Pathfinder 2E vs. 5E D&D and character "builds"

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:21 pm

Wouldn't work. All the giants and dragons are nailed to the first 30 CR, and the overwhelming majority are nailed to the first 20, and will die to the alpha strike of a longbow levy of a backwoods viscount.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:26 pm

You've still got Force Dragons and Ocean Dragons and Primordial Ooze Dragons and Vecna and Megatitans and Tarrasque Swarms and stuff to write. Although having junk mucking up CRs 21-30 does sound like a bit of a problem.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Thu Dec 13, 2018 8:45 pm

Why bother writing a game where all your most iconic monsters are unplayable trash and you're forced to rely on MM2 junk like force dragons? It's not like there's any chance of leeching off of 5e's popularity with the marketing pitch of "all the monsters are moderately to extremely lame in concept but I fixed the mechanics!"

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:16 pm

lol. Oh right, I forget sometimes that I appreciate sillier concepts than most people do, I should really collaborate on team projects with someone else to rein me in more often. I suppose 7th Heaven Cloud Giants, Really Like Super Old Red Dragons, Dread Dire Winter Wolves, and Ancient Liches would be too lame too?

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Mon Dec 17, 2018 11:58 pm

Rawbeard wrote:the "modularity" of Pathfinder 2 gives me anxiety and I fucking love Pathfinder for having archtypes and alternate racial traits to custom tailer your character to your concept. FUCK. am I getting too old for this shit?

No. Pathfinder 2's generation system is a hot pile of poo. It is too many interdependent and also stand alone choices that are not balanced between each other in a class, let alone across classes, and you have to have a great deal of system mastery just to make a functioning character.

Frankly, 5e is pretty close to how you really want character creation to be. It's fast, simple and pretty versatile, they just needed to do a better job on feats and put out more archtypes. I'm actually very impressed with the class/archtype/feats system as presented by 5e, but the core mechanics of the system are just a shutdown for any real enthusiasm for the rest of it.

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:56 pm

Previn wrote: Frankly, 5e is pretty close to how you really want character creation to be. It's fast, simple and pretty versatile, they just needed to do a better job on feats and put out more archtypes. I'm actually very impressed with the class/archtype/feats system as presented by 5e, but the core mechanics of the system are just a shutdown for any real enthusiasm for the rest of it.

The main drawback being you make a 5e character, so you're incapable of doing anything interesting. It requires no system mastery, because they managed to fill a record high number of pages with a record low amount of system.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Dec 18, 2018 3:00 pm

Iduno wrote:
Previn wrote: Frankly, 5e is pretty close to how you really want character creation to be. It's fast, simple and pretty versatile, they just needed to do a better job on feats and put out more archtypes. I'm actually very impressed with the class/archtype/feats system as presented by 5e, but the core mechanics of the system are just a shutdown for any real enthusiasm for the rest of it.
The main drawback being you make a 5e character, so you're incapable of doing anything interesting. It requires no system mastery, because they managed to fill a record high number of pages with a record low amount of system.

Sure, but if you just swapped out class features that make function calls to systems that don't exist or which are meaningless fluff and aren't actually relevant for stuff that actually affected the game, you'd have a character with plenty of interesting abilities, and the character creation system itself would be completely identical.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Dec 19, 2018 6:31 am

I imagine if both systems are written by equaly incompetent people, I would prefer the Pathfinder aproach. So I can cherry pick the functional parts. D&D 5 has to few things to cherry pick so it gets boring fast.

Edit: That said, I do not plan on buying PF2

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:11 pm

Yeah, there is some amount that you could improve D&D5 by replacing shitty rules with good ones, but at some point you'll be increasing the complexity. For a competently-made game, you have to choose between increasing complexity and choices, or reducing complexity and choices.

Pathfinder 2 looks like they're removing the "competently-made" portion of that and increasing complexity while removing options.