Pathfinder Second Edition

[Morblot]

Well now I don't know who to believe, the guy who gave me simple one-word answers which I like, or the one who wrote three posts and seems to have actually read the book, but whose answers I don't like, because I want the game to be shit so I won't end up buying it.

 

[finarvyn]

I saw the PF2 core rulebook, bestiary, and GM screen at my local game store. I know that I'll never play PF2, but it took incredible resistance to not buy the three. They looked so fun.

 

[Sommerjon]

Well now I don't know who to believe, the guy who gave me simple one-word answers which I like, or the one who wrote three posts and seems to have actually read the book, but whose answers I don't like, because I want the game to be shit so I won't end up buying it.

Sorry bub, gave you the answers you wanted to hear.

 

[KrakaJak]

Any good stuff that can be imported into 5e?

Honestly, not a lot. The power level and the numbers are wholly incompatible.

Maybes:
Using the medicine skill every hour of exploration to heal between fights.
Dropping Advantage/Disadvantage and using modifiers instead.

 

[Bilharzia]

It's not my glass of tea or wheelhouse but I have to wonder about the praise for design & layout. I have only seen a couple of previews on video but some of the choices look very odd. Something that caught my eye is the repeat labels they have on feat descriptions so that if you are in a section about a Dwarf, it labels "DWARF" under every item, every time, in red block. There's nothing on the side bar or the header that indicates the (exact) section you are reading, (like something that says "DWARF!" for example) this is really odd design from my view. The whole page is covered in these red blocks, which seem redundant and noisy and no section label. If the entire section is about the "DWARF" you don't need to label every single item "DWARF", from what I've seen this is the case with every ancestry and every class and every spell etc, etc. Not an earth-shattering criticism but it's not what I would call good design & layout.

(I took this from a preview by "Classic_DM" on YT)

 

[Endless Flight]

I agree. I flipped through the book at the store and thought the layout and design was a step back from 1e and the Beginner’s Box.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I like the tags actually, and like that they are very very explicit and don't leave any of it assumed. There are places in the Ancestry section where they aren't all in one grouping (look at the ancestry feats for half-orc for instance, they have a mix of ones that are tagged orc and ones that are tagged halforc)

Also,the reason you aren't seeing a big header that says "DWARF" is because that is the 3 and 4th page of a 4 page spread on Dwarves. The big header is on the first page of that spread.

 

[Necrozius]

edit: wrong thread hahahaha

 

[Bilharzia]

I like the tags actually, and like that they are very very explicit and don't leave any of it assumed. There are places in the Ancestry section where they aren't all in one grouping (look at the ancestry feats for half-orc for instance, they have a mix of ones that are tagged orc and ones that are tagged halforc)

Also,the reason you aren't seeing a big header that says "DWARF" is because that is the 3 and 4th page of a 4 page spread on Dwarves. The big header is on the first page of that spread.

On the header - sure I see it when the section begins, my point is if you want to show at a glance "where am I?" in the book, an indicator at the top of the page would do it, without all the "DWARF" labels under the items, there is plenty of space where it says "Ancestries & Backgrounds" for a subheader or an extended header ... especially when you've removed all of the "DWARF" labels....
I don't have the book so I'm only going by the video previews, I imagine I'm missing something but first impressions are - that's a very noisy design. It looks to me like an overly modular approach as if hundreds of card designs have been stuck together without as much consideration to the overall coherence of a book layout. It's even more egregious in the class section with every feat labelled "CLASS(X)" 15 times.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Idk, like I said, I like all the explicit tags. It clears a lot of corner cases of "is X a Y" without having to just list all of them.

 

[Baulderstone]

I would find the redundant tags useful. When I am running a game from a PDF with lots of mechanical bits, I usually take separate screen snapshots of each mechanical bit and organize them into a OneNote document. As I am essentially chopping the book into little pieces, that tag would be useful.

I realize this is a limited case though.

 

[Jetstream]

The only reason they're labeling the ancestry feats like that is to maintain consistency. They're DWARF feats, not GENERAL or SKILL or DOWNTIME feats. I mean, if you think the tagging is a bad way of going about it, that's valid, but if they're gonna do it, they should do it for everything.

I'd think it was kinda stupid if they labeled every feat that way, except the ones in the specific headings because reasons.

 

[sureshot]

This. The backwards compatibility was a selling point for a few years and then becomes irrelevant because powers creep is inevitable. What was cool in 3.5 becomes too weak to be relevant later on.

It was not just about power creep. Converting stuff from 3.5 to PF requires the DM to spend time doing so. A class here, a feat there it is not too bad. Rebuilding say a Dragonlance game from the ground up can be very time consuming and for many not worth doing. So they just use a PF or 3PP equivalent. Since PF was released in 2008 I have seen maybe three people converting older material to new in my area. One can't build an edition around john doe maybe converting his 3.5 material to PF maybe in 5-10 years time. They also needed something to try and take back the fans and market share the lost to 5E. Releasing the same rpg a second time that allowed 5E to do that would have been financial suicide for Paizo imo

Honestly they didn't necessarily need to state a new edition was in the works. They could have taken a page from D&D 4.0 essentials and stealth release a new edition.

Well they kind of did with Pathfinder Unchained. Up until 5E was released no mention of that book was on their release schedule. 5E is released and "suddenly" a book with options on how to alter the standard PF game is released. Which they borrowed heavily from to include in Starfinder and much of it in PF 2E. The action economy for 2E came mostly intact from Pathfinder Unchained.

Anyone know of any binding issues with the PF 2E. You think with the binding issues because of the size of the core for PF 1E they would have learnt their lesson. Instead no they doubled down.

 

[Sommerjon]

On the header - sure I see it when the section begins, my point is if you want to show at a glance "where am I?" in the book, an indicator at the top of the page would do it, without all the "DWARF" labels under the items, there is plenty of space where it says "Ancestries & Backgrounds" for a subheader or an extended header ... especially when you've removed all of the "DWARF" labels....
I don't have the book so I'm only going by the video previews, I imagine I'm missing something but first impressions are - that's a very noisy design. It looks to me like an overly modular approach as if hundreds of card designs have been stuck together without as much consideration to the overall coherence of a book layout. It's even more egregious in the class section with every feat labelled "CLASS(X)" 15 times.

I'm not following.

Every odd page has what section of the book you are reading in.

Are you saying you desire even more of a breakdown in each section of the book?
I can understand that

That's part of the Table of Contents.
It's deliberately vague. I like that aspect

 

[KrakaJak]

The only reason they're labeling the ancestry feats like that is to maintain consistency. They're DWARF feats, not GENERAL or SKILL or DOWNTIME feats. I mean, if you think the tagging is a bad way of going about it, that's valid, but if they're gonna do it, they should do it for everything.

It's also going to be useful for people who print/buy ability cards. "This is a spell, this is an ancestry feat, this is from my class, this is a magic item."

 

[EmperorNorton]

I realize this is a limited case though.

I actually don't think it is that much of a limited case. 99% of times that people are using these in play is going to be on their character sheets, not in the book, and being able to copy them down directly as written on the page makes it much easier. (either through literally cut and paste in one note or just typing/writing it down.

 

[Caesar Slaad]

There are obvious organizational/utility benefits to the symbols/tags, but I feel like they under-utilized them.