Learning Pathfinder as a D&D Veteran: d4  

As a Pathfinder player, I do disagree with your Healing Sentiment. Healing is actually very easy. To Give an Example. Assurance (Medicine) allows you to use 10+your level+ your ability Modifier, Ward Medic allows you to use Treat Wounds on Multiple people based on your skill, Continual recovery removed the 1 hour limitation on Treat Wounds, Risky Surgery allows you to Automatically crit on Treat Wounds after doing just 1d8 damage. If you have a Cleric you can take the Class Feat Magic Hands which maxes the healing from Treat Wounds. To Give an example, my level 10 cleric Automatically heals 4 people 42-1d8 hit points with an Expert Treat Wounds. That is every 10 minutes of rest. If someone picks the role of 'out-of-combat- healer, you really don't spend a lot of downtimes.

RE subclasses, they do have a huge impact at times. Some of them are simply not viable in comparison to others and effectively amount to dud options as far as comparative power is concerned. This is especially problematic in early levels when you don't have many feats to compensate.

Of course we love Colby, but let's be real, there's not a lot of people that would watch a 1 hour + video on character optimization for a game that they don't play, just like many already don't watch other ttrpg videos on other d&d channels, even those that they like. With the apparent wave of people migrating systems just about now, though, the videos might perform well enough

Not me, I'm just here for the optimization.

@@miguelangelus959 maybe me saying "the majority" is wishful thinking, because you're right and the pathfinder content might resonate with less of the current 5e fanbase. I just think there are a lot of people that'll at least give it a shot before dismissing it as something that's different and uninteresting.

@@ATMOSK1234 that's fair, if I'm wrong then I'm wrong 🤷

I'm with you, Scott. If Colby wants to talk about something I've never played I *will* listen simply because I trust him to deliver interesting ideas and content.

My only problem with pf2e is its complicated-er system. As a veteran of dnd3e and 3.5 for me it's not a huge problem or pose difficulty but getting my players to learn it...yeah

​@@momqabt It's not really more complicated, it's just different. In 5e you get four actions, a Action, a Bonus Action, a Movement, and a Reaction. In pathfinder you get three Actions and one Reaction. Pathfinder has a BUNCH of uses for your Actions and you gain more through your class, just like 5e (ie. spells or extra attack). Outside of adding levels to things and making sure you're not adding multiple of the same types of bonuses (which even in dnd is considered "effects from the same sources"), its not even that much more math. My group of veteran dnd players moved to P2E in a day with me guiding them through character creation. The best way to learn is by playing the Pathfinder Bounties or an Adventure Path, or both. If you want to get them inspired - tell them that by level 5 they're going to be much cooler than level 5 in 5e.

@@momqabt it's bad enough trying to get my ppl to remember 5e or have a "slip up" on how something should be read (bc it benefits them) for the 5th time

@@momqabt I don't think it's more complicated honestly, because it does a lot of the same things as 5e; there are two major differences though: 1. Explicitness of the rules 2. Ways of using abilities The biggest reason PF2e seems more complicated as far as I can tell is because there are more explicit rules for things we were already adjudicating in 5e anyway. For example, all of the skill feats that EXPLICITLY state how and when you can use them (along with their benefits). Depending on how you run games, we were basically already doing that, just maybe on the fly and/or behind the screen. Another major difference is both the explicit nature of the description of the abilities, as well as the number of options you have at any given point. PF2e SEEMS more complicated because you have a very simple system (the 3-Action economy) that allows you to basically never have the same turn twice in a whole campaign, which is more aligned with Analysis Paralysis than "complexity." Having played and run 5e for quite a while, I would say personally that 5e is JUST as complex with none of the explicit support to help you run that complexity, though that could partially come down to table style as well

I prefer Rolemaster, but I like Colby. He is such a nice and humble guy.

And you are supposed to get about 1 per hour of rl play

@@stephaniehoover To be precise, the whole party is supposed to get 1 per hour total, not each player. It's also quite common for a GM to forget giving these. My table house rules this to just giving everyone 2 per session and giving more when something special happens.

We usually run Hero Points like this: Each player gets 1 per hour of RL play plus 1 whenever they do something cool. Also you get to start with 1 extra if you volunteer to do the recap of last week's game. It works wonderfully for us, and everybody is willing to take more chances because the extra points lets us get away with it (sometimes).

@@Kurouzzz Thanks for the clarification :)

I generally allow them to keep 2 if the session ends with them doing something awesome ^_^

^ I've preached this on a couple other channels, both pathfinder and dnd. I seriously think this is the best thing all around. So many DnD youtubers are stepping into the pathfinder space and don't know anything or know very little about the system. In the case of "optimizer" channels in particular this is a difficult thing to do and produce content for. Seriously consider doing collabs with ytubers who have been doing pathfinder content for a while or who have been playing it from the beginning so you can lean on their expertise in the system to ensure you can produce the quality of content we all know you can do.

Was just about to write "Love you Colby" but you beat me to it. :D Anyway, thanks for all the great content man, appreciate it a lot.

Wow - Thank you so much!

The fact they had planned the PF2E playthrough before any of the WotC bullshit is the icing on the cake. The timing was perfect.

He has only read the Core Rulebook, he needs to move on to the Advanced Players Guide to learn about how much more flexibility archetypes can add.

Meh… at first I thought that too, after a few years playing pf2, ever since the beta, more and more I feel all the variety is a illusion. The game feels more like a board game than rpg. It is just a bit of flavour around a railroaded sequence of combat encounters arranged in a neatly increasing difficulty.

​​@Leonardo Postacchini wow just like 5e

​@@LeonardoPostacchini that's mainly your gms fault. The system doesn't force you to play that way. My players regularly skip combats and solve problems without rolling initiative

@@mallcop4768 yes, and that is why on our Star Wars campaign that lasted 20years in real life when everything started switching to d20 we kept the original system. The whole level system is very video gamy.

@@deadwhip1077 you fully did not understood it. I know how to separate the gm from the system, I have been playing rpg ever since 96, I’ve played d&d 2nd edition, gurps, star wars d6, ars magica, mage, vampire, werewolf, paranoia, cyberpunk… one of the players of our 20 years Star Wars campaign was the owner of his own rpg company with a system that he created. I am very confident that I know how to separate when the issue is the system or the DM/GM/Storyteller or when the later is good despite of the flaws of the system. But the system shapes the culture of the players and how the game is played, some games foster creativity, others rule lawyerings. Twenty years playing Star Wars all with theatre of mind, we used maps and miniature 3 times, we would often spend entire weekends playing the game, many of which we had 0 combat encounters. Avoiding a combat situation on a skill check leave me absolutely unimpressed. That is the bare minimum I expect of a rpg game.

For those new to PF2e; Attacks of oppurtunity are both more powerful (because it's rarer) and more exclusive in PF2e. Also, it has more variations on AoO type reactions than D&D5e. For example the Barbarian can get a feat that allows them to move after a fleeing opponent (but not attack) as a reaction.

I’m case you don’t know, the RulesLawyer is having a beginner box weekend for anyone that wants to try pathfinder. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CF1Q3FDA4e8.html

@@Zaccheus4 I might be mistaken, but I think he is part of the Pathfinder2e subreddit's Beginner Box "weekend." A bunch of people have volunteered to be GMs to help player who want to try it out and can set aside a few hours. I think it runs from Feb 2-6 this year, but more details can be found at the Pathfinder2e subreddit. Not trying to discount The Rules Lawyer, but he can only GM so many people.

But Fartfinder is about finding farts.

having played for 45 years, to me, they are all dnd. every edition, every variant, even set in sci fi, are still dnd Role play is dnd to me, and to my OG friends but you are 100%, more options is better for all of us

GameGorgon has amusing ones 🤣

Summoners feel also a bit like Warlocks considering they get their spell discipline from their Eidolon choice and they only get like 3-4 spell slots since they lose lower level spell slots while leveling up.

Question on "special effects in a manner like Eldritch Blast or Hex." I'm building a Witch (first pathfinder character) based on a Warlock I have in 5e in an effort to learn, compare, and contrast. What features are similar to Eldritch Blast because I'm at a bit of a loss trying to find one (same for Hex for that matter)

Thaumaturge is also a good class to potentially treat as a Warlock like class if you put a magic focus on it (like with scroll Thaumaturgy or the Wand Implement)

@@demago3265 Ah, sorry if it came out as if they had a one-to-one version on Pathfinder; I meant to imply "bread and butter moves" when I mentioned a similar way. Do keep in mind that the "Pacts" for your subclass are not your Patreon choices; these have more to do with the nature of your contract, and what type of Hex you get. For damaging Pacts, you have Baba Yaga, Mosquito Swarm and Winter as offensive options with some sort of Debuff. For debuffing pacts, Curse, Night, Pact and Wild all provide very good options, usually attached with the Occultist spell list for similar spells. And for support / utility, Fervor, Fate and Runes have solid options, the first one even having a Divine Spell List for heals. Depending on your Spell List (Arcane, Occult, Divine, Primal), there are different options for Leveled spells you can pick; Arcane generally has utility and damage, Occult has a lot of buffs/debuffs and crowd control, Divine has buffs and the strongest healing, while Primal has a mixture of crowd control and light healing.

@@demago3265 Eldritch blast doesn't really have an equivalent. If you want to cantrip spam, the Psychic does it really well (wouldn't recommend it to a new player though). The Warlock is very hard to translate over.

I was like that last year around this time. Bought bunch of stuff from Paizo and all and then... Fast forward 12 months and almost through our campaign, I can't wait to ditch PF2 and try DnD 5th - or go back to PF1/3.5. People who like PF2 never played older DnD and only have 5th as a reference. Me I never played 5th and only have older DnD as references and I don't like PF2 style at all. Sorry.

Could you explain a little about what you like? I really wanna play it but my dm is turned off by all the "extra math" that goes into it

@@GrimViridian probably the thing I like the most is that casters are not nearly as gamebreaking and martials have way more things to do other than hitting, numbers are a little bit higher but seem pretty manageable with only 1-3 bonuses being applied at earlier levels

@@casfontana7090 nice, doesn't sound so bad, and better than 5e though I'll miss my warlocks XD but I'm sure the awesome classes will make up for it. Flavor is always the most important thing anyway

Does system-agnostic mean you're unsure if gaming systems exist or not?

@@theophrastusbombastus1359 That's either a dad joke or a deeply philosophical tabletop question.

Wow thanks for explaining that, I haven't seen the whole archetype thing explained very well in such videos yet.

That is part of the nature of PF2e, to be fair. There is pretty decent balance through out. You kind of have to work at it to be ineffective. Not saying there aren't some seriously strong combos and such, but when everyone is effective and good at what they do (mechanically speaking) there is less call for something streamlined to avoid pitfalls into useless. That being said, by all means, I'm all for character builds and character concepts. Stuff like that is just fun and inspirational.

Pathfinder 2e brilliantly supports 'concept optimisation' (as opposed to 'power gaming to 'win' at the game', which it does everything it can to block). So if you want to learn cheat codes, there aren't many. But if you love to come up with a crazy-cool concept and then optimise that - pf2e is going to be your new best friend!

Love this comment, you nailed it

I'd personally say the equivalents are witch for the flavor (got powers from a mysterious patron) and psychics for mechanics (Caster who gets lots of per-combat abilities for less slots and has some of the best blasting for a caster. Honorable mention for kineticist for when it releases as it's the logical extreme of that), but yeah magi definitely are the best bladelocks / hexlocks speciality

@@zachariahmerry2396 Magi are spellblades? Awesome.

I’d argue that Warlock is a quintessentially unique class to 5e (yay them!), as PF2e doesn’t quite have an analog. The Witch has the flavor, but is more of a Witch/Sorcerer mixture with a heavy emphasis on their familiar. The Psychic/Oracle has a better focus on cantrip casting and short rests, but lacks some of the flavor (well, except the Oracle, mysteries can be flavored as patron influence). Magus fits the Hexblade really well, but doesn’t have the mechanical flavor (which honestly, the Witch’s patron is very un-impactful, relying on the GM and player to flavor it). The Thaumaturge’s implements can mimic some of those constant unique abilities of the Warlock, but again, doesn’t have the flavor and is a lousy caster. Not everything is one-to-one, but you can definitely approximate. You’ll just have to pick which kind of Warlock you want and then flavor it slightly different.

@@toodleselnoodos6738 I think you could divide them by Pact boons. Witch is Pact of the Chain, Magus is pact of the blade, Oracle is pact of the tome

@@techpriestemily yeah, that's their idea. They've even got a subclass called "laughing shadow" which grants the ability to teleport behind you (for when you really want that edge).

Essentially everything but the lore.

@@CorporalCookie true, and a lot of the art too

Pathbuilder2 will let you play with the basics for free. Wander's Guide is another. Nice thing about Paizo putting all the rules online for free and depending on quality Adventures and Setting books to make a profit.

@@aaronsmith3375 Yea, there are some great, free tools out there. That said, after creating a couple dozen characters with the online tools, I felt incredibly dumb when I tried creating a character with just a char sheet and the Core Rulebook. My advice: use the free tools, but do try to do a few with nothing but a pen and paper.

Try Rolemaster

@@PalleRasmussen That's for old people!

Hahahaha

@@sacredbeastzenon if by "old" you mean "people who appreciate quality", then yes. There is a new version as of two months ago BTW. And if you like noodling and refining characters, it is worth a go.

Agreed - more Pathfinder please. I am done with WotC.

Well, Dueling Riposte is part of the Archetype Duelist if I'm not wrong, which would be the advanced players guide, which he said at the beginning, won't talk about in this video. We could assume that he didn't read it, or simply not all feats. Which is understandable. What annoys me though, nat20s ARE critical hits. It's on the rulebook on page 278. Yet he said, a nat20 won't be an automatic crit, but it would be very likely due the increase of success, which just doesn't count for attacks.

These are actually bad suggestions for a third action option. Trip and shove both have the 'attack' tag, meaning as a third action they'll get the -10 penalty, the same as making a third attack. Yes, assurance allows you to bypass the -10 penalty to your roll. No, it's still not a good idea, because it will almost always fail anyway. Assurance gives you a result of 10+proficiency bonus which is the same as 10+your level+2/4/6/8 (depending on your proficiency). However, it does not add your ability modifier, or any other bonuses. The DC you'll be going against is always based off of the enemy's fortitude save DC, which will be 10+their level (often higher than yours, and rarely lower)+their relevant stat(which is almost never less than 0, and often +1 or higher)+2/4/6/8 (depending on their proficiency, which will rarely be lower than yours because saves almost always increase in proficiency as you level). Meaning that more often then not, assurance just won't succeed the DC and will automatically fail. As for the others; Feinting is either part of your build, or it's not. It literally gives you the same advantage as flanking the enemy(flat footed), but only for one attack. The downside is that, if you fail badly enough, you are then flat footed against every attack that enemy makes. It is almost always better to flank an opponent if possible, than to try to feint them, because the penalty for rolling badly on a feint is steep. Demoralize isn't a terrible idea, but whether or not you succeed or fail, the enemy you tried it on is immune to you trying again for ten minutes. If you Do succeed, regardless of level, at absolute best you're giving them a -2 to everything for one round, and then a -1 to everything for the next. More commonly, you'll give them a -1 to everything for one turn. Not really worth the third action, in my opinion. Recall knowledge isn't a bad option, but there are multiple knowledge types and many martial characters won't have more than 1 of the 5. (Technically more, because one of them is dependent on which sub-category you take, of which there are Many.) My recommendation for your third action would either be an item interaction (buy a bandolier and fill it with potions; It holds 8, and using one from a bandolier only takes a single action) or just get a shield and use the Raise a Shield action. Alternatively, if your DM is like mine, don't worry about it and just plan on using your third action to move. Not everyone in P2 gets an attack of opportunity, and many enemies are faster than your character anyway and also get three actions. As such, it just makes tactical sense to have them move away from you to force you to give up an attack.

​@@Necroes Assurance is quite good when you get to Master and Legendary proficiencies, when you can often best a standard DC of your level with it. If you are good enough at Feint, you are more likely to Crit Succeed (it is FF versus your attacks until the end of your next turn), which may be more likely than crit failing. In some situations you won't have enough room to walk around a creature to flank, or they might have an Attack of Opportunity making it dangerous. Saying Demoralize isn't worth it pretty much goes against the consensus on the PF2 forums: -1 is similar to a -2 in other systems, due to how crits and fumbles trigger on +10/-10. If you do it right after a boss creature's turn, you increase your own chance to hit and crit, and those of ALL your allies, AND you reduce its chance to hit and crit against you. I do think Recall Knowledge is weak as written; hence I buff it in the video I did covering it. There's a great variety of great alchemical items for consumables. For healing if you can take the Battle Medicine feat that is a great 1-action way to heal yourself or an ally. The strict rules on handedness might make it interacting with objects an action tax tho. Raise Shield is excellent, and Shield Block is a great defensive feat! Moving away from an enemy is great, too! Other good "3rd actions" are: Create Diversion, Hide, Bon Mot (requires skill feat)

@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Given your title, it's somewhat amazing how many of your claims become completely irrelevant when you read the fine print of this conversation. We're discussing good 'third actions,' which in this context are 'the action you use in place of a third strike because a third strike will have -10.' Assurance is a fine feat; It just isn't good for making trip or shove useful in this context, because the DC you'll be rolling against isn't one of the standards set in the book. It will always be based off of your enemy's fortitude save DC. As enemy monsters tend to be at least the player's level or higher, and most enemies willing to just stand in front of a melee combatant and give them the chance to use all three actions offensively are going to have good health (and by extension, a good constitution score) the chances of being in a position where just your prof. bonus + 10 will be higher than the enemy's entire fortitude save(which includes their prof. bonus, plus their con. bonus) + 10 are going to be very rare. As I said, feint is either part of your build or it's not. Being good at feint isn't an easy ask, as for many characters charisma is a dump stat because literally all it does for them is increase some of their skills. It's not like wisdom, con, or dex, which not only all matter for saves but also increase perception, health, and initiative bonuses (respectively). Strength is also the go-to for melee characters, which are the ones who gain a benefit for feinting their enemy. Also how likely you are to critically succeed depends just as much on the enemy's perception score as it does on the player's bluff score, meaning how likely they are to critically succeed or critically fail is almost always going to be unknown to the player until they try. I did not say demoralize is bad. I said that it's not worth it in the context of speaking of a third action, specifically building around it as the go-to third action. I said that specifically because you can, at best, do it once per enemy per combat. As combat will generally last for more than one round, after the first time you try it on the enemy whether you can do it again depends far more on how much your DM likes throwing large groups of enemies at your party. Also, as demoralize has the mental tag, there are a significant number of enemies in the book who are just immune to it. Create diversion is essentially just feint and has many of the same problems it does. The main difference being that, instead of the penalty for a critical failure being steep, using create diversion regardless of the outcome just makes it harder to do so again in the following turns, while also not having the benefits of a critical success that feint offers. The main benefit is that it works at range, making it viable for ranged fighters. Hide only works if you're behind cover. Not something likely to happen if you're standing in front of the creature and stabbing it. For someone fighting at range, it's fine, and generally a good idea (so long as your DM isn't the type to have most fights take place in open fields at noon or similar) Bon Mot is fine, but it takes up a feat and has similar issues to feint, in that it's dependent on a charisma skill and has the mental tag. Also, the feat doesn't require the enemy so succeed on whatever they do as a retort, so if it's really that major a negative to the enemy then at best you're trading a single action for one of their own, which is action-neutral. Not bad, but most martial characters who would be good at using it will just being using feint every turn anyway. The suggestions I made were because they are almost always going to be useful, regardless of who or what you're fighting. In general, it's much easier to plan your own teams coordination than to try and guess what the enemy will do. Alchemical items can be bought which provide bonuses your allies can't, and health gain as a default is almost always good. Battle Medicine is good for similar reasons, but can only be used once per person per day so not exactly something you can make frequent use of. Raise shield is viable because shields literally don't give you their AC bonus unless you use the action. In a game where every single point of AC means a 5% reduction in the chance for the enemy to land a critical hit, high AC is a very important aspect of staying alive as a melee fighter.

@@Necroes anyone who says a -1 debuff to an enemy’s stats for one round isn’t worth it is straight up wrong. Demoralize is very strong, and with a little investment (14-16 CHA) you can reliably succeed at standard DC’s. Most players would say that Demoralizing as your 1st action is the way to go, since a success generally leads to a +15% damage increase for your own strikes. Even though enemies are immune afterwards, a success will usually lead to more damage for your team, which is well worth it.

@@megavore97 Except, and hear me out on this, if you really want to be a two-handed attacker and not use a shield (the clearly better alternative because it reduces the chance every attack made against you has by 10%, as well as reducing the chance they crit you by 10%) You can instead take one of the most busted feats in the game, as early as level 2. Intimidating strike; It takes 2 actions, and as part of it you make a melee strike. If you hit and deal damage, it inflicts frightened 1. If you crit, it inflicts frightened 2. In either case, they do not become immune to you doing the same thing again next round. It is triggered by a melee attack, so it essentially uses your best stat (your to-hit) to determine if it works. Plus, the thing that makes it the MOST broken; It doesn't have the attack tag. Meaning that, if you use it, your third action being an attack doesn't suffer the penalty for multiple attacks per turn. So, for one single feat (which almost anyone can take thanks to archetypes) you not only get to make demoralize completely redundant for your entire party to waste proficiency on, you also get to make two attacks a turn at full to-hit because only one strike will trigger the penalty. Then, even if your DM nerfs the feat (like they should) and gives it the Attack tag, it's still strictly better than demoralize because you can use it literally every single turn. Which is why demoralize, in my opinion, isn't worth it. A single feat (and a really, Really good one at that) makes it useless.

I'm more interested in the summoner. Though I have to admit I was disappointed in the summoners mark thing. Seems to overly narrow the range of how you can use the Eidolon if it can't hide or be disguised because it always has a glowing mark that shows through everything.

@@Ahglock Summoner is really underwhelming in 2e, it's a shame. With the amount of classes it has now (and still growing with 1 to 2 classes each year), Summoner really is staying in the shadows. Bounded spellcasting is both weird and limiting, and there's no way to really bypass that as a summoner, compared to magus.

@@okagisama I wouldn't mind the spellcasting too much, if the eidolon seemed more impressive. It seems like they kept its focus narrow to being a bad fighter, and since you share hit points you are basically a bad fighter with a couple spells per day. But this is coming from a novice, reading through it. So there may be tricks i am missing. I just really dig the concept of the class, especially the construct version. Personally I think they should have allowed you to change its appearance every time you summon it, remove the obvious link(hit points being liked is enough) increase the base range it can travel from you, add some built in flexibility to how you mod it out each summon, like you can pick 2 evolution summons each summon so it has some utility without sacrificing making it effective in combat. Still concept wise I think it is maybe one of the coolest classes.