Pathfinder 1e or 2e?

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Rogerdee

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As per title, which do you prefer, and why?

How is chargen?
What about classes, 1e or 2e?
Rules, are they better?
What about spells?
How are the settings?
How is the gameplay?

What are your thoughts?
 
I'd done my own review of PF2 a while back: https://www.jamesgillen3.com/?p=968
I am still ambivalent on the game but am starting to realize why they made some of the decisions they did.
For instance multiclassing in PF2 greatly resembles that in D&D4, in that you never really go into a separate class, you just use feats to add minor abilities from another class to your main one. This was one of the things that most turned me off. But over the last year or so, I was playing a lot of Owlcat Games' Kingmaker (a Baldur's Gate-style version of the 1st Edition Adventure Path) and that was my main experience in designing high-level characters. One thing I discovered is that because multiclassing in 1st Edition creates a difference between "class level" and "character level", if for whatever reason you wanted to multiclass as Cleric and Wizard and split the levels evenly, at 20th level you wouldn't have a 20th level character. You'd have a 10th level Cleric and 10th level Wizard with better hit points and combat tables than either. And this matters because caster level affects your ability to overcome the spell resistance of high level foes, not to mention your upper level of spells.
Whereas in Pathfinder 2, everything is based on the proficiency system, so if you're (say) a Fighter and you qualify for Wizard Dedication feat, you don't start with much but one thing you do get is Trained proficiency with arcane spells, which means caster ability is automatically character level +2. So even if your secondary abilities are that much more secondary than they would be in 1st Edition, they aren't critically far behind.

Otherwise one thing I've noticed in actual play (we're in Extinction Circus and I'm playing an Orc Barbarian/Clown) is that the three-action economy and the greater chances for both critical success and failure make combat A LOT more dangerous. I like it, but others may differ.

In some cases the cookie-cutter nature of character creation means that it's easier to show people how to make characters but that may also turn people off; the character creation system makes it clear that you can't get more than one 18 score at 1st level and if you do it's kind of hard to have any other score above 12. Fortunately they really bump up character stats every five levels, assuming the game goes that long.
The other thing I don't like is how a lot of things that used to be features of either a race/ancestry or class are now feats and you only have so many slots in each category to use and you end up having to drop some things.
For those reasons I don't think I would necessarily run a Pathfinder 2 game, though I don't mind being in one.

JG
 
Okay for me, PF 2e, with all the toolkit nature of ancestral, and class feats, skill feats etc very similar in that way to DnD 4e unless I am misremembering but don't think I am, although it has been a long while since I look at any DnD 3e stuff). To some extent that is okay, but I prefer the clear nature of some of the PF 1e class abilities. Sometimes in 1e, like in Palladium, there were simply too many classes - and as someone has said, likely not all of them, despite being published had been subject to Paizo more rigorous play testing standards.

That said there are some great things in my opinion - shortened list of classes, archetypes. The magic, with focuses, and heightened nature allowing you to essentially overcharge a spell (similar to old Runequest, Legend and Mythras with shaping). So that is good. I like the skills, and that Athletics rolls a few other skills under its umbrella such as climbing and swimming. Such that it tends to feel more like M&M 2e (and 3e) in that it is now fantasy supers.

Not sure how easy it would be convert from 1e to 2e is....so it would be interesting to run a 1e setting with 2e and see how it plays. Even with trimmed down rules for online play (I tend to find full rules can really slow it down on PbP stuff - buy YMMV).

EDIT: It is a shame that they kept all the planes the same, and did not mix it up a bit. I prefer the planes from M&M.
 
I'd say out of 36 yrs of table topping its by far one of my favorite systems right out of the box Its a very streamlined system compared to PF1, less convoluted rules, as it didn't have to carry over the 3.5 baggage that PF1 did. The rule make sense more so then many other systems, sure there are a few things her and there but even those work. In its streamlined structure, things like character creation is robust. If I remember correct with the Core Rulebook alone there are something like 42,000 combinations that can be made. That number has grown as there have been some major releases like the Advanced Players Guide and Ancestry Guide that have expanded and built on what is already established. It also spreads your choices out over 20 levels and if you're running the premade adventure paths all the 6 book ones go to level 20 now. So every level you are making a choice to define your character more where In 5E DnD has a streamlined system but you basically make a choice at 1st and 4th and then you're done .

I prefer the class balance and multiclass system of PF2 - easier to create the concept you want without causing yourself to be underpowered. The disparity of Casters and Marshal isn't skewed like previous where in the later levels the marshals are there to just carry things for the Wizard. Yes Casters have been toned down at higher levels but it isn't just a switch of whos on top. Many who thought so were not using all the tools at casters disposal. Staves are a major item for casters and can be compared to importance as one would think of a marshal class not using weapons. so while they upgrade their weapons you upgrade your Staves and have some wands. Id say armor for the marshal but as casters can wear full plate and cast spells with no penalty to their casting that's not really a thing that's just on their side. So if Gm'ng make sure to put in stave's as often as you put in weapons

Also the classes are all really balanced, Lets take one of the more unbalanced classes from pf1: the Gunslinger, it will be released later this year. In PF1 the gun rules made it completely broken in a lot of content . Pf2 version first off the PF1 Bolt Ace (the crossbow using gunslinger) is built into it completely seamlessly so even if you don't want guns you can still have players be a crossbow sharpshooter without having a subset of rules Guns can do bursty crit dmg but are balanced and since there is no touch ac are not auto hitting most things like pf1. The Gunslinger plays like martial debuffer with dmg then a full out dmg character. Just an example of how classes are from pf1 to pf2

Most importantly the system encourages being a team and playing off each others strengths and weaknesses, more tactical thoughts as the system has synergies built into it and more get added with every release. Every party I've ran through an adventure path, one shot, Society scenario , the ones the succeed are the ones who work together instead of just being a group who everyone does their own thing. Encounters can be rough but a few things to remember all premade encounters assume players at full health or close to, so take those 10 min breaks refresh focus spells and do some treat wounds. For example If you have a rogue with the dread striker feat , then use that one remaining action to toss a intimidating glare at an enemy so they are flat footed to the rogue. Things like that can swing a battle in the players favor really fast.

Converting pf1 to pf2 isnt hard. Treasure is usually the sticky point as there are no more stat stick boosters

For PF2 I've GM'd or currently Gm'ng: pf1 converted to pf2 versions of Strange Aeons, Rise of the Ruinlords, Skull n Shackles, Curse of the Crimson Throne, soon Ill be doing a converted Ruins of Azlant

the pf2 APs I've Gm'd are Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, and many Society scenarios since it started

Currently Playing in the first book of Agents of Edgewatch and played and Gm'd both The Slithering and Plaguestone

Some good resources for help with converting from pf1 to pf2 can be found at https://discord.gg/eEHAyHW We are working converting all the Pf1 Ap's to pf2 and sharing the work done

Also for some good options to add to a game , check out the Gamemasters Guide, lots of good stuff inside including rules to
- Increasing the number of Ancestry feats players get without unbalancing everything

- Give a free archetype (multiclass) one of the most popular options

and a host of other options that you can add if you want or trade out
 
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I'd say out of 36 yrs of table topping its by far one of my favorite systems right out of the box Its a very streamlined system compared to PF1, less convoluted rules, as it didn't have to carry over the 3.5 baggage that PF1 did. The rule make sense more so then many other systems, sure there are a few things her and there but even those work. In its streamlined structure, things like character creation is robust. If I remember correct with the Core Rulebook alone there are something like 42,000 combinations that can be made. That number has grown as there have been some major releases like the Advanced Players Guide and Ancestry Guide that have expanded and built on what is already established. It also spreads your choices out over 20 levels and if you're running the premade adventure paths all the 6 book ones go to level 20 now. So every level you are making a choice to define your character more where In 5E DnD has a streamlined system but you basically make a choice at 1st and 4th and then you're done .

I prefer the class balance and multiclass system of PF2 - easier to create the concept you want without causing yourself to be underpowered. The disparity of Casters and Marshal isn't skewed like previous where in the later levels the marshals are there to just carry things for the Wizard. Yes Casters have been toned down at higher levels but it isn't just a switch of whos on top. Many who thought so were not using all the tools at casters disposal. Staves are a major item for casters and can be compared to importance as one would think of a marshal class not using weapons. so while they upgrade their weapons you upgrade your Staves and have some wands. Id say armor for the marshal but as casters can wear full plate and cast spells with no penalty to their casting that's not really a thing that's just on their side. So if Gm'ng make sure to put in stave's as often as you put in weapons

Also the classes are all really balanced, Lets take one of the more unbalanced classes from pf1: the Gunslinger, it will be released later this year. In PF1 the gun rules made it completely broken in a lot of content . Pf2 version first off the PF1 Bolt Ace (the crossbow using gunslinger) is built into it completely seamlessly so even if you don't want guns you can still have players be a crossbow sharpshooter without having a subset of rules Guns can do bursty crit dmg but are balanced and since there is no touch ac are not auto hitting most things like pf1. The Gunslinger plays like martial debuffer with dmg then a full out dmg character. Just an example of how classes are from pf1 to pf2

Most importantly the system encourages being a team and playing off each others strengths and weaknesses, more tactical thoughts as the system has synergies built into it and more get added with every release. Every party I've ran through an adventure path, one shot, Society scenario , the ones the succeed are the ones who work together instead of just being a group who everyone does their own thing. Encounters can be rough but a few things to remember all premade encounters assume players at full health or close to, so take those 10 min breaks refresh focus spells and do some treat wounds. For example If you have a rogue with the dread striker feat , then use that one remaining action to toss a intimidating glare at an enemy so they are flat footed to the rogue. Things like that can swing a battle in the players favor really fast.

Converting pf1 to pf2 isnt hard. Treasure is usually the sticky point as there are no more stat stick boosters

For PF2 I've GM'd or currently Gm'ng: pf1 converted to pf2 versions of Strange Aeons, Rise of the Ruinlords, Skull n Shackles, Curse of the Crimson Throne, soon Ill be doing a converted Ruins of Azlant

the pf2 APs I've Gm'd are Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, and many Society scenarios since it started

Currently Playing in the first book of Agents of Edgewatch and played and Gm'd both The Slithering and Plaguestone

Some good resources for help with converting from pf1 to pf2 can be found at https://discord.gg/eEHAyHW We are working converting all the Pf1 Ap's to pf2 and sharing the work done

Also for some good options to add to a game , check out the Gamemasters Guide, lots of good stuff inside including rules to
- Increasing the number of Ancestry feats players get without unbalancing everything

- Give a free archetype (multiclass) one of the most popular options

and a host of other options that you can add if you want or trade out
I agree with most of what is said here. That said, I also think that it is definitely a system (both 1e and 2e) that is best suited for players who actively are going to engage a more crunchy system.

But you know, if you are planning to play either of them, you probably already know that!
 
Remembered something. The PF2 Beginner's Box is less of an investment then the Core rulebook to try out. What is nice about is, it contains the full rules just smaller amount of options instead of its own set of rules that once through it wont transfer over. So once you're through it the character you made is 100% compatible with one made from the core rulebook It contains a lite players handbook and a lite Gm's guide , a starter adventure for a party of up to 4 and a Solo adventure teaches you step by step and some other handy stuff.
 
Remembered something. The PF2 Beginner's Box is less of an investment then the Core rulebook to try out. What is nice about is, it contains the full rules just smaller amount of options instead of its own set of rules that once through it wont transfer over. So once you're through it the character you made is 100% compatible with one made from the core rulebook It contains a lite players handbook and a lite Gm's guide , a starter adventure for a party of up to 4 and a Solo adventure teaches you step by step and some other handy stuff.

Sounds ike a good beginner box. I really started to resent beginner boxes in the 90s/early aughts because so many of them were crippleware
 
I played Pathfinder 2 for a little over a year, and it left me not wanting to play it anymore. Character generation and adventure experience were the reason for my displeasure. My experiences were as follows:



  1. Since I usually get stuck playing the Rogue I created one as my first character. It actually went very well, with the minor complaint of certain abilities I used to take as feats were now rogue or fighter specific, meaning I couldn’t do my full mobile fighting machine character like I usually do. No big deal, really, just a touch disappointing.
  2. One TPK later I decided to create a sorcerer, using a bloodline descended from evil beings. It was something I’d always wanted to do in Pathfinder 1E, but never got the chance. In 2E’s rules, however, a lot of the bloodline’s abilities were now Evil things, so they’d be an alignment violation for a good character to use. I planned on playing a good character, and I imagine Pathfinder Society still leans towards good. It felt like a real loss of role-playing opportunity to me that they did that, and I wasn’t going to shift my character concept to Evil Mc Evilson
  3. I decided to play a fighter, only to find my character concept of a speedy melee fighter wasn’t able to be done as it could be in 1E. I was somewhat mollified when I saw someone on another forum write a lengthy criticism, and somewhat sad when someone said a swashbuckler class was in the works, as I imagine it’ll have separate abilities from the rogue and fighter in 2E have, rather than mashing them together as I’d hope.


Adventure-wise we played the first published adventure (Something-something Plaguestone, I think) where we had a TPK, but overall it wasn’t bad. One RP incident was a little offensive to me, but that was just due to real-life experiences, and one character whose physical disability and her skill with a bow broke the group’s suspension of disbelief.



Then we tried an Adventure Path, one where you are members of a carnival. I hesitate in going into a detailed review of any scenario without having read it myself, but I believe it had a lot of problems that couldn’t just be attributed to the DM. From an initial buy-in that would have been fine without an obnoxious NPC trying to lead things along to major plot holes and more, it was just a disaster. Toward the end of my playing I started asking the DM very detailed, pointed questions about what we were being told and encountering, and if he was being honest I’m astonished some of the plot holes got through. I tapped out of the campaign for non-game reasons shortly after the last big battle, and I don’t feel I’m missing anything by not going back.
I’ve no plans to ever play 2E again, but I’d go back to first edition.
 
I don't know if being from an evil bloodline necessarily makes your abilities evil, unless you picked the Sorcerer spell that gives people Ghoul Fever and turns them Undead or something.

JG
 
I don't know if being from an evil bloodline necessarily makes your abilities evil, unless you picked the Sorcerer spell that gives people Ghoul Fever and turns them Undead or something.

JG
For the diabolic bloodline two of your three bloodline spells, brace the Pit and Hellfire Plume, are labeled as evil in their descriptions. So my would-be good character would have to violate her alignment or be weaker than other characters by not using those spells. As other sorcerers use theirs.
 
I like crunchy systems and I’m trying to convince our “I fucking love high fantasy like d&d” GM to consider pathfinder 2e. What does it have on the GM side? What good “good guys save the world” sorts of adventures are there? Bear in mind, I like what I’ve heard about the 3 action economy, and I like what little I’ve read about the puzzle piece classes.
 
What good “good guys save the world” sorts of adventures are there? Bear in mind,
Not the circus-based one I mentioned, tgat’s for sure. When I commented about asking the DM direct questions about what he was saying and if it was really written the way he described it, it was with regards to the introduction of the plot that spans the Adventure Path.

it really cane across as the NPC saying “There is this horrible thing coming that could doom the islands at some point in the future! You circus folk should go save everyone from this horrid fate! What? Tell authority figures and present my evidence? Go with you? Offer up my gold to fund you instead of doing things that won’t matter if we’re all going to die? Shut up and get on the train for this plot railroad!”
 
All Adventure Paths have a certain amount of buy in from the players needed. Why play at all if going to the authorities is an option?
 
All Adventure Paths have a certain amount of buy in from the players needed. Why play at all if going to the authorities is an option?

This was my fourth time as a player in an Adventure Path, and I’ve read the first book of three other Paths. This was the first time I’ve ever felt the PCs weren’t personally engaged in the set-up and would have reason not to think they should have to handle things.

James Gillen James Gillen I’d be interested to compare noted once you play through, to see how many of my issues cane from the module and how much from how the GM ran/interpreted things.
 
As per title, which do you prefer, and why?

How is chargen?
What about classes, 1e or 2e?
Rules, are they better?
What about spells?
How are the settings?
How is the gameplay?

What are your thoughts?
I ran PF1 for six or seven years (mostly APs and adventure modules) and ran PF2 for about a year year (a sandbox hexcrawl, which recently switched to OSE). My answer is I don’t know. There are things that put me off PF1, but there are things that I dislike about PF2. It’s difficult to pick one over the other. My preferences also shifted as I ran PF2, so I’m inclined to say neither. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with PF2 and make changes to accommodate the areas where my group fared poorly (like combat difficulty).

Things I think PF2 does well

PF2 does a pretty good job of breaking rules down into components. If you’re not dealing with an element, you can just pretend it’s not there. That’s how the Beginner Box can be compatible with the core rules without having all of the content. Character creation is more guided compare to PF1: you work through your ABCs and assign boosts. Rolling is an option, but it’s not the default. Combat is highly tactical, and the work Paizo did to balance out the math shows. You can’t (character) build your way to victory. You have to use your tools effectively to do succeed, especially in higher-threat encounters. We didn’t get past 6th level, but I understand high-level play generally works pretty well compared to PF1.

I like the way classes work in PF2 compared to PF1. It is very difficult to create a bad character. If you have a group of players where some are builders and some like taking things for RP reasons or because they sound cool, you’ll find a lower level of variance between characters compared to PF1. You can still make bad characters, but it takes effort (like not taking any armor as an alchemist …). I would suggest using free archetype variant in the GMG. With the fighting style archetypes in the APG, you have much more flexibility in playing different combat styles without having to take the fighter dedication.

Gameplay feels a lot like PF1 (especially if you used the new action economy in Pathfinder Unchained). The big difference is that the party is expected to fight together effectively like a team. A party that works together to impose buffs and debuffs and play smartly can take on much tougher challenges. Along with the changes to character building, this works to eliminate system mastery from something you do prior to or between sessions and something you do during the session.

I like exploration mode. It’s a call back to exploration procedures from older editions, though it has a few gaps (no morale, reaction, or escape procedures). We made pretty good use of it in my sandbox game. We didn’t use hexploration, but it was easy to adapt exploration mode into another procedure. The system is pretty nicely modular in that regard.

Things I think PF2 does poorly

The BB is a well-written, succinct product. It does a pretty good job of organizing information and explaining how to play the game. The CRB is not those things. It is needlessly verbose in many places, and information is organized all over the place. The BB has one place to look up DCs. The CRB has several. You can also mess up character creation following the CRB’s procedure. It’s not obvious you should stack your boosts to get an 18 in your primary stat (the BB ensures you get one). It’s also easy to forget that you need to apply your free boosts (as my players did our first time playing).

Combat is hard. If you want tactical play with good encounter-building guidelines, PF2 has those. If your group is not good at tactical combat (like mine), they will struggle. We had one TPK, and if I hadn’t tuned things down (and switched to the Proficiency Without Level variant), we may have had more deaths. I expect the difficulty of combat will be the biggest source of trouble for groups. There are some rough encounters in the early adventures and APs (Age of Ashes seems to have mostly moderate- to severe-threat encounters). I don’t know if that’s improved any in the latter ones (though I hear good things about Abomination Vaults).

I don’t like skill actions. PF2 took many of the random modifiers you could add to skills in PF1 and turns them into actions. When I ran PF2, I never felt like I was fully proficient with the system because there’s a lot of stuff, and we’d inevitably have to look something up that came up rarely. PF2 could really use a good default result for skills like it does for basic saving throws. Even better, a lot of skill usage could be handled by the VP subsystem in the GMG, which is basically progress clocks.

Things I think are mixed

PF2 drastically reined in casters. The rarity system helps limit access to potentially game-breaking spells. Whether this is good or not depends on the extent one cares about caster-martial parity. If you played a caster in PF1, you will feel weaker. They also kept the slot-based preparation system from PF1. The arcanist changed things up, but that’s not the default in PF2. Everyone is either prepared or spontaneous, and all prepared casters work the same. You can upcast, but you have to prepare the spell in that slot.

Golarion is the default setting. The line has been simplified into fewer books, but now all the character options are in setting-specific books. I ran a homebrew setting, so I avoided that stuff. It was not too difficult to homebrew stuff because I could grab bits and pieces (like ancestry feats) from various sources, but it was a lot of work. I balked at having clerics in my campaign because you need to come up with anathema and various spells (including deity-specific focus spells) if you’re not going to reskin the Golarion deities. PF2 also advanced the timeline to after all the PF1 APs are over, so if you had been doing a living setting in PF1, you may have some reconciliation to do depending on how things played out in the APs you ran. One notable exception is Kingmaker, which appears to have been excepted (probably because it’s getting converted to PF2).
 
I ran PF1 for six or seven years (mostly APs and adventure modules) and ran PF2 for about a year year (a sandbox hexcrawl, which recently switched to OSE). My answer is I don’t know. There are things that put me off PF1, but there are things that I dislike about PF2. It’s difficult to pick one over the other. My preferences also shifted as I ran PF2, so I’m inclined to say neither. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with PF2 and make changes to accommodate the areas where my group fared poorly (like combat difficulty).

Things I think PF2 does well

PF2 does a pretty good job of breaking rules down into components. If you’re not dealing with an element, you can just pretend it’s not there. That’s how the Beginner Box can be compatible with the core rules without having all of the content. Character creation is more guided compare to PF1: you work through your ABCs and assign boosts. Rolling is an option, but it’s not the default. Combat is highly tactical, and the work Paizo did to balance out the math shows. You can’t (character) build your way to victory. You have to use your tools effectively to do succeed, especially in higher-threat encounters. We didn’t get past 6th level, but I understand high-level play generally works pretty well compared to PF1.

I like the way classes work in PF2 compared to PF1. It is very difficult to create a bad character. If you have a group of players where some are builders and some like taking things for RP reasons or because they sound cool, you’ll find a lower level of variance between characters compared to PF1. You can still make bad characters, but it takes effort (like not taking any armor as an alchemist …). I would suggest using free archetype variant in the GMG. With the fighting style archetypes in the APG, you have much more flexibility in playing different combat styles without having to take the fighter dedication.

Gameplay feels a lot like PF1 (especially if you used the new action economy in Pathfinder Unchained). The big difference is that the party is expected to fight together effectively like a team. A party that works together to impose buffs and debuffs and play smartly can take on much tougher challenges. Along with the changes to character building, this works to eliminate system mastery from something you do prior to or between sessions and something you do during the session.

I like exploration mode. It’s a call back to exploration procedures from older editions, though it has a few gaps (no morale, reaction, or escape procedures). We made pretty good use of it in my sandbox game. We didn’t use hexploration, but it was easy to adapt exploration mode into another procedure. The system is pretty nicely modular in that regard.

Things I think PF2 does poorly

The BB is a well-written, succinct product. It does a pretty good job of organizing information and explaining how to play the game. The CRB is not those things. It is needlessly verbose in many places, and information is organized all over the place. The BB has one place to look up DCs. The CRB has several. You can also mess up character creation following the CRB’s procedure. It’s not obvious you should stack your boosts to get an 18 in your primary stat (the BB ensures you get one). It’s also easy to forget that you need to apply your free boosts (as my players did our first time playing).

Combat is hard. If you want tactical play with good encounter-building guidelines, PF2 has those. If your group is not good at tactical combat (like mine), they will struggle. We had one TPK, and if I hadn’t tuned things down (and switched to the Proficiency Without Level variant), we may have had more deaths. I expect the difficulty of combat will be the biggest source of trouble for groups. There are some rough encounters in the early adventures and APs (Age of Ashes seems to have mostly moderate- to severe-threat encounters). I don’t know if that’s improved any in the latter ones (though I hear good things about Abomination Vaults).

I don’t like skill actions. PF2 took many of the random modifiers you could add to skills in PF1 and turns them into actions. When I ran PF2, I never felt like I was fully proficient with the system because there’s a lot of stuff, and we’d inevitably have to look something up that came up rarely. PF2 could really use a good default result for skills like it does for basic saving throws. Even better, a lot of skill usage could be handled by the VP subsystem in the GMG, which is basically progress clocks.

Things I think are mixed

PF2 drastically reined in casters. The rarity system helps limit access to potentially game-breaking spells. Whether this is good or not depends on the extent one cares about caster-martial parity. If you played a caster in PF1, you will feel weaker. They also kept the slot-based preparation system from PF1. The arcanist changed things up, but that’s not the default in PF2. Everyone is either prepared or spontaneous, and all prepared casters work the same. You can upcast, but you have to prepare the spell in that slot.

Golarion is the default setting. The line has been simplified into fewer books, but now all the character options are in setting-specific books. I ran a homebrew setting, so I avoided that stuff. It was not too difficult to homebrew stuff because I could grab bits and pieces (like ancestry feats) from various sources, but it was a lot of work. I balked at having clerics in my campaign because you need to come up with anathema and various spells (including deity-specific focus spells) if you’re not going to reskin the Golarion deities. PF2 also advanced the timeline to after all the PF1 APs are over, so if you had been doing a living setting in PF1, you may have some reconciliation to do depending on how things played out in the APs you ran. One notable exception is Kingmaker, which appears to have been excepted (probably because it’s getting converted to PF2).
Thanks for this. I didn’t get back to it a couple weeks ago.

I get the distinct feel it will work pretty well for our group. We have a couple of pretty serious tactical folks who can rope in a team. We’ve been using the online tools and find them helpful.

we have been looking around at options, and I don’t know if we are not for adventure paths, though we might like some adventures. We are definitely in the “make our own theme” camp, though that theme might be “all goblins” or “definitely pirates” or something.
 
Not the circus-based one I mentioned, tgat’s for sure. When I commented about asking the DM direct questions about what he was saying and if it was really written the way he described it, it was with regards to the introduction of the plot that spans the Adventure Path.

it really cane across as the NPC saying “There is this horrible thing coming that could doom the islands at some point in the future! You circus folk should go save everyone from this horrid fate! What? Tell authority figures and present my evidence? Go with you? Offer up my gold to fund you instead of doing things that won’t matter if we’re all going to die? Shut up and get on the train for this plot railroad!”
Ironically, this one seems most appealing to my folks. It seems insane enough to tempt their jaded palettes
 
Ironically, this one seems most appealing to my folks. It seems insane enough to tempt their jaded palettes
I don’t think “insane” is a good descriptor, but I’d be curious to hear your play experience.
 
I don’t think “insane” is a good descriptor, but I’d be curious to hear your play experience.
we will see. won't be for a couple of months, i think. we still have 4 sessions of cortex prime left, at one every two weeks (so, early july) and we have vacations scheduled in july. probably won't be going until august.
 
In the Extinction Curse game we ended up getting a Total Party Kill. Which is the first time that's happened in a while. Part of it was because we triggered the event that brought us to the final boss of the first module before we'd rested up, but part of it was that we were very fragile. It's like we needed to rest up after every encounter cause it was all we could do not to get killed and ended up having to use up our healing magics for the day. Thing is, in Extinction Curse, you're encouraged to build your character as a member of a circus first and then figure out their game role, and since that's what we did, we ended up making things harder on ourselves.
Specifically, there wasn't a dedicated healer. There was a Bard with Soothe and a Chiruegon Alchemist, but it wasn't quite the same. We didn't have a dedicated tank. The closest thing to a tank was me, and that's only because as a full-blooded Orc Barbarian, I had half again as many hit points as everyone else. I needed all of them. And my AC wasn't that bad. It's just that if you want to defend in this game, you need a shield or triggers like Nimble Dodge, and that didn't fit the character.
Basically we didn't build our group as an adventuring team. After the last fight, the GM gave us the option to try again with new PCs or start over with Age of Ashes. We did the latter. Now I've got a stereotypical Dwarf Warpriest who has both a shield and healing abilities, we have a Monk (finesse fighter), a Rogue/Arcane Trickster and a Lizardman Druid. It's only been a couple fights, but it's working better so far.

JG
 
In the Extinction Curse game we ended up getting a Total Party Kill. Which is the first time that's happened in a while. Part of it was because we triggered the event that brought us to the final boss of the first module before we'd rested up, but part of it was that we were very fragile. It's like we needed to rest up after every encounter cause it was all we could do not to get killed and ended up having to use up our healing magics for the day. Thing is, in Extinction Curse, you're encouraged to build your character as a member of a circus first and then figure out their game role, and since that's what we did, we ended up making things harder on ourselves.
Specifically, there wasn't a dedicated healer. There was a Bard with Soothe and a Chiruegon Alchemist, but it wasn't quite the same. We didn't have a dedicated tank. The closest thing to a tank was me, and that's only because as a full-blooded Orc Barbarian, I had half again as many hit points as everyone else. I needed all of them. And my AC wasn't that bad. It's just that if you want to defend in this game, you need a shield or triggers like Nimble Dodge, and that didn't fit the character.
Basically we didn't build our group as an adventuring team. After the last fight, the GM gave us the option to try again with new PCs or start over with Age of Ashes. We did the latter. Now I've got a stereotypical Dwarf Warpriest who has both a shield and healing abilities, we have a Monk (finesse fighter), a Rogue/Arcane Trickster and a Lizardman Druid. It's only been a couple fights, but it's working better so far.

JG
thanks for this. we are planning an all goblin party, and i can see a lack of dedicated healer easily.
 
I've ran pathfinder 1e and played in a Pathfinder 2e game. I would say that pathfinder 2e is a strict upgrade from 1e. Neither are really my style, but I enjoyed pathfinder 2e quite a bit. It's still a little crunchy for my liking so I don't know if I'd ever run it.
 
I've played in three 1E Pathfinder games. One started at higher levels when I joined and I felt underpowered compared to the Druid (I was a Ranger/Shapeshifter path.) It felt incredibly distinct and imbalanced. The other seemed reasonably workable and was enjoying it until the players atrophied for whatever reasons (I was a wizard and enjoying it.) In the last and more recent one, I played a summoner, but we had a large number of "pets" and it obviously became unwieldy for the GM. I think the players were having immense fun (I was a bit bothered by the lack of doing much because of everyone's pets. Not counting my own eidolon, it felt like a useless class with the number of other pets on the field.)

I've recently made a second edition one, and am waiting to see how it plays out, we just have characters made but the process was streamlined, though I had some issues since I didn't own or have access to a print book (I was using a chargen program which I've used for any of the Pathfinder books.) It looks like it would be just as easy without the program if I had a print book. Unlike 1E which made me need one for a lot of stuff only looking up things, I wasn't sure how worked. 2E had less of that problem but we've yet to play.

As a player, it looks much more reasonable for 2E in play. (I made a half dozen characters to see what I could build.) As a person who did not enjoy D&D3/3.5, Pathfinder was more of the same mess I disliked from that game. 2E seems more restrained and reasonable overall.

Understand I'm not a big fan of any recent iterations of D&D (I can stand 5E and depending on the campaign enjoy it.) But I still go back to earlier D&D's where magic is more restrained and less pew pew pew, in feel. It felt rare and wonderful (up till Forgotten Realms came along and made it very common, and understood how to fight it by almost every NPC.) My favorites are 2E and Cyclopedia--without settings where magic is so common, everyone seems to know how it works unless an actual sage or wizard or related sort.
 
No earlier than October I think, but I downloaded Little Trouble in Big Absolom and have offered to run it if our cortex GM is out or we are missing a player and he’s not feeling like running. The new Outlaws of Alkenstar coming out in April is way up the alley of a couple in the group, so we will see.

there is a lot to like, I gotta say. I like they are putting out pocket editions and have websites with all the rules.
 
So this is interesting. I played PF1 maybe a year or two after it came out. I'd played a lot of 3.X so when I jumped to PF1 it felt a lot simpler. 3.X had a real default class swapping/prestige class selection which massively rewarded system master. PF1 at that time felt like it heavily was biased to 20 levels in one class. That simplifies thing so damn much it is hard to understate. So many less options to consider.

I bring all this up because I am about to start playing in a PF2 campaign. Holy shit there is just a shit ton of options to consider! I started think hey I played an alchemist in PF1 why not repeat for PF2. No. That is just more work than I want to do right now. So maybe Gunslinger? I dunno just seems like it has so many little layers and you have to pick each thing optimally. Race, racial feats, Ancestry, background, class, subclass. I dunno, this is all feeling like a lot of work just for making a character. Then there's tons of discussions of action economy.

There was a time pre kids where all of this would have been heaven. Diving deep and digging it all these build options to make the best character. These days not so much.

Am I crazy and just prematurely getting overwhelmed?
 
I thought much the same when first presented with PF2. However, I found that, provided the GM isn't running a game where the NPCs are all tactical geniuses, you don't have to have a perfect build, and if something doesn't work you can retrain (assuming the GM isn't being tight on that).

The big thing is that PF1 is very much like D&D3.6 might've been, but PF2 is it's own thing to a much, much greater degree. It still rewards system mastery, and it still rewards carefully stacking feats on top of each other, but balance is much better, and because of the way the three-action turn works it feels a lot more flexible.
 
Am I crazy and just prematurely getting overwhelmed?
Not crazy, cause it can be intimidating at first, but I also think that it isn't that big of a deal in practice once you get over that initial hurdle of "holy crap that is a lot of options).

PF1e is much much worse when it comes to optimized vs non-optimized. The difference between an optimized PF2e character and an unoptimized one is not that big of a gap. As long as you don't do something crazy (make a fighter with like low str AND dex) you'll be competent.

I think the biggest thing is to not worry too much about planning ahead, and just pick the options that look cool to you. Planning out way far ahead is when the number of options gets overwhelming. Plus PF2e has pretty generous retraining rules, so if you end up finding a feat choice you picked was kind of meh, or decide you wanted to try to go into a different string of feats (like "damn, I really feel like the scroll thaumaturgy line would have been cool to pick up") and want to change it it isn't that big of a deal.

Also, I'd suggest using something like pathbuilder: https://pathbuilder2e.com/app.html

It isn't necessary, but it does make it SUPER easy to make a character compared to doing it by hand. It will show you all the choices you need to make at every level, and all the things you can choose. (The only thing to look out for is that occasionally a Golarian lore related background will have a slightly different name to avoid any IP issues, but all the mechanics are in there).
 
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