(Rewatching... I see my cat Megan stealing the show in the first few minutes! lol) WHY AM I REACTING TO THESE OLD VIDEOS?: These 3 videos and their creators are still Top Results when people browse UA-cam for Pathfinder 2e reviews, and have convinced many people not to play the system. Michael Sayre, Paizo Design Manager, referenced "dunk videos" as one of the "challenges" faced by Paizo that has discouraged people from trying PF2E: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/xsgynk/its_impossible_to_say_how_important_this/ And there was a Reddit thread Jan. 15, 2023, while the Wizards of the Coast's OGL scandal was its height, of people saying they were "misled" from checking out PF2E by these 3 videos: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10csgyb/taking_20_puffin_forest_5e_migrants_misled/ I repeatedly refer on-stream to my rebuttal video to Taking20's combat example. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/p5xV7BOFwyw/v-deo.html EDIT: In a number of comments I'm told the video is too long. There are timestamps to assist people - some of you may want to treat it like a podcast and listen to it while doing other things. People who know my situation know I don't have time to do everything I have planned, and EDITING TAKES A LOT OF TIME. And I don't think editing this down and rereleasing it in my main release schedule makes sense, as only so much attention should be shone on these negative videos. EDIT 2: Clarifying my comments on Puffin's video. I don't think his reaction/take overall is dishonest. I appreciate his including positive comments along with negative, and he admits that his own predilections/preferences are at play. But the example he creates and the manner with which he presents make PF2 seem more complex/overwhelming than it actually is, which I don't think is responsible. Particularly BECAUSE he includes it with positive comments, people unfamiliar with his style are more likely to assume he is describing a typical attack in PF2E. Also, I don't clarify why I point out his mistake on adding two bonuses of the same type: it's not to nitpick that he got a rule wrong. It's to point out that once one player buffs a player's attacks with a spell, the whole table knows that other spells likely won't add to it, so stacking more bonuses is not on the agenda. This means that people know not to pile on multiple bonuses (in contrast to 5e, where you might want to stack Peace Domain and Bardic Inspiration and Bless together). This can reduce complexity in actual play. EDIT 3: Here's someone else's video response to Taking20's second video that I wanted to share on stream but couldn't find at the time! It's a shorter, effective rebuttal to Taking20's combat: ua-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/v-deo.html EDIT 4: Taking20 notably did NOT take Hunter's Aim at Level 2 for his ranger, which arguably was the "obvious" Level 2 archer class feat, and he claimed he was making obvious archer choices. Hunter's Aim would have undercut his argument, because it would have given him a 2-action activity that would have given him a competing "optimal" way to use his last 2 actions. Hunter's Aim: 2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=496 EDIT 5: The player from Taking20's campaign who was in chat says that the Ranger player DID do more than just Hunt Prey and shoot his bow (at 3:31:12): "Ed (elblade) Only one of the PCs was created this way. He did start using intimidation later as he learned its benefit. This was a character after the TPK and that player avoided melee. He still contributed."
FYI (not that you need to care) I'm generally curious about your takes and opinions, but your 1-hour videos are sometimes a challenge to find time for. A 5 hour video isn't getting watched ever, I'm just going to skim the top comments and move on.
@@ryuteki At least skim the chapters in the description. One or two sections may prove worth watching. As for long form videos: often one can benefit taking the time to watch longer videos (which cover a subject in-depth enough) to exponentially save time in the future. Even viewing long videos at 1.5 - 2.0 playback speed, the key points can be fair grasped.
I think it's great you're going all into Pathfinder--Castles and Crusades by Troll Lord Games is the game I recommend, that's D&D but much better, and much more like D&D was back in the day.
"Magic missile is stupid, because you can spend 1, 2 or 3 actions to get multiple bolts" "Why don't they lean into the action economy for spells?? Like, what if the spells did different things depending on how many actions you use??"
It's worth stating that empowering a spell by spending more actions is different from the dynamic flexibility of changing its functions by spending more actions.
@@TheDimir It's just pointing out that the two statements are not necessarily a contradiction. "More spells need to be dynamic with their actions", and "You should just always cast it with 3 actions (because I don't understand how the game works)" are not in contradiction.
In the case of Puffin's points: 1 - He's absolutely correct. If you actually had to calculate every single strike bonus from the ground up every time you made a strike, Pathfinder would be a horrendous mess that everyone should avoid like the plague... 2 - It sure is a good thing that I have this piece of paper and a pencil here to just write down the attack modifiers for my character ahead of time so that that is NEVER a problem.
I remember in one of Puffin's other videos he said that he played mostly Fighters and that even when he picked up other character classes he would just dip back to fighter and only use the beginning features. Which kind of makes me think he's not one that's super invested in the nitty gritty of combat in general even for D&D.
@@Ariande796 He did come around to PF2e eventually though, so maybe he just didn't like DnD combat that much and hadn't tried another combat heavy system before?
He also doesn’t seem like much of a prep guy. This might be because he started with 4e where all the numbers were preset although he goes through a similar rant about various bonuses and negatives with that too. Honestly between how his group plays and how he plays I believe that they are all horrible and deserve each other.
I have been a huge fan of puffin forest and I also followed Taking20 for DnD tips (I wanted all the help I could get). And those videos made me reject Pathfinder 2e without even trying. At this very moment I haven't play it yet but the more I read the more I want to try it. The game looks unique and solves various of the problems I have with 5e (Potion being useless, poor character customization, monsters without any cool ability, poor CR calculator, casters are more powerful that martial, the economy sistem makes no sense, no real crafting....). As soon as we finish the DnD campaign I am going to make another using pathfinder. It's sad to think that the OGL scandal was necessary in order to me to actually give the sistem an actual chance.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Thanks, I have been here for a few months (A little before the DnD youtubers trying pathfinder series) and I love your content, thank you for your work.
@@robertopena8112 I'm absolutely in the same boat. Played PF1 for years (still do) but was scared away from even ATTEMPTING to learn PF2 after watching Taking20's (evidently erroneous) mathematical breakdown. If it wasn't for the OGL nonsense, I may never have given this game the fair shake it deserves.
I am running a 5e campaign and we have gone lvl 4 to lvl 15. The more we play it, the more I regret having ever moved away from Pathfinder 1e. I am not sure why anyone would use 5e with these prevalent problems. I find 5e outstandingly more complex because you have to house rule/implement so many missing systems and oversimplified rules. With some experience and a lot of work, I feel it is possible to keep the encounters challenging and interesting but everything needs a ton of work on the DM side. I am also thankful for the OGL scandal. I think I might not have even realized my discontent with the system. Probably, I would have switched to 1e. 2e looks more like a very complex board game. A lot of rules but once you get the basics down you can check/learn/memorize things as you go.
My core issue with Taking20's response is when he presumes we argue that doing things his way is mechanically optimal but people should be doing "creative" things anyway (in other words that "what's fun" and "what's optimal" are in conflict in the system) , when in fact my argument is that he's wrong about what's optimal, the optimal choice is different round-to-round and fight-to-fight, and as a result it's not optimal in the first place to do the boring 1-2-3 same move every time. And making a system where assessment of the situation is important is good strategy game design, and making a system where the mechanical value of options is relatively close together (or where there are incomparables, such as dps vs danger mitigation by using your own actions to deny enemy offensive power) produces a lot of very real and not illusory choice. I do think some burden for his bad experience should be borne by the adventure path he ran. It was being written for a new system, and had some mistakes that could make for bad situations if followed logically. I also think it's easy for a DM used to running 5E to have habits for running sessions that don't work as well with P2E's intended rhythm, and for that to make things feel disjointed. But the biggest issue is that the supposed "black and white, apples to apples" comparison he made included flaws, houserules, and fudges that really undercut his credibility, because without those it's likely that his findings would have undercut his point. If you ran up and tripped the wight, that could be enormously powerful as support to your Fighter and a way to deny enemy actions. That's a Real Choice. If you stepped back to force the farther wight to use two strides if it wants to attack you and get into proper volley range, that's a Real Choice. If you ran into the next room to hide and gain an advantage on your shot? That's another Real Choice.
Yeah it seems more like a lack of creature variance. In the video he talks about swashbucklers rolling through, using panache, and then finishers every turn which is pretty fair imo. Swashbucklers (and rangers) seem to be the most step by step class in the game especially at lower levels in that they do seems to follow the same action path every turn.
My gut reaction to his opening statement was that it was a problem with how he designed encounters. Optimal decisions and high-synergy builds exist in every game. 5e isn't a stranger to this. Whatever paladin multiclass a player ripped off of reddit wants to walk up to someone and divine smite. That's not a crime. But you, as the GM, letting them do it every combat is. Failing to adequately balance encounters that let your players strut their stuff a bit against encounters that force them into having to vary their tactics and fight for every inch until they get into a spot where the payoff is getting to hit that smite, or that multiattack, or that hunted shot is your fault as the GM. Players are going to make unitaskers if you let them make unitaskers, not by saying yes or no but by giving them no incentive to do anything else.
@@al8188it is regularly said by game designers that, if allowed, players will play the fun out of the game. You have to constantly challenge and switch up what your players do in order to keep things fun. If the players do the same thing again and again, either the dm is not giving enough variety (which could be a problem with the system) or the players are unimaginative (again the system could be this way). But the variety of balanced choices offered in Pathfinder argues against this
Let's build one of the most complex multi-attack characters intended for people who really like that kind of stuff, claim it's the most basic form of combat, attack in a sequence that makes no sense in-game simply to increase listener disorientation levels, and then present it in as confusing a way as possible while getting some numbers wrong. The best part is that he's acting like runes randomly morph into other runes and appear and disappear on your weapons between every strike action. 🙃
I'll admit, Taking20s video pushed me away from PF2e for awhile. But last year me and my group were just sick of how 5e was playing for us, so we decided to give it a shot anyway, and haven't looked back since. Typing this just made me realize yesterday was exactly 1 year since we changed!
For me was exactly the contrary: aside from being friends with the translator. Taking 20 first videos on Pathfinder helped me a lot to learn the game. Seeing his first quit video was very sad because I was also having issues by running Age of Ashes, but none of them were similar to Cody's problems. The part where he mocks people who prefer Pathfinder as "non role players" who only roll dice and drink beer was infuriating - because the only thing that kept my group together in the AP was exactly how much we loved each other's characters and couldn't wait to see them Role-playing. It was my first game that I ran as closely as possible to the rules, I've allways played very loosely. To be honest, my only complaint on Age of Ashes is that the story and the NPCs are incredibly BORING. I did not have any of the encounter balancing issues people had. Now I'm running Curse of the Crimson Throne for my group using a conversion guide and having the time of my life.
Yeah, I haven't seen all of his videos, but he kinda seems like a problem player in the videos I did see. Maybe he exaggerates for comic effect though.
There is a interview with players out of his curse of straud campaign; I think they like that style of play. Not sure he would consider them horror stories so much as war stories.
I could never watch puffin forest videos because I realized after watching just one that.... Well he's not really a good person. His humor is similar to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, laughing at people being awful dickheads. But that's a fake show, and puffin forest presents his as real stories.
How about in 5e: I attack with a +7 except it's at advantage because I'm flanking, but the DM says "also disadvantage because you have pocket sand in your eyes", and the player then says "okay but I have advantage since I'm using Steady Aim", to which the DM says "advantage sources don't stack, so it cancels out anyway", at which point another player says "don't forget, you can add 1d8 to this because of Bardic Inspiration, but it only works on one of your attacks, not all of them, it's consumed after that", and then that reminds the DM "oh right, you also have Bane on you, so you'll need to subtract 1d4 on each of your attack rolls", which in turn reminds a 3rd player to say "Wait they're also Blessed, so that cancels Bane and they don't need to roll that negative 1d4 on all of their attacks", and the DM then states "no, they need to subtract a 1d4 from each attack and also add a 1d4 to each one. Also, the enemy flicks their wrist and conjures a magical shield, increasing their AC by 5 for this round." A fourth player then says, "wait I thought this creature was blinded earlier? That means this attack has advantage." The DM confirms, "ah yes, I forgot - this creature is blinded so your attack has advantage - oh no wait, it has a disadvantage source too so that doesn't matter, I forgot, my bad. Go ahead and make your attack roll at +7 with a +1d4 and -1d4." The bard says, "don't forget Bardic Inspiration! You get a d6 bonus on one of your attacks if you want, but this Tasha's feature actually lets you use it as bonus damage I think too; let me check." The dungeon master replies, "wait didn't your Bardic Inspiration die go up to a d8 this level? And I thought the Tasha's feature only works for spell damage." etc. Hopefully you get the point that this isn't really a Pathfinder problem, it's an unprepared/new player/these-systems-are-honestly-just-all-kinda-complicated-in-general problem. I think that's actually appealing to a lot of us though.
i don't know that still seems simpler than pf2e no? Which was the point. Its the comparison between the degree for both systems. They are both problems for 5e and pf2e just more of a problem for pf2e than 5e to a new player.
@@CL-jq1xs the only difference between this comment and 50:20 for example is the fact that pf2e also has level and prof scaling (which you can just look up, especially if you are using vtt or builder). In my experience 5e is only easier because there is less encouregment to buff your teammates from my POV as everyone just minmax their DPS or AC anyway, not carrying about giving some +1 to hit.
@@CL-jq1xsNot really no. In pf2e your item bonus, prof bonus, stat bonus to hit are all added at character creation or when you get an item and put as one single bonus. You wouldn’t be figuring that out every round as he’s pretending. The difference the becomes take your highest condition modifiers to status and circumstance + your roll. Thats one flat bonus + two other bonuses and a roll and mind you that you usually won’t have two conditions hitting your status and circumstance. 5e wise you got your total base hit stat+prof+item bonus + roll same and then potentially multiple spell effects bless, bardic inspiration and bane… that’s MORE variable before we even get into advantage and disadvantage. He just rapid fired off every possible modifier while getting rules wrong, and pretending numbers you’d already have added and not trying to factor every round to make it sound more confusing than it was. It reeked of someone who really didn’t take the time to really learn the system and was critical of their lack of knowledge of it.
Pathfinder needs hardcoded rules for anything so Logan Bonner can have sleep at night instead of adjudicating ruling on Twitter 24/7 for 10 years like Jeremy Crawford did.
Okay... your first part of your comment was leading me to think of another motive... I do agree wasting time on Twitter for rules clarifications is a bad idea. That's what blogs and erratas are for.
@@MaindexOmega Because Crawford limply said "well if you don't really wanna use them, then don't. What do I know about what's intended and what's not. It's your game". He also made conflicting rulings on same thing.
@@MaindexOmega What he means by it is essentially "Play however you want, don't let your player hang my twitter posts above your head like a sword of damocles"
I love that he said that Pathfinder is a combat focused system, when arguably DnD is more because at least pathfinder has rules that divide in three pilars of play, and only one of them is combat focused
@@FlameUser64 not an advantage, because it only leads to threadmill effect. Yes, you got better, but system still enforces near 50% chance of success. PwL is superior for that very reason, IMO. Plus it enables player to take down threats far beyond them, if they prepare properly.
@@UristMcKerman Nope, the treadmill effect only applies to skills when there are on-level monsters/NPCs involved. The system says you as the GM have to keep throwing level-appropriate challenges to keep on-target DCs, not that you increase the DCs of preexisting challenges to match the party's level. What this means is that as level progresses your character becomes capable of _attempting_ more and more absurd stuff, and tasks from yesterday become child's play. A wall doesn't magically become harder to climb because you're higher level, it's still the same wall. And a 20 foot gap doesn't magically become harder to cross because you're higher level, it's still the same 20 foot gap. Those DCs stay the same, and your skill modifier doesn't, making an Athletics-focused character capable of spectacular feats at high levels. The same goes for swaying low-level NPCs with diplomacy: if the GM wants to increase the DC despite the target's level not changing, they'll have to find excuses for more and more negative modifiers, eventually leading to you attempting truly absurd tasks (such as, perhaps, talking someone who is literally brainwashed to hate you, and who also believes you murdered his wife and is also drunk, around to your side) and being able to succeed anyway. Plus, PF2e's skill DC math is intentionally designed such that you do in fact _slowly_ power creep the "standard" DC for your level. This is something the Inventor class, for example, takes deliberate advantage of.
@@FlameUser64 what you are saying is the definition of treadmill. You get levelup, waste 5 minutes to add +1 everywhere on the sheet - and then you have entire world also add +1s on their DCs, and as a consequence now all artifacts, bombs and poisons you had will be ~10% less efficient. Climbing and jumping are static checks.
The illusion of choice argument was poor from the beginning since he had to bury his head in the sand to realize that you have even LESS options in 5e and you can ONLY repeat the same actions every turn. That is the reason taking 20 didn't compare actions in both games, as it would make him look pretty silly.
exactly, and the point is there are problems with PF 2e for sure. There are also lots of suggestions to improve them. What it comes down to is if you do not want the good parts of PF 2e, like the character options, more interesting player abilities, more interesting spells, items etc then no argument in the world matters, you should not be playing 2E. If all that matters to you is a single aspect of the game, you run and see that this aspect is not to your liking and you don't care about everything else the game is bringing to the table then yes you shouldn't be playing that game.
He is simply the kind of dm that like to make shit up constantly and doesn't want to be accountable to the written rules. You want the players to shut up and let him decide everything they can and can't do. It's about control, rules empower players in a way that challenges the power he believes he should have over the game.
Have several choices that aren’t meaning is the illusion of choice. Have few choices where each one is meaningful is the opposite of illusion of choice. The fact that people don’t understand what the term means yet complain that few meaningful choice are worse than several meaningless choice is why people like me think the complainers are missing IQ points.
It's not a matter of comparison of system...although only one of the systems is the Pinkerton free. It's a matter of Cody not understanding the rules of PF2E and that it was designed for. Oh and UTTER logical failure to boot. I'm going to prove that PF2E has a one trick pony problem by making a one trick pony to show that the system has a one trick pony problem. He failure to understand rules was so bad that even 5E people abandoned his rules channel. Can't really support somebody to know what they are talking about when they fail that badly.
Just to be clear any time it says "once per turn" in 5e it means that literally. Meaning EACH turn, your turn, your allies turn, your enemies turn, EACH TURN you can use the d4 for one of those things. Thus this makes sneak attack, which does say once per TURN, usable twice per round. Your turn an attack, and once on an opportunity attack. As long as you have advantage or flanking you can sneak attack once per TURN. This I only found out recently as most people thought it meant basically round, but the thing is there is abilities that say once per round in the game so this shows they are distinct from one another.
"They trust dungeon masters enough to just run the game" -- translation: writing rules is expensive and makes our book bigger, cutting into profit margins substantially. Let's just crowdsource 5e to the DMs. Gee, thanks WotC. Wait, please don't send Pinkerton after me! I'll write DMG2 for 5e right away!
It's amazing how if you ignore or misapply the Pathfinder rules and use variant and optional rules and different feats and more than allowable feats than Characters are allowed for D&D, that D&D comes out ahead for combat options. Weird.
Additional personal experience : Most DM's that complain that rules impede their ability to 'just roleplay it' tend to have a) inconsistent as shit rulings on identical situations, b) a predefined outcome in mind that they find acceptable or c) both of the above. Most solid games I've been a part of have had DM's that both understood the rules and knew how to apply them (and when to tweak them due to context !)
Based. People, who know their system well and understand the goals they're playing for, know how the rules help making it more believable and when it's okay to drop them. Complaining about rules is stupid.
As a 5e DM and a new player to pf2e, listening to him complain pf2e had long jump rules and high jump rules and 5e just lets you jump... i just thought to myself "this guy doesnt actually know 5e very well"
Yesss, same. I mean...I haven't played pf2 yet, only started reading the rules but I swear there are examples he could've picked. But actually going and picking one where 5e HAS different and very very strict rules...that was golden
He’s not really comparing 5e to pf2e. He’s comparing his loosely-5e-based kitbashed system (sounds like mostly winging it) to pf2e. I think many, many people do this when they try pf2e, and come away salty at a system that has competent rules and expects you to know them, unlike their system.
I think at this point it's a fair criticism to say that the Pathfinder 2e core rulebook don't make it 100% clear HOW the player needs to interact with the game. That's why I'm super hopeful for the remaster to clarify and be more direct about how the players need to approach the system
Yeah - the best way the game teaches these kinds of things is the solo adventure in the Beginner Box, when it counterposes a -10 attack to adding +2 to your AC with your shield. Otherwise it is kind of sink or swim
Just to give positive shout outs, your illusion of choice combat showing all the options there were, and collective arcana talking about his healer barbarian (especially coming off a dnd barbarian where I was so bored) sold me on pathfinder 2e. Both were responses to taking 20, so it helped some people indirectly go the other way.
I am glad you mentioned that the extra layer of critting does add a little more complexity. Because in 5e, if someone rolls a 16 I go "you hit" and they go "but i haven't added all my bonuses" doesn't matte you hit. But in pathfinder every +1 matters. Which I love, but it does add more complexity, which leaves it open for matter of preference.
Should point out that at level 5 the PF2e Ranger can have 18 DEX and 18 STR making their melee and range competency the exact same. Could have given the Ranger Disrupt Prey at level 4 instead of Far Shot to give it the Attack of Opportunity as well.
It really seems like forrest picked the most complicated possible class and strategy for himself. I don’t think you ever have to worry about more numbers than that.
The Taking20 video was actually one of the reasons I decided to look into Pathfinder at all. There was something so disingenuous about how it was framed that I decided not to subscribe to his channel even after having watched a few before and found them moderately interesting. I found a lot of his arguments to be based entirely on things that sounded like it was the fault of his or his players' own actions, and not having anything to do with the system. There certainly ARE systems that disincentivize suboptimal play, and I won't say I've never heard a Pathfinder player state that "you shouldn't be [playing how you want to] because this is always going to work better..." Like for example with what kind of weapon to use on a particular class... but I don't think the Pathfinder system really forces players into this kind of play. What I do think is possible is that the variety of options gave his players decision paraylsis so they always defaulted to one tactic because it was the _easiest_ thing to keep track of for them... or they were just the type of player who... does not do what is best for themselves by taking chances and trying new things once they find something that works... This type of player will often feel like they have no options but to do the same thing every time, even though its not in the slightest bit true... its a self delusion that can be hard to break. His video rubbed me wrong by nature of how blatantly accusatory it seemed even though he never really directly accused the game of being at fault. Even my limited experience with Pathfinder indicates that there is no single optimal way to play even an already built character, and I made a point to look into PF in part just to confirm my suspicions in that regard... but also in part because I have friends who keep pushing me toward it, and it does offer more options. If Pathfinder isn't the right video for Cody... I fully understand that... but I think his _arguments_ are... specious and lacking.
Somehow the fact that Cody had a TPK becomes a lot clearer when he appears to have no concept of Recall Knowledge… and one of his players says he reacted negatively to skill tricks being used mechanically when he wanted RP. As a DM, I feel like the biggest risk factor for PC death is not using Recall Knowledge on enemies you’ve never fought before. Being ignorant to resistances can make you essentially waste an entire turn of attacking.
100% this when I was designing encounters for y campaign in 2e which me and my group started recently. I was constantly reminding them they could use recall knowledge if they were unsure about something and even made some starting stuff a "forced" recall knowledge. I know I'm quite late on this reply but, you are absolutely correct.
Can we acknowledge that the Multiple Attack Penalty is not new? The old attack bonus progression was basically identical, but they just didn't let you use the second attack until you had at least a +6 on your first. And likewise, you couldn't use your third attack until your first attack was at least a +11. They just simplified it and opened up it's use.
I think the dislike might stem from players who started in 5e and were not aware that this isnt a new concept. To them, when they get a 2nd attack, its at full bonus, so pf2e having a penalty on that even at the start seems punishing.
okay, did it apply to everything in 3.5? TO grapples and trips and knockdowns? Because I am not sure it did, and I think it calculated full round attack bonuses separately for each weapon when dual wielding
@@texteel Grapples and trips used your Base Attack Bonus just like your normal attacks did. So, yes it did apply to all combat maneuvers as well. The only thing dual wielding in PF1e does is give you an extra attack when you use a Full Attack. And it carries hefty penalties. Default penalties: -6 to your primary hand / -10 to your off hand If your off hand weapon is light: -4 primary / -8 off There is no separate calculation for each weapon, only varying penalties. And once you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, they are identical anyway. With the Two-Weapon Fighting feat: -4 primary / -4 off And if you have both: -2 primary / -2 off Additionally, if you take Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting you get a second and third off hand attack at an additional -5 and -10 penalty respectively.
So, one of the players say that Cody gilt-tripped his players into not using things he wasn't familiar with. Maybe he should have shown his video to his players before posting, since so much of his criticism came from their campaign, they could have objected, or shown their point of view, and he could have shown that on his video. The sad part is how he admits how nice paizo treats him and then continues to (undeservingly) shit on paizo's game that is struggling to grow. I've seen a video where he laughs about it. I mean, he is going through bad times and was just expressing his opinion, but he was influencing the livelihood of game designers, the least you can do to the people who are so nice and considerate with you is to be considerate back.
I can't help but be sympathetic to Puffin Forest & be utterly put off by Taking20. Puffin comes across as a player at my table (D&D 5e) who struggles with things like keeping track of how many rounds a spell lasts and when to make a concentration save at what DC, but loves the feel of a spellcaster. They're not malicious or trying to be obtuse, they just don't have the experience with casters or the memory to keep all that stuff stored in their heads at all times. I can understand that Pathfinder 2e can come across as daunting to that kind of person. Cody sounds like case of ego run rampant. "Pathfinder players have no options but to use the class abilities and feats they themselves selected". And 5e does ? Or any system does ? No system forces you to optimise. the DM does by smashing your faces into encounters you need to optimise for or by continually upping DC's because succeeding in a dc 10 check feels less HEROIC than making it a DC 20. Sure, some players like optimisation for the sake of it, but I'm willing to bet that those were not the players having issues with 'always doing the best thing'. So it's most likely just your ego talking, my dude. Lots of projection going on there. Edit : Further in and yep... "I don't know how the system works, so system bad". GG, Cody.
"Golarian lore and history is SO complicated!!" "So... What's new in Faerun? Oh, that God killed that God and took over their portfolio? Huh, so you're saying that thing was taken care of?"
My biggest issue with Forgotten Realms has been that over the years it feels like when they get new writers, those writers seem to want to alter things their predecessors wrote simply out of spite. 4e lore seemed to be written out of hatred for Mystra and the Netherese magic lore, then the 5e writers came in pissed about that and drastically changed it in the other direction. Golarian on the other hand, has a unified writing team and it shows. The changes are made organically , usually by players through adventure paths.
As for Cody, well let’s just put it this way; he was a terrible GM and came to PF2e with a serious amount of baggage and seriously bad habits of DMing from 5e. Having a Ranger martial character in PF2e with a 10 STR is so disingenuous it is laughable. What armor was his Ranger wearing? With a STR 10 leather? Where did he place the other stats? CHA then demoralize is a great option, feint, create a diversion. All he proved is that he is bad at PF2e
@@Jermbot15 Considering he was mostly doing a rules related video, it was so bad that even the 5E viewers saw how bad his understanding of mechanics was from that. That is why his views for 5E content tanked after that video. You can't have a channel about rules and then show that you understand nothing about rules.
@@ColdNapalm42 I found it very useful, though not for the reason he would have hoped. See I'm a skeptical person by nature so when one of his Pathfinder 2e players just so happened to reveal that even after a full year with the system they avoided skill actions because Cody had not yet learned how they worked, my initial thought was 'that's quite the accusation, but can it be proven?' So Cody stepping up in this other context to show that indeed, after a full year he had not learned basic parts of the system was helpful to me in weighing the value of his judgment.
I knew there was something wrong with Cody's argument as soon as he said "a third attack *that usually misses."* I was like: "hol' up, if it usually misses, why do you do it? Don't you have anything else to do with that action?" But didn't know better so I thought that was just how limited the game was. Then I watched Nonat1 for a while and understood that his example was bonkers. And then I actually played Pathfinder, chose specifically a bow-wielding Ranger just to check and finally understood the sheer level of *BONKERS* that example was.
I feel like one of the unspoken villains here is the Official Pathfinder 2e character sheet. Writing out a matrix doesn’t seem so crazy if you didn’t have to scrawl it on the back of an already lengthy document. The sheet more than anything turned me away from pf2e originally. So square. It doesn’t draw your eye anywhere leaving you looking arcane shifting blob. The foundry one is so much better.
Taking20's second video is embarrassing. I can't believe someone GM'd a game for over a year and has so little understanding of the system. The fact that someone with such a poor grasp on the game had such a profound effect on people's perception of it is sad.
Got to agree, he’s so condescending and superior from the start I had to pause a few times just to clear the air of his smug attitude. I keep expecting him to start talking his vegan cat and the amazing social/political observation his 3 year old made. The way he describes how creative his players are sounds like he just hates rolling dice.
Which means that they were bad PF2e players. They didn't evaluate that the combat paradigm changed entirely, thus their basic assumptions based on DND5e's boring and one-dimensional combat didn't work. They never stopped to learn why PF2e is different, they only were thinking about how it was not like DnD5e.
@@LightningRaven42 it does sound like tho, that the players turns were more varied (2 players have come out saying so now). So unless we hear a clarification it is possible that Cody tweaked the facts to suit his point. The combat example makes it seem so
Yeah, this is apparent just from him talking about the Druid. If your Druid is only wild shaping then it is entirely their fault if they’re bored with the character since they’re not interacting with any of the other Druid abilities like spell casting. Doesn’t matter how versatile something is if you only use it for one thing.
He decided to craft the most complex scenario to exagerate the point. Combining a sweep weapon and hunt-prey kinda shows what he went for. At least he didn't make a high wisdom, 12 charisma dwarf cloystered cleric with only heals & buff spells🤣
Yikes, I hope I never end up at a table with Puffin Forest if he's that disorganised. I've been playing for a year and a half with new players and we've not once had a combat turn devolve into that kind of mess. Almost every point he made just made me think he and his group were totally unprepared...
Groups like that exist. Mine once wanted to try LFG, cracked open the book, made characters, fought a few goblins and declared the game trash within an hour.
So... According to Taking20, PF2e is a game for power gamers who whittle options down to the most optimal turn loops and repeat them ad nauseum, yet it's also a beer and pretzels game for people that wanna chill and mindlessly fight monsters?
@@russellharrell2747 Sometimes I feel like the core issue of PF2e for content creators is PF2e's lack of game breaking optimization. So much of DnD content is about how to break the game and traumatize your DM, that I don't believe these creators could exist in a more balanced game. lol
The best lesson I've learned from The Rules Lawer's channel is to take a lot of people's opinions with a grain of salt otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of potential fun. Thank you for creating these long videos, it's very convenient that I can listen to the video like a podcast as I go on about my day with no hassle.
Cody's assessment that 4e failed because it was more complex than pathfinder is nonsense. 4e was not as popular because 1) it changed a lot of the fundamentals, so people felt like it was not the same game any more (thus they longed for something more familiar), and 2) WotC were pulling a lot of nasty corporate BS with the OGL and some would say excessive monetisation (history repeats itself). As a system, in my experience 4e is far more straightforward than 3.5 (admittedly haven't played PF1 but I struggle to see how it would be simpler given the 4e rules presentation format and standardised powers, etc). If the argument is that the simplest games are the most popular, why isn't a rules light system like Powered by the Apocalypse not crushing 5e right now? Dungeon World plus countless other genres are covered under that system, some of them quite obscure. If you spend more than a moment thinking about it, then it all falls apart. It's a shame, as I do appreciate his content usually.
I can tell you a reason way pbta isnt crashing 5e is multi reason: 1.the amount of metrial online for 5e is insane so finding ways to try , learn,and play 5e is so easy. 2. Whan people think ttrpg they think dnd..and because dnd is a closed system people will fo out less. 3.ptba has a lot of version . So finding a the version you want is bard. 4. Ptba is one of the largest ttrpg out there by popularity. Its not 5e but its pretty fucking popular. 5.and the biggest.. marketing.marketing is everything.you cant just compete whit 5e. 6. 5e isnt the devil. Its ok-pretty good .is it perfect. Not even close .but its wide enough and rubast enough to do it job .
@@yuvalgabay1023 Your points are fair, but it's obvious that "crunchy" doesn't equal "unpopular" and "rules-lite" doesn't equal "popular" (which is what Cody was saying), there are instead many other factors involved. Getting rid of unduly burdensome crunch that gets in the way of playing the game can make it more accessible, but crunch is clearly not the deciding factor.
@@yuvalgabay1023 I didn't say it wasn't a factor, I'm saying it's clearly not a serious obstacle for the vast majority of people, as 5e is one of the most crunchy systems on the market right now. Rules lite games vastly outnumber the crunchy systems, and yet look at all of the big ones, and you'll see that the crunchy ones dominate a huge share and most of the top spots. If the argument is that crunch will make most people not buy your system, then that's a dumb position, as the evidence clearly proves the argument to be wrong. My point was that Cody makes this claim, and is therefore wrong.
4e was second ttrpg I played, and not long because my GM hated it: for him it was boring and dry, no flavor text for world, and it was hard to gm anything else than combat. Personally remember it felt lots like WoW, which I tried but it wasn’t my cup of tea.
I like that you highlight the same points I made to the videos in question years ago: PF2: Let’s offer the most complicated and convoluted scenario we possibly can and treat it like it is always like this and there’s no way for it not to be this way. 5e: Let’s offer the simplest possible alternative even where it blatantly ignores the 5e rules-like creating a convoluted example of jumping a gap to present an overly complicated PF2 implementation of a jump rule, while in 5e just using an athletics check instead of the actual 5e rules for long or high jumping. It’s almost like in politics where you present a distortedly positive best possible side of your guy, and a distorted worst possible side of the other guy.
I think that's kind of the issue with both these critics and many more: They take D&D 5E for granted so much it's the default. That's my main gripe with ttrpg as a hobby and specially fantasy roleplaying: 5E is so ubiquitous that there's an entire, evolving ecosystem (Since Cody and many of the D&D channels from that are are not around anymore or very severely diminished or smaller than newer folks) of people that give 'advice' on running 'ttrpgs' but 9 times out of 10 specifically 5E D&D. And the 'advice' is always some form of removing or changing certain rules with an explanation of how to keep the game interesting by doing so. See there's so many people talking about D&D that nobody questions 'Why do I even *need* all these tips to run the game, why there's so much content about keeping players happy, making it easier to be a GM, etc'? Or the natural conclusion 'Should I even be trying to play D&D 5E even when I am disregarding or rewritting so many of the rules? Why don't I just find some other game more suitable for the style of game we want to play?' So because nobody is asking these questions when they feel entitled to criticize other game systems they do so without actually giving them a chance or even getting to know what those rules actually do before deciding to play: Puffin never even so much as filled his character sheet because the default is 'I don't use much of it on 5E so it must not be useful'. Cody started both ignoring rules and adjudicating without thinking 'There's so many rules in here why didn't I try to play a more narrative oriented game instead?' and worst, never stopping to think he basically *forced 5E to be a more narrative oriented game by ignoring several rules* as *MANY* people do.
Ok in all fairness you actually kinda can play 5e with a completely unfinished character sheet and it probably won't ever matter as long as you remembered to have HP and AC and l either extra attack or like two spells
To be fair, the official 5e character sheet has a space for all the numbers you need. It is a better layout and the pf sheet layout implies they expect you to do the math every time. I have heard that complaint a lot with beginners and something I hope they change in the new edition... err... re-release.
@@tamadesthi156 there is not a labled 4x4 attack matrix on the sheet, which is why the reviewer presented his solution as though it were a revolation. (To be fair, this is 1 month after pf2e was released and it did not have as much vtt and third party support for game aides; he is just using the core system "out of the box.") The layout implies they want you to do the math for each maneuver and his 4x4 grid is only accounting for actions he can do on the regular, not even accounting for other party member's actions. It is bigger than a 4x4 grid of numbers, and there is not anywhere enough room for the sheet that came with the first release of the core books.
I'm convinced Puffenforest & Taking20 are both antagonistic DMs. This can be backed up with the fact Puffenforest has so many stories where he trolls & bullies his players. An Cody ( Taking20 ) has a video series on how to TPK the party with ______ monster.
I don't understand how one can say you can't roleplay in pf2e. We're playing age of ashes with my group, last night we're reaching the end of the final book. We completely bypassed the dungeon that we're supposed to do at level 19, because my sorcerer opened a Gate to go see the guy in charge and have a talk with them. To prepare for it we roll a DC51 recall knowledge that we succeeded with lots of teamwork to be able to gain informations for the negociation, and after that, once we met him ? Not a single dice was rolled. It was all pure roleplay back and forth debating with him and having him change his plans as we corrected him. And so we got to level 20 and essentially are ready to head to the end of the adventure. A 3 hour sessions with like... 5 rolls, none of them being combat. (Shoutout to our witch's heroism+crit success on aid for my sorcerer's recall knowledge, turned the needed roll for success from a 19 to a 15 and I rolled a 16.)
I think that the buzz argument for who can't think anything better. Dnd and pf are not narrative rpgs: the rules are for combat but when characters talk, players talk.
@@szadec9264 You can use the rules to make up for someone not having irl skills their character has. (Like, I doubt everyone considers themselves as intelligent as their 22 Int wizard for example) Same goes for social skills, you wanna play a charismatic, smooth talking character but have a hard time talking yourself ? even if your roleplay is minimal, or just a bit descriptive in 3rd person, your **character** is a diplomatic sweet talker and the rules will be there to reflect it.
Because Cody didn't give room for it in his game. If you're not roleplaying it's a choice being made by some or all of the people around the table. My group is going through Abomination Vaults and RP every session.
Agreed, if anything you would think hard rules regarding social interactions like lying, befriending people, and secret checks being a mechanic would help the roleplayers feel stronger. I guess some people think rules are restricting instead of guidelines with extreme prejudicr
I found pf2 combat much quicker than 5e's. That is i think mostly because of the 3 action economy. There's no bonus actions to squeeze in, theres no splitting your movement, there's no "can i also ..." - you do 3 things and we go to the next person, everybody knows when a turn is finished.
There's also less math that goes into rolls. Many people like to say 5e is just a d20 plus a modifier, but this isn't true. In 5e if you multiple sources of advantage and disadvantage you have to figure that out. Then if you have spells like bless or bardic inspiration you have to roll and add those. Then you have to figure out any other effects like auras and the like and add ALL of that into your roll. Where in PF2e you'll roll the d20 once, add your modifiers, and add one source of status bonus, one source of circumstances bonus. I won't include item bonus into that roll because this is usually already added into the modifier. So usually a roll is just a d20 + modifier + 2 for a final result. I honestly think it's funny people think pf2e is more complicated when I've seen 5e get bogged to the hells with so all the rolls and bonuses that can get added to the roll and it only gets worse as you get higher level.
And since there are rules to do things, the player is aware of what their character should, can, shouldn't and can't do. They plan accordingly, instead of trying to do some random thing and ask the GM to set a low DC. I've played both a highly mobile Monk and a Heavy-Armor Paladin in PF2e, both classes play very differently and have wildly different constraints and strengths, I plan my turns for the character I'm using, not for what I could potentially try to do. It's easy to plan to your strengths when the system offer rules everyone can read, rather than something the GM needs to decide mid-combat.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 Technically in 5e, Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out completely regardless of the amount of either, but since that results in some absolute clown shoes situations (like it being easier for an Archer to shoot someone far away if either them or the target are standing in fog), so few people run it RAW.
@@xdragoonzero0 this is true, but if you have multiple sources giving you these you have to figure out whether or not you have it. For example if a creature tries to spot you and they have say eyes of the eagle or something so it gives them advantage meaning it's a straight role, but wait you have cloak of the elven kind so they get disadvantage trying to spot you, but wait the creature has a skill that gives them advantage on sight based perception check as well, and so on and so on. I understand that they cancel each other out, the argument being made is how bogged down this system can get. Since you literally have to comb through all your items, abilities, and spells to figure out if what roll you have to make. If you have 4 sources of advantage and 3 sources of disadvantage, as per the rules of 5e you roll with advantage. But first you have to sit there and figure it out. I played 5e for years. Almost a full on decade. I've seen sessions come to a halt as players tried to figure out what they're roll was because they had a dozen different modifiers effecting it. I've yet to see that happen in over a year of playing PF2e because the modifiers are straight forward. People try to make them seem like this complicated thing but 70% of your modifier is already precalculated with the other 30% being from simple sources.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 That's not actually the case; if you have, say, 3 different sources of disadvantage and one source of disadvantage in 5e it cancels out to a straight roll; from the PHB "If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them". The idea is to avoid the issue you mentioned, of having to count up a bunch of different circumstances; it simplifies things for sure, but it does also make some circumstances really dumb. Like an invisible archer being better at hitting opponents under adverse conditions (at long range, while they're prone, and while they're also invisible would make it a straight roll, while if nothing was under any effect the archer would be at disadvantage)
Puffin just, to be honest and not mean, sounds like he is better playing OSR or Powered by the Apocalypse or perhaps World Without Numbers. His methods for calculating screams common core math. He totally over complicates every single encounter and example. The part when he said “I kid you not I made a grid” well no duh, it’s called your weapon attack on your character sheet.
He does have war stories and reviews of Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Silver City Sentinals, Deadlands, and a few others; he is not strictly a 5e player. He also claims to have a degree in chemical engineering, so the capacity for math is there. Just because you do not want to crawl 50 meters on your belly does not mean you lack the capacity so; he is clear about why he does not want to and gives a fair rebuttal to most of his points. This is actually the 2nd video Puffin Forest put out on pf2e; the first was quite positive and covered some scenarios in the play test documents. I think he really tried to like the system, but the concensus him and his group reached was that it was just not their cup of tea.
@@justicar5 But the combat isn't any faster. In 2e I take my turn in about 5-10 seconds. It's the same in 5e. If turns are taking too long, that's a player issue not a game issue.
when my group moved to pf2e and I took the reigns as GM (having never even touched pf before) I watched Taking20's video, and when he said players were doing the same thing over and over again i was like "that cant be right, it sounds like the players are doing something wrong" and just ignored him my game started in February and I feel like I've just grazed 10% of the system, and it already feels so liberating from years and years of clunky 5e systems i never DMd 5e, but seeing my GM having to come up w rules on the fly because 5e doesnt have rules for certain things that should have rules, or having to homebrew something like chase rules (which are just garbage in 5e) was painful
I'm about to dive into both Pathfinder and Starfinder. Have already started with PF. After watching that Taking20 vid, my goal is to now infuse as much RP into my two campaigns as humanly possible. You can have your RP and tactical combat too. They are not mutually exclusive. I aim to prove it.
The thing Pathfinder does best is using roleplay in the middle of combat, I believe. No system can be so heroic and epic, the fights are meaningful and the three actions allow for you to really insert a lot of character into the battle by going for specific options related to skills and stuff like that. This game is just pure anime.
As someone who started in PF1e I fear no rpg math, honestly I explained it to my wife when I got them into the game like this "You know exactly what circumstances your build gets bonuses in, which means you know exactly which circumstances you're going to put yourself in so you can write down 90% of the math you'll need in your campaign journal and just add your roll and maybe the handfull of bonuses you might get" i haven't played 2e yet but it seems like that's the case again.
Fortunately, I came into PF2 completely blind. Someone in my area was running a beginner's PF2 campaign and I just joined. Been going strong for 7 months now. The "Illusion of Choice" argument is crazy. If you focus on ONLY optimal plays; never making even slightly sub-optimal choices, YOU are forcing the "Illusion of Choice" on yourself.
I think my main issue with 20s idea that you just do a rotation is that even in mmos where they are present the game designers make it so you can’t just do that, so shouldn’t the dm also do that? If you see your players doing the same thing over and over throw a challenge that requires them to mix it up and if it’s a “fault” of the players then maybe your challenges only allowed one solution to a given problem too many times and your players feel like they can’t mix it up
A common theme in the comments, and it strikes true with me too, was being pushed away from 2e by Puffin and Taking20's vids on 2e before actually haven given it a go, but in my case it was thanks to the words of my 1st ed GM at the time that I did eventually give 2nd ed a go with him, and I can honestly say I like 2e more than 1e now and MUCH more than 5e D&D. We were paying Strange Aeons and getting close to the end of the AP when the group was deciding what to play next, and they all suggested Blood Lords since we as a group liked AP's that could put PC's outside of the usual AP moral comfort zone and let us be 'bad guys', I was a little hesitant at first but now having played much of Blood Lords I am extremely thankful I gave the system a chance.
It honestly sounds like the problem with Taking20's PF2E campaign - and the problem he has with PF2E in general - is that he wants the GM to have more direct control than they really get in PF2E. In PF2E, I could definitely see a situation coming up in which a player cleverly and correctly using their skills and feats could catch a GM off-guard and mess with the plan of the scenario. Like, for example, if the player gets a great social roll or if they manage to make the difficult long jump that the GM had defined (note how upset Cody was at having to give a concrete distance and commit to it - because he didn't want to be held to that through game mechanics). Putting the majority of the game's outcomes into the GM's discretion is a legitimate style. Arguably, highly narrative systems like Dungeon World do this and can be great. But that is no reason to say that PF2E is poorly designed for roleplaying. And it is certainly no excuse for unfounded accusations of the alleged "illusion of choice".
I started watching the taking20 video back when it came out and gave up midway because to me it sounded much more like a reveal about his GMing style than the game. If your players are doing the same thing over and over again it's because you're giving them the same kind of challenges. The objective of even combat encounters could vary so much. Even back in the AD&D days we did that.
Oddly enough I think a big problem for D&D players coming to Pathfinder is that they're actually bothering to read the rules in Pf2 unlike how they play 5e. I feel like if Cody just ignored all the Pf2 rules he doesn't like like he does with 5e then he'd enjoy the game more. Like, nobody actually uses those rules for improving your favor with an NPC durring social encounters, do they?
I'm GMing for the first time in Pathfinder 2e. I've played a decent amount of 1e just as a player but never in 2e. My players consist of 3 pathfinder 1e players, one person with limited 5e experience, and someone with practically no experience at all. We have none of the issues Puffin supposedly had. We spent maybe a couple minutes over the course of a session for people to be like: "Don't forget you have inspire courage". Or "you can't cast that because you moved and it takes 3 actions" This crazy conspiracy thing with string going to 23 different bonuses or something is nonsense.
My problem with Puffin's attack example is that it started out simple with a roll of a 16 and then the situation just kept changing to make it more complicated, sometimes in a way that is against the rules like stacking the status bonuses. Not even gonna bother trying to figure out where he went with the shield and two-handing weapons. If you wanted to make complex theoretical attack example it would be easy to do without constantly changing the scenario or adding players interruptions. Here is an example for an uncommon attack case: Scenario: lvl 1 Fighter affected by guidance shoots a longbow at a elite goblin warrior in cover at a distance of 25 feet. Stuff before the game session: Fighter has their attack bonus written down on their sheet which is a total of 9. Elite modifiers have been added to the goblin warrior so it has an ac of 18. Annoucing the attack: At this step the player decides to use the guidance to get a +1 status bonus to the roll the attack modifier is currently +10. The GM should at this step inform the player of obvious modifiers like cover and distance if it has not already been disclosed, so we apply the -2 untyped penalty to the attack because the longbow has the volley 30 feet trait, bringing the modifer down to 8. In the mean time the GM adds the +2 circumstance bonus to the ac from cover so the ac is now 20. Rolling the attack: The fighter rolls a 12, adding the 8 from the earlier math (or if they didn't do any math before rolling 12+9+1-2=20) meaning they get a 20, the GM compares the result to the goblin's ac and annouces a hit but not a critical hit. Damage roll: The player rolls a 3 for a total of 3 piercing damage. Elements in the example: Attack modifier, elite modifier, status bonus, untyped penalty, circumstance bonus, attack roll and damage roll. Went over all the same groups of modifiers, however I did not include shields damage or shield block reaction. Nor did I include anything that goes against the rule or added player disruptions. I don't doubt that Puffin had scripted his example to some extend, however it came out cluttered and muddled when the situation kept changing and became rule breaking at points. The example comes of as either incompetent or malicious and neither of those add to his credibility as a reviewer. Not gonna bother with Taking20's combat simulation, he made vastly different scenarios that seemed somewhat similar and then proved that he does not know the rules for a game system he had GM'ed for 1 year which suggests Ed is right in his assessment of Cody not understanding the rules of the system.
I will say I avoided PF2 for a while because of Taking 20. He had been running for a year so I thought he was right. I have been running for about 6 months now and am embarrassed by his mistakes.
Puffin's combat example is so confusing, and I'm pretty sure he lost the plot half way through and started changing things mid sentence from the prior sentence.
I watched that video long ago, and watching the combat simulation again I have to say... The feats you take set you to a specific combat style? Oh no, your choices are making you act a certain way, whatever will you do? Other than that, despite my love for all thing TTRPG I haven't played anything in ages so I will not comment on mechanics.
Worst of all is how he says that 3 attacks is what they *always* did because it was optimal, while in the same breath saying the 3rd attack always missed and they had a party wipe. Ah yes, optimal. Meanwhile, the Hide action...nowhere to be seen.
41:46 "In DnD the steps seem to be a bit simpler..." Him saying it faster doesnt make it simpler lol. He said that, then rattled off a bunch of additional things to check which would make it infact.... Less simple
My biggest criticism of Taking20’s first video is that he acts like repetitive and boring turns aren’t a part of D&D 5E….. martials literally can only attack and move……. Maybe shove or grapple if the monster isn’t too big. But generally martials just attack each turn. EDIT: I guess he does at the end, but it’s as an afterthought not as a true point. He should lead off with that fact if he really feels it is true.
2:43:00 I would like to see a video from you about how to wing Pathfinder. Like, from UA-cam and Reddit I have heard a +2 on an ability is very powerful; and a +3 circumstance bonus might even be broken. But then adding 10 HP to a monster might not be. Adding 10 AC to a monster might be broken again. It would be great to me to have a guide on "If you wing pathfinder, try winging it this way, and and avoid winging it that way, because of these reasons. This mechanic is safe to wing, keep away from winging that mechanic. If winging this thing in this way, expect this bad outcome to be happening. Instead, wing that thing instead to make your assumed outcome to happen." Or if something like that already exist, please tell me.
Gonna second this. I would find that interesting and helpful as well. Although I gotta say, the core rule books already have a lot of suggestions for winging certain things. For example the modifications on DCs based on the difficulty you are going for. Elite and weak versions of enemies also give you a quite good way to adjust enemy strength on the fly. But some more in-depth tips on home-brewing would be appreciated.
If you're talking about winging enemies, there's rules for monster stats at every level. Using the 'moderate' option for each one gives you an average monster of each level. So if you just have that generic statblock for each level, you can pretty much wing any enemy you want on the fly. +2 you can consider a 'step up' on the difficulty (basically equivalent to increasing the level by 1). You can go up to about +6 in any given stat without the math breaking so long as you don't apply that to every stat (so if you have a very nimble or tough enemy, you could add anywhere from 2-6 to its AC to get that across). If you do that, be sure to give them a weakness elsewhere, or instead use a higher level statblock. This only applies to checks and DCs. HP and damage rolls are much much more floaty. For those, about a 10-25% adjustment is a step up or down, but the math isn't going to break unless you start doubling them. For monster abilities on the fly, either combine two or more basic actions into one, or steal from other similar monsters (they're all on Archives of Nethys) Skills and everything else are stupid easy to wing. Use the Simplified DCs for the most part (10, 15, 20, 30, 40). Remember that these should not scale with level; a normal tree should always be something someone who is trained in Athletics could do, so DC 15, whether you are level 1 or 20. You can add or subtract 1-5 without much consequence, keeping in mind +5 is particularly hard and -5 is particularly easy. For any check related to a creature or item that isn't already covered in their statblock, just use the level-based DC table. Having that written down in front of you is really important because technically it works for everything in the game, including monster DCs and bonuses. And finally, as someone who wings all the time in this system, I'd recommend only asking for dice rolls if there is a reasonable consequence for failure. If there is treasure just inside a drawer, just have them find it when they search the room. If its hidden in a secret compartment, thats where you ask for a Perception check. If a piece of Knowledge might change the decision the party makes, thats the time to ask for a roll; otherwise just tell them the information. If the players are asking an NPC for something, you'll probably already know whether they'd agree or not. Only if the help is up for question and the help the NPC provides would be somewhat equivalent to finding a hidden cache of potions with Perception should you ask for a check. Idk if any of that helps or was wanted, but that's what I do
@@PlatonicLiquid You are certainly helpful. Thank you for writing this out. One thing that still confuses me in Pathfinder 2e is the little snippet in the Gamemastery Guide about Failing Forward. Failing forward, and consequences on a miss, and on a hit, really clicked me running PbtA, and in extension Blades in the Dark. If it's the same concept, how can I implement this in Pathfinder 2e? I see the Climb action has a Critical success, Success, and Critical fail result. It does not have a rule for Failure. Can I fill this lack of rules in with narrative consequences? "As you climb the wall, a part of the rock you hold onto breaks off. It tumbles down, dealing damage to the person below you." --> How much damage is reasonable for this? Can I add a Condition instead? (Stunned, etc.) Or a narrative condition? (You have broken your fingers.) Is taking away a resource too much? (Your backpack rips open. You lose the bottom-most item written down in your inventory on your character sheet.) What are good guidelines for this? I see Balance has all four results filled in. Can I still swap a rule here with narrative consequence? Or are these rules that when changed, break the entire system? --> Can I also give a consequence on a success? You did the thing, but also this happens.
@@amyloriley Yes, failing forward, so if failure blocks off or resets progress, probably don't leave it up to a die roll. If you need something to happen to get the game where you want, think about what success would look like in that situation and what failure would look like in situation, then ask for the check. Classic example is PCs committing a crime for the story and fail. Having to negotiate their way out of prison or having to lose something important in their escape or having to do something else to be able to attempt again is failing forward. Having them all arrested and spending 2 years in prison and failing the quest is not. Thats just general advice for all TTRPGs so everything you use in PbtA should apply here. Obviously the mechanics are different, but you can think of success as 1 to 1 (with critical success giving you an extra bonus), failure equal to a mixed success in those cases, and a critical failure being the hard failure. Now as for the example with Climb, that illustrates something different about the system: you should not need to come up with any rules on the fly. Climb doesn't have a Failure effect because on a failure it does nothing; your character does not move up or down). Same with Swim, only on a crit fail or if they don't succeed a single check that round do they being to sink. If you are finding you are having to make a rule, you probably missed a rule somewhere or assuming that something has to happen when nothing actually happens. I've seen people do the same with a Crit Failure on a Strike; nothing extra happens whether you roll a 8 and miss or roll a 1. If you don't want to break the flow and look up a rule, then just use the PbtA example as before. Only take a 'hard move' (like hitting an ally with rocks or losing stuff from your backpack) on a Crit Failure. A failure just means nothing happens. Also for a lot of skill checks, you can generally skip rolls if you know the person attempting them will succeed. If your Barbarian is a master in Athletics, you can just assume the cross a 20 foot gap. But the untrained Wizard might not. Same for Diplomacy, Thievery, and Perception in many cases. However, sometimes you might have a challenge you want them to have a chance to fail, such as trying to force open a door or cross a river. Set a normal DC, and have them roll. They can fail over and over so long as they eventually get a success, no having to fiddle too much with it. But if they manage to critically fail before then, thats when something bad happens; the door gets stuck, they begin to drown, they set off a trap, ect. This is how the system was designed way back in the playtest. One of the designers put out an article say as much when they were teasing the mechanics of the new system, but thats not really explained as explicitly in the Core Rules to my knowledge. Bottom line is for the most part, failure is neutral and can happen continually, critical failure is when bad stuff happens
@@PlatonicLiquid With these long replies, I'd almost think you are a redditor. I love it! I think I have a little different idea of what fail forward is; but it's just nuance really. When I think about fail forward, I think about the environment making a move, not just a partial success. A player being imprisoned, I can't help but think of Blades in the Dark, in which, well, play just continues in prison. Make new prison friends! Get to know the patrol schedule of the guards. Make the prison wing your turf. Set up a smuggling route. Set up false rumors about your rival. But I digress. If I can divorce consequence from logical action, climbing a wall could for instance result in being seen by a nearby guard and a "what do you do?" from me as GM. Or a wall crumbles, revealing a bat cave inside. They wake up. Roll initiative! Yes, while climbing. And there is a magic item in that opened-up bat cave! (Something positive!) Do you try to reach it? I have noticed that many, but not all, descriptions of failure describe a partial success. I don't like it when nothing happens on a failure. That just shows me that a roll wasn't necessary. To me, a roll is only necessary when there is difficulty AND risk involved. If you don't risk anything by failing, no roll is necessary. I think we agree on this. When in encounter mode, sure, make a roll. A "nothing happens" means "an enemy can make an attack in their turn before you can try again." Or at least you have to risk your action economy. Would you allow PCs to take hit point damage / story points / hero points in order to cancel or reduce a consequence after GM narration?
Another issue with the math that taking 20 is doing is that he's very one-sided in his math. What I mean is that Pathfinder 2e is more of a teamwork-oriented game obviously while players who focus on 5E will be single-mindedly focused on their own DPR. But there's four things that you can focus on in regards to DPR in the game, there's your team's in coming damage, your incoming damage, the team's outgoing damage, and your own outgoing damage. What's more beneficial in PF2E? Focusing on yourself and the only increasing your DPR or putting forth conditions on the enemy that increases your team's DPR and reduces your team's incoming DPR. The trip and the grapple and it possible demoralized is three actions and it imposes taking two actions away from the enemy team while simultaneously increasing your team's outgoing DPR. Like you don't have to do any DPR yourself if you can lock down an enemy, flank them for flat-footed bonus, and also take away two of their actions. The problem with taking 20s logic is that it's 5e logic "me do more damage me win game"
the way puffin explains his turns makes it sound like at the very beginning of his turn, he throws all the dice related to all three of his planned actions at the same time, then expects the GM to resolve them. "I going to hit a guy, then I'm going to hit a different guy, then I'm going to hit the first guy again. And I might crit, so I'd better roll my deadly d6 too!" edit: and honestly I don't have a lot of experience with PF2e myself having only done the beginner box and getting all of this in my youtube algorithm as I try to learn more, my immediate reaction to "ranger who just wants shoot bow good" was thinking "fighter shoot bow more better". If you deliberately choose to pick a fairly versatile class but play it in the most boring way possible, taking feats you'll never use in lieu of something like Animal Companion to lean into the versatility, giving you the choice of using that third action to do more than just miss a shot while you stand 35+ feet away from your party. Even worse if the DM recommended Ranger for pure archery because they didn't spend more than 15 minutes reading through the classes.
I was a D&D5e DM when Cody / Taking20's video was initially released, and thought though interesting take, I had no context since I hadn't played/GM'd Pf2e at that time and thus no real opinion myself. After DM'ing Pf2e for several months now, I greatly appreciate the time saved as a DM with an Encounter Builder that ACTUALLY WORKS and doesn't compel me to spend additional time (hours) on tweaking campaign encounters just to be challenging without necessarily TPK'ing my players. That alone makes Pf2e shine far above D&D5e in my humble opinion.
With Pufifn I don't think he's lying or being malicious he seems to have genuinely just gotten used to the issues that both 5e and 2e have but only notices them in 2e cause hes just started playing. His main two issues beyond that seem to be thus: 1) His players are either lazy or extremely new...he seems to have to or feels like he should keep track of EVERYTHING (so option 3 is he's too controlling) 2) Nobody writes anything down, he acts like he has to calculate his attack roll every time he attacks (ie. Atk = D20+Str[4]+Prof[2] instead of D20+6), do they not use character sheets? i also think he'd benefit greatly from using Foundry VTT, Rol20 or something similar even for 5e
Watched the whole stream but I think Puffin’s video came from a place of honest feelings. Taking 20 comes off as someone who either was purposely pushing bad faith arguments for some reason, or he doesn’t know the systems as good as he thinks he does and is spreading false narratives refusing to eat crow and admit he got it wrong. You should consider looking at Taking20s “Is Paizo Waving the White Flag?” Because I feel that also pushed people away from Paizo by painting the system as a dying system.
I think you are giving him far too much credit. He goes out of his way to engineer a sense of complexity out of genuinely standard ttrpg "math". He did it for clicks and he did it to 4e too.
Probably the last Taking20 video for me, as I have other stuff I'd like to react to! Also, the idea that PF2 is dying is a lot less prevalent now especially after the OGL scandal
@@IscariottActual He tried 4e when he was younger and didn't have a good time with it, and then he ranted about his experience. Not everyone will like the same thing, at least he tried it first, just accept that not everyone will have a good time with certain system. your standard ttrpg "math" is too complex for him to enjoy.
I think Puffin just didn't gel with the system, but overcomplicated his examples when making the video to give the viewer same feeling of overwhelming that he felt playing the game. It's still dishonest. Intentionally so? Harder to say, people exaggerate their frustrations to make a point all the time without meaning to be dishonest about them.
You said a key thing with Puffin that "It sounds like his players werent pulling their weight". I just tried running PF2, and while i think its a good system, the experience was a nightmare precisely because of this. There was only a little more to track compared to 5e, but because they did a poor job keeping track of anything, it was not a good experience. Again, i still like the system and support tables playing it, but i do think theres a certain amount of work that the players should be expected to do
DnD5e instilled the idea that players don't need to invest anything to enjoy the game while fostering it all on the GM. This is wrong. Has always been wrong. As a player, you need at least to know what your character can do mechanically. Knowing the rules that your character engages with is the bare minimum a player should know. We need to stop normalizing the idea that players can't and shouldn't make any kind of effort to enjoy the hobby. DnD5e did that by forcing the GM to deal with ALL the complexity while creating the illusion that players could just "sit down and play". Learning the rules somehow became taboo because of those who play DnD5e (the same with optimizing your character), when this is something that's expected of a player in every single game.
@@LightningRaven42Agreed. As I have explained it 5e is a PLAYERS system, in other words it is designed to make the players have almost zero personal effort while the gm does the bulk of it. Pf1e is a GAMEMASTER system, where the players put in more effort than the gm, and the gm is less required to put effort in to the system for fun. What made PF2E so nice is the player and gm put EQUAL effort in to playing to get enjoyment. It is a system designed so not only the players get to have fun, but so does the GM. 5e instilled the mentality that it is about the players having fun and the gm needs to accommodate them. I hate that, gms are also players too. All people at the table are playing the game, but at different sides. One plays a specific character for the entire game only, the other plays the world and creatures in it for the other to interact with. These characters are by design temporary during any given instance. It is a collaborative story telling with numbers and dice to add unforseen variables to outcome of actions. So I support fully what you said.
I've been running PF2E for new players and they're just starting to pick things up for themselves in the recent sessions. I've pretty much frozen them at level 3 until they can do their own math and such so that things don't get complicated. I'm very excited to see where things go!
@@kendrajade6688If it helps, player's don't necessarily need to do their own math. If someone is bad at math, you shouldn't expect them to do all the addition and subtraction. It might be easier for the GM or another player to do the mental math or use a calculator, if they are quick at it. Instead, focus on making sure your players know what actions they can take, and be ready to provide all the bonuses to the person doing the math. For instance, they should know that if they Shove, Guidance, then Strike, they should roll and give their Athletics modifier first, then roll and give their second Strike bonus +1.
It really seems like Taking20 had a group of players largely new to PF2e who, perhaps due to being more familiar with 5e or other d20 systems where you do tend to have a bread-and-butter option based on a style of play (Polearm Master/GWM, SS/Crossbow Expert, etc.), opted to focus on making one ability as good as possible to the detriment of versatility, and then felt compelled to honor the incentives that they themselves had created. And that's not an uncommon thing to have happen by any means, but a) that's not a PF2e specific issue, and b) to blame that on the system when it's really a product of choices made within a system (a system that, as he points out, has lots of choices), doesn't make sense. Now, the larger point seems to be that the added complexity simply isn't worth it. And that can absolutely be true for him, and for other people; not everyone wants or needs there to be a mechanic that can underlie any action you take in the game, both in combat and out. But it's also true that there are those of us who like to have that to fall back on. There are absolutely going to be times I want to roleplay presenting myself to the nobles at court. But other times it may be that I'm tired, or stressed, or distracted, or any number of other things that could be going on in my life. Or I could be in a game at a convention where there's a time limit on how long the game can run, and we either finish everything today or we never finish it. In those moments, it's really nice to be able to forego RPing everything out and rely on the Make an Impression mechanic to quickly simulate the results of my character's efforts. And on the GM side, the same is true, if not more so. Rather than having to make up a check for someone on the fly, I can consult the book and know that I'm extremely likely to find rules for how to adjudicate what a player's trying to do already laid out for me. And this leads into the other point that TRL brings up: you don't *have* to use the mechanics if you don't want. Yes, the language in them is a bit more prescriptive in terms of not presenting them expressly as variant or optional, but you have the same ability to ignore or tweak rules in PF2e that you do in 5e or any other system. Rule 0 is always in effect, regardless of what you're playing. Framing the fact that there are more rules that can be ignored in PF2e as a drawback is in my view erroneous, because I'd rather have the choice between following a rule and improvising, than to be forced to improvise (and also remember what my improvisation was so that I make consistent rulings). Some people are naturals with that, and can devise a well-balanced improvised check on the fly with ease (maybe Taking20 is one of those people, and if so, congrats to him); I'm not that guy, and so I like the fact that when I or someone at my table tries to do something unusual, the PF2e rules generally have me covered.
I've been waiting for this video since the day you initially announced this series, I wanted to commend you on the patience and maturity you've showed during this stream. Having to rewatch the second Taking 20 video is just an infuriating trip down memory lane. His tone alone is an advertisement against his channel. I remember checking these out when I was first getting back into Pathfinder 2e to see what the consensus is regarding how the system runs, and the video feels to me like it devolves into a 'rant', where he kept employing pre-emptive strawman arguements due to his feelings getting hurt. The first video he released was put forwards with such confidence, I can imagine this definitely having a detrimental effect on how PF2e was received, but have people cited the 50 minute 'rant' as a mark against the system?
I have seen the "repetitive actions" criticism used against PF2 in places, and the first video didn't really explain that very well so I think it had an additional effect.
When I type in Pathfinder 2e, Puffin's video is the fourth thing given to me. It's on the screen as soon as I search. So a response is definitely needed. I doubt many in the future will watch such a long response, but I hope it sways some.
So Taking 20's video was actually the reason I didn't try Pathfinder 2e earlier. I thought I'd actually go and check his(Cody's) recent content when I unsubscribed (just now), because it hadnt cropped up on my feed for a while. He actually hasn't posted anything in 6 months...
Well said. The second video made me lose a lot of respect for him as a creator. So much of it feels constructed in bad faith, if not outright disingenuous.
This is a whole essay, sorry for that. Dumping some thoughts here as I go through the vod: - The "you're conveniently fighting level 5 enemies at level 5" is more relevant to PF2 than 5e and other levelled systems. The math in PF2 is tighter and that makes it harder to have enjoyable combat that falls outside of those bounds. 5e also (theoretically) has more potential attrition, while in PF2 there's much more recovery between encounters, so a massively underpowered encounter has more potential to be relevant down the line in 5e. The gist of it applies to every RPG with levels, but it was fair for Puffin to bring it up specifically when talking about PF2. - Puffin doesn't seem to realise how much passive number-crunching he's doing for 5e. Most of the steps have become second nature to him, so he doesn't notice that he's checking for buffs and debuffs with every attack. It's only when you play a new system that all this crunch stands out to you. The "+2 because of elite" thing stands out in particular because by that logic he should be saying "+X because of armor, +Y because of shield" with all the 5e calculations, but he doesn't because that's already been factored into the AC and he's familiar with the system so that number-crunching is automatic and doesn't feel like crunch. In fact, including armor in the crunch makes more sense than including elite. A creature may have its armor removed or destroyed in combat. You aren't going to un-elite a monster. - Just take some time before the session to make sure you know how to run your monsters my dude. You shouldn't be surprised by a shield at the table as your monster is getting hit for the first time. This is true of all systems. I GM PF1 and I'll take some time to reread the Swallow Whole and Whirlwind rules if I'm running a monster with either of them (or just choose not to use Whirlwind). You should have the relevant information on-hand if you don't think you can calculate it on the fly. - If you don't like crunchy attack math, don't play a build focussed on playing around with the crunchy attack math. If I play a Monk in 5e and then get annoyed about Ki being so much to keep track of, that's my fault, I did that to me (except it more forgivable in 5e because there's no other way to get that aesthetic, in PF2 you can play something other than a flurry ranger and still dual-wield). You don't accidentally create a build with such complicated maths. These builds exist for people who really like the number crunching and complex system manipulation. It's like Serpent-Fire Adept in PF1 or picking Wish/Simulacrum/Magic Jar in 5e. - Thinking of 5e complexity, Counterspell and "after the die is rolled but before the result is known"-type effects REALLY slow the game down. There are rules for identifying a spell as it's being cast, this costs a reaction, so you can't identify a spell and Counterspell it. The identifying a spell rules are potentially optional (in Xanathar's), but it's unclear if this means you automatically know what spell is being cast or can't know if you aren't running that rule. So a DM can't just say "the wizard casts fireball" they should instead say "the wizard casts a spell with verbal and somatic components and a focus, does anyone want to identify or counterspell?" then say what the spell is after that window. This obviously requires a lot of trust in your DM as well as being slow. I don't even know how to run "after the die is rolled but before the result is known" effects well, but at the very least you have to give pause after every dice roll to let people sneak in these effects. I have no idea how you're supposed to run them on monsters if they have any of the relevant spells, surely as a DM you know your players' ACs.
Ok, onto the Taking 20 video - If your players are acting in predictable rotations because that's the only way they win a raw number crunch with the enemies, it's your job as a DM to run the monsters differently so it doesn't play out like that. Have some monsters do suboptimal moves that disrupt the players, so they're forced to react. Fights never have to be static DPS races. Obviously this is harder if you're running a pre-written adventure, sometimes you'll run into an encounter that's just really boring for your party, but that's an adventure problem, not a system problem. It sounds like he's got each side playing solitaire when you really want some back-and-forth and interaction between your players and monsters and it's the GM's job to force that. The perfect encounter (imo) has both sides with a clear win-condition (that isn't "grind down the other side's hp") and the combat consists of both sides battling to assemble the pieces of their win-condition and disrupt the opponent's combo. I'll take my favourite PF1 encounter I ran as an example: - 2 ships approaching full of very weak zombies, 2 Wights (that were weaker than the players but still threatening to everyone if they weren't playing defensively) and a beefy Zombie Lord with very scary attacks. One boat will arrive 4-ish turns before the other. This is 2 level-appropriate(ish) encounters back-to-back, possible even at the same time). - The players are a Wizard, Alchemist and Bow Fighter. The Wizard can fly, web and fireball. The Alchemist has no-save CC and summoning. The Fighter dabbles in sword-and-board but deals monstrous damage with a bow. - The players also control the crew of the ship. The crew are mostly weak but have pistols, so they can pretty reliably hit every other turn. There are also the officers, who are stronger but still not as strong as the PCs. If the wrong officers die, the party is unable to keep their ship running. So the gameplan is as follows: - If the wizard can clear the hordes and the fighter can nuke the important targets, the players win. If the important undead can corner the ship's officers and kill them, they win. In practice, the zombies did basically nothing except eat some spell slots and occupy the crew, the Wights engaged the fighter and forced him to go sword-and-board because negative levels are scary. The Zombie Lords tried to get the important officers, but got tar-pitted by summons and alchemist bombs. Eventually (iirc), the Wizard finished off the zombies, freeing up the crew, the crew then peeled off the Wights that allowed the fighter to switch to his bow and nuke the Zombie Lords. - 5e is more forgiving if you don't care to design or run engaging encounters (generally, "Immunity to non-magical weapons" can sneak in with weirdly low-level creatures). - Having defined rules for social interactions is a good thing. I'm not a charismatic person but I shouldn't be locked out of playing the party face for that. You can still roleplay, but the rules are there to act as an impartial arbiter and make sure the results reflect the character's skill, not the player's. I can speak as my character and follow it up with "this is a persuasion attempt to improve his attitude, I rolled an 18". Just like how in combat I can say "I do a big overhead chop against the guy in plate armor, I rolled a 24" and my HEMA-trained DM can't just say "an overhead chop wouldn't work against someone in this armour, your attack fails". - He's more willing to accept that an entire system is bad than the adventures being bad. "X is a professional games designer, do you really think they'd write bad adventures" - my dude, the designers of PF2 are definitionally professional games designers, do you really think they'd design a bad system? Maybe, just maybe, being a professional doesn't mean you're perfect at your profession and mistakes can occur at any level of the process. - If someone has built a one-dimensional character, you make their decisions matter by pushing them out of their niche in combat. If someone min-maxes, you should challenge their min while letting their max shine. This is basic stuff. - Surely there being an 'obvious answer' and a selection of 'better answers' is the exact opposite of "illusion of choice". - Not directed at him, but more RPGs could do with optional rules for fights in tight quarters. The 35ft x 25ft room is a really bad environment to showcase tactical combat, but it shouldn't be. Fantasy adventures shouldn't have to take place in huge rooms full of terrain, you should be able to have good combat in a living room or on a train. - The player probably should know about the Wight's gimmick. There are 2 Wights in the fight. One of them is going to die first and probably reveal it's gimmick. I despise these sorts of "the players shouldn't know the monster's stats" GMs. You can't play a tactical game if you don't know what you're up against. No wonder his players were always using the same actions - if in doubt, damage solves and it seems like his players were always in doubt because they weren't given enough information. You don't have to give the whole game away, obviously, often a general visual description of the monster is enough, but you should usually have a general idea of the ways in which you can interact with whatever you're fighting and the ways it will interact back (or be introduced to the enemies in a safer environment where they can learn without it being an unfair gotcha'). Sometimes the unfair gotcha' is the point, I get that, it can be used to good effect. - My counterpoint to "there are so many rules it ruins my immersion" is: In PF2, I know, without having to ask the DM, what my character can reliably climb and balance on. I have a much clearer assessment of what my character can achieve and that immerses me waaay more in them than if they're just some numbers that might be able to do things depending on how the DM's feeling that day, how they want the story to go and if I can invoke past precedent to make my abilities consistent. - Him saying that he was insulted people diagnosing the problems with his game based on the (poor) information he gave and then going on to accuse those people of cognitive dissonance is quite funny. I'm insulted by the accusation of cognitive dissonance from someone with such obvious 5e stockholm syndrome. - "You never have to make it up, you just have to look it up" is good when it's referring to the basic (with want of a better word) 'physics' of the game. You shouldn't have to make up the break DC for iron bars, the DC to jump a 10ft. gap or the DC to climb a knotted rope. The DM having to make these things up is a bad thing that leads to tons of table variation and vague, undefined characters. Both systems let you make up stories and scenarios. You can paint anything you want in both systems but in 5e you have to make the brushes and mix the paints (or, as most people do, just draw the outline and paint/mix paint/make brushes as you play). I don't know about you, but what I enjoy about DMing is worldbuilding, encounter building and storytelling. I don't DM so that I can pull climb DCs out of my ass.
Cody's video almost convinced me to not even try PF2e. Luckily the first video response I ran into was yours RL, so I stuck with it. I am happy to say I much prefer Pf2e to 5e now. Starfinder tho is my personal jam.
I remember watching Taking20's videos before reading Pathfinder and thinking "Oh he speaks with confidence as someone who has DM'd the game a lot, looks like those are some serious concerns and I don't know enought about PF2 feats to know if they are unbalanced or not". After reading PF2 I'm like "shut up man, you're talking about doing three attacks per turn, you clearly don't know what you're talking about 🤣".
I’ve run 2e only a handful of times as one shots fot my long time co-players and people I’ve DMed for (predominantly ad&d - 3.5 and pf1e). The first session was a little rough as we all had to learn the system. The one player habit that they had to break was play whack-a-mole with the monsters instead of working as a team to help other players and in turn get helped to make really cool ‘remember when’ moments.
Can someone tell me what the build for taking 20's pf2 ranger build is? because as I see it he has a 1st level ranger feat, a 2nd level ranger feat, and no 4th level ranger feat a single skill feat (which is useless in the simulation he made go figure) only proficiency in athletics (but no strength) and no ancestry feats (5th level dwarves can have boulder roll, or clan defender, that can add some serious bonuses in this scenario) Like we could do a whole series on the specifically poor tactics he displayed. But it really looks like he had a fully developed super ranger (colosus slayer, magic weapons, and convenient rules to give them bonuses), vs a half developed pf2 ranger with 1. poor stats 2. missing feats and 3. no skills
The players in Taking20's campaign were most definitely not playing optimal. My party was one level below what they should have been because a certain barbarian derailed the first chapter by offending the elves so badly that the party got banished. The encounter was meant for lvl 8 characters if I am not mistaken, they were level 7 and didn't rest before the final encounter, but they managed to beat it. It was close, but they had bargained with the hellhound in the back of the fortress (to not intervene) and they actually used cover and communicated. That is if he's referring to the final encounter. If he's referring to the golem in front, my guys ran away from that beast because he was tough as nails and couldn't fit through doors.
I run a pathfinder 2e game, It's the first one I've run in the system, I'd not even played the system when I picked it up to DM. This campaign started around when the APG came out, but is running simultaneously with several other campaigns with other players as the GMs, so it has progressed slowly with infrequent play. It's also the first time the players in my group have played the system. Our group plays a lot of different systems, but more than half our players are not super mechanically minded. Most of our players are very RP first, not mechanics. They all love PF2e. They all carry their own mechanical load of their attack arrays and knowing what all of their feats do just fine. When they get a buff, they track it easily, because they only ever have to track 1-3 typed bonuses, usually only status. We rarely have to look anything up, and when we do, it's a 5 second search on AoN. The game flows quickly and easily. I can easily balance my encounters despite running for a 7 player party. 5e meanwhile is a nightmare. Vaguely worded abilities, horrible balance issues, boring combat despite being a combat focused game. We barely ever touch 5e any more. We prefer PF1e and PF2e hands down.
The d20 community in general, the D&D community in particular, has always seemed to me to be significantly more dogmatic and insular in their approach to TTRPGing. Many seemed to have never played any other system. Arguments as to which system you HAVE to play baffle me. I'll play whatever you can gather enough players and a DM for. As for PF2E, it's the first time I've really enjoyed a d20 iteration since BECMI. CharGen is a blast, and the characters translate well to the gameplay. I hadn't played a Fighter since the Companion Set until 2E. Bo Staff and Monk Ded. are just too much fun.
The PF crowd gathers more veterans and engaged players, so branching out into other systems seems more like the norm out there. DND5e players are more broad in category and bigger in size, they inevitably will have a large pool of dogmatic players that think DnD5e is the end all be all. PF1e players, though, specially the ones that still play it, are as dogmatic about it as some DnD5e people.
I think the for lack of a better term the "brain scar tissue" that comes from running 5e's lack of a working encounter builder. Its hard to believe a system could have a working encounter balance.
1:49:26 Funny thing, chatters were actually wrong at that time saying that you can only add it during your own turn. Since Emboldening Bond doesn't specify that you can only add the d4 during YOUR turn you are incentivised to use it for something, such as an attack, during your turn, since you'll get to add the d4 later on the round when it's the dragon's turn when it releases its breath weapon.
Yeah, I know that "during your turn" is very important for rogue Sneak Attack. The writing can be pretty messy in 5E which is unfortunate when the developers double-down on the literal/technical meanings of their words and call for a strict reading. "Natural language" and "strict reading" don't mix! EDIT: Are you saying you get to use it again on the dragon's turn? As in on each creature's turn? "Once per turn" means once you've used it on your turn you have to wait until your next turn, right?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I don't remember what this is referencing. But if something says once per turn it can be used any time you can use an action on any characters turn. So for instance sneak attack can be used on your turn, and anyone else's turn where you qualify for it's trigger. So if you AoO on a monsters turn you would trigger sneak a second time in a round. Turn and round are specific terms in 5e
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Turn and round are different things, you can use a "once per turn" ability once on each individual creature's turn. People were complaining about Rogue sneak attacks being changed in 6e because the words were changed from "once per turn" to "once on your turn", which took away their DPS from getting sneak attack on their turn and then again from an attack of opportunity.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG What I'm trying to say is that "Once per turn" =/= "Once on your turn." Which means that you can benefit from the bonus d4 as many times as there are creatures in initiative. For example, say that you are first in initiative. You can use the d4 for one of your attacks. The next creature after you is an enemy, and they leave your melee range, so you take an attack. Even though you have used the d4 on your turn, since this is another turn (the enemy's turn) you can add the d4 to your attack once again. Continuin on, say that there is another enemy after that one that forces you to make a save. You can then, once again add the d4. I definetly agree that dnd's wording is very confusing often times. It really does end up causing them to sound vague, and people creating different interpretations for them.
Wait what? So if 5 enemies force a PC to make a saving throw, the Peace Domain bonus applies to EACH of them? And they can use it during their turn AND during an opportunity attack? Did I not only misread text that should've been clearer, but ALSO accidentally read it to be less broken than it is?
It seems like Taking20 frequently overlooks, misses, misinterprets, or just opts to not follow rules for the sake of theatrics and grandiose storytelling. To be clear I don't mean this as a criticism, but could this entire argument just be summed up as, "maybe a game system with fewer rules than D&D and Pathfinder would be better for him and his players"?
32:00 One thing to note is that with the number inflation, it's harder to run a gritty OSR-style campaign in Pathfinder 2e in which no matter how tough the enemy, there is always a chance of success; small as it is. With the numbers closer together and such. To me, Pathfinder might not be able to emulate that well (without optional rules), but then again, I'm not looking to do this when playing Pathfinder. When I want to play a gritty thing, I'll pick up an OSR game. For heroics, Pathfinder is a better game.
There is a "proficiency without level" variant! (Described for free online on archives of Nethys, I'll post link in a 2nd reply because I'm afraid of link spam countermeasures). It even says: " This variant presents a change to the proficiency bonus system, scaling it differently for a style of game that’s outside the norm. This is a significant change to the system. The proficiency rank progression in the Core Rulebook is designed for heroic fantasy games where heroes rise from humble origins to world-shattering strength. For some games, this narrative arc doesn’t fit. Such games are about hedging bets in an uncertain and gritty world, in which even the world’s best fighter can’t guarantee a win against a large group of moderately skilled brigands. In games like these, your group might want to consider removing the character’s level from the proficiency bonus. " Regardless of if you're using that, I think the majority of GMs thinks PF2e makes balancing encounters for consistent difficulty a lot easier than 5e, which requires a lot of experience due to CR not being a good indicator. I don't know how hard or easy it is in OSR, but if it works for your table, you're all having fun, and it's not too expensive, then I indeed don't see a reason to switch to PF2e for you.
Surprisingly, a heroic fantasy game works best for heroic fantasy. It's a good thing to keep in mind though, not all systems are suited to all styles of game and that's fine.
The illusion of choice is a false problem. It permeates every possible angle of reality, because there is ALWAYS an optimal choice in everything that we do, gaming or IRL. It's no different in any other system. There is always something optimal you could do with how you built your character. But PF gives you a ton of choice with what that optimal routine is gonna be. What will bring variation is the scenarios characters are put in, and that pattern will likely never change.
People that aren’t familiar with Game Theory tend to not understand what the term “Illusion of Choice” means. It means that when it seems like you have several choices you could have made, but you choice this one because all of your decisions are either based on prior knowledge and experience, or it’s random. In either case, the choice made was determined. In the example of game designed, an illusion of choice is when you have a pool to select from but only one option is good, or if their are several good choices it doesn’t matter which one you pick, which effectively makes the choice meaningless. When you have few choices but each choice is a decision between this one thing that’s really useful or this other thing that’s really useful, but you can never have both, that’s call a Meaningful Choice. PF2e gives you massive pools of choices to pull from that you can pull from at anytime and even select something later if you didn’t select it earlier. You will choose the option you think is best based on prior knowledge and experience, but you probably won’t roll a die to determine what you will pick at each level. That is by definition an illusion of choice. 5e reduces your choices to a much smaller pool in which what you select now will have a huge effect on what you select later, which is by definition a Meaningful Choice. Illusion of Choice is a legitimate complaint regardless of whether or not you individually agree. Complaining about it when others bring it up is as meaningless as the options you didn’t select while building your PF2e character. Comparing it to 5e is an example of just not understanding what you are talking about, as no one is saying 5e is a cookie cutter game because it is; people are saying PF isn’t a cookie cutter game, hence why illusion of choice matters to the PF discussion. Hope that helped.
I completely disagree with Taking20, but the problem he is trying (and failing) to prove PF2E has is a real problem. Sure, games do have one or more optimal strategies, but a game is deep and engaging when these optimal choices aren't obvious and the system is robust enough that it can take years for players to find these choices (or it might never happen). It also helps when, even if these choices are found, the game can disguise situations enough that it's not immediately obvious to the player a situation has an optimal choice so they won't always go for them. Where Taking20 fails is in recognizing one year of play time and (from what I could understand) one group of players, it's really not possible to say for sure you found these optimal choices. It's like a fighting video game, you may think you found an optimal strategy with a character until the community learns how to counter it and suddenly your good character is actually pretty mid, until you find a new strategy and the cycle continues. There doesn't seem to have an attempt from his part to analyse the problems he was having at his table and if there are solutions to these problems. He was having an issue and then noped from his players and system - which is ok if you decide that it's not for you, but not a justifiable reason to make an entire video (two actually) trying to "prove" the issue was the system, not you.
@@jeffersonian000 This argument doesn't really make sense - when you say "PF2e gives you a massive pool of choices to pull from at anytime..." that isn't a very accurate reflection of the system - feats sometimes chain into each other (even if the feat trees are often quite short), and feats are always gated by level. So at level 1 you are selecting from level 1 feats, at level 2 you are selecting from level 1 and level 2 feats, at level 4 you are selecting from level 1, 2, and level 4 feats, et cetera. Your chosen definition of illusion of choice and meaningful choice straight up does not make sense, and does not coincide with how Cody uses the word. You choose to focus on the amount of choices, but the idea that you can only have meaningful choices when there are few choices is a little baffling. If a character has seven possible choices to make, but only two of these choices would be useful/optimal, you are still making a meaningful choice between those two. That's not to say I cannot see value in having fewer, very impactful options like 5e does. It tends to mean the different options at your disposal are less obfuscated and feel more exciting since many options seem like they would impact your character in a meaningful way. 5e tends to break down into a very small selection of optimal choices as well though.
@@dancovich Yeah the fact that Taking20 ended up bouncing off the game was totally fair, sometimes you end up playing something that just doesn't jive with you. There was a funny undercurrent throughout the entire video where he seemed to be simultaneously holding the position that his players were locked into a single optimal playstyle while also holding fast to the idea that the game was way too hard. By sticking to a completely static routine, his party was playing very suboptimally.
@@Coffeewings334 First off, you argue against my use of the term vast feat pools, only to describe vast feat pools. Secondly, I don’t care how other people think Cody is using the term “illusion of choice”. He is using it correctly as I understand the term is used in Game Theory, which is what I cited and which is how he is using the term per his own words. 5e has a number of issues, but PF2e has its own issues. I wasn’t saying one is better than the other. I am saying that PF2e does in fact give an illusion of choice. The simple fact that Cody spoke about selecting a short sword and comments immediately appeared complaining that a rapier was a better selection indicates he was correct in his thinking. I understand that people that enjoy PF are having issues with an influencer stating that they did not enjoy PF. Whatever. But there is no way anyone can honestly say his points aren’t valid, especially after being informed as to why he developed his opinion. It’s like you complaining about me not liking chocolate because I say I don’t like the bitter aftertaste, and you arguing that there is no bitter aftertaste; you would be factually wrong because I am staying my opinion, not your opinion.
I think the Starknife/Scimitar Dex/Str thing is just him misunderstanding the Finesse property to mean that is always used Dex to hit, rather than just giving the option to. Edit: Acknowledging that I had a real hard time following him and might've missed something. Edit2: 3:49:09 Also the whole thing about using Hunt Prey + a single attack being more effective than the double strike.
Listening to you talk about disregarding the rules for jumping in PF2 since they’re disregarded in 5e. In 5e, it’s usually fine, but in PF2, you have to be careful dropping/customizing rules because it’s a carefully built system that has knock on effects. For instance, ignoring the rules for jumping suddenly makes the Quick Jump feat pretty useless. It’s like when you alter code in a large code base and don’t realize that your change way over here actually affects something else in a completely different place. It’s tough to anticipate those effects without first knowing the entire system, which would definitely take more than a year of playing part time. 5e philosophy is more like a rules suggestion approach, where DMs essentially improvise nearly everything. A game that a player experiences in 5e is typically the product of the DM, not the system, while a game played in PF2 is much more a product of the system and has the GM function more as a facilitator. It makes the GM’s job much easier because it doesn’t require so much creative energy to manage the system, and then the story can take the spotlight. But some DMs don’t like losing the system creation aspect or just can’t adjust properly. I think Cody was in that spot. He couldn’t let go of his over-active improvisational nature and it felt constraining to him. If you want to improvise on the PF2 rules, you first have to know them intimately.
A concise video essay in defense of PF2 attacking the points made in these videos would be appreciated. I can't really link a 5 hour livestream to people that are on the fence about the game thanks to these three videos and expect them to watch it :(
3:58 "I don't know if boosting viewers at Pathfinders' expense may be fair towards Puffin Forest" Thanks for considering that. I've been subscribed to Puffin Forest (Ben Scott) for quite some time, and while most of his videos are about stories from D&D campaigns, he's not married to the system in any way. Every now and then he used to talk about different tabletop RPG systems as well (like Call of Cthulhu, Open Legend, Star Wars, and so on), so the Pathfinder video fell into that category. I also appreciate you reacting to the whole video, which shows he was making compliments to the system as well. That being said, I had already watched the first two videos (but I hadn't seen any rebuttals), so this was pretty interesting. It basically seems that the answers to their main complaints are "write down your bonuses for each attack (or use a VTT)" and "if you build a character to be a one-tricky pony, they will be a one-trick pony".
After watching 90% of this vid heres my take. Cody does not enjoy the level of crunch in PF2E. That is fine. What is not fine is that he didn't engage with that crunch enough to find where and when its mechanical depth started paying off, then released a video claiming that the depth never pays off, and gave examples that chased people, like me, away from a system that they would have enjoyed.
One thing I didn't notice in my prior viewings on this for my own videos is Faking20 claims the ranger that goes into melee would have to go back and get their bow to use their Hunted Shot feat. When he clearly said the ranger still had their bow in hand moments earlier. He was just steam of consciousness slinging any hate he could think of off the top of his head.
(Rewatching... I see my cat Megan stealing the show in the first few minutes! lol)
WHY AM I REACTING TO THESE OLD VIDEOS?:
These 3 videos and their creators are still Top Results when people browse UA-cam for Pathfinder 2e reviews, and have convinced many people not to play the system.
Michael Sayre, Paizo Design Manager, referenced "dunk videos" as one of the "challenges" faced by Paizo that has discouraged people from trying PF2E: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/xsgynk/its_impossible_to_say_how_important_this/
And there was a Reddit thread Jan. 15, 2023, while the Wizards of the Coast's OGL scandal was its height, of people saying they were "misled" from checking out PF2E by these 3 videos:
www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/10csgyb/taking_20_puffin_forest_5e_migrants_misled/
I repeatedly refer on-stream to my rebuttal video to Taking20's combat example. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/p5xV7BOFwyw/v-deo.html
EDIT: In a number of comments I'm told the video is too long. There are timestamps to assist people - some of you may want to treat it like a podcast and listen to it while doing other things. People who know my situation know I don't have time to do everything I have planned, and EDITING TAKES A LOT OF TIME. And I don't think editing this down and rereleasing it in my main release schedule makes sense, as only so much attention should be shone on these negative videos.
EDIT 2: Clarifying my comments on Puffin's video. I don't think his reaction/take overall is dishonest. I appreciate his including positive comments along with negative, and he admits that his own predilections/preferences are at play. But the example he creates and the manner with which he presents make PF2 seem more complex/overwhelming than it actually is, which I don't think is responsible. Particularly BECAUSE he includes it with positive comments, people unfamiliar with his style are more likely to assume he is describing a typical attack in PF2E. Also, I don't clarify why I point out his mistake on adding two bonuses of the same type: it's not to nitpick that he got a rule wrong. It's to point out that once one player buffs a player's attacks with a spell, the whole table knows that other spells likely won't add to it, so stacking more bonuses is not on the agenda. This means that people know not to pile on multiple bonuses (in contrast to 5e, where you might want to stack Peace Domain and Bardic Inspiration and Bless together). This can reduce complexity in actual play.
EDIT 3: Here's someone else's video response to Taking20's second video that I wanted to share on stream but couldn't find at the time! It's a shorter, effective rebuttal to Taking20's combat: ua-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/v-deo.html
EDIT 4: Taking20 notably did NOT take Hunter's Aim at Level 2 for his ranger, which arguably was the "obvious" Level 2 archer class feat, and he claimed he was making obvious archer choices. Hunter's Aim would have undercut his argument, because it would have given him a 2-action activity that would have given him a competing "optimal" way to use his last 2 actions. Hunter's Aim: 2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=496
EDIT 5: The player from Taking20's campaign who was in chat says that the Ranger player DID do more than just Hunt Prey and shoot his bow (at 3:31:12): "Ed (elblade)
Only one of the PCs was created this way. He did start using intimidation later as he learned its benefit. This was a character after the TPK and that player avoided melee. He still contributed."
As she should!😻
FYI (not that you need to care) I'm generally curious about your takes and opinions, but your 1-hour videos are sometimes a challenge to find time for. A 5 hour video isn't getting watched ever, I'm just going to skim the top comments and move on.
@@ryuteki
At least skim the chapters in the description. One or two sections may prove worth watching.
As for long form videos: often one can benefit taking the time to watch longer videos (which cover a subject in-depth enough) to exponentially save time in the future. Even viewing long videos at 1.5 - 2.0 playback speed, the key points can be fair grasped.
I think it's great you're going all into Pathfinder--Castles and Crusades by Troll Lord Games is the game I recommend, that's D&D but much better, and much more like D&D was back in the day.
Some people complain that the video is too long. Personally, I'm glad it is long. I'm cooking, cleaning or doing the dishes while listening to it.
"Magic missile is stupid, because you can spend 1, 2 or 3 actions to get multiple bolts" "Why don't they lean into the action economy for spells?? Like, what if the spells did different things depending on how many actions you use??"
It's worth stating that empowering a spell by spending more actions is different from the dynamic flexibility of changing its functions by spending more actions.
Like HTS, heal or harm, but we're talking about MM. Tf you can change in it other than amount of missiles?@AnaseSkyrider
@@TheDimir It's just pointing out that the two statements are not necessarily a contradiction. "More spells need to be dynamic with their actions", and "You should just always cast it with 3 actions (because I don't understand how the game works)" are not in contradiction.
In the case of Puffin's points:
1 - He's absolutely correct. If you actually had to calculate every single strike bonus from the ground up every time you made a strike, Pathfinder would be a horrendous mess that everyone should avoid like the plague...
2 - It sure is a good thing that I have this piece of paper and a pencil here to just write down the attack modifiers for my character ahead of time so that that is NEVER a problem.
I get the sense that he is rather bad at math, and used to 5e where he can just sing it cuz he knows the system well.
Ye
I remember in one of Puffin's other videos he said that he played mostly Fighters and that even when he picked up other character classes he would just dip back to fighter and only use the beginning features. Which kind of makes me think he's not one that's super invested in the nitty gritty of combat in general even for D&D.
He's pretty much said as much unless I am not remembering correctly.
@@Ariande796 He did come around to PF2e eventually though, so maybe he just didn't like DnD combat that much and hadn't tried another combat heavy system before?
@@TheEmperorGulcasa well dnd combat is mid so I think he might've been biased against combat from the jump.
He also doesn’t seem like much of a prep guy. This might be because he started with 4e where all the numbers were preset although he goes through a similar rant about various bonuses and negatives with that too.
Honestly between how his group plays and how he plays I believe that they are all horrible and deserve each other.
i was almost turned off pathfinder by puffin's video but then i discovered this channel
I have been a huge fan of puffin forest and I also followed Taking20 for DnD tips (I wanted all the help I could get). And those videos made me reject Pathfinder 2e without even trying. At this very moment I haven't play it yet but the more I read the more I want to try it. The game looks unique and solves various of the problems I have with 5e (Potion being useless, poor character customization, monsters without any cool ability, poor CR calculator, casters are more powerful that martial, the economy sistem makes no sense, no real crafting....).
As soon as we finish the DnD campaign I am going to make another using pathfinder.
It's sad to think that the OGL scandal was necessary in order to me to actually give the sistem an actual chance.
Welcome! Check out my Discord and my present "Law School" playlist, and you might like other vids on the channel!
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Thanks, I have been here for a few months (A little before the DnD youtubers trying pathfinder series) and I love your content, thank you for your work.
@@robertopena8112 I'm absolutely in the same boat. Played PF1 for years (still do) but was scared away from even ATTEMPTING to learn PF2 after watching Taking20's (evidently erroneous) mathematical breakdown.
If it wasn't for the OGL nonsense, I may never have given this game the fair shake it deserves.
I am running a 5e campaign and we have gone lvl 4 to lvl 15. The more we play it, the more I regret having ever moved away from Pathfinder 1e. I am not sure why anyone would use 5e with these prevalent problems. I find 5e outstandingly more complex because you have to house rule/implement so many missing systems and oversimplified rules. With some experience and a lot of work, I feel it is possible to keep the encounters challenging and interesting but everything needs a ton of work on the DM side. I am also thankful for the OGL scandal. I think I might not have even realized my discontent with the system. Probably, I would have switched to 1e.
2e looks more like a very complex board game. A lot of rules but once you get the basics down you can check/learn/memorize things as you go.
Same here, just made a conversion for my game of curse of strahd to pf2, after learning the system i just don't want to run dnd again
My core issue with Taking20's response is when he presumes we argue that doing things his way is mechanically optimal but people should be doing "creative" things anyway (in other words that "what's fun" and "what's optimal" are in conflict in the system) , when in fact my argument is that he's wrong about what's optimal, the optimal choice is different round-to-round and fight-to-fight, and as a result it's not optimal in the first place to do the boring 1-2-3 same move every time. And making a system where assessment of the situation is important is good strategy game design, and making a system where the mechanical value of options is relatively close together (or where there are incomparables, such as dps vs danger mitigation by using your own actions to deny enemy offensive power) produces a lot of very real and not illusory choice.
I do think some burden for his bad experience should be borne by the adventure path he ran. It was being written for a new system, and had some mistakes that could make for bad situations if followed logically. I also think it's easy for a DM used to running 5E to have habits for running sessions that don't work as well with P2E's intended rhythm, and for that to make things feel disjointed.
But the biggest issue is that the supposed "black and white, apples to apples" comparison he made included flaws, houserules, and fudges that really undercut his credibility, because without those it's likely that his findings would have undercut his point. If you ran up and tripped the wight, that could be enormously powerful as support to your Fighter and a way to deny enemy actions. That's a Real Choice. If you stepped back to force the farther wight to use two strides if it wants to attack you and get into proper volley range, that's a Real Choice. If you ran into the next room to hide and gain an advantage on your shot? That's another Real Choice.
Yeah it seems more like a lack of creature variance. In the video he talks about swashbucklers rolling through, using panache, and then finishers every turn which is pretty fair imo.
Swashbucklers (and rangers) seem to be the most step by step class in the game especially at lower levels in that they do seems to follow the same action path every turn.
My gut reaction to his opening statement was that it was a problem with how he designed encounters. Optimal decisions and high-synergy builds exist in every game. 5e isn't a stranger to this. Whatever paladin multiclass a player ripped off of reddit wants to walk up to someone and divine smite. That's not a crime. But you, as the GM, letting them do it every combat is. Failing to adequately balance encounters that let your players strut their stuff a bit against encounters that force them into having to vary their tactics and fight for every inch until they get into a spot where the payoff is getting to hit that smite, or that multiattack, or that hunted shot is your fault as the GM.
Players are going to make unitaskers if you let them make unitaskers, not by saying yes or no but by giving them no incentive to do anything else.
@@al8188it is regularly said by game designers that, if allowed, players will play the fun out of the game. You have to constantly challenge and switch up what your players do in order to keep things fun. If the players do the same thing again and again, either the dm is not giving enough variety (which could be a problem with the system) or the players are unimaginative (again the system could be this way). But the variety of balanced choices offered in Pathfinder argues against this
Let's build one of the most complex multi-attack characters intended for people who really like that kind of stuff, claim it's the most basic form of combat, attack in a sequence that makes no sense in-game simply to increase listener disorientation levels, and then present it in as confusing a way as possible while getting some numbers wrong.
The best part is that he's acting like runes randomly morph into other runes and appear and disappear on your weapons between every strike action. 🙃
I'll admit, Taking20s video pushed me away from PF2e for awhile. But last year me and my group were just sick of how 5e was playing for us, so we decided to give it a shot anyway, and haven't looked back since. Typing this just made me realize yesterday was exactly 1 year since we changed!
For me was exactly the contrary: aside from being friends with the translator. Taking 20 first videos on Pathfinder helped me a lot to learn the game. Seeing his first quit video was very sad because I was also having issues by running Age of Ashes, but none of them were similar to Cody's problems. The part where he mocks people who prefer Pathfinder as "non role players" who only roll dice and drink beer was infuriating - because the only thing that kept my group together in the AP was exactly how much we loved each other's characters and couldn't wait to see them Role-playing. It was my first game that I ran as closely as possible to the rules, I've allways played very loosely. To be honest, my only complaint on Age of Ashes is that the story and the NPCs are incredibly BORING. I did not have any of the encounter balancing issues people had. Now I'm running Curse of the Crimson Throne for my group using a conversion guide and having the time of my life.
Puffin Forrest's YT channel was the reason I avoided D&D for *years* because all of his stories were mild horror stories painted to be the norm
To be fair, he is the problem player most of the time
Yeah, I haven't seen all of his videos, but he kinda seems like a problem player in the videos I did see. Maybe he exaggerates for comic effect though.
I watched enough of his videos to eventually convince myself that he's just a bad GM TBH XD
There is a interview with players out of his curse of straud campaign; I think they like that style of play. Not sure he would consider them horror stories so much as war stories.
I could never watch puffin forest videos because I realized after watching just one that.... Well he's not really a good person.
His humor is similar to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, laughing at people being awful dickheads. But that's a fake show, and puffin forest presents his as real stories.
How about in 5e: I attack with a +7 except it's at advantage because I'm flanking, but the DM says "also disadvantage because you have pocket sand in your eyes", and the player then says "okay but I have advantage since I'm using Steady Aim", to which the DM says "advantage sources don't stack, so it cancels out anyway", at which point another player says "don't forget, you can add 1d8 to this because of Bardic Inspiration, but it only works on one of your attacks, not all of them, it's consumed after that", and then that reminds the DM "oh right, you also have Bane on you, so you'll need to subtract 1d4 on each of your attack rolls", which in turn reminds a 3rd player to say "Wait they're also Blessed, so that cancels Bane and they don't need to roll that negative 1d4 on all of their attacks", and the DM then states "no, they need to subtract a 1d4 from each attack and also add a 1d4 to each one. Also, the enemy flicks their wrist and conjures a magical shield, increasing their AC by 5 for this round." A fourth player then says, "wait I thought this creature was blinded earlier? That means this attack has advantage." The DM confirms, "ah yes, I forgot - this creature is blinded so your attack has advantage - oh no wait, it has a disadvantage source too so that doesn't matter, I forgot, my bad. Go ahead and make your attack roll at +7 with a +1d4 and -1d4." The bard says, "don't forget Bardic Inspiration! You get a d6 bonus on one of your attacks if you want, but this Tasha's feature actually lets you use it as bonus damage I think too; let me check." The dungeon master replies, "wait didn't your Bardic Inspiration die go up to a d8 this level? And I thought the Tasha's feature only works for spell damage." etc.
Hopefully you get the point that this isn't really a Pathfinder problem, it's an unprepared/new player/these-systems-are-honestly-just-all-kinda-complicated-in-general problem. I think that's actually appealing to a lot of us though.
More to the point, it gets the point across that a rapid fire delivery can present everything as confusing.
i don't know that still seems simpler than pf2e no? Which was the point. Its the comparison between the degree for both systems. They are both problems for 5e and pf2e just more of a problem for pf2e than 5e to a new player.
@@CL-jq1xs the only difference between this comment and 50:20 for example is the fact that pf2e also has level and prof scaling (which you can just look up, especially if you are using vtt or builder). In my experience 5e is only easier because there is less encouregment to buff your teammates from my POV as everyone just minmax their DPS or AC anyway, not carrying about giving some +1 to hit.
@@Misha4em isn't 5e basically add everything because everything stacks and remember if you have 1 advantage and 1 disadvantage?
@@CL-jq1xsNot really no. In pf2e your item bonus, prof bonus, stat bonus to hit are all added at character creation or when you get an item and put as one single bonus. You wouldn’t be figuring that out every round as he’s pretending. The difference the becomes take your highest condition modifiers to status and circumstance + your roll. Thats one flat bonus + two other bonuses and a roll and mind you that you usually won’t have two conditions hitting your status and circumstance. 5e wise you got your total base hit stat+prof+item bonus + roll same and then potentially multiple spell effects bless, bardic inspiration and bane… that’s MORE variable before we even get into advantage and disadvantage. He just rapid fired off every possible modifier while getting rules wrong, and pretending numbers you’d already have added and not trying to factor every round to make it sound more confusing than it was. It reeked of someone who really didn’t take the time to really learn the system and was critical of their lack of knowledge of it.
Pathfinder needs hardcoded rules for anything so Logan Bonner can have sleep at night instead of adjudicating ruling on Twitter 24/7 for 10 years like Jeremy Crawford did.
Okay... your first part of your comment was leading me to think of another motive... I do agree wasting time on Twitter for rules clarifications is a bad idea. That's what blogs and erratas are for.
Only for half of the rules Jeremy Crawford gives being ignored by most of the community
@@MaindexOmega Because Crawford limply said "well if you don't really wanna use them, then don't. What do I know about what's intended and what's not. It's your game". He also made conflicting rulings on same thing.
@@The_Yukki "What do I know about what's intended and what's not."
well shit if the rules designer doesn't know, we're fucked XD
@@MaindexOmega What he means by it is essentially "Play however you want, don't let your player hang my twitter posts above your head like a sword of damocles"
I love that he said that Pathfinder is a combat focused system, when arguably DnD is more because at least pathfinder has rules that divide in three pilars of play, and only one of them is combat focused
_Yeah._ And also PF2e's skill system actually works! You get better at skills as you level up! You can do more cool stuff as you level up!
Don't forget about subsystems!
@@FlameUser64 not an advantage, because it only leads to threadmill effect. Yes, you got better, but system still enforces near 50% chance of success.
PwL is superior for that very reason, IMO. Plus it enables player to take down threats far beyond them, if they prepare properly.
@@UristMcKerman Nope, the treadmill effect only applies to skills when there are on-level monsters/NPCs involved. The system says you as the GM have to keep throwing level-appropriate challenges to keep on-target DCs, not that you increase the DCs of preexisting challenges to match the party's level. What this means is that as level progresses your character becomes capable of _attempting_ more and more absurd stuff, and tasks from yesterday become child's play. A wall doesn't magically become harder to climb because you're higher level, it's still the same wall. And a 20 foot gap doesn't magically become harder to cross because you're higher level, it's still the same 20 foot gap. Those DCs stay the same, and your skill modifier doesn't, making an Athletics-focused character capable of spectacular feats at high levels. The same goes for swaying low-level NPCs with diplomacy: if the GM wants to increase the DC despite the target's level not changing, they'll have to find excuses for more and more negative modifiers, eventually leading to you attempting truly absurd tasks (such as, perhaps, talking someone who is literally brainwashed to hate you, and who also believes you murdered his wife and is also drunk, around to your side) and being able to succeed anyway.
Plus, PF2e's skill DC math is intentionally designed such that you do in fact _slowly_ power creep the "standard" DC for your level. This is something the Inventor class, for example, takes deliberate advantage of.
@@FlameUser64 what you are saying is the definition of treadmill. You get levelup, waste 5 minutes to add +1 everywhere on the sheet - and then you have entire world also add +1s on their DCs, and as a consequence now all artifacts, bombs and poisons you had will be ~10% less efficient. Climbing and jumping are static checks.
The illusion of choice argument was poor from the beginning since he had to bury his head in the sand to realize that you have even LESS options in 5e and you can ONLY repeat the same actions every turn. That is the reason taking 20 didn't compare actions in both games, as it would make him look pretty silly.
exactly, and the point is there are problems with PF 2e for sure. There are also lots of suggestions to improve them. What it comes down to is if you do not want the good parts of PF 2e, like the character options, more interesting player abilities, more interesting spells, items etc then no argument in the world matters, you should not be playing 2E.
If all that matters to you is a single aspect of the game, you run and see that this aspect is not to your liking and you don't care about everything else the game is bringing to the table then yes you shouldn't be playing that game.
He is simply the kind of dm that like to make shit up constantly and doesn't want to be accountable to the written rules. You want the players to shut up and let him decide everything they can and can't do. It's about control, rules empower players in a way that challenges the power he believes he should have over the game.
Have several choices that aren’t meaning is the illusion of choice. Have few choices where each one is meaningful is the opposite of illusion of choice. The fact that people don’t understand what the term means yet complain that few meaningful choice are worse than several meaningless choice is why people like me think the complainers are missing IQ points.
It's not a matter of comparison of system...although only one of the systems is the Pinkerton free. It's a matter of Cody not understanding the rules of PF2E and that it was designed for. Oh and UTTER logical failure to boot. I'm going to prove that PF2E has a one trick pony problem by making a one trick pony to show that the system has a one trick pony problem. He failure to understand rules was so bad that even 5E people abandoned his rules channel. Can't really support somebody to know what they are talking about when they fail that badly.
@@colinrobertson7580I find rules restrictive on the player end too. What do you mean I can't swing on a branch to increase my jump distance?
Just to be clear any time it says "once per turn" in 5e it means that literally. Meaning EACH turn, your turn, your allies turn, your enemies turn, EACH TURN you can use the d4 for one of those things. Thus this makes sneak attack, which does say once per TURN, usable twice per round. Your turn an attack, and once on an opportunity attack. As long as you have advantage or flanking you can sneak attack once per TURN. This I only found out recently as most people thought it meant basically round, but the thing is there is abilities that say once per round in the game so this shows they are distinct from one another.
"They trust dungeon masters enough to just run the game" -- translation: writing rules is expensive and makes our book bigger, cutting into profit margins substantially. Let's just crowdsource 5e to the DMs.
Gee, thanks WotC. Wait, please don't send Pinkerton after me! I'll write DMG2 for 5e right away!
It's amazing how if you ignore or misapply the Pathfinder rules and use variant and optional rules and different feats and more than allowable feats than Characters are allowed for D&D, that D&D comes out ahead for combat options.
Weird.
Additional personal experience : Most DM's that complain that rules impede their ability to 'just roleplay it' tend to have a) inconsistent as shit rulings on identical situations, b) a predefined outcome in mind that they find acceptable or c) both of the above. Most solid games I've been a part of have had DM's that both understood the rules and knew how to apply them (and when to tweak them due to context !)
yes yes yes thiiiis
Based. People, who know their system well and understand the goals they're playing for, know how the rules help making it more believable and when it's okay to drop them. Complaining about rules is stupid.
@@a_wild_Kirillian especially when system has first rule which allows homebrewing.
As a 5e DM and a new player to pf2e, listening to him complain pf2e had long jump rules and high jump rules and 5e just lets you jump... i just thought to myself "this guy doesnt actually know 5e very well"
Yesss, same. I mean...I haven't played pf2 yet, only started reading the rules but I swear there are examples he could've picked. But actually going and picking one where 5e HAS different and very very strict rules...that was golden
He’s not really comparing 5e to pf2e. He’s comparing his loosely-5e-based kitbashed system (sounds like mostly winging it) to pf2e. I think many, many people do this when they try pf2e, and come away salty at a system that has competent rules and expects you to know them, unlike their system.
I play my own homegrown one page rules system, and its really funny when people think 5E isn't crunchy because they've memorized the crunch 😂
Or just forgotten half the rules😂
I think at this point it's a fair criticism to say that the Pathfinder 2e core rulebook don't make it 100% clear HOW the player needs to interact with the game. That's why I'm super hopeful for the remaster to clarify and be more direct about how the players need to approach the system
Yeah - the best way the game teaches these kinds of things is the solo adventure in the Beginner Box, when it counterposes a -10 attack to adding +2 to your AC with your shield. Otherwise it is kind of sink or swim
Just to give positive shout outs, your illusion of choice combat showing all the options there were, and collective arcana talking about his healer barbarian (especially coming off a dnd barbarian where I was so bored) sold me on pathfinder 2e. Both were responses to taking 20, so it helped some people indirectly go the other way.
I am glad you mentioned that the extra layer of critting does add a little more complexity. Because in 5e, if someone rolls a 16 I go "you hit" and they go "but i haven't added all my bonuses" doesn't matte you hit. But in pathfinder every +1 matters. Which I love, but it does add more complexity, which leaves it open for matter of preference.
Yeah I’ve added that to D&D. Can be easy to forget to apply, but that’s mostly because my table is more casual.
Should point out that at level 5 the PF2e Ranger can have 18 DEX and 18 STR making their melee and range competency the exact same. Could have given the Ranger Disrupt Prey at level 4 instead of Far Shot to give it the Attack of Opportunity as well.
It really seems like forrest picked the most complicated possible class and strategy for himself. I don’t think you ever have to worry about more numbers than that.
The Taking20 video was actually one of the reasons I decided to look into Pathfinder at all. There was something so disingenuous about how it was framed that I decided not to subscribe to his channel even after having watched a few before and found them moderately interesting. I found a lot of his arguments to be based entirely on things that sounded like it was the fault of his or his players' own actions, and not having anything to do with the system.
There certainly ARE systems that disincentivize suboptimal play, and I won't say I've never heard a Pathfinder player state that "you shouldn't be [playing how you want to] because this is always going to work better..." Like for example with what kind of weapon to use on a particular class... but I don't think the Pathfinder system really forces players into this kind of play.
What I do think is possible is that the variety of options gave his players decision paraylsis so they always defaulted to one tactic because it was the _easiest_ thing to keep track of for them... or they were just the type of player who... does not do what is best for themselves by taking chances and trying new things once they find something that works... This type of player will often feel like they have no options but to do the same thing every time, even though its not in the slightest bit true... its a self delusion that can be hard to break.
His video rubbed me wrong by nature of how blatantly accusatory it seemed even though he never really directly accused the game of being at fault.
Even my limited experience with Pathfinder indicates that there is no single optimal way to play even an already built character, and I made a point to look into PF in part just to confirm my suspicions in that regard... but also in part because I have friends who keep pushing me toward it, and it does offer more options.
If Pathfinder isn't the right video for Cody... I fully understand that... but I think his _arguments_ are... specious and lacking.
Somehow the fact that Cody had a TPK becomes a lot clearer when he appears to have no concept of Recall Knowledge… and one of his players says he reacted negatively to skill tricks being used mechanically when he wanted RP.
As a DM, I feel like the biggest risk factor for PC death is not using Recall Knowledge on enemies you’ve never fought before. Being ignorant to resistances can make you essentially waste an entire turn of attacking.
100% this when I was designing encounters for y campaign in 2e which me and my group started recently. I was constantly reminding them they could use recall knowledge if they were unsure about something and even made some starting stuff a "forced" recall knowledge. I know I'm quite late on this reply but, you are absolutely correct.
Can we acknowledge that the Multiple Attack Penalty is not new?
The old attack bonus progression was basically identical, but they just didn't let you use the second attack until you had at least a +6 on your first.
And likewise, you couldn't use your third attack until your first attack was at least a +11.
They just simplified it and opened up it's use.
I think the dislike might stem from players who started in 5e and were not aware that this isnt a new concept. To them, when they get a 2nd attack, its at full bonus, so pf2e having a penalty on that even at the start seems punishing.
okay, did it apply to everything in 3.5? TO grapples and trips and knockdowns?
Because I am not sure it did, and I think it calculated full round attack bonuses separately for each weapon when dual wielding
@@texteel Grapples and trips used your Base Attack Bonus just like your normal attacks did. So, yes it did apply to all combat maneuvers as well.
The only thing dual wielding in PF1e does is give you an extra attack when you use a Full Attack. And it carries hefty penalties.
Default penalties:
-6 to your primary hand / -10 to your off hand
If your off hand weapon is light:
-4 primary / -8 off
There is no separate calculation for each weapon, only varying penalties. And once you have the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, they are identical anyway.
With the Two-Weapon Fighting feat:
-4 primary / -4 off
And if you have both:
-2 primary / -2 off
Additionally, if you take Improved
Two-Weapon Fighting and Greater
Two-Weapon Fighting you get a second and third off hand attack at an additional -5 and -10 penalty respectively.
So, one of the players say that Cody gilt-tripped his players into not using things he wasn't familiar with.
Maybe he should have shown his video to his players before posting, since so much of his criticism came from their campaign, they could have objected, or shown their point of view, and he could have shown that on his video.
The sad part is how he admits how nice paizo treats him and then continues to (undeservingly) shit on paizo's game that is struggling to grow.
I've seen a video where he laughs about it. I mean, he is going through bad times and was just expressing his opinion, but he was influencing the livelihood of game designers, the least you can do to the people who are so nice and considerate with you is to be considerate back.
I can't help but be sympathetic to Puffin Forest & be utterly put off by Taking20.
Puffin comes across as a player at my table (D&D 5e) who struggles with things like keeping track of how many rounds a spell lasts and when to make a concentration save at what DC, but loves the feel of a spellcaster. They're not malicious or trying to be obtuse, they just don't have the experience with casters or the memory to keep all that stuff stored in their heads at all times. I can understand that Pathfinder 2e can come across as daunting to that kind of person.
Cody sounds like case of ego run rampant. "Pathfinder players have no options but to use the class abilities and feats they themselves selected". And 5e does ? Or any system does ? No system forces you to optimise. the DM does by smashing your faces into encounters you need to optimise for or by continually upping DC's because succeeding in a dc 10 check feels less HEROIC than making it a DC 20. Sure, some players like optimisation for the sake of it, but I'm willing to bet that those were not the players having issues with 'always doing the best thing'. So it's most likely just your ego talking, my dude. Lots of projection going on there.
Edit : Further in and yep... "I don't know how the system works, so system bad". GG, Cody.
"Golarian lore and history is SO complicated!!"
"So... What's new in Faerun? Oh, that God killed that God and took over their portfolio? Huh, so you're saying that thing was taken care of?"
Yeah, have a friend getting into FR lore due to BG3, and I'm just over here like "yeah, that's a quagmire I'm not stepping foot in."
Complaining about default setting seems p silly to me, just run something homebrewed and simple in that case.
My biggest issue with Forgotten Realms has been that over the years it feels like when they get new writers, those writers seem to want to alter things their predecessors wrote simply out of spite. 4e lore seemed to be written out of hatred for Mystra and the Netherese magic lore, then the 5e writers came in pissed about that and drastically changed it in the other direction. Golarian on the other hand, has a unified writing team and it shows. The changes are made organically , usually by players through adventure paths.
As for Cody, well let’s just put it this way; he was a terrible GM and came to PF2e with a serious amount of baggage and seriously bad habits of DMing from 5e. Having a Ranger martial character in PF2e with a 10 STR is so disingenuous it is laughable. What armor was his Ranger wearing? With a STR 10 leather? Where did he place the other stats? CHA then demoralize is a great option, feint, create a diversion. All he proved is that he is bad at PF2e
I do like the part where he delved deeply into his mechanical argument only to reveal his grasp of mechanics was woefully incomplete.
@@Jermbot15 Considering he was mostly doing a rules related video, it was so bad that even the 5E viewers saw how bad his understanding of mechanics was from that. That is why his views for 5E content tanked after that video. You can't have a channel about rules and then show that you understand nothing about rules.
@@ColdNapalm42 I found it very useful, though not for the reason he would have hoped. See I'm a skeptical person by nature so when one of his Pathfinder 2e players just so happened to reveal that even after a full year with the system they avoided skill actions because Cody had not yet learned how they worked, my initial thought was 'that's quite the accusation, but can it be proven?'
So Cody stepping up in this other context to show that indeed, after a full year he had not learned basic parts of the system was helpful to me in weighing the value of his judgment.
I knew there was something wrong with Cody's argument as soon as he said "a third attack *that usually misses."*
I was like: "hol' up, if it usually misses, why do you do it? Don't you have anything else to do with that action?" But didn't know better so I thought that was just how limited the game was.
Then I watched Nonat1 for a while and understood that his example was bonkers. And then I actually played Pathfinder, chose specifically a bow-wielding Ranger just to check and finally understood the sheer level of *BONKERS* that example was.
Cody example is like, "Look if you put PCs in a small featureless room they don't have many choices and that is the games fault. Pathfinder bad!"
I feel like one of the unspoken villains here is the Official Pathfinder 2e character sheet. Writing out a matrix doesn’t seem so crazy if you didn’t have to scrawl it on the back of an already lengthy document.
The sheet more than anything turned me away from pf2e originally. So square. It doesn’t draw your eye anywhere leaving you looking arcane shifting blob. The foundry one is so much better.
Taking20's second video is embarrassing. I can't believe someone GM'd a game for over a year and has so little understanding of the system. The fact that someone with such a poor grasp on the game had such a profound effect on people's perception of it is sad.
Got to agree, he’s so condescending and superior from the start I had to pause a few times just to clear the air of his smug attitude. I keep expecting him to start talking his vegan cat and the amazing social/political observation his 3 year old made. The way he describes how creative his players are sounds like he just hates rolling dice.
It sounds less like Taking20 wasn’t able to find interesting choices, and more like they just weren’t making interesting decisions.
Which means that they were bad PF2e players. They didn't evaluate that the combat paradigm changed entirely, thus their basic assumptions based on DND5e's boring and one-dimensional combat didn't work. They never stopped to learn why PF2e is different, they only were thinking about how it was not like DnD5e.
@@LightningRaven42 it does sound like tho, that the players turns were more varied (2 players have come out saying so now). So unless we hear a clarification it is possible that Cody tweaked the facts to suit his point. The combat example makes it seem so
Yeah, this is apparent just from him talking about the Druid. If your Druid is only wild shaping then it is entirely their fault if they’re bored with the character since they’re not interacting with any of the other Druid abilities like spell casting. Doesn’t matter how versatile something is if you only use it for one thing.
He decided to craft the most complex scenario to exagerate the point.
Combining a sweep weapon and hunt-prey kinda shows what he went for.
At least he didn't make a high wisdom, 12 charisma dwarf cloystered cleric with only heals & buff spells🤣
Yikes, I hope I never end up at a table with Puffin Forest if he's that disorganised. I've been playing for a year and a half with new players and we've not once had a combat turn devolve into that kind of mess. Almost every point he made just made me think he and his group were totally unprepared...
Groups like that exist. Mine once wanted to try LFG, cracked open the book, made characters, fought a few goblins and declared the game trash within an hour.
He has some math problem, or something with focus.
His math is so bad, nothing is written down, ect.
People here are missing the fact that he did write it all down, which is why his description is complicated.
@@jeffersonian000 Then why is number after number, term after term, all wrong?
@@jeffersonian000 Also, he stacks stuff that doesn't stack and includes stuff that is way more complicated in 5e.
So... According to Taking20, PF2e is a game for power gamers who whittle options down to the most optimal turn loops and repeat them ad nauseum, yet it's also a beer and pretzels game for people that wanna chill and mindlessly fight monsters?
An oppressively crunchy game for people who just want to drink beer, be casual, and learn a new system.
Honestly, that sounds more like my experience playing 5e...
@@zacharyharwell351 Yes, 5e people so often pretend what they do isn't power gaming.
@@FireNTheSkythe number of ‘optimization’ videos for 5E seems infinite. However, powergaming has been a thing since Unearthed Arcana…from 1E.
@@russellharrell2747 Sometimes I feel like the core issue of PF2e for content creators is PF2e's lack of game breaking optimization. So much of DnD content is about how to break the game and traumatize your DM, that I don't believe these creators could exist in a more balanced game. lol
The best lesson I've learned from The Rules Lawer's channel is to take a lot of people's opinions with a grain of salt otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of potential fun. Thank you for creating these long videos, it's very convenient that I can listen to the video like a podcast as I go on about my day with no hassle.
Rules Lawyer's Bladder: I fear no man.
Tall glass of water.
Rules Lawyer's Bladder: But that thing? That thing scares me.
Cody's assessment that 4e failed because it was more complex than pathfinder is nonsense.
4e was not as popular because 1) it changed a lot of the fundamentals, so people felt like it was not the same game any more (thus they longed for something more familiar), and 2) WotC were pulling a lot of nasty corporate BS with the OGL and some would say excessive monetisation (history repeats itself).
As a system, in my experience 4e is far more straightforward than 3.5 (admittedly haven't played PF1 but I struggle to see how it would be simpler given the 4e rules presentation format and standardised powers, etc).
If the argument is that the simplest games are the most popular, why isn't a rules light system like Powered by the Apocalypse not crushing 5e right now? Dungeon World plus countless other genres are covered under that system, some of them quite obscure.
If you spend more than a moment thinking about it, then it all falls apart. It's a shame, as I do appreciate his content usually.
I can tell you a reason way pbta isnt crashing 5e is multi reason:
1.the amount of metrial online for 5e is insane so finding ways to try , learn,and play 5e is so easy.
2. Whan people think ttrpg they think dnd..and because dnd is a closed system people will fo out less.
3.ptba has a lot of version . So finding a the version you want is bard.
4. Ptba is one of the largest ttrpg out there by popularity. Its not 5e but its pretty fucking popular.
5.and the biggest.. marketing.marketing is everything.you cant just compete whit 5e.
6. 5e isnt the devil. Its ok-pretty good .is it perfect. Not even close .but its wide enough and rubast enough to do it job .
@@yuvalgabay1023 Your points are fair, but it's obvious that "crunchy" doesn't equal "unpopular" and "rules-lite" doesn't equal "popular" (which is what Cody was saying), there are instead many other factors involved.
Getting rid of unduly burdensome crunch that gets in the way of playing the game can make it more accessible, but crunch is clearly not the deciding factor.
@@Capt.Thunder never sayed it ..but crunchy/non crunchy will attract different people ..crunch is a factor. Its not every thing but its there.
@@yuvalgabay1023 I didn't say it wasn't a factor, I'm saying it's clearly not a serious obstacle for the vast majority of people, as 5e is one of the most crunchy systems on the market right now. Rules lite games vastly outnumber the crunchy systems, and yet look at all of the big ones, and you'll see that the crunchy ones dominate a huge share and most of the top spots.
If the argument is that crunch will make most people not buy your system, then that's a dumb position, as the evidence clearly proves the argument to be wrong. My point was that Cody makes this claim, and is therefore wrong.
4e was second ttrpg I played, and not long because my GM hated it: for him it was boring and dry, no flavor text for world, and it was hard to gm anything else than combat. Personally remember it felt lots like WoW, which I tried but it wasn’t my cup of tea.
I like that you highlight the same points I made to the videos in question years ago:
PF2: Let’s offer the most complicated and convoluted scenario we possibly can and treat it like it is always like this and there’s no way for it not to be this way.
5e: Let’s offer the simplest possible alternative even where it blatantly ignores the 5e rules-like creating a convoluted example of jumping a gap to present an overly complicated PF2 implementation of a jump rule, while in 5e just using an athletics check instead of the actual 5e rules for long or high jumping.
It’s almost like in politics where you present a distortedly positive best possible side of your guy, and a distorted worst possible side of the other guy.
Imagine how Puffin would review 5e if he played it without a finished character sheet
I think that's kind of the issue with both these critics and many more: They take D&D 5E for granted so much it's the default. That's my main gripe with ttrpg as a hobby and specially fantasy roleplaying: 5E is so ubiquitous that there's an entire, evolving ecosystem (Since Cody and many of the D&D channels from that are are not around anymore or very severely diminished or smaller than newer folks) of people that give 'advice' on running 'ttrpgs' but 9 times out of 10 specifically 5E D&D. And the 'advice' is always some form of removing or changing certain rules with an explanation of how to keep the game interesting by doing so.
See there's so many people talking about D&D that nobody questions 'Why do I even *need* all these tips to run the game, why there's so much content about keeping players happy, making it easier to be a GM, etc'? Or the natural conclusion 'Should I even be trying to play D&D 5E even when I am disregarding or rewritting so many of the rules? Why don't I just find some other game more suitable for the style of game we want to play?'
So because nobody is asking these questions when they feel entitled to criticize other game systems they do so without actually giving them a chance or even getting to know what those rules actually do before deciding to play: Puffin never even so much as filled his character sheet because the default is 'I don't use much of it on 5E so it must not be useful'. Cody started both ignoring rules and adjudicating without thinking 'There's so many rules in here why didn't I try to play a more narrative oriented game instead?' and worst, never stopping to think he basically *forced 5E to be a more narrative oriented game by ignoring several rules* as *MANY* people do.
Ok in all fairness you actually kinda can play 5e with a completely unfinished character sheet and it probably won't ever matter as long as you remembered to have HP and AC and l either extra attack or like two spells
To be fair, the official 5e character sheet has a space for all the numbers you need. It is a better layout and the pf sheet layout implies they expect you to do the math every time. I have heard that complaint a lot with beginners and something I hope they change in the new edition... err... re-release.
@@rynowatcher what? you can write every number you need in your pathfinder sheet, dont know what you are talking about,
@@tamadesthi156 there is not a labled 4x4 attack matrix on the sheet, which is why the reviewer presented his solution as though it were a revolation. (To be fair, this is 1 month after pf2e was released and it did not have as much vtt and third party support for game aides; he is just using the core system "out of the box.") The layout implies they want you to do the math for each maneuver and his 4x4 grid is only accounting for actions he can do on the regular, not even accounting for other party member's actions. It is bigger than a 4x4 grid of numbers, and there is not anywhere enough room for the sheet that came with the first release of the core books.
I'm convinced Puffenforest & Taking20 are both antagonistic DMs.
This can be backed up with the fact Puffenforest has so many stories where he trolls & bullies his players.
An Cody ( Taking20 ) has a video series on how to TPK the party with ______ monster.
I don't understand how one can say you can't roleplay in pf2e.
We're playing age of ashes with my group, last night we're reaching the end of the final book.
We completely bypassed the dungeon that we're supposed to do at level 19, because my sorcerer opened a Gate to go see the guy in charge and have a talk with them.
To prepare for it we roll a DC51 recall knowledge that we succeeded with lots of teamwork to be able to gain informations for the negociation, and after that, once we met him ?
Not a single dice was rolled.
It was all pure roleplay back and forth debating with him and having him change his plans as we corrected him.
And so we got to level 20 and essentially are ready to head to the end of the adventure.
A 3 hour sessions with like... 5 rolls, none of them being combat. (Shoutout to our witch's heroism+crit success on aid for my sorcerer's recall knowledge, turned the needed roll for success from a 19 to a 15 and I rolled a 16.)
I think that the buzz argument for who can't think anything better. Dnd and pf are not narrative rpgs: the rules are for combat but when characters talk, players talk.
@@szadec9264 You can use the rules to make up for someone not having irl skills their character has. (Like, I doubt everyone considers themselves as intelligent as their 22 Int wizard for example)
Same goes for social skills, you wanna play a charismatic, smooth talking character but have a hard time talking yourself ? even if your roleplay is minimal, or just a bit descriptive in 3rd person, your **character** is a diplomatic sweet talker and the rules will be there to reflect it.
Because Cody didn't give room for it in his game.
If you're not roleplaying it's a choice being made by some or all of the people around the table. My group is going through Abomination Vaults and RP every session.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 Mhm, i aggree
Agreed, if anything you would think hard rules regarding social interactions like lying, befriending people, and secret checks being a mechanic would help the roleplayers feel stronger. I guess some people think rules are restricting instead of guidelines with extreme prejudicr
I found pf2 combat much quicker than 5e's. That is i think mostly because of the 3 action economy. There's no bonus actions to squeeze in, theres no splitting your movement, there's no "can i also ..." - you do 3 things and we go to the next person, everybody knows when a turn is finished.
There's also less math that goes into rolls. Many people like to say 5e is just a d20 plus a modifier, but this isn't true.
In 5e if you multiple sources of advantage and disadvantage you have to figure that out. Then if you have spells like bless or bardic inspiration you have to roll and add those. Then you have to figure out any other effects like auras and the like and add ALL of that into your roll.
Where in PF2e you'll roll the d20 once, add your modifiers, and add one source of status bonus, one source of circumstances bonus. I won't include item bonus into that roll because this is usually already added into the modifier. So usually a roll is just a d20 + modifier + 2 for a final result.
I honestly think it's funny people think pf2e is more complicated when I've seen 5e get bogged to the hells with so all the rolls and bonuses that can get added to the roll and it only gets worse as you get higher level.
And since there are rules to do things, the player is aware of what their character should, can, shouldn't and can't do. They plan accordingly, instead of trying to do some random thing and ask the GM to set a low DC.
I've played both a highly mobile Monk and a Heavy-Armor Paladin in PF2e, both classes play very differently and have wildly different constraints and strengths, I plan my turns for the character I'm using, not for what I could potentially try to do.
It's easy to plan to your strengths when the system offer rules everyone can read, rather than something the GM needs to decide mid-combat.
@@norcalbowhunter3264
Technically in 5e, Advantage and Disadvantage cancel each other out completely regardless of the amount of either, but since that results in some absolute clown shoes situations (like it being easier for an Archer to shoot someone far away if either them or the target are standing in fog), so few people run it RAW.
@@xdragoonzero0 this is true, but if you have multiple sources giving you these you have to figure out whether or not you have it.
For example if a creature tries to spot you and they have say eyes of the eagle or something so it gives them advantage meaning it's a straight role, but wait you have cloak of the elven kind so they get disadvantage trying to spot you, but wait the creature has a skill that gives them advantage on sight based perception check as well, and so on and so on.
I understand that they cancel each other out, the argument being made is how bogged down this system can get. Since you literally have to comb through all your items, abilities, and spells to figure out if what roll you have to make. If you have 4 sources of advantage and 3 sources of disadvantage, as per the rules of 5e you roll with advantage. But first you have to sit there and figure it out.
I played 5e for years. Almost a full on decade. I've seen sessions come to a halt as players tried to figure out what they're roll was because they had a dozen different modifiers effecting it.
I've yet to see that happen in over a year of playing PF2e because the modifiers are straight forward. People try to make them seem like this complicated thing but 70% of your modifier is already precalculated with the other 30% being from simple sources.
@@norcalbowhunter3264 That's not actually the case; if you have, say, 3 different sources of disadvantage and one source of disadvantage in 5e it cancels out to a straight roll; from the PHB "If circumstances cause a roll to have both advantage and disadvantage, you are considered to have neither of them". The idea is to avoid the issue you mentioned, of having to count up a bunch of different circumstances; it simplifies things for sure, but it does also make some circumstances really dumb. Like an invisible archer being better at hitting opponents under adverse conditions (at long range, while they're prone, and while they're also invisible would make it a straight roll, while if nothing was under any effect the archer would be at disadvantage)
Puffin just, to be honest and not mean, sounds like he is better playing OSR or Powered by the Apocalypse or perhaps World Without Numbers. His methods for calculating screams common core math. He totally over complicates every single encounter and example. The part when he said “I kid you not I made a grid” well no duh, it’s called your weapon attack on your character sheet.
OSR loves grids.
But yeah, came to agree with this. He should be playing dungeon world, not 5e.
Common Core math is largely fine, better for mental math over the plug and chug algorithms we were taught as kids.
Is WWN a new spinoff of SWN?
@@Seth9809 same writer as SWN
He does have war stories and reviews of Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Silver City Sentinals, Deadlands, and a few others; he is not strictly a 5e player. He also claims to have a degree in chemical engineering, so the capacity for math is there. Just because you do not want to crawl 50 meters on your belly does not mean you lack the capacity so; he is clear about why he does not want to and gives a fair rebuttal to most of his points.
This is actually the 2nd video Puffin Forest put out on pf2e; the first was quite positive and covered some scenarios in the play test documents. I think he really tried to like the system, but the concensus him and his group reached was that it was just not their cup of tea.
"My druid player can only wildshape then attack" - says the guy going to 5e where that's all moon druids do anyway...
Which he acknowledges, and says if he is going to play a game with combat he finds repetitive, it might as well be the one with faster combat.
@@justicar5 But the combat isn't any faster. In 2e I take my turn in about 5-10 seconds. It's the same in 5e.
If turns are taking too long, that's a player issue not a game issue.
when my group moved to pf2e and I took the reigns as GM (having never even touched pf before) I watched Taking20's video, and when he said players were doing the same thing over and over again i was like "that cant be right, it sounds like the players are doing something wrong" and just ignored him
my game started in February and I feel like I've just grazed 10% of the system, and it already feels so liberating from years and years of clunky 5e systems
i never DMd 5e, but seeing my GM having to come up w rules on the fly because 5e doesnt have rules for certain things that should have rules, or having to homebrew something like chase rules (which are just garbage in 5e) was painful
I'm about to dive into both Pathfinder and Starfinder. Have already started with PF. After watching that Taking20 vid, my goal is to now infuse as much RP into my two campaigns as humanly possible. You can have your RP and tactical combat too. They are not mutually exclusive. I aim to prove it.
The thing Pathfinder does best is using roleplay in the middle of combat, I believe. No system can be so heroic and epic, the fights are meaningful and the three actions allow for you to really insert a lot of character into the battle by going for specific options related to skills and stuff like that. This game is just pure anime.
In one of my recent ~7 hour sessions we had _no_ combat at all, just RP :P
As someone who started in PF1e I fear no rpg math, honestly I explained it to my wife when I got them into the game like this "You know exactly what circumstances your build gets bonuses in, which means you know exactly which circumstances you're going to put yourself in so you can write down 90% of the math you'll need in your campaign journal and just add your roll and maybe the handfull of bonuses you might get" i haven't played 2e yet but it seems like that's the case again.
Fortunately, I came into PF2 completely blind. Someone in my area was running a beginner's PF2 campaign and I just joined. Been going strong for 7 months now.
The "Illusion of Choice" argument is crazy. If you focus on ONLY optimal plays; never making even slightly sub-optimal choices, YOU are forcing the "Illusion of Choice" on yourself.
When Rules Lawyer laughs at what Cody says, it cracks me up. Like he's this close to shouting "Objection!"
I think my main issue with 20s idea that you just do a rotation is that even in mmos where they are present the game designers make it so you can’t just do that, so shouldn’t the dm also do that? If you see your players doing the same thing over and over throw a challenge that requires them to mix it up and if it’s a “fault” of the players then maybe your challenges only allowed one solution to a given problem too many times and your players feel like they can’t mix it up
A common theme in the comments, and it strikes true with me too, was being pushed away from 2e by Puffin and Taking20's vids on 2e before actually haven given it a go, but in my case it was thanks to the words of my 1st ed GM at the time that I did eventually give 2nd ed a go with him, and I can honestly say I like 2e more than 1e now and MUCH more than 5e D&D.
We were paying Strange Aeons and getting close to the end of the AP when the group was deciding what to play next, and they all suggested Blood Lords since we as a group liked AP's that could put PC's outside of the usual AP moral comfort zone and let us be 'bad guys', I was a little hesitant at first but now having played much of Blood Lords I am extremely thankful I gave the system a chance.
It honestly sounds like the problem with Taking20's PF2E campaign - and the problem he has with PF2E in general - is that he wants the GM to have more direct control than they really get in PF2E.
In PF2E, I could definitely see a situation coming up in which a player cleverly and correctly using their skills and feats could catch a GM off-guard and mess with the plan of the scenario. Like, for example, if the player gets a great social roll or if they manage to make the difficult long jump that the GM had defined (note how upset Cody was at having to give a concrete distance and commit to it - because he didn't want to be held to that through game mechanics).
Putting the majority of the game's outcomes into the GM's discretion is a legitimate style. Arguably, highly narrative systems like Dungeon World do this and can be great.
But that is no reason to say that PF2E is poorly designed for roleplaying. And it is certainly no excuse for unfounded accusations of the alleged "illusion of choice".
I started watching the taking20 video back when it came out and gave up midway because to me it sounded much more like a reveal about his GMing style than the game.
If your players are doing the same thing over and over again it's because you're giving them the same kind of challenges. The objective of even combat encounters could vary so much.
Even back in the AD&D days we did that.
Sometimes it’s player problem, but if all players do same things over and over, then most likely reason is GM giving encounters with same solutions.
Oddly enough I think a big problem for D&D players coming to Pathfinder is that they're actually bothering to read the rules in Pf2 unlike how they play 5e. I feel like if Cody just ignored all the Pf2 rules he doesn't like like he does with 5e then he'd enjoy the game more. Like, nobody actually uses those rules for improving your favor with an NPC durring social encounters, do they?
I'm GMing for the first time in Pathfinder 2e. I've played a decent amount of 1e just as a player but never in 2e.
My players consist of 3 pathfinder 1e players, one person with limited 5e experience, and someone with practically no experience at all.
We have none of the issues Puffin supposedly had. We spent maybe a couple minutes over the course of a session for people to be like: "Don't forget you have inspire courage". Or "you can't cast that because you moved and it takes 3 actions"
This crazy conspiracy thing with string going to 23 different bonuses or something is nonsense.
My problem with Puffin's attack example is that it started out simple with a roll of a 16 and then the situation just kept changing to make it more complicated, sometimes in a way that is against the rules like stacking the status bonuses. Not even gonna bother trying to figure out where he went with the shield and two-handing weapons. If you wanted to make complex theoretical attack example it would be easy to do without constantly changing the scenario or adding players interruptions. Here is an example for an uncommon attack case:
Scenario: lvl 1 Fighter affected by guidance shoots a longbow at a elite goblin warrior in cover at a distance of 25 feet.
Stuff before the game session: Fighter has their attack bonus written down on their sheet which is a total of 9. Elite modifiers have been added to the goblin warrior so it has an ac of 18.
Annoucing the attack: At this step the player decides to use the guidance to get a +1 status bonus to the roll the attack modifier is currently +10. The GM should at this step inform the player of obvious modifiers like cover and distance if it has not already been disclosed, so we apply the -2 untyped penalty to the attack because the longbow has the volley 30 feet trait, bringing the modifer down to 8. In the mean time the GM adds the +2 circumstance bonus to the ac from cover so the ac is now 20.
Rolling the attack: The fighter rolls a 12, adding the 8 from the earlier math (or if they didn't do any math before rolling 12+9+1-2=20) meaning they get a 20, the GM compares the result to the goblin's ac and annouces a hit but not a critical hit.
Damage roll: The player rolls a 3 for a total of 3 piercing damage.
Elements in the example: Attack modifier, elite modifier, status bonus, untyped penalty, circumstance bonus, attack roll and damage roll.
Went over all the same groups of modifiers, however I did not include shields damage or shield block reaction. Nor did I include anything that goes against the rule or added player disruptions.
I don't doubt that Puffin had scripted his example to some extend, however it came out cluttered and muddled when the situation kept changing and became rule breaking at points. The example comes of as either incompetent or malicious and neither of those add to his credibility as a reviewer.
Not gonna bother with Taking20's combat simulation, he made vastly different scenarios that seemed somewhat similar and then proved that he does not know the rules for a game system he had GM'ed for 1 year which suggests Ed is right in his assessment of Cody not understanding the rules of the system.
I will say I avoided PF2 for a while because of Taking 20. He had been running for a year so I thought he was right. I have been running for about 6 months now and am embarrassed by his mistakes.
Puffin's combat example is so confusing, and I'm pretty sure he lost the plot half way through and started changing things mid sentence from the prior sentence.
I watched that video long ago, and watching the combat simulation again I have to say...
The feats you take set you to a specific combat style? Oh no, your choices are making you act a certain way, whatever will you do?
Other than that, despite my love for all thing TTRPG I haven't played anything in ages so I will not comment on mechanics.
Worst of all is how he says that 3 attacks is what they *always* did because it was optimal, while in the same breath saying the 3rd attack always missed and they had a party wipe.
Ah yes, optimal. Meanwhile, the Hide action...nowhere to be seen.
I think the fact that *choices in feats* dictate how s player will run their character during combat eludes him.
41:46 "In DnD the steps seem to be a bit simpler..." Him saying it faster doesnt make it simpler lol. He said that, then rattled off a bunch of additional things to check which would make it infact.... Less simple
My biggest criticism of Taking20’s first video is that he acts like repetitive and boring turns aren’t a part of D&D 5E….. martials literally can only attack and move……. Maybe shove or grapple if the monster isn’t too big. But generally martials just attack each turn.
EDIT: I guess he does at the end, but it’s as an afterthought not as a true point. He should lead off with that fact if he really feels it is true.
calm, collected, analytic. leaving emotion out of the argument. spoken like a true lawyer
Miles edgeworth would be proud.
2:43:00 I would like to see a video from you about how to wing Pathfinder. Like, from UA-cam and Reddit I have heard a +2 on an ability is very powerful; and a +3 circumstance bonus might even be broken. But then adding 10 HP to a monster might not be. Adding 10 AC to a monster might be broken again.
It would be great to me to have a guide on "If you wing pathfinder, try winging it this way, and and avoid winging it that way, because of these reasons. This mechanic is safe to wing, keep away from winging that mechanic. If winging this thing in this way, expect this bad outcome to be happening. Instead, wing that thing instead to make your assumed outcome to happen."
Or if something like that already exist, please tell me.
Gonna second this. I would find that interesting and helpful as well. Although I gotta say, the core rule books already have a lot of suggestions for winging certain things. For example the modifications on DCs based on the difficulty you are going for. Elite and weak versions of enemies also give you a quite good way to adjust enemy strength on the fly. But some more in-depth tips on home-brewing would be appreciated.
If you're talking about winging enemies, there's rules for monster stats at every level. Using the 'moderate' option for each one gives you an average monster of each level. So if you just have that generic statblock for each level, you can pretty much wing any enemy you want on the fly.
+2 you can consider a 'step up' on the difficulty (basically equivalent to increasing the level by 1). You can go up to about +6 in any given stat without the math breaking so long as you don't apply that to every stat (so if you have a very nimble or tough enemy, you could add anywhere from 2-6 to its AC to get that across). If you do that, be sure to give them a weakness elsewhere, or instead use a higher level statblock. This only applies to checks and DCs. HP and damage rolls are much much more floaty. For those, about a 10-25% adjustment is a step up or down, but the math isn't going to break unless you start doubling them. For monster abilities on the fly, either combine two or more basic actions into one, or steal from other similar monsters (they're all on Archives of Nethys)
Skills and everything else are stupid easy to wing. Use the Simplified DCs for the most part (10, 15, 20, 30, 40). Remember that these should not scale with level; a normal tree should always be something someone who is trained in Athletics could do, so DC 15, whether you are level 1 or 20. You can add or subtract 1-5 without much consequence, keeping in mind +5 is particularly hard and -5 is particularly easy. For any check related to a creature or item that isn't already covered in their statblock, just use the level-based DC table. Having that written down in front of you is really important because technically it works for everything in the game, including monster DCs and bonuses.
And finally, as someone who wings all the time in this system, I'd recommend only asking for dice rolls if there is a reasonable consequence for failure. If there is treasure just inside a drawer, just have them find it when they search the room. If its hidden in a secret compartment, thats where you ask for a Perception check. If a piece of Knowledge might change the decision the party makes, thats the time to ask for a roll; otherwise just tell them the information. If the players are asking an NPC for something, you'll probably already know whether they'd agree or not. Only if the help is up for question and the help the NPC provides would be somewhat equivalent to finding a hidden cache of potions with Perception should you ask for a check.
Idk if any of that helps or was wanted, but that's what I do
@@PlatonicLiquid You are certainly helpful. Thank you for writing this out.
One thing that still confuses me in Pathfinder 2e is the little snippet in the Gamemastery Guide about Failing Forward.
Failing forward, and consequences on a miss, and on a hit, really clicked me running PbtA, and in extension Blades in the Dark. If it's the same concept, how can I implement this in Pathfinder 2e?
I see the Climb action has a Critical success, Success, and Critical fail result. It does not have a rule for Failure. Can I fill this lack of rules in with narrative consequences?
"As you climb the wall, a part of the rock you hold onto breaks off. It tumbles down, dealing damage to the person below you."
--> How much damage is reasonable for this? Can I add a Condition instead? (Stunned, etc.) Or a narrative condition? (You have broken your fingers.) Is taking away a resource too much? (Your backpack rips open. You lose the bottom-most item written down in your inventory on your character sheet.) What are good guidelines for this?
I see Balance has all four results filled in. Can I still swap a rule here with narrative consequence? Or are these rules that when changed, break the entire system?
--> Can I also give a consequence on a success? You did the thing, but also this happens.
@@amyloriley Yes, failing forward, so if failure blocks off or resets progress, probably don't leave it up to a die roll. If you need something to happen to get the game where you want, think about what success would look like in that situation and what failure would look like in situation, then ask for the check. Classic example is PCs committing a crime for the story and fail. Having to negotiate their way out of prison or having to lose something important in their escape or having to do something else to be able to attempt again is failing forward. Having them all arrested and spending 2 years in prison and failing the quest is not. Thats just general advice for all TTRPGs so everything you use in PbtA should apply here. Obviously the mechanics are different, but you can think of success as 1 to 1 (with critical success giving you an extra bonus), failure equal to a mixed success in those cases, and a critical failure being the hard failure.
Now as for the example with Climb, that illustrates something different about the system: you should not need to come up with any rules on the fly. Climb doesn't have a Failure effect because on a failure it does nothing; your character does not move up or down). Same with Swim, only on a crit fail or if they don't succeed a single check that round do they being to sink. If you are finding you are having to make a rule, you probably missed a rule somewhere or assuming that something has to happen when nothing actually happens. I've seen people do the same with a Crit Failure on a Strike; nothing extra happens whether you roll a 8 and miss or roll a 1. If you don't want to break the flow and look up a rule, then just use the PbtA example as before. Only take a 'hard move' (like hitting an ally with rocks or losing stuff from your backpack) on a Crit Failure. A failure just means nothing happens.
Also for a lot of skill checks, you can generally skip rolls if you know the person attempting them will succeed. If your Barbarian is a master in Athletics, you can just assume the cross a 20 foot gap. But the untrained Wizard might not. Same for Diplomacy, Thievery, and Perception in many cases. However, sometimes you might have a challenge you want them to have a chance to fail, such as trying to force open a door or cross a river. Set a normal DC, and have them roll. They can fail over and over so long as they eventually get a success, no having to fiddle too much with it. But if they manage to critically fail before then, thats when something bad happens; the door gets stuck, they begin to drown, they set off a trap, ect. This is how the system was designed way back in the playtest. One of the designers put out an article say as much when they were teasing the mechanics of the new system, but thats not really explained as explicitly in the Core Rules to my knowledge. Bottom line is for the most part, failure is neutral and can happen continually, critical failure is when bad stuff happens
@@PlatonicLiquid With these long replies, I'd almost think you are a redditor. I love it!
I think I have a little different idea of what fail forward is; but it's just nuance really.
When I think about fail forward, I think about the environment making a move, not just a partial success.
A player being imprisoned, I can't help but think of Blades in the Dark, in which, well, play just continues in prison. Make new prison friends! Get to know the patrol schedule of the guards. Make the prison wing your turf. Set up a smuggling route. Set up false rumors about your rival.
But I digress.
If I can divorce consequence from logical action, climbing a wall could for instance result in being seen by a nearby guard and a "what do you do?" from me as GM.
Or a wall crumbles, revealing a bat cave inside. They wake up. Roll initiative! Yes, while climbing. And there is a magic item in that opened-up bat cave! (Something positive!) Do you try to reach it?
I have noticed that many, but not all, descriptions of failure describe a partial success.
I don't like it when nothing happens on a failure. That just shows me that a roll wasn't necessary.
To me, a roll is only necessary when there is difficulty AND risk involved. If you don't risk anything by failing, no roll is necessary. I think we agree on this.
When in encounter mode, sure, make a roll. A "nothing happens" means "an enemy can make an attack in their turn before you can try again." Or at least you have to risk your action economy.
Would you allow PCs to take hit point damage / story points / hero points in order to cancel or reduce a consequence after GM narration?
Another issue with the math that taking 20 is doing is that he's very one-sided in his math. What I mean is that Pathfinder 2e is more of a teamwork-oriented game obviously while players who focus on 5E will be single-mindedly focused on their own DPR. But there's four things that you can focus on in regards to DPR in the game, there's your team's in coming damage, your incoming damage, the team's outgoing damage, and your own outgoing damage. What's more beneficial in PF2E? Focusing on yourself and the only increasing your DPR or putting forth conditions on the enemy that increases your team's DPR and reduces your team's incoming DPR. The trip and the grapple and it possible demoralized is three actions and it imposes taking two actions away from the enemy team while simultaneously increasing your team's outgoing DPR. Like you don't have to do any DPR yourself if you can lock down an enemy, flank them for flat-footed bonus, and also take away two of their actions. The problem with taking 20s logic is that it's 5e logic "me do more damage me win game"
the way puffin explains his turns makes it sound like at the very beginning of his turn, he throws all the dice related to all three of his planned actions at the same time, then expects the GM to resolve them. "I going to hit a guy, then I'm going to hit a different guy, then I'm going to hit the first guy again. And I might crit, so I'd better roll my deadly d6 too!"
edit: and honestly I don't have a lot of experience with PF2e myself having only done the beginner box and getting all of this in my youtube algorithm as I try to learn more, my immediate reaction to "ranger who just wants shoot bow good" was thinking "fighter shoot bow more better". If you deliberately choose to pick a fairly versatile class but play it in the most boring way possible, taking feats you'll never use in lieu of something like Animal Companion to lean into the versatility, giving you the choice of using that third action to do more than just miss a shot while you stand 35+ feet away from your party. Even worse if the DM recommended Ranger for pure archery because they didn't spend more than 15 minutes reading through the classes.
I was a D&D5e DM when Cody / Taking20's video was initially released, and thought though interesting take, I had no context since I hadn't played/GM'd Pf2e at that time and thus no real opinion myself. After DM'ing Pf2e for several months now, I greatly appreciate the time saved as a DM with an Encounter Builder that ACTUALLY WORKS and doesn't compel me to spend additional time (hours) on tweaking campaign encounters just to be challenging without necessarily TPK'ing my players. That alone makes Pf2e shine far above D&D5e in my humble opinion.
With Pufifn I don't think he's lying or being malicious he seems to have genuinely just gotten used to the issues that both 5e and 2e have but only notices them in 2e cause hes just started playing. His main two issues beyond that seem to be thus:
1) His players are either lazy or extremely new...he seems to have to or feels like he should keep track of EVERYTHING (so option 3 is he's too controlling)
2) Nobody writes anything down, he acts like he has to calculate his attack roll every time he attacks (ie. Atk = D20+Str[4]+Prof[2] instead of D20+6), do they not use character sheets?
i also think he'd benefit greatly from using Foundry VTT, Rol20 or something similar even for 5e
Watched the whole stream but I think Puffin’s video came from a place of honest feelings. Taking 20 comes off as someone who either was purposely pushing bad faith arguments for some reason, or he doesn’t know the systems as good as he thinks he does and is spreading false narratives refusing to eat crow and admit he got it wrong.
You should consider looking at Taking20s “Is Paizo Waving the White Flag?” Because I feel that also pushed people away from Paizo by painting the system as a dying system.
The comment section of that video is now a bit more amusing.
I think you are giving him far too much credit. He goes out of his way to engineer a sense of complexity out of genuinely standard ttrpg "math". He did it for clicks and he did it to 4e too.
Probably the last Taking20 video for me, as I have other stuff I'd like to react to!
Also, the idea that PF2 is dying is a lot less prevalent now especially after the OGL scandal
@@IscariottActual He tried 4e when he was younger and didn't have a good time with it, and then he ranted about his experience. Not everyone will like the same thing, at least he tried it first, just accept that not everyone will have a good time with certain system. your standard ttrpg "math" is too complex for him to enjoy.
I think Puffin just didn't gel with the system, but overcomplicated his examples when making the video to give the viewer same feeling of overwhelming that he felt playing the game.
It's still dishonest. Intentionally so? Harder to say, people exaggerate their frustrations to make a point all the time without meaning to be dishonest about them.
You said a key thing with Puffin that "It sounds like his players werent pulling their weight". I just tried running PF2, and while i think its a good system, the experience was a nightmare precisely because of this. There was only a little more to track compared to 5e, but because they did a poor job keeping track of anything, it was not a good experience. Again, i still like the system and support tables playing it, but i do think theres a certain amount of work that the players should be expected to do
DnD5e instilled the idea that players don't need to invest anything to enjoy the game while fostering it all on the GM. This is wrong. Has always been wrong.
As a player, you need at least to know what your character can do mechanically. Knowing the rules that your character engages with is the bare minimum a player should know.
We need to stop normalizing the idea that players can't and shouldn't make any kind of effort to enjoy the hobby.
DnD5e did that by forcing the GM to deal with ALL the complexity while creating the illusion that players could just "sit down and play". Learning the rules somehow became taboo because of those who play DnD5e (the same with optimizing your character), when this is something that's expected of a player in every single game.
@@LightningRaven42Agreed. As I have explained it 5e is a PLAYERS system, in other words it is designed to make the players have almost zero personal effort while the gm does the bulk of it. Pf1e is a GAMEMASTER system, where the players put in more effort than the gm, and the gm is less required to put effort in to the system for fun. What made PF2E so nice is the player and gm put EQUAL effort in to playing to get enjoyment. It is a system designed so not only the players get to have fun, but so does the GM. 5e instilled the mentality that it is about the players having fun and the gm needs to accommodate them. I hate that, gms are also players too. All people at the table are playing the game, but at different sides. One plays a specific character for the entire game only, the other plays the world and creatures in it for the other to interact with. These characters are by design temporary during any given instance. It is a collaborative story telling with numbers and dice to add unforseen variables to outcome of actions. So I support fully what you said.
I've been running PF2E for new players and they're just starting to pick things up for themselves in the recent sessions. I've pretty much frozen them at level 3 until they can do their own math and such so that things don't get complicated. I'm very excited to see where things go!
@@kendrajade6688If it helps, player's don't necessarily need to do their own math. If someone is bad at math, you shouldn't expect them to do all the addition and subtraction. It might be easier for the GM or another player to do the mental math or use a calculator, if they are quick at it.
Instead, focus on making sure your players know what actions they can take, and be ready to provide all the bonuses to the person doing the math. For instance, they should know that if they Shove, Guidance, then Strike, they should roll and give their Athletics modifier first, then roll and give their second Strike bonus +1.
God forbid that the players do some bookkeeping. The Bard reminding people about the +1, and the Cleric reminding people of Bless. What a mad idea.
The puffin Forest Video almost convinced me not to play PF2E. I'm super glad I decided to try it anyway, now PF2E is my main TTRPG.
It really seems like Taking20 had a group of players largely new to PF2e who, perhaps due to being more familiar with 5e or other d20 systems where you do tend to have a bread-and-butter option based on a style of play (Polearm Master/GWM, SS/Crossbow Expert, etc.), opted to focus on making one ability as good as possible to the detriment of versatility, and then felt compelled to honor the incentives that they themselves had created. And that's not an uncommon thing to have happen by any means, but a) that's not a PF2e specific issue, and b) to blame that on the system when it's really a product of choices made within a system (a system that, as he points out, has lots of choices), doesn't make sense.
Now, the larger point seems to be that the added complexity simply isn't worth it. And that can absolutely be true for him, and for other people; not everyone wants or needs there to be a mechanic that can underlie any action you take in the game, both in combat and out. But it's also true that there are those of us who like to have that to fall back on. There are absolutely going to be times I want to roleplay presenting myself to the nobles at court. But other times it may be that I'm tired, or stressed, or distracted, or any number of other things that could be going on in my life. Or I could be in a game at a convention where there's a time limit on how long the game can run, and we either finish everything today or we never finish it. In those moments, it's really nice to be able to forego RPing everything out and rely on the Make an Impression mechanic to quickly simulate the results of my character's efforts.
And on the GM side, the same is true, if not more so. Rather than having to make up a check for someone on the fly, I can consult the book and know that I'm extremely likely to find rules for how to adjudicate what a player's trying to do already laid out for me. And this leads into the other point that TRL brings up: you don't *have* to use the mechanics if you don't want. Yes, the language in them is a bit more prescriptive in terms of not presenting them expressly as variant or optional, but you have the same ability to ignore or tweak rules in PF2e that you do in 5e or any other system. Rule 0 is always in effect, regardless of what you're playing. Framing the fact that there are more rules that can be ignored in PF2e as a drawback is in my view erroneous, because I'd rather have the choice between following a rule and improvising, than to be forced to improvise (and also remember what my improvisation was so that I make consistent rulings). Some people are naturals with that, and can devise a well-balanced improvised check on the fly with ease (maybe Taking20 is one of those people, and if so, congrats to him); I'm not that guy, and so I like the fact that when I or someone at my table tries to do something unusual, the PF2e rules generally have me covered.
I've been waiting for this video since the day you initially announced this series, I wanted to commend you on the patience and maturity you've showed during this stream.
Having to rewatch the second Taking 20 video is just an infuriating trip down memory lane. His tone alone is an advertisement against his channel.
I remember checking these out when I was first getting back into Pathfinder 2e to see what the consensus is regarding how the system runs, and the video feels to me like it devolves into a 'rant', where he kept employing pre-emptive strawman arguements due to his feelings getting hurt.
The first video he released was put forwards with such confidence, I can imagine this definitely having a detrimental effect on how PF2e was received, but have people cited the 50 minute 'rant' as a mark against the system?
I have seen the "repetitive actions" criticism used against PF2 in places, and the first video didn't really explain that very well so I think it had an additional effect.
When I type in Pathfinder 2e, Puffin's video is the fourth thing given to me. It's on the screen as soon as I search. So a response is definitely needed. I doubt many in the future will watch such a long response, but I hope it sways some.
So Taking 20's video was actually the reason I didn't try Pathfinder 2e earlier.
I thought I'd actually go and check his(Cody's) recent content when I unsubscribed (just now), because it hadnt cropped up on my feed for a while. He actually hasn't posted anything in 6 months...
Cody seems like an illustration of a person speaking on a subject with lots of unearned confidence.
Well said. The second video made me lose a lot of respect for him as a creator. So much of it feels constructed in bad faith, if not outright disingenuous.
@@Flexillityvast majority of UA-camrs are extremely dishonest and petty people
This is a whole essay, sorry for that.
Dumping some thoughts here as I go through the vod:
- The "you're conveniently fighting level 5 enemies at level 5" is more relevant to PF2 than 5e and other levelled systems. The math in PF2 is tighter and that makes it harder to have enjoyable combat that falls outside of those bounds. 5e also (theoretically) has more potential attrition, while in PF2 there's much more recovery between encounters, so a massively underpowered encounter has more potential to be relevant down the line in 5e.
The gist of it applies to every RPG with levels, but it was fair for Puffin to bring it up specifically when talking about PF2.
- Puffin doesn't seem to realise how much passive number-crunching he's doing for 5e. Most of the steps have become second nature to him, so he doesn't notice that he's checking for buffs and debuffs with every attack. It's only when you play a new system that all this crunch stands out to you. The "+2 because of elite" thing stands out in particular because by that logic he should be saying "+X because of armor, +Y because of shield" with all the 5e calculations, but he doesn't because that's already been factored into the AC and he's familiar with the system so that number-crunching is automatic and doesn't feel like crunch.
In fact, including armor in the crunch makes more sense than including elite. A creature may have its armor removed or destroyed in combat. You aren't going to un-elite a monster.
- Just take some time before the session to make sure you know how to run your monsters my dude. You shouldn't be surprised by a shield at the table as your monster is getting hit for the first time. This is true of all systems. I GM PF1 and I'll take some time to reread the Swallow Whole and Whirlwind rules if I'm running a monster with either of them (or just choose not to use Whirlwind). You should have the relevant information on-hand if you don't think you can calculate it on the fly.
- If you don't like crunchy attack math, don't play a build focussed on playing around with the crunchy attack math. If I play a Monk in 5e and then get annoyed about Ki being so much to keep track of, that's my fault, I did that to me (except it more forgivable in 5e because there's no other way to get that aesthetic, in PF2 you can play something other than a flurry ranger and still dual-wield).
You don't accidentally create a build with such complicated maths. These builds exist for people who really like the number crunching and complex system manipulation. It's like Serpent-Fire Adept in PF1 or picking Wish/Simulacrum/Magic Jar in 5e.
- Thinking of 5e complexity, Counterspell and "after the die is rolled but before the result is known"-type effects REALLY slow the game down.
There are rules for identifying a spell as it's being cast, this costs a reaction, so you can't identify a spell and Counterspell it. The identifying a spell rules are potentially optional (in Xanathar's), but it's unclear if this means you automatically know what spell is being cast or can't know if you aren't running that rule. So a DM can't just say "the wizard casts fireball" they should instead say "the wizard casts a spell with verbal and somatic components and a focus, does anyone want to identify or counterspell?" then say what the spell is after that window. This obviously requires a lot of trust in your DM as well as being slow.
I don't even know how to run "after the die is rolled but before the result is known" effects well, but at the very least you have to give pause after every dice roll to let people sneak in these effects. I have no idea how you're supposed to run them on monsters if they have any of the relevant spells, surely as a DM you know your players' ACs.
Ok, onto the Taking 20 video
- If your players are acting in predictable rotations because that's the only way they win a raw number crunch with the enemies, it's your job as a DM to run the monsters differently so it doesn't play out like that. Have some monsters do suboptimal moves that disrupt the players, so they're forced to react. Fights never have to be static DPS races. Obviously this is harder if you're running a pre-written adventure, sometimes you'll run into an encounter that's just really boring for your party, but that's an adventure problem, not a system problem.
It sounds like he's got each side playing solitaire when you really want some back-and-forth and interaction between your players and monsters and it's the GM's job to force that.
The perfect encounter (imo) has both sides with a clear win-condition (that isn't "grind down the other side's hp") and the combat consists of both sides battling to assemble the pieces of their win-condition and disrupt the opponent's combo.
I'll take my favourite PF1 encounter I ran as an example:
- 2 ships approaching full of very weak zombies, 2 Wights (that were weaker than the players but still threatening to everyone if they weren't playing defensively) and a beefy Zombie Lord with very scary attacks. One boat will arrive 4-ish turns before the other. This is 2 level-appropriate(ish) encounters back-to-back, possible even at the same time).
- The players are a Wizard, Alchemist and Bow Fighter. The Wizard can fly, web and fireball. The Alchemist has no-save CC and summoning. The Fighter dabbles in sword-and-board but deals monstrous damage with a bow.
- The players also control the crew of the ship. The crew are mostly weak but have pistols, so they can pretty reliably hit every other turn. There are also the officers, who are stronger but still not as strong as the PCs. If the wrong officers die, the party is unable to keep their ship running.
So the gameplan is as follows:
- If the wizard can clear the hordes and the fighter can nuke the important targets, the players win. If the important undead can corner the ship's officers and kill them, they win. In practice, the zombies did basically nothing except eat some spell slots and occupy the crew, the Wights engaged the fighter and forced him to go sword-and-board because negative levels are scary. The Zombie Lords tried to get the important officers, but got tar-pitted by summons and alchemist bombs. Eventually (iirc), the Wizard finished off the zombies, freeing up the crew, the crew then peeled off the Wights that allowed the fighter to switch to his bow and nuke the Zombie Lords.
- 5e is more forgiving if you don't care to design or run engaging encounters (generally, "Immunity to non-magical weapons" can sneak in with weirdly low-level creatures).
- Having defined rules for social interactions is a good thing. I'm not a charismatic person but I shouldn't be locked out of playing the party face for that. You can still roleplay, but the rules are there to act as an impartial arbiter and make sure the results reflect the character's skill, not the player's. I can speak as my character and follow it up with "this is a persuasion attempt to improve his attitude, I rolled an 18". Just like how in combat I can say "I do a big overhead chop against the guy in plate armor, I rolled a 24" and my HEMA-trained DM can't just say "an overhead chop wouldn't work against someone in this armour, your attack fails".
- He's more willing to accept that an entire system is bad than the adventures being bad. "X is a professional games designer, do you really think they'd write bad adventures" - my dude, the designers of PF2 are definitionally professional games designers, do you really think they'd design a bad system? Maybe, just maybe, being a professional doesn't mean you're perfect at your profession and mistakes can occur at any level of the process.
- If someone has built a one-dimensional character, you make their decisions matter by pushing them out of their niche in combat. If someone min-maxes, you should challenge their min while letting their max shine. This is basic stuff.
- Surely there being an 'obvious answer' and a selection of 'better answers' is the exact opposite of "illusion of choice".
- Not directed at him, but more RPGs could do with optional rules for fights in tight quarters. The 35ft x 25ft room is a really bad environment to showcase tactical combat, but it shouldn't be. Fantasy adventures shouldn't have to take place in huge rooms full of terrain, you should be able to have good combat in a living room or on a train.
- The player probably should know about the Wight's gimmick. There are 2 Wights in the fight. One of them is going to die first and probably reveal it's gimmick. I despise these sorts of "the players shouldn't know the monster's stats" GMs. You can't play a tactical game if you don't know what you're up against. No wonder his players were always using the same actions - if in doubt, damage solves and it seems like his players were always in doubt because they weren't given enough information.
You don't have to give the whole game away, obviously, often a general visual description of the monster is enough, but you should usually have a general idea of the ways in which you can interact with whatever you're fighting and the ways it will interact back (or be introduced to the enemies in a safer environment where they can learn without it being an unfair gotcha'). Sometimes the unfair gotcha' is the point, I get that, it can be used to good effect.
- My counterpoint to "there are so many rules it ruins my immersion" is: In PF2, I know, without having to ask the DM, what my character can reliably climb and balance on. I have a much clearer assessment of what my character can achieve and that immerses me waaay more in them than if they're just some numbers that might be able to do things depending on how the DM's feeling that day, how they want the story to go and if I can invoke past precedent to make my abilities consistent.
- Him saying that he was insulted people diagnosing the problems with his game based on the (poor) information he gave and then going on to accuse those people of cognitive dissonance is quite funny. I'm insulted by the accusation of cognitive dissonance from someone with such obvious 5e stockholm syndrome.
- "You never have to make it up, you just have to look it up" is good when it's referring to the basic (with want of a better word) 'physics' of the game. You shouldn't have to make up the break DC for iron bars, the DC to jump a 10ft. gap or the DC to climb a knotted rope. The DM having to make these things up is a bad thing that leads to tons of table variation and vague, undefined characters.
Both systems let you make up stories and scenarios. You can paint anything you want in both systems but in 5e you have to make the brushes and mix the paints (or, as most people do, just draw the outline and paint/mix paint/make brushes as you play).
I don't know about you, but what I enjoy about DMing is worldbuilding, encounter building and storytelling. I don't DM so that I can pull climb DCs out of my ass.
Of cause players are gonna do the same actions over and over if all the other choices are ignored because they don't want to deal with them.
Cody's video almost convinced me to not even try PF2e. Luckily the first video response I ran into was yours RL, so I stuck with it. I am happy to say I much prefer Pf2e to 5e now.
Starfinder tho is my personal jam.
Yo same, SF's the best!
I remember watching Taking20's videos before reading Pathfinder and thinking "Oh he speaks with confidence as someone who has DM'd the game a lot, looks like those are some serious concerns and I don't know enought about PF2 feats to know if they are unbalanced or not".
After reading PF2 I'm like "shut up man, you're talking about doing three attacks per turn, you clearly don't know what you're talking about 🤣".
I’ve run 2e only a handful of times as one shots fot my long time co-players and people I’ve DMed for (predominantly ad&d - 3.5 and pf1e). The first session was a little rough as we all had to learn the system. The one player habit that they had to break was play whack-a-mole with the monsters instead of working as a team to help other players and in turn get helped to make really cool ‘remember when’ moments.
I watched the taking 20 video after I got into pf2e and was pretty wildly confused at how he felt so limited
Can someone tell me what the build for taking 20's pf2 ranger build is?
because as I see it he has
a 1st level ranger feat, a 2nd level ranger feat, and no 4th level ranger feat
a single skill feat (which is useless in the simulation he made go figure)
only proficiency in athletics (but no strength)
and no ancestry feats (5th level dwarves can have boulder roll, or clan defender, that can add some serious bonuses in this scenario)
Like we could do a whole series on the specifically poor tactics he displayed. But it really looks like he had a fully developed super ranger (colosus slayer, magic weapons, and convenient rules to give them bonuses), vs a half developed pf2 ranger with 1. poor stats 2. missing feats and 3. no skills
The players in Taking20's campaign were most definitely not playing optimal. My party was one level below what they should have been because a certain barbarian derailed the first chapter by offending the elves so badly that the party got banished. The encounter was meant for lvl 8 characters if I am not mistaken, they were level 7 and didn't rest before the final encounter, but they managed to beat it. It was close, but they had bargained with the hellhound in the back of the fortress (to not intervene) and they actually used cover and communicated. That is if he's referring to the final encounter. If he's referring to the golem in front, my guys ran away from that beast because he was tough as nails and couldn't fit through doors.
I run a pathfinder 2e game, It's the first one I've run in the system, I'd not even played the system when I picked it up to DM. This campaign started around when the APG came out, but is running simultaneously with several other campaigns with other players as the GMs, so it has progressed slowly with infrequent play. It's also the first time the players in my group have played the system. Our group plays a lot of different systems, but more than half our players are not super mechanically minded. Most of our players are very RP first, not mechanics. They all love PF2e. They all carry their own mechanical load of their attack arrays and knowing what all of their feats do just fine. When they get a buff, they track it easily, because they only ever have to track 1-3 typed bonuses, usually only status. We rarely have to look anything up, and when we do, it's a 5 second search on AoN. The game flows quickly and easily. I can easily balance my encounters despite running for a 7 player party.
5e meanwhile is a nightmare. Vaguely worded abilities, horrible balance issues, boring combat despite being a combat focused game. We barely ever touch 5e any more. We prefer PF1e and PF2e hands down.
The d20 community in general, the D&D community in particular, has always seemed to me to be significantly more dogmatic and insular in their approach to TTRPGing. Many seemed to have never played any other system. Arguments as to which system you HAVE to play baffle me. I'll play whatever you can gather enough players and a DM for.
As for PF2E, it's the first time I've really enjoyed a d20 iteration since BECMI. CharGen is a blast, and the characters translate well to the gameplay. I hadn't played a Fighter since the Companion Set until 2E. Bo Staff and Monk Ded. are just too much fun.
The PF crowd gathers more veterans and engaged players, so branching out into other systems seems more like the norm out there. DND5e players are more broad in category and bigger in size, they inevitably will have a large pool of dogmatic players that think DnD5e is the end all be all.
PF1e players, though, specially the ones that still play it, are as dogmatic about it as some DnD5e people.
I think the for lack of a better term the "brain scar tissue" that comes from running 5e's lack of a working encounter builder. Its hard to believe a system could have a working encounter balance.
1:49:26 Funny thing, chatters were actually wrong at that time saying that you can only add it during your own turn. Since Emboldening Bond doesn't specify that you can only add the d4 during YOUR turn you are incentivised to use it for something, such as an attack, during your turn, since you'll get to add the d4 later on the round when it's the dragon's turn when it releases its breath weapon.
Yeah, I know that "during your turn" is very important for rogue Sneak Attack. The writing can be pretty messy in 5E which is unfortunate when the developers double-down on the literal/technical meanings of their words and call for a strict reading. "Natural language" and "strict reading" don't mix!
EDIT: Are you saying you get to use it again on the dragon's turn? As in on each creature's turn? "Once per turn" means once you've used it on your turn you have to wait until your next turn, right?
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG I don't remember what this is referencing. But if something says once per turn it can be used any time you can use an action on any characters turn. So for instance sneak attack can be used on your turn, and anyone else's turn where you qualify for it's trigger. So if you AoO on a monsters turn you would trigger sneak a second time in a round.
Turn and round are specific terms in 5e
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG Turn and round are different things, you can use a "once per turn" ability once on each individual creature's turn. People were complaining about Rogue sneak attacks being changed in 6e because the words were changed from "once per turn" to "once on your turn", which took away their DPS from getting sneak attack on their turn and then again from an attack of opportunity.
@@TheRulesLawyerRPG What I'm trying to say is that "Once per turn" =/= "Once on your turn." Which means that you can benefit from the bonus d4 as many times as there are creatures in initiative.
For example, say that you are first in initiative. You can use the d4 for one of your attacks. The next creature after you is an enemy, and they leave your melee range, so you take an attack. Even though you have used the d4 on your turn, since this is another turn (the enemy's turn) you can add the d4 to your attack once again. Continuin on, say that there is another enemy after that one that forces you to make a save. You can then, once again add the d4.
I definetly agree that dnd's wording is very confusing often times. It really does end up causing them to sound vague, and people creating different interpretations for them.
Wait what? So if 5 enemies force a PC to make a saving throw, the Peace Domain bonus applies to EACH of them? And they can use it during their turn AND during an opportunity attack?
Did I not only misread text that should've been clearer, but ALSO accidentally read it to be less broken than it is?
It seems like Taking20 frequently overlooks, misses, misinterprets, or just opts to not follow rules for the sake of theatrics and grandiose storytelling. To be clear I don't mean this as a criticism, but could this entire argument just be summed up as, "maybe a game system with fewer rules than D&D and Pathfinder would be better for him and his players"?
32:00 One thing to note is that with the number inflation, it's harder to run a gritty OSR-style campaign in Pathfinder 2e in which no matter how tough the enemy, there is always a chance of success; small as it is. With the numbers closer together and such.
To me, Pathfinder might not be able to emulate that well (without optional rules), but then again, I'm not looking to do this when playing Pathfinder.
When I want to play a gritty thing, I'll pick up an OSR game. For heroics, Pathfinder is a better game.
There is a "proficiency without level" variant! (Described for free online on archives of Nethys, I'll post link in a 2nd reply because I'm afraid of link spam countermeasures).
It even says:
"
This variant presents a change to the proficiency bonus system, scaling it differently for a style of game that’s outside the norm. This is a significant change to the system.
The proficiency rank progression in the Core Rulebook is designed for heroic fantasy games where heroes rise from humble origins to world-shattering strength. For some games, this narrative arc doesn’t fit. Such games are about hedging bets in an uncertain and gritty world, in which even the world’s best fighter can’t guarantee a win against a large group of moderately skilled brigands. In games like these, your group might want to consider removing the character’s level from the proficiency bonus.
"
Regardless of if you're using that, I think the majority of GMs thinks PF2e makes balancing encounters for consistent difficulty a lot easier than 5e, which requires a lot of experience due to CR not being a good indicator. I don't know how hard or easy it is in OSR, but if it works for your table, you're all having fun, and it's not too expensive, then I indeed don't see a reason to switch to PF2e for you.
Surprisingly, a heroic fantasy game works best for heroic fantasy.
It's a good thing to keep in mind though, not all systems are suited to all styles of game and that's fine.
The illusion of choice is a false problem. It permeates every possible angle of reality, because there is ALWAYS an optimal choice in everything that we do, gaming or IRL. It's no different in any other system. There is always something optimal you could do with how you built your character. But PF gives you a ton of choice with what that optimal routine is gonna be. What will bring variation is the scenarios characters are put in, and that pattern will likely never change.
People that aren’t familiar with Game Theory tend to not understand what the term “Illusion of Choice” means. It means that when it seems like you have several choices you could have made, but you choice this one because all of your decisions are either based on prior knowledge and experience, or it’s random. In either case, the choice made was determined. In the example of game designed, an illusion of choice is when you have a pool to select from but only one option is good, or if their are several good choices it doesn’t matter which one you pick, which effectively makes the choice meaningless. When you have few choices but each choice is a decision between this one thing that’s really useful or this other thing that’s really useful, but you can never have both, that’s call a Meaningful Choice.
PF2e gives you massive pools of choices to pull from that you can pull from at anytime and even select something later if you didn’t select it earlier. You will choose the option you think is best based on prior knowledge and experience, but you probably won’t roll a die to determine what you will pick at each level. That is by definition an illusion of choice.
5e reduces your choices to a much smaller pool in which what you select now will have a huge effect on what you select later, which is by definition a Meaningful Choice.
Illusion of Choice is a legitimate complaint regardless of whether or not you individually agree. Complaining about it when others bring it up is as meaningless as the options you didn’t select while building your PF2e character. Comparing it to 5e is an example of just not understanding what you are talking about, as no one is saying 5e is a cookie cutter game because it is; people are saying PF isn’t a cookie cutter game, hence why illusion of choice matters to the PF discussion.
Hope that helped.
I completely disagree with Taking20, but the problem he is trying (and failing) to prove PF2E has is a real problem.
Sure, games do have one or more optimal strategies, but a game is deep and engaging when these optimal choices aren't obvious and the system is robust enough that it can take years for players to find these choices (or it might never happen). It also helps when, even if these choices are found, the game can disguise situations enough that it's not immediately obvious to the player a situation has an optimal choice so they won't always go for them.
Where Taking20 fails is in recognizing one year of play time and (from what I could understand) one group of players, it's really not possible to say for sure you found these optimal choices. It's like a fighting video game, you may think you found an optimal strategy with a character until the community learns how to counter it and suddenly your good character is actually pretty mid, until you find a new strategy and the cycle continues. There doesn't seem to have an attempt from his part to analyse the problems he was having at his table and if there are solutions to these problems. He was having an issue and then noped from his players and system - which is ok if you decide that it's not for you, but not a justifiable reason to make an entire video (two actually) trying to "prove" the issue was the system, not you.
@@jeffersonian000 This argument doesn't really make sense - when you say "PF2e gives you a massive pool of choices to pull from at anytime..." that isn't a very accurate reflection of the system - feats sometimes chain into each other (even if the feat trees are often quite short), and feats are always gated by level. So at level 1 you are selecting from level 1 feats, at level 2 you are selecting from level 1 and level 2 feats, at level 4 you are selecting from level 1, 2, and level 4 feats, et cetera.
Your chosen definition of illusion of choice and meaningful choice straight up does not make sense, and does not coincide with how Cody uses the word. You choose to focus on the amount of choices, but the idea that you can only have meaningful choices when there are few choices is a little baffling. If a character has seven possible choices to make, but only two of these choices would be useful/optimal, you are still making a meaningful choice between those two.
That's not to say I cannot see value in having fewer, very impactful options like 5e does. It tends to mean the different options at your disposal are less obfuscated and feel more exciting since many options seem like they would impact your character in a meaningful way. 5e tends to break down into a very small selection of optimal choices as well though.
@@dancovich Yeah the fact that Taking20 ended up bouncing off the game was totally fair, sometimes you end up playing something that just doesn't jive with you. There was a funny undercurrent throughout the entire video where he seemed to be simultaneously holding the position that his players were locked into a single optimal playstyle while also holding fast to the idea that the game was way too hard. By sticking to a completely static routine, his party was playing very suboptimally.
@@Coffeewings334
First off, you argue against my use of the term vast feat pools, only to describe vast feat pools.
Secondly, I don’t care how other people think Cody is using the term “illusion of choice”. He is using it correctly as I understand the term is used in Game Theory, which is what I cited and which is how he is using the term per his own words.
5e has a number of issues, but PF2e has its own issues. I wasn’t saying one is better than the other. I am saying that PF2e does in fact give an illusion of choice. The simple fact that Cody spoke about selecting a short sword and comments immediately appeared complaining that a rapier was a better selection indicates he was correct in his thinking. I understand that people that enjoy PF are having issues with an influencer stating that they did not enjoy PF. Whatever. But there is no way anyone can honestly say his points aren’t valid, especially after being informed as to why he developed his opinion. It’s like you complaining about me not liking chocolate because I say I don’t like the bitter aftertaste, and you arguing that there is no bitter aftertaste; you would be factually wrong because I am staying my opinion, not your opinion.
I think the Starknife/Scimitar Dex/Str thing is just him misunderstanding the Finesse property to mean that is always used Dex to hit, rather than just giving the option to.
Edit: Acknowledging that I had a real hard time following him and might've missed something.
Edit2: 3:49:09 Also the whole thing about using Hunt Prey + a single attack being more effective than the double strike.
And the award for Noisiest Keyboard goes to... RULES LAWYER!!!
Listening to you talk about disregarding the rules for jumping in PF2 since they’re disregarded in 5e. In 5e, it’s usually fine, but in PF2, you have to be careful dropping/customizing rules because it’s a carefully built system that has knock on effects. For instance, ignoring the rules for jumping suddenly makes the Quick Jump feat pretty useless.
It’s like when you alter code in a large code base and don’t realize that your change way over here actually affects something else in a completely different place. It’s tough to anticipate those effects without first knowing the entire system, which would definitely take more than a year of playing part time.
5e philosophy is more like a rules suggestion approach, where DMs essentially improvise nearly everything.
A game that a player experiences in 5e is typically the product of the DM, not the system, while a game played in PF2 is much more a product of the system and has the GM function more as a facilitator.
It makes the GM’s job much easier because it doesn’t require so much creative energy to manage the system, and then the story can take the spotlight. But some DMs don’t like losing the system creation aspect or just can’t adjust properly. I think Cody was in that spot. He couldn’t let go of his over-active improvisational nature and it felt constraining to him.
If you want to improvise on the PF2 rules, you first have to know them intimately.
A concise video essay in defense of PF2 attacking the points made in these videos would be appreciated. I can't really link a 5 hour livestream to people that are on the fence about the game thanks to these three videos and expect them to watch it :(
3:58 "I don't know if boosting viewers at Pathfinders' expense may be fair towards Puffin Forest" Thanks for considering that. I've been subscribed to Puffin Forest (Ben Scott) for quite some time, and while most of his videos are about stories from D&D campaigns, he's not married to the system in any way. Every now and then he used to talk about different tabletop RPG systems as well (like Call of Cthulhu, Open Legend, Star Wars, and so on), so the Pathfinder video fell into that category. I also appreciate you reacting to the whole video, which shows he was making compliments to the system as well.
That being said, I had already watched the first two videos (but I hadn't seen any rebuttals), so this was pretty interesting. It basically seems that the answers to their main complaints are "write down your bonuses for each attack (or use a VTT)" and "if you build a character to be a one-tricky pony, they will be a one-trick pony".
After watching 90% of this vid heres my take.
Cody does not enjoy the level of crunch in PF2E. That is fine.
What is not fine is that he didn't engage with that crunch enough to find where and when its mechanical depth started paying off, then released a video claiming that the depth never pays off, and gave examples that chased people, like me, away from a system that they would have enjoyed.
One thing I didn't notice in my prior viewings on this for my own videos is Faking20 claims the ranger that goes into melee would have to go back and get their bow to use their Hunted Shot feat.
When he clearly said the ranger still had their bow in hand moments earlier. He was just steam of consciousness slinging any hate he could think of off the top of his head.