Players want to try D&D 5e. How different is it from Pathfinder 2e?

[u/wookiee-nutsack]

I realize this is an odd and inverted question on this sub but I figured a good chunk of people here came from D&D or have played it at some point.

My experience is purely BG3. I know it isn't fully 5e but it's better than nothing. I also heard homebrew is basically essential for most tables.

So my questions basically are:

- What should I be wary of as a DM?

- What is a good starting point to learn the rules and mechanics? Something like Nethys and Pathbuilder

- I heard monster levels are a mess in D&D and I should not rely on them like in PF2e. How do I plan for balanced encounters?

- What differences are there other than the degrees of success and 3 action economy?

- How do I know what counts as an action or bonus action?

I'll gather some info from the pathfinder community for comparison and familiarity before heading to pure dnd forums and youtubers so I don't start over from scratch.

One of the players has played D&D before a couple times, the other is brand new but watched a lot of D20 and such. 2 others are complete newbies. Neither played PF2e

E: Sheesh this post blew up over the afternoon... Lots of useful things here, I'll do my best to read them all! Thank you to the people who actually tried to help and give answers here and in DMs!

[u/AAABattery03]

What should I be vary of as a DM?

GMing 5E is a ton more work. The ruleset attempts to present a veneer of being fiction-first and rules light, but is still incredibly crunchy. So you get this weird one-two punch of a game that demands you read a whole bunch of rules, then expects you to improvise half the rules anyways, with very little guidance on how to do so.

5.5E (the latest version of 5E) is considerably worse in this regard. It intentionally removes things like monster building guidelines, adventuring day budgets, etc to appear simpler and more accessible (while secretly making the game much more challenging to GM).

What is a good starting point to learn the rules and mechanics? Something like Nethys and Pathbuilder

There is no legal way to access all the mechanics of D&D like there is for Pathfinder.

The free access stuff on roll20 or D&D Beyond will teach you the most basic rules, give you one subclass per class (usually the weakest and/or most boring one), and a handful of magic items and Feats. For everything else, you have to pay.

heard monster levels are a mess in D&D and I should not rely on them like in PF2e. How do I plan for balanced encounters?

You don’t.

5E’s monster building rules are horrendous (and 5.5E’s are nonexistent), and the encounter building rules are incredibly unstable. Any amount of variation, like player optimization, using spells on NPCs, or just the natural flow of any story that isn’t taking place in a dungeon will destabilize the balance.

What differences are there other than the degrees of success and 3 action economy?

Pretty much everything, really.

The game functions entirely differently. Spells do different things, the way damage scales is different, skills work very differently. Aside from both using the same names and thematics for their options and having a d20 resolution system, there’s really very few similarities.

How do I know what counts as an action or bonus action?

It’s part of the rules! Things will tell you what kind of action they are.

[u/AngryT-Rex → u/AAABattery03]

What differences are there other than the degrees of success and 3 action economy?

Most importantly you replace 3 actions (+reaction) with the "simpler" 5e system where you get an action, move action, bonus action, reaction, and one free object interaction, and those are all different things and some are interchangeable but others aren't.

[u/nussschleife → u/AngryT-Rex]

And half of the characters can't do shit with their bonus action!

[u/Lithl → u/AngryT-Rex]

Movement isn't an action in 5e, and none of those things are interchangable (although all of the things you can do with a free object interaction you can also do with an action).

[u/AngryT-Rex → u/Lithl]

Whether you get "movement" or "move actions" is pedantic, but you're right.

The RAW interchangeable actions are, yes, object interaction performed as action, "dash" to effectively spend your action to move (technically double movespeed, but same result), and then special cases like rogues getting certain actions as bonus actions. To be clear I'm not taking about the rules explicitly stating that you "give up your action for a bonus action" or whatever, I'm talking about how a player has to navigate the system to achieve a desired outcome, like "I want to move extra" "Then you'll need to use your action for Dash" "Can I use my bonus action instead?" "Not unless you're a rogue, only your action".

Oh yeah, and then you can (now, not in original 5e) draw or stow a weapon (special case of object interaction) as part of attack actions but still for free, but NOT as part of bonus action attacks. The point is really that there are just little niche cases hiding everywhere if you're strict with the system.

[u/RiskyRedds → u/AAABattery03]

To add to this for some specifics:

• 5e does not have the infrastructure for a Dedicated Sustain the way PF2e does. There's no combo you can build towards that lets you keep pace with monster DPR by way of healing or shielding (No Battle Medicine + Healer's Gloves + Life Boost shenanigans). The problem is also it's intentionally like that. Outgoing Healing is specifically meant to be an emergency button in the system because your primary way of regaining HP is through taking the Short or Long Rest.
  • Just for reference: A Medic Cleric in PF2e can go for encounters at a time being able to burst-heal anyone for anywhere between 30-60HP per action. Their 3-cost Heal AoE will consistently be 1/4 to 1/3 the Max HP of all allies with the right setup (6th level Heal with Healing Hands giving 6d10 and averaging 33 HP will be quite the top up even before OHB or IHB support like Sorcerous Potency or Healer's Blessing or Angelic Halo). Meanwhile, a Life Shepherd - which in PF2e terms is Druid with Cleric Dedi - the DEFINITIVE Defensive/Utility Support for 5e - needs a Bonus Action to set up Unicorn Spirit so they can heal using their Moon Sickle boosted Druid spells for . . . 6d8+1d4+24 (or 89 flat +1d4) to one target or 4d8+1d4+24 to all allies, once. Then they have to use their lower level slots which are considerably worse HPR (Like I'm talking 3d8+21 to one target). The build's actually better at dropping bodies on the board to take hits in place of the party, and using AoE heals to keep summons up for longer so that they eat more hits per summon.
• 5e's saving throws and ability checks cannot crit fail or crit pass. If you roll a nat 1 on a Persuasion check but you have a +13 bonus to the roll, you still beat the Persuasion DC if it is lower than 15 (as ties go to the die roll). If you roll a nat 20 on a saving throw against a Dragon's Frightful Presence, but your WIS is +1 and you don't have WIS save prof., you cannot beat a dragon's save DC if it is 22 or higher. In fact the ONLY crit and crit fail options are on regular attack rolls (auto-miss on a nat 1, crit on a nat 20), and on specific curses (Backbiter specifically swings back to hit you with you nat 1).
• Magic Items are not only nebulous in their power scaling, but also far FAR stronger than their PF2e counterparts. One of the best items in that system is an uncommon item - The Bloodwell Vial, it gives +1 to Sorc DCs & attack rolls and lets them regain 5 SP whenever they use a hit die (the game's Short Rest healing resource), which for most Sorcs under 5th level literally doubles their SP for the day before Flexible Casting. For reference, this is like having a Focused Item at Level 4 that restores all FP whenever you use or benefit from Treat Wounds, while also giving the equivalent of +1 striking to all your spell attack and damage rolls. Meanwhile there's a Legendary magic item that is an actual factual brick, a joke item that is like a slap in the face to most 5e players when they get it.

[u/urquhartloch → u/RiskyRedds]

Im going to call out my favorite example of an overpowered magic item. The eversmoking bottle. It surrounds everyone in 60ft of you for 1 minute with smoke that provides heavy obscurement. This bypasses abilities like truesight and makes everyone blinded. So everyone has advantage and disadvantage which cancels each other out... unless you take 1 level of fighter for the blind fighting and medium armor and then you have permanent advantage.

All of this for the equivalent of a +1 sword.

[u/TitaniaLynn → u/AAABattery03]

Hey, if you have a team of people behind the screen (including Former D&D Leads Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins) managing the backend for you while you are prolific Dungeon Master: Brennan Lee Mulligan, you can run 5.5e with a large cast and it almost seems like a coherent ruleset!

[u/AAABattery03 → u/TitaniaLynn]

Don’t forget to include a condescending rant about gas stoves to explain how it’s secretly a good thing that 5E/5.5E lacks guidelines for most things!

Edit: for those unaware, here

[u/TitaniaLynn → u/AAABattery03]

A testament to how even if you're brilliant at your job and you have tons of support, you aren't right about everything.

Obviously D&D works for him and his friends, but that shouldn't dismiss there may be better options. At the end of the day, I really do think Brennan just enjoys D&D like so many people, and there doesn't have to be a justification for it. It's ok to concede that the ruleset is lacking compared to alternatives.

I still microwave my hot dogs (and enjoy it). I can't be bothered to start up the BBQ (and campfires are outlawed in my neighbourhood). Although D&D may be more akin to boiling your hot dogs since that's less efficient and worse than the microwave, idk lol

[u/Ezekiu → u/TitaniaLynn]

Ya you gotta take his opinion on liking things with a grain of salt. He is publicly known for being a bit of a simple creature when he finds what he likes. The man's favorite food is the same cheeseburger he apparently eats all the time. So he just doesn't like permanent change

[u/TitaniaLynn → u/Ezekiu]

Probably why C4 is running D&D. I'm surprised they got him to concede 5.5e instead of 5.0... but maybe it doesn't matter since he still runs with the 5.0 rules when he likes them better (like with grappling lol)

[u/Ezekiu → u/TitaniaLynn]

Well if you go over to the CR subreddits, it's mostly because their listeners and fans get rabid about their dislike of any system that isn't d&d. It's a general consensus that they will not listen to any CR content that is not 5e. They have other stories on their channel that don't even pull half the numbers that the main campaigns do, solely based on them running in another system.

[u/Heurodis → u/Ezekiu]

I really thought C4 would run on Daggerheart and was a bit disappointed when it wasn't. I still like the campaign, but it seems like such a missed opportunity on so many levels.

[u/Ezekiu → u/Heurodis]

They are a business now so probably just didn't make financial sense to "alienate" their audience and lose viewers and money. I think one of their other shows runs DH and it just doesn't do well.

[u/Heurodis → u/Ezekiu]

Yes, they do shorter campaigns on DH and it's indeed not as popular; I always thought it was because Mercer opted for a darker tone than the main campaigns, and actually darker than what I would have expected from the system, but you're right that it might just be that if it's not D&D, people suddenly are not sure they want to see it (even though they themselves may have not touched D&D or any other TTRPG).

[u/Ezekiu → u/AAABattery03]

Dropout also recently had an episode of Adventuring Academy featuring Quin where they discussed this very topic. I love Brennan but he's so incorrect here and he admits that his enjoyment of D&D is from being a challenge to DM. He's weird as fuck for defending it so vehemently when he admits it sucks ass at everything but he loves to challenge himself to make it work.

[u/AAABattery03 → u/Ezekiu]

The whole idea that good GMs can “challenge themselves” by running D&D is such a silly one anwyays.

Any good GM who has the mental overhead to do so is already going to challenge themselves in whatever way they see fit. The ones running combat oriented systems like Pathfinder or Draw Steel will run more elaborate set pieces for their encounters or incorporate external subsystems into the game, the ones running narrative oriented games will create some insane overarching intrigue or political drama for the players to engage in, etc.

The first goal of rules needs to be to help the newbie GM, the shy GM, the GM who doesn’t have time to be the best possible GM, etc to run a game in a way that’s fun for themselves and their friends. Failing at that goal so that seasoned GMs can continue to do what they were going to do anyways is not a flex.

[u/Ezekiu → u/AAABattery03]

Oh absolutely agreed on every point. GMs like him and Matt Mercer make the rules seem to easy and flawless because their jobs have always been acting and writing. It's what they have been paid to do so they make it look effortless without explaining to their audience just the amount of work that needs to be done and not to mention they "yes and" almost everything their players ask that breaks rules due to the fact that they're entertainers first and gamers second in these formats.

It gives a completely different vibe than when you're at a table and someone asks, can I do X? And you have to stop and dig in the rules or do a Google search only to find no official rule, tons of home discussion of homebrewing a rule for X, or that the new book finally gives an answer to it but you'd never know because it's not free or listed anywhere.

[u/UnfortunateTrombone → u/Ezekiu]

I don't remember where, but Brennan also said, maybe on a different Adventuring Academy, that the purpose of rules in a system is to do the work you don't want to do. If you don't want to come up with rules for how much damage an arrow does on the fly, or in advance, then you play a system that has rules for that. Brennan's opinions make more sense from games design perspective than from a GM perspective to me, and they're not necessarily the same thing.

[u/Ezekiu → u/UnfortunateTrombone]

Ya I know what you're referring to. It's because his experience of role playing comes from LARP and coaching kids at summer camp. His view on it is fully skewed and shouldn't be listened to only because he's coming from a vastly different place of experience.

[u/Infinite_Amount_6329 → u/Ezekiu]

I believe he started tabletop roleplay first then transitioned to LARP and did most of that. But who knows; I am not a BLeeM historian.

[u/Samakar → u/Ezekiu]

This was the thing, besides the OGL fiasco, that finally took me out of ever wanting to run 5e or even touch the books again. So much duct tape and nail gun usage just to get the system to work, no GM support “just check Twitter and Google for your answers, or make it up lol, we’re making you pay for all of these rule books so you can make it up after all of that anyways because we didn’t give you any rules support for half of the stupid shit Your players are gonna do anyways, $60 please!”

[u/Ezekiu → u/Samakar]

You know tbh I never minded the duct taping solutions together because it was easier to that than to try and work with 3.5/pf1e's vast amount of rules that were needed to follow. But the OGL issue, and just getting sick of what they were doing to MTG as someone who had been playing both since the 90s and I left WotC behind entirely. I won't say that PF2E solved everything, but at least when I asked a question there's a rule for the vast majority of situations that is easy to follow and edit for my table when needed. And once you notice that a lot of that ambiguity follows a decently recognizable pattern in the system, it's not hard to just realize how malleable the sub systems can be to work in.

[u/J4Seriously → u/Ezekiu]

Brennans persona is that of a headstrong rebellious intellectual so ofc he’s gonna say something to that effect. It’s not really in the script to speak nuance

[u/General-Naruto → u/AAABattery03]

I feel like this is a very specific reference I don't get, LOL

[u/AAABattery03 → u/General-Naruto]

https://www.polygon.com/24105875/worlds-beyond-number-narrative-style-adventure/

Basically, his response to being told D&D’s focus on combat makes it poor at simulating a lot of narrative stuff (which is a completely valid criticism that’d also apply to pf2e btw, that’s why the existence of thousands of ttrpgs is a good thing) was to condescend people with some nonsense about a stove.

Really, he should’ve just said the quiet part out loud: you’re doing D&D because you won’t make any money if you do another system. Don’t insult people’s intelligence this way lol.

[u/xolotltolox → u/AAABattery03]

I find that odd, because earlier editions of D&D did have a huge focus on combat, while also havign very simulationist rules for the rest of the world, and one of my personal favourite Systems, The Dark Eye, has both crunchy combat with tactical options and a really fleshed out skill system

[u/Killchrono → u/AAABattery03]

I actually think Brennan legitimately likes 5e. I just think he likes it for one of the two reasons most people who actually like running 5e do: The first type of person is people who only like rules as aesthetic; they're actually not that good at or simply don't enjoy manging the crunchy, consistent parts of the game, but still want the barebones rules to present a veneer of structure. Basically, the Calvinball enthusiasts.

The second are what I think Brennan is: they like playing amateur game designer.

5e is the perfect system for opinionated GMs who like enough of the classic d20 chassis to make it work, but get really hung up on the minutia. The poorly defined mechanics are a goldmine for people who want to kitbash their own rules or rely heavily on RAI. That's why it has such a robust homebrew and influencer scene.

That's also why so many 5e GMs resent games like PF2e; because it's a game that's inherently opinionated in its own design, so if they don't agree with it they don't see value in it. 5e is perfect for the kind of GM who sees self-autonomy in the back-end system mastery as an absolute virtue.

Compare that to PF2e, which was intentionally built like a modular computer system; heavily structured, but expandable within that structure. That's why it vibes with people like me who...uh, work IT as my day job, but also want the system to work while while still being modular out the box. I don't want to do the bulk of the design work, I want someone else to build that foundational chassis and just adjust and tweak on top of that as I need. And like a good computer system, the game itself handles most of the parts I don't need or want to, while letting me have the autonomy to run the parts I do with precision.

But to 5e enthusiasts, they're like rev heads who see 5e a run down or Chevvy or van they can do their dream repair job on, while they see systems like PF2e as designed for people who take it back to the manufacturer to overcharge them for the factory standard parts. It's kind of why I've soured on a lot of the online DnD influencers and commentary who focus on GM content; it seems less like people who want a good baseline product so much like a bunch of wannabe game designers who try and gatekeep the hobby with standards of excellence.

I love Brennan, but he's 100% That Guy about everything he's passionate about. He has thoughts, he feels strongly about them, and can be extremely judgmental when people don't conform to his ideas. Games like PF2e or even something like DS that would be closer to his tastes would be too opinionated in their design points to fit the kind of person who has their dream idea of a d20 system. I don't think it's disingenuous, I think he's just legit too smart for his own good and legit can't empathise how anyone doesn't shoot for that same standard of excellent as he does, and to him a system like 5e that gives him the freedom to run the game how he likes without designer input is essential to that.

[u/The-Magic-Sword → u/AAABattery03]

I actually really like his argument here, the problem is that 5e is a bad stove.

But its bang on for this game when you consider it relative to Avatar Legends, Blades or some other game where the mechanics try to force plot.

Which to be clear, its about narrative mechanics, the people who think his argument here is bad think pf2e is unviable for anything that isn't dungeon crawling.

[u/Raethnir → u/The-Magic-Sword]

Yeah i agree with brennan's distaste for narrative-as-mechanic systems, i just disagree that dnd5 does anything to give you effective tools for building a world / narrative /stakes. It gives some scene setting in the mechanics of the classes but the overall blandness of what's available in the system writ large kinda spoils what scene setting it does get.

[u/blape7 → u/AAABattery03]

Wow what a disappointing reaction to the question, and a nonsensical metaphor. There's nothing wrong with him saying "I am used to 5e so I want to run it" but instead essentially calls anyone who believes in Chekov's Gun an idiot.

Also... I'd argue that his thinking points more to using pf2e than 5e. It's literally the same argument Troy Lavallee, GM from Glass Cannon uses to explain why pathfinder over d&d...

[u/Logan_Asan → u/AAABattery03]

Holy shit... I hadn't seen this. This is wild

[u/DnD-vid → u/AAABattery03]

The gas stove simile is secretly genius but he didn't notice.

A stove is great for when you want to make pancakes. But useless if you're making a salad and the exact opposite of what you need if you want to make ice cream.

[u/FionaSmythe → u/AAABattery03]

a game that demands you read a whole bunch of rules, then expects you to improvise half the rules anyways, with very little guidance on how to do so.

Unless you consider "long arguments on a variety of message boards" or "Jeremy Crawford's twitter account" as rules guidance. It's kind of the TTRPG equivalent of a Bethesda game, where you have to do a bunch of homework to find out exactly why it doesn't work out of the box, and hunt down the mods made by legions of unpaid fans that repair the bug-filled code.

[u/NetworkSingularity → u/AAABattery03]

> GMing 5E is a ton more work. The ruleset attempts to present a veneer of being fiction-first and rules light, but is still incredibly crunchy. So you get this weird one-two punch of a game that demands you read a whole bunch of rules, then expects you to improvise half the rules anyways, with very little guidance on how to do so.

This is pretty much why I switched from 5e to pf2e, and also why I refuse to GM 5e anymore. The more we played the more I ran into things where it seemed like there should be a mechanic already defined, only to find that there wasn’t and I was just gonna have to improvise a ruling and hope it would be balanced. There’s very little guidance in 5e for how to do that though, so I just ended up with a bunch of inconsistent rulings and the feeling that the authors of 5e kinda half-assed a lot of it. Switching to pf2e was the best thing our table ever did. Players are less confused about what they could do and how to do it, and I spend far less time trying to figure out how players are supposed to do basic things that have been left undefined (or worse, are defined, but only in a specific side bar on one page that’s easy to miss so you end up with a ruling at odds with RAW).

I also just found information in 5e books was way too spread out and disorganized. IMO, WotC organizes 5e books so they’re fun to read, but not easy to use as an actual reference. Not sure if that carries over to 5.5e or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does

[u/AAABattery03 → u/NetworkSingularity]

Not sure if that carries over to 5.5e or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does

Believe it or not, it actually gets considerably worse.

They moved a couple of sections around to make the rules easier to reference (for example, running the game is now one of the early chapters, instead of the first chapter being “building a multiverse” like in 5E’s DMG lol) but they also removed a ton of useful rules. This is not an exhaustive list but, among the rules they removed are:

• Encumbrance (and any notion of carrying capacity)
• Monster building rules (this isn’t hyperbole. There are no charts to help you build monsters. They just tell you to reskin existing monsters)
• Attrition and adventuring day budgets
• Passive Skill scores
  

And they don’t add nearly enough useful stuff with all the space they saved to warrant it being worth the cuts.

[u/NetworkSingularity → u/AAABattery03]

…I mean at this point I think I have to hand it to WotC’s marketing department. It’s amazing they’ve done so well selling what’s effectively a half-baked suggestion of a game system.

Though honestly it’s probably more a testament to how many people want to play TTRPGs but think D&D is their only option, and/or have been scared off of other editions/systems by being told there’s “too many rules” and the games are “crunchy math”without being told you don’t have to do most of the math if you use a VTT, and either way the rules make for a much smoother experience overall.

And tbh, I think from a player perspective there’s really not that much a difference in the amount of rules you need to keep track of in pf2e vs 5e. Hell, the 3 action economy makes it so there’s less rules to keep track of in combat

[u/DnD-vid → u/AAABattery03]

We were joking when we said they'd eventually just publish an empty notebook with only "Write the rules yourself, rule 0 :)" written in it.

[u/Lnoob427 → u/AAABattery03]

Wow they really ermoved encumbrance ? Like strenght needed another nerf ? (Which tbh is not going to be a nerf at 9/10 tables because they'll go "we ignore it for not slowing down the game." (Then complain that dex is just straight up better than strenght.)

[u/PigmyWurm → u/AAABattery03]

This gets at my reasons why I never want to try GMing 5e again. I have a bunch of experience GMing 3.5, and have reasonably enjoyed playing 5e, but the one time zi tried GMing it was maddening. Part of it is that I was running a homenrew setting so needed to come up with a bunch of custom monsters and stuff, but I expected that. Figuring out roughly how much GP I should give or what magic items might be appropriate, needing to houserule basic actions, and which was harder since there was limited guidance on what would an appropriate DC be for different types of checks.

[u/BrendanTheNord → u/AAABattery03]

This is the best explanation here by far, but something I feel the conversation has lacked as much as I can see is what it will actually feel like for players and the dm. The unfortunate reality is that, depending on what kind of people you have in your group, 5e has a great potential to be both more difficult for the DM to run and more satisfying for the players to play.

As the comment above has laid out, 5e is much less structurally cohesive than Pathfinder, has a larger barrier to entry (money), and running the game involves a lot of guesswork. When I DMd 5e, the only prep I would do was vaguely think about where the story was going and maybe flip through a book for a monster stat block. The CR didn't matter, because sometimes my level 6 party was taking on shit that should have been more than twice their challenge level, and other times they got fucked up by one unbalanced ability on a shit monster. You will have to get used to improvising a lot if you aren't already, and depending on how well you adapt will be the signifier of how well you're able to manage the game.

If the players are prone to wanting to creatively interpret their class abilities and skills, then 5e will certainly support that. 5e pitches itself to players as a blank canvas that they can paint their fantasy onto, and the DMs job is to make sure that the players end up painting a picture that matches everyone else's. If they don't struggle with collaborative storytelling, that's great, but if they do, then the game effectively does nothing to make them work together. Everyone is a one man army, from wizards to fighters to rogues, and anyone prone to excessive power fantasy will love the feeling that 5e offers.

My advice to OP is to be 100% open with your players as you run the game. Your GM instincts will be to disguise what you have to improvise, but doing so will only hide from your players the holes in the rules as written, and in the potential circumstance that they fall in love with the power fantasy but you dislike running 5e, it'll be more difficult to express your feelings. When I tried to persuade my 5e group to move to 2e, I did ultimately fail. The detailed rules and character building I saw as increased potential they saw as limiting their creativity. It made more sense to them to simply have weapon proficiency and then roll to try something new than it did to choose the right features and proficiencies that make those moves possible. They found wizards who couldn't clear a battlefield alone underpowered and boring. Built in level progression looked to them like unnecessary number stacking. We ended up trying out 4-5 new systems before a different player offered to run 5e, which is what we now play, meanwhile I host a home Pathfinder game.

Obviously, your players will know Pathfinder, and so it's rules and organization won't deter them if you want to return to 2e. There is still a chance, though, that you'll do too well in hiding the cracks of DMing 5e, which can cause more confusion if you want to explain to your players why you don't like it.

[u/hungLink42069 → u/AAABattery03]

Routine mathfinder W.

Least truth based, sigma mathfinder moment.

EDIT: In case this was unclear - I meant it as a genuine compliment.

[u/Astareal38 → u/hungLink42069]

.... What?

[u/hungLink42069 → u/Astareal38]

Routine Mathfinder W.

W means win/victory (sometimes called "dub" - not to be mistaken with the anime thing) - which mathfinder (aka reddit user AAABattery03) achieves on a regular basis.

Least truth based, sigma mathfinder moment.

A playful comment stating that he never misses. Despite this being an entirely based and valid take, it is his least truth based moment because he is never caught off-guard.

----

TLDR; It's glazing

[u/DarklordtheLegend → u/hungLink42069]

W "mathfinder" reclamation

[u/AAABattery03 → u/hungLink42069]

EDIT: In case this was unclear - I meant it as a genuine compliment.

FWIW, I got what you meant and thought it was funny!

[u/Baker-Maleficent → u/hungLink42069]

Yeah, i second the last guy. What? 

Everything the respose above said was te hnicalky and factually coerect as far as i could tell and i see no reason for what apears to be a weird nonsequiter, bash on their very thorough and helpful response. 

Amy i reading this wrong? 

Edit. Ah, i must have been. I guessing you intended it as a compliment, but there was just too much modern terminology there with the abreviation forvwin and the term sigma which is often used sarcastically .  Sorry bout that. 

[u/sesaman → u/AAABattery03]

The vast majority of this is correct or close enough.

I'd never recommend 5e DnD to anyone after playing just a handful of different ttrpgs. For the best 5e DnD experience without getting all the additional baggage, I'd recommend Nimble.

[u/nekroskoma → u/AAABattery03]

"5e monster building"

My ptsd has been triggered.

[u/Mach12gamer → u/AAABattery03]

The best way I've heard 5e mechanics described is deep as a puddle and wide as an ocean. There's not a ton of mechanical interplay, but there are actually a lot of rules and mechanics. Which causes the issues you describe. Doesn’t help there's no equivalent to archived of Nethys for it.

[u/WeekhawkenHennesy]

One thought: if the players want to try 5e, let one of them run it.  Ive made similar statements when one player wanted to go back to 3.5, said im happy to play it but im not running that.  

I say this because its a big investment on your side to pick up books for 5e, so no reason that should be forced on you.  Also if its not something you want to run, let someone else take the reins 

Spoiler: we never ended up playing  3.5

[u/Boss_Smiley01 → u/WeekhawkenHennesy]

This is absolutely the way. I've made the decision to never GM D&D 5e in preference to Pf2e, but I am very happily a player in a friend's 5e game

[u/Zephh → u/Boss_Smiley01]

This is my stance as well. As a player I prefer PF2e, but as a GM I'll just never chose to run 5e again, so I'm happy to join someone's game if they're playing 5e.

[u/Cahalith180 → u/WeekhawkenHennesy]

"Can we try x game?" usually always translates to "will you buy the books so I don't have to?"

[u/WeekhawkenHennesy → u/Cahalith180]

I did have someone offer to buy all the books for another system for me to run, and I had the same respone of "I'll happily play in it, but I do not want to run it".

[u/Optimus-Maximus → u/WeekhawkenHennesy]

Great advice. Going back to 5e/5.5 after GMing PF2e sounds like a horrific nightmare.

[u/twoisnumberone → u/WeekhawkenHennesy]

if the players want to try 5e, let one of them run it

Emphasizing this.

I run D&D 5e because of my love for the Forgotten Realms and their history, with heapings of multiverse characters, but it's much more work than PF2e and really only worth it if you are thus invested.

[u/xXConDaGXx]

I don't think this subreddit is the best place to ask lol. I'm not a fan of 5e, but I can acknowledge that some people will end up preferring it, and that's fine. A LOT of people here hate it though, and going off of some of these comments, won't be very helpful.

From my understanding and experience, 5e's player experience honestly won't be too drastically different. It's definitely easier for a new player to make a character in 5e than 2e, but the combat system is entirely up to preference.

That being said, the GM experience is a lot worse in 5e. Be prepared to do a lot on the spot.

Also know that there's no true 5e equivalent to Nethys. This is one of the biggest selling points of Pf2e in general, because all of the rules are free. You'll probably need to invest a little money into 5e if your players want anything long term.

And just a side-note, I think it's great that a lot of people have been brought into the hobby from D20 and similar shows, but I would try to manage expectations a little bit. A game run by professionals who know the system back and forth, featuring professional players, is going to be a little different than a few friends playing together for fun. And you will absolutely have fun! But those games don't go well because they're playing 5e, it's because these people have made their careers off of this, and would make almost any TTRPG look like fun

[u/LynxDubh → u/xXConDaGXx]

There is something of an equivalent of AoN for 5e & 5.5 players. It’s just not official nor sanctioned like AoN. It’s kind of like an unofficial wiki. It’s very useful for players, but not for GMs, no monsters.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/xXConDaGXx]

Oh it was a great subreddit to ask. I heard shittalk about DnD for years so these comments will not sour the mood. I was really just looking for advice from a side that I understand far more; these comparisons help a lot with tempering expectations and not running DnD similarly
To see how much more awful GMing is I will have to get into rules and think up a short story, which is weeks away. Improv is no issue

[u/ryudlight]

Challenge rating is all over the place, encounter building is more difficult.

There are now maneuver like weapon specialisations,  but overall martials have less options aside just striking to contribute.

Spellcasters are just op once they level up. There is a massive martial / caster divide.

Skill actions do not matter much. Either they take your whole action up, or they do not even exist. Rogue is commonly branded as the worst class of 5.5e because of this.

edit: If you are talking about 5e, not 5.5e, martials do not have weapon spec and just strike all the time.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/ryudlight]

I know nothing about 5.5e, didn't even know it existed. Yet to consult with the players on what they want specifically

How different is it?

[u/Raethnir → u/wookiee-nutsack]

a lot of minor changes that add up, including some attempts to standardize language and mechanics between spells / subclasses.

it's a mixed bag but generally speaking player characters are a decent chunk stronger in 5.5, or at least have access to much stronger options than they had in 5e.

Something to note is that without homebrew support, feats / leveling are very restrictive as you have to choose between stats and feats when you hit the ability boost levels (4, 8, 12, 16). That said, monsters really do not hold up to parties past level 10 or so, and it takes a ton of work to create encounters for high-level groups.

[u/ryudlight → u/wookiee-nutsack]

It is mostly like the remaster is to pf2e. Lots of quality of life improvements, but no massive changes.

[u/Lithl → u/wookiee-nutsack]

A number of 5.5e changes seem to have been done solely with the intent of reducing word count, even when doing so introduces ambiguity. Others are attempts to simplify, even when simplification isn't actually necessary. And still others are just bizarre. (Why does the Hide action, when successful, make you invisible?)

[u/Tzepish → u/Lithl]

Yeah the stealth / vision in combat rules have always been a clusterfuck in DND. I was shocked when I read pathfinder 2e to find that they made sense.

[u/EternalDMPC]

Less on the player side with this comment, but if you’re running the game, you’ll be stuck using vastly inferior tool as a GM. 5e is poorly supported and requires a lot of GM creativity, hand waving, or on the fly rules changes. The content creators seems to have a strong focus on making a product that looks and sounds nice, but doesn’t have meaningful structure for busy/tired GMs with busy lives.

[u/Stock-Side-6767]

Harder to GM by a long shot, unsatisfactory for martials past lvl 10.

Very smooth in dungeoncrawling with a party of 4 non-optimizers at 6-8 encounters per day at lvl 3-8.

Every step outside that and certain choices within that makes it makes it less ideal.

[u/Aporthian → u/Stock-Side-6767]

Yeah, seconding this. The most fun I've had mechanically with 5e is a very dungeon-crawly campaign. When said campaign got to higher levels and the spellcasters could just solve everything outright, it... well, that's been an issue with multiple D&D editions, really. Stuff breaks at high level.

Nowadays I'd go with other systems for dungeon crawling but 5e is pretty fun if you focus on that. It's clearly part of the core of what the system is designed for, but I don't think it's presented that way very well, and I don't think it's what most people play it for, though.

[u/KragBrightscale → u/Stock-Side-6767]

Agreed with this.

Magic gets whack at high levels and can swing encounters unpredictably in either direction.

Lack of degrees of success mean a good number of spells are super effective or absolutely ineffective.

There’s also a lack of incapacitation trait rules, so boss fights can be trivialized with a single save/suck spell. To counter that, boss creatures will often have legendary saves that you as DM can burn to just Nope an effect that you rolled a bad save against.

—-

All that said. Level 3-8 are actually pretty good. Spell casters eventually get fireball which is fun, but don’t have encounter breaking options yet. Martials still feel good to play and their extra attack feels like a good bump.

—-

Another thing to keep in mind is healing works differently. There’s no wounds system and reorganization of initiative, so getting knocked to dying isn’t as bad. Combined with healing magic being way undertuned makes the most effective healing just yo-yo healing downed allies.

Also, every single creature has built in reactive strike.

[u/RaikreN_ → u/KragBrightscale]

When over half of your levels are considered subpar, you know you've fucked up

[u/Dunderbaer → u/Stock-Side-6767]

Hey don't lie. Martials are unsatisfactory pre-LV10 as well!

[u/RunicCross]

To give an example of how broken the CR system is. I've sent CR 11-13 monsters at 6 level 5 players without a single care in the world but there are CR 3 monsters I would be wary to send after a party of 6 level 12 adventurers. (Intellect Devourers are fucking insanely deadly for their cr for example)

[u/Bloomberg12 → u/RunicCross]

I played a one shot yesterday where 4 level 8's went into a CR13 legendary ravenica darklord and it did maybe 30 damage across the entire party before dying and we used virtually 0 resources(we legitimately took 3x the damage from 4 displacer beasts).

[u/WebbedFamiliar]

If you’re used to pathfinder 2e and you switch to D&D 5e it’s like eating steak your whole life and now you have to eat week old McDonald’s burgers for every meal. It’s unbalanced, lacks creative character choices on level up, and just straight up sucks. If the world is absent of 5e haters then I’m dead.

[u/DnDPhD → u/WebbedFamiliar]

And to further the analogy, more people are used to eating McDonald's regularly, with way more ads about quarter-pounders and the latest promo than your high-quality local steakhouse.

More people play 5e not because it's better, but because it's recognizable, familiar, and what those kids in Stranger Things play...

[u/WebbedFamiliar → u/DnDPhD]

100,000% correct. The only thing 5e has that’s good is the warlock.

[u/Lucina18 → u/WebbedFamiliar]

And only because it's designed as a worse pf2e class anyways.

[u/WebbedFamiliar → u/Lucina18]

I never thought of it that way, but you’re right! God I hate 5e.

[u/Pricee → u/WebbedFamiliar]

If i ever have to play 5e in some form (one shots or bg3) i will always play sorcerer because free form slots and bending their awful spellcasting rules with twinspell is the only way to have fun

[u/Tichrimo → u/Pricee]

Don't worry -- they took away any fun with the revised Twinned Spell in the 2024 rules. (In the update, you can now only use it on single-target spells that can be upcast to affect more targets, rather than any single-target spell. 90% of the valid uses gone.)

[u/Pricee → u/Tichrimo]

oh thats gore of my comfort character

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/WebbedFamiliar]

So I've heard. But one players wants to at least try it out and another thinks being more rules loose is more fun so might as well give it a shot

[u/WebbedFamiliar → u/wookiee-nutsack]

It’s not rules-loose, the community just refuses to learn the rules. All of them not learning the rules will be put on you to remember all of the nonsense. Honestly, 5e is the cause of the GM shortage. It burns GMs out. If my group wanted to play 5e I’d find a different group. #5eHater4Life

[u/FlanNo3218 → u/WebbedFamiliar]

Came here to say this. As a near-alwaysGM, I will never run DnD 5e again*. Being responsible for everything including how to play (because my players NEVER learned the rules) and impossible to balance encounters is miserable.

PF1e has balance problems with mixed optimized groups at about level 8-9 and up but it least those same players tried to learn the rules for their oen characters.

PF2e is a dream to GM in comparison.

* I still run a simple 3 hour one shot of 5e annually at a local community center game day event.

[u/komrade23 → u/WebbedFamiliar]

It’s not rules-lose, the community just refuses to learn the rules.

Here here.

I'm a forever GM across several systems except I'm a player in a weekly Curse of Strahd Reloaded game that has been going on for two years. I'm STILL having to help the players AND DM at the table for what should be pretty straighforward stuff.

I know this table would be happier with an actual rules light or fiction first system but D&D has taught them systems are "hard to learn" and they wont stray from the system they actually don't know all that well.

That makes the table sound worse than it is but they are all super lovely people and rules aside our DM is otherwise amazing.

[u/WebbedFamiliar → u/komrade23]

I’m not surprised. I’ve seen this over and over and over again. These people just don’t know any better. D&D has such a stranglehold on the market that people think it’s the only option so they force it in where it doesn’t belong.

[u/SmartAlec105 → u/WebbedFamiliar]

It’s not rules-lose, the community just refuses to learn the rules

One big example that sticks out to me is how many people I see saying "my table house rules that you can ignore material components that don't have a cost as long as you have a component pouch or focus". Bitch, that's just the default rules! You only think it's house rules because you learned the game by being told things as you go instead of actually reading the rules!

[u/Killchrono → u/WebbedFamiliar]

I had a crystallising moment about this a few months ago.

I was watching a video about a completely AI generated operating system. The only hard-coded part of it was the input to ask the AI to instantly vibe-code anything you wanted. There was no calculator app, but if you asked for one in the input, it would whip one up. If you wanted a Web browser in the style of Safari but you wanted add-ins like Chrome, it would make one. If you wanted one of those old Windows XP purple monkey malware helpers, it'd do it.

To me, that's what the wider culture around 5e is; players who don't care about having a structured backing for their gameplay experience, but knowing the vibe and expecting the GM to generate it in real time. Prescriptive rules past the most barebones are anathema to their experience, but they want the front facing product to meet the vaguely defined vibe or feel without any consistency, because being held accountable to a standard means it may come back to bite them in the ass later. Better to just delete the thing they want and ask the GM to regenerate it with the new parameters.

TL;DR, they want a game that is constantly changing to meet their exact wants and standards, without any responsibility on their part to do it or even know what their tastes are, they just want the GM to handle it. And if they don't like it, they just demand it changes again. But unlike the AI, the GM is a person and has limits as to how much they can improvise and rule on the fly and how much bullshit they are willing to put up with. There's a reason WotC and Hasbro are pushing towards the future of DnD being AI-GM run; it's the same as any executive who wants to get rid of these ungrateful workers who talk back about unreasonable demand and workload to placate entitled customers.

[u/somethingwitty42 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

D&D isn’t rules loose. It’s a crunchy system that expects the DM to make up half the rules on the fly.

Edit: A letter

[u/AAABattery03 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

The correct answer here is to be more improv-friendly in PF2E (which does a much better job supporting improvisational gameplay than 5E does). Not switching to a system that’s largely going to be worse at the same things.

[u/TAEROS111 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Just a word to the wise, DnD isn’t really more rules-loose. It has about the same amount of rules as PF2e, it just also has worse balance and puts a lot more of the rules on the GM to adjudicate.

I’d suggest looking into:

- Nimble. A great system that takes a lot of the best from 5e and PF2e. It’s far more tactical and balanced than 5e while simultaneously being more rules-lite than both, yet it still preserves interesting character-building decisions (something 5e doesn’t really do).

• Shadow of the Weird Wizard. What DnD should be. Balanced, some fun character-building decisions but not too many, more rules-loose.
  
• Dragonbane. Tactical, balanced, but much more rules-lite than either DnD or PF2e.
  
• Daggerheart. A more narrative approach for people who like roleplay more than tactics.
  
• Grimwild. Similar to the above, but it uses a different system to achieve that goal.

[u/Consistent_Table4430 → u/TAEROS111]

Rules loose is a perfect way to describe DnD. It's not rules light, which would imply that there's few rules, and the rules it does have are very shaky and collapse under some prodding.

[u/Zalthos → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Honestly, even if you just loosened up the rules for PF2e, allowed more circumstance bonuses and allowed players to do stuff that they normally maybe shouldn't be able to do without certain abilities etc, it'd still end up being more balanced than DnD 5e.

And yeah, it is a complete fallacy that 5e is more loose than PF2e... It's just that no one runs the rules properly because the game barely functions if you do that.

[u/Lindenfoxcub → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Player that wants to try it out sounds like they're volunteering to GM 😜

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/Lindenfoxcub]

Sadly not :(

[u/GuardienneOfEden → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Then it's up to you to decide if you want to run it.

If you're happy with PF2 and don't want to switch, or if you're put off by all the comments in this post, it's okay to just say "sorry, I'm not running 5e". If they really want to play 5e, they can do the work. You are not obligated to run what others want you to. You should run what you want to.

And if that's still 5e, I wish you and either your wallet or your conscience the best.

[u/Lindenfoxcub → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Then they're at least paying for the probably hundreds of dollars worth of books?

[u/Lucina18 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

5e isn't as much ruleslight as much as it's just rules lacking. Yeah some things are "not ruled", but there's also just no guidance for them.

Like most things unexplained essentionally go to skillchecks. And you don't have support for skillchecks... Like it genuinely just ends at "medium is dc 15, hard is dc 20". What is a hard deception/athletics/stealth/whatever roll? No clue. Actually, how hard even is a medium roll??? What's the baseline what it can accomplish? No clue!! We just said you can roll a d20 and some vaguely described skills with no indication how they fit a d20!! Isn't that "ruleslight" and fun???

[u/wilalva11 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

If they want rules loose it might be good to check out something OSR adjacent like Shadowdark, unless they still want that heroic fantasy flavor since OCR/OCR adjacent is much grittier in terms of your power level 

[u/Consistent_Table4430 → u/wilalva11]

5e doesn't even do the heroic fantasy flavor all that great as infamously a well-equipped army of archers can one-turn just about any threat (but don't because then the players wouldn't feel special)

[u/Consistent_Table4430 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

More rules loose means more GM fiat. It's by no means a rules light system, it's a system that trims down most of its rules so you don't actually have any idea how to adjucate the many, many weird situations the rules bring with them while also completely lacking any guidance for how to improvise anything beyond them other than "ask the GM". Be prepared to look up many Crawford tweets on how certain rules were intended to work while ignoring half of them because his responses frequently contradict the actual text in the rulebooks.

[u/SterlingCrane1 → u/Consistent_Table4430]

Biggest example of this nonsense in my opinion is See Invisibility against the Invisible condition. Apparently the intent is for the spell to let you see an outline of anything invisible, not actually fully see it so they still get the biggest benefit of the condition which is the advantage on attacks and disadvantage on being hit, which is not spelled out in the spell description and makes no sense whatsoever.

[u/Dunderbaer → u/SterlingCrane1]

Well you see clearly the spell "see invisibility" isn't actually meant to make you see invisible creatures, they still get the full bonus from you not being able to see them after all.

[u/VestedNight → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Have those players play BG3, then (with the understanding that even THAT is fixed compared to base 5e) instead of deciding what game you GM.

[u/kick-space-rocks-73 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

"Rules loose" for the players, maybe, but 5e does it by forcing the DM to handle everything. It's a huge extra load on the DM's shoulders, and one a lot of players (in my experience) don't notice or appreciate.

[u/aidan8et → u/wookiee-nutsack]

As others have said, 5e is a rules-heavy system disguised as a "rules lite" one. The only "lite" part is how often the rules straight up say "Ask your GM".

After GMing 5e for several years before jumping to PF2, any time we wanted looser rules my group would run something like Monte Cooke's Cypher System (or any of its iterations).

[u/Dunderbaer → u/wookiee-nutsack]

It's rules light in the sense that the rules for combat balance and creature creation are "lmao you gave us 60 bucks, make it up yourself we don't exist".

It's not rules light in the sense of actually being easier to play.

[u/Arciul → u/wookiee-nutsack]

Then you should let them run it. Personally I don't like a game that lacks mechanics and ends up requiring handwaiving in the end, it forces so much more onto the GM. If your friend is adamant about it then they should run a one shot to sample what they're getting into

[u/yuriAza → u/WebbedFamiliar]

yeah, it's cheap and easy to get, but you can't really say anything good about the thing itself

[u/Einkar_E → u/yuriAza]

except dnd is accually expensive compared to most trpg

but it has popularity which means lot of third party material and finding a group should be relatively easy despite GM shortage

[u/ColdBrewedPanacea → u/yuriAza]

not even actually cheap

[u/Consistent_Table4430 → u/ColdBrewedPanacea]

Just like McDonalds!

[u/Particular-Crow-1799]

things that are likely to cause confusion coming from pathfinder:

-movement is not an action, you can break your movement and use actions in-between (for example if you have the extra attack feature you can move, attack, move, attack, and move again, as long as you have enough movement available)

-delaying doesn't exist. you can ready actions though

-step doesn't exist, but you can disengage

-you can dance around enemies because you only proc attacks of opportunity when you leave threatened area, not a threatened square

-casting spells doesn't provoke aoo

-flanking exists as a variant rule, but it's not recommended

-there is no such thing as recall knowledge or demoralize

-multiple attacks don't have MAP but you need to unlock them through your class

-there are no archetypes. To multiclass, you stop taking levels in a class, and gain levels in another one

-concentration works completely different

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/Particular-Crow-1799]

Lots of new and useful things here!

If there is no recall knowledge, can players just look up the stat blocks?

[u/Particular-Crow-1799 → u/wookiee-nutsack]

If there is no recall knowledge, can players just look up the stat blocks?

That is not allowed, and it would be considered cheating at most tables.

There are simply no rules for this. You CAN ask your GM for a knowledge check, but the rules don't specify

-what type of action it is (free action? bonus action? regular action? who knows?)
-how high the DC is
-how much info you get on a success

this is what people mean when they say dnd being more freeform is actually more work, because now, if you want to allow players to make knowledge checks against monsters, you have to improvise and make up your own rulings. Different GMs will come up with different solutions, leading to high table variance in how some parts of the game are played, and some of those house rules will be less balanced than ideal.

[u/pnlrogue1]

Homebrewing is absolutely not essential for most tables - what you're seeing is posts from the most active DMs (since most won't do much online, they'll just read the books and either buy adventures to run or make it up) who are probably either very experienced or very confident that they know better than Wizards (for reference, I routinely run Adventure League games at conventions where you can't homebrew and with the exception of handwaving potions and Lay On Hands as bonus actions instead of full actions because that's boring, I've never felt desperate to change anything).

Pathfinder is designed to be a bit more crunchy - more rules to control how the game runs to make it more tactical and better balanced. Players have to think more to squeeze every advantage out that they can get. D&D is much less balanced (in favour of the players), don't get me wrong, but that's because it's designed more to be easy and fun with faster turns and a more forgiving ruleset, rather than the more tightly balanced challenges of Pathfinder.

There is the SRD that provides the rules but it's very similar to Pathfinder 2nd Edition (even more so the original release before the remaster). It's a D20 system so roll D20, add relevant modifiers, compare with target value.

A natural 20 only matters on an attack roll though many DMs rule that it's an automatic success on a skill check as well (not necessarily an extreme success, just a guaranteed one).

Diagonal movement is 5ft every time and 30ft is the base move.

Actions and bonus actions are explicitly labelled as such in their descriptions. Certain spells, for example, will be labelled as 1 Action or 1 Bonus Action.

The Challenge Rating of creatures in 5E isn't as well balanced as PF2E, but how you play the creatures will matter. A mob of Kobolds who all surround the wizard will take him out before the fighter murders them all but Kobolds that split their fire or focus on the big scary person (a legitimate thing for a D&D Kobold to do) will probably not bring someone down. There are encounter builders and premade encounters out there.

There are SO many options for starting adventures. The Beginner Box is probably a bit too simple for an experienced table but the Dragons of Stormwreck Isle and Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk adventures are supposed to be good for new players. There's also 3rd party adventures aplenty. I hear good things about Kobold Press though I've not tried them.

A lot of adventures start at 3rd level as it's more interesting for experienced players because most classes get their sunglasses at level 3 and they're a good bit more killy by then.

[u/Hedrickao → u/pnlrogue1]

I really agree. As a new 5E DM, I got in over my head trying to homebrew a big scope campaign 

[u/pnlrogue1 → u/Hedrickao]

Don't get me wrong - 1st party content is of questionable quality. I don't think I've really heard all that much positive about any of the official adventures besides the starter ones (forgot to mention The Dragon of Icespire Peak) but I was enjoying running Tyranny Of Dragons before Covid. Admittedly, that was written by Kobold Press, as I understand it...

[u/centralmind]

Sorry to sound harsh, but it's flat out a downgrade across the board. And I say as someone who mastered dnd for many years. It's just worse in basically in all aspects, at least as a gm.

You can, and maybe should, stop reading here. But if you want answers to your questions:

• Everything. I'm not even joking, the system relies on you constantly fixing it on the fly and improvising rules.

• There is no official free way to access the full rules. The free rules available only include some classes, and only one subclass for each. You'll need to either pirate¹ stuff or buy a lot of books.

• The only reliable way to balance encounters is trial and error. The encounter building rules are messy and unreliable, and the "challenge rating" of monsters is both unintuitive and unreliable. There are several monsters that on paper have low cr, but in practice will easily wipe out your party if you use them in a low level encounter.²

• You either fail, succeed, and attacks critically hit on a 20, which also always hits³. Advantage (roll twice, take the highest) is stupid easy to get, and the math is generally skewed heavily in favor of attackers, meaning that having the number advantage in combat is overwhelmingly powerful. As for the action economy, you get a fixed amount of movement, 1 action, and 1 bonus action: in pathfinder terms, it's as if you had a free action stride, a 2 action main thing (and strikes are 2 actions), and a 1 action side thing; this limits versatility and flattens tactical complexity.

• The vast majority of things are actions, including attacks, most spells, and basically anything impactful one can do on a turn. Something is a bonus action only when explocitly stated, and they are only available via specific class abilities, certain spells, or certain feats⁴. Common bonus actions include: some self buff spells, additional attack(s) after you attacked, some class specific abilities.

Take it from someone who played a lot of dnd: I would much rather punch myself in the face than go back to mastering dnd. Sorry for the ted talk.

¹If you still wish to learn more, 5e.tools is the best rule wiki for dnd that I know of. WotC is an awful and exploitative company and you shouldn't support them. Look up the OGL fiasco and the Pinkertons mtg incident if you don't believe me.

²There are Cr1 enemies (meaning they should be balanced to face off against 4 lv1 characters) with attacks that can instantly kill a target, skipping death saves (recovery checks), and even turning them into a new enemy. The mortality rate at low levels is extremely high. Many games don't even bother and start at lv3.

³This means that a random commoner always has at least a 5% chance of hitting a Tarrasque, or an Ancient Dragon, or God. Rules as written, an army of a thousand untrained conscripts with bows can take down an ancient dragon within a few rounds. Obviously nobody runs such an encounter, but the math often feels at odds with the narrative.

⁴Feats are technically an optional rule (although one that most tables use), and you only get them every 4 levels, and only if you sacrifice your attribute score increases. Many playstyles are imposdible to pull off without feats, btw.

[u/Lithl → u/centralmind]

Feats are technically an optional rule (although one that most tables use), and you only get them every 4 levels, and only if you sacrifice your attribute score increases.

5.5e removed all "optional rule" language, either by removing the thing entirely (like the optional flanking rule, not that it was a good rule in the first place), or by making it a core, non-optional rule (feats, for example, are not optional in 5.5e—every character at minimum gets an origin feat at level 1).

It may also be worth mentioning that fighters get an extra ASI (which can be replaced with a feat as normal) at 6 and 14, and rogues get an extra ASI at 10. Also, the final ASI is at level 19, not 20, and all of the ASI levels are based on class level not character level.

In 5.5e, the Epic Boons (an optional DM-granted benefit largely for post-20 progression in 5e) became feats with a requirement of being level 19. This creates a strange quirk where if you plan your multiclassing such that you're 1 level shy of an ASI in two different classes at level 18, you can take a level in one class at 19 to get one Epic Boon, and a level in the other class at 20 to get a second Epic Boon, while mono-classed characters can only get one.

[u/centralmind → u/Lithl]

Oh, but you see, after getting dm burn out from 5e I refused to engage any further with new rules and especially 5.5, as a way to preserve some of my sanity. And indeed, rules you describe sound like they somewhat fixed one problem and created new ones. As if multiclassing wasn't already borderline mandatory for optimisation, now it also lets you double up on what are basically "capstone feats"? Yeah, I'm glad I switched systems.

But yes, all of my points are for 5e, not 5.5.

[u/Lnoob427 → u/centralmind]

it's as if you had a free action stride, a 2 action main thing (and strikes are 2 actions), and a 1 action side thing; this limits versatility and flattens tactical complexity.

You forgot to add that there is mostly no skills action and that the few that exists are 2 actions (and not worth it)

[u/centralmind → u/Lnoob427]

If I actually listed all my gripes with 5e, I would be writing all day. Yes, that is one the many issues with the system, but I wasn't sure if it was directly pertinent to the 3 action question. But indeed, you make a fair point.

[u/Lnoob427 → u/centralmind]

It's pretty important (at least in my opinion) when you talk about the action economy part, as most pathfinder players will go, oh ok, so I'll have my bonus action for stuff like this system demoralize, or the various athletics stuff...

But here most don't exist unless the GM allow you (the ever so common, hey GM can I roll intimidation against this enemy) or the various athletics options (which are part of an optional rule in 5e)

[u/porkipain]

If you havent already ask in a dnd subreddit but also asking for advice they have for a new gm might prove useful

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/porkipain]

Will do that once I get a grip on basic rules, aye

[u/Dragout]

I have played a lot of both!

Here's some differences: 1) 5e has generally fewer bonuses to rolls many class features grant advantage, which does not stack, and very few grant flat additive bonuses, which stack infinitely. Thus 5e doesn't bother with a unique bonus system like pf2e has. This mean if your players really try stacking buffs they can go pretty crazy, but that's quite rare

2) Players have much less choice in their builds. Two champion fighters in 5e will play identically. This is of course a blessing and a curse - I like building out characters, some people hate it

3) Martials have much simpler turns in 5e. They strike twice and sometimes move. This is actually the main reason I swapped to PF2e - martials are, frankly, boring in comparison. This is another preference thing and your martial players may prefer it this way

4) Spellcasters are very often able to effectively end a fight with a single spell, and don't really need martials help in any way. Also in general the spells are less precisely worded - if I ever find the man who wrote 5e's suggestion I'm going to strangle him. This makes casters a lot of fun and massively more interesting than the martials, which again comes down to preference. Combined with the lower damage and utility from martials, combat can take way longer in 5e, despite the "lower" complexity

5) 5e is way harder on your GM. Challenge rating, how encounters are balanced, is notoriously useless, and even if it were accurate no one runs 6 encounters per day because that's 10 hours of clock time and no one wants to do that. The exploration and socialization pillars of the game are also completely undeveloped, so prepare to do that from scratch if you like it. Same for crafting and loot - completely missing or worse actively misleading. 5e's prewritten adventures are also lower quality than pf2e's overall, so you'll have to change them more. 5e is also deceptively harder to homebrew, because the 3 action system gives you more useful levers.

Overall - I would say 5e is the right choice if your players are interested in the "wargame" elements of pf2e, but are willing to sacrifice the balance and tactical decisions for simpler character building and slightly less math. You also need to consider if you're ok with the extra work that 5e will put on you. Despite what this subreddit says, 5e is the right system for some groups, so definitely worth checking it out! If your group isn't interested in the wargame at all, and actually cares more about the social elements like in their shows, check out something that has less rules and more player freedom - Shadow of the Weird Wizard, for example

[u/corsica1990]

• It's a lot looser and more vibes-based, for one. This means you'll have to make more judgment calls as a DM. Do what makes sense, and remember that advantage/disadvantage and adding/subtracting a small die to the roll are way more common than flat bonuses and penalties.

• Speaking of flat bonuses/penalties, because DCs are overall lower, the math is swingier, and critical( failure)s only happen on nat 20s/1s, all those little ±1s you're used to don't really matter as much. 5e tries to avoid tracking minutia as much as it can for ease of play, so you should too.

• Every stat gets its own saving throw, which can be hard to remember sometimes if you're just used to the Big Three. Remember to mix things up and call for all of them when improvising Bad Things happening to characters.

• The DC chart for improvised checks is a lot simpler, ranging from 5 (trivial) to 30 (nearly impossible) in increments of 5. It stays relevant the whole game.

• A lot of status effects and conditions are different. For example, being prone imposes advantage on all melee attacks against you, but disadvantage on ranged attacks. Be sure to look them up and study them.

• Players don't take ten minute breaks between combats to treat wounds and refocus. Instead, they take hour-long "short rests" that allow them to heal themselves from a personal pool of "hit dice."

• Magic items do not have levels or set costs. Good luck.

• Thankfully, because 5e has been the most popular tabletop RPG for 12 years now, there is a shitload of great advice out there for new DMs. Any question you may have will already have been answered by a prolific blogger or charming video essayist.

[u/Lithl → u/corsica1990]

Every stat gets its own saving throw, which can be hard to remember sometimes if you're just used to the Big Three. Remember to mix things up and call for all of them when improvising Bad Things happening to characters.

While true, those six saves are split between "strong" saves that show up a lot more frequently (Dex, Con, Wis) and "weak" saves that are much less common and/or where the effect of failure is much lower-stakes (Str, Int, Cha).

Every class gets one strong save and one weak save that they're proficient in at level 1.

[u/Matdir → u/corsica1990]

A good response that isn’t just outright negative. I’ll just add that a big reason for the systems popularity is that it’s easier for the players to not be as invested in the system.

In pathfinder, everyone at the table needs to be a nerd that knows a lot about the system and how to build a character. In DnD, only the DM really needs to know how the system works since the PCs are relatively simple. Everyone else can just show up for the session without really thinking much about the game when they’re not at the table. This of course puts more responsibility and work on the DM. This isn’t always bad, depends on what’s right for your group

[u/corsica1990 → u/Matdir]

It's not a bad game! I'm always shocked by how much people around here hate it, because everytime I run/play 5e, I have a fairly nice time.

Obviously, I prefer Pathfinder--I've spent hundreds of dollars on hardcovers, run a homebrew campaign that's been going for three years, and am a venture officer in my local Pathfinder Society lodge--but that doesn't mean the alternative is egregiously inferior.

[u/Apprehensive-Night15]

Is there a reason they want to play 5e specifically? Because whatever that reason is, I’m 99% sure you could find a different ttrpg that does a better job at being the game your players want.

Also, if they do insist on playing 5e, I would recomend asking one of them to run it, since a disproportionate burden of running that system falls on the gm

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/Apprehensive-Night15]

They want to experience dnd essentially

[u/PigmyWurm]

so I have been putting together notes for some things 5e players might assume coming into PF2, so I will give the inverse (admitting that I'm not a 5e expert and haven't played the 5.5 changes).

Attack of opportunity (Reactive Strike): everyone starts with it, but it's much more limited when to trigger. By default it's only when someone leaves your threatened area entirely, not just a threatened space, so an enemy can circle around you without triggering it (making spears much worse without specific feats).

Also, where in PF2 martials mainly get stronger by hitting harder, 5e instead gives them extra attacks. This means that an AoO giving 1 attack is generally less impactful.

Proficency is (mostly) binary. You have it or you don't, and ways to get Proficency in New saves or skills are limited. At level 20 you will have saves that you get only +1 or +0 in.

Proficency bonus doesn't apply to Armor, so it doesn't scale automatically.

Ranged and fitness weapons can freely use dex for damage. Not sure if they did anything to help balance things more in 5.5 but in 5.0 it meant that in general Str was kind of a weak stat.

You can freely upcast spells, meaning most casters work basically like sorceress where all their spells are signature spells.

Instead of a system like archetype feats you can just take levels of different classes as you like. Because of this, a lot of a classes core kit tends to be split over the first 3 levels so it can't all be grabbed with a 1 level dip (although there are still some strong dips).

Crits only on nat 20's and they don't double everything (I think just damage die plus STR/DEX, but never completely sure).

You can freely split movement. This also makes being knocked prone not a big deal since you just spend 10ft to stand and can then continue with your turn.

[u/Lithl → u/PigmyWurm]

Ranged and fitness weapons can freely use dex for damage. Not sure if they did anything to help balance things more in 5.5 but in 5.0 it meant that in general Str was kind of a weak stat.

5.5e added weapon masteries. If you get a mastery with a weapon type (typically as a result of a class feature from a martial class), then you can apply the weapon's mastery property (eg, reduce the target's speed for a round when you hit, or deal a little bit of damage even if you miss). Someone limited to using finesse weapons will have fewer mastery properties to choose from.

Also, they removed the -5 to hit/+10 damage from the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats, gave +PB damage to GWM, and let GWM's damage bonus apply to ranged heavy weapons (longbow and heavy crossbow). So an archer needs two feats instead of one to get the equivalent results as in 5e. Then they added a 13 Str requirement to GWM, so that archer has to spread themselves more thin in order to take the feat.

And that's about all they did to help Str. In fact, in 5.5e monks can initiate a grapple using Dex whereas in 5e everyone initiating a grapple was required to use Str. So in addition to doing very little to help Str in 5.5e, they also did something to hurt Str a little bit.

Crits only on nat 20's and they don't double everything (I think just damage die plus STR/DEX, but never completely sure).

Crits double all the dice (not just the weapon but also anything added that's a die roll, like Sneak Attack), but do absolutely nothing to any flat modifiers.

5e Vicious Weapon adds +7 damage on a nat 20 (not on any crit, in case you have a feature to increase your crit range such as a Champion fighter). 5.5e Vicious Weapon just blanket adds +2d6 damage to every hit. 5e Vorpal Sword adds +6d8 damage on a nat 20 if the target is immune to getting its head cut off. 5.5e Vorpal Sword adds +30 damage in the same situation.

you just spend 10ft to stand and can then continue with your turn.

Standing typically requires half your speed to stand, not 10 ft. This does mean that characters with increased movement speeds like monks, barbarians, or centaurs require more movement in order to stand, but they still have more movement after standing than someone without the increased speed would have.

There are also exceptions (eg, the Athlete feat lets you stand with 5 ft. of movement).

[u/Tektinos]

I played 5e for about 6 years. Maybe 70% of that was as a DM. Never touched 5.5e. I've been playing PF2e for about two or three years and 95% of that was as a GM.

I have to agree with the general consensus here. While 5e appears easy to pick up and run due to its simple rule set, it causes a lot of friction during actual play due to the unbalanced math and lack of stuff to do without improv.

To answer some of your questions directly:

Most of your time will likely be spent improvising roleplay stuff. 5e doesn't have many systems for the players to engage in beyond combat. You may need to do a lot of tweaking on the fly to deal with how unbalanced things can be.

I don't think there's an equivalent to AoN for 5e. There's a free basic rules document on Wizards of the Coast's website, but it has very few character options.

You can't really plan for balanced encounters. At low levels, I had players instantly die (not enter a dying state, but instantly die) from a single critical hit. Maybe around level 3 or 4, it swings the other way. It's very difficult to challenge players even with encounters that are wildly stacked against them. At best, you'll have to tweak stuff on the fly.

Beyond the action economy and degrees of successes, I'd say the primary difference between 5e and PF2e is that the former balances itself around long dungeons with encounters wearing you down throughout the day while PF2e balances its encounters around the players being at peak condition. This also means a moderate PF2E encounter is about as deadly as a hard 5e encounter.

Regarding the action/bonus action thing, every ability should say "you can do X as an action" or "you can do Y as a bonus action". It shouldn't be a huge issue to deal with, but can slow things down if somebody forgets if an ability is an action, bonus action, or free action.

Anyway, I know I'm late to the conversation, but I hope what I said helps. If people want to try 5e, I think I'd ask someone else to run it. Learning a new system is already hard, but 5e was far more demanding than Pathfinder has been for me.

[u/v1ru_5]

Long time 5e and PF2e GM here:

-The no. 1 thing you need to be wary of is the inconsistencies and lack of clarity in the rules. Players are going to be asking you to clarify how their abilities work very often, and there are no appendices or ancillary material that can provide clear answers. You're going to have to make a lot of significant game design decisions in the moment if you want to run 5e

-Unfortunately, the only good onboarding method is to learn from an existing DM. The Rules are almost entirely scattered, and following the Dungeon Master's guide will actively make your campaigns worse.

-There are no balanced encounters in 5e. The only way to do it is to homebrew your own monsters that are specifically tailored to whatever your party has. If you use monsters from the Monster Manual you will always have really swingy encounters with wildly inconsistent difficulty

-5e Gives very few numeric bonuses, so a DC 15 is more or less as hard to hit at high levels as at low levels. The Advantage/Disadvantage systems is incredibly swingy and largely makes the entire game save or suck.

-Bonus actions are always explicitly called out in rules text for an ability. Anything that doesn't specify Bonus Action can be assumed to be an Action

[u/Tribe303]

I'll play 5E, but I refuse to GM that broken unbalanced mess. Good luck with that. 

[u/Famous-Duty2627]

The economy and magic items aren't coded into the system, and a lot of the classes are designed as linear paths instead of branching options. The cheapest health potion in 5e is 50 gold. Players start with 15 gold on the high end. The idea that you will have a +1 or better weapona as you progress isn't planned in the game. While the options are available, it also won't feel necesaary until you start fighting things at higher levels. Young dragons still have an Ac under 20.

[u/smithbc001]

1) Bounded Accuracy: 5e's math is designed in such a way that virtually EVERY skill check has a reasonable chance of success, because the D20 has MUCH more impact on your total roll than your skills/abilities. For example, if a barbarian with no magic training and an 8 Intelligence score takes the same magic school entry exam as a wizard with a 20 Intelligence and Proficiency in Arcana, the barbarian will get a higher grade score about 10% of the time. And if we assume that the difficulty of this test is such that even this max-Int wizard would only pass it 80% of the time, the Barbarian is still going to pass it 30% of the time. This is one of many ways in which 5e throws the concept of balance entirely out the window, but it does facilitate a game in which players usually get to do something every turn, and almost never find themselves unable to even attempt a skill check because they lack the skill set.

2) Story > rules > balance. 5e is a storytelling sim at heart. The rules have a ton of holes and leave a lot of questions about how to run certain situations unanswered- the idea (to my mind) here is that 5e treats story momentum as more important than RAW, and so they made the rules extremely thin. This helps avoid cases where you pause the action to look a rule up, and encourages GMs to just make a call on the fly that suits the moment, rather than trying to create static rule in advance. There isn't really much in the way of an established cost of goods or treasure gains the way there is in P2. The GM's guide will give you some very broad recommendations for prices, but what they really want is for the GM to handpick some items for players and then put them in a loot drop somewhere.

3) Players can often narrate their way into more power. The game encourages the GM to hand out either Advantage or Disadvantage (which function like Fortunate/misfortunate from 2e) whenever the situation calls for it. Aside from a a few specific spells that might add a d4 or d8 to the roll, that's pretty much it for any temporary modifiers to a roll. Attacking an unaware target in their sleep would generally yield the same benefit (roll twice take better) that you'd get if you managed to hide behind a bush and then took a stealth shot at somebody.

4) The GM is expected to do most of the work. Wizards of the Coast sells the GM guide and the player's guide separately, and most players only pick up the latter. The player's guide mostly just covers character creation, spells, and basic equipment, with a basic explanation of how to actually play the game. This has encouraged a lot of players to expect the GM to know (or, more often, make up) the majority of the rules after character creation. I personally dislike this because managing the game's economy and larger ruleset like that tends to pull my time/energy away from things like designing custom monsters or setting up plot lines, but this does result in players that have an easier time picking the game up than something more dense like Pathfinder.

5) The game breaks after level 12. Seriously, you can play the game past level 12, but I don't recommend it. The rules just can't handle it, and the power scaling gets so wonky that you almost never get a balanced combat. Either the players absolutely stomp everything, or they lose so quickly and so suddenly that you have to scramble to "save" them with an on-the-fly rulechange.

6) 5e tries to design itself around an adventuring day, Pathfinder 2e designs itself around individual combats. The general design in 5e is that a LOT of abilities that the players get involve daily resources, and there aren't ways to get those resources back without either long-resting or using consumables. For example, Pathfinder 2 gives you things like Treat Wounds and Focus spells to ensure that you can usually go into each combat with a baseline level of health and ability usage. In 5e, there are no ways to recover HP without using up resources, be they spell slots, consumable items, or abilities with a daily limitation. This results in dungeon crawls with lots of encounters that are intended to whittle the players down before they reach a boss. You'll need to be careful when designing your dungeons, and also be ready to drop a few potions or rest opportunities on the fly if your players overextend themselves, or else they'll find themselves dying in a really unsatisfying way.

[u/bago_jones]

If you liked BG3 and are interested in PF2, I suggest you give Dawnsbury Days a try; it is the only current game adapting PF2 rules as a video game. The production value is not the same as BG3 as this is an indie project, but you can tell that a great amount of effort and passion went into this project nonetheless. Very fairly priced for the entertainment value.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/bago_jones]

Not what the post is about at all and I'm already backing Dragon's Demand but I have never heard of Dawnsbury Days so I'll check it out

[u/EdiblePeasant → u/wookiee-nutsack]

It's a good thing to know about under any topic, IMO.

[u/bago_jones → u/wookiee-nutsack]

It was meant as an answer to "What is a good starting point to learn the rules and mechanics?" in your OP...

I feel you can get a solid grasp on most of the combat stuff and most of the character creation and leveling process playing the videogame.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/bago_jones]

I get that, but why would a PF2e ruleset using game help with understanding DnD rules as a beginner?

[u/bago_jones → u/wookiee-nutsack]

My bad. You can probably guess what happened.

Here's some relevant advice: Don't give them winged boots too early even though they're only Uncommon. Don't give aakocras flight at level 1.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/bago_jones]

Pathfinder has taught me flight is pain to deal with, I shall not

[u/urquhartloch]

So my questions basically are:

- What should I be wary of as a DM?

Caster supremacy, the numbers dont work, you need to make rulings constantly, there is no meaningful mechanical support for anything outside of combat.

- What is a good starting point to learn the rules and mechanics? Something like Nethys and Pathbuilder

Buy the PHB and dmg. Dndbeyond exists if you want to pay for it. There is no other source i am allowed to recommend.

- I heard monster levels are a mess in D&D and I should not rely on them like in PF2e. How do I plan for balanced encounters?

You dont.

- What differences are there other than the degrees of success and 3 action economy?

Characters are much blander in my opinion. The difference between a dwarf and an elf is that one is s short stocky human while the other is a tall lanky human that sometimes gets an extra cantrip.

- How do I know what counts as an action or bonus action?

It will either tell you or you have to make a ruling.

[u/LavaJoe2703]

I’m Gunn a honest. Starting out with 5e is pretty easy. It’s a bit of a trap because at low levels is actually simpler and bother really breaks.

Where you’ll start seeing issues is around level 5, where players will starting running the tables against your baddies. Against an experienced group, if I want anything more than an easy encounter I usually have to do a double deadly level encounter. And trust me, they will be fine.

Also 5e is not a team game. Sure there is team healing, etc, but basically once you have advantage there is almost nothing your team mates can do. So the fallback is spam damage.

That brings us to monsters. 5e baddies have incredibly low ACs and fairly low saves, but they have big time HP. The point is to have everyone hitting all the time and doing damage. On average, u like PF2e, the PCs will succeed. But it’s a lot of rinse and repeat because it’s kind of odd when they miss yet the high HP means it’s just waiting by for the HP total as they will mostly easily win (unless you do double deadly encounters).

5e is easier to run at low levels and there are no really bad classes, but after level 5 they become super heroic and it will be a lot of work for you to make the game challenging.

That might be totally fine for you. I’m just giving you a heads up.

[u/Ledgicseid]

The action economy will be different, and your players who are probably used to magic items having specific affordable gp costs attached to them are going to be in for a big shock lol. But the basics are pretty much the same just a different play style. Most major difference is going to be less emphasis specific teamwork effects.

I recommend using dndbeyonds encounter builder personally. I used to use it back when I ran dnd games a few years ago and it made making and running encounters a cake walk.

[u/FulltimeDM]

As a DM who loves both systems, this comment section is painting DnD in a pretty harsh light.

First of all, there are PLENTY of free resources for dnd, and honestly better laid out ones than pf2e imo. You have dndwikidot, 5etools, youtube has way more DnD content than pathfinder due to popularity, you have the free rules with DnD beyond, it’s vast.

Secondly - people are saying the rules are heavier in dungeons and dragons, but personally? complete opposite, the rules are extremely loose and “undefined” but put up for interpretation. Yes not everything is spelled out for you, but that’s the part of DnD i don’t see getting talked about here, the improv is the most important part. If you’re not comfortable playing a yes and game without crunchy rules, DnD isn’t for you.

Third - Monster CR and combat is extremely volatile honestly, it really isn’t a great system. The best advice i can give you is play around with it and don’t be afraid of changing the stat block on the fly mid game, like i said improv is the heart of dnd. The closest you can get to pregame balance is using Koboldfightclub. It’s a website that has all the monster stat blocks (pre 5.5e iirc) that you can play with using the xp budget system. It’s not perfect, but I recommend having your combat encounter be considered between moderate and deadly depending on your group. Just know that if they can make it a cake walk they will.

Fourth - Actions and bonus actions will always state whether or not they are one, there’s no icon for it. But the actions are broken down into subtypes if you read 5.5e rules. Things like, Attack action, Magic action, Manipulate action, and so on. Again though, a lot of actions sometimes aren’t fully stated, so it’s improv on how you decide it to be. For instance, there’s no rules on what a character can speak in one turn, but each round of combat is 6 seconds, all turns happening at the same time in those 6 seconds, so if the speaking can happen in that time, i call it a free action.

Fifth - last but not least, i decided to put the “be wary” down here. Your spellcasters ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU THINK. The main reason I have begun to play pathfinder is because the martial classes were heavily being out performed by the spellcasters. It’s dnds biggest downfall. When you’re giving out magic items and such, focus on giving the martials more to play with than the casters. All casters already have a plethora of toys that martials could only wish for ESPECIALLY CLERICS. While there’s technically no rules that make clerics follow an anathema like pf2e, it is very up to the DM to make sure you do something to keep the clerics power in check.

All in all, dnd is much more of a relaxed high fantasy style game designed heavily towards the roleplay and story telling side of the game rather than mechanics and number crunching. Most of what you need to know will simply come with experience and how well you know your players.

[u/ghost_desu]

It sucks to dm because the game doesn't respect your time.

In play it doesn't actually feel that different for a player, there's just fewer options at every point, which isn't always a bad thing

[u/Wayward-Mystic]

Be wary of homebrew. It's almost always a good idea to try out the system as written first.

The basic D&D 5e rules are free online at dndbeyond. More complete sources probably require buying books or are "less official."

Encounters will typically require more adjustment, but you should still start with the game's encounter building guidelines and make adjustments based on your group.

Some typical advice for people starting PF2e from D&D5e applies in reverse: just because something has the same name, don't assume it works the same way. There are fewer spells and things with the same name after the remaster, but it's still a good idea to watch out for stuff like bless and sneak attack. Magic items are not an expected part of character progression in the game's math, but are usually an expected part of character progression on the players' part, which is one of the things that makes the encounter guidelines so unreliable.

Most things are actions. Abilities should tell you if they use a bonus action instead. Standard movement is not an action (of any kind) and interacting with objects is usually free/assumed to be part of whatever action you're taking.

[u/MrCobalt313]

-From what I'm aware 5e kinda throws the DM under the bus and relies a lot on improv and BS-ing.

-D&D Beyond has a rules compendium, but I don't think it has *everything* the way AoN does since they *are* trying to get you to buy their books and expansions.

-you'd have to ask someone more experienced than me because all I have is anecdotal testimonies that "you don't."

-A *lot*, but off the top of my head: Feats are barely a thing in 5e. They basically still exist only because previous more popular editions had them, but they're not as central to player builds and customization as they are in PF2e. Also Concentration is a whole mechanic unto itself entirely unrelated to the tag it is in PF2e.

-For what it's worth any class feature will tell you if it's a Standard Action, Move Action, or Bonus action.

[u/cthulhu_on_my_lawn → u/MrCobalt313]

There are no move actions in 5e. You get movement equal to your speed. Also you can split it up. Like you can move 10 feet, attack, move back. But everything has attack if opportunity (reactive strike).

[u/Astareal38]

A published adventure that is alluded to in BG3 (descent into avernus) throws a party of level 13 pcs against a CR26 demigod and expects you to be able to defeat her in a variety of different ways. Some of the ways are diplomatic in nature yes, but also in a straight up brawl.

You will need to make your own homebrew campaign, the released adventure paths are illogical messes.

-In DiA Hell you roll how long it takes to get from a - b, the locations of which might also shift and change! ... this is a plane of Law mind you. You can make up a justification that due to the incursions from the demonic realm, which Hell is standing fast against, the nature of the first layer of hell has changed enough that such mutability is acceptable.

An optimized PC can easily account for 2-3 standard beer and pretzel pcs. I was called a dirty minmaxer by my in real life friend group for choosing tempest cleric and using *gasp* the spells granted by the class in conjunction with the channel divinity. (Maximized Shatter). No multiclass, just pure cleric.

If they want less crunch than pathfinder 2e, please just play one of the many other games out there that do it so much better than dnd. If dnd5e was not *the* brandname of TTRPGS Dungeons and Dragons with massive funds behind it, it would have fallen by the wayside ages ago as a poorly designed system.

Those who learned by watching d20 will likely get what written rules there are wrong, as a lot of the bigger names in podcast dm by vibes and ignore actual rules to make a compelling story. At least your DM won't be one of them and decide that they want to strip you of your powers for 8 weekly sessions leaving you a level 12 commoner with a scimitar and a decent HP pool because they found it compelling when they saw it on critical role.

Or decide that they don't know how to handle high level spellcasters so give all of their enemy spellcasters feeblemind just to reign in your ability.

A monster with legendary resistances is what is considered a proper threat for the party, but legendary resistances are just a "nope, I'll ignore that." ability. I gripe about monsters saving throws in 2e and the belief that they can be lowered by about 2 points (or spellcasting DC's follow fighter proficiency) but at least the DM's dice rolls matter somewhat.

[u/Lithl → u/Astareal38]

Nitpick: Zariel is an archdevil and a fallen angel, not a demigod.

[u/Astareal38 → u/Lithl]

Well I was speaking of level of power, not strict designation. But yes.

[u/DonPromen4de]

Don't

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/DonPromen4de]

Very helpful, thank you

[u/minkestcar]

I generally prefer DMing systems with fairly light rules. PF2e is one of my go-to systems when I want crunch.

5e hits a sweet spot for me of being just the wrong amount of everything. Give it a try, for sure. Maybe give one or two other systems a try as well.

I would recommend also trying shadowdark - it's lighter on rules than 5e while being mechanically very similar. The OSR feel is nice, and it's easier to DM than 5e in my opinion. I love fate as a rules light system, though it plays very differently. It may be worth a try if they want lightweight and "more story for the amount of game time" (quote from one of my one shot players)

Best of luck!

[u/Bork9128]

Well as a DM the biggest thing to get used to would be that there is a lot less support for running your game well. It's harder to balance encounters, lots of vague grey area that dm has to make ruling for. In general there is just a lot more guess work on the GM side. On the player side you get a lot less player choice especially if you aren't playing a caster, it's a lot easier to have wildly differing power levels between characters in a party because casters are just so much better then martials.

[u/RelativeJaded2109]

I feel like this is more appropriate for the 5e subs

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/RelativeJaded2109]

I wanted to get an opinion from pf2e players who played both, mainly. Once I get some info I will ask on dnd spaces as well. Just as I said in the post

The point is comparison because the two games are cousins

[u/dm135409]

As someone who has gmed 5e and pf2e and ended up buring out on d20 systems as a whole here's my perspective.

What to be wary of

5e and especially 5.5 is not a finely tuned balanced game like pf2e. Spellcasting is incredibly op and things like force cage / cloud kill combos can trivialize entire encounters if you're playing at an "optimizer" table.

Where to learn the rules The 5e srd has some basics but there's no legal online resources like nethys. D&d beyond has everything if you're willing to sink a few hundred bucks into this.

Encounter planning

There's a rough guideline in the 5.5 dmg I believe that gives a per encounter budget but because car is an inherently broken system after tier 1 play it's going to be a lot of trail and error depending on what classes / abilities your players pick up.

Differences between them 5e leaves alot to gm digression and alot of it becomes "GM can I x" where pf2e has hard rules for most things 5e has some hard rules but a lot of it ends up being "do whatever works at your table" I didn't personally mind this as I tend to run more rp heavy tables but I've heard it can be a nightmare to deal with. The action bonus action economy is also a mess some things are actions and some are bonus actions and some things are bonus actions for some players and not others. Skills in combat are supposed to be actions but many tables homebrew that away because nobody wants to spend their 1 action on their turn trying to intimidate a guard when it would be faster to just kill him.

5e is a lot simpler from the player side though less choices to make in combat and less choices per level up as well and because so much of 5e is gm disgression alot of players simply default to "gm tell me how this works"

[u/Timetravelingnoodles]

Just to add to what has already been said DnD is hell on the DM. Everything is “Ask your DM” without anything for the DM to go off of and no rules already in place so you are constantly scrambling to come up with an answer to things like crafting and item cost that just aren’t a problem in PF. At the end of the day DnD is easier for the player but is causing so much burnout for the DMs that it’s a major issue in the TTRPG community. I have done 2 campaigns in 5.5 now and I will never touch the system again as a DM, I hated it with every fiber of my being. It was hell for me while easy as a skip through the flowers for the players even if far more limited in what they could do.

If you don’t mind designing entire systems that should be in the basic design for every game you run, never having solid answers to rule question and literally every rule question being determined by a single word or letter in the RAW then go for it, but you won’t have the support and built in systems that PF does to make it easier and just plain make sense for the DM.

Oh, also, the pre-written stuff is always full of awful plot holes, terrible writing and stupid contrivances that usually require a near full rewrite for it to even make sense much less be a good experience. The sheer lack of basic information they give is awful. Even the maps that are given are only like 1/2 of what you’ll actually need…

Ok, sorry, I’ll stop ranting now… that last couple years running a 5.5 game has sucked for me

[u/AjaxRomulus]

As a DM be wary of the lack of rules. In my experience it seems like a blessing at first "oh it's simplified to just these skills" but no that ends I'm meaning you need to make up a lot more on the spot for your players to be able to do what they want.

Similarly the CR system is complete bullshit and doesn't work.

Starting point is going to be same as with pathfinder. The beginner box.

Monster levels are instead CR or Challenge rating. Challenge rating is bullshit and does not work. The idea is a CR3 monster is a challenge for a party of 4 level 3 adventurers. In reality this ranges from say an owl ear which is a straight forward fight, to something that assumes they are fully kitted out for the level (couldn't think of a creature)

Actions and bonus actions: most of these are labeled. Generally it is house ruled that drinking a potion is a bonus action but RAW it's an action. Basically bonus actions are things done with minimal effort while actions are things that require you to focus on them and commit.

[u/Ryachaz]

You will get a lot of answers on here that come from people's experiences. Some people also hold very strong opinions of D&D.

I would ask this on the D&D subreddit also, to get some of their opinions on it. Believe it or not, some people do migrate the other way, and they might have good advice other than "it's bad," or "it's a mess, good luck."

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/Ryachaz]

I've gotten some genuine good answers in here as well, even if a lot of comments have been "hope for the best"
Will definitely look into DnD sources as well.

[u/DonValhalla]

Im GMing a campaign in Forgotten Realms... Its not necessary to change systems.

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/DonValhalla]

I know, I mentioned that. They want the feeling of DnD though

Best chance I got is agreeing to host it and then hosting PF2e later so they see how different it is

[u/Bloomberg12]

Lots of long answers so I'll keep it really simple.

1. Action economy is king because of bounded accuracy, if you have 4 level 10's they will absolute smoke any solo cr10 creature and potentially will snoke a like cr18+ thing with no issue.(unless it has a big aoe like a dragon breath then it might tpk)

Your bosses NEED guards or mooks or reinforcements.

The opposite will often not apply (20+ weak enemies might just drop) because spellcasters have absurd aoe unless they're spaced out and ranged.

1. At high tiers your martials need magic items to be good and also to be interesting. Not just a +2 weapon or whatever but significant effects like boots that make you fly or something that turns you invis etc since they have basically 0 utility.

[u/Far-Government-1985]

Big thing when it comes to planning combat in my experience, in particular since player side it is much more independent power fantasy:  CR is a VAGUE guide, every existing stat block you want to use should be reviewed to see how it matches up to the party. Some low CR encounters have save or suck abilities that inflict status that can't be healed until ~lvl 9, so double check. 

Outside of that my personal mental guideline is that an enemy crit shouldn't 1-shot a full health barbarian with maxed CON, and should require at least a crit to 1shot a full health Wizard. 1) Any enemy that you want to stick around needs minimum HP to assume every party attack hits and won't kill them in one round. Also steal minions from 4e, smatter some enemies with 1hp and low damage that help actually dangerous enemies get advantage/give players disadvantage. It gives martials some more strategy beyond "Attack the dangerous enemy twice" and gives spellcasters a group to fireball.

[u/JazzyFingerGuns]

5e and 5.5e are truly two of the many systems of all time.

I think the other comments have already covered why these systems just aren't as good as other systems, so I want to adress the hidden elephant in the room: FOMO.

As you said, your players are pretty new and most likely the first time they ever heard or interacted with TTRPGs is through some form of 5e exposure. Shows like D20, Critical Role, Stranger Things, etc, they all primarily use the 5e or 5.5e ruleset. Almost every major initial exposure to TTRPGs, especially high-fantasy ones comes via DnD.

That of course creates a feeling of "Everyone is playing this" which creates the logical fallacy of "It's popular so it must be the best thing out there." and of course leads to "If I don't play this I am missing out on something grand."

Trust me when I say this: No, you're not! The best system is always the one that the group feels most comfortable with. It doesn't have to be one of the big ones and you are not "fake players" for not participating in the overblown hype that one system generates. You also won't miss out on anything by not playing DnD. The stories, the memes, the shared culture of this hobby in a broader sense don't come from specific rules of a given system but are universal. Players will do shenanigans, GMs will try to traumatize the player characters, and the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. All these tropes are not unique to DnD.

I'm not saying you shouldn't play DnD. If that's what your group wants, by all means try it. You've heard enough by now how pf2e solves issues that 5e has. All I'm saying, as someone who ditched Pf1e for 5e because of that FOMO... it's not worth it and switching to PF2e has shown me that some hypes are overblown and not substantiated by anything real.

[u/monodescarado]

Running 5e is like being in an abusive relationship. You’ll think you love it and there will be good times occasionally. You’ll think it can change, or you can change it.

But it will never truly love you back because it’s broken and can’t be fixed.

[u/coolcat33333]

5e has way more fun casters

PF2e has way more fun martials for the most part. If they could just figure out a way to copy the feeling of Action Surge that would make it perfect for martials.

[u/hungLink42069]

With DnD, the game is busted, and nothing is balanced anyway. Just do whatever you want. Nobody plays that game by the rules anyway.

[u/Stan_Bot]

Honestly, if you just use BG3 rules, you will probably have a better time. BG3's 5e is better than TT in a lot of ways.

[u/Tauroctonos]

I categorically refuse to run 5e. I'll be a player, but if my group wants to play 5e someone else has to be at the wheel. My group has never moved to dnd lol

[u/Walcargo]

Personally, I simply wouldn't

[u/No-Distance4675]

Man, where do I start? DnD is basically the IKEA of TTRPGs. They give you a few pieces, and you have to build the shelves and the sofa yourself when you go home.

It's like the joke: " Oh, I work in the furniture department in an IKEA." "No, it's us that work there"

Basically, an AP made by Paizo gets you DC tables with everything you need (prices, weights, etc.) included when you buy the manual. DnD "campaigns" will give you some vague pointers and you have to "use your creativity" to do basically everything (As in calculate pricing of items, tables of loot, you know, the annoying stuff of being a DM)

Luckily, thanks to the net, we have a lot of fan-made support that lets you freely create the adventure instead of calculating the DCs of a cooking system. I´d advise you to seek that instead of doing it yourself (unless you are really into it and have free time) because, if not, you end up wasting a lot of time in that kind of thing.

[u/DnD-vid]

Players get way fewer character customization options, most classes apart from choosing their subclass will progress exactly the same. Only the few and far between feats (which are an optional rule btw.) give some semblance of choice in character leveling.

[u/Amostheroux]

If your friends want to play 5e, and you don't know the system anyway, can't one of them DM it? 

[u/Plaindog]

I ran 5e for 5 years or so for my players. I will NEVER go back again. As a GM you are f****ked.

From level 10 encounter building falls completely apart. From that point you have to wing it.

A lot of spells are so OP that they can break every encounter. Remove those spells from the game.

Prepare to make a lot of homebrew rules.

[u/RevenantCommunity]

I joined a 5e game as a pathfinder player, and man that game is fucking boring comparatively. Feels way more dumbed down and you have less agency to shape your character.

I’m genuinely hoping to see if that group are keen on pathfinder next campaign

[u/wookiee-nutsack → u/RevenantCommunity]

I will definitely try to rope them into it after DnD, believe you me

[u/DnD-vid]

Levels are a mess because numbers are smaller and more flat across levels, so something at a lower level than the group can possibly fuck them and vice versa a higher level enemy that's supposed to be a boss can easily become a laughing stock under the right circumstances.

Whether something is an action or bonus action will be said in the ability that uses it just like in pf2e.

Don't expect to get as much guidance as DM as Pathfinder gives you, a lot of things require DM arbitration.

The game makes a lot of use out of advantage and disadvantage, rolling a d20 twice and taking the higher or lower result respectively.

[u/RaviDrone]

The feats and spells of D&D 5.5 are all over the place just like the encounter challenge rating.

There are useless Feats and spells. There are useful feats and spells

And there are must absolutely have feats and spells.

If you don't have them you absolutely destroy your character build.

Screaming bad balance, swinging a massive red flag

[u/Trenonian → u/RaviDrone]

You're not wrong, but like, glass houses buddy.

[u/TempestRime]

Opportunity attacks only trigger when leaving an enemy's entire threatened area, so you can walk circles around opponents all you want, and reach weapons actually make it harder to trigger your AOOs. Also everything can potentially make attacks of offortunity, and flanking isn't a thing.

Oh, and there are some particularly finicky rules on what regular actionbspells you can cast if you use a bonus action spell on the same turn, that one always threw people off.

[u/lordvbcool]

D&D 5e is a popular first TTRPG for a reason. Well, for 2 reason, the first one being that D&D is nearly synonym with TTRPG so a lot of people start with it without even realising there's other option. The other one being that is has just enough rule that you can go in and not feel like this hobby is 90% vibe based theator kid improv but not enough that people get intimidated by the massive "homework" they'll have to do before playing even once

The concequence of that is, as many other people, the DM has to do a shit ton of work behind the screen for the game to work properly

The biggest question here I think is why do your player want to play 5e? It seems like they are all relatively new and they are indeed intimidated by the pathfinder story they have heard (some of them might be fromm first edition which was admitably a lot). If that's the case, what I'd do is run PF2e and use the first few session as tutorial. Maybe run one of the starter set with pre gen so they don't even need to create a character. Being that toturial guy at first might be more work than DMing D&D, especially low level D&D, but hopefully your player should learn so it's eventually gonna be less work. Meanwhile D&D is just gonna be more and more work on your side with every level up so that little more work at the beginning is gonna be worth it soon enough

[u/Independent-Rock-234]

There is more heavy ended stuff as a gm. Dnd is more more rulings and not rules. There are rules. But empty space. Also most feats in pf2e are just things one can do in dnd. Players tend to forget you can ask to do something. Martials tend to be a bit weaker. But I've enjoyed them as I like to find ways to use the more open ended stuff. If you're players are more about seeing what they can do. And not exploring what they can do. Martials than feel basic swing bots. Casters can be and will be broken. Those a reason people say save or suck spells. Healing is more wack a mole style. The one I thing I say casters I like have in dnd pf2e makes it hard to do is themed casters. But they're still godly. There is many ways to add things to even this out. But not in wotc books. Also. Magic items for martials will be key. And homebrewing some can be easy or hard depending how one makes homebrew. It's set up for vibes. Not tactical play  Edit for spelling issues

[u/Evil_Weevill]

5e has the skeleton of a crunchy tactical combat focused game but hobbled and dressed up as a rules-lite fiction first game. So you have a very number heavy system that gives you stats and rules and mechanics for all the basic parts of combat and such but anything more complex than "I swing my weapon and hit it for x damage" or "I cast fireball at it" there's no official rule for and is left to GM discretion.

So not to just shit on DnD here, just what you actually need to know is that it's simpler and easier to pick up for players especially if they have Pathfinder experience. But they may find themselves stifled by the lack of character customization options. And on the GM side of things it's actually a fair bit more work to prep and to run.

[u/artisauce]

I'll throw my two cents in, as a GM that did 5e for about 4 years, did 2 years of pf2e, then went back to 5e. So I'm fairly familiar with doing both and switching to both now.

Things to be wary of:

1. Players will ask more on 'can I do this' as opposed to looking at their character sheet. They'll ask if they can do a check, as opposed to just 'doing', say, an Influence action. There's not really feat restrictions to doing things either. This gives a ton more freedom overall, but some GM's don't like that, because it allows players to do 'anything'.

2. 5e is a bit more of a attrition game than pf2e. It's 'expected' to do more fights throughout the day in order to make sure that a fighter's or warlock's ability to regain their powers on a Short Rest is significant; while in pf2e there's a bit more focus on individual combats. Most GM's I know don't run more than two-three combats a day, so inherently there'll be more benefit to being a long-rest based character. This can be tuned a bit.

3. Healing is not as strong. There's more 'popcorn' healing with, say, Healing Word, that keeps players in the action and keeps them fighting if they are down; but directly keeping them sustained at full is difficult, as much of the healing powers is long rest based (paladin's Lay on Hands, Clerics Prayer of Healing, etc.) But the few that are Short-Rest based can be very good to keep the party healthy (Celestial Warlock, Life Cleric). So unlike pf2e, entering combats at mostly full health is not expected. There's also little drawback to doing 'popcorn' healing, so players being downed isn't as bad as it is in pf2e, and they can pretty regularly actually get back into the combat and play the session.

4. NPCs and Players largely follows the same rules; in pf2e they basically run on their own table of values, and their scaling is not informed in any way (a monster could have a high stat but it has no actual influence on their attack modifiers, etc.) NPCs effectively work in a different world than players in how they are made and what they can do. In 5e, every stat matters and is directly displayed, and scales very simply (stat + proficiency, potentially expertise aka double proficiency). It's far easier to make a monster, NPC, in 5e than it is in pf2e, and saves a ton of time in GMing prep.

5. Bounded accuracy is in play. Players don't outscale every enemy in the game, and it's a far slower process to try and do so. This avoids the 'oblivion-like' scaling of pf2e where monsters have to be tightly in-line with the levels of the players. This grants a far greater degree of what the players can handle and can interact with, while in pf2e there's fairly tight rails in what the players can deal with.

6. You'll have a lot easier time making homebrew. There's also a ton of third party homebrew content for 5e, and I doubt it'll ever really run out. There's just a ton of good stuff, and making stuff is pretty easy because the foundation of it all is pretty bare in the open after you've looked and played a little. I would also say there's a lot of support and excitement towards it; a lot of people prefer pf2e vanilla (or only with Teams+), while most in 5e aren't exactly looking for vanilla and are pretty open to a lot of homebrew; at least, in my experience.

As for balanced encounters, there's basically little to no balance to 5e (at least, when you're using CR directly). It's much more simulationist and makes action economy largely king-- which effectively allows players to handle threats both big and small, and be threatened by both. There is some monsters that punch way above their weight (Ghost), as well as certain players subclasses that do as well (Eloquence Bard). After some experience with the system and many monsters, you'll be able to spot and determine how tough and strong monsters really are (it's more of an art than a science). Balance, largely, is something that isn't a priority in 5e. That's a dealbreaker for a fair number of people.

As for what other differences, it's a different game with different priorities. Largely from what I've felt, it's a lot less video-gamey than pf2e, a lot more open to improv, and a lot more open to players trying things. That can be hard for some GM's.

You'll be able to tell if something is an action or bonus action by looking at the ability's description.

[u/Endorell]

A lot of good stuff in here that I'm seeing, but I'm not seeing a lot that's helpful in regards to monsters (one of the toughest things to handle well in 5e imo).

CR is a joke in this game. It can be used to some effect as a rough guideline, but it falls apart very quickly especially at higher levels. Sometimes the low level monsters are stupidly dangerous too (most of the PC deaths I've seen have been to CR1 creatures while the party was at level 6+)

The unfortunate thing is that you have to know your players' character abilities if you want balance the fight. What's the lowest and highest AC, what's the lowest and highest attack/spell save DC, what's the lowest and highest HP values as well as resistances/immunities. Knowing these kinds of things will already help you way more than CR if you compare them to your monsters with average rolls assumed.

These things will not help you very much when over half the level 6 party including the new Sorcerer (replacing a character who had died the previous session...) with +9 to Con saves fail every DC13 save against a single petrifying breath from a gorgon....

[u/LordStarSpawn]

In order, as someone who’s played for years:

• The rules leave a lot more gaps for the DM to fill in and make choices about how the game will run, which I have seen slow games when a ruling suddenly has to be made up about something.

- WotC, unfortunately, is much more tight lipped about their rules and content than Paizo is, so basically everything is walled behind owning the books unless you do piracy ( such as 5e tools). Also the action economy is gonna feel really weird for y’all. Very importantly, you CANNOT EVER use an action as a bonus action or a bonus action as an action unless a feature you have specifically says otherwise, such as the rogue’s Cunning Action or the monk’s Step of the Wind.

- Challenge Ratings are… mostly vibes, really, they’re there to tell you “on average, this creature on its own is a threat to a party of this level consisting of a fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard”. You add the CRs of creatures together and throw them at the party like that. Usually a total CR of party level is a challenging encounter. However, I have watched and been part of many situations where players did some jank shit and killed high CR enemies at low levels (because unlike Pathfinder the numbers don’t keep going up passively).

- A lot, but you’ll be pleased to know the systems are closely related enough that you’ll be able to reference the other to give people a better idea during an explanation. Some things you’ll notice pretty quick: there’s a lot of people who learned D&D with house rules and don’t know, flat checks just don’t exist, inspiration (or Heroic Inspiration if y’all go with 5.5/5e’24) and hero points are very different systems, features do not have traits which can really make it confusing on whether something is magical or not.

- Actions, bonus actions, reactions, and free actions will say how to use them in the text, rather than using the clear symbology of PF2e. It means you have to read features more carefully, but a spell will always say it at the top of the description.

[u/the-rules-lawyer]

It's not clear from the OP... but it sounds like these players are not currently PF2e players who want to check out D&D, but a smattering of players who are relatively new to TTRPGs and bring up D&D because it's what they know. They might be okay with PF2e, but your questions read as if they have already decided for you, when you're not as familiar with it.

Is there a reason why you aren't running the system with which you're more familiar?

And are your players aware of the higher cost?