Pathfinder 2E - impressions

 Switching costs too high?

Image by Paizo

[6 min read]

After the Wizards of the Coast OGL contraversy, our D&D 5E group has been seriously considering our options. You can see my initial reaction in this post here. In the subsequent weeks, while Wizards was doing their best to get the community back onside, myself and the other two DMs in our group have been flirting with Pathfinder 2E. Many voices in the TTRPG community were advocating for it, and Paizo had some strategically timed deals and bundles that reduced the financial barrier to entry.

After reading (well, skimming) the core book, watching part of the excellent How It's Played series and also setting up the PF2E Beginner's Box on Foundry, when it came time to play our fist game, well, we just didn't feel it. In the end I ran a two-player session of Frontier Forays, my D&D 5E campaign, instead.

How is it that we cooled on the idea of playing PF2E, after all that excitement, research and investment? We all independently concluded that the switching cost of moving to the new ruleset would be too high for our group. From the crunchy rules, a new setting, and a more complex interface in Foundry, we imagined that the amount of frustration for our players over the coming months would be considerable. Moving to PF2E felt too much of a stretch when we just want to show up, feel powerful, and above all, enjoy our Friday evenings with laughs among friends.

That said, while the idea of moving systems is on pause, I found that the exploration both interesting and valuable as I make my way through my 2023 RPG Crawl. I actually solo-played through the Beginner Box adventure, Menace under Otari, to give me a taste of the rules. Some highlights (and lowlights) from that experience below:

What I liked

The action economy 

The first thing that attracted me to PF2E and almost a reason to switch in and of itself, having three actions per turn seems to elegantly fix the clunky move/action/interaction/bonus action economy of D&D 5E. Being able to move three times, or attack three times, in a turn is Just. Plain. Cool. And with this system, since almost everything takes an action (like drawing a weapon), everyone knows where they stand each turn, rather than 'asking for permission' just to change weapons and attack. 

Character progression

Without having much experience here, the research I did showed that PF2E is renowned for its balance, even amongst a huge list of progression options such as ancestry feats, class feats, skill feats etc. And since each feat is relatively low in power, the need to optimise is obviated in favour of building out a character that suits your taste without worrying about whether it will keep up in power levels versus other builds. Even multi-classing seems far less game-breaking, with the choice between core class or the multi-class feats at certain levels.

D&D 5E, on the other hand, is famous for its spiky balancing, overpowered builds, multi-class dips - looking at you Gloomstalker Ranger with Sharpshooter, Paladins with Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master feats, and well, Twilight Clerics - all of which we have some experience with in our campaigns. As a player, I'd be excited to not have to study the optimal choices and feel like I am missing out on expected power by making an unexpected choice.

Combat variability 

One of the complaints about D&D 5E is the lack of variery in weapons and armour, and how combat can often play out in an array of successive hits and misses versus big bags of hit points. Even at low level, I really enjoyed using skill feats and weapon traits to make combat more interesting. It always felt good to use my third action to raise a shield, getting a +2 AC and ability to block damage, or recall knowledge to try and glean an advantage over a foe, or using Deception to feint and make the enemy flat-footed (and open to sneak attack damage).

The concerns I had

Crunchy rules 

As I was reading through the rulebook, I was really enjoying how everything seemed so balanced, and so complete. It was as if they had thought of every situation, and were able to provide clear rules that were logical and fair to adjudicate them. But it was when I was trying to understand rules around vision, perception, stealth, and detection where I started to feel weighed down by the crunch of the game. Even with excellent videos such as this one on Perception and this one on Stealth, I struggled to keep track of everything. For sure, practice would make perfect, but it was around this time that I started to think about how we would actually introduce these with players in a live environment without it being overwhelming. My group of players, experienced as we are with D&D 5E aren't really use to defaulting to 'rulings not rules' and I could see us getting bogged down in play as we try to be precise.

Virtual Tabletop

Lastly, moving to PF2E would mean a move away from the simple Above VTT (Virtual Tabletop), which for the most part integrates well with D&D Beyond. I chose to invest in Foundry VTT, since it is an open platform that would support all the games I want to try out as part of my TTRPG exploration this year. Using this video tutorial, I was able to get the Beginner Box adventure loaded in 15-20 minutes. I then probably spent another one to two hours installing all the quality of life modules to make it a highly functional VTT for our first game. However, it is not the most intuitive interface, and when one of the prospective players came in to build his character, it took far longer than we had originally thought. I don't see this as a major obstacle for running games in the future, but added to the complexity of the PF2E system gave me further pause in making the switch.

In summary

I respect the hell out of Pathfinder 2E! I can see why for many D&D 5E refugees, it is a logical choice, one that would right the many 'wrongs' of the world's most popular roleplaying game. And I would consider running it under the right circumstances. But at this point in time, with our small group of DMs all coming to the same conclusion, we have decided to stay the course on D&D 5E. In the end it boiled down to fun versus frustration, laughing versus learning, comfort over crunch.

Of course, I am still hoping to get the chance to run one of the other many TTRPGs I am interested in, but I am thinking of options that are less complicated, not more, than D&D 5E.