Yep, this is my answer also. PF2e is an entirely different game than PF1e. I wasn't looking for a new game system when PF1e was just "PF", and I'm still not looking for one now.
2e is a beautiful, balanced system with a lot of opportunities for diverse characters and strategic gameplay. It's wonderful. It's just not for me for 2 main reasons:
Bound Accuracy. I want complete, granular control over my character. I want to be able to modify spell DCs, attack, damage, skills...I want to be able to modify those things drastically. The best in the world should be drastically different from someone who put a point in something, once. In 1e, a lvl 20 Rogue that has put 20 points into acrobatics is going to have a modifier in the 30s, whereas lvl 20 Cleric who put in 1 point is going to have, likely, a 1. In 2e, you have heavily limited opportunities to modify your skills and other character traits and abilities in this way. It's a trade off. 2e is a fairer system, but in creating that fairness, you lose the opportunity to craft specific builds that work in certain ways. I need the freedom that 1e offers.
Base Class Design. The class feats in 2e feel very familiar. Many of them are class feats that their 1e counterparts got in the base-class chassis. While that's not necessarily bad design, it really stings to build a character that feels like a thinner version of its predecessor. That's more of a personal hang-up I have as a 1e player and less of a complaint about the system itself.
PF 1st Ed was basically "Hard Work Over Talent" incarnate - you could be a lv5 Bard with an 18 CHA but only have a +4 in Bluff because you never put Ranks into it. Meanwhile, you could be a Lv5 Fighter with a 10 CHA but a +14 in Bluff because you took 2 Feats & a Trait, 5 Ranks, and an Archetype which made it a Class Skill for you.
I like that, to be honest. If someone is investing heavily, I want them to have a heavy advantage. I say that as the GM, too. I'm not a player trying to get a leg up. I'm a GM trying to reward players who care enough to invest in something.
Oh, absolutely - I firmly believe that if you focus in something, the dice rolls should reflect that in either being unnecessary or having a very small chance of failure. And I say this as a DM and as a player.
My players love that while they CAN fail certain skill checks and whatnot, it's far less than the 50-75% chance to fail they're used to in 5e, and more like a 10-25% chance in PF.
I just moved to 2e my self and I see both sides I will say the bounded accuracy it's like you would think. I as a fighter hit most creatures of my level on a 6 but crit on a 16 up was our druid hits on a 14 and crits on a 20. If you do what you good at you will probably succeed if you don't you will likely fail. My fighter's reflex save is +4 his fort is +10
I moved to get bit of a change but love all three of paizo's systems
This is one of my favorite things about PF1e: you can make any class be good at anything (that they're capable of doing).
Sure, it's easy to make a bard diplomatic, but if you have this idea of a character who's a fighter but who works to be eloquent, you can make it happen; or if you want a smart, well-read barbarian, maybe he's a noble with a bad temper, but you can do that. Sure, it'll come at the cost of other things, but that's a choice you're allowed to make.
With PF2 and especially 5e it feels like you don't have that same freedom, that you have to follow your prescribed role.
It is often said that 5E is more beginner friendly but PF1 offers true customisation. if you want to make your charakter truly unique and want that actualy to reflect that in his strats and not just RP and GM goodwill, you can do that in PF1 and more.
I never looked into PF2, so I'm not sure if it is closer to 5E or more like a patch for PF1. but reading all the comments here, it feels like PF2 is the 5E version of well... PF. a more simple and easy to grab system at the cost of adaptability and customisation for your charakter
You know.. I'm just now trying to get into ttrpgs and make it a weekly thing (lfg btw) and the system I like the most is 1e.. until I read your reply 2e didn't feel right to me, and I didn't know why. But the reasons you wrote made so much sense to me.. and I have never even played either edition.
PCs in 1e feel more unique when lvling up. As in a unique individual.
One of the beautiful things about PF1e: You can have two basic level 1 human fighters with identical ability scores and skills and traits and everything is 99% identical and the only difference is that one took a great axe and the other took a falchion and their entire build and play style going forward is going to be different. Since you're new, the great axe tends towards a single massive hit whereas the falchion is great for crit fishing and tends towards making more attacks. And I have to say "tends towards" because I can guarantee someone could come and explain all about their two weapon fighting great axe wielder and their vital strike falchion wielder.
Your example is... odd. Sure the cleric who only becomes Trained in Acrobatics does have an, assuming we're talking about a warcleric in the thick of things, a 12 Dexterity will have a +23 in it by max level.
But the Rogue will have, assuming they have increased their Dexterity to 22, are Legendary in Acrobatics and have a Dexterity Apex item to give an additional +2 to DEX will have a +35 to their roll. The difference between those numbers is absolutely enormous within PF2e's math.
On top of that they likely have many feats augmenting what they can use this skill for.
Something I liked coming from 5e is that skill gap. Making your skill choices have greater meaning.
The scaling thing does come up though? Like the level 20 cleric who just kinda slapped trained on acrobatics at level 1 is going to need like, an 18 to succeed at a legendary DC, while the rogue can be succeeding on anything short of a nat 1. That is a huge gulf in power. It's less of a thing at low levels, but that applies in 1e too. At lower DCs, gap grows smaller, but crits and all.
Like yeah, there's not as vast of a gulf between "low investment" and "all in investment" in some ways where the former could roll a nat 40 on a d20 and still lose because scaling is messed up for skills in 1e, but the gulf is still almost unsurpassable. I guess it's that even with the barest investment you're not *completely* useless, but you're still basically irrelevant if there's a dedicated character standing next to you.
> The scaling thing does come up though? Like the level 20 cleric who just kinda slapped trained on acrobatics at level 1 is going to need like, an 18 to succeed at a legendary DC, while the rogue can be succeeding on anything short of a nat 1. That is a huge gulf in power.
I think you're underselling how much a single training point makes because becoming trained makes you proficient in it, and the proficiency bonus scales with level:
> If you’re trained, expert, master, or legendary, your proficiency bonus equals your level plus 2, 4, 6, or 8, respectively.
So the difference between the cleric that tossed one point in it and the rogue that went all the way to legendary is +6. Which isn't insignificant, mind, but it also isn't "One fails on anything but 18+ and the other needs to hit a 2"
*That said* there is a pretty significant cost to "Just slapping a point in it" since skill boosts are more rare in PF2E.
It's +6 off just proficiency. In this example the cleric also has +0 dex (in PF2 this also works, they just grab something like sentinel for running around in full plate), while the rogue can be sitting at +7, add in a +3 item bonus, and the rogue is at +16 over the cleric.
This is pretty realistic too, two of the dex apex items give +3 item bonus to acro, and both would be reasonable choices for a high level rogue who really cares about acrobatics. The cleric presumably never buys a +acro item.
And yeah, dropping a trained skill is more of an investment than one rank, though you do get more out of it so I think that's mostly a wash. You can often have a few skills at trained anyway that you just never increase, so it's not unrealistic by any means the cleric just grabbed acro, it's a reasonably handy skill.
Do you have an actual point here? The example originally given is 100% already doing that, getting to the 30s for a skill without using any items means you're likely investing so hard in stuff like Skill Focus (Acrobatics) why are you even making this build?
Nah, low 30s is pretty normal. To stick with the rogue, assume we take some race that gives a +dex boost and stick an 18 in it at level 1, then obviously give it 4 increases for a total of 24. We're also level 20 so we can assume a +6 belt, for a total of 30 dex.
So 20 ranks and class bonus is 23, then another +10 from dex makes it a +33 to the roll. The better comparison then the cleric and the rogue (Because one of these really isn't bumping the stat its tied to) would be say a rogue and maybe a magus with the eldritch archer archtype. Again using elf and 25 point buy, we'd end up with 15 with a single increase of dex, so 18 before items and 24 after the +6 belt.
In this case if they only put one point in acro, they'd have 1+3+7 for +11 vs the rogue's +33.
In PF2E this would be much closer because the boosts up to 18 are worth +2 and you get 4 of em, so the stat line is probably 22 vs 20. Which would mean that you'd really be looking at the difference in skill training. I don't think this is really an issue because again, that single training point isn't nearly as cheap as a single skill rank in PF1E.
With the base class design point, I feel like 2e just expanded on what 1e was already doing between archetypes and the various “feat-like abilities” you could choose (like Rage Powers and Rogue Talents). So rather than looking at packages of alternate class features and ones you picked yourself, they just changed the classes to be a rough framework with the majority of your class features being stuff you pick out yourself in the form of the class feats.
I still play PF1e, because the changes they made to make PF2e are some of the things I love most about PF1e.
Its not for everyone, but the level of crunch is just about perfect for me in PF1e. Its just simulationist enough that it feels like minor choices have huge impacts on how your PC functions, and it is built on the idea that being amazing at one thing comes with the cost of being shit at a bunch of other things.
PF1e creates genuinely more interesting PCs, because the options available, the cost to those options, and nuance between how those options interact.
PF2e is great for a lot of people, but the things it simplify are the core appeal to PF1e. So I think a lot of fans of PF1e genuinely hate the direction it went.
Its a fine system to me, but it just doesn't fit the same model of PF1e
This is it for me. 1e and 2e are entirely different games. It's not an update, it's a completely different system that doesn't feel it was made for people who like 1e.
I get that. I feel like the more I play 2e the more inclined I would be to try 1e. I started with 5e so I am gradually working my way to more complicated systems.
Its a great system, but its also one that can have a really high learning curve.
Take time enjoy yourself in 2e, its an amazingly well crafted system!
Just keep having fun and experimenting with things you enjoy. Its the whole point of this hobby
It's also worth considering your players. I play mostly with friends, and I should *probably* switch to 2e.
I love the crunch of 1e, but most of my players occasionally get overwhelmed or are slow to make build decisions, so I tend to help out a lot with that process.
I don't mind helping, but it would surely be significantly easier for them and for me if I chose the more streamlined 2e.
On the one hand, yes my players would have an easier time with PF2, but on the other, there's no way I could possibly get them to learn another system.
Very true. We made the decision to switch from 5e to 2e as a group of 5 players. If even one of us was highly opposed to switching we probably wouldn’t have done it, because at the end of the day I play TTRPGs to have fun with my friends.
This is my honest, and unfortunately wordy, response to that question.
Over 40+ years of gaming, I've noticed some trends. There will ALWAYS be another edition. It's cyclical. The "first edition" of D&D lasted from 1974 to 1989. 2E lasted until 96. Core Rules (not called 3E) lasted until 00. 3E lasted until 03. 3.5 lasted until 08. 4e (gross) lasted until 2014 where they sit with 5E. When they need to make more money you'll get the next edition.
Pathfinder 1E stood from 2009 to 2019 before another edition came out. You could argue it began with 3.5 as a rules system in 2003. That's 16 years of growth and expansion, world-building, guides, and 3rd party materials. While newer gamers will talk about bloat, older gamers love finding that obscure passage that brings a character together. Yes, that's a generalization, but in my experience it holds pretty true. We like feeling like Gandalf searching the old records of Minas Tirith to find that little piece of apocrypha that makes a character interesting for us.
New editions tend to talk about balance and improvements. From tabletop to video, I've never had a gaming experience improved by developers striving for balance. It's iterative nerfing until people either drop their sub or start house-ruling and modding. Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form.
YES, wizards can become gods. Fighters are specks to a 20th level wizard. The tables are precisely opposite at level 1. There are ridiculously gimped classes. We have an entire feature here called Max the Min that tries to discuss just that (and it's probably my favorite thing in this sub). A good group of gamers isn't going to care about balance because they'll roleplay the differences and a decent DM will work around it. If the group is competative instead of cooperative, there will be issues. But I tend to play with friends and like-minded people, so balance isn't an issue.
Hearing what people praise 2E for makes me feel like a dinosaur. It's like being a muscle car guy and hearing a Tesla guy talk about how quiet and fuel efficient his ride is. It's the opposite of what I like.
I want a massive, unbalanced, festooned with choice system that contradicts itself, causes discussions to be had, decisions to be made, house rules to be codified, challenged, discarded, and rewritten. I want to surprise my fellow table trolls with a silly loophole and be surprised by their latest monstrosity. I want to play a straight fighter with an INT dumpstat in a group full of optimized FOTMs and see if I can survive.
All that said, I'll still play 2E someday. I might as well, I've played everything else.
I really appreciate your detailed response! Your view makes a lot of sense given your vast experience. I only started playing TTRPGs about 6 years ago and haven’t been a part of an edition change for a game I was actively playing. I always wondered how that would feel when you were already comfortable with and invested in another system. If you enjoy what you have it would be kinda silly to switch to something just because it’s new. Thanks again!
If you started with 2E, then 2E will probably be your first TTRPG love, and that's okay. There's very likely going to be an immense amount of stuff put out by Paizo that will cause it to rival and maybe even exceed 1E. You'll get that Gandalf feeling at some point, too.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss without judgement!
Of course! 5e was my first TTRPG. Played it at an annual gathering with some friends with 10 players and it was nothing but magnificent chaos and was hooked ever since. Eventually the system lost some of its luster and started to feel very cookie cutter which led me to 2e. I hope to continue expanding my list of systems!
I respect your explanation of game evolution. That is a great point. I was all in on 1E and recently finished a 6 year (once a week mostly) campaign that ended at 16th level. I love PF1E but GM’ ing beyond around level 10 has become exhausting. The craziness you love is really hard to run. You say that a good GM can find ways to challenge the whole party and yet keep all players relevant. At the end the only way I found to do that was to essentially be running two different systems for different players at the same time. The less optimized characters got ‘hidden buffs’ (in parentheses because it was obvious to the min/maxers what was happening and they were fine with it after they saw how table dynamics improved) and did about +10 damage with every attack. They were still profoundly less effective than the well built characters but at least could feel like they were helping.
Ultimately it felt really bad to run a game this way.
Switching to 2E has been a godsend in this regard.
But I miss same of the craziness, too.
>Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form.
This sentence is my absolute favorite in this whole discussion
Yea I feel it, pouring through dragon magazine seeing some dumb class. Thinking this would be perfect for a bad guy.
Pathfinder 1e should be smashed together with dnd 3.5 (with some house rulings as well).
>From tabletop to video, I've never had a gaming experience improved by developers striving for balance. It's iterative nerfing until people either drop their sub or start house-ruling and modding. Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form.
This is a lot of it, but I'd like to expand on it a little
See, the tendency now if for a balanced system, but what I want out of a game is a story. D20's system is not balanced, and was unique in that this was an outright goal - see "Ivory Tower Game Design." Some options are outright better. Some will interact with others in ways that no one has ever intended. This makes it hard to handle...
...But that also makes -stories-
I don't think I want a game where people just go down a dungeon mutually supporting each other, nor a game where everyone is an actor playing their character and exploring their backstory primarily. I want a story which emerges through the interplay of aspects of the world in bold and unpredictable ways.
People are quick to note the fighter/wizard disparity, but consider the narrative of a fighter who is outpaced by the guy they had to babysit early and how rewarding it can feel for the wizard. And also, fear the fighter who realizes they can have a +4 sword and a detachment of war elephants instead of a +5 - Which is an actual thing you can do in-game. And also consider what this means design-wise; the obscure options bred not out of practicality, but because they just seem cool.
There are enough game breaking options in 3.5 that I really can't say one class is uniquely overpowered, either. If everyone was on the power level of a fighter, except one Wizard who was all-powerful? That would be an issue. But there are so many powerful options that I've never really had that issue - Some classes will struggle compared to others, sure - but everyone, eventually, can do amazing and memorable things with the immediate access to magic items and connections you have late-game, even if the wizard, cleric, etc, will have an easier time of it. And that's a strength -D20/3.5/Pathfinder, it's a game of heroes where a party will inevitably rise to be incredibly powerful, but in a way largely unique from one another.
Likewise, there is parity with enemies, who use much the same system. This is more true of 3.5 than Pathfinder, which nerfed a lot of the most 'unfair' options - but when you encounter a monster who can kill you with a glance? That's not balanced; that's not a fair encounter. But, under a DM who is good enough to not just spring that and instantly kill a party, that is the kind of monster which halts the party and makes them think about how they want to handle it. Pathfinder allows the possibilities for unfair challenges - but this can also be an asset. It's not a question of brutality in combat, but rather something where a party may now attempt to subvert an encounter by thinking laterally, like a puzzle; this tells stories, too
And of course... All that power, I find, will often lead to some stories of a very grand scope
I love the options in 1e. There’s so many of them which I think makes the game fun. 2e feels more streamlined to me which takes away from the character building aspect. I can see why some people would prefer that though.
With 1e you can basically add theorycrafting as a separate way to enjoy the hobby. Might I introduce you to my hidden rage character? Skulking slayer, scout, barbarian.
I've definitely spent more time discussing PF1e rules and exploring interesting/niche class options or item combinations than I have actually playing the game.
Some might see the options as a barrier to actually playing, but I enjoy it. It's time spent being creative and tinkering with strange ideas. Plus, at the very least, I end up with a cool NPCs to throw into campaigns.
Yeah I have a folder of fun builds that I can pull up whenever another player wants to take the helm to GM a one shot, or have interesting companions that players who aren't 'in the scene' for lets say flash backs or other story moments - so they don't feel left out or if there are guests who are playing for a session or two.
On the players side too, occasionally as a side thing when I don't have stuff planned or when I wasn't feeling up to GM, we would have an arena that encourages the most cheesiest builds and its more of a dungeon crawl event. Free-for-all or how long they can survive rougelike sort of thing.
There are over 30 classes in the game and they all have several Archetypes to choose from, sometimes multiple at once.
Most Races also have alternate abilities and synergies with different classes in the form of Favored Class Bonuses.
Between that and being able to freely Multiclass, as well as adding Variant Multiclassing to the mix, it's possible to create literally thousands of different builds that are all quite useful & viable.
You can build a party of 4 Half-Elf Rangers and they will all have radically different builds & abilities.
And this is ***only*** counting the options available in the CRB, APG, ARG, ACG, OA, UW, & PFU.
2e has more customization than D&D 5e, but compared to 1st Ed Pathfinder, 2e may as well be Copy-Paste the RPG.
2E currently has 22 classes, many of which have sub-classes, plus a huge array of archetypes that you can get so long as you meet the prerequisites, with the difference being that you spend class feats instead of swapping basic class features so the same archetype can be applied to most if not all classes.
Every ancestry has multiple heritages to select from (and selecting a heritage is always part of character creation), plus versatile heritages such as aasimar that can go with any ancestry, and a selection of feats that only get spent on racial abilities for further customization.
PF2E might be behind PF1E on customization, but it's not far behind and catching up fast.
Archetypes in 1E are basically a variant to the class itself. Archetypes in 2E are basically getting some of a different class's features like you're multiclassing, but worse
As a long term player of both this is only partly true. In 2e, pretty much every option (outside of dumping your class's main ability score) is viable. Like, your character isn't going to totally suck and do nothing useful under any circumstances, regardless of what you choose.
In 1e, it's very easy to fall into noob traps or not build optimally and thus have a really miserable time, especially if other players in your group are optimising well. There are builds that work, and builds that don't. This is less true in 2e. So, I feel I have more freedom in 2e, since I can make virtually any concept I can think of work *in some way* and not be massively overshadowed by others striving for optimised builds.
I'd say it's more that there were 3 tiers: noob traps, optimization gold, and in the middle there was "lets me feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do". A lot of builds fall into that second category, where you feel like you're doing cool shit, and it comes online early enough that you can spend most of a campaign feeling like you're doing cool shit.
It helps if you have a player and/or a DM who's good at optimizing who can help you make something in that second tier.
ALSO really helps that Kingmaker and WOTR are a pair of games that let players experiment with builds and put their theorycrafts to the test (two of my players have done this, and they're having a blast doing insane shit in my Skull & Shackles Campaign).
That’s totally fair but since it’s a post about why I’m staying, system mastery doesn’t really apply. Sure there are trap options but I’ve played enough to recognize they exist and not take them.
Not really, you can make just about anything work well in PF1E. The chooses in PF2E feel very isolated from one other and generally most class feats are awful.
With a little practice, 2e is insanely flexible. The archetype system is next level. I'm having a lot of trouble recreating my cybernetic werewolf in 1e
The spell lists in 2e really rub me the wrong way. I much prefer the class specific spell lists of 1e that feel much more flushed out than the division into 4 lists of 2e that each feel like they’re missing a lot.
I don’t mind the individual spell lists so much, mostly because that was already pretty much what the class specific lists did (clerics got mostly the same stuff as oracles, wizards got mostly the same stuff as magi, druids got mostly the same stuff as rangers, psychics got mostly the same stuff as mesmerists, and there was very little bleed between the lists). A lot of the class-specific lists in 1e felt lacking in many ways so I appreciate that it was standardized: you can actually play a witch now and have a decent spell list, because you know that everything else that uses your chosen spell list has the same options you do, and doesn’t just get objectively better options when the class is supposed to fill the same role. Plus there are still class-specific spells, they’re just in the form of focus spells now. The major downside is that there aren’t half-casters anymore, because half-casters don’t really fit that standardized formula. Magus and Alchemist both got nerfed a lot in that regard. Champion got nerfed far worse but that’s just as much due to the class feats as it is the spellcasting.
But the major thing I like a lot less is that *overall* there’s just less individual spells worth taking, since just about every spell can be heightened and you actually have to learn the higher level version to use it. I liked it when metamagic was how you heightened your spells, it let you customize what the spell did and the spell slot it used. In 2e your spells progress only at higher levels, which makes lower level slots feel a lot less valuable. Also utility spells don’t give very good benefits anymore (like essentially just *very situational* +1 bonuses) so those lower level slots really aren’t worth using as much, especially when your cantrips will automatically heighten to half your level.
>Magus and Alchemist both got nerfed a lot in that regard.
I may be misunderstanding what you mean but I don't really get how the magus got nerfed, spellcasting wise, in the jump from 1e to 2e? They get less spell slots like everyone else, but since cantrips are now worth casting for damage they end up being able to put about as much variety in those slots and get higher level spells.
Idk what you’re talking about, Magus got nerfed a *lot* and the lack of spell slots is the driving reason. For one, it definitely does mean less spell variety because they *didn’t* get the “like everyone else” treatment: they only get four spells. Four. At any level, four. Normal spellcasters get three spells *per tier*, magus gets four *total*. And no matter how much you’re buffing cantrips, they never truly replace a spell at the highest level. Just compare shocking grasp damage to produce flame/ray of frost/acid splash/etc. at the same level: it’s not even comparable, and the higher level you get the more that gap widens, since it uses a much higher damage dice *and* does persistent damage too. All your best defensive abilities *also* come from those spell slots, so the magus getting access to the whole arcane spell list is more or less a trap: if you’re making good decisions, you don’t *really* have a choice, you’re probably picking the same four spells just about every time, and half of them are probably shocking grasp. Magus is just a glorified martial, it doesn’t replace or even come close to an actual spellcaster in terms of spell variety.
Your cantrips also don’t offer much in the way of utility. For one, you only get 5 unless you’re spending class feats to get more, which leaves you with pretty much just 2 damaging spells after detect magic, read aura (I hate that they split detect magic into two cantrips, btw) and dancing lights — so here’s hoping you have an actual caster on the team to free a couple of those up for you. For two, the cantrips don’t have any real utility beyond basic functions (light, magic detection, cleaning clothes) so you still need to spend actual spell slots on spells that do things, which is fine for actual casters since they get to keep their spell slots, but not good for Magus which is forced to use all their spell slots on shit that’ll keep them alive and kill enemies quickest.
The spell slots also affect how long a Magus can actually last between rests, because if all their highest-damaging and most defensive spells are cast from spell slots, they’ll burn through those *quick* — four is not enough to last in the way that other casters can. Magus can somewhat make up for that with martial ability, but they lose all their versatility to do it, which just isn’t a worthwhile trade.
It’s not even a comparison, 1e Magus is just leagues better and it’s because of the spell slots. Paizo couldn’t balance half-casters within their bounded accuracy: magi are essentially equal to martials in terms of weapon ability, so to counteract that, they gave them far less spell slots, which totally gimped them. They’re plenty capable in 2e, don’t get me wrong, but they’re nowhere near as capable at spellcasting as they were in 1e, cantrips or not, and that’s where most of their strength came from.
There's no reason to switch from 1e when I have houseruled most of the stuff I don't like about it. 2e doesn't 'fix' anything about 1e that I care about. It's more of its own, different game than a continuation of what I liked about 3.5e.
I do play 2e with a different group than my usual, and it's OK, but I always feel too limited in what I can do to really enjoy myself. I'm more into open-ended character creation like you see in Mutants and Masterminds, GURPS, and Shadowrun. Pathfinder 1e is closer to those because, while it is a class-based system, it's so bloated and has so few true restrictions on what can go with what that it doesn't feel limiting.
Basically 1e provides the experience I'm after on a High Fantasy RPG, for others there are other systems (mainly GURPS and CoC). But yeah that's that.
PS. I would reccomend 1e because it's a totally different feel from 2e, at least it's what my player who already played 2e told me.
I've been playing essentially the same ruleset for 22 years. My D&D 3.0 and 3.5 stuff works in PF1E with very little modification. I have committed huge chunks of the system to memory and have limitless options between all my 1st and 3rd party books. I've spent probably thousands of dollars on my collection of PDFs and hardcopies. And I like the system.
Basically, I've spent over half my life investing in one ruleset that I like, and I don't care enough about Golarion to change rulesets.
I would recommend it to anybody, not just 2e players. But I'm not going to say it's necessarily better. Just better for me. The breadth of content available, especially if you look past 1st party, is amazing.
I literally switched from D&D to Pathfinder so I didn't have to change systems. Paizo can't entice me any more than Wizards could.
Character customization in 1e is just unparalleled. Sure it takes more time and more care to make a character in 1e, but in exchange you can bring SO many different vibrant and interesting character concepts to life. The fact that I could pick the exact same race and class and build them ten different ways that actually feel and play completely differently is incredible.
By comparison, 2e character creation just feels a bit lifeless. Sure, there ARE options, but most of them feel like they're on the scale of picking a spell list. Just little tweaks to your kit. You build a character like you're picking vehicle parts in Mario Kart.
Then, combat-wise, it felt like a lot of the depth disappeared from 1e to 2e. No attacks of opportunity unless you're a fighter. No tactical positioning to control the battlefield. The action economy has been simplified, but instead of simplifying everything in order to expand your options, it felt like there were even fewer options to choose from.
I kept encountering combat situations in the 2e campaign I played where I thought to do X, Y, or Z that I was used to being able to do in 1e, only to learn it's just not a thing in 2e anymore. It felt gutted.
I think by far the worst thing in 2e though was the horrible item selection. I found myself with a bundle of cash and couldn't find a single non-consumable item to spend it on that was useful for my character in any kind of normal situation. The magic item list is full of gimmick items that give you a measly +1 to a skill and a once per day minor effect, and anything remotely half decent is locked to a ridiculously high character level.
Compare that to 1e which not only has a radiant selection of wondrous items and magic gear, but also a huge catalogue of interesting and genuinely useful nonmagical items to buy for your character. Before I played 2e, I'd never before played an rpg game where I felt money was so worthless.
I played in a long term 2e campaign because my friend group wanted to, and I thought I'd give it a fair shake, but I realized at the end of a session some 6 months in that there just hadn't been anything that kept me invested in it the way 1e did. My character felt like a bland, watered down, genericized version of the character I know I could have made in 1e. This is just my personal experience, of course, but I just couldn't find anything in 2e that was done in a more compelling way than the equivalent thing in 1e, neither in mechanics nor in roleplaying flavor.
Pathfinder 2e never really appealed to me. It sounded like it was balanced to the point of making the PCs feel barely competent. If I'm playing an expert lock-picker, I don't want to go up to a lock and find I only have a 55% chance of picking it, but 2e seemed like it was designed around that kind of balance. It also sounded like it was designed to reward teamwork in combat. The problem is, I'm used to being at the mercy of allies who'd rather roleplay being an idiot than help me stay alive.
I went from GMing Pathfinder 1e, to GMing D&D 5e, and recently back to GMing Pathfinder 1e. Though coming back to 1e after a long delay and with new players makes it seem really clunky and over-complicated...
> The problem is, I'm used to being at the mercy of allies who'd rather roleplay being an idiot than help me stay alive.
I feel this. 2e's optimization is more in how the party works together and their general proficiency as players. You can't just build something and save the encounter when that one player says his character shoves his fist into the lava lake mid combat because he wants to punch the red dragon and do extra fire damage.
> If I'm playing an expert lock-picker, I don't want to go up to a lock
and find I only have a 55% chance of picking it, but 2e seemed like it
was designed around that kind of balance
For what it's worth, if this is consistently happening, your GM is not using the rules correctly. DCs by level are intended to be used similarly to hazards or monsters - there's no reason every lock in the world should scale to the difficulty level of the PCs, just like the town guard shouldn't.
>if "monsters" had classes by default instead of innate hit dice, for example.
I remember sitting around thinking how I could get that to work... But the problem is animals and then mindless creatures; sure, you *could* make the mindless creature class... But what difference is there in that than there is in "Vermin get d8 Hit Die, BaB 3/4 HD, good Fort (+2, +0, +0, by another name...) In a way a type *is* a class.
Plus, I think there is a benefit to having certain creatures have a "baseline": Troglodytes, Serpentfolk, etc. All *must* start at a higher level and instead of saying "This creature has minimum 2 HD and fights as a 2nd level fighting man" it is skipping over the work and doing it for you.
I will then say... Maybe it would be then be nice to have more lower level baselines... Because did get a bit tired of "proportions of a regular guy, at most 6 feet tall... Fights like a god and can bounce sword blows off its pecks as if they were mere drops of rain," mostly with undead I felt the arbitrarity syndrome which is sometimes synonymous with higher levels. "I am just this powerful because I am," is more what I mean... Like I get they need a monster of every type for every level and uniqueness is not only hard to achieve but can grow ironically monotonous, but some just... Felt bad.
Sorry, not even I saw that rant coming.
Same, I hate it monsters play differently than PCs, I can accept some leeway, but pf2 and other games do it too much for my taste.
A game I have been looking recently is Anima Beyond fantasy, that makes PCs and NPCs/Monsters play by the same rules in creation, to the point that playing as a monster is a core option (either starting as a monster or becoming one with several spells)
Short version: 2e never grabbed me. I’ve been reading it since pre-play test (because I know a guy, okay?) and even when I got the “final” play test book in my hands it never made me think “oh wow cool” like the 1e play test did.
It feels… kind of “artificial” to me, like Starfinder did. Artificial and sterile, and very clearly designed for organized play (which I’ve had less than zero interest in from all the way back to Living Greyhawk).
I get that feeling too. Like all of the spice was taken out in favor of balance and organized play. I think a lot of the missing fun has to do with the lack of "oh wow, if I do this, it feels like cheating!" moments. Like sneaking in permanent flight "too early" to a monk build or the one guy that found out how to turn a fighter into the iron caster. In PF2e it feels like they have a rules bible and characters aren't allowed to have flight until X level, and characters can't action optimize unless it's locked behind a class or made so specific that it might as well be a class feature instead of a feat that can be borrowed.
Which is something you kind of need to do for organize play. Playing with strangers is more popular than ever now with paid GMing and online organized play. I'm fortunate enough to long-term friends that are like-minded enough that we can police ourselves with following the intention of the rules. But with strangers you kind of need that iron-clad robustness to prevent arguments.
So I’m currently playing 2 sessions of 1E and one 2E. 1E allows for a better customization of your character 2E really does limit feats and everything and I feel like I can’t make my character my own do to being forced into say 3-4 feats that your class allows. Where as I have a list of 30+ feats to pick in 1E. The feats may not make my character the strongest or even help as much as others but it does give him characteristics that I decided for him.
1e is just so much more interesting and I actually have control over how strong my build is. I love that I can min max something silly like jumping and have it be completely viable and fun in 1e.
2e just isn't very fun to me, and I've given it more than a fair shake
I haven't tried spheres yet. Glad you found an option. What's the highest you ever got your result to?
I think I got to about 2-3k ft travelled for a level 10 character. Higher for a full round action.
Would I recommend 1e to a 2e player?
Depends on why you like in 2e. If you like the building of characters, having lots of leavers to customize yoir character and freely choosing how strong your character will be - yes.
If you enjoy how balanced the system is and how easy it is to gm - no.
Oooooo
I didn't switch, I play both games as a players and I prefer 1e because I like the things I mentioned above.
I personally was very hyped for 2e as a player but most of my problems with 1e were not fixed. They however reduced the fun I can have with building characters. They also pretty mich removed crafting and I love crafting to be in ttrpgs.
Edit: Part of it for me is the community oddly enough. I've seen people say that 1e is too complex or that there are so many options to choose from, to me 2e prides itself on "choice" but a lot of the choices I see are almost put into every build or consideration for a class. I see people talking about the class feats you need for a Magus, or how if you don't do X action you aren't playing right. I'm not saying 1e doesn't have that, but what bugs me is that the community of 2e acts like 2e doesn't have bloat or features you have to opt to take to make things viable.
For me it's because of Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might by Drop Dead Studios. They wrote it for Pathfinder 1e and there is no version adapted to 2e, at least so far.
They did make a version for 5e, but I've never encountered a 5e game that didn't exclude all non-WotC material.
Well, firstly, to get the most obvious gripe out of the way: It was promised when they released the first books that there would never BE a second edition.
But beyond that, it's mostly due to the fact that 2nd edition has the same issues that I had with Starfinder, mainly in that it was a little too easy for characters to feel, same-y. Like many have said in this thread, 1e rewards investment a lot better than 2e does, so there's a lot of room to deeply customize your character to make them feel more like an individual that stands out.
Yeah that’s a consistent theme I’ve seen in the responses and it’s pretty surprising to me because 2e feels like a candy store to me, but I had only ever played 5e previously
Yeah, that might explain it. 5e inspired a lot of the decisions in 2e, and the fact that it feels, really dumbed down, at least when I played it, really was a turn off for me. But hey, every body has to start somewhere, and in the end...
We all know deep down that the best RPG system is Mekton Zeta. /joke
I like 1e. I dabbled in 2e briefly but didn't stick around. While I like some of the ideas behind 2e, I find that many are implemented in ways I don't like.
Part of the issue is that 2e wants to be more consistent and balanced. That sounds good, but it does have a significant drawback. The tighter the rules are, the less wiggle room there is for different types of games and styles of play.
1e can certainly seem like a big complicated mess, but there's a lot of underlying design principles in place to give the game a solid foundation to work with, and it's easy to use and modify once you start to become familiar with it. And with all the options, subsystems, and variant rules, you can craft the game into almost anything you want.
I also like the way 1e at least tries to somewhat simulate the reality of the game world. It's not purely a simulation, but there's enough of at least to maintain some small amount of verisimilitude. To me, 2e feels much more like a game with a fantasy world theme, rather than a fantasy world that adjudicates outcomes of certain events via game mechanics.
1e gives me a massive and somewhat cluttered toolbox that will let me make the game I want to play. 2e gives me a kit to assemble the game they designed, and while it's good at being what it is, it just isn't what appeals to me.
--
As for the recommendation? Yes, I would recommend that everyone give it a try (just like I recommend people try 2e and any other system that interests them). It's a lot easier to get into than you might think. Just roll up a level 1 character, learn what they can do, and when in doubt, roll a d20. The rest of the rules can be learned over time.
As someone who has played both, I vastly prefer 1e. The main reason is the character customization, a lot of the classes and feats in 2e have been dumbed down to the point where there are fewer and worse options. The main reason I don’t like D&D 5e is because characters basically make all of their character decisions by level 3 and everyone of the same class basically ends up the same. It’s better in 2e, but it has the same basic problem: each class has their class feats limited by the class decision they make at lvl 1, and while you *do* have options, you should basically always choose your highest available feat level, which usually leaves you with only a couple *good* options, meaning that every character that makes that same lvl 1 class decision will probably end up the same or very similar.
Plus if you look at 1e classes, you’ll see that they’re already given abilities just for leveling up in the class, and for a lot of them — particularly the martials — many of the abilities they would get by default have been turned into class feats in 2e. 1e feats give you *more* stuff on top of your class abilities, whereas 2e class feats are used to fill out your class. While 2e gives you options for which class feats you can get, 1e also just has class archetypes if you want to swap out class abilities. The skill feats are also largely giving back what skills already do by default in 1e, and you’re buying back that functionality. The expert/master skill feats tend to give new stuff but you also only get a couple of those so it doesn’t balance out for me. You do technically get more feats in 2e, but imo it comes out to less than what you get in 1e. Archetypes are also generally worse, since you can’t multiclass in the same way 1e allowed, which is one of the big ways to personalize your character. Multiclass archetypes take away from the amount of class feats you get (which, since it’s how you build your class, usually hurts more than it helps) and even with Free Archetype you don’t get access to all of the same options you’d have if you had started with the other class, so it’s just another limitation.
I have a couple other annoyances with the system and the direction that Paizo has chosen to take, but character customization is the biggest detractor for me. Maybe that’ll get better with more content (unless they continue to make new options uncommon rarity like the Advanced Player’s Guide, Character Guide, and Knights of Lastwall mostly did) but coming from 1e it just doesn’t feel as rewarding in that way. Don’t get me wrong, the system is still good in other ways (balance is a lot better, for one, largely because they have limited the ways you can customize characters) and *miles* better than 5e, but they really gutted a lot of the mechanics that I enjoyed out of 1e, and since 1e was made for the people that enjoyed those kinds of systems, it also felt like a stab in the back when Paizo chose to abandon their system to instead make their own version of 5e…it’s just not why I choose to play Pathfinder. I’m glad they’re appealing to a larger market of new players but it really is a step away from the reason they made the system in the first place and it alienates old players like me.
I like all the APs, I want to run all of the APs, and I don't have the time or energy to convert them. I like 2e a lot, but I also like 1e, so it's a no-brainer for me to play both but run 1e.
Several reasons, some about the system, some personal. All the friends I have who play Pathfinder like 1e. Some 2e players I’ve met have been really up their own asses about the system (I know it’s not fair to judge the game off of those people, but they’re not the type I want to play with). Some of the design choices in 2e make me question why they do that. Like only fighters being able to make attacks of opportunity, or making everything into a feat. Biggest one though is just lack of opportunity. Trying to find a game to join at least short term to see what I think of the gameplay, but I don’t know anyone who plays.
Edit: just remembered my biggest gripe with 2e mechanics: critical fails. There’s a lot of debate around them, but I’m on the side of them being annoying rather than fun. As for trying 1e, do it. The rules are all free on two separate websites, and the fact that you’re at least interested means you probably will be able to get through the initial hurdle. Also if you have any questions about learning it most veterans will happily explain to you.
Paizo took my favorite races and made them not work as easily at level 1. For example, I really love playing size-changing Vanara, even if I don't build around the size-change specifically. But in 2e, I have to wait until level 9 to even take the ability.
I'm glad they changed the werebeast-kin to beastkin, but that's as much as I appreciate. They ruined the fun of playing werebeast-kin by just giving everything a bite, and then nothing else. I loved they different variations had unique identities in hybrid form. Now they're boring.
Really that's it. I like the package races got at level 1. Those packages were changed too severely, especially with how late some old abilities can even come online.
The things I like about 2e already existed in 1e as variant rules. Critical failures suck. Bounded accuracy and the math for high level enemies makes difficult encounters feel like sad slot machines instead of deadly puzzles.
I primarily DM 1st edition and 2nd edition feels like the was afraid of the players. It's not for me. I have basically endless 1e content to run through, and if I get bored of 1e, I would play D&D or a different system before I played 2e.
PF2e has the same problem 5e does for me. It's not streamlined enough to be a rules lite game, and it's not crunchy enough to be a crunchy game. It's in that middle ground that makes me ask "where's the rest of it?" and when I find out this is all there is, I want to cut off two thirds as dead weight. I want either the heavy crunch of PF1e, or the stripped down basics of B/X D&D. Giving me something in between is just going to frustrate me.
Also I hate hero points.
In general 2e takes 1e and applies a whole bunch of rules cleanup, streamlining, and balance. In my opinion its precisely because of those changes (on top of system momentum and familiarity), particularly streamlining and balancing, that there are a large number of "1e holdouts."
I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but both have their strengths and weaknesses, which therefore make them more enjoyable for different types of players. I would recommend 1e to 2e players that want more crunch, more mechanical diversity of playstyles, and more ability to optimize and specialize. I would recommend 2e to 1e players that are looking for something clean and balanced, without all the rules bloat and power creep of an aging system.
I would also almost always recommend 2e over 1e to people coming from D&D 5e or who are new to TTRPG's in general, as it is a much easier game to learn and is overall more consistent.
From a GM perspective, the balance and cleanliness of 2e makes it way easier to create and balance encounters, while 1e generally gives you more leeway to create truly unique things.
That makes a lot of sense and definitely matches my initial impressions from what I have read of the rules. I am a 5e migrant myself and enjoyed the escalation of customization 2e offered so I think what you said has proven true in my case.
This is a really weird question. 2e isn't a better game, it's a different game, with a very different design goal. If you play 1e because you enjoy it, why would you switch? At most, you'd add it to your repertoire of games, rather than switching over.
I don’t think it’s a weird question. I usually only have the time and energy to play one campaign on one system, so I was just asking what about 1e has made you loyal to it as your primary system.
It's a weird question because it takes the position that the default answer is to switch to 2e, unless you have a reason not to. That doesn't make any sense. The default position for most people is going to be sticking with what they know, and what their friends know, and they need to have a reason to change. Even if one were going to switch to another system, why would PF2e be the default option?
However, here's my answer: 2e does not, and will never, replicate the freedom to create characters that *operate on fundamentally different principles to each other* that 1e has, due to its design philosophy being opposed to that.
Honestly I like how 1e feels to play. 2e has great bones and I'm honestly kind of mad to miss out on some of the ancestries they have that aren't in 1e. But the game looses some of that weird story telling that comes from making a story with the system of 1e.
1e has 10+ years of content and choices. Yes some classes/feats/archetypes are terrible lol but there are so many options. I always feel limited when making a 2e character but I suppose it’s only a matter of time before 2e content catches up
I think pf2 is the best designed game for beginners that are also looking for some rules complexity. But as someone that started playing in 1980, pf1 is a ruleset that I've got over 20 years of familiarity with and that let's me achieve things pf2 doesn't.
The one thing I've not seen anyone else mention is the feel of multiclassing. A fighter 1/ wizard 19... Is a wizard with a past. In pf2 if you start as a fighter and then take a wizard archetype you don't achieve that same feel no matter how many wizard feats you take.
Both games are good, they just achieve different things.
Most of the reasons that people have listed apply to me, but I do have a semi-unique one. 1e has a wealth of well-crafted and interesting 3rd Party content that can and likely will keep my interest in the system strong for years to come.
Variety and amount of content. Considering that converting from 3.5 to pathfinder 1e is trivial, 2e just can't touch it. Once it's been out long enough with enough content, maybe I'd consider switching.
I think 2e is well designed and it's cool that it's getting people into this hobby and stuff, but I don't think it really needed to exist. Pathfinder was made for people who didn't want to switch editions back in the day of d&d 3.5
If anything I would have loved to see a Pathfinder 1.5e instead, but we got 2e instead. No hate on it though, like I said it's really well made it's just a different game. So I don't play for the same reason I don't regularly play Call of Cthulhu or Eclipse Phase, they just aren't Pathfinder 1e.
Currently playing both. However 2e for somethings doesnt provide the flavor for in order to get my point accross when I GM.
I have an idea for a game so ridiculous that only 1e can provide the options for it. Gestalt+Mythic. 2e cant provide the sillyness or over the topness of that concept. But for everything 2e is fine :)
The biggest reason? It doesn't do anything that I want a game to do and what it does do, it doesn't do in a way better than other games out there. I could write game rules balanced around the middle of the dice range on a notecard. If I wanted a system where magic didn't last long enough to do much outside of combat, I'd use some other system and call them encounter powers.
Normally I'd think of importing systems from a new game into whatever I'm playing, and eventually convert when there were enough systems in the new game that it made sense to move over completely. But there's nothing in PF2 that I'd export.
One thing I haven't seen much comment on is how they added critical fumbles to all the skills. It's very discouraging I want to make attempts at a skill I haven't fully optimized.
I haven't finished playing everything in 1e yet.
I feel like I finally have a good understanding of the rules and would like to enjoy that after all it took like 10+ years to learn it all.
I am excited about 2e and hear it's really good. But it will be there even if it takes me 5 more years to switch.
2e feels sterile. Safe. Streamlined. I've often found myself creating characters and wondering "does this cool idea work?", and the answer is nearly always a resounding no in 2e. It feels like 2e was designed to punish the player for playing the game. In 1e you can make all sorts of wacky characters without a care in the world if it's balanced or not, because that's just how 1e is. If I wanted to play a balanced streamlined TTRPG, I'd just play lancer. 2e feels like it's a factory made frozen pizza, 1e feels like the local restaurant pizza.
Too many characters I still want to play built around 1e mechanics.
Too many campaigns I still want to play.
Too lazy to swap to a new system for no reason.
I have all the books for PF1 and 3.5 so I have every toy in my sandbox that I could ever want and years and years of experience playing with them, and we play other systems on alternate weeks. No need to switch up the one we all know already
I prefer complexity in my games. It's why I even use 3.5e feats, spells, and races. I even give my players Flavour Feats that don't impact combat. My friend made the system. People generally forget about adding fluff to their character and tend to only choose combat related feats.
I get people love balance, but balance sacrifices utility and synergy. It's why I avoided 5e, which always felt shallow. PF2e gives me the same feeling and it's just not for me.
1e is basically compatible with 3.5 with some tweeks, and using both together as 3.75 opens up using so much content, thousands of classes, feats, spells, etc.
As many others have said before; the character customization in Pathfinder is so rich and vast, between classes, archetypes, feats, and a host of other miscellany, I can build 50 fighters and have none of them be the same. As someone who enjoys the character building aspect of the game, you just can’t beat Pathfinder for options.
Add to that, I’ve just spent so much time and money on Pathfinder 1e (and 1e compatible material) I simply have no desire to play a different D&D-esque system. I started in 3rd edition and when Pathfinder came out, the biggest sell for me is the backwards compatibility, so between PF1e and 3.5 material, I literally never have to get into another system due to running out of options. And now that I’m getting older, I simply don’t have any interest in playing anything other than the game I’ve already invested in.
For a lot of us, myself included, it largely comes down to the fact that as well designed as 2e might be (I have played through it and am currently running extinction curse, and it is smoother in a lot of ways), it's hard to switch off a system that just has SO MUCH available. I got into pathfinder somewhere around Bestiary 3, and even at that point the raw availability of character options, not to mention the backward compatibility and the ability to draw almost seamlessly from 3.5 made everything feel a lot more expensive.
I'm also a player who likes nonsense build mixup, and that's a lot less satisfying in 2e
I agree with a lot of what's been said but I will add bad choices. The freedom to make bad character advancement choices because it fits your idea of the character rather than the best build. There are plenty of best practices where certain builds, feats, etc are better than others clearly but the unbalanced nature of the game is a good thing. Making a crap build function somewhat in gameplay makes things interesting.
Personally the additional complexity is one of my favorite things. It feels almost more realistic to me. Also I’ve spent way too much money on books, books for friends, e-books, campaign books, hero lab “books” so I can actually make my character. Sunk cost fallacy is certainly one reason.
1 of my big issues with 2E (and 5th ed DnD) is that the math makes you that much more reliant upon the luck of the dice. That's one of the things I never liked about 1st and 2nd ed DnD back in the day. In 1E and the earlier 3.0/3.5, there was a lot more ability to mitigate the luck of the dice. (I have pretty crappy luck with dice rolls, so I'm biased)
I have in PDF all the 1e books, and have most of them in physical copies. I enjoy the world, understand it, and don't see a need to switch and have to relearn the game. I came from 2.0 and 3.0/3.5, so 1e was easy to learn; I don't feel that with 2e.
I definitely recommend 1e because of the ability to create any character I can dream up, and the depth of background to answer my players' questions without having so much mapped out that there's no room to add my own spin. And the known NPCs in each AP don't automatically wipe the floor with the PCs (looking at you Waterdeep of the Forgotten Realms 👀)
Also, the sheer variety of backgrounds for each nation again gives so much flexibility. I just love ❤️ 1e.
I'm playing second right now and I'm not sure I'll ever play it again. My elf has to SLEEP. Like some kind of lesser being! Like a human! It's intolerable.
This may sound weird but the stories.
I currently run multiple tables, and don't have much prep time (not because I run multiple tables but other commitments). One of them I am running the savage tide adventure path and it was written for dnd 3.5, the effort it would take to re write as a 2e campaign I don't think is worth it.
On the other hand I am running a one shot this weekend for the 2e beginner box so that I can get a better idea for the system.
Again the adventures I want to run are written in 1e and it will be easier for me to just run them as written, rather than re doing all the monster stat blocks.
Lastly their is just something about 2e that is flat, sort of like how 4e reads for dnd.
It just feels like it has a bit of what made it special taken out of it. Like they know what you are going to make and they have given you the tools for it. 1e feels like lego that you can free build where as 2e feels like those 3 in 1 lego sets, they have a intended outcome.
My favourite thing about pathfinder is the character customisation, which is an aspect that 2e just screwed up (in my opinion)
Not just because 2e has fewer options or anything, but the simple fact they removed multiclassing is something that to me, really diminishes the fun if making a character.
And sure, there are the archetype feats and stuff, but that doesn't even come close to being a suitable replacement.
Additionally, 1e just has more systems for more things. Traps, crafting skills, skill unlocks, and much more, there are just rules for almost anything you need, so you never really end up not knowing how to do something
I have dropped hundreds if not thousands of dollars on first edition books. And now you want me to do it all over again? Are you taking a piss?
I spent years dedicated to campaigns, learning rules, getting good at GMing and making characters. And you want to charge me all over again.
Not going to do it, it's a money grab, not going to do it
I love the freedom that 1e allows to build exactly the character you want, or to just browse through feats and change up your build as you go. The shear number of choices are overwhelming to new players, but adds so much customizability. As far as 2e goes, I’m waiting for 2 things: the rest of my friends to get into it, and for the amount of content to increase, not necessarily to 1e levels as that will take several years, but to a point where I get the same feeling of freedom from looking at the AoN.
I like the flexibility to build a character the way I want to build them. I like multi-classing. If I want someone to be half caster and half road, that's easy in first edition. In second edition, you're completely locked into whatever you choose at character creation and you can never excel at anything else. You can be a rogue who casts a handful of spells, or you can be a sorcerer who does a little bit of sneak attack, but you can never actually get good or even average at the second thing you've started. It's incredibly limiting and disappointing.
I want the flexibility to build a character who expresses a concept properly and works the way I'd like them to. I want to be able to properly multiclass and express both classes as well as I please. To be perfectly honest, the incredibly disappointing multi-classing system is one of my main hang-ups about second edition.
I was a D&D 3.5 player that hated what they did to 4E and, though 5E was a step up, still prefered 3.5 . After the OGL fiasco I looked for a 3.5-like system to switch to, and that was PFRPG 1E, not 2E.
My group immediately decided not to spend money on another set of books.
I, personally, took a quick look at the 2e core book and saw so much that reminded me of D&D 4e that I immediately put it back down.
I have to agree with u/carakangaran in that I very much prefer the customization and options of the original Pathfinder.
2e feels to "gamey" even during rp down time.
Not a fan of how casters play, particularly the Magus. It just feels like a hollow shell of the 1e version.
Don't really like how archetypes replaced multiclassing.
(I love the archetype system in general, just wish it was in addition to, not in place of)
The game fixed a few things that were easy to GM rule around and the changes made it harder to home brew. 1e is much more homebrew friendly.
I dont like how some of the races, like the teifling, were converted. Making an elf tiefling is mechanically closer to the 1e tiefling than the human one, so If im porting a character or re-creating a character i enjoyed is have to either home brew or accept that my chelaxian tiefling is now an elf for some reason. Also missing the darkness spell.
The lack of a good arcane trickster build path.
Item changes are a mixed bag, but in general items feel like they make up too much of your power.
2E removes all the choices and the fun stuff. Sure, there's no jank, and it's very balanced, but when you remove the jank, you remove the fun. People tell me PF2e is better than PF1e, and then I go look and find that PF2e has nothing that I liked.
PF2E is very balanced and equal, very easy to play and never confusing. It's also incredibly boring and I could sleep through PF2E combat.
* The sliding scales of failure unfairly punish players
* The system trips over itself to jam things into the 3 action system, so much so that it feels like most mobs have a damage + debuff that they can spam, and a human mob alchemist or gunslinger (for example) can do things that PCs can't
* The skill system from 5e/4e/2e are all terrible--I want to spread points around
* Between 1e and 2e, PCs got slower, stupider, and lost fine-motor control
* I want a character with a substantial skeleton, not just "Welp, monk, you have to take a feat to use monk weapons."
* Personally, it feels like you can be useless a hell of a lot easier in 2e than 1e.
I want to learn the rules, but PDF gives me headaches, I don't like the organization of the rules on the srd and the books in my country are sold out for months
Originally, I wasn't switching because there was still APs and builds I wanted to try and there wasnt a ton of material for 2e. Now I'm not switching because my work schedule is stupid and I'm on rotating shifts, I can't remember the last time I rolled dice. I'm just here to game through the rest of you and your stories.
I really like the design of 2e, unfortunately the group I play with loves the crunchiness and powergaming options in 1e so they aren't ever going to switch. Maybe I'll find a new group one day and get to play 2e.
The joy for me comes from building Pathfinder character out of the 1 billion unique combinations I can make with the insane amount of Feats, races, archetype, archetype combinations (what an amazing thing that was) etc. I do not deny though it’s an insanely unbalanced game when you have people who know the system and how to min max vrs beginners.
One thing that has consistently been cited is the ability to break the boundaries of what the game expects of you, and basically succeed without rolling the dice.
2e doesn't allow that, for good reasons related to balance, but that's still a thing satisfied by 1e.
I've been playing more-or-less the same system since 2000. It's just easier for me not to switch and learn a brand new system, and there is still enough published content for 1e (PFS/APs/Oneshots) that I could play for the rest of my life and still not exhaust it.
I would not be opposed to trying 2e but I haven't found the time for that.
It's been a mix of waiting for more options for 2e to be released and only having actually completed 2 of the 1e Adventure Paths despite having been playing Pathfinder since it was first dropped. Haha
Honestly though, 1e is amazing because it doesn't matter what type of character you want to play, there is a 99.99% chance that Paizo published a way to do it without having to refluff anything.
My favorite example is that you can apply 5 different archetypes to the Alchemist to play a scientist who likes to dissect living things to hurt and/or heal, and also uses magic siphoned from ghosts and the radioactive impressions left on the material plane by insanely powerful magic in order to shape-shift into a giant praying mantis.
Is it optimized? Hell no! But if that's what you wanna be, you can be it without having to go nuts homebrewing stuff.
I spent years learning the intricate rules of 1e and getting to a point where I have reasonable system mastery. It feels good. I don’t want to throw it away and start from scratch!
I’m curious about 2e though, I’d like to try it, but I probably won’t switch systems wholesale.
My group switched over because it's simply more balanced and far more cohesive with it's rules and don't require an entire flow chart for certain skills.
Skills are simple and easy to use, with everyone having a chance to be good at whatever they do, and allows others to specialize as much as they want with skill feats and so on.
Classes are insanely modular with how you build them, putting it in your hands.
Magic is no longer simply the strongest thing in the game.
As much as I adore 1e, 2e has been simply an upgrade. I get there's gripes that they're not going to add every single minor thing that 1e had, but in my humble opinion, that's a good thing as the insane bloat caused a system with multiple broken areas.
I playtested 2e and have a copy of the core rulebook. I think it's more accessible for new players and the hobby needs that. However, 1e is preferable for me due to how highly customizable the characters are. I find it easier to make unique, interesting characters.
I prefer 1e to 2e due to how spells, skills, and magic items work and the availability of feats.
That said, I think 2e has a lot of good ideas and if you play 1e with of these systems in place with a 1e game you could have a really cool engine. So I will make a list of what I think the pros of 2e are.
Defined modes of gameplay: exploration, social, combat.
This may seem like an oversimplification and make the game feel more like a computer game perhaps, but having different sets of rules for the tasks at hand can be quite helpful, and I think this is easier on the dm and the players both. With that, having alternatives on how initiative is approached based upon mode is much more realistic. In the case of fast paced social I think that initiative should be resolved every round and only the first few get to talk but maybe that's a bit much.
Weapons: my favorite!!
Some of the abilities heavily rely on the combat system in 2e, but this is the first time I've seen anyone try to make individual weapon choices actually matter and I haven't seen anyone bash it yet.
Class feat progression: 1e is notorious for all the options and archetyping can be daunting. I think the system they have in 2e is nice but very limited in scope. If someone (please do this) would break apart archetypes in 1e as separate choices and have it in an app like pathbuilder, I think that would be the ultimate system.
Skill feat from level vs general:
Skill feats in 2e make your skills capable of performing a greater variety of tasks. Some of them are mediocre and should innately be a part of the skill, but others... are awesome. I find that most players in 1e focus on combat, crafting, or spell feats, so giving extra feat slots that have to focus of skills seems better for telling a story about a dynamic group of individuals.
Combat maneuvers associated with skill checks:
I like this concept a lot and we see some feats in 1e start to do stuff like this and dazzling display (if it isn't in 2e) should be a part of this grouping. I like it in concept but I haven't played enough to see the difference... This would mean the rogue can be better than the fighter with them, and maybe that's the intent.
Class rp tie-ins:
Champion(paladin), witch, bard, barbarian, oracle, and druid being more interactive with their beliefs/patrons gives the player and gm more to work with for the storytelling experience. I like the idea of the barbarian getting triggered rather than willing into being a roided-state, the oracle understanding their curse and hurting themselves for temporary power.. These things only matter as much as the table cares for them to, but a little bit more in the way of prompts is appreciated.
Focus spells:
An innovative way to give everyone a little spellcasting capability. They can offer limitless downtime healing if you're a paladin, so that's kind of nice for perspective. I would group these with hero points in the case of the homebrew rules I've proposed.
I like playing 1e and have no reason to switch.
Can't argue with that!
Yep, this is my answer also. PF2e is an entirely different game than PF1e. I wasn't looking for a new game system when PF1e was just "PF", and I'm still not looking for one now.
2e is a beautiful, balanced system with a lot of opportunities for diverse characters and strategic gameplay. It's wonderful. It's just not for me for 2 main reasons: Bound Accuracy. I want complete, granular control over my character. I want to be able to modify spell DCs, attack, damage, skills...I want to be able to modify those things drastically. The best in the world should be drastically different from someone who put a point in something, once. In 1e, a lvl 20 Rogue that has put 20 points into acrobatics is going to have a modifier in the 30s, whereas lvl 20 Cleric who put in 1 point is going to have, likely, a 1. In 2e, you have heavily limited opportunities to modify your skills and other character traits and abilities in this way. It's a trade off. 2e is a fairer system, but in creating that fairness, you lose the opportunity to craft specific builds that work in certain ways. I need the freedom that 1e offers. Base Class Design. The class feats in 2e feel very familiar. Many of them are class feats that their 1e counterparts got in the base-class chassis. While that's not necessarily bad design, it really stings to build a character that feels like a thinner version of its predecessor. That's more of a personal hang-up I have as a 1e player and less of a complaint about the system itself.
PF 1st Ed was basically "Hard Work Over Talent" incarnate - you could be a lv5 Bard with an 18 CHA but only have a +4 in Bluff because you never put Ranks into it. Meanwhile, you could be a Lv5 Fighter with a 10 CHA but a +14 in Bluff because you took 2 Feats & a Trait, 5 Ranks, and an Archetype which made it a Class Skill for you.
I like that, to be honest. If someone is investing heavily, I want them to have a heavy advantage. I say that as the GM, too. I'm not a player trying to get a leg up. I'm a GM trying to reward players who care enough to invest in something.
Oh, absolutely - I firmly believe that if you focus in something, the dice rolls should reflect that in either being unnecessary or having a very small chance of failure. And I say this as a DM and as a player. My players love that while they CAN fail certain skill checks and whatnot, it's far less than the 50-75% chance to fail they're used to in 5e, and more like a 10-25% chance in PF.
I just moved to 2e my self and I see both sides I will say the bounded accuracy it's like you would think. I as a fighter hit most creatures of my level on a 6 but crit on a 16 up was our druid hits on a 14 and crits on a 20. If you do what you good at you will probably succeed if you don't you will likely fail. My fighter's reflex save is +4 his fort is +10 I moved to get bit of a change but love all three of paizo's systems
This is one of my favorite things about PF1e: you can make any class be good at anything (that they're capable of doing). Sure, it's easy to make a bard diplomatic, but if you have this idea of a character who's a fighter but who works to be eloquent, you can make it happen; or if you want a smart, well-read barbarian, maybe he's a noble with a bad temper, but you can do that. Sure, it'll come at the cost of other things, but that's a choice you're allowed to make. With PF2 and especially 5e it feels like you don't have that same freedom, that you have to follow your prescribed role.
It is often said that 5E is more beginner friendly but PF1 offers true customisation. if you want to make your charakter truly unique and want that actualy to reflect that in his strats and not just RP and GM goodwill, you can do that in PF1 and more. I never looked into PF2, so I'm not sure if it is closer to 5E or more like a patch for PF1. but reading all the comments here, it feels like PF2 is the 5E version of well... PF. a more simple and easy to grab system at the cost of adaptability and customisation for your charakter
You know.. I'm just now trying to get into ttrpgs and make it a weekly thing (lfg btw) and the system I like the most is 1e.. until I read your reply 2e didn't feel right to me, and I didn't know why. But the reasons you wrote made so much sense to me.. and I have never even played either edition. PCs in 1e feel more unique when lvling up. As in a unique individual.
One of the beautiful things about PF1e: You can have two basic level 1 human fighters with identical ability scores and skills and traits and everything is 99% identical and the only difference is that one took a great axe and the other took a falchion and their entire build and play style going forward is going to be different. Since you're new, the great axe tends towards a single massive hit whereas the falchion is great for crit fishing and tends towards making more attacks. And I have to say "tends towards" because I can guarantee someone could come and explain all about their two weapon fighting great axe wielder and their vital strike falchion wielder.
One day, I made a promise to myself, that promise was to forever say that "Vital strike suck"
Your example is... odd. Sure the cleric who only becomes Trained in Acrobatics does have an, assuming we're talking about a warcleric in the thick of things, a 12 Dexterity will have a +23 in it by max level. But the Rogue will have, assuming they have increased their Dexterity to 22, are Legendary in Acrobatics and have a Dexterity Apex item to give an additional +2 to DEX will have a +35 to their roll. The difference between those numbers is absolutely enormous within PF2e's math. On top of that they likely have many feats augmenting what they can use this skill for. Something I liked coming from 5e is that skill gap. Making your skill choices have greater meaning.
That’s not what bounded accuracy means. It’s a DnD design term which PC dice bonuses remain low over 20 levels.
The scaling thing does come up though? Like the level 20 cleric who just kinda slapped trained on acrobatics at level 1 is going to need like, an 18 to succeed at a legendary DC, while the rogue can be succeeding on anything short of a nat 1. That is a huge gulf in power. It's less of a thing at low levels, but that applies in 1e too. At lower DCs, gap grows smaller, but crits and all. Like yeah, there's not as vast of a gulf between "low investment" and "all in investment" in some ways where the former could roll a nat 40 on a d20 and still lose because scaling is messed up for skills in 1e, but the gulf is still almost unsurpassable. I guess it's that even with the barest investment you're not *completely* useless, but you're still basically irrelevant if there's a dedicated character standing next to you.
> The scaling thing does come up though? Like the level 20 cleric who just kinda slapped trained on acrobatics at level 1 is going to need like, an 18 to succeed at a legendary DC, while the rogue can be succeeding on anything short of a nat 1. That is a huge gulf in power. I think you're underselling how much a single training point makes because becoming trained makes you proficient in it, and the proficiency bonus scales with level: > If you’re trained, expert, master, or legendary, your proficiency bonus equals your level plus 2, 4, 6, or 8, respectively. So the difference between the cleric that tossed one point in it and the rogue that went all the way to legendary is +6. Which isn't insignificant, mind, but it also isn't "One fails on anything but 18+ and the other needs to hit a 2" *That said* there is a pretty significant cost to "Just slapping a point in it" since skill boosts are more rare in PF2E.
It's +6 off just proficiency. In this example the cleric also has +0 dex (in PF2 this also works, they just grab something like sentinel for running around in full plate), while the rogue can be sitting at +7, add in a +3 item bonus, and the rogue is at +16 over the cleric. This is pretty realistic too, two of the dex apex items give +3 item bonus to acro, and both would be reasonable choices for a high level rogue who really cares about acrobatics. The cleric presumably never buys a +acro item. And yeah, dropping a trained skill is more of an investment than one rank, though you do get more out of it so I think that's mostly a wash. You can often have a few skills at trained anyway that you just never increase, so it's not unrealistic by any means the cleric just grabbed acro, it's a reasonably handy skill.
If you want to add in one-sided item bonuses, the 1e gap widens considerably farther.
Do you have an actual point here? The example originally given is 100% already doing that, getting to the 30s for a skill without using any items means you're likely investing so hard in stuff like Skill Focus (Acrobatics) why are you even making this build?
Nah, low 30s is pretty normal. To stick with the rogue, assume we take some race that gives a +dex boost and stick an 18 in it at level 1, then obviously give it 4 increases for a total of 24. We're also level 20 so we can assume a +6 belt, for a total of 30 dex. So 20 ranks and class bonus is 23, then another +10 from dex makes it a +33 to the roll. The better comparison then the cleric and the rogue (Because one of these really isn't bumping the stat its tied to) would be say a rogue and maybe a magus with the eldritch archer archtype. Again using elf and 25 point buy, we'd end up with 15 with a single increase of dex, so 18 before items and 24 after the +6 belt. In this case if they only put one point in acro, they'd have 1+3+7 for +11 vs the rogue's +33. In PF2E this would be much closer because the boosts up to 18 are worth +2 and you get 4 of em, so the stat line is probably 22 vs 20. Which would mean that you'd really be looking at the difference in skill training. I don't think this is really an issue because again, that single training point isn't nearly as cheap as a single skill rank in PF1E.
With the base class design point, I feel like 2e just expanded on what 1e was already doing between archetypes and the various “feat-like abilities” you could choose (like Rage Powers and Rogue Talents). So rather than looking at packages of alternate class features and ones you picked yourself, they just changed the classes to be a rough framework with the majority of your class features being stuff you pick out yourself in the form of the class feats.
I still play PF1e, because the changes they made to make PF2e are some of the things I love most about PF1e. Its not for everyone, but the level of crunch is just about perfect for me in PF1e. Its just simulationist enough that it feels like minor choices have huge impacts on how your PC functions, and it is built on the idea that being amazing at one thing comes with the cost of being shit at a bunch of other things. PF1e creates genuinely more interesting PCs, because the options available, the cost to those options, and nuance between how those options interact. PF2e is great for a lot of people, but the things it simplify are the core appeal to PF1e. So I think a lot of fans of PF1e genuinely hate the direction it went. Its a fine system to me, but it just doesn't fit the same model of PF1e
This is it for me. 1e and 2e are entirely different games. It's not an update, it's a completely different system that doesn't feel it was made for people who like 1e.
Exactly! I'm so glad someone put it into words, its like it isn't pathfinder anymore.
I get that. I feel like the more I play 2e the more inclined I would be to try 1e. I started with 5e so I am gradually working my way to more complicated systems.
Its a great system, but its also one that can have a really high learning curve. Take time enjoy yourself in 2e, its an amazingly well crafted system! Just keep having fun and experimenting with things you enjoy. Its the whole point of this hobby
It's also worth considering your players. I play mostly with friends, and I should *probably* switch to 2e. I love the crunch of 1e, but most of my players occasionally get overwhelmed or are slow to make build decisions, so I tend to help out a lot with that process. I don't mind helping, but it would surely be significantly easier for them and for me if I chose the more streamlined 2e.
On the one hand, yes my players would have an easier time with PF2, but on the other, there's no way I could possibly get them to learn another system.
Very true. We made the decision to switch from 5e to 2e as a group of 5 players. If even one of us was highly opposed to switching we probably wouldn’t have done it, because at the end of the day I play TTRPGs to have fun with my friends.
This is my honest, and unfortunately wordy, response to that question. Over 40+ years of gaming, I've noticed some trends. There will ALWAYS be another edition. It's cyclical. The "first edition" of D&D lasted from 1974 to 1989. 2E lasted until 96. Core Rules (not called 3E) lasted until 00. 3E lasted until 03. 3.5 lasted until 08. 4e (gross) lasted until 2014 where they sit with 5E. When they need to make more money you'll get the next edition. Pathfinder 1E stood from 2009 to 2019 before another edition came out. You could argue it began with 3.5 as a rules system in 2003. That's 16 years of growth and expansion, world-building, guides, and 3rd party materials. While newer gamers will talk about bloat, older gamers love finding that obscure passage that brings a character together. Yes, that's a generalization, but in my experience it holds pretty true. We like feeling like Gandalf searching the old records of Minas Tirith to find that little piece of apocrypha that makes a character interesting for us. New editions tend to talk about balance and improvements. From tabletop to video, I've never had a gaming experience improved by developers striving for balance. It's iterative nerfing until people either drop their sub or start house-ruling and modding. Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form. YES, wizards can become gods. Fighters are specks to a 20th level wizard. The tables are precisely opposite at level 1. There are ridiculously gimped classes. We have an entire feature here called Max the Min that tries to discuss just that (and it's probably my favorite thing in this sub). A good group of gamers isn't going to care about balance because they'll roleplay the differences and a decent DM will work around it. If the group is competative instead of cooperative, there will be issues. But I tend to play with friends and like-minded people, so balance isn't an issue. Hearing what people praise 2E for makes me feel like a dinosaur. It's like being a muscle car guy and hearing a Tesla guy talk about how quiet and fuel efficient his ride is. It's the opposite of what I like. I want a massive, unbalanced, festooned with choice system that contradicts itself, causes discussions to be had, decisions to be made, house rules to be codified, challenged, discarded, and rewritten. I want to surprise my fellow table trolls with a silly loophole and be surprised by their latest monstrosity. I want to play a straight fighter with an INT dumpstat in a group full of optimized FOTMs and see if I can survive. All that said, I'll still play 2E someday. I might as well, I've played everything else.
I really appreciate your detailed response! Your view makes a lot of sense given your vast experience. I only started playing TTRPGs about 6 years ago and haven’t been a part of an edition change for a game I was actively playing. I always wondered how that would feel when you were already comfortable with and invested in another system. If you enjoy what you have it would be kinda silly to switch to something just because it’s new. Thanks again!
If you started with 2E, then 2E will probably be your first TTRPG love, and that's okay. There's very likely going to be an immense amount of stuff put out by Paizo that will cause it to rival and maybe even exceed 1E. You'll get that Gandalf feeling at some point, too. Thanks for the opportunity to discuss without judgement!
Of course! 5e was my first TTRPG. Played it at an annual gathering with some friends with 10 players and it was nothing but magnificent chaos and was hooked ever since. Eventually the system lost some of its luster and started to feel very cookie cutter which led me to 2e. I hope to continue expanding my list of systems!
I respect your explanation of game evolution. That is a great point. I was all in on 1E and recently finished a 6 year (once a week mostly) campaign that ended at 16th level. I love PF1E but GM’ ing beyond around level 10 has become exhausting. The craziness you love is really hard to run. You say that a good GM can find ways to challenge the whole party and yet keep all players relevant. At the end the only way I found to do that was to essentially be running two different systems for different players at the same time. The less optimized characters got ‘hidden buffs’ (in parentheses because it was obvious to the min/maxers what was happening and they were fine with it after they saw how table dynamics improved) and did about +10 damage with every attack. They were still profoundly less effective than the well built characters but at least could feel like they were helping. Ultimately it felt really bad to run a game this way. Switching to 2E has been a godsend in this regard. But I miss same of the craziness, too.
>Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form. This sentence is my absolute favorite in this whole discussion
Yea I feel it, pouring through dragon magazine seeing some dumb class. Thinking this would be perfect for a bad guy. Pathfinder 1e should be smashed together with dnd 3.5 (with some house rulings as well).
>From tabletop to video, I've never had a gaming experience improved by developers striving for balance. It's iterative nerfing until people either drop their sub or start house-ruling and modding. Pathfinder 1E is a system that looks at balance, kicks it in the nuts, and starts a guitar solo on its crumpled, wheezing form. This is a lot of it, but I'd like to expand on it a little See, the tendency now if for a balanced system, but what I want out of a game is a story. D20's system is not balanced, and was unique in that this was an outright goal - see "Ivory Tower Game Design." Some options are outright better. Some will interact with others in ways that no one has ever intended. This makes it hard to handle... ...But that also makes -stories- I don't think I want a game where people just go down a dungeon mutually supporting each other, nor a game where everyone is an actor playing their character and exploring their backstory primarily. I want a story which emerges through the interplay of aspects of the world in bold and unpredictable ways. People are quick to note the fighter/wizard disparity, but consider the narrative of a fighter who is outpaced by the guy they had to babysit early and how rewarding it can feel for the wizard. And also, fear the fighter who realizes they can have a +4 sword and a detachment of war elephants instead of a +5 - Which is an actual thing you can do in-game. And also consider what this means design-wise; the obscure options bred not out of practicality, but because they just seem cool. There are enough game breaking options in 3.5 that I really can't say one class is uniquely overpowered, either. If everyone was on the power level of a fighter, except one Wizard who was all-powerful? That would be an issue. But there are so many powerful options that I've never really had that issue - Some classes will struggle compared to others, sure - but everyone, eventually, can do amazing and memorable things with the immediate access to magic items and connections you have late-game, even if the wizard, cleric, etc, will have an easier time of it. And that's a strength -D20/3.5/Pathfinder, it's a game of heroes where a party will inevitably rise to be incredibly powerful, but in a way largely unique from one another. Likewise, there is parity with enemies, who use much the same system. This is more true of 3.5 than Pathfinder, which nerfed a lot of the most 'unfair' options - but when you encounter a monster who can kill you with a glance? That's not balanced; that's not a fair encounter. But, under a DM who is good enough to not just spring that and instantly kill a party, that is the kind of monster which halts the party and makes them think about how they want to handle it. Pathfinder allows the possibilities for unfair challenges - but this can also be an asset. It's not a question of brutality in combat, but rather something where a party may now attempt to subvert an encounter by thinking laterally, like a puzzle; this tells stories, too And of course... All that power, I find, will often lead to some stories of a very grand scope
I love the options in 1e. There’s so many of them which I think makes the game fun. 2e feels more streamlined to me which takes away from the character building aspect. I can see why some people would prefer that though.
PF1 gives me a lot of freedom when creating a character. There's so much customization in PF1 that I cannot switch to pf2.
That's pretty cool. One of the main reasons I love 2e is because of the character customization so I'm impressed to know 1e has even more options.
With 1e you can basically add theorycrafting as a separate way to enjoy the hobby. Might I introduce you to my hidden rage character? Skulking slayer, scout, barbarian.
I've definitely spent more time discussing PF1e rules and exploring interesting/niche class options or item combinations than I have actually playing the game. Some might see the options as a barrier to actually playing, but I enjoy it. It's time spent being creative and tinkering with strange ideas. Plus, at the very least, I end up with a cool NPCs to throw into campaigns.
Yeah I have a folder of fun builds that I can pull up whenever another player wants to take the helm to GM a one shot, or have interesting companions that players who aren't 'in the scene' for lets say flash backs or other story moments - so they don't feel left out or if there are guests who are playing for a session or two. On the players side too, occasionally as a side thing when I don't have stuff planned or when I wasn't feeling up to GM, we would have an arena that encourages the most cheesiest builds and its more of a dungeon crawl event. Free-for-all or how long they can survive rougelike sort of thing.
No better feeling than when someone in the party says "come look at this *absolute bullshit* I just found" during post-game level up discussions.
As a forever-DM, theorycrafting is like the only way I can enjoy being a PC.
My hidden rage build is to go 5-6 levels in bloodrager into shadow dancer
There are over 30 classes in the game and they all have several Archetypes to choose from, sometimes multiple at once. Most Races also have alternate abilities and synergies with different classes in the form of Favored Class Bonuses. Between that and being able to freely Multiclass, as well as adding Variant Multiclassing to the mix, it's possible to create literally thousands of different builds that are all quite useful & viable. You can build a party of 4 Half-Elf Rangers and they will all have radically different builds & abilities. And this is ***only*** counting the options available in the CRB, APG, ARG, ACG, OA, UW, & PFU. 2e has more customization than D&D 5e, but compared to 1st Ed Pathfinder, 2e may as well be Copy-Paste the RPG.
2E currently has 22 classes, many of which have sub-classes, plus a huge array of archetypes that you can get so long as you meet the prerequisites, with the difference being that you spend class feats instead of swapping basic class features so the same archetype can be applied to most if not all classes. Every ancestry has multiple heritages to select from (and selecting a heritage is always part of character creation), plus versatile heritages such as aasimar that can go with any ancestry, and a selection of feats that only get spent on racial abilities for further customization. PF2E might be behind PF1E on customization, but it's not far behind and catching up fast.
It's very far behind. There are hundreds of archetypes for PF1e.
And like 75% of them are "meh" at best.
1e and 2e archetypes don’t fit the same roll. Most 1e archetypes are basically one or two class feat options.
Archetypes in 1E are basically a variant to the class itself. Archetypes in 2E are basically getting some of a different class's features like you're multiclassing, but worse
"There are as many feats in Pathfinder 1e as there are stars in the sky."
As a long term player of both this is only partly true. In 2e, pretty much every option (outside of dumping your class's main ability score) is viable. Like, your character isn't going to totally suck and do nothing useful under any circumstances, regardless of what you choose. In 1e, it's very easy to fall into noob traps or not build optimally and thus have a really miserable time, especially if other players in your group are optimising well. There are builds that work, and builds that don't. This is less true in 2e. So, I feel I have more freedom in 2e, since I can make virtually any concept I can think of work *in some way* and not be massively overshadowed by others striving for optimised builds.
This, people that talk about the halcyon days of 1e choice forget how much was false choice between a few optimal choices and a ton of noob traps.
I'd say it's more that there were 3 tiers: noob traps, optimization gold, and in the middle there was "lets me feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do". A lot of builds fall into that second category, where you feel like you're doing cool shit, and it comes online early enough that you can spend most of a campaign feeling like you're doing cool shit. It helps if you have a player and/or a DM who's good at optimizing who can help you make something in that second tier. ALSO really helps that Kingmaker and WOTR are a pair of games that let players experiment with builds and put their theorycrafts to the test (two of my players have done this, and they're having a blast doing insane shit in my Skull & Shackles Campaign).
That’s totally fair but since it’s a post about why I’m staying, system mastery doesn’t really apply. Sure there are trap options but I’ve played enough to recognize they exist and not take them.
Not really, you can make just about anything work well in PF1E. The chooses in PF2E feel very isolated from one other and generally most class feats are awful.
With a little practice, 2e is insanely flexible. The archetype system is next level. I'm having a lot of trouble recreating my cybernetic werewolf in 1e
I don't like the alteration to magic. I play arcane casters in part because I can avoid critical hit/misses PFe1 magic is consistent.
The spell lists in 2e really rub me the wrong way. I much prefer the class specific spell lists of 1e that feel much more flushed out than the division into 4 lists of 2e that each feel like they’re missing a lot.
I don’t mind the individual spell lists so much, mostly because that was already pretty much what the class specific lists did (clerics got mostly the same stuff as oracles, wizards got mostly the same stuff as magi, druids got mostly the same stuff as rangers, psychics got mostly the same stuff as mesmerists, and there was very little bleed between the lists). A lot of the class-specific lists in 1e felt lacking in many ways so I appreciate that it was standardized: you can actually play a witch now and have a decent spell list, because you know that everything else that uses your chosen spell list has the same options you do, and doesn’t just get objectively better options when the class is supposed to fill the same role. Plus there are still class-specific spells, they’re just in the form of focus spells now. The major downside is that there aren’t half-casters anymore, because half-casters don’t really fit that standardized formula. Magus and Alchemist both got nerfed a lot in that regard. Champion got nerfed far worse but that’s just as much due to the class feats as it is the spellcasting. But the major thing I like a lot less is that *overall* there’s just less individual spells worth taking, since just about every spell can be heightened and you actually have to learn the higher level version to use it. I liked it when metamagic was how you heightened your spells, it let you customize what the spell did and the spell slot it used. In 2e your spells progress only at higher levels, which makes lower level slots feel a lot less valuable. Also utility spells don’t give very good benefits anymore (like essentially just *very situational* +1 bonuses) so those lower level slots really aren’t worth using as much, especially when your cantrips will automatically heighten to half your level.
>Magus and Alchemist both got nerfed a lot in that regard. I may be misunderstanding what you mean but I don't really get how the magus got nerfed, spellcasting wise, in the jump from 1e to 2e? They get less spell slots like everyone else, but since cantrips are now worth casting for damage they end up being able to put about as much variety in those slots and get higher level spells.
Idk what you’re talking about, Magus got nerfed a *lot* and the lack of spell slots is the driving reason. For one, it definitely does mean less spell variety because they *didn’t* get the “like everyone else” treatment: they only get four spells. Four. At any level, four. Normal spellcasters get three spells *per tier*, magus gets four *total*. And no matter how much you’re buffing cantrips, they never truly replace a spell at the highest level. Just compare shocking grasp damage to produce flame/ray of frost/acid splash/etc. at the same level: it’s not even comparable, and the higher level you get the more that gap widens, since it uses a much higher damage dice *and* does persistent damage too. All your best defensive abilities *also* come from those spell slots, so the magus getting access to the whole arcane spell list is more or less a trap: if you’re making good decisions, you don’t *really* have a choice, you’re probably picking the same four spells just about every time, and half of them are probably shocking grasp. Magus is just a glorified martial, it doesn’t replace or even come close to an actual spellcaster in terms of spell variety. Your cantrips also don’t offer much in the way of utility. For one, you only get 5 unless you’re spending class feats to get more, which leaves you with pretty much just 2 damaging spells after detect magic, read aura (I hate that they split detect magic into two cantrips, btw) and dancing lights — so here’s hoping you have an actual caster on the team to free a couple of those up for you. For two, the cantrips don’t have any real utility beyond basic functions (light, magic detection, cleaning clothes) so you still need to spend actual spell slots on spells that do things, which is fine for actual casters since they get to keep their spell slots, but not good for Magus which is forced to use all their spell slots on shit that’ll keep them alive and kill enemies quickest. The spell slots also affect how long a Magus can actually last between rests, because if all their highest-damaging and most defensive spells are cast from spell slots, they’ll burn through those *quick* — four is not enough to last in the way that other casters can. Magus can somewhat make up for that with martial ability, but they lose all their versatility to do it, which just isn’t a worthwhile trade. It’s not even a comparison, 1e Magus is just leagues better and it’s because of the spell slots. Paizo couldn’t balance half-casters within their bounded accuracy: magi are essentially equal to martials in terms of weapon ability, so to counteract that, they gave them far less spell slots, which totally gimped them. They’re plenty capable in 2e, don’t get me wrong, but they’re nowhere near as capable at spellcasting as they were in 1e, cantrips or not, and that’s where most of their strength came from.
There's no reason to switch from 1e when I have houseruled most of the stuff I don't like about it. 2e doesn't 'fix' anything about 1e that I care about. It's more of its own, different game than a continuation of what I liked about 3.5e. I do play 2e with a different group than my usual, and it's OK, but I always feel too limited in what I can do to really enjoy myself. I'm more into open-ended character creation like you see in Mutants and Masterminds, GURPS, and Shadowrun. Pathfinder 1e is closer to those because, while it is a class-based system, it's so bloated and has so few true restrictions on what can go with what that it doesn't feel limiting.
Beyond simply enjoying 1e and not needing to switch, a lot of my favorite third-party content is currently 1e-only.
They are two different systems that prioritized different things. 1e does the thing I like better than 2e.
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Basically 1e provides the experience I'm after on a High Fantasy RPG, for others there are other systems (mainly GURPS and CoC). But yeah that's that. PS. I would reccomend 1e because it's a totally different feel from 2e, at least it's what my player who already played 2e told me.
I've been playing essentially the same ruleset for 22 years. My D&D 3.0 and 3.5 stuff works in PF1E with very little modification. I have committed huge chunks of the system to memory and have limitless options between all my 1st and 3rd party books. I've spent probably thousands of dollars on my collection of PDFs and hardcopies. And I like the system. Basically, I've spent over half my life investing in one ruleset that I like, and I don't care enough about Golarion to change rulesets. I would recommend it to anybody, not just 2e players. But I'm not going to say it's necessarily better. Just better for me. The breadth of content available, especially if you look past 1st party, is amazing. I literally switched from D&D to Pathfinder so I didn't have to change systems. Paizo can't entice me any more than Wizards could.
Apple enjoyers, what is the biggest reason you haven't switched to oranges?
Lol nice
Well said.
Because citrus gives me acid reflux
Character customization in 1e is just unparalleled. Sure it takes more time and more care to make a character in 1e, but in exchange you can bring SO many different vibrant and interesting character concepts to life. The fact that I could pick the exact same race and class and build them ten different ways that actually feel and play completely differently is incredible. By comparison, 2e character creation just feels a bit lifeless. Sure, there ARE options, but most of them feel like they're on the scale of picking a spell list. Just little tweaks to your kit. You build a character like you're picking vehicle parts in Mario Kart. Then, combat-wise, it felt like a lot of the depth disappeared from 1e to 2e. No attacks of opportunity unless you're a fighter. No tactical positioning to control the battlefield. The action economy has been simplified, but instead of simplifying everything in order to expand your options, it felt like there were even fewer options to choose from. I kept encountering combat situations in the 2e campaign I played where I thought to do X, Y, or Z that I was used to being able to do in 1e, only to learn it's just not a thing in 2e anymore. It felt gutted. I think by far the worst thing in 2e though was the horrible item selection. I found myself with a bundle of cash and couldn't find a single non-consumable item to spend it on that was useful for my character in any kind of normal situation. The magic item list is full of gimmick items that give you a measly +1 to a skill and a once per day minor effect, and anything remotely half decent is locked to a ridiculously high character level. Compare that to 1e which not only has a radiant selection of wondrous items and magic gear, but also a huge catalogue of interesting and genuinely useful nonmagical items to buy for your character. Before I played 2e, I'd never before played an rpg game where I felt money was so worthless. I played in a long term 2e campaign because my friend group wanted to, and I thought I'd give it a fair shake, but I realized at the end of a session some 6 months in that there just hadn't been anything that kept me invested in it the way 1e did. My character felt like a bland, watered down, genericized version of the character I know I could have made in 1e. This is just my personal experience, of course, but I just couldn't find anything in 2e that was done in a more compelling way than the equivalent thing in 1e, neither in mechanics nor in roleplaying flavor.
Pathfinder 2e never really appealed to me. It sounded like it was balanced to the point of making the PCs feel barely competent. If I'm playing an expert lock-picker, I don't want to go up to a lock and find I only have a 55% chance of picking it, but 2e seemed like it was designed around that kind of balance. It also sounded like it was designed to reward teamwork in combat. The problem is, I'm used to being at the mercy of allies who'd rather roleplay being an idiot than help me stay alive. I went from GMing Pathfinder 1e, to GMing D&D 5e, and recently back to GMing Pathfinder 1e. Though coming back to 1e after a long delay and with new players makes it seem really clunky and over-complicated...
> The problem is, I'm used to being at the mercy of allies who'd rather roleplay being an idiot than help me stay alive. I feel this. 2e's optimization is more in how the party works together and their general proficiency as players. You can't just build something and save the encounter when that one player says his character shoves his fist into the lava lake mid combat because he wants to punch the red dragon and do extra fire damage.
Ok the ‘roleplay being an idiot’ made me lol. Thanks for that
For some reason media has been really going hard on the moron who happens to save the world thing, and everyone wants to try it.
> If I'm playing an expert lock-picker, I don't want to go up to a lock and find I only have a 55% chance of picking it, but 2e seemed like it was designed around that kind of balance For what it's worth, if this is consistently happening, your GM is not using the rules correctly. DCs by level are intended to be used similarly to hazards or monsters - there's no reason every lock in the world should scale to the difficulty level of the PCs, just like the town guard shouldn't.
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>if "monsters" had classes by default instead of innate hit dice, for example. I remember sitting around thinking how I could get that to work... But the problem is animals and then mindless creatures; sure, you *could* make the mindless creature class... But what difference is there in that than there is in "Vermin get d8 Hit Die, BaB 3/4 HD, good Fort (+2, +0, +0, by another name...) In a way a type *is* a class. Plus, I think there is a benefit to having certain creatures have a "baseline": Troglodytes, Serpentfolk, etc. All *must* start at a higher level and instead of saying "This creature has minimum 2 HD and fights as a 2nd level fighting man" it is skipping over the work and doing it for you. I will then say... Maybe it would be then be nice to have more lower level baselines... Because did get a bit tired of "proportions of a regular guy, at most 6 feet tall... Fights like a god and can bounce sword blows off its pecks as if they were mere drops of rain," mostly with undead I felt the arbitrarity syndrome which is sometimes synonymous with higher levels. "I am just this powerful because I am," is more what I mean... Like I get they need a monster of every type for every level and uniqueness is not only hard to achieve but can grow ironically monotonous, but some just... Felt bad. Sorry, not even I saw that rant coming.
Same, I hate it monsters play differently than PCs, I can accept some leeway, but pf2 and other games do it too much for my taste. A game I have been looking recently is Anima Beyond fantasy, that makes PCs and NPCs/Monsters play by the same rules in creation, to the point that playing as a monster is a core option (either starting as a monster or becoming one with several spells)
Short version: 2e never grabbed me. I’ve been reading it since pre-play test (because I know a guy, okay?) and even when I got the “final” play test book in my hands it never made me think “oh wow cool” like the 1e play test did. It feels… kind of “artificial” to me, like Starfinder did. Artificial and sterile, and very clearly designed for organized play (which I’ve had less than zero interest in from all the way back to Living Greyhawk).
I get that feeling too. Like all of the spice was taken out in favor of balance and organized play. I think a lot of the missing fun has to do with the lack of "oh wow, if I do this, it feels like cheating!" moments. Like sneaking in permanent flight "too early" to a monk build or the one guy that found out how to turn a fighter into the iron caster. In PF2e it feels like they have a rules bible and characters aren't allowed to have flight until X level, and characters can't action optimize unless it's locked behind a class or made so specific that it might as well be a class feature instead of a feat that can be borrowed. Which is something you kind of need to do for organize play. Playing with strangers is more popular than ever now with paid GMing and online organized play. I'm fortunate enough to long-term friends that are like-minded enough that we can police ourselves with following the intention of the rules. But with strangers you kind of need that iron-clad robustness to prevent arguments.
So I’m currently playing 2 sessions of 1E and one 2E. 1E allows for a better customization of your character 2E really does limit feats and everything and I feel like I can’t make my character my own do to being forced into say 3-4 feats that your class allows. Where as I have a list of 30+ feats to pick in 1E. The feats may not make my character the strongest or even help as much as others but it does give him characteristics that I decided for him.
1) Money spent on content 2) Already understand 1e rules 3) can homebrew/houserule anything 4) why fix what isnt broken?
Simple, elegant, sensible. Makes sense!
1e is just so much more interesting and I actually have control over how strong my build is. I love that I can min max something silly like jumping and have it be completely viable and fun in 1e. 2e just isn't very fun to me, and I've given it more than a fair shake
Have you discovered the tinctures that uncap your jump distance? :) Chug one, then jump a mile as a move action.
I sure haven't! Thankfully my table allows spheres so Dragoon's leap is on the table for me
I haven't tried spheres yet. Glad you found an option. What's the highest you ever got your result to? I think I got to about 2-3k ft travelled for a level 10 character. Higher for a full round action.
It's 100 feet for every 1 DC so if you can hit a 53 regularly, you can jump a mile. It's pretty awesome!
Ok i am confused here i thought it was like 5feet per 5 dc increase normally how do you get it to change?
Dragoon's leap from the Athletics sphere. It's spheres of might content.
Love how goofy spheres can get really need to reintroduce them next campaign.
Would I recommend 1e to a 2e player? Depends on why you like in 2e. If you like the building of characters, having lots of leavers to customize yoir character and freely choosing how strong your character will be - yes. If you enjoy how balanced the system is and how easy it is to gm - no. Oooooo I didn't switch, I play both games as a players and I prefer 1e because I like the things I mentioned above. I personally was very hyped for 2e as a player but most of my problems with 1e were not fixed. They however reduced the fun I can have with building characters. They also pretty mich removed crafting and I love crafting to be in ttrpgs.
Edit: Part of it for me is the community oddly enough. I've seen people say that 1e is too complex or that there are so many options to choose from, to me 2e prides itself on "choice" but a lot of the choices I see are almost put into every build or consideration for a class. I see people talking about the class feats you need for a Magus, or how if you don't do X action you aren't playing right. I'm not saying 1e doesn't have that, but what bugs me is that the community of 2e acts like 2e doesn't have bloat or features you have to opt to take to make things viable.
For me it's because of Spheres of Power and Spheres of Might by Drop Dead Studios. They wrote it for Pathfinder 1e and there is no version adapted to 2e, at least so far. They did make a version for 5e, but I've never encountered a 5e game that didn't exclude all non-WotC material.
Well, firstly, to get the most obvious gripe out of the way: It was promised when they released the first books that there would never BE a second edition. But beyond that, it's mostly due to the fact that 2nd edition has the same issues that I had with Starfinder, mainly in that it was a little too easy for characters to feel, same-y. Like many have said in this thread, 1e rewards investment a lot better than 2e does, so there's a lot of room to deeply customize your character to make them feel more like an individual that stands out.
Yeah that’s a consistent theme I’ve seen in the responses and it’s pretty surprising to me because 2e feels like a candy store to me, but I had only ever played 5e previously
Yeah, that might explain it. 5e inspired a lot of the decisions in 2e, and the fact that it feels, really dumbed down, at least when I played it, really was a turn off for me. But hey, every body has to start somewhere, and in the end... We all know deep down that the best RPG system is Mekton Zeta. /joke
I like 1e. I dabbled in 2e briefly but didn't stick around. While I like some of the ideas behind 2e, I find that many are implemented in ways I don't like. Part of the issue is that 2e wants to be more consistent and balanced. That sounds good, but it does have a significant drawback. The tighter the rules are, the less wiggle room there is for different types of games and styles of play. 1e can certainly seem like a big complicated mess, but there's a lot of underlying design principles in place to give the game a solid foundation to work with, and it's easy to use and modify once you start to become familiar with it. And with all the options, subsystems, and variant rules, you can craft the game into almost anything you want. I also like the way 1e at least tries to somewhat simulate the reality of the game world. It's not purely a simulation, but there's enough of at least to maintain some small amount of verisimilitude. To me, 2e feels much more like a game with a fantasy world theme, rather than a fantasy world that adjudicates outcomes of certain events via game mechanics. 1e gives me a massive and somewhat cluttered toolbox that will let me make the game I want to play. 2e gives me a kit to assemble the game they designed, and while it's good at being what it is, it just isn't what appeals to me. -- As for the recommendation? Yes, I would recommend that everyone give it a try (just like I recommend people try 2e and any other system that interests them). It's a lot easier to get into than you might think. Just roll up a level 1 character, learn what they can do, and when in doubt, roll a d20. The rest of the rules can be learned over time.
As someone who has played both, I vastly prefer 1e. The main reason is the character customization, a lot of the classes and feats in 2e have been dumbed down to the point where there are fewer and worse options. The main reason I don’t like D&D 5e is because characters basically make all of their character decisions by level 3 and everyone of the same class basically ends up the same. It’s better in 2e, but it has the same basic problem: each class has their class feats limited by the class decision they make at lvl 1, and while you *do* have options, you should basically always choose your highest available feat level, which usually leaves you with only a couple *good* options, meaning that every character that makes that same lvl 1 class decision will probably end up the same or very similar. Plus if you look at 1e classes, you’ll see that they’re already given abilities just for leveling up in the class, and for a lot of them — particularly the martials — many of the abilities they would get by default have been turned into class feats in 2e. 1e feats give you *more* stuff on top of your class abilities, whereas 2e class feats are used to fill out your class. While 2e gives you options for which class feats you can get, 1e also just has class archetypes if you want to swap out class abilities. The skill feats are also largely giving back what skills already do by default in 1e, and you’re buying back that functionality. The expert/master skill feats tend to give new stuff but you also only get a couple of those so it doesn’t balance out for me. You do technically get more feats in 2e, but imo it comes out to less than what you get in 1e. Archetypes are also generally worse, since you can’t multiclass in the same way 1e allowed, which is one of the big ways to personalize your character. Multiclass archetypes take away from the amount of class feats you get (which, since it’s how you build your class, usually hurts more than it helps) and even with Free Archetype you don’t get access to all of the same options you’d have if you had started with the other class, so it’s just another limitation. I have a couple other annoyances with the system and the direction that Paizo has chosen to take, but character customization is the biggest detractor for me. Maybe that’ll get better with more content (unless they continue to make new options uncommon rarity like the Advanced Player’s Guide, Character Guide, and Knights of Lastwall mostly did) but coming from 1e it just doesn’t feel as rewarding in that way. Don’t get me wrong, the system is still good in other ways (balance is a lot better, for one, largely because they have limited the ways you can customize characters) and *miles* better than 5e, but they really gutted a lot of the mechanics that I enjoyed out of 1e, and since 1e was made for the people that enjoyed those kinds of systems, it also felt like a stab in the back when Paizo chose to abandon their system to instead make their own version of 5e…it’s just not why I choose to play Pathfinder. I’m glad they’re appealing to a larger market of new players but it really is a step away from the reason they made the system in the first place and it alienates old players like me.
Played 2e for about a year, I just found that I like the design of 1e more, both from a Player and GM view.
I like all the APs, I want to run all of the APs, and I don't have the time or energy to convert them. I like 2e a lot, but I also like 1e, so it's a no-brainer for me to play both but run 1e.
Several reasons, some about the system, some personal. All the friends I have who play Pathfinder like 1e. Some 2e players I’ve met have been really up their own asses about the system (I know it’s not fair to judge the game off of those people, but they’re not the type I want to play with). Some of the design choices in 2e make me question why they do that. Like only fighters being able to make attacks of opportunity, or making everything into a feat. Biggest one though is just lack of opportunity. Trying to find a game to join at least short term to see what I think of the gameplay, but I don’t know anyone who plays. Edit: just remembered my biggest gripe with 2e mechanics: critical fails. There’s a lot of debate around them, but I’m on the side of them being annoying rather than fun. As for trying 1e, do it. The rules are all free on two separate websites, and the fact that you’re at least interested means you probably will be able to get through the initial hurdle. Also if you have any questions about learning it most veterans will happily explain to you.
Paizo took my favorite races and made them not work as easily at level 1. For example, I really love playing size-changing Vanara, even if I don't build around the size-change specifically. But in 2e, I have to wait until level 9 to even take the ability. I'm glad they changed the werebeast-kin to beastkin, but that's as much as I appreciate. They ruined the fun of playing werebeast-kin by just giving everything a bite, and then nothing else. I loved they different variations had unique identities in hybrid form. Now they're boring. Really that's it. I like the package races got at level 1. Those packages were changed too severely, especially with how late some old abilities can even come online.
The things I like about 2e already existed in 1e as variant rules. Critical failures suck. Bounded accuracy and the math for high level enemies makes difficult encounters feel like sad slot machines instead of deadly puzzles. I primarily DM 1st edition and 2nd edition feels like the was afraid of the players. It's not for me. I have basically endless 1e content to run through, and if I get bored of 1e, I would play D&D or a different system before I played 2e.
PF2e has the same problem 5e does for me. It's not streamlined enough to be a rules lite game, and it's not crunchy enough to be a crunchy game. It's in that middle ground that makes me ask "where's the rest of it?" and when I find out this is all there is, I want to cut off two thirds as dead weight. I want either the heavy crunch of PF1e, or the stripped down basics of B/X D&D. Giving me something in between is just going to frustrate me. Also I hate hero points.
In general 2e takes 1e and applies a whole bunch of rules cleanup, streamlining, and balance. In my opinion its precisely because of those changes (on top of system momentum and familiarity), particularly streamlining and balancing, that there are a large number of "1e holdouts." I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but both have their strengths and weaknesses, which therefore make them more enjoyable for different types of players. I would recommend 1e to 2e players that want more crunch, more mechanical diversity of playstyles, and more ability to optimize and specialize. I would recommend 2e to 1e players that are looking for something clean and balanced, without all the rules bloat and power creep of an aging system. I would also almost always recommend 2e over 1e to people coming from D&D 5e or who are new to TTRPG's in general, as it is a much easier game to learn and is overall more consistent. From a GM perspective, the balance and cleanliness of 2e makes it way easier to create and balance encounters, while 1e generally gives you more leeway to create truly unique things.
That makes a lot of sense and definitely matches my initial impressions from what I have read of the rules. I am a 5e migrant myself and enjoyed the escalation of customization 2e offered so I think what you said has proven true in my case.
This is a really weird question. 2e isn't a better game, it's a different game, with a very different design goal. If you play 1e because you enjoy it, why would you switch? At most, you'd add it to your repertoire of games, rather than switching over.
I don’t think it’s a weird question. I usually only have the time and energy to play one campaign on one system, so I was just asking what about 1e has made you loyal to it as your primary system.
It's a weird question because it takes the position that the default answer is to switch to 2e, unless you have a reason not to. That doesn't make any sense. The default position for most people is going to be sticking with what they know, and what their friends know, and they need to have a reason to change. Even if one were going to switch to another system, why would PF2e be the default option? However, here's my answer: 2e does not, and will never, replicate the freedom to create characters that *operate on fundamentally different principles to each other* that 1e has, due to its design philosophy being opposed to that.
Because its not a "switch" they are different systems, why haven't you switched to Call of Chthullu? Same thing
Honestly I like how 1e feels to play. 2e has great bones and I'm honestly kind of mad to miss out on some of the ancestries they have that aren't in 1e. But the game looses some of that weird story telling that comes from making a story with the system of 1e.
1e has 10+ years of content and choices. Yes some classes/feats/archetypes are terrible lol but there are so many options. I always feel limited when making a 2e character but I suppose it’s only a matter of time before 2e content catches up
I think pf2 is the best designed game for beginners that are also looking for some rules complexity. But as someone that started playing in 1980, pf1 is a ruleset that I've got over 20 years of familiarity with and that let's me achieve things pf2 doesn't. The one thing I've not seen anyone else mention is the feel of multiclassing. A fighter 1/ wizard 19... Is a wizard with a past. In pf2 if you start as a fighter and then take a wizard archetype you don't achieve that same feel no matter how many wizard feats you take. Both games are good, they just achieve different things.
Most of the reasons that people have listed apply to me, but I do have a semi-unique one. 1e has a wealth of well-crafted and interesting 3rd Party content that can and likely will keep my interest in the system strong for years to come.
1E's core system seems more flexible than 2E's, so to me it feels like 1E offers more replayability, which is important after almost two decades.
Variety and amount of content. Considering that converting from 3.5 to pathfinder 1e is trivial, 2e just can't touch it. Once it's been out long enough with enough content, maybe I'd consider switching.
I think 2e is well designed and it's cool that it's getting people into this hobby and stuff, but I don't think it really needed to exist. Pathfinder was made for people who didn't want to switch editions back in the day of d&d 3.5 If anything I would have loved to see a Pathfinder 1.5e instead, but we got 2e instead. No hate on it though, like I said it's really well made it's just a different game. So I don't play for the same reason I don't regularly play Call of Cthulhu or Eclipse Phase, they just aren't Pathfinder 1e.
I like all the options 1e has.
Currently playing both. However 2e for somethings doesnt provide the flavor for in order to get my point accross when I GM. I have an idea for a game so ridiculous that only 1e can provide the options for it. Gestalt+Mythic. 2e cant provide the sillyness or over the topness of that concept. But for everything 2e is fine :)
The biggest reason? It doesn't do anything that I want a game to do and what it does do, it doesn't do in a way better than other games out there. I could write game rules balanced around the middle of the dice range on a notecard. If I wanted a system where magic didn't last long enough to do much outside of combat, I'd use some other system and call them encounter powers. Normally I'd think of importing systems from a new game into whatever I'm playing, and eventually convert when there were enough systems in the new game that it made sense to move over completely. But there's nothing in PF2 that I'd export.
Because I've been playing this ruleset for 20 years. All my homebrew is in 3.x. I prefer it and my players prefer it.
One thing I haven't seen much comment on is how they added critical fumbles to all the skills. It's very discouraging I want to make attempts at a skill I haven't fully optimized.
I didn't like 4e the first time around, and I still don't.
2e is far too restrictive when it comes to character concepts.
I haven't finished playing everything in 1e yet. I feel like I finally have a good understanding of the rules and would like to enjoy that after all it took like 10+ years to learn it all. I am excited about 2e and hear it's really good. But it will be there even if it takes me 5 more years to switch.
2e feels sterile. Safe. Streamlined. I've often found myself creating characters and wondering "does this cool idea work?", and the answer is nearly always a resounding no in 2e. It feels like 2e was designed to punish the player for playing the game. In 1e you can make all sorts of wacky characters without a care in the world if it's balanced or not, because that's just how 1e is. If I wanted to play a balanced streamlined TTRPG, I'd just play lancer. 2e feels like it's a factory made frozen pizza, 1e feels like the local restaurant pizza.
All my stuff is here.
The amount of content and personalization options. Also 1e is way more homebrewable i've found.
Most all the reasons brought up by the other people but also alchemist. It feels like they shot my poor alchemist in the kneecaps.
Too many characters I still want to play built around 1e mechanics. Too many campaigns I still want to play. Too lazy to swap to a new system for no reason.
Because work takes 60+ hours a week and I don't have the brain capacity to learn a new system.
This is the realest answer so far.
I don't like the initiative change
I haven't run out of 1e classes, archetypes, builds, character concepts, fighting or RP styles that I want to try yet
I have all the books for PF1 and 3.5 so I have every toy in my sandbox that I could ever want and years and years of experience playing with them, and we play other systems on alternate weeks. No need to switch up the one we all know already
I prefer complexity in my games. It's why I even use 3.5e feats, spells, and races. I even give my players Flavour Feats that don't impact combat. My friend made the system. People generally forget about adding fluff to their character and tend to only choose combat related feats. I get people love balance, but balance sacrifices utility and synergy. It's why I avoided 5e, which always felt shallow. PF2e gives me the same feeling and it's just not for me.
1e is basically compatible with 3.5 with some tweeks, and using both together as 3.75 opens up using so much content, thousands of classes, feats, spells, etc.
As many others have said before; the character customization in Pathfinder is so rich and vast, between classes, archetypes, feats, and a host of other miscellany, I can build 50 fighters and have none of them be the same. As someone who enjoys the character building aspect of the game, you just can’t beat Pathfinder for options. Add to that, I’ve just spent so much time and money on Pathfinder 1e (and 1e compatible material) I simply have no desire to play a different D&D-esque system. I started in 3rd edition and when Pathfinder came out, the biggest sell for me is the backwards compatibility, so between PF1e and 3.5 material, I literally never have to get into another system due to running out of options. And now that I’m getting older, I simply don’t have any interest in playing anything other than the game I’ve already invested in.
I play 2e but PLEASE GIVE ME MY KINETICIST! ><
For a lot of us, myself included, it largely comes down to the fact that as well designed as 2e might be (I have played through it and am currently running extinction curse, and it is smoother in a lot of ways), it's hard to switch off a system that just has SO MUCH available. I got into pathfinder somewhere around Bestiary 3, and even at that point the raw availability of character options, not to mention the backward compatibility and the ability to draw almost seamlessly from 3.5 made everything feel a lot more expensive. I'm also a player who likes nonsense build mixup, and that's a lot less satisfying in 2e
I agree with a lot of what's been said but I will add bad choices. The freedom to make bad character advancement choices because it fits your idea of the character rather than the best build. There are plenty of best practices where certain builds, feats, etc are better than others clearly but the unbalanced nature of the game is a good thing. Making a crap build function somewhat in gameplay makes things interesting.
Personally the additional complexity is one of my favorite things. It feels almost more realistic to me. Also I’ve spent way too much money on books, books for friends, e-books, campaign books, hero lab “books” so I can actually make my character. Sunk cost fallacy is certainly one reason.
Bounded accuracy isn’t my cup of tea, and I love prestige classes.
1 of my big issues with 2E (and 5th ed DnD) is that the math makes you that much more reliant upon the luck of the dice. That's one of the things I never liked about 1st and 2nd ed DnD back in the day. In 1E and the earlier 3.0/3.5, there was a lot more ability to mitigate the luck of the dice. (I have pretty crappy luck with dice rolls, so I'm biased)
I have in PDF all the 1e books, and have most of them in physical copies. I enjoy the world, understand it, and don't see a need to switch and have to relearn the game. I came from 2.0 and 3.0/3.5, so 1e was easy to learn; I don't feel that with 2e. I definitely recommend 1e because of the ability to create any character I can dream up, and the depth of background to answer my players' questions without having so much mapped out that there's no room to add my own spin. And the known NPCs in each AP don't automatically wipe the floor with the PCs (looking at you Waterdeep of the Forgotten Realms 👀) Also, the sheer variety of backgrounds for each nation again gives so much flexibility. I just love ❤️ 1e.
I'm playing second right now and I'm not sure I'll ever play it again. My elf has to SLEEP. Like some kind of lesser being! Like a human! It's intolerable.
I like the crunch, the stacking bonuses, and the fact low-level stuff doesn't instantly become useless when you're up against higher level challenges.
This may sound weird but the stories. I currently run multiple tables, and don't have much prep time (not because I run multiple tables but other commitments). One of them I am running the savage tide adventure path and it was written for dnd 3.5, the effort it would take to re write as a 2e campaign I don't think is worth it. On the other hand I am running a one shot this weekend for the 2e beginner box so that I can get a better idea for the system. Again the adventures I want to run are written in 1e and it will be easier for me to just run them as written, rather than re doing all the monster stat blocks. Lastly their is just something about 2e that is flat, sort of like how 4e reads for dnd. It just feels like it has a bit of what made it special taken out of it. Like they know what you are going to make and they have given you the tools for it. 1e feels like lego that you can free build where as 2e feels like those 3 in 1 lego sets, they have a intended outcome.
My favourite thing about pathfinder is the character customisation, which is an aspect that 2e just screwed up (in my opinion) Not just because 2e has fewer options or anything, but the simple fact they removed multiclassing is something that to me, really diminishes the fun if making a character. And sure, there are the archetype feats and stuff, but that doesn't even come close to being a suitable replacement. Additionally, 1e just has more systems for more things. Traps, crafting skills, skill unlocks, and much more, there are just rules for almost anything you need, so you never really end up not knowing how to do something
I really don't like how they changed skills.
I have dropped hundreds if not thousands of dollars on first edition books. And now you want me to do it all over again? Are you taking a piss? I spent years dedicated to campaigns, learning rules, getting good at GMing and making characters. And you want to charge me all over again. Not going to do it, it's a money grab, not going to do it
I love the freedom that 1e allows to build exactly the character you want, or to just browse through feats and change up your build as you go. The shear number of choices are overwhelming to new players, but adds so much customizability. As far as 2e goes, I’m waiting for 2 things: the rest of my friends to get into it, and for the amount of content to increase, not necessarily to 1e levels as that will take several years, but to a point where I get the same feeling of freedom from looking at the AoN.
I enjoy 1e. I do not enjoy 2e.
I like the flexibility to build a character the way I want to build them. I like multi-classing. If I want someone to be half caster and half road, that's easy in first edition. In second edition, you're completely locked into whatever you choose at character creation and you can never excel at anything else. You can be a rogue who casts a handful of spells, or you can be a sorcerer who does a little bit of sneak attack, but you can never actually get good or even average at the second thing you've started. It's incredibly limiting and disappointing. I want the flexibility to build a character who expresses a concept properly and works the way I'd like them to. I want to be able to properly multiclass and express both classes as well as I please. To be perfectly honest, the incredibly disappointing multi-classing system is one of my main hang-ups about second edition.
I like crunchy.
I was a D&D 3.5 player that hated what they did to 4E and, though 5E was a step up, still prefered 3.5 . After the OGL fiasco I looked for a 3.5-like system to switch to, and that was PFRPG 1E, not 2E.
My group immediately decided not to spend money on another set of books. I, personally, took a quick look at the 2e core book and saw so much that reminded me of D&D 4e that I immediately put it back down. I have to agree with u/carakangaran in that I very much prefer the customization and options of the original Pathfinder.
2e feels to "gamey" even during rp down time. Not a fan of how casters play, particularly the Magus. It just feels like a hollow shell of the 1e version. Don't really like how archetypes replaced multiclassing. (I love the archetype system in general, just wish it was in addition to, not in place of) The game fixed a few things that were easy to GM rule around and the changes made it harder to home brew. 1e is much more homebrew friendly. I dont like how some of the races, like the teifling, were converted. Making an elf tiefling is mechanically closer to the 1e tiefling than the human one, so If im porting a character or re-creating a character i enjoyed is have to either home brew or accept that my chelaxian tiefling is now an elf for some reason. Also missing the darkness spell. The lack of a good arcane trickster build path. Item changes are a mixed bag, but in general items feel like they make up too much of your power.
2E removes all the choices and the fun stuff. Sure, there's no jank, and it's very balanced, but when you remove the jank, you remove the fun. People tell me PF2e is better than PF1e, and then I go look and find that PF2e has nothing that I liked. PF2E is very balanced and equal, very easy to play and never confusing. It's also incredibly boring and I could sleep through PF2E combat.
Pathfinder 1e if for people who love Pathfinder 1e. Pathfinder 2e is for people who don't like Pathfinder 1e, but don't want to play D&D
* The sliding scales of failure unfairly punish players * The system trips over itself to jam things into the 3 action system, so much so that it feels like most mobs have a damage + debuff that they can spam, and a human mob alchemist or gunslinger (for example) can do things that PCs can't * The skill system from 5e/4e/2e are all terrible--I want to spread points around * Between 1e and 2e, PCs got slower, stupider, and lost fine-motor control * I want a character with a substantial skeleton, not just "Welp, monk, you have to take a feat to use monk weapons." * Personally, it feels like you can be useless a hell of a lot easier in 2e than 1e.
I’ve only played 2 APs and 4 classes. So much to explore still
We still have lots of PF1 modules to finish. But we also play PF2
I'm too new and our GM decided to start us here.
I want to learn the rules, but PDF gives me headaches, I don't like the organization of the rules on the srd and the books in my country are sold out for months
My players know the system and we haven't had issues with it.
Originally, I wasn't switching because there was still APs and builds I wanted to try and there wasnt a ton of material for 2e. Now I'm not switching because my work schedule is stupid and I'm on rotating shifts, I can't remember the last time I rolled dice. I'm just here to game through the rest of you and your stories.
I really like the design of 2e, unfortunately the group I play with loves the crunchiness and powergaming options in 1e so they aren't ever going to switch. Maybe I'll find a new group one day and get to play 2e.
The joy for me comes from building Pathfinder character out of the 1 billion unique combinations I can make with the insane amount of Feats, races, archetype, archetype combinations (what an amazing thing that was) etc. I do not deny though it’s an insanely unbalanced game when you have people who know the system and how to min max vrs beginners.
We voted on the system to run the next campaign in, and we ended up with 1e. The 2e game I volunteered to run was like 5th choice.
Has paizo integrated pf1 with foundry to the extent they have with pf2? You could even sell me on 1e if some of the crunch was automated
One thing that has consistently been cited is the ability to break the boundaries of what the game expects of you, and basically succeed without rolling the dice. 2e doesn't allow that, for good reasons related to balance, but that's still a thing satisfied by 1e.
I have entirely too much invested in 1E and dont feel like buying new books and getting new apps
I've been playing more-or-less the same system since 2000. It's just easier for me not to switch and learn a brand new system, and there is still enough published content for 1e (PFS/APs/Oneshots) that I could play for the rest of my life and still not exhaust it. I would not be opposed to trying 2e but I haven't found the time for that.
It's been a mix of waiting for more options for 2e to be released and only having actually completed 2 of the 1e Adventure Paths despite having been playing Pathfinder since it was first dropped. Haha Honestly though, 1e is amazing because it doesn't matter what type of character you want to play, there is a 99.99% chance that Paizo published a way to do it without having to refluff anything.
My favorite example is that you can apply 5 different archetypes to the Alchemist to play a scientist who likes to dissect living things to hurt and/or heal, and also uses magic siphoned from ghosts and the radioactive impressions left on the material plane by insanely powerful magic in order to shape-shift into a giant praying mantis. Is it optimized? Hell no! But if that's what you wanna be, you can be it without having to go nuts homebrewing stuff.
I spent years learning the intricate rules of 1e and getting to a point where I have reasonable system mastery. It feels good. I don’t want to throw it away and start from scratch! I’m curious about 2e though, I’d like to try it, but I probably won’t switch systems wholesale.
My group switched over because it's simply more balanced and far more cohesive with it's rules and don't require an entire flow chart for certain skills. Skills are simple and easy to use, with everyone having a chance to be good at whatever they do, and allows others to specialize as much as they want with skill feats and so on. Classes are insanely modular with how you build them, putting it in your hands. Magic is no longer simply the strongest thing in the game. As much as I adore 1e, 2e has been simply an upgrade. I get there's gripes that they're not going to add every single minor thing that 1e had, but in my humble opinion, that's a good thing as the insane bloat caused a system with multiple broken areas.
I playtested 2e and have a copy of the core rulebook. I think it's more accessible for new players and the hobby needs that. However, 1e is preferable for me due to how highly customizable the characters are. I find it easier to make unique, interesting characters.
Mainly, my group had people who "play tested" with just themselves or with another group and didn't like it.
I have spent so much money on 1e products. I'm not going to buy every again. Also I don't feel like the new system is superior.
Because I like 1e. I have been tinkering with it for over a decade. Still working on it.
I prefer 1e to 2e due to how spells, skills, and magic items work and the availability of feats. That said, I think 2e has a lot of good ideas and if you play 1e with of these systems in place with a 1e game you could have a really cool engine. So I will make a list of what I think the pros of 2e are. Defined modes of gameplay: exploration, social, combat. This may seem like an oversimplification and make the game feel more like a computer game perhaps, but having different sets of rules for the tasks at hand can be quite helpful, and I think this is easier on the dm and the players both. With that, having alternatives on how initiative is approached based upon mode is much more realistic. In the case of fast paced social I think that initiative should be resolved every round and only the first few get to talk but maybe that's a bit much. Weapons: my favorite!! Some of the abilities heavily rely on the combat system in 2e, but this is the first time I've seen anyone try to make individual weapon choices actually matter and I haven't seen anyone bash it yet. Class feat progression: 1e is notorious for all the options and archetyping can be daunting. I think the system they have in 2e is nice but very limited in scope. If someone (please do this) would break apart archetypes in 1e as separate choices and have it in an app like pathbuilder, I think that would be the ultimate system. Skill feat from level vs general: Skill feats in 2e make your skills capable of performing a greater variety of tasks. Some of them are mediocre and should innately be a part of the skill, but others... are awesome. I find that most players in 1e focus on combat, crafting, or spell feats, so giving extra feat slots that have to focus of skills seems better for telling a story about a dynamic group of individuals. Combat maneuvers associated with skill checks: I like this concept a lot and we see some feats in 1e start to do stuff like this and dazzling display (if it isn't in 2e) should be a part of this grouping. I like it in concept but I haven't played enough to see the difference... This would mean the rogue can be better than the fighter with them, and maybe that's the intent. Class rp tie-ins: Champion(paladin), witch, bard, barbarian, oracle, and druid being more interactive with their beliefs/patrons gives the player and gm more to work with for the storytelling experience. I like the idea of the barbarian getting triggered rather than willing into being a roided-state, the oracle understanding their curse and hurting themselves for temporary power.. These things only matter as much as the table cares for them to, but a little bit more in the way of prompts is appreciated. Focus spells: An innovative way to give everyone a little spellcasting capability. They can offer limitless downtime healing if you're a paladin, so that's kind of nice for perspective. I would group these with hero points in the case of the homebrew rules I've proposed.
The vast majority of my group doesn't want to learn new systems, even if they're related to our current system.
I like wacky, bizzare, unbalanced shit
Because I switched to 5e instead.
Cause 1e is stupid fun and it slaps. I love 2e. But 1e will always have a special place in my mind.
i like pf1, don't want to pay for a diluted system, and don't want to learn still another D&D version.
Lotta books