Thread by @djrhutton

As a huge #pathfinder2e advocate, I'm super glad to see it getting attention, even if it is mostly to spite WotC. While it's trending, I want to throw my own 2c on for people who are considering trying it, starting with one statement:

The game isn't going to be for everyone

2e is a game with set design goals in mind. It aims to make combat tactical. Rules and minutia are an important element of its design. Some will find that overwhelming. Even those who don't and play as close to RAW as possible may find it restrictive and suffocating.

The game is heavily power capped. You can't stack huge damage or use save or suck spells to expedite encounters, and there's lots of caveats to prevent cheese. Players who's enjoyment comes from powergaming and emergent gameplay won't find it catering to them at all.

Magic is heavily nerfed compared to other d20 systems, including 5e. Not useless at all, but the power has been drastically toned down. Spells are more nuanced and won't win fights single-handedly. If you prefer intentionally powerful magic, you'll be unsatisfied with 2e's design

It's not that you can't have any fun or improvise at all in 2e. But it's a game designed to be played as close to RAW as possible. If you handwave a lot and don't care for the minutia, mechanics and intended balance will break. It's a delicately crafted, interconnecting system.

It's anathema to 'rulings, not rules'. I totally get the 5e school yard-esque 'we like the APPEARANCE of rules but really don't care and will change and ignore the ones we don't like' mentality. If that's what you prefer, you will 100% be wasting time investing in PF2e.

It's also the kind of system that an overly-bureaucratic GM can use to justify sucking the fun out of the game. It is the perfect system for what @mattcolville very aptly called the 'soulless rules pedant' to obsess about minutia at the cost of the game's fun.

I'm not saying this to gatekeep or that you're playing wrong if you do this; it's a fair warning from someone who loves the system and wants lots of people to try it that if you're going to find that minutia burdomesome, it will be a chore for you to enjoy. I'm just being honest

But this is just to temper expectations. To actually go on about what I love in the system, it gives me everything I need to run the kind of game I want: a mechanically dense, carefully tuned game with deep tactical combat and lots of character expression

For players, 2e hits the perfect intersection of flavour and depth. The game is so well designed and tuned, you can make almost any character concept you want, and it will be viable. No more gimmick builds or feeling inferior to another warlock/sorc/paladin multiclass.

There is mastery required, but it is mastery that enables expression, not to break the game. The wealth of options and tight tuning means you will be able to make a design for a character you want (within reason) and have it work.

You can do your generic smashy fighter or stealthy rogue. I can also make a magus that specialises in wielding a sword and pistol that can both make spellstrikes, or a barbarian that grows huge to pick up and toss enemies across the battlefield.

I can make an elemental blaster sorcerer that also takes an archetype which lets you get what's effectively wild magic. I can make a champion (paladin) with a great sword I can throw and comes back to me like Marvel Thor's Mjollnir. I can make a FIGHTER that does that.

And the thing is? All these builds WORK. None of these are gimmicky at the expense of effectiveness. They aren't builds that only work if the GM is going easy on you with subpar enemies. And they're not railroaded builds, spoonfed by a subclass with strict progression path

These are custom builds you can make with any combinations of abilities and feats from base classes, multiclassing, archetypes. And they ALL. WORK. They won't just be gimmicks. They have a place in the party.

PF2e is the perfect intersection of mechanical viability and character expression. I have hundreds of character concepts I'll never get to play because I'm a forever GM, but I find reasons to seed them into my campaigns as NPCs because they excite me so much I want to share them

(also as an aside, martials are WAY better than they are in 5e. You know how the only non-magic martial subclass anyone actually likes is Battle Master? Imagine that but with EVERY martial class. That's what a martial is in 2e)

That's not to say balance is perfect; some characters with bigger optimisation focus may inch out a character who sacrifices an idea option for flavpie or a side-grade. But the gap is far, far less than the gap between a heavily optimised character in a system like dnd 3.5 or 5e

Which brings me to my next point: how amazing 2e is for GMs who want to run a mechanically deep system with engaging combat. But to talk about that, I need to get a bit Edition Wars-y and talk about my issues with 5e.

I stopped DMing 5e because I got tired of how offensively unsupportive it is to DMs who want anything more than a barebones framework. Encounter building is inaccurate, there's no guidelines for gold and item economy, and rules are intentionally interpretive rather than clear

If you want anything deeper than RAW, you either have to homebrew it yourself, or rely on 3rd party. And I don't want to spend hours trudging through DriveThruRPG or /r/UnearthedArcana for content of questionable quality that probably should've been added by the game's designers

This is not a slag at 3rd party writers, by the way. This is a slag at WotC offloading responsibility. To paraphrase a great analogy, 5e is the Bethesda game of TTRPGs; it's functional and works on its own, but barebones and relies on other content creators to add any depth to it

Content releases for DMs have become increasingly barebones and long-winded ways of saying 'figure it out yourself.' There are plenty of flavour guidelines, but very little as far as tangible mechanics. It expects you to just figure out how to rule them yourself.

5e is at odds with itself, trying to be simultaneously a flexible game fit for improv, but having hard mechanics that either supercede that roleplay flexibility, or are ignored in favour of it. The cohesion is poor and not well meshed.

As someone who wants that more in-depth support but doesn't want to spend time developing it myself or tacking on an abundance of 3rd party support, 5e doesn't suit my needs as a GM. I'll continue to play it as a player, but not run as a GM it anymore.

2e, by comparison, doesn't just have that support, but it FUCKING. WORKS. Encounter building guidelines are accurate. All items are priced. There are tables for what the expected DC for a challenge of any given level is and expected gold per party level.

The GM screen alone has all of this. It's the single best investment you can make and it has everything you need to keep track of the game's mechanics

Combine this with the much tighter game balance, and every combat scenario I run has been engaging. It doesn't get cheesed, the accuracy of encounter building means it will be as easy or difficult as I expect, and it means everything comes down to player strategy and decision.

But let's be frank: there'll be a learning curve. There's a lot to take in. I understand the apprehension of committing to a dense system. Especially if you're a 3.5/1e vet; those systems were bloated to shit and had so much useless chaff for the investment you put into it.

But 2e works, I assure you. That's why I love it and is my system of choice. It's a mechanically tight system that works out of the box and doesn't require much hacking around.

This thread is too long as it is, so I'll stop here. But if you have any questions or queries, please let me know, I'll be happy to provide advice or insight :)