Pathfinder 2E Simplified PF2e?

[JAMUMU]

I've been playing PF2 for about a year and have been pondering my orb over simplifying (I prefer the term 'lightening') the system load for about 11 months of that year.

The big thing I'd remove are Skill Feats. I don't like the way skills work in PF2 (needing multiple feats to do what the skills should be 'allowed' to do) and I'd buff the skills in a way that made many/most of the skill feats unnecessary. I think that would go some way to slimming down the system.

One of the reasons we've stuck with PF2 is how flexible it is at character creation, so I'd want to retain all of that sweet "My character's an animated antique hatstand out to avenge the murder of its owners" goodness. However I feel the way many classes bring unique/exceptional mechanics to the mix creates a lot of system weight and a fair bit of duplication. Simplification could be achieved here without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Magical weapons, armour and the crafting system seem needlessly convoluted, so that would need tamed. It's one of the PF2 sub-systems that shapes the world around it so the game can balance, and to me that's the sign of a system in need of an overhaul.

The three(+) actions action economy I actually quite like, but as we play TotM and find all the range-numbers can get us in a kerfuffle, I'd look to using range bands as a simpler option.

Some great ideas in this thread too, and it's nice to see I'm not the only one to have been thinking this way.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I've been playing PF2 for about a year and have been pondering my orb over simplifying (I prefer the term 'lightening') the system load for about 11 months of that year.

The big thing I'd remove are Skill Feats. I don't like the way skills work in PF2 (needing multiple feats to do what the skills should be 'allowed' to do) and I'd buff the skills in a way that made many/most of the skill feats unnecessary. I think that would go some way to slimming down the system.

One of the reasons we've stuck with PF2 is how flexible it is at character creation, so I'd want to retain all of that sweet "My character's an animated antique hatstand out to avenge the murder of its owners" goodness. However I feel the way many classes bring unique/exceptional mechanics to the mix creates a lot of system weight and a fair bit of duplication. Simplification could be achieved here without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Magical weapons, armour and the crafting system seem needlessly convoluted, so that would need tamed. It's one of the PF2 sub-systems that shapes the world around it so the game can balance, and to me that's the sign of a system in need of an overhaul.

The three(+) actions action economy I actually quite like, but as we play TotM and find all the range-numbers can get us in a kerfuffle, I'd look to using range bands as a simpler option.

Some great ideas in this thread too, and it's nice to see I'm not the only one to have been thinking this way.

Thanks for sharing and some good ideas!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Maybe I need to consider what is sacred in PF2. What things can’t change or only very minimal changes? My. First thought is:

3 action economy,
Degrees of success/failure

What other unique things to PF2 just can’t go?

 

[Thomas Shey]

My personal feeling is that a very limited amount of simplification is going to be possible while still keeping the virtues of the system.

I actually do agree that you could probably thin out the skill feats without too much loss (though I'm rolling my eyes about the canard that you have to buy a feat to do something you could just do with the skill--there are a very small number of skill feats that actually do that, most offset penalties for doing something unusual, or allow you to get more yield out of something you can already do in one fashion or another).

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

My personal feeling is that a very limited amount of simplification is going to be possible while still keeping the virtues of the system.

What do you consider the virtues of the system then? What do we need to avoid removing / modifying to much?

 

[JAMUMU]

My personal feeling is that a very limited amount of simplification is going to be possible while still keeping the virtues of the system.

I actually do agree that you could probably thin out the skill feats without too much loss (though I'm rolling my eyes about the canard that you have to buy a feat to do something you could just do with the skill--there are a very small number of skill feats that actually do that, most offset penalties for doing something unusual, or allow you to get more yield out of something you can already do in one fashion or another).

I roll my eyes at you rolling your eyes. It's super-effective.

Intimidation is particularly bad for this. The other social skills as well. It takes a minute to intimidate someone without a feat. You can only intimidate one person at a time without a feat. Intimidation doesn't last longer than a scene without a feat. This can be copy-pasted across the other social skills. So the canard has feathers, it quacks, walks and flies.

You can't start a rumour without a feat, and so on, and so forth. There's an argument that you could actually dispose of the skill system and just go with skill feats that spell out what your character can do.

 

[payn]

I roll my eyes at you rolling your eyes. It's super-effective.

Intimidation is particularly bad for this. The other social skills as well. It takes a minute to intimidate someone without a feat. You can only intimidate one person at a time without a feat. Intimidation doesn't last longer than a scene without a feat. This can be copy-pasted across the other social skills. So the canard has feathers, it quacks, walks and flies.

You can't start a rumour without a feat, and so on, and so forth. There's an argument that you could actually dispose of the skill system and just go with skill feats that spell out what your character can do.

I had a lot of reservation about the idea of skill feats. I especially dislike the 3E/PF1 dynamic where your choices are between a cool thing that happens maybe once a campaign, and all right thing that happens maybe once a session, and a boring thing that has utility in every fight.

As much as I loath the 5E skill system, it has more OSR feel to it. Would adopting it to PF2s level design work?

 

[JAMUMU]

I had a lot of reservation about the idea of skill feats. I especially dislike the 3E/PF1 dynamic where your choices are between a cool thing that happens maybe once a campaign, and all right thing that happens maybe once a session, and a boring thing that has utility in every fight.

As much as I loath the 5E skill system, it has more OSR feel to it. Would adopting it to PF2s level design work?

That's the $6 Million question! We've also ran into the "Oh, right now it would be so cool if i'd taken this amazingly flavourful skill feat, but when the combat is this deadly, who's got time for roleplaying amirite?" problem, which is a problem that drags down the whole system for us. The 5e edition skill system wasn't ideal, but it was also pretty bashable and iirc was so vague that it faded into the background when I ran/played 5e. I think some of the PF2 skills would run just fine that way, particularly the social and knowledge-based skills. Crafting and Medicine are the two big sore thumbs, though. Because of how their mechanics are essential to the way the system works, they'd require some finessing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I roll my eyes at you rolling your eyes. It's super-effective.

Intimidation is particularly bad for this. The other social skills as well. It takes a minute to intimidate someone without a feat. You can only intimidate one person at a time without a feat. Intimidation doesn't last longer than a scene without a feat. This can be copy-pasted across the other social skills. So the canard has feathers, it quacks, walks and flies.

You're making my point for me, while demonstrating what your real issue is how easy the game thinks it is to do all those things in the first place. None of those are impossible, they just require more than one turn. You're welcome to call that "impossible" if you like, but that's like arguing its "impossible" to run a hundred yards because you can't do it on one round.

You can't start a rumour without a feat, and so on, and so forth. There's an argument that you could actually dispose of the skill system and just go with skill feats that spell out what your character can do.

Nothing says you can't start a rumor without a feat. The feat makes doing so expeditious and convenient. You're doing the same thing people always do with this argument and overextending what the rules say.

 

[JAMUMU]

You're making my point for me, while demonstrating what your real issue is how easy the game thinks it is to do all those things in the first place. None of those are impossible, they just require more than one turn. You're welcome to call that "impossible" if you like, but that's like arguing its "impossible" to run a hundred yards because you can't do it on one round.



Nothing says you can't start a rumor without a feat. The feat makes doing so expeditious and convenient. You're doing the same thing people always do with this argument and overextending what the rules say.

Fair enough, I bow to your superior Wisdom score. It must just be our GM then, and not a feature of the text itself.