Pathfinder 2nd Edition Review and Thoughts 

"I've been sitting on my notes for the longest time" Jesus Ben, get a chair. They are like four bucks at IKEA

At fight I thought pf2e would be more confusing and complicated to track than dnd 5e, but after getting into it I found pf2e to be much easier to understand. It has less confusing interactions, the systems work logically, and seamlessly across the whole system. I miss the ability to hard multiclass but tbh pf2e has far more meaningful customization for characters and nearly all of them are competitive options.

I like PF 2e because it empowers the player to make their own decisions without needing to ask permission from the GM. Whereas in D&D 5e, more of the weight of responsibility is put onto the DM through sheer intuition, not necessarily knowledge of the game rules.

Most of the bonuses don't actually stack. Every bonus in PF 2e has a type: Circumstance, Item and Status bonus. You can not stack bonuses of the same type. So, for example, Bless is a +1 Status bonus to Attacks. So is Inspired Courage and so is Guidance. So getting hit with all three of those doesn't do anything besides give you a single +1 Status bonus to attacks. By reducing it to only three types of bonuses that don't stack, most times you can ignore other bonuses, thus simplifying the math by quite a bit.

Grandma: "Don't forget to take your bonus!"

Multiclassing in 2e feels amazing and it doesn't even really feel like multiclassing to me. Hell, with the addition of the Advanced Player's Guide, the archetypes and new multiclass feats they added (which are basically the same thing in this aside for one or two things that specifically state multiclassing feats over archetype feats) makes the base classes feel less like an actual class and more like a starting kit. Want to make a war marshal that summons a monster to do some of the fighting for them while buffing said summon and their teammates? You can do that. Want to play a Wizard archer who combines spells with their arrows? You can do that. Want to make a rogue who has an animal companion that they can flank with and pull off a bunch of devastating combos? You can do that. The multiclassing and archetypes in 2e just add so much flexibility to an already super flexible and customizable game and it's wonderful.

19:54 you only apply the biggest bonus, you can't turbo stack circumstance bonus

"Ben its your turn" "I'm calculating the cost analysis of my starknife and scimitar and-" "Oh you're using the delay action?" "No I-" "Ben delays, next player."

It took me a while to get that he was referencing the all dwarf ranger game he pitched to his players as an alternative to mouseguard.

Pathfinder 2E player and GM here. I figured Ben's reaction would end up being close to what it was, and my reaction to this system was basically the polar opposite of his. That said, this has been an utterly fascinating review to listen to. I adore this system. I left 5th Edition behind and have never looked back. BUT: it's clear I am a very different player than the person who prefers 5E. The crunch comes more easily to me, and my table is mostly people who can also easily handle quick number crunching to keep combat moving. I like a crunchier G to mix with my RP, whereas others might not. I may love this system, but I have all the respect in the world for someone who can say, "This is someone's game, but it's not for me," because that's exactly how I feel about D&D 5th. PF2 and 5E are high fantasy through VERY different mechanical lenses- and that's ok. Have fun playing the games of your choice, everyone, in whatever form they might take. Take care of each other, at and away from the table.

Clearing some things up for my fellow 5E Players: I liked that review but the example of the math was like if I was to explain that shooting a bow in 5e is rolling 1d20, then adding your dexterity modifier, then adding your proficiency bonus, then adding your +1 weapon bonus, then adding your penalty for enemy cover, then adding the bonus for your bracers of archery, then adding your bardic inspiration, then rolling a second time for disadvantage and adding all that stuff again and taking the lower because you're shooting into dim-light, and then etc, etc. Like sure you can do that for each attack, or you could instead figure it out when leveling the character up and then have the final number on your sheet. I mean sure there are floating modifiers like cover or guidance but that doesn't make 5e a game thats too complex and full of math, basically the same for pathfinder 2e. There is absolutely a learning experience, back when we played pathfinder 1e before hopping over to dndbeyond/5e, players of our game for some reason would always do all the math on each of their attacks and it baffled me that they didn't just figure out the total and have it on their sheet forever. fortunately when we started using dndbeyond it became a lot simpler because dndbeyond just gives you the number. My advice for PF2e is using the Pathbuilder 2 app, it not only does all your math for you, it makes character creation an absolute breeze because it reds out any options in character creation that aren't available because you don't meet pre-requisites and what not freeing up some choice paralysis I've seen 5e players mention, I could make a character or do a level up is pathbuilder 2 in maybe about double the time it takes me to zip through the same stuff in dndbeyond. If any other 5e players reading this are interested in Pathfinder 2e at all, I highly recomend pathbuilder 2e, its free and there is no sign up needed because all of the pathfinder rules a free SRD material. There is a bit of a pay wall if you want to have animal companions stuff in the app (about $7) and if you want to use some specific variant rules I think, but if you use dndbeyond you know you can go without those sorts of things anyway because they still don't have the variant rules stuff and only recently added animal companion/ familiar stuff. Oh and Pathbuilder 2 will be getting the advanced players guide stuff soon like the 4 new classes; swashbuckler, investigator, oracle and witch. Why do I sound like an advertisement for this free app? because I really love PF2e and as someone still playing in both pathfinder 1e and D&D5e games and finding myself frustrated at both, I'd love to see more 5e folks playing PF2e, I reckon that you'll have a fun time, sometimes its about the right mindset and a good toolset. Not as bogged down and bloated as pathfinder, and also has a lot more freedom of expression for players than 5e. And if you're wondering what to run if you're thinking of taking on the GM mantle for the game, may I advise any of the 3 adventure paths out for pathfinder 2e, Paizo started out making modules for 3.5 and managed to make the second most successful d20 rpg purely off of the good will garnered by people who loved their adventures. Paizo releases all of its rules for free online, you can buy books for them to show your support, but the real money for them comes in off of their payed adventure sales, because they are so confident in their adventure writing that they are okay with taking a loss on their rule books. May I suggest age of ashes, I haven't run in yet but I have heard good things.

The combat example ignores that there are only 3 types of bonuses and penalties (except there are some untyped penalties such as multi-attack) so there is never more than 3 (and rarely more than 1-2) bonuses and rarely more than 1-2 penalties to a roll (but there theoretically can be a bunch of penalties). It tends to go very quickly once you get used to it (I've played a lot of PF2 up to 8th level (so far)).

I've played a lizard folk druid that augmented his unarmed attacks with magic. Was fun!

Moral of your combat story: don't add bonuses on the fly. Write your attack options down beforehand and your turn is quick and easy.

A lot of this complicated stuff other than the 48 statuses can "just" be written down. The bigger problem is definitely the learning curve because all of your modifier attack values should just be recorded, you only calculate once and reference based on 1st-3rd attack modifiers and others in a chart if you must.

I personally find high option character creation to make the game more fun. I really like my character mechanically feeling how the character feels to play. For example, I love skill ranks because I get to choose the exact details of how my character’s mechanical skills fit for my character’s in character skills. I hate in 5e when I just have a proficiency that doesn’t fit because of my background or not able to be proficient in a skill just because it’s not a class skill. I like how skill ranks give me the ability to hone the skills, and even be good in something not from the class, even if not as good as if it was a class skill (which yeah, my Rogue won’t be as good at healing as a Cleric, but at least I can get bonuses). Having options also makes every level up feel significant to me. I know that this isn’t for everyone, but for me, the character creation process is vital to the enjoyment of the game.

Multiclass feats are a solid workaround for lots of the problems of multiclassing: you don't lose progression in your primary class anymore, but you also block the abusive stacking of 'core' class abilities you got in 3.5. What they do now is add a limited selection of additional options to your main class, especially when adding spellcasting (basically, you get a spell of a level 1-2 levels behind a traditional caster for each slot, with the ability to get more slots with a feat pick). The new Advanced players guide also shows they're turning old prestige classes into multiclass/archetype feats, which makes balancing them so much less of a headache and makes for some fun new character concepts.

I would like to say, that not all of the golorian adventures have ended with "adventurers win, bad guys lost". For example, the nation of Lastwell is gone. The quest to stop the Resurrection of Tar Baphon failed. So he's back, the entire nation of paladins is now the gravelands, and the undead have a massive capital of undead. Just saying that its not like Paizo went through, removed all problems, and gave no plot hooks. It's even given new possibilities like the orcs becoming more neutral instead of evil and one of the people fighting the undead on the frontlines.

Puffin's explanations here reminds me of that guy who plays a spellcaster and has to dig through the book every time he casts a spell to reference its effects.

after coming to pf2e after the ogl debacle, i feel like me and puffin played different games

Ben, I love ya, but hearing that you're the kind of person who shows up to a session after forgetting to level up hurt my soul.

Man, i've dmed a few games of PF2, starting as soon as on the edition launch only taking a week to learn the rules. It's clear to say we got a lot of rules wrong and some of what we got right was later erata'd so it's been a journey. I never felt that battles were overly complicated in between my digital games, where its been little to no problem, and my live game i was always able to have a pretty good grasp on all of the multi attack penalties, circumstance bonuses/penalties and so on. Listening to Ben speak though, it sounds a lot more complicated than it feels to me. I can't say for certain, but it feels over-complicated in the way its described though i can see where someone could experience it as such. I don't know, but regardless this review is very good and fair. And reading the comments too is quite interesting.

I think pf2e was partly designed with various helper apps in mind to help automate some aspects of it... because... as a player I can say that pf2e typically plays really fast especially now that the system has a lot more official adventures to serve as a baseline... And my dm is a lot happier in pf2e than in dnd 5e because the latter put all the work on the gm... no real guides on running the game, few charts to help with anything and the setting and character descriptions and statblocks were so thin and shallow that they typically amounted to nothing more than a sticky note. (I can also attest to this after having read the 5e Ravenloft book... the ADD and 2nd ed dnd ravenloft books spent several pages detailing each realm, ruler, and the history/culture therein... while the 5e version... each realm is lucky to get anything more than 2 paragraphs, one of which is usually focused on ura ruler) Also... yes there is some initial jank as you learn but that's true of any system. Even Fiasco has a learning curve.

Just gonna say it, Puffin's math example is an example of people who don't take the time to sort their mechanics out. That example has never happened in any game I've run in P2 so far.

You know you can just write down all your bonuses with current equipment and thus you already have 90% of the math solved, right?

I've been preparing a PF2 one shot for my party, and I'm loving the system so far. Slightly simplified gameplay with that crunchy character creation I know and love. So I'm looking forward to running it for my group.

You know, most of that math can be calculated long before your round. It can even be calculate before the session. 'normal hit i will roll this, if crit ill roll this instead,' "know your charakter" is the least you can expect from your players. Then you only have to calculate the circumstance stuff while in game.

Once upon a time my friends and I played 2nd edition religiously. Unfortunately after graduation, everyone went their separate ways and I no longer had a group to D&D with. Although I tried to keep up when 3rd edition was released just a year later, I eventually lost touch with all things D&D. Fast forward 18 years later when I found myself working at an IT Support call center and surrounded by D&D playing nerds and the feels for the game all came rushing back. Trying to jump back in to the game at 5e was not as easy as I was expecting. So much had changed, there were so many new things to know about the game play that I almost felt as though I had never played before. Fortunately I found a group of new players that were in a group led by a veteran player who was teaching them how to play Pathfinder. I was lucky enough to be invited to join their group and have loved playing Pathfinder ever since. We have yet to try Second Edition for Pathfinder, but I am excited to give it a go.

Perspective from a PF1 player who still plays that system and hasn't migrated to PF2: The best mechanic in Pathfinder is that *your group's Golarion* is as much a character as any of your (extremely customizable) PCs. The groups I've played it with have always taken the 'canon' resolutions of various quests as examples/suggestions of ramifications of party actions, but each DM having their established histories and developments based directly on previous campaigns in their version of the world. It's not "random adventurers" who scoured this area, it was your notorious grandfather, the wizard Joey played in the first adventure when he sold the dragon's head to the taven as an over-bar decoration. This adventure starts here; the taxidermied whelp still holds its ferocious snarl, but the scales have lost some sheen. So I can hardly imagine what a pain in the ass it would be to try and start in at 2nd edition using canon-as-written! Don't blame you for saying 'fuck it' eventually

When he gave the (EDIT: first) example of what he has to track for one attack, it sounded like the video was jumping back and replaying parts of his explanation at times. Just me?

I am playing a PF 2e campaign now and playing an Ancient Blooded Dwarf barbarian with dragon rage instinct, the customization is fantastic.

I know I''m rewally late to the party but as someone who ran 5e and PF2e exclusively on Foundry VTT, GMing PF2e on Foundry was so much easier and more fun. Most of the number crunching is done for you. All compendia and rulebooks are included in a module made by the community for free (no problem with Paizo). Paizo even publishes full adventure modules for foundry making GMing them a breeze. One thing that is very significant to the design philosophy of PF2e was missed in this review i feel like. Monster and encounter balancing is very tight and precise AND every monster feels unique because they get signature abilities. For anyone digitally GMing I would Whole-heartedly recommend PF2E over 5E because most of the number crunching and "looking up rules" is eliminated by Foundry.

In the monologue about the ranger's turn, you make it seem like you'd be calculating all of this on the fly. Realistically your character sheet would already have the prof+stat+finess+rune calculated for both of your weapons. The only thing left for you to keep track of would be the multiple attack penalties for the hunter's edge (and conditions effects). You might not have half a day to calculate attacks and damage, but you usually have more than that when creating your character, which is when you would actually have to do all the bonuses (unless you use the easily accessible auto calculating character sheet, in which case it's easy) You would actually be calculating: attack bonus - multiple attack penalty + situations modifiers.

I'm playing PF2e, it is terrific. I love the 3 actions. I love the customisation of PC. There are meaningful choices every level, yet few traps, it's really elegant design.

I played 2e with 3 entirely new players to RPG world. None of them thought it's complicated or anything. The Math is done on the character sheet and bonuses from the same categories don't "stack". If anything we thought the combat is too simplistic, especially for melee characters, lol

I have a feeling all of the combat math could be simplified drastically with some planning and a pen and paper...

Says he made a grid....DOES NOT SHOW THIS GRID THAT HE SPEAKS OF

I really like this review of the game, it definently shows the strength and weaknesses of the game. I've been GMing this game since its release. I will say, Ben kinda overcomplicated the process of an encounter. I've never had to overthink so much on an encounter. From listening to it, he wants to apply every aspect single bonus and action physically available to the game. I should mention, the paizo states in the book that all of these are optional. The DM can decide how much he/she can apply to an encounter. All these weapon bonuses and critical specializations apply to players, more than some random goblin. That's why you need to plan ahead on how a creature would behave in a fight, so a GM can plan out how to play. Similar to encounter builds. Pathinder 1 or 2 strictly has two types of fights, a lot of weakling, or one big bad boss. If you mix a bunch of mediums together, the game drags on for hours. Minions should he minions like a RPG, and the minions should be led by a big bad boss. I really enjoyed listening to the review, and definently agree with 90%.

Same name bonuses dont stack. So most of the random +1 are the same "Status" bonus. so you only ever get +1, maybee +2

In addition to the idea of high DCs preventing the untrained characters from succeeding, some actions are also just straight up locked behind training, so like a character that is untrained in thievery just simply can’t pick the lock. It just ain’t gonna happen. They need to find a different way. I LOVE this choice.

I feel like the attack walkthrough was intentionally explained in a over-complicated manner, especially the bit at the beginning.

Also your description of the buffs during an attack roll sounds exactly like the normal combat in the 3.5 game i am in. You get use to it and start having the modifiers memorized or have a sheet handy.

I am playing a draconic-bloodline sorcerer in 2e. It seems to me that the "linear martial/quadratic caster" issue has been mitigated. I like that change. Mostly, I like the new rule. In any case, almost any game is fun with a good group of people. And I like the way cantrips scale with character level. On the down side, I feel like the ancestries (races) have been homogenized and lost distinctiveness.

I'm just getting into 2e, playing my first game this weekend, and I'm already better at it than this dude. It's not at all as complicated as puffin says, he's just bad at the game. And he's saying stuff he doesn't need to just to make it sound more complicated. So he's intentionally being biased for some reason.

So, I'm going to slap my keyboard with my thoughts. Just for context: I've been GMing Pathfinder 1st since 2012 and switched over to Pathfinder 2nd when it was released. I also use virtual tabletop. These two details will be important, I promise. I totally agree that Conditions are both good and a bad thing. The good side is I don't need to remember "okay, so -2 to strength", it's now it's "oh, enfeebled 2!". However, I totally agree that weapon traits still mentally elude me. Not agile, not finesse, but stuff like forceful just seems to escape my mind. I don't think they need a fix exactly, but weirdly just I need to remind myself more. I think in terms of MAP and the sort, good notes (and especially a virtual place that picks up the weight of rules) can be the difference between "uh, is bless on?" and snapping out numbers and confirming. I did start to lose my mind when you used Varisia as an example of all the adventures being wrapped up. I was thinking about New Thassilonia and how Runelord Belimarius is likely going to make a move at some point, either north or against the other Runelord who controls Thassilonia (who people aren't sure if she's gone legit or is scheming like a champ). There is also the lich Tar-Baphon who is making his moves onto the land. Putting aside whatever the Hobgoblin nation is up to in the long run is beyond people, Galt is still France during the Reign of Terror and Arazni is going to take some major revenge on Geb and Tar-Baphon. I kind of didn't see what you were talking about, except that while there's less plot threads than Pahtfinder 1st it's not really obscure what threads could be pulled. However, a lore is a hard sell when you're not really enjoying the mechanics and that's fair. Since I'm coming from Pathfinder 1st, Pathfinder 2nd is just this amazing playground of possibility, fun and depth. Made even more that I do tend towards pre-gen campaigns, and Paizo does make excellent ones (Agents of Edgewatch is definitely looking to be pretty amazing) so I don't have to wrestle with combat set up much. However, jumping from D&D 5th of many years into Pathfinder 2nd is going to be rough to handle the crunch and it's going to turn people off. In reverse, I don't really enjoy D&D 5th's simplicity that tends to sacrifice depth. I was kind of looking forward to you covering Pathfinder 2nd more after this video before I watched it, because it's kind of rare seeing RU-vidrs giving the system a punt, but it seems more D&D 5th is in the pipeline. Not a bad thing, just maybe a little disappointing. Thanks for you thoughts though.

Listens to him running through all the numbers. *Laughs in Shadowrun*

The numbers issue at the mid point of the video just kept coming back to math that you should already have done, with the exceptions of a few circumstances a lot of those modifiers were things the player knew would be involved and could have been written down as the static amount which then got modified halving the work at least, it's what you're meant to do in 1st ed too. But that stuff with the shield and damaging equipment is just going to get ignored from the sounds of it, just like it does in other games.

I disagree with your take on conditions. I think they're not much more spread out than they were. There are plenty of instances where an ability would effectively say "This has the same effect as X spell, cast at 5th level", which forces you to do the same thing as the new conditions system: go look up that information somewhere else. And when they don't do that, and they instead write out the full length of the effect, it can create confusion: "Is this effect part of the concealed status, or a bonus effect on top of the concealed status?" and things like that. The advantage is that by making all these conditions relatively bite sized, they become much easier to memorize. It has the same advantage as keywords in mtg: it makes learning new things easier because the conditions are usually brief, and also lets you shortcut learning when a spell or ability references a condition you already know. I think the disadvantages of "You have to look up and memorize tons of conditions, scattered throughout the book" is a bit overstated, especially since it can be largely solved just by having one, big condition masterlist printed out and somewhere handy. And the advantages of doing it this way are huge.

i personally feel that all the math segments are misleading. A lot of the math you were calculating is stuff that should already be calculated on your character sheet. I agree there is an initial slowness but once you get the numbers down it really becomes second nature adding the penalties and bonuses. Also I feel like Pathfinder 2e requires a lot more preparation required for the gm. It's defiantly not something where you can throw it together on the stop or within a few hours without a lot of experience with the system first. While it's harder to prepare and learn but I feel like it's a lot more rewarding when you do get all the numbers down as combat becomes more dynamic and more unique.

I've been running a PF2 game for about a year now. Love it.

Ok, You made this sound WAY more complicated then it is when you actually play.

I have DM'd pathfinder 2e for a year now and...its amazing. I made Chicxelub, a monk seeking only to punch the world to death. Freaking love this game.

This customization is why I preferred 3.5 to 5. I'm gonna have to give Pathfinder 2e a go at some point

As a pf2 gm, i know how this feels. I usually tell my players that we're gonna apply the rules we remember on the spot. No backsies. I know it's lazy, maybe, but it turns a 1 hour fight into a 15 minutes fight, sometimes

Pathfinder 2e is complicated... If you do it in the most convoluted way as portrayed in the video... Here's a little tip: come to the game table with your bonuses ALREADY added up. If you are the guy that comes in with an incomplete character sheet, YOU are the one slowing the game down. Don't be that guy. Thankfully, in their infinite wisdom, Paizo provided a spot on the character sheet where you can write down the bonus for each weapon. You know, like every other popular tabletop RPG? "But there are multiple attack penalties! -5 for the second attack and -10 for the third!" - Yeah... That's not new dude. Look, It's easy: let's take your Ranger example with, say, a +15 to their attack with a scimitar. Are you ready for it? Write down "+15/+10/+5" and you have all three bonuses you will need for that weapon. Right there in front of you. WOW! And in sequential order too! "What about my Ranger's Hunted Prey?" - Ah, see, there is a reason Ben picked the Flurry Ranger's Hunted Prey ability for his example, it is one of the few examples where the class alters its multiple attack penalty, which makes things sound more complicated than they actually are. I understand that the approach of the video is to increase drama for comedic effect but, come on, if my mother-in-law who's never played a tabletop RPG before figured it out in the first session without ever reading the rulebook, I'm sure a seasoned gamer/GM can handle it. But back to Hunted Prey: so the Flurry Ranger reduces each multiple attack penalty against their designated Prey from -5 to -3. Just write down "(Prey = +15/+12/+9)" right under your regular attack bonus. Not attacking your prey? Use the first attack bonus line for your roll then. Not. Hard. SCIMITAR: +15/+10/+5 *(Prey = +15/+12/+9) "What about a Finesse or Ranged weapon? That uses your Dex instead of Strength!" - Right, and you'll factor that in when you write down the attack bonus because, again, there is a section to write down the bonus for EACH WEAPON. 5e has Finesse too Ben. In fact, Finesse also alters way the weapon's damage is determined in 5e whereas it doesn't in P2e. Meaning Finesse altars less here than it does in 5e. "Okay sure, but I have this knife with the Agile trait in my other hand! That reduces the-" - Factor it in when you write down the bonuses for THAT weapon. "Yeah, but Hunted Prey with an Agile weapon alters-" - FACTOR IT IN WHEN YOU RIGHT DOWN THE BONUSES! "What about the Sweep trait for the scimitar, huh?" - There is a 'traits' section for each weapon too, write it down there. "But that's one more thing I have to add on!" - It's a +1 circumstance bonus; is 15+1 THAT hard to add up in your head for the rare circumstance that Sweep actually comes up? If you can't handle that, why the hell didn't you just take the bastard sword which doesn't have Sweep? It does more damage than the scimitar anyways. There are options for a reason, pick the simple option if that works better for you. "It was too complicated for me to figure out which weapon combination did the most damage." - Really? Wow, it's almost as if the game designers had different weapon combinations in mind and factored that in to keep the game balanced. "But what if I have Guidance cast on me?" - That doesn't come up a lot but, okay, it's a +1 status bonus, you can't add 15+1 up in your head? "Not on the off chance that I ALSO have a +1 circumstance bonus from Sweep!" - I assumed that you consciously made the effort to get your character into a strategic position specifically to take advantage of that bonus... You didn't add your total bonus of +17 in your head before your turn started? "No, it happened all by accident and it caught me off guard for the entire 2 minute interim between my turns." - Wait. Wait. Wait... So.... combat rounds move too dynamically for you to calculate 15+2 and have that bonus ready for when it gets around to your turn to roll your own attack... And yet combat is simultaneously too long for combat to be interesting to you? "Um... I can't calculate 15+1+1" - It's 17. "Okay, so I was busy second guessing every roll my teammates made. But look, see, I ALSO have a +1 status bonus from Bless, so now it's 17+1+1+1!" - Ignore that, you already said you had a +1 status bonus from Guidance. "Huh?" - You know.... because bonuses of the same type don't stack... Oh that's right, you fucked up that part in the video, lol! "Okay, but I ALSO have a status bonus from-" - THEY DON'T STACK! WHY WOULD YOU THINK TWO BLESS SPELLS WOULD STACK WITH EACH OTHER!? "There are too many temporary bonus types to learn..." - There are two types Ben.... two "It's the game's fault." - You know you can just click a button on Roll20 and it calculates it for you, right?

Scaling, Scaling, Scaling. Any game that isn't 5E, pathfinder 2 included, can manage a much broader range of *competency* when it comes to getting anything done. THAT's what's important about the bigger numbers, THAT's why specialization matters, THAT's why not everyone gets to do everything. So that people can feel specialized, so that players are rewarded for being experts at certain things, so that epic gameplay feels epic because what's being achieved *is* epic, not just *gets to swing sword 3 more times at level 18* or whatever.

"...Crafting, but that'll hold up the game..." only in the same way that scouting ahead to see where the enemies are, or schmoozing with a noble to get an invite to a particular event, would. One player's character will generally be "the one that does that thing" and the rest will get to watch a scene involving their teammate. For keeping track of your massive amount of different types of attack, with their various buffs both from yourself, and other players, i recommend having a blank piece of paper next to you, which you can quickly write any buffs another character does to you during THEIR turn (just the name of the buff, and the numerical impact). I like your grid system, where you had the different weapons/styles of attack, and the number of attacks this turn. Once you've set that grid up, you just choose which attack you're doing, and use the number written in the relevant box, no need to manually add up weapon rune, ability modifier, etc every single time. At the start of your turn, you then just total the bonus given to you by other players, and choose which attack you want to use. It'll take about 30-40 seconds to take your turn, including the to-hit and damage maths.

I feel like my gaming group has had the opposite experience from what you've described. Pathfinder 2e has had the best combat experience of any roleplaying game that I've run. Things have always run very smoothly - and the most dramatic Player/DM disagreement I can remember lasted less than 45 seconds. I wonder if your group dived in "too quickly." I was finishing up a Pathfinder 1e campaign when 2e released, so I wasn't able to run it immediately. I ended up having about 2 months to really absorb the system before I had to run any really intense games. So, I was very grounded in the system by the time I was running anything "complex." It sounds like your group dived in very quickly, got overwhelmed, & maybe suffered some system whiplash. I've seen brand new players (with zero RPG experience whatsoever) pick up Pathfinder 2e almost immediately! But, I was a well-grounded DM, so I was able to focus on the moving parts that mattered to them (& knew well what was unnecessary & could be ignored). I think 2e has so many moving parts it can swamp you if you're not careful, but if you pace yourself well, you'll find that the parts all move in rational & practical ways. Just my two cents. Thanks for the video!

I'm glad you talked about the kind of player you are at the end because it made it pretty clear what types of players are going to prefer Pathfinder more than you did.

Pathfinder is often overshadowed by Dnd but honestly pathfinder has always had more freedom in character creation, races, classes, sub classes. World building, Monsters, etc

For me it's all that 5e is just not fun for me. It's just too simple. Pathfinder 2ed isn't too complicated for our group and even if it is occasionally clunky/crunchy, that can be trimmed on the fly without much hassle. Pathfinder first edition was much less forgiving, so I would say that Pathfinder 2ed is much closer to 4and5th edition DnD. Sorry to hear that Puffin isn't within the demographic but I am happy that my groups are. They were outside the Pathfinder1 demographic due to it's complexity, so the better designed 2ed really hooked my players and our other GM in.

Ben's rant at ~19:00 about calculating the result of one attack: The bonuses from Bless and Guidance don't stack, as they're both Status bonuses. The attacker had no reason to cash in their Guidance on this attack. But seriously, the math feels natural after a little bit

I hope (havent played pf2e but I HOPE) that the three types of bonuses, circumstance, blah and blah, solve some of these problems. Like, it's supposed to be set up that you're only ever adding three bonuses to a roll, one of each

In the example you give at 17:01 I feel like you REALLY padded the complexity and confusion with a lot of the things that happen on most fantasy ttrpgs. People forget and remember bonuses all the time, and I'm afraid that people might get the impression that this sort of confusion is the rule rather than the exception. Also... You are aware that after adventurers solved all the problems from 1st edition, *new* quests came up, right? That you're not forced to homebrew if you don't want to? Even if you do, many of the books are really great about new adventure hooks

Sorry 2e didn't click for you, but thank you for checking it out. Though I think you may have made the rules sound more complicated than they really are, and you're definitely overthinking the world setting. I've loved 2e since it's come out, and I find 5e to be a bit generic, but to each their own. There's plenty of room at the table for everyone!

I'm a gm and player for pf2e and it's amazing as a DM.

I find it funny I'm the opposite despite starting in 5e I hate the characters they are all so generic you pick 3 to 5 skills and a option of like three builds any given class while pathfinder has so many options and so many unique character options

I played the Beginner Box for an hour and understood the game. Hmmm... weird eh.

I'm glad I've moved on from 5e to PF2e, because 5e characters start to feel the same after a while. If you've played one College of Swords bard, you've played them all, whereas I've played 2 Animal Order druids in 2e, and because of the freedom in character creation, they felt very different.

The "crunch" is something a lot of Pathfinder players enjoy, it is how come they went with Pathfinder after D&D stopped supporting 3.5 edition. I understand how you can prefer D&D 5e, it is meant for players who favour simplicity versus complexity. Pathfinder, both first and second editions, is meant more for those who enjoyed the "crunch" of the older editions of D&D. In the end, D&D 5e and PF 2e both fill different niches-and that's okay. Anyhow, greatly enjoyed your review, Puffin. P.S.: When are we getting some more D&D stories?!

Been away from table top for roughly 15 years but one thing I do remember is there is always one player in any group who is not paying any attention until their turn comes up - so while you can pre-calculate all the math you want, that one person will always take 20-30 minutes each time the table comes to them, until you boot them out, at which point you discover they were dating another key player, were the brother and/or sister of a third player, and gave a 4th player a ride - so your entire group just walked out the door. Even though they were the ones asking you to boot that player. ;) That noted... if you somehow overcome that crisis, I think the idea of using "a pile of generic monsters" with all their math pre-done is actually a good idea for most of your fights, then put in a "boss fight" every other session or so. Like we see in video games. It's OK to have your players go through a half a dozen "trash pulls" facing off against "Elf #3" before they get to the head elf and your Orc heroes can finally match up against the 6-fingered elf ranger that led the slaughter of their homeland... not every single fight needs to be of major consequence. At this point you can turn all those crazy "this game has too many options" issues to your advantage, and make the fight against the '6-fingered elf' feel like it has more consequence than "Bob, it's your turn; roll d20 to hit"...

I’m really lucky that I love theory crafting and building my character sheet. I have spent hours upon hours on looking at things for characters and pulling concepts together to create a character for pathfinder. I have a catalog of characters ready for pathfinder campaigns. I’m the kind of person that already knows what they are going to do on their next level, at least to an extent. There are things that you have to converse with your dm over, but generally, I know that I’m going to take x feat and x skillpoint adjustment. It’s why pathfinder first edition is a sanctuary to me and why I’ve struggled with finding a love for fifth edition. I don’t wait for the level to come for me to figure out where I’m going. That time period of me looking at feats, races, and classes took me all of 20-30 minutes in 5E. Unfortunately, I’m the dm a majority of the time so I don’t get to use my character concepts very often, but they will be there ready for the next campaign someone runs.

Around the 20 mark when you get into the math of things, about 75% of it is actually already written on the sheet. Yes, theres a lot there that goes into building things, but really its dice roll+bonus from sheet +action bonus+conditions vs ac + or - conditions and shield on or off.

As a note of correction: When you use the “Shield Block” Reaction, any damage greater than the shields hardness is not split between you and the shield, rather both you and the shield take the total remaining damage. Also it’s important to remember the type of armor a creature is wearing. Medium and Heavy armor have traits like “Plate, Composite, etc...” as these traits provide a second layer of resistance to damage of specific types (slashing, piercing, bludgeoning). So you really need to be aware what type of damage a weapon deals.

Character generation works very well with Pathbuilder2. You can fly through the choices and it prints out the character sheet for you. We have found it great fun in play, but I've not gone into the higher levels, so I'll be interested to see how that plays out.

As a huge fan of multiclassing in 5e, I was initially hesitant about PF2e’s archetype system replacing multiclassing, but after having used it, oh my god it is so much better. For real, it is incredibly freeing.

You're massively overcomplicating things. You absolutely can run games of PF2 very quickly. One of PF2's biggest advantages is that there's very few numbers that change on the fly. Most of the numbers you're complaining about should just be added into your character sheet and forgotten. The rest are things that only come up once in a while. You talk about status effects that count down each turn, and how confusing that is, but you're ignoring the fact that in practice, those status effects only last one or *maybe* two turns in nearly every circumstance, and aren't even all that common. I have no idea how you spent an hour and a half fiddling with the math and stats in a Pathfinder 2e game. If you grab any monster in the book, all the numbers you need to know are already calculated for you.

Honestly, PF2e's calculations are super simple when you're coming from 1e. There's very few bonuses either way. When you're having to factor in BAB+STR or DEX+Circumstance+Competence+Enhancement+Insight+Luck+Morale+Size vs 10+DEX+Armor+Shield+Deflection+Natural Armor+Dodge (which unlike other bonuses can stack)+Enhancement+Insight+Luck+Size...it can get crazy. Though there are ways to fight defensively for some AC boosts, and Power Attack could be used to lower to hit in order to boost damage. Keep in mind, you could also be facing ability damage to Strength or Dexterity, making you recalculate that, or possibly a boosted stat. Oh lord if you're put in an anti-magic field and you're rocking multiple magic-based improvements to your stats, AC, Attack, etc. Nevermind if you're being flanked, flat footed, charged, etc. They also might be targeting your Touch AC, which is awful for many varieties of characters, but not Monks. Speaking of Monks, they get to add their Wisdom and an extra bonus to their AC, even when Flat Footed or Touch AC. Unless they're Scaled Fist Monks, an Archetype that lets them add Charisma to AC instead. It's a fun game, but changes to the math through assorted things can complicate things.

On Middle-Earth: I might set it in the second age. However, the fourth age is fertile ground without much having been written, and while you make some good points, when you start thinking about it, there's a lot you can do. Here's an idea: a powerful orc warlord arises, uniting numerous warbands. Maybe an Uruk-hai. Maybe Saruman's Uruk-hai do it. In the far north where you don't know how many they can muster, but they're far enough off that a rebuilding Gondor is unlikely to be able to respond quickly enough to help Rohan, at least at first. They've got a werewyrm and time is of the essence, they must do what they can to stop or slow the warlord and warn Rohan. This one is a more short-term idea, but you can link it with some other basic realities about the setting to make a full-blown epic campaign. Easterlings. Haradrim. Southrons. Lots of orcs without leadership scattering, this scenario could be repeated with entire nations rising to make war on the reunited kingdoms of Armor and Gondor. As for great supernatural evils, while the Nazgul are gone, there are still other Balrogs somewhere - Gandalf just defeated one of them - and there dragons besides Smaug - some of them we even have names for. While most of the dragons were defeated, what if some retreated to lick their wounds and we're only THOUGHT to be dead. Smaug was a bit of a weakling as far as the dragons of Middle-Earth are concerned. And Aragorn, Faramir, Arwen, Eomer, and Eowyn can only do much. The sons of Durin have their own problems as well - in fact there's a whole other campaign you can do, with the dwarves fighting who-knows-what in the deep places as they try to reclaim their various strongholds. So really, while I, like you, upon first examination thought the fourth age was a bit empty, really it turns out the sky's the limit, if you're not overly obsessed with tracking down the few things that have been written about it and making sure you don't depart from that. But those few things are just that - few.

DnD 5e : *calculate you proficiency + stat modifier + any bonuses the weapon has + any other elements that might boost or nerf it (such as feats) on the character sheet* Pathfinder 2 : *you suddently stop noting anything and you have to remember everything and then cut the DM to remind him your sword is magical and you have Expert proficiency"

Ben, haven’t finished vid but one, running all those numbers just reminded me how much of a math nerd I am an why I want teach it as a career, and two shield block reduces the damage by hardness then both the shield and owner take the rest, the hardness already absorb what it can the rest is felt by both

I really like the level scaling because single monsters are actually threatening, unlike in DnD where a level 4 party can easily knock down a young green dragon. The only issue I see is that a level 2 party can never face like a level 6 monster. They have to run at sight or die

That whole attack example was terrible. Overly complicated. Most attacks don’t go like that. That might happen to new players but it’s easy to keep up after that.

I've never seen someone so over complicate adding bonuses before. If you actually do that in combat all the time no wonder combat is so slow, write the numbers down and your going to only have a few little numbers at most to have to deal with each turn. How you say it you make a turn that could take maybe 30 seconds tops (in a case where you got a bunch of crazy things going on) to take several minutes. Really being organized will make not only pathfinder games faster but also drastically cut down on your DnD time.. or really most dice games.

I like that it makes minmaxing VERY hard and in that way the system is pretty balanced. There are no insane feats like sentinel and great weapon master. It is pathfinder so there are a huge amount of rules though. Do you want an entire page worth of material explaining the rules for one creature to eat another? You got it. Do you want basically a rule for every possible situation? You got it. The rule of cool is not really applicable as there almost always something relevant in the book. The action economy is different but not bad. Overall our group likes it much more than pathfinder 1, about the same as D&D 5e.

Mostly loved your video, though my main three points of criticism here are the following. 1) You mention Multiclassing but don't really dive into it at all. The way 2e handles multiclasses and archetypes (especially with the new Advanced Players Guide) is a HUGE win in favor of the system and the customization of the character you're playing. I think you should look into that stuff because you may be missing out.

I gotta say, if you're adding your flat, unchanging, level-dependent bonuses one by one before each attack, you might consider doing it once and putting it on your character sheet. Then you'll just have to do some simple math for situational stuff. As others already pointed out, when playing 5e, you don't add roll + prof + STR + magic weapon and then (because you have advantage) roll + prof + STR + magic weapon, right? That would be weird. You just note you have +99 to attack roll with your Great Greataxe of Greatest Carnage, roll two times and take the better roll. Then add your Bardbarian +99. So why would you do that in pathfinder? Just take the pencil, write this "+13" next to your weapon, and the only thing to really calculate after that will be your Multiple Attack Penalty (and even this can be easily written down in a simple array LIKE FULL ATTACK KNOWN TO EVERY PC RPG GAMER: +13/+8/+4 or +13/+9/+5 for an agile weapon) and situational stuff or stuff unique to the character/class. Anyone who doesn't have this stuff precalculated in either game (PF2 or DnD5) should ask their group for forgiveness. This is what slows down the fight. So let me rewrite the whole "calculations much" part: You need to take your precalculated, unchanging total bonus to attack with your weapon, and then add situational modifiers. Kinda like in most RPGs. There you go, video shortened by about 1/3rd. Don't get me wrong, I like both 5e and Pathfinder 2e, but now I have this theory that you might be forgetting to add some modifiers in 5e because damn, the difference is nearly non-existent in this regard. Let me say, I love your channel, it's just that I'm stunned this was the huge issue for you. Everyone I played PF2 with found the combat system very refreshing, and those were both people coming from PF1 and DnD5. For some this was their first RPG ever, and they understood combat almost instantly. Now, you wanna see some issues with D20 style system? Try Starfinder, mate. Roll an Envoy and mutliclass into Solarian to be a charismatic, raging, intimidating, violent hurricane of mayhem that does kinda OK dmg but in addition makes enemies simply fall to their kness and beg for mercy. Then tell me how those f-ed up silly low DCs (like, 16-18) for all your class stuff are working out with enemies who have +10 to almost each save at this point. Because they are all attached to your class level, not character level. Had to add it to show I am NOT simply a Paizo fanboy, I genuinely don't understand where you're coming from considering all this math like it has to be done with each single attack. It's not about tribal culture ('muh chosen gaem better than urs") but purely logical comparison. I am now awaiting this one guy from the comments to call me an elitist, halfwit, and maybe say something about my mother because they didn't like their one Pathfinder game. Which makes me think of some awful one-offs with various RPG systems I had. Maybe I should try again, with some other GM, and check if it wasn't just a poor representation of the system. Maybe someone just didn't tell me that some of the stuff can just be added once and written down. Though, to be honest, if this was the case, I should've simply noticed it, right?

I’m running PF2 for new players. The math he’s describing isn’t something you generally have to do at the table after each roll. People typically have the big crunch already calculated on their character sheets and have to adjust for status effects. Which, to be fair, there is a lot to track. But printing a sheet of the core actions and combat status effects. Or using player aids like spell and feat cards to succinctly spell out what each spell and specialty feat does takes the mental load off of the players. At the table my players turns are: I do X, Y (rolls dice, I declare success or failure, they roll damage or apply effect), and then Z. As far as the DM goes. Status effects are a lot to keep track of, to be fair. But if you make yourself a handy DM screen (the stock one from Paizo IS pretty flush with easy to access information.) The biggest error that I’ve seen PF2 DMs run into are how to Calculate the various Circumstance Bonuses (which are a vast swath of the bonuses) is that... you DO NOT CALCULATE THEM. You just apply the highest bonus. As far as NPC equipment stats. Either don’t track them at all and just have them grant their AC bonus when used (skip the whole damage reduction part). Or just be general: Players hit (reduce the damage by hardness and apply broken. OR destroy the shield on a crit or high damage hit.) If the players hit again, the shield is destroyed. Done. I do enjoy most of your videos, but the who section about how complicated the combat is feels a bit disingenuous.

He lost me near the end when he started talking about how he didn't care about creating characters that much.

I've been running pathfinder 2e since the playtest, and also played 5e for several years and I honestly felt like the math level was basically the same for both. 2e has more options for character creation which I love (and is what killed 5e for me, kept playing cause the group was great), but most of those are dealt with on the character sheet. I didn't ever have a player feel the need to go as far down the rabbit hole as Ben does here which I mean could be an issue with my players I guess. But it does feel like he makes the game sound like the most complicated thing ever and I had two guys who'd never played an rpg before and they could handle and make choices about their characters by the end of the first session...

That attack run-through around the 18 minute mark is far more complex than the game actually is.

Here's a fun D&D meme that you can use on one of your games: the Healing Hammer. It's a +1 warhammer that casts cure wounds each and every time you deal damage. This means that this warhammer deals 1d8+Str+1, but then heals 1d8+1 each & every time you strike something with it. The origin of the Healing Hammer is pretty funny: "one day a player (we'll call Mike) overheard his DM (we'll call Terry) talking about running Journey to Castle Ravenloft, wich is a D&D 3.5 module. Now, unlike D&D 5e, in D&D 3.5 healing spells would actually harm undead creatures. Plus, Journey to Castle Ravenloft is loaded with undead creatures. So Mike was meda-gaming like crazy. Unfortunately for Mike, Terry was talking to a different group. Mike's group was playing The Red Hand of Doom, wich is filled with goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, ogres, & trolls, but no undead. So mike was stuck with a warhammer that dealt very little damage, but made for a great in-joke & one hilarious meme".

I've been playing PF2e (from 5e) and loving it! I've been having a blast playing as a scoundrel rogue!

Enjoyable video and glad that I got the Humble Bundle so I can really dig into this system. My only complaint was the section about the Ranger attack matrix. Yeah, it’s a lot of numbers but you’re also a dual wielding character with weapons of two different types of course it’s going to be complicated. 5e is simple but if I did the same setup there (Str weapon + Finesse weapon + modifying spell like Hunter’s Mark) it would be just as bad. It’s a fair example but just wanted to say to viewers not to judge a system based on choices made by the player.

7:30 I much prefer using the status effects like that because once I learn those status effects once and I see them mentioned on another ability, I know instantly what it does, whereas, in D&D 5e, everything is so overly verbose and a pain to read in the moment. I'm a slow reader when under time pressure, so anything to modularize the rules and cut down on duplicate words in giant text blocks is a plus for me.

With every video, I'm realizing more and more that Puffin Forest is one of /those/ players.

Me hearing Puffin talk about his playstyle and then remembering that literally this weekend: - I bought the Legendary Kineticist 2nd edition from legendary games. - ported my homebrew kineticist in my 2e game over to it. - played it - then after the session wondered whether the iterative blast class feat OR the focused blast infusion is stronger - then proceeded to spend 20-30 minutes calculation average damage with to-hit percentages, doing it again because I disregarded crit doubling and finally - coming to the conclusion that 'assuming 0 resistances/weaknesses' iteratives are better if you can hit them on a 12 and focused blast is better if you can't. And that entire process being really fun for me.

Players really need to be expected to have most of their math for attacks and damage figured out ahead of time in games as complex as Pathfinder. I like the idea of an attack matrix.

On the topic of lord of the rings and adventurers having solved basically every problem ever- The world is content, the dangers have been brutally killed and looted, the realm is at peace. Perfect time for an Evil campaign in my opinion. The orcs have been scattered, Aragon is king, all the big bads are dead- But it is my opinion player characters have to fight uphill most of the time. Mostly since what else -Is- There to do? Either the party is solving problems or making them. Often both in the same breath.

Honestly by the time I got to 25:00 I thought “the same people who think Pathfinder is too complicated play MTG in tournaments” and totally accepted that if you dedicate your attention to the game and your character design you will really enjoy yourself. The rules are there to allow crunch if you want it, you don’t need to apply the crunch at every table. Paizo did the hard work of homebrewing everything for us in a logical way so we players and GMs don’t feel like we’re buying books just to redesign the game WOTC publishes. Hats off to PF for a great product and opportunity for fun.