the "normal" encounter is going to feel a lot more tough, and the hard encounter like a boss fight.
I fall somewhere in the middle. I'd love 2e's tacticalness and build-a-party for success instead of build-a-character for success as a cRPG where I was running all the characters myself. My TTRPG group on the other hand, has one person who insists on "doing his own thing", one person who is too risk-adverse to engage given the difficulty, and a couple of people who fell into the myth of "you can't make a bad character" that tends to get sold on the various 2e social media outlets so our first attempt at the system with AV has been a lot of frustration.
Yeah I 100% agree with your take on the tactics and build-a-party nature of PF2. Would be great for a cRPG where I control everything. At the tabletop it's a huge turnoff and puts extra unneeded pressure on players to not do what they want, and instead do what the meta needs for the party. I feel like ttrpg's most of the time should be, or at least facilitate, a party of people "doing their own thing". Should not EXPECT a well oiled machine of teamwork and precision.... can play that way sure, but should not be the default expectation.
I think the you can't build a bad character myth is misrepresented, you can make a character that doesn't fit into a campaign so you can't utilize the character to the full potential in the current game, for your example of AV, it is why I really like the player guides that advise players what to expect. Whenever I do a homebrew game I use those as a rough template to advise my players what to expect and what classes and ancestries would really excel in the game. (However, this list is still only suggestions usually).
Also I think any ttrpgs first few sessions are always a little frustrating as you are all learning at the same time. Learning it together after a short while it becomes less cumbersome and I still get rules wrong 2 years into it. (Happened Monday)
@@gitrekt-gudson If you don't want to play as team them then why play as team? I don't think you need a well oiled machine but you need a machine that somewhat functions. You should fill certain roles in your team and that goes for every aspect of life. How do you want to extinguish a fire if no one wants to hold the hose? How do you want to cook if no one knows how to use the oven?
When we were playing the PF2e beginners box I told my players you want someone at the front and they would very much appreciate not being alone at the front. I also told them that doesn't has to be another player it can also be a companion. I mentioned that healing is important in this game and they would need a healer but I also told them about the medicine skill. They didn't played the pregen characters and they certainly weren't a well oiled machine but they still manged to handle the encounters.
I think two things here. Gatekeeping can and is a healthy thing for a community. A good community should be for anyone, not for everyone. Some things need to be preserved for a community to be a community.
That said, there is no reason to be an asshole, and lots of assholes will try to hide being assholes behind gatekeeping. There is nothing wrong with running lower difficulty encounters for a party that wants them or is struggling. Different campaigns and such play differently. I'd be concerned if my grittier sandbox played like another person's superhero epic.
Thsnk you..That line "a community should be for anyone not everyone" is perfect and puts into words what i've been trying to do for aages..and i'd say nerd culture/community very much was that originally but been pretty heavily made to be for everyone instead of anyone over time.
I post advice on the Paizo Pathfinder 2nd Edition forums under the name Mathmuse. I cannot describe a one true way to play PF2, because I learned most of my PF2 tactics from my players and have more to learn. They are quite creative, and I have to raise the difficulty of Adventure Path encounters due to their creative tactics. What is especially weird is that their characters are built around personalities and fun roleplaying rather than for optimized combat. Having an intuitive feel for what the other PCs want to do makes for fantastic teamwork.
Nevertheless, I wonder how much of a "Learn the Game Properly" vibe I give when I provide tactical advice. I have been a mathematics professor and know that some styles of teaching mathematics turn people away from mathematics. Is the message, "You CAN play at high difficulty," intimidating?
Also, I liked the reference to Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus.
Depends on the listener, context, how it's said. If you're worried you are piling on too much advice, just ask -- I do this -- "may I give a tip? Is this too much?"
Thanks for recognizing the poem!
Honestly I feel like casters need a pure damage option - a class that focuses exclusively on dealing big damage and forgoes utility and support.
It's the one thing keeping me from playing pf2e
Kineticist exists and can fulfill that class fantasy at this point.
I do feel Pathfinder 2E is far too difficult by default in it's balance. Being so dedicated to making it balanced and tactical it just ends up punishing newer or less 'optimized' (mostly meaning with party comp and tactical minded) players or given the dice are cruel to the players just able to make encounters players could do easily suddenly a life and death struggle. I think making it easier just by default is the best option and perhaps giving simple tools or suggestions to up the difficulty for groups capable of taking on harder challenges. It tends to be easier to add on for the sake of difficulty compared to taking things away.
"Monetize Your Haters" -- Eric July
Love the rant ! You got right my table is a mix of everything. Diverisity makes it super fun :)
It's not optimal but I'm one of the fellas that believe (against many people in my groups) that a dedicated healer is NOT necessary to the party. We're all veteran players and all I ask from them is: don't play in kamikaze mode and in most situations we're gonna be fine without a dedicated healer. That being said, I know that heals are important, but Pf2 offers a few ways to heal your group without the need of someone who's the whole purpose in life is to cast the heal spell.
There were alot of people posting on reddit simular oppinions to you, trying to be polite, and reason logically why gatekeeping was bad. They got downvoted into oblivion.
Honestly I've seen the exact opposite. Anyone who posts "casters bad" gets upvotes and awards, and anyone who says casters don't need to do more damage gets downvoted into oblivion.
@@CrouzaI see both groups on the subreddit! The subreddit has been divided on this issue, with strong feelings in both camps.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I definitely do feel like there's been a line in the sand drawn recently. Not fun.
We need to pass a hat around so the Rules Lawyer can buy new glasses.
If a game is tactical, I think it is better to encourage the players to adapt to a scenario not just to craft every encounter for "optimisers" who do the same "optimal" thing every time, only making each encounter more deadly than the last. Perhaps with more buy in, such as making it clear that certain special consumable resources should be gathered before a fight, or have a quest giving commander order the players to prepare the ground.
that does leave the problem of debuffing/applying conditions in pf2e is...well the most boring time I have ever had in an TTRPG, watching success after success from monsters, even targeting the supposed weaknesses, with crits being so rare that I can't remember any significant ones...yea, not fun.
Honestly, someone mentioning you might want to try a system better suited to your group’s needs COULD be solid advice IF it was coming from a helpful place instead of an elitist place. Such changes like that should come from the group itself generally.
My group ultimately left PF1E for 5E after some of my players struggled to learn the rules and do well, even with help from the more proficient players and the GMs.
I've played TTRPG's since the early 2000's. I love crunchy tactical games. I was playing with a group going through Abomination Vaults. It was a group of 5, so the DM was adding a bit of extra difficulty to account for that. We were not having fun so he decided to run the encounters as is (for a group of 4). They were therefore slightly easier for a group of 5, but we had a much better time.
PF2e difficulty is a nice finely tuned thing, but for some groups and some AP's it's not appropriate. And THATS OKAY. These commenters, these gate keepers, are so quick to forget that Rule 0 ALWAYS applies and FOR ANY REASON. If The GM would like to make sure players are having a good times, sometimes that means not following the suggested encounter difficulties and tuning them down a little bit. If these commenters don't like that, DONT PLAY IN THOSE GAMES.
Cardboard Mountain has a RUclips Video that I think presents the core of this issue. In his video called "D&D's Intentional Design Flaw (Its Cursed)," he describes how the game has two competing promises: the promises of meaningful tactical combat and the promise of effective story telling experiences. It is in balancing this two that D&D has one of it's biggest core problems and divides the player base from "casual" to "min-maxers" (or the various other terms that is levied at the two. As pf2e has many of the same origins, it would follow that it would have some of the same problems. It is unfortunate that in my experiences with many of the pf2e community the loudest individuals take on a purist mindset which emphasizes rising to meet the demands of the game rather that a more gradual progression. "Be like us or maybe don't play/maybe this game isn't right for you."
Continuing on to my personal experience with the caster discussion. There is a lot of thematic and mechanical expression of choices that can be meaningful in the game. However, pf2e does appear very aware of what it wants to be, and that is combat-oriented strategy game . As such, the weighted majority of its design prioritizes combat effectiveness and making optimal decisions in and out of combat. I feel like this is a bit of a false promise to story and role-playing folks: presenting systems which are interesting but take a back seat to overcoming adversaries. Caster classes seem to suffer a “utility/versatility tax”, having options to have multiple solutions to solve problems other classes may not have access to but at the expense of combat effectiveness. Worse, the breadth of spells makes it easy to load up on situational spells which will make for a narrow character, even if it fits the concept. For example, how often do you see mages value having Approximate, Sigil, or Dancing Lights, when spells like Electric Arc, Telekinetic Projectile, and Light exists? As pf2e is about choices and making meaningful decisions with those choices it seems very keen on creating scenarios where people will be suboptimal unless they are tactically minded, have had past experience, or are wired in the pf2e discussion.
This reminds me of when I played the Witcher 3. Everyone says it’s only good if you play on highest difficulty. Guess what? I don’t play a lot of video games and I enjoyed playing it at low difficulty. And I still needed to repeat some of the boss fights 😅
Not everyone starts at the same level and that’s okay
You've genuinely turned my opinion around on this. Thanks
Does this mean I can have a +2 to my spell attacks and Save DCs and have fun as a caster? 🙏🙏🙌🙌🎉🎉🎊🎊
Haha I know you're teasing Rhexx! =D
Would ONLY consider it after you have some trying a caster and find it unsatisfying for how you play the class!
I like personally focusing more on weak mook encounters than minibosses early on to ease party in :'D I hundred percent agree with that "take it easy on new players and understand what they like" take, it shouldn't even be hot take
And the part that sucks I say is that this is almost facilitated by Paizo's encounter writing.
Case in point, an encounter with two monsters: one dangerous on its own boss monster, and an electric lizard whose only purpose is to get scared and shock the bigger monster (hastening it) before fleeing. That's too Gary Gygax for someone like me.
I don't understand how that might encourage snobbish or condescending behavior. Drawing fans of any kind will also draw the a-holes of that same selection of people too, but both 5e and PF2 are tactical roleplaying games drawing players from the same selections save for one difference. One happens to be seen as the underdog going up against a top dog. Personally that's where I see that angst and pissy behavior coming from, at least.
I am new to Pathfinder. Coming from D&D due to the whole WOTC villain arc. I enjoy learning the tactical side of the game and trying to get better at it. My biggest challenge at the moment is finding another game to join. My LGS doesn't have Pathfinder Society and groups I'm apart of on social media seem to be more D&D focused.
I never thoughtlessly kill my players or their characters, it's always thoughtfully planned out and orchestrated as a consequence of their actions.