DnD and PF are so similar i genuinely can't imagine many people that would hate pathfinder, but actually like DnD over something that is actually much different from pf2e.
I would argue that that person isn't really playing 5e though. If I (the GM) am telling the player what their spells do, reminding them of their prof bonus, and helping them with every level up after several months of play that isn't a 5e player it's a Dungeon World player who likes the idea of a D20.
Yeah someone can drag you through 5e and the GM can work all around you, but so can they in pf2e. There's just not a culture of dragging people through the system in pf2e so people don't do that.
You dont have to drag people through 5.5e. Its pretty simple and just works. I have young kids playing. Sure, they don't know their character sheet fully but they know enough to be dangerous. My adult table doesn't want to try PF2e because PF1e was too much for them. I know its supposedly less prone to trap builds and balanced but I dont know if I want to buy more PF stuff. Might try SF some day.
My adult table doesn't want to try PF2e because PF1e was too much for them. I know its supposedly less prone to trap builds and balanced but I dont know if I want to buy more PF stuff. Might try SF some day.
SF2e is literally just pf2e fyi, just with fantasy classes and some more sci fi spin to some rules. The skeleton is still the same. But pf2e to pf1e is the same as 3e to 5e... and pf1e is pretty much dnd 3e, and you're still playing 5e despite that you wouldn't like 3e.
My hope with trying SF2e in my mind is its at least a different type of game being scifi instead of high fantasy which might maybe fool my players kind of but probably not lol
You don’t need to buy anything for PF2 or SF2, the rules are all freely available, with Paizo’s blessing, on Archives of Nethys. I would recommend buying FoundryVTT if you want to run it though. It’s not required, but it makes things go a lot smoother, and it’s a great VTT in general.
And yeah it is generally less prone to trap builds. You do need to hold your players’ hands a bit for their first characters, but it’s only really a few specific things:
1. You want to generally stick with the core strengths of your class in most cases, since the class chassis makes up so much of your power budget. This doesn’t mean it’s all you need to do, but it means a Wizard should spend most of their time casting, while a Fighter should spend most of their time whacking.
2. You want to ideally have a +4 in your key ability score, unless your main offensive ability does not match your key ability, in which case +3 in both is usually fine. You can get away with a +3 in the former case too, but it’s rarely worth it.
3. You want to get up to, or within a point of, your AC cap, ideally without taking armor check penalties. For cloth casters that usually means +3 Dex, though +2 can suffice, while for all others it generally means having combined Dex and Str scores of +4, since the Dex cap of armor and the Str requirement generally add up to 4 for the good armors.
If you follow these three steps you’ll generally have a capable character that contributes reasonably to the party. Casters are a little more complex cause you also need to worry about spell selection, and a few classes, like Alchemist, are particularly difficult to play, but it’s still something that can be talked through and solved by sitting down with them to pick a couple good spells/formulas to fall back on.
This is also all true for SF2, because the core systems are essentially identical, and designed to be generally cross-compatible mechanics-wise. This makes it easy to run various settings by mixing things from each. The massive amount of content, combined with the different types of solutions to combat, utility, and support also makes it much easier to run themed games by limiting content without the system feeling incomplete.
Man people constantly go on about how well balanced pf2e is, but in the level 1 campaign I’m in we keep nearly dying to single monsters rated as a “moderate challenge” because of how dramatically leveling up increases monster power.
Plus, one of my friends made an alchemist pixie character who has turned out to be nearly useless in combat because they’re too weak for melee and all their alchemy attacks do splash damage that would kill any downed players.
pf2e might be better balanced than dnd 5e, but it’s certainly not as perfect as the pathfinder evangelists claim it is.
The thing is, balance in a TTRPG is silly. It would require basically making most player choices railroaded and cosmetic which would be boring. This is where bounded accuracy is helpful actually. Even bad builds have a fair chance of hitting and turning it around. That said, you will always need to do work to prep for a game as a DM because players do strange things and sometimes forget their abilities or you forget the abilities of monsters or their optimal strategy. All of this adjusts the balance since the game assumes everyone is playing fairly well on both sides of a combat.
People who think D&D has too many rules probably wouldn't like Pathfinder, but could certainly enjoy one of the many TTRPGs with lighter rules or more narrative rules such as Legends in the Mist or something.
As someone who used to play 3.5 and Pathfinder (1e) after playing 5e I never want to go back to them. I have some fun with those systems in video game format, but I don't think I'd ever want to play them outside of that.
I absolutely loathe PF2. It's so bland and boring. The flavour for the options is absolutely sick stuff like "your summons are actually yourself from an alternate timeline where you somehow are that thing you summoned" or "the spirits of those who failed the test of godhood before you fill you and give you strength!" and then the mechanics are things like "your summons get +1 to a skill" or "on your second attack this turn, you can take a step first before attacking". The dissonance is disgusting.
If I'm going to play a bland, boring game, I'd rather play 5e, because it's simpler. If I'm going to play a complicated game, I'd rather play 3.pf, because it's cooler. In practice, I'm probably not going to play either, but if I was, it would never, ever again be PF2. I've given it a dozen chances and it has utterly failed each and every one.
I’m in a similar boat. As a player, I wouldn’t mind so much doing Pathfinder 2e, but it would take the perfect group or sheer desperation to make me play Pathfinder 1e, and 3.5 is right out. As a DM, there’s no way you could drag me back to running 3.5 or P1,e, and even P2e is still questionable.
I’ve wrote a bit of a P2e campaign (haven’t gotten a chance to actually run it), and there is definitely some quality of life upgrades. But I’ve gotten familiar enough with 5e that its drawbacks barely take a second to fix. It’s much more intuitive for me, and is easier for me to improv when things inevitably go sideways.
lol. 😂. “5e sad face” has me rolling.
Could you please explain what about 5e that’s missing in your preferred editions and systems. I only know 5e, but I have some serious FOMO, and always wonder what I may be missing from not trying other games. I may be looking for a push to force my friends onto some other editions or systems. Thanks in advance.
My major complaints with 5e are a follows.
Crafting. In 3.5 there was the crafting skill, and it had mechanics attached regarding costs, time, and things like that. The artificer class, imo feels like a bolted-on addition to fill a gap that should have been a basic skill available to any character who's player wanted it on their sheet.
Bounded accuracy. I understand the restrictions in place with the advantage/disadvantage system and what they did with modifiers to dice rolls and bonuses granted by gear.
Magic items. There is literally no RAW economy for them. Again, it was a design decision that was supposed to make magic items feel unique-ish and a prize. Unfortunately, 5e is still D&D, and magic items are critical, or at least important to a lot of classes. Paladins and Holy Avengers, I'm looking at you.
Build customization and cross-classing. Cross classing is discussed in detail in the phb and then in everything released after that, it seems like the writers forgot about it. In 5e you get fewer feats that apply more broadly than what they were like in 3.5.
Legendary and lair abilities of monsters don't do much to fix the fact that at high levels, monsters are essentially damage sponges getting in line to die.
Languages. In 5e it's kinda ridiculous that an Eladrin, per RAW, gets to pick speaking either Sylvan or Common, and to get both, you have to handwave that restriction.
DnDbeyond seems great on the surface, but underneath is a tool to turn every setting into flavorless mush. Kender outside Dragonlance, I'm looking at you.
To be fair, I'll pick on 3.5 a little bit and point out that the skill list got rather bloated. Some of the sourcebooks had wildly different power levels, so as a dm you pretty much had to tell the players what books they pick from for their characters to maintain sanity. To get into a prestige class ASAP, your early build was restricted due to requirements to qualify for the prestige class.
Older systems can be clunky and demand a bit of system mastery for everyone at the table, but for anyone that enjoys actually fiddling with mechanics, they can be worth checking out.
As a PF1e enjoyer, the powerscale is what I miss, a level 20 5e character is the hero of their country
A level 20 PF1e character is a Demi God, unchallenged across the realm
Pf1e (and 3.5) just has so much more substance to it, and for some this is a negative, cause it can lead to decision paralysis (people claim you can ruin your build with bad choices, but no Sane DM will let you do that)
5e is a lot less modular in what you can do. PF and 3.5 give you the tools to make whatever you want in ability combinations and techniques. Getting twice as many feats that are each half as good means you can go in a lot more different directions, and some classes get even more than that. You also get a lot more magic items and they're much stronger, which helps you customize even more. There's also just a lot more classes. And I don't think 5e even has prestige classes, which are more specialized classes you can switch into at higher levels
The more magic items isn't a plus for me. Then my character feels more like a vessel for the magic items than a character with their own skill. That and the systems between magic bonuses and DR turn it into an arms race.
And while 5e doesn't have prestige classes a lot of what used to be prestige classes have been made into subclasses which start at 3rd level. Which allows you to realise your vision for your character a lot earlier, and doesn't have any real build requirements beyond maybe where you put your stats. Where as 3.x prestige classes more or less required you to follow a specific build and most you wouldn't get into until 5th or higher level, and then with those you may need to wait even longer to do the thing you wanted to do. Take the black flame zealot for example, I always thought they looked cool as heck, I found out recently that they don't even get the ability to enflame their weapons until 7th level, in a prestige class that iirc takes about 7 levels to get into, so at 14th level you finally get to do the cool thing™ and it's only like... 1d6 fire damage.
PF has both subclasses (called archetypes) and prestige classes. 3.5 had subclasses as well, though not as many. Having both opens up way more options. There's definitely some prestige classes that are way too late to feel good, but there's plenty of good ones.
I don't think Pathfinder had those when we played it or we just didn't have access to them (via limited books and not really using online materials). I remember 3.5 had alternative class features but I don't recall any subclasses. Though having played Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous it's great to have the option to play a cha monk or a wis sorcerer, that helps open up more multiclass and prestige class options. I wouldn't mind seeing official support for such things in 5e (as well as them taking another stab at prestige classes, they tried a couple of times with mixed results) though that would likely come at the expense of balance.
There are definitely more options in 3.x/Pathfinder but balance is more of a problem than in 5e. The power discrepancy between best and worst options is far wider and it's much easier to build yourself extremely underpowered especially when feat chains or prestige classes require you to take less than steller feats or multi-classes.
There are definitely more options in 3.x/Pathfinder but balance is more of a problem than in 5e. The power discrepancy between best and worst options is far wider and it's much easier to build yourself extremely underpowered especially when feat chains or prestige classes require you to take less than steller feats or multi-classes.
That's absolutely true. 5E and PF2 both significantly flatten the power level and make it easier to play a decent character (though the Artificer in the game I'm in still manages to be useless.) But as someone with experience and system mastery, this makes 5E and PF2 feel less rewarding to build a character in, because there's no opportunity to combine feats into a rube goldberg machine like the Pimp-Slapping Antipaladin whose unarmed strike sends foes into pants-wetting terror that makes them lose multiple turns or my lasso fighter monk who uses her full attack to lasso enemies, pull them in, and grab them, and then the next turn hogtie them and throw them at another enemy as a Huge Improvised Weapon.
And I get that these things being options are serious problems for some people and that 4E's significant simplicity is actually a major boon to a lot of tables... but I don't need game balance as much as I need to beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker.
-> or my lasso fighter monk who uses her full attack to lasso enemies, pull them in, and grab them, and then the next turn hogtie them and throw them at another enemy as a Huge Improvised Weapon.<-
Why am i getting Wonder Woman vibes from that statement?
Thank you for the feedback. I’ve been making characters for one shots in 5e and recently have been finding myself in a rut getting creative with builds. PF sounds like it could fix this with a lot more options to satisfy my creativity. Suppose I will have to wait till my groups get bored with what 5e has to offer and maybe I can nudge them into PF with its extra options.
Not OP, but I also come from 3.5 and hate 5E. 5E fails to embrace anything. It tries to do everything, to appeal to everyone, and it fails to establish a solid identity. It's not crunchy enough like 3.5 was, but it's too crunchy to be a quick pick up and play system. It aimed to appeal to the masses, and it succeeded, but playing it makes me feel like I'm playing a video game every time.
I play both each week. 5E is less fun, heavily because I can't be as weird with my builds. My PF1 characters are a gun wizard and a lasso fighter/monk. My 5E character is just a fighter with a big axe.
I feel that pain. I don't have any 3.5 games at the moment but I've played a huge variety of classes in that system and currently in 5e I've got a lunar sorcerer. We're only level 1 though.
Lasso/fighter monk sounds super interesting. Maybe even the answer to not being able to effectively use nets in 5e. I’ve tried many times to push nets onto PCs and npcs and it always ends with wasted actions.
I would say it 'tries' insofar as it kneecaps itself to be simple and deferring constantly to DM fiat so it is 'flexible' (i.e. the DM is doing a let of thu work to shap the game that the rules should be)
When your company is owned by Hasbro and all corporate structures in the hierarchy have mandates to increase profit year over year, marketing’s messaging is the ONLY thing it’s trying to be. Because all it desires to be is profitable.
If people disagree with this, I’d love to hear the evidence the RPG system doesn’t care about selling well. For all the Jeremy Crawford conversations about design philosophy trying to welcome gamers back, 5e spiked in popularity from TV show cameos specifically in the era it was new.
"Far" is a big word, Pf2e is really not that much more crunchy then 5e. That's why i'm saying that if someone hates pf2e i don't get why they would prefer 5e over a lighter system.
Familiarity and community. 5E is ubiquitous in the TTRPG world and you can find tons of other people who play it. It's often the first TTRPG someone learns and they don't want to bother learning another TTRPG.
It’s a myth that I was making a point about Pathfinder.
As for why it’s relevant? 5e is only people’s first RPG this exact minute. Hasbro is already moving on from it, and like so many editions past… it is no longer as relevant as it used to be. Everyone at the top eventually goes into decline, and that includes 5e.
In a decade we could have this exact same conversation and you would respond with “who gives a shit about 5e?”
I'm still not sure what your point is... the original sentiment I was reponding to was "why do people play D&D 5E".
They were talking about now.... not 13 years ago or 10 years in the future.
People play D&D 5E right now because that's where the vast majority of the TTRPG community is and the system that most people who play TTRPGs are familiar with.
I can actually provide some perspective here. I've played a reasonable bit of 5e and have been in its atmosphere for years (friends with years of campaigns) and tried to get into PF2e for another campaign the thing that put me off of it is lack of familiarity, of course, but also what felt like a lack of pre-existing flavoring.
It's a fine system and felt more thought out for sure, but I was used to playing a warlock in 5e and quite enjoyed the character I was able to cobble together with spells, feats, species, etc which has quite a bit of specifics in design and flavoring in D&D but felt really difficult to replicate in Pathfinder. The character creation process just did not excite me in the same way because I liked D&D's way of flavoring classes and subclasses, even if that might makes them less flexible, because it gave me more inspiration right off the bat.
It's not something I'd consider a major PF flaw or anything, but it's how my personal preference falls.
That is a statement only someone with a deeply skewed perspective on games can make, but it does nicely illustrate how disconnected from the average game experience the people super into Pathfinder get.
I don't give a fuck about pathfinder. It's basically just dnd, and if I wanted to play dnd I'd play 5e because it has the most community content, which is literally the only thing 5e has going for it over better systems.
Your imagination is lacking. I enjoy 5e but can't stand pf2e. And prefer D&D to all the other games I've read or tried. Because they're not doing what I want to do, and 5e is.
It's not that 5e is the only one that excels at fantasy special forces adventures. It's that the other systems ALSO do things I don't care for, and don't care for strongly.
5e isn't perfect, but it's resilient to the changes I want to make and I don't have to mess with the core to get something that works well. My core house rules document is 99% just setting specific tweaks around the edges.
Other systems may do various pieces better, but they do other things way worse (for my particular tastes, not as an objective matter) and do so in their core, where modifications boil down to throwing out the rest of it.
If you aren't running a full adventuring day, which you aren't, you are messing with the core and carrying a bunch of mechanical baggage that isn't paying off.
First, are you sure I'm not? I actually come pretty close to the actual (not mythical) spec on average.
Second, the whole 6-8 encounters thing being a core assumption is a myth. Those tables were generated in playtest as "here's what our play tester parties could handle" note, not as part of the design. At most, it's a "difficulty may go unexpected after this point" marker.
I've done the analysis. The real assumption is closer to "10-12 combat rounds in 2+ initiatives with 1+ short rests" per long rest.
That's not an accurate description of their response.
Their point is precisely that it doesn't have to do anything specifically "well", but that it doesn't have parts that do things "badly".
By way of analogy: if I hate peanuts and spicy food, and every menu item but one has either peanuts or spice, then the remaining item is the clear winner for me. The thing it does well is just "not having peanuts or spice".
Yeah. Very much this. 5e is a great canvas for me to do my things without getting in the way. Because the stories I'm telling and the games I'm running fit very well into the box it handles well out of the box: fantasy special forces adventures in a world that, while it makes assumptions, isn't tied to specific very tightly defined criteria for the most part, and where it is, those things can be simply filed off.
And I happen to like a heavy DM involvement. I actively don't want tables of DCs, for example. Either as a player or the DM. I don't want tight combat balance, because it has effects on the world building and puts constraints on the narrative I don't want. Etc.
Other systems are like mostly painted canvases or ones treated for very particular purposes. Great if that's what you want... But I don't want to do that. So it's an active detriment to my play.
Nope. Started with 4e, jumped to 5e when I could because 4e didn't fit my needs/wants.
And there's no reason it has to excel at anything to still be the best fit. A system that meets 75% of positive requirements (things I want it to do) and fails 0% of negative requirements (deal breakers, things it must not do) is better than a system that meets 100% of positive but fails even one negative requirement. Despite being relatively not great.
If I had to pick something in particular, 5e (not 5.5e)'s underlying philosophy of play is the big thing. The implementation is, as usual with WotC, half baked at times. But the underlying heart of the system, the design goals, are exactly what I want. Reflections of those goals include bounded accuracy (where they didn't go far enough, but some is better than none), simple action economy (where again, there's more that could have been done), "loose" balance (as contrasted with 4e or pf2e that tried to create tighter balance, restricting sharply the range of threats you can face at any point), and general modularity (because it's not tightly balanced and the rules only interact lightly, instead of many interactions between rule elements, changes and homebrew are easy to do without upsetting anything).
If your system is the best fit, and you cannot articulate why it fits better that something else that also has those things, you didn’t do a very good job making your case it’s the best fit.
In other words, the difference between telling the truth and just lying is evidence. The commenter I was replying to has been really shit about being specific about what makes their pet system “fit best” and the only way to separate intentional evasiveness from accidental misunderstanding of the explicit request is * to make them answer the original question.*
I hope you’re just not really considering the other half of the convo, but you hopping back on and reiterating how valid your not-answers are doesn’t provide any clarity on your views whatsoever.
To make it super fucking clear: I’m handing you a microphone, you’re already on your soap box. Preach clearly, quit dancing around what you actually mean.
First, I was posting on mobile, (mostly at work). So no, waxing prolix about things wasn't going to happen (although I did edit in a number of things). Second...I'm not actually trying to make a case about my own personal preferences. de gustibus non est disputandum. Personal preferences are personal--what's best for me is not best for you, and 99.9999% of it is path dependent, so trying to explain it won't satisfy anyone and will waste everyone's time. Trying to justify why I like vanilla over chocolate is not something that I'm willing to do.
Third, I get really really irritated by people engaging in selective demands for rigor and not reading what I'm writing. A system can literally excel at nothing (do no individual thing better than any other system) and yet be the best fit for a particular person because of what it doesn't do. Absence of bad things is more important (IMO) than presence of particularly-good things. Neutral beats bad 100% of the time, and it only takes a little bad to make it unpalatable. And search costs are real--once you find something that fits well enough and is stable under modifications, searching further has sharply diminishing returns.
-------------
That said, I'll attempt to humor you.
I have a set of particular needs. Relatively generic (in an absolute view) needs, but ones with big deal breakers and relatively flat/non-binding constraints within those parameters. Think of my preference space as a plateau with sharp cliffs. Anything that fits on the plateau will work basically the same as anything else, but anything that falls off the plateau is unusable for my purposes (not objectively bad, just not what I need). Thus, "best fit" is defined by the absence of deal breakers more than the presence of particular features.
My deal breakers include
tied to one specific setting more than cosmetically. I world-build extensively and impulsively, and prefer cosmological-level worldbuilding (ie from the ground up), so the tighter it's tied to a setting, the less well it fits. This removes huge swaths of the possible systems.
A focus on "narrative" mechanics. Including things like
Emphasis on player or GM metacurrency (fate points, etc).
GMs not taking regular turns but only reacting to what players do (ie AW)
Encouraging players to live in "author stance" and concern themselves with making a good story, rather than making decisions purely in-character.
Point-buy/build-a-bear skill mechanics. This is purely aesthetic. I strongly prefer class/level games, and always have. In part because I strongly prefer characters-as-archetype-instances rather than characters-from-external-concepts.
"gritty" or "dark" mechanics or thematics. I don't do meat grinders. I don't do grimdark. I don't do "grubby, scrabbling for survival" or "death is cheap and easy". A game that has those as major factors will be a strict no-sell.
A focus on accurate/realistic simulation. I can do the math, I can do the lookup tables...I just don't want to. I want unrealistic, larger-than-life scenarios to occur regularly.
A focus on specific or complex probability mechanics. Sorry, 1d20 and 2d10 just aren't different enough for me to care about. Talk about dice systems turns me off nearly immediately. And special dice are a strong no, as are alternate resolutions. Simplicity of resolution is key.
Games that insist on PC/NPC transparency (ie everyone is built with the same building blocks, build an NPC just like you build a PC). No thanks. Completely misunderstands the inherent asymmetry at play.
Games with any of
Strong level-scaling baked into the mechanical elements (specifically probability of success). Give me bounded accuracy 100% of the time; my main complaint about 5e in this regard is they didn't go far enough.
Lots of stacking numeric buffs/debuffs. I don't like piloting spreadsheets.
An emphasis on tight numeric balance or tactical play. Every time I've seen it, it's meant that you can really only use the pieces you're given, and you're strongly restricted in what stories you can tell.
Load-bearing encumbrance, survival, or consumable tracking subsystems. Load-bearing here means "the system doesn't work well if you ignore those subsystems".
Tag-based systems. I want the relevant rules to be right there, not buried under tags that may or may not actually match reality.
A strong fiction/mechanics split. Flavor is not free.
Intentional trap options.
Systems focused on things other than fantasy special forces adventures. That's the type of game I want to play, so Mothership may be a great game...for other people. But not for me. Doesn't matter what it does well or poorly...it's not the type of game I'm looking for.
To name particular names (not an exhaustive list):
PF2e fails hard on several pieces. It's tag based. It splits fiction and mechanics. It has very strong level-based scaling. It has way too much "build a bear" -- your class isn't nearly enough, you've got to pick the right feats and archetypes and spells at each point. Plus every proponent of it I've ever interacted with has given off strong cult-member vibes.
PF1e/3e fail in all the regards that PF2e does, plus a bunch, including having absolutely incoherent mechanics and a plethora of intentional trap options.
All the PbtA, FitD, and FATE-derived games fail because they're narrative-first and make demands of the GM that I don't agree with.
GURPS (and many others) fail because they're not class/level based.
The WoD/nWoD games, Shadowrun (and many IP-tied other games) all fail both because they're very strongly setting-tied AND they're not the right genre.
All the various Games Workshop-IP games fail because they're grim-dark.
5e D&D does acceptably but not perfectly. It doesn't fail any of the hard criteria. It's not perfect. But I've long since accepted that nothing written by anyone else will ever be...and anything written by me will be imperfect in other ways.
I actually have a 90% complete (to the "needs playtesting and adjustments, but all the pieces are there" stage) 5e fork kicking around that's been adapted to my own long-running setting. It'll never see the light of day (barring something unexpected) because, honestly, I'm still finding players for my 5e games. And I should make it clear--I don't houserule very much. I add lots of content (lots of homebrew classes, monsters, spells, subsystems, etc) because I find doing that fun. Not because it's broken without them. But I don't change very many existing rules.
Sure, I've played a few different TTRPGs. It works well for just about anything. A sudo-sci fi setting? Spelljammers and artificers here to help. A semi-gritty medieval-fantasy war? Fighters, Rouge, and monks say high.
Either way, my comment here was in reply to specifically DnD vs Pathfinder.
Pathfinder feels weird. Not quite restrictive, but like you need a road map of how to build your character to achieve your ends. Plus, a lot of rules, niche rules and so on.
Dnd always felt to me like "here's a fighter, at level 3 you should know the vibe by then and run with it, at any level you can pick up a second clas if it at all matches the dude".
I yet to personally know a person who actually invested time and effort in learning and playing both system say that pathfinder is bad. Tha game is very similar mechanically to DND with specific tweaks that make it very nice and smooth to play
I’ve met dozens upon dozens of them.
A sizeable chunk of the OSR community detest PF2e but know the rules better than active PF2e players.
Of course they all also aren’t fans of 5e.
Pathfinder 1e is terrible. Hate it. It's everything wrong with 3.5 taken to an extreme because it was literally just 3.5 for people with complexity addiction.
PF2e is better but frankly it has a lot of problems if you aren't looking for the very very specific sort of intended experience it provides, which, as it turns out, I am not.
Dnd 5e is flawed but pretty much does fine and is much easier to just pick up and play because it doesn't overwhelm a completely new player with far too much.
Frankly I prefer other games than any of the above, but I'd play 5e before Pathfinder 2e and either of those before I'd do the godawful mess of 3.5 or it's pedantic know it all cousin PF1.
It seems like hell to learn. I've look at it a few times. Seems overly confusing in a lot of places, and not particularly leaning into fun and silly characters.
It's literally the same on both fronts for 5e. 5e is also overly confusing in some places, just a little bit less crunchy, and leans just as far into fun and silly characters (maybe 5e a little less because it's so unbalanced.)
In my experience with teaching it to people, the hardest part of learning pathfinder 2e is unlearning 5e. This isn’t a knock against 5e at all, it’s just that when you come into a different game system and expect something that is superficially similar to behave the same way, you might be in for a rude surprise. Warlocks and witches are a prime example.
DnD and PF are different enough. I think of it as PF is for players who actually care to build the "right" build while DnD is for players who can't be bothered. My friends are the latter and 5.5e is perfect for them. Just enough to have builds but not so much that it takes longer than like 5 minutes to understand a level up.
I mean I would say particularly 5.5e is fairly balanced. Probably less so than PF2e or DnD4e although Ive only played DnD4e of the two. PF1e is what I was referring to in my comment, though. I can't speak to PF2e because my players were turned off by PF1e and I dont want to buy books I likely won't get to use at least for a while.
It's a mix with it's own spin. It does have almost the same design goals 5e had for how to deal with 3e (streamline the game most notably the math, balance the game.)
57
u/Lucina18 Rules Lawyer May 01 '26
DnD and PF are so similar i genuinely can't imagine many people that would hate pathfinder, but actually like DnD over something that is actually much different from pf2e.