Pathfinder 2E What does Pathfinder lack?

[The-Magic-Sword]

Well, the thing I want to see isn't really around in 5e either: a proper swordmage.

There is the magus, but that's not what I want. The magus is a class that sometimes hits things with swords, and sometimes casts spells. I want something like the 4e swordmage, which integrates magic and melee (and occasionally ranged, but I'd be comfortable keeping it to very short-range things other than things intended to reduce range). Like stabbing someone and sending a bolt of electricity through your weapon to stun them, or hammering the ground to set off a shockwave dealing damage in a cone, or teleporting behind someone and stabbing them in the back.

We straight up need more spells like Blazing Dive, Draw the Lightning, enough to make a whole playstyle out of, 5e actually came close with it's cantrips but... they're just cantrips and IIRC they were nerfed.

 

[zedturtle]

Bounded accuracy. Level-scaling all the numbers up all the time (which also restricts what opposition you can realistically use within a certain level range). I know there's a variant to avoid the bloat, but then it's extra hassle for the GM when you cannot use anything as-is.

Dis/advantage. Not a fan of +1 from this +2 from that -1 from this (and an untyped range penalty?). Yeah, dis/advantage isn't terribly granular, but it makes life so much more convenient than worrying about individual 5% shifts in odds.

I hear you. It's a big shift. The optional Proficiency Without Level will be standard in Ashen Frontiers, so Trained gets +2 only for a skill, Expert +4, Master +6, etc. So numbers are a bit less crazy, and GM's can choose whether or not to include monster levels when designing an encounter to keep up the brutal nature of the setting, or take it easy on the party if needed.

Support for a campaign setting that's not Golarian. (3rd party or otherwise.)
Simple, straightforward adventures that aren't meat grinders.
Enough familiarity with the rules that I can feel like a decent GM (even after 3+ years experience).
Easy to put together a group of people to actually play it.

Ashen Frontiers is its own setting of the broken world of Pherot. The Tyrant rose to power after discovering a way to regain Arcane power by destroying things full of Primal power (i.e. nature) and used it to claim power and deny access to almost the rest of the multiverse. So post-apocalyptic fantasy inspired by TSR's Dark Sun, but no slavery, no alignment (made that decision well in advance of the Remaster announcement), and ancestries inspired by what has come before, but any problematic things are, at worst, a rumour that some people in the setting might tell, but are not guaranteed to be true at all.

We straight up need more spells like Blazing Dive, Draw the Lightning, enough to make a whole playstyle out of, 5e actually came close with it's cantrips but... they're just cantrips and IIRC they were nerfed.

Good to know. Still working on the classes and then the spells, so plenty of opportunities there!

 

[Retreater]

Ashen Frontiers is its own setting of the broken world of Pherot. The Tyrant rose to power after discovering a way to regain Arcane power by destroying things full of Primal power (i.e. nature) and used it to claim power and deny access to almost the rest of the multiverse. So post-apocalyptic fantasy inspired by TSR's Dark Sun, but no slavery, no alignment (made that decision well in advance of the Remaster announcement), and ancestries inspired by what has come before, but any problematic things are, at worst, a rumour that some people in the setting might tell, but are not guaranteed to be true at all.

I hadn't heard of that one. It sounds interesting. It looks like it's still in development?

 

[Aldarc]

Warlord

 

[CommodoreKong]

Bounded accuracy. Level-scaling all the numbers up all the time (which also restricts what opposition you can realistically use within a certain level range). I know there's a variant to avoid the bloat, but then it's extra hassle for the GM when you cannot use anything as-is.

Dis/advantage. Not a fan of +1 from this +2 from that -1 from this (and an untyped range penalty?). Yeah, dis/advantage isn't terribly granular, but it makes life so much more convenient than worrying about individual 5% shifts in odds.

I don't really mind the different bonuses and penalties in Pathfinder 2e but I only play it in Foundry where most of it is already done for you. I wonder how I would feel actually playing it on a tabletop. Advantage and disadvantage might just be better in that situation.

I think it would be interesting to see some automatic scaling rules for creatures in Pathfinder. It does have strong and weak templates but I feel like more could be done to allow automatic monster scaling.

 

[Pedantic]

This is a pretty esoteric complaint that I increasingly believe no one but me cares about, but objective DCs. I need the book to write down, without reference to a level scaling or generic difficulty table, the difficult of every task a PC will attempt to accomplish. DCs set by opponents can reasonable scale, and I'd be somewhat annoyed but amenable to a general level scaling reference table, if all tasks were indexed to it directly (i.e, climbing a 30 foot wall is a level 5 Easy check).

The point of this is to make skills into PC declarative abilities, instead of a thing that's rolled when a PC calls for something uncertain. Skills shouldn't be gambling, unless a PC opts into an action they don't know they can succeed at.

I want to like PF2, but this is an absolute sticking point for me and the primary design point that keeps me from looking at it further. PF1 was the last system in the D&D-alike space iterating on objective DCs and it was very frustrating to see them abandoned for yet another scaling/generic difficulty model.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No BA? No Ad/Disad? No stock DCs?

You guys don't need to sell me this hard on PF2.

I get it; I'll buy a copy at Origins.

Edit: Wait. I've gotta wait for the new books that also lack alignment.

 

[zedturtle]

I hadn't heard of that one. It sounds interesting. It looks like it's still in development?

Yep. While I've been part of the teams for some really well known games like Age of Sigmar: Soulbound, Ruins of Symbaroum, Adventures in Middle-earth, BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and others, I've never done a setting or core rulebook start to finish by myself. And, so, after some medical scares last year, this will be it. It's not totally alone, of course, I've got illustrators, an editor, and advisors that are well known from previous projects, and have their names in some major projects from the last few decades. I'm also in the process of working with a diversity consultant to make sure I've got an outside opinion on the setting, and to make sure I'm appealing to all possible customers.

I'm live on Patreon right now, with several initial articles on offer, and this month's release (the first update for the project) should be available soon. Waiting on the aforementioned editor's touch-ups, and the final art. Here's a preview of one page, with most of the text blurred out just in case of improvements or late-breaking changes:

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Good to know. Still working on the classes and then the spells, so plenty of opportunities there!

Yeah, they're nice because they fit into the balance model of casters without actually creating any weird questions (because at the end of the day, they're a cool flavor and inspiration for the effects of spells) but if there's enough of them, you can build a wizard or something that is constantly who is essentially doing magical martial arts, and its basically what swordmage powers were. Small mechanical hooks (like using weapon dice as damage dice, or providing a bonus to a follow up strike) are sufficient for most players to not worry too much about "isn't this just a fireball reskin" kinda like Blazing Dive repositions you (that one doesn't use a weapon, but it still feels very swordmagey.)

 

[zedturtle]

Thanks all!

I've begun work on a rules doc for Pathfinder, to solidify a few things now rather than wait on what may (or may not) appear in Remaster. I've also found that I am much better off doing initial rules development in Pathfinder and finding a way to hack that into 5e, rather than the other way round. It's still early days, but it is a fun and exciting project, and I can't wait to show it off.

Speaking of getting a first look at things, if Ashen Frontiers sounds interesting but committing to (another) Patreon isn't the cards right now, signing up for my Discord is an excellent way to stay in the loop on Patreon releases, more general news, get previews of things, and even link up to express interest in becoming a playtester.

And keep the input coming! Everything helps, and I've got an open mind to what will be best for my project.