Pathfinder 2E

[Slaughterhouserock]

I know DOMD is probably the only other person here that will give a fuck about this, but the playtest materials are available to download here. I just skimmed the rulebook and it looks like a steaming pile of monkey turds. I ranted a bit on twitter about it and am just gonna copy/paste that shit here.

Checking out the PF 2E playtest material and, so far, I am not liking it. It looks like it's trying for the "everyone's equal" shit from 4E D&D with the "simplify everything" approach of 5E. I'm not that far into it, so I'm hoping I'm wrong, cause that shit sucks donkey dick.

Class-based abilities are now feats. AoO's are feats. The verbiage is very 4E, which is off-putting. The classes are just a giant mess due to the layout. Trip/Disarm are part of Athletics now. Lock picking/trap disabling are now just a skill, so fuck you Rogues. Wait, there's still normal feats even though they call class abilities feats. Guess everything's a feat now. Something about referring to Touch AC as TAC annoys me. Full plate got nerfed hard, as did other armors, but plate especially. Greatsword is 1d12! What is this nonsense?!

1000 xp = 1 level...always. That did not need to be simplified. It makes sense that you need more xp to get to higher levels. New terminology is kinda dumb. Moving is now striding, attacking is now striking, defending is now "raising your shield"(seriously). I just saw AoO's listed as not a feat elsewhere in the book. Dunno if you need a feat to use them or not, shit's confusing. Multi-attacking is confusing, too. By the looks of it, you can attack 3+ times starting at first level, you just have to eat the penalties.

Dead is now just a condition. Best line so far "you can’t be brought above 0 HP as long as you remain dead." No shit? Magic items have gone the way of 5E and are hard to come by. A chart shows you should have 6 magic items at level 20...but looking at the magic items, they all have a price, so I don't fucking know. I just skimmed this shit, so I'm sure I'm missing stuff. The fact that they changed races to ancestries is just dumb. A race is a race. If you want an ancestor-thing, add it in, don't change races.

I don't play PF, so I don't plan to dig into much deeper than that, but man, it looks like they went and fucked it all up.

[DancesWithWerewolves]

Yikes. My PF group didn't like what we were hearing ahead of time either, but this just sounds worse and worse.

[DancesWithWerewolves]

OMG the new character sheet design is an eyesore...

[DancesWithWerewolves]

"At 1st Level, a character can never have an ability score higher than 18"

*narrows eyes*

[DancesWithWerewolves]

It actually says if you roll a 17 or an 18 for an ability score that your "ancestry" is going to bump above 18, you apply it to a different score.

The main method of ability scores (start at flat 10's, build up) is interesting, but still lame it neuters the luck of a role plus racial bumps.

[DancesWithWerewolves]

Not gonna like, I dig that the Monk flurry of blows essentially gets treated like Clustered Shots, where you get to total all the damage before DR/Weaknesses, instead of applying DR/Weakness to each hit.

[Slaughterhouserock]

OMG the new character sheet design is an eyesore...

At 1st Level, a character can never have an ability score higher than 18

It actually says if you roll a 17 or an 18 for an ability score that your "ancestry" is going to bump above 18, you apply it to a different score.

The main method of ability scores (start at flat 10's, build up) is interesting, but still lame it neuters the luck of a role plus racial bumps.

Not gonna like, I dig that the Monk flurry of blows essentially gets treated like Clustered Shots, where you get to total all the damage before DR/Weaknesses, instead of applying DR/Weakness to each hit.

What, you don't like seeing TEML everywhere?

Yeah, the ability score thing just shows that they are limiting things like 5E. Considering PF is a beefed up version of D&D, it seems like a step backward to me.

It is interesting, but it just makes it so every character has the exact same starting stats, just with the scores in different stats. Basically why I hate point buy, too. They did keep rolling as an optional method at least.

I didn't really dig into the classes, I just checked the stat blocks for the classes to see what they got, but that is decent.

I get that they're trying to do different shit, but if you change too much, you end up making a different game. It's why 4E failed, and why 5E isn't all that great for veteran players.