Does anyone play Pathfinder 2E?

[hogarth]

I've kind of stopped paying attention to tabletop RPGs for a couple of years. Does anyone know if Pathfinder 2E has any kind of popularity? Or are Pathfinder 1E fans sticking to the original version? Or is everyone playing 5E D&D nowadays?

[Whatever Jr.]

It's almost all 5e.

[Niles]

All rpg advancement can feel like a Red Queen's Race, level based systems especially so. But the Pathfinder 2 playtest did so to an extent that no other game compares.

[Krusk]

Roll20 says no. https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-g ... t-q1-2021/ PF2 (1.51% of campaigns) is far less popular than PF1(3.49%), and very close in popularity to 3.5 (.98%). Its basically the 4e to PF1's 3.5.

5e on the other hand has 52.94% of the roll20 market and is seeing growth.

Roll20 and VTTs aren't the only measure of how much something is played, but its certainly one of the most reliable in terms of providing real numbers that aren't hundreds of millions.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Playing 3.5 in Roll20 sounds like a nightmare. I can only imagine people play Pathfinder more because there's more macros for all the completely pointless number fiddling.

[Orca]

Paizo seems happy with their sales. Genuinely I think. But you seldom see PF2 fans online and any place you can measure actual players says they're rare. I think Paizo's created a system which is well liked by people who spend serious money on games (on Paizos' at least), but much less by casual players.

[CroakerofPadora]

My group plays it. I'm the GM.

We all love it.

The 3 action system is great. I love how diverse the character building can be. There is a Gamemastery Guide rule that allows players to get a free archetype at lvl 2. It is fantastic. It vastly increases the customization options without breaking the game. Our group has really enjoyed it. The most powerful PC at the table isn't even using a free archetype.

2e has also been super easy to teach to new players.
I have had 3 players with zero TTRPG experience rolling dice and havjng a great time in the first 5 minutes of the session. They loved it.

People say that PF2e isn't doing well but it is still the second best selling RPG behind 5e according to ICv2, which I know is a small sample size.

I played a lot of 1e but as soon as we played the final version of PF2e we were happy to transition over.

[Prak]

Its basically the 4e to PF1's 3.5.

Worse- it's the pathfinder of pathfinder. Loads of pointless stupid changes to things that didn't need to be changed, and little to no change to things that needed to be changed.

There is a Gamemastery Guide rule that allows players to get a free archetype at lvl 2.

What are archetypes in the context of Pf2? Because... In Pf1, you just *take* archetypes, ostensibly at level 1, but if someone's looking at an archetype that doesn't change anything at level 1, I wouldn't care about them not committing to it until the level it actually changes things.

[hogarth]

What are archetypes in the context of Pf2? Because... In Pf1, you just *take* archetypes, ostensibly at level 1, but if someone's looking at an archetype that doesn't change anything at level 1, I wouldn't care about them not committing to it until the level it actually changes things.

My understanding is that they're kind of a mishmash of a prestige class, a PF1 archetype, and 4E multiclass feats. In PF2, you pick most of your class features using feat slots and an archetype allows you to fill those feat slots from a different list (e.g. a cleric with the "druid multiclass" archetype could pick a feat that gives an animal companion or wild shape).

[Emerald]

2e has also been super easy to teach to new players.
I have had 3 players with zero TTRPG experience rolling dice and havjng a great time in the first 5 minutes of the session. They loved it.

While something along these lines is often used as a selling point for 5e and PF2 as if it's some dramatic change from 3e/4e or PF1, I would point out that basically any game works that way if you hand someone a pre-generated character, explain the core resolution mechanic and general gist of their character, and get to playing--and I only specified pregens because character creation takes more than 5 minutes if you put any thought into it, not because it's at all difficult for new players to grasp if they have a helpful GM and/or are willing to read.

And speaking of character creation, in PF2 it's still the same old "Generate stats, pick race, pick class, pick profession/NWPs/skills/background, buy gear, calculate derived combat stats, fill in backstory stuff, go" procedure that D&D and all of its derivatives have been doing since the 70s, except there's more hoop-jumping (e.g. stat generation is fiddlier than point buy) and the developers are fans of taking lots of old stuff away and then bringing some of it back and pretending like they added lots of choice and cool stuff (e.g. "ancestry feats" are a thing, except to have a dwarf or elf with exactly the same traits as a PF1 version of that race you'd have to spend every single one of your 7 ancestry feats over 7 levels on picking up all of that old stuff).

Pretty much anything about more choices or customization or flexibility or whatever in PF2 is a lie. The three-action system gives you lots more options with your turn!...except spells still take multiple actions, lots of things now cost actions that didn't before (like having to actively raise your shield, because shields were apparently broken in PF1), and you can't pick up extra-"stuff"-per-turn options (extra attacks, quickened spells, etc.) nearly as easily as before (with high-level martial types suffering on damage output from the replacement of full attacks with "just Strike with each action"). Ancestry feats let you customize your race however you want!...except, as noted, it's a false choice, and all of the PF2 equivalents of PF1 racial traits are weaker or more limited in some way. I can choose what level I want to cast my spell at!...except, as in 5e, you're trading the free scaling of "caster level" that's been in the game since the '70s for a higher spell slot and even then the "scaling" is anemic at best.

A bunch of my friends back home play Pathfinder and know friends-of-friends who play as well, and for every super-enthusiastic fan of PF2 they know (or are) at least a dozen more who wouldn't touch it with a standard-issue 10-foot pole. I've played around with it a little bit (character creation and some sample encounters, like I did with 4e when it came out) and came away with basically the same opinion. So I don't see PF1 going anywhere or PF2 replacing PF1 any time soon.

[WalkTheDin0saur]

My impression of PF2e just from casual reading was that it was massively, pointlessly complicated in a way that would seem crazy to people who haven't been 3e/PF/4e for years. Like, I'm an autismo supernerd who has been known to rant at normies about lizardfolk attack routines. and trying to learn to read PF2e statblocks was more than I had the patience for. I'm sure it's easier than PF1e because it has fewer options but it definitely didn't look simple or approachable.

[MGuy]

I played pf2e and it made me think better if 5e. Don't like either of them but my experience with pf2 was actually had where my experience with 5e was just boredom. I'll say that my issues both times were with the systems. Actually playing with people I know was generally enjoyable as usual.

A friend of mine who I taught to GM ran the game for us and he was very excited about it. He's also the one who ran the 5e game we played. I played a wizard in both because I like casting spells. In PF there we a lot of things in it I did not understand the point of. Like why is the DC to aid someone 20? Why make what can and can't perform an AoO so inconsistent? Or why is there a wizard set up based around your familiar when they've clearly gone out of their way to make your familiar completely suck? Or can I even counterspell a spell being cast if I prepare an action? I don't remember why that last thing came up or what the eventual answer was. I think there was an issue with how it could be possible since there's is a feat you have to get at higher levels that allows you to identify spells quickly which implied that a separate action had to be taken to identify the spell, an action separate from countering it which I believe made it impossible. I don't remember. It was a while ago and we abandoned the game 5 levels in.

In comparison playing 5e was mostly just boring. I understood what things did and the places that got confusing mostly had to do with skills since, in a number of cases I wasn't clear on what a DC for a thing might even be but that's not an issue exclusive to 5e so whatever.

I did get the impression that both were simpler but that never really mattered to me. Gun to my head if I had to stick with one or the other it would be 5e. I've been more interested in running other things myself but I could at least be convinced to play 5e again without being (heavily) bribed.