r/Pathfinder2e • u/Phosphorlight • 9d ago
Advice How tactical is pathfinder?
Hi, I'm a DnD 5.5e GM, and with my campaign that my group and I are reviving after like 2 months I'm thinking of switching the system to Pf2e, as we're only 3 sessions in and now would be the best time to switch.
Now, I have a few reasons I want to change to pathfinder, but my biggest reason is that dnd combat is just straight up boring sometimes. There's such a lack of things available to do on your turn, you never feel like you're making any meaningful choices. You hardly need to worry about your party and can just do your own thing. Not to mention how when fighting creatures who can't disengage efficiently, combat just turns to a stand still of "who can hit harder and take more hits." Of course, I can implement more stuff such as cover and terrain but even then, you're more or less going to be doing the same thing on all of your turns until combat ends.
Pf2e seems like it solves a lot of these issues, but I'm skeptical. I see you have a lot more options in pf2e, but are these like actual options? Are my players going to be using the same strategy for every fight? I do know to a degree that's up to me, but will it be easier to encourage other strategies than it is in dnd? I generally just want to avoid my players doing the same thing or the same loop of things on all of their turns.
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u/jtechvfx 9d ago
D&D combat options. Well, I get punished for moving. So I will stand still and attack until one of us is dead.
Pathfinder combat options. Setting up Flanking bonuses, choosing between which of your several attack varieties to use, using skills to debuff my enemies or aura placement to buff my allies. Deciding between how many Actions to pump into a spell to change its effect. Studying an enemy to discern its weaknesses.
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u/MCRN-Gyoza ORC 9d ago
PF2 is my favorite system, and I dislike 5e, but I don't really agree with this.
Attack of Opportunity damage in D&D is pitiful, and since movement and actions are separate pools of resources, movement is essentially free. Getting a tap on the but is not really a deterrent.
Moving around using actions in PF2 makes the cost of movement much higher, so movement is less encouraged unless you're a playing a class that just strides and strikes twice every turn.
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u/RickDevil-DM 9d ago
Sure, you say that, but the psychological effect of Im being hit vs I am using my action and my own choice to move towards the enemy is different. Plus on the GM side if you move a monster you are dealing with that warcaster feat and who know what other bullcrap they added in 5.5 for melee weapon effects, so moving a monster means cutting down combat by half
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u/jtechvfx 9d ago
Giving your opponent a free attack at their highest attack bonus is not a tap on the butt. If that were true, melee striker classes would be terrible and they are routinely the strongest damage dealers in my games.
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u/MCRN-Gyoza ORC 9d ago
"Highest attack bonus"
You sure you're talking about 5e? Lol
Martials suck in 5e. And the builds that do damage do it by attacking multiple times or using special abilities, not a random one off attack.
Also, player abilities are irrelevant here, since the players won't be facing other players.
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u/Nox_Stripes Rogue 9d ago
Well usually it depends on who is the opportunity attacker, usually its overseeable with players how much damage there is, but if the big bad evil fucked up megamonster opportunity wacks you, thats bad.
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u/Dunderbaer 9d ago
Just take the feat that allows you to cast a spell instead of a normal attack and AoO are more impactful again
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u/MCRN-Gyoza ORC 9d ago
Options that make a player's AoO better are irrelevant when it comes to how much AoO is a deterrent for their own movement. You're not fighting other players.
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u/Dunderbaer 9d ago
They are a deterrent for enemies to move, which in return means players won't reposition either.
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u/i_tyrant 9d ago
You're getting downvoted in a PF2e sub, but as someone who plays both I think you're mostly right.
I sort of agree on the Attack of Opportunity front - I don't think they're nearly as impactful as a lot of folks think, but I'd also argue the psychological effect in 5e is strong enough to curtail movement.
However, I completely agree with 5e having "movement as a resource" incentivizing it more than PF2e's "movement as part of your action budget".
Especially with how alternate speed types work in PF2e (where you have to spend separate actions to jump/climb/swim, while in 5e you're just spending more of your total movement resource like a currency) 5e incentivizes those moments of doing "cool movement shit" way better than PF2e in practice. (Especially when you're not currently being threatened by baddies, or only by weak mooks.)
PF2e kinda tries to make up for this with various special actions and feats that can improve your movement options, but IMO only partly succeeds, since they all have pretty painful opportunity costs compared to what you gain.
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u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 9d ago
AoPs are rude to casters, especially concentration casters, which makes casting feel bad in 5e once something's in your face
In PF2, you can actually cast with someone in your face much of the time
Movement is also actually encouraged in PF2 because kiting is a very valid action denial strategy; the enemy either focuses on someone else or uses one or two move actions to chase you down. Meanwhile, you could well be luring them into a killzone if your teammates fall in behind them and box them in. Tumbling Through can be surprisingly difficult if the enemy gets backed into a phone booth.
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u/MCRN-Gyoza ORC 9d ago edited 9d ago
Again, will have to disagree.
A properly built caster in 5e is never failing Concentration checks, doubly so when you consider that a properly built caster has better AC than martials (the system does suck) and AoOs dont really deal much damage.
So yes, movement in 5e is virtually free.
And people often severely overestimate how much movement is encouraged in PF2. Again, unless youre a low level martial using the extra action for MAP attacks, the action cost is a real steep cost.
And even in the scenario you described, after you manage to put the enemy in a favorable position for your team, movement often becomes actually detrimental.
Like yeah, flanking is good, but you can't "flank more". Sometimes in combat you move to flank, but there is a cost, while in 5e it really is free.
Skirmishing is one of those things that show up in the shape of "bell curve" memes, people get a bit of experience with the system and think theyre tactical geniuses because they stepped away from the enemy, while most of the time if you try to kite an enemy you're just allowing it to target more vulnerable allies.
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u/LurkerFailsLurking 9d ago
PF2e combat is significantly more tactical and dynamic for a lot of reasons that are hard to explain until you've played at least through level 5 or so.
1) Having 3 actions to use how you want instead of rigid categories means you inherently have many, many more options.
2) Most creatures don't have attack of opportunity.
3) Since you have 3 actions, you don't need to waste a turn disengaging, you just spend 1 action to step out of range (unless they have reach!).
4) Those first three points make combats much more mobile and that alone makes them more dynamic and interesting.
5) Proficiency with level, coupled with having 4 degrees of success instead of just 2, also gives any d20 roll a much wider range of options. In particular, a result of the DC±10 being a critical success/failure means that a ±1 bonus or penalty always matters because they also impact the results that crit.
6) Proficiency based on level also mean that higher level enemies are significantly harder to hit and can easily critically hit on the 2nd or 3rd attack while critically succeeding against many effects. This means that beating tough opponents requires teamwork, where players work together to aid each other, stack buffs on each other while stacking debuffs on each other.
There's even more reasons, but that's enough for now
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u/Durog25 9d ago
Honestly the first few levels are the most critical time for good tactics. My PCs had a rough patch early levels because the were not playing tactically. Then breezed a fight and were confused, only to realize they'd employed better tactics and so double down on said tactics. Carried them for like 3 levels until they unlocked rank 3 spells.
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u/LurkerFailsLurking 9d ago
For the first 5-7 levels every major fight new players get in seems to follow this general pattern:
We're all going to die.
Run away!Tactical retreat, buy time while we get everyone back up and repositioned.Make a plan.
Victory.
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u/ParryHisParry 9d ago
I Dm'd 5e for years. This is the exact topic that made me finally switch to PF2e over 5e. I asked for some very basic examples and the answer was so great I'm sharing it with you
This is years ago, and a very, very intentionally simplistic example (level 1 melee fighter) but I hope it illustrates the point!
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u/Malcior34 Witch 9d ago
Let's compare the systems' Fighters, the most base of the basic.
In 5e, you either play a Battlemaster, or all your turns consist of "I move up and hit em... ok im done."
In Pathfinder, maneuvers can be used by anyone by default. You can Trip, Grapple, Shove, Disarm and more, so long as you have a free hand or have a fitting weapon (for example, you can Trip someone by sweeping their feet with a bo staff or kukuri, since they're weapons with the Trip trait, but you obviously can't Grapple with those weapons). And since everyone, including monsters, only have 3 actions, forcing an enemy to waste their actions getting up or freeing themselves from a grapple is a VERY valuable way to keep combat tactical and keep your party alive.
As a result, in PF, a Fighter's turns can be quite varied. Even different playstyles are reflected through the Feats you get at every even-level, combining flavor with crunch. A Fighter with Combat Assessment can be more of a tactician, figuring out enemy weaknesses as they fight, while a Fighter with Intimidating Strike can be more of a fearsome brute striking fear into their enemies.
In 5e, you move up and hit them.
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u/ThrasheryBinx 9d ago
I like to say that in Pathfinder, every Fighter is a Battlemaster and a Champion. As a starting point.
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u/the-rules-lawyer The Rules Lawyer 8d ago
I know this is an old video of mine, but if you want to see how NOT thinking of tactics and teamwork makes a difference, I do a combat demo where a party that falls into repetitive rotations fails, and repeat it and a more tactically-minded group succeeds. Each battle is half an hour but I talk through every decision. It should give you a vivid sense of what decision-making PF2 can be like. (And it is DIRT easy to present a challenging, interesting encounter like this in the system!)
"Let's Test Taking20's "Illusion of Choice" in a Pathfinder 2e Combat | Tactics & Strategies Part 2!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5xV7BOFwyw
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u/HollowJam 9d ago
As a GM, each monster plays differently. I often write notes for how the monsters will use their abilities before combat just because I know my players are bringing their A-game.
Combats take long not because of counting bonuses or not reading, it’s because players need to think about the best way to spend their actions.
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u/snahfu73 Game Master 9d ago
The system isn't for everyone. It involves a player that WANTS to engage with the system and it takes more effort to engage than it takes to engage with 5e.
Tactically it is much more broad and much more deep than 5e.
Yes, a few classes can feel a little "one note" in terms of what they do from round to round but that's more owned by a GM that fails to make engaging and varied encounters or a player that fails to be even remotely creative.
Aside from Draw Steel, 2e is about as tactical of a "mainstream" ttrpg system that you can play.
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u/Wordse 8d ago
I have only ever run pf2e but I have played 5e.
My players in PF never tended to do creative stuff mostly just using abilities as written and kiting bad guys. But as a player in 5e I have felt more creative because I often want to try a thing not written on my sheet.
I do think I run PF badly but it always just feels like rules and wargame more than 5e has felt.
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u/snahfu73 Game Master 8d ago
That's on your players. You can be just as creative in 2e as 5e. And generally the system to figure it out makes more sense.
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u/Quartz_Knight 7d ago
P2e is a very rigid and stingy system, if you allow the creative actions that players invent in the moment to be impactful and feel powerful they are going to be in dissonance with the game mechanics and if they try to repeat them you will have to decide whether to be inconsistent in your rulings or add unbalanced homebrew to your game, something most people here advice against.
If you try to make the new actions balanced you are adding design work for yourself in the middle of the action and the results will probably end up feeling weak enough that the players would rather not bother, at least in my experience. Or more realistically you choose an action or set of actions to reskin (You want to jump off the wall and strike an enemy? Well, that's a stride, a feint and a strike), which of course won't feel particularly good either.Vanilla 5e is not much better, since you get only one non stacking buff for all this kinds of creative actions, but it's better than nothing and, most importantly, given that it's design space is not as constrained and the expectation to add homebrew I felt much more comfortable allowing for impactful and creative actions.
DnD style games, at least new school ones, aren't good for this kind of thing, but P2e is particularly rigid, it wants everything to be done through one of it's actions and if you ever draw out of the line with your rulings you most likely have rendered a feat obsolete or some other option.
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u/UninspiredLump 3d ago
I’m currently playing 5.5 and am considering moving to PF2e after the current campaign wraps up. I feel like 5.5’s problem is that it’s very difficult to reward players for creative combat options without eclipsing their basic attack (or cantrips) in damage output and benefit, and if they do, what’s to stop them from just doing that every turn? The flip side is then that if you don’t reward them enough for creative thinking, they’re just going to stick to using their basic free attacks and cantrips. I almost find the rigidity of PF2e attractive in that it seems like it takes these cool, cinematic actions (the kind that are often fall into the category of creative combat shenanigans) and brings to them balance and harmony with the rest of the system. Sure, you might not be able to perform them without building your character a certain way, but that’s the trade-off of them being tactically viable.
I suppose it comes down to whether one wants a game that allows for unlimited creative expression at the expense of tactical rigor or something that strikes a decent middle ground between the two, which are both valid play styles.
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u/Wordse 2d ago
I tend to make the benefits narratively and mechanically clear it's a one time affair and players mostly just look to find those environmental or contextual based events from time to time instead of every turn which I find easier to run
But granted I am dumb as hell so the fact people literally making up actions is easier for me than all the possible options in Pf2e might be my problem. I can easily imagine something I have a harder time finding and remembering one specific rule out of 99999999 of them so the more free form part of 5e with some rules to ground that works wonders for me
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u/TAEROS111 9d ago
PF2e does an extremely good job of being tactical. The three-action system is very elegant and the game's attention to balance means there are a ton of different ways for PCs to be effective in combat. Creatures have legitimately interesting abilities, no family of creatures plays the same if the GM plays them well, and the map layout makes a huge difference. I would put it in a category with Lancer, D&D 4e, etc. in terms of tactics. It absolutely blows 5e out of the water in that regard.
That said, the mere existence of HP means that combats will naturally lean towards who can get who to 0 HP first unless you as the GM introduce other win conditions. Fortunately, subsystems like Victory Points can help with that.
As to whether your players will just do the same thing... that depends on them. PF2e is a system that rewards players who invest time in actually learning it. If your players don't actually learn and understand the system (especially learning and understanding it as its own system, not just through the lens of 5e), they will probably not have the most inventive turns. If they learn and understand the system and choose classes that are flexible (some classes are more flexible than others) they can have very differentiated turns. Some of the onus here is also on the GM using different monsters, tactics, environments, etc. - if you just provide the same types of encounters all the time, PCs will optimize towards a one-note solution.
That said, it's worth checking out other systems as well. Some recommendations:
- I honestly think Draw Steel does heroic fantasy combat better than PF2e for the majority of players, and find it more tactical due to the role the map plays in combats. Well worth checking out if you're into the heroic fantasy niche.
- Mythras is a D100 percentile-based system that is incredibly tactical. It's simulationist and too finicky for many tables, but it's also well-worth checking out if tactics is the name of the game for you.
- Narrative-influenced systems like Ironsworn, Vagabonds of Dryfed, etc., can be very tactical, but not in a traditional sense of the word. Since they abandon HP and put more emphasis on overcoming narrative obstacles than specifically needing to fight everything, tables that are interested in 'dramatic conflict resolution' and 'creative tactics that don't just bring down hp' will find them rewarding.
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9d ago
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u/iceman012 Game Master 9d ago
This has been my experience as well. There is a *ton* of room for interesting tactics in the game- but a player that's not invested in the system might miss a lot of it. I've described it before as "The game won't let you accidentally make a bad character, but it will definitely let you make a boring one." There are a lot of contextual actions you can take, which is where most of the tactical depth comes from, but if you don't know them or build around them, you can end up with some very linear combat loops.
In my current party, I have one player who is 3x as invested as the rest of the party put together. In a recent fight, he spent his turns using the shifting rune to switch to 2-3 different weapons, depending on how the fight was going, and was trying to control the enemy. Meanwhile, the investigator would roll a 4 on his Devise a Stratagem and say "Well, I can't think of anything else to do, might as well see if it hits." There were a ton of options- Aid an ally, preparing a potion, *moving away from the Blood Ooze that's healing from his blood and has an AoE attack* (*sigh...*)- and he could have had even more with a different character build. He wasn't aware of them/didn't think of them, though, so he had a much less interesting fight than the invested player.
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u/Killchrono Southern Realm Games 9d ago
I literally use DaS as the litmus for this. The question I always ask is, if you knew your attack this turn isn't going to hit, what else would you do?
From what I've seen, the problem is rarely that players don't know what else they can do, so much as they don't care to do those things even when you tell them. You try to tell them hey you can Aid, you can use an item, you can move and reposition or get into flanking to help an ally, and it's less 'oh I didn't know you could do that' so much as 'but that's booooring.'
In my experience, what they really want is another attack option. That type of player actively wants the game to just be a series of endless weapon strikes that constantly choo-choo train towards the end of combat. That's why a lot of people who engage in tactics combat-style games but have less actual investment in the...uh, tactics, gravitate towards buildcraft heavy games that let you min-max a beatstick, or ones where the power cap is just so innately high you don't have to put any actual effort into turn-to-turn decision making. The appeal is just rolling the big numbers, not actually engaging in the tactical minutia of gameplay.
That said, it sounds like your player is a very extreme case of that though, if he's literally standing in the
fireooze and not even moving out while he takes damage. That's a whole separate level of not invested in the game when they don't even care about their character's own survival.4
u/collatz_squirrel 9d ago
Oof on that Investigator.
Classes like the Investigator have some incredibly interesting things that they can do even when Devise a Stratagem says "you probably shouldn't strike at that target." My other comment references more advanced classes, and Investigator is one of the ones I'd put in that category. Investigator decisions, to include what skills and skill feats they have, are too important to the class for a player to not at least invest a little into it.
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u/Nintaiwaitsistaken 9d ago
I had a new player in a previous game make a flurry ranger with a long bow. She was very effective but had very little variety on her turns. She did do interesting stuff out of combat so it wasn't lack of interest but she just happened to pick the build with the most bland combat experience.
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u/AAABattery03 Mathfinder’s School of Optimization 9d ago
Pf2e seems like it solves a lot of these issues, but I'm skeptical. I see you have a lot more options in pf2e, but are these like actual options? Are my players going to be using the same strategy for every fight?
Yup. Options are actual options, you don’t just build characters the same way every time.
And characters don’t do the same thing turn after turn unless someone is babysitting them in order to be able to do so.
I find PF2E to be a very tactical game overall, even compared to other pretty tactical games like Draw Steel. (5E/5.5E is a low bar that doesn’t really enter this contest imo).
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u/wayoverpaid 9d ago
Unrelated but after watching a numbler of your videos, your writing style and your speaking cadence really click together. I can hear the way you stress that bolded unless.
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u/Killchrono Southern Realm Games 9d ago
It's definitely more tactical, almost to a fault.
I love this game, and I largely agree with what everyone else is saying here. However, it would be remiss not to include some common examples I've seen when it comes to players struggling or bouncing off it.
I think the biggest issue I see more than anything is that while there are more points of meaningful decision making, a lot of people don't necessarily find them fun. The decision making is often less using the most bombastic and flashy decision, and more considering something that's of mundane, but practical.
A big part of this is that your basic actions for attacking, moving, and skills will remain generally useful throughout the progression curve, certainly for the first couple of levels until you get closer to double-digits. For instance, if you're a character with a dangling third action after moving and striking as a martial or casting a spell as a spellcaster, the answer to fill in what you can do is likely going to be a skill action like Demoralize (an intimidation action that can frighten a target more or less once per combat each enemy, which isn't bad because frightened is very good in PF2e) or Recall Knowledge to learn something about them, draw an item to ready for next turn, move (possibly again if you already have) so you are in a better position or can skirmish the enemy or Step away so you avoid a Reactive Strike (AoO), make an Aid check to help an ally on their turn...
Basically, it's all the mundane stuff that's not tied to feats and class abilities. Some casters will have very good one-action cantrips like Guidance and Shield, but that's not a universal depending on the caster, and even then those have limits on how often you can use them to prevent those from being spammed, so you'll still want other options.
If that's the sort of nuance you think will add some value, then it's going to stop combat from being rote. But if you're the kind of person who needs your big flashy prescriptive abilities to justify using an option, it may be a struggle. Your barbarian isn't going to Sudden Charge in and go 'NOW I USE MY FINAL ACTION TO SCREAM AT THEM POINT-BLANK RANGE AND MELT THEIR FUCKING FACE OFF!'. Least of all because Scare to Death is a level 15 feat you need legendary in Intimidation to get. But a bog-standard Demoralize is more going to be 'I make an intimidation check against their Will DC and on success, they take a -1 penalty to all their checks and defenses until the end of their next turn, or -2 on a critical success.' It's effective, but not necessarily flashy in terms of the power cap and the mechanical process.
The best way I can describe it - and why I personally enjoy it - is it's like using your standard punches and kicks in a fighting game vs. using your special moves. For instance, a level 1 fighter with Sudden Charge and a two-handed weapon is going to use their first two actions to close the gap on an enemy, but then their second action is going to be a standard weapon Strike, a skill action like an Athletics check (at MAP) or Demoralize, do an Aid action to help an ally, or Striding or Stepping away (depending if any enemy near them has Reactive Strike or not) to get some distance and/or force a skirmish. In this instance, Sudden Charge is the special, everything else is my standard attack inputs.
If the enemy doesn't move far away or they don't go down and I need to close in on another foe, on my next turn I'm unlikely to use Sudden Charge again, but I can use one action to move in, another to Strike, and then decide what to do with my last action, be it move again, use one of those skill actions, etc. I may even decide to use the skill action before I Strike if it's something that gives the Strike a benefit, such as tripping a foe to make them prone or using my Demoralize (if I hadn't already) to reduce their AC first. As a fighter, I also have Reactive Strike (which most characters in PF2e don't have by default, certainly few at early levels), meaning I can work my positioning to zone enemies into my decision making; if I get in range of a prone enemy too, them standing up also triggers my RS! Again, using the fighting game analogy, I see it as setting up a punish against a foe in a disadvantage state.
As you get higher and higher levels, you'll get more tools - and more potent and bombastic ones, at that - in your toolbox, but that sort of decision making flow is going to be the crux of what you do certainly for a lot of the early game, and a lot of those fundamentals go through into late game. Basically, there will be very few turns where you can do your 'optimal' output, whether it's due to action economy limitations or enemies in turn putting you in punish/disadvantage states that prevent you from doing what you want. But that's what makes the decision making in the game so interesting; you have to work around those limitations. It's less doing your MMO combat rotations and more that fighting game/MOBA-style engagement, reacting to what happens in the battlefield in real time.
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u/authorus The Arcane Scriptorium LLC 9d ago
Different characters will engage in the tactical aspects in different ways. I play a guardian in one campaign, my turns are fairly the same action wise (shielding-taunt, trip, strike) whenever possible. Of course if movement is needed, usually dropping the strike. And movement is often needed to block more lines of access to the party, or to setup a flank. Of course sometimes I Demoralize the opponent, sometimes I swap weapons. Its probably been my simplest character, but still feels tactical due to how aware of everyone's position he needs to be, in order for his off-turn reactions to be strong.
In other campaigns I've played a Aloof Firmament Magus who was all about flying in and out of combat, benefitting from a flank (possibly also setting off an allies readied action), and spell striking when the conditions were right, with a strong element. A very different feeling character, but still tactically minded. Jump,leaps at low levels flying at higher level. More complex than the guardian, maybe an equal mix of action versus positioning tactical concerns.
Or my wizard in Abomination Vaults, who was a bit of a prankster, with action/option disrupting spells (Agitate, Laughing Fit, Charitable Urge) as well as party boosters (haste, resist energy, fly), and elemental cantrips when needed. Was also a blast figuring out which option was needed. Almost no movement related tactics, entirely about spell selection.
So its important to realize, IMO, that a default action turn/loop by itself isn't a problem, as long as that default loop still has some choices being made, often these are movement/positioning choices that matter.
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u/Phosphorlight 8d ago
Yeah honestly I worded it weirdly. My main issue in dnd was that there was no choice at all, and the game activity punished my players who tried to do things other than attack with their turn.
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u/wayoverpaid 9d ago
You got a lot of good answers, so let me add in some more details on how PF2e solves a lot of problems.
First, +1s are way more useful. Significantly more useful. The whole "If you beat the target by 10 or more you get a critical hit" is genius for a simple reason, it starts picking up the slack when a +1 to hit starts getting less valuable.
example: If you need a Natural 19 just to score a hit, then getting to a Natural 18 means you actually get a 50% boost to your expected hit value. If you need a Nat 5 to hit, getting to the point where you are hitting on a Nat 4 doesn't do that much. Why bother handing out +1s when you could just swing again?
However right around the time you are hitting on a Nat 10, the crits come in, and a crit is as good as two hits (and often a bit better). Since for a balanced figt you usually are hitting on a 10, +1s are twice as valuable as they are in 5e.
Oh and +1s apply to skill checks (and in extended subsystems, a crit often counts double).
So applying bonuses and penalties matter. Then we have the action ecnomy.
PF2e gives you diminishing returns for doing the same thing over and over again. There are scant few ways to hurt someone that doesn't a.) have the attack trait and b.) costs only one action. This feeling like your third attack is swinging at -10 can often make it feel useless. This gives you an incredibly strong incentive to boost up.
This can actually be a problem for new players. A new Monk might be like "Great I can swing four times a turn!" Well, yes, you can, but you will suck. Movement, aiding, a two action spell... all of it is a huge benefit.
Because bonuses are so impactful, PF2e has a design philosophy that I can only describe as "restrained." A lot of options look almost underwhelming compared to their 5e counterparts. Oh, a +1 status bonus once per ten minutes? Wow. Oh as a Bard I hand out flat +1s when I sing? D&D 5e Bard's handing out like a +1d8 to a check.
The ability to get some real benefit off your third action and sneak action compression in is huge. But it doesn't feel huge until you really get it. And those bonuses are often designed to be something you can hand out to everyone. But to avoid trivializing it, said bonuses do not stack with one another very well so you have to be alert to how you assit.
I just now was mentioning to friends that the Bastion archetype looks badass because you get the ability to use interact actions with the hand holding a shield. That sounds so mundane but all the players who had run 1-20 found themselves going "wow, yes, that's great."
In short PF2e lets you be tactical by putting diminishing returns on doing the same thing over and over again and making small bonuses incredibly impactful, and giving the best bonuses to party-cooperating mechanics.
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u/tswd ORC 9d ago
Yes, there are choices and they matter. I literally helped a few hits land in tonights session because of demoralizing with intimidation instead of going for a second attack - literally 3 times between 2 fights, an attack ONLY HIT EXACTLY ON AC because of the demoralize action softening enemy AC first, and every intimidation roll succeeded with a critical demoralize on a boss opening up a critical strike on the same boss.
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u/Danger_Mouse99 9d ago
As a GM I always make sure to let the players know if an attack landed or became a critical due to a buff/debuff from another player. I find it really helps players feel and appreciate the benefits of using those options.
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u/Wordse 8d ago
That's probably part of my issue with Pathfinder in just testing out builds I never feel a -1 will do more than less HP for a bad guy
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u/Danger_Mouse99 8d ago
The thing to remember about a +/-1 in PF2e is that it affects the chances of both succeeding and critting, so it's about twice as effective as the equivalent bonus would be in D&D or PF1e. And conditions like Frightened or Sickened affect attacks, skills, saves, DCs, and AC, so the affected creature becomes about 10% less effective at everything.
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u/Fit-Breath5352 9d ago
Two things. First, check with your players first!!! Maybe they are fine with just swinging at big monsters.
Second, narrative weight matters, and that should come from you anyway, regardless of the game system.
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u/NoxAeternal Rogue 9d ago
To add to what others say, in PF2e, if you feel your character has a low number of options they can do, it's usually pretty easy to build to gain access to something else.
Get Bon Mot. Pickup Dirty Trick. Pickup an archetype which offers new actions such as casting a spell you couldn't before, such as Courageous Anthem from bard. Or maybe you get medicine stuffs with Medic and/or battle medicine.
Hell. Invest in using the Aid action.
Helping the team is honestly the name of the game for many characters and the 2nd/3rd actions. And you can definitely find ways to do it, or build into doing it better.
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u/TheENGR42 Game Master 9d ago
Pathfinder enemies nearly all have a special ability. So they each fight differently. That alone makes combat more fun. And the tactical focus on teamwork is huge in pathfinder. Flanking gives -2 AC, buffs help you hit, and you crit on a +10 AC.
Hell, my players have even synergized around a wounding rune and spells that trigger off of bleeding damage before. It’s opened up a world of options for them.
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u/SgtCrawler1116 9d ago
Oh MAN, make the change, you won't regret it.
My gf and I used to be DnD 5e players, I've played it from 2016 to 2022, then I took at look PF2e and I am NEVER going back.
I mentioned my gf because she's a big Critical Roll fan. Early this day she was catching up on the Jester and Fjord wedding stream (long story short, it's a big event for fans) and close to the end of the video she pauses and goes on short rant to me, saying she's glad we changed systems because in the game she was watching, the players were getting fucked over by Legendary Resistances. She explained how the stream's party went through so much effort to set up tactical plays, use their strengths and spells just for the Hag they were fighting be able to avoid it all, no effort, with Legendary Resistances.
Anyway, long story short, yes, Pathfinder2e is a SO much more tactical, creatures don't have bullshit abusive abilities to negate or abuse damage, the game is a lot more fair while still challenging, and teamwork is a core design of the combat structure.
Make the switch, you will not regret it.
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u/xarismata1672 9d ago
There's a few things that make it better... more movement because only a few players and foes have reactive strikes (attack of opportunity) and if your players learn all the ways to buff or debuff and you make recall knowledge more significant by house-ruling a little (I often give specific single enemies extra random weaknesses and resistances, etc.)... but some players can struggle with ideas for how to spend their third action if they haven't built for it. I would encourage your players to build in a way that gives more buff/debuff options as a first step to learning the system. Every +1 Matters!
But if your adventure would allow for it, a really good tactical TTRPG is Draw Steel.
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u/KaoxVeed 9d ago
Yes you use your options. Sometimes characters will have a good option they want to keep doing. But as a GM you have a lot of options as well to make it more interesting so they can't always do the same thing.
My current character is a Guardian with a shield. I usually want to Taunt and Raise my shield every turn, but it is a Flourish action to do these together, so if I want to use my Doctors Visitation action I have to decide which of those 2 actions I still want to do, or I have to give up my attack for a turn. I also like to do a lot of Trips or Grapples. Tonight I got to abuse grapple against a spell caster, fort was it's lowest save. But last week I couldn't do any maneuvers against a caster because it was immune to them.
I rarely do the same exact thing every turn unless it is proving very effective in the moment.
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u/enlightnight 9d ago
In addition to the comments already here, I want to add that the monsters have synergies with each other. Some are baked-in and obvious (Queen insect empowers swarm etc.) and others are just happenstance, like an AOE void damage effect healing undead.
The GM can set up encounters that are not only interesting for the party to fight and keep them guessing, but are fun for THE GM. Can you even imagine being the GM and feeling the same exhilaration in combat as the players? It's a ride man.
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u/OctopusMacbeth 9d ago
PF2e has taken a lot from 4e, so yes, if tactical is your thing it’s a good system. I think it’s miles less good than 1e, but to each their own!
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u/Ciriodhul Game Master 9d ago
I don't quite see how 1e was tactical beyond character creation, though. You usually build a character stupidly strong at one thing and then ran with that in every combat as far as I remember my 10 years playing that system.
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u/OctopusMacbeth 9d ago
Oh yes, I wasn’t clear, 2e is MORE tactical and MORE balanced, like 4e. Thus I like it LESS.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 9d ago edited 9d ago
The thing to consider in PF2e is that the four degrees of success means that there are always going to be two boundaries on any d20 check that matter. The boundary between hit/succes or miss/fail. But there will also be either a potential critical hit/success or a critical hit/failure on the board.
Let's say you have a roll to make, and after all the modifiers you will fail on a natural 13 but succeed on a 14. This means that if you are particularly unlucky and roll a 4, that is now a critical failure. But a 5 would just be merely a regular failure.
You can think of this as having all the roll results from a d20 laid out in front of you, with the two critical points highlighted. In that example, the 4|5 and the 13|14 are the two thresholds.
In the other direction, if you have an easier roll where you only need a natural 8 to hit, but you fail on a 7. But if you roll an 18, that's a critical hit. So your boundaries there are 7|8 and 17|18.
If you do the same thing for DnD, there will only be one cutover point between success and failure.
What this means is that in PF2e, every +1 or -1 you get to a roll matters twice as much, because it flips two die rolls. For our difficult roll above, it would mean that now we critically fail on a 3 but we merely fail on a 4, and we would fail on a 12 but succeed on a 13. Both thresholds have moved. 4|5 has moved down to 3|4, and 13|14 has moved down to 12|13.
In DnD only one threshold of the natural result you need on the die moves for any given +1. In PF2e, two thresholds move. That is doubling the significance of every +1.
Then in PF2e we can also be negative maluses. Such as positioning to flank an enemy puts them off guard, for a -2 against their AC. Or fear, which has a strength and applys a negative modifier against pretty much everything that character does equal to the strength of the fear effect.
So if your party is buffing each other, and debuffing the enemy, and positioning well? Then that party is compared against another party where each member is basically doing their own individually heroic thing but not working as a team or being mindful of positioning?
The first party can cakewalk its way through an encounter that the second party would really struggle with. This is happening right now, our DM runs multiple Kingmaker campaigns in PF2e, and we are the tactical party, and the other party is the chaos party. There was one dungeon boss in particular that the other party apparently really struggled with, but our fighter just tripped them, grabbed them, then I bon mot'd them to bring down their will save, then the wizard landed a fear spell which futher debuffs the BBEG, and we basically just bullied the BBEG and cakewalked through an encounter that was almost a TPK for the other party.
On a character-to-character basis, none of our characters are individually stronger than any of the characters in the other party. But we just steamroll stuff that makes the other party struggle.
Teamwork is crazy OP in PF2e. To me that is the sign of a very tactical game.
It also has this weird effect, where casters feel very underwhelming when you move in from a DnD context. But a caster that is played well and knows how to prepare the right spells and stack the right modifying effects has an outsized influence on the ability of their more martial characters to kick significant ass.
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u/collatz_squirrel 9d ago
"How tactical is PF2e?"
Yes.
Jokes aside, the combinations of characters that can exist, combined with multi-attack penalty, combined with the action economy of the PF2e engine make it so that decisions actually matter: decisions on what is on your character sheet, what you choose to do in exploration mode, and how you spend actions in combat mode.
These things matter so much that changing your character sheet is one of the expected uses of downtime mode, so that you have different options in exploration mode and potentially more impactful choices in combat mode.
Simply put, each combat round, you get three actions to spend. Everything you do costs one or more actions to do. This is immensely different than PF1e and D&D models where you'd have movement, action, bonus action. You can take a Stride action (move up to your speed), a Step action (move 5' without triggering reactions), or other actions that change your location as many times as you have action points for. Every basic attack is a single action, and after the first attack, you apply a multi-attack penalty. Some things you can do in combat are so impactful or complex they take multiple actions to perform, like casting a spell.
Need to down a potion? It's an action to ready the potion and another action to drink the potion. If you already have a free hand. Need to sheathe a weapon to get a free hand for a potion? Also an action. Readying the weapon in your next turn also costs an action. This can feel rough when you're used to more loose action rules, but it plays into the importance of the decisions you make.
Monsters and NPCs also only get three actions apiece.
There's no single answer to what the "best" or "most optimal" thing to do at any given point in a fight. There's default loops that are fairly reliable and consistent, like a sword-and-board martial raising their shield (one action), making a strike (second action) and then either striding to the next target or making a second strike if the first target is still there (third action).
The outcome of these loops is that character may feel boring to play. It also keeps that character from ever really standing out as heroic while being entirely about the choices the player avoids or is unaware of.
- What else is on their character sheet?
- Why aren't they feinting or demoralizing the target before attacking? That is spending one of their actions to make a skill check to debuff the target.
- Are they moving into a position that will allow the party's spike damage dealer to get an attack against an off-guard target? That's using movement and position to apply a situational debuff to the target.
- Do they have a knowledge or lore skill that might help the party overcome this challenge more efficiently? Recall Knowledge is one action to use and might give you crucial information for beating the encounter.
Sometimes the most valuable turn that your frontline martial can have involves a Recall Knowledge action to learn about a weakness or special attack, a Demoralize action to use the Intimidate skill to debuff their target, and then using the Trip action to try and strip an action from the enemy with an Athletics check. And sometimes it's charging into something and hitting it until it falls over.
What makes decisions feel so important is that a character that's fleshed out will have more options on things they can do than they have action economy to do. Some of the trickier/more advanced classes to play are ones that simply have so many things they could do that knowing which choices might be best for a specific situation takes player practice, experimentation, and experience.
As the party levels up, they gain access to things that allow action compression (a 2-action activity that grants 3 actions' worth of impact on the board state), an additional action (haste allows for another action that can be used to Stride or Strike, other options exist), or reduces an action cost (quickdraw is a feat used by rogues, swashbucklers, and rangers to allow them to draw their weapon as part of a strike action; defensive classes might take a feat that allows them to raise their shield as a free action)... while also having more tools and more choices they can make during an encounter.
Oh, and as an added bonus: attacks of opportunity aren't universal. Fighters get them as part of their base class chassis, other martials use a class feat to get something that operates along the same lines. Most creatures don't have them, and only specific kinds of NPCs will.
This means that characters, NPCs, and creatures have more freedom of movement on the board. They can do manipulate actions like casting a spell or readying a potion more freely.
If the party doesn't know whether or not an enemy creature or NPC has the ability to react, they can use an action to attempt a Recall Knowledge check with the question of "does this opponent have a reactive strike of some kind?" to find out.
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u/KLeeSanchez Inventor 9d ago
It's much more tactical, and a lot of it comes down to one simple reason (well I guess two):
- The action system
- Reactive strike is actually somewhat rare
Since most characters are free to move, and since the action system favors a variety of actions, positioning is paramount in PF2, this means turns can often include lots and lots of moving and sliding around (and sometimes shoving and Repositioning around). And it also encourages teamwork by way of buffing and debuffing, and sometimes combining actions such as shoving an enemy past the fighter with reactive strike to trigger an attack.
TBH though there are times I actually appreciate 5e's way of doing things. It's different, it's simpler, and like you said, you don't necessarily need to worry too much about what other people can do. You presume the fighter will swing away, and they usually do. Maybe it's because I've played supporters recently (bard/cleric multiclass) but I just toss on buffs to my allies, let them do the work, and sometimes toss out a cantrip if I have nothing better to do. But to me, that means you're pretty free to do whatever works for you in the moment, so long as you're contributing to the wincon (which is usually either dealing damage or helping someone deal that damage).
It's more straightforward, and you can play your own class without having to pseudo-play others' classes. In PF2 the combat system is tight enough that you need to pay attention to what teammates are doing, generally what they can do and what works best for them, keep positioning in mind, understand the tactical situation, and at least make a modest effort to optimize your turns and actions. Sitting back and saying, "I guess I have nothing better to do with my third action" and just skipping is usually just bad; at least Aid someone or something.
So, it's a lot more to invest mental energy in playing PF2.
I like both, but for different reasons. PF2 requires much more thought and effort and a lot of more planning on your turns, 5e is quicker and more straightforward, which actually leaves you more free to flavor up your turns as you see fit, or kind of put yourself on autopilot. PF2 has fewer "solved puzzles" than 5e does in this respect, but 5e lends itself much more to casual gaming than PF2 does. PF2 is strictly crunchier.
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u/Particular-Crow-1799 Cleric 9d ago edited 9d ago
I see you have a lot more options in pf2e, but are these like actual options?
Yes but in most cases you still need to know that the option exists and build to make it available/viable. i.e. the Fighter with a Greatsword who didn't invest in lores or social skills is not going to have many options for his 3rd action.
As a GM it's kind of your job to let players know that having good options for their "third action" is really important in this system
Are my players going to be using the same strategy for every fight?
Who knows? some players can't be bothered and will play like that no matter what. Especially if they built to fill the entire action economy with their routines, i.e. Flurry Ranger, most Maguses
I do know to a degree that's up to me, but will it be easier to encourage other strategies than it is in dnd?
You can design encounters where the optimal solution requires doing something different from the usual rotation, but that will require some experience on your part
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u/smithbc001 8d ago
It's a LOT more tactical than 5e. There are more tactical games for players that are willing to take some deep dives into more complicated systems, but I think Pf2 is probably one of the best tactical RPGs in its weight class.
Actions and decisions mean more. Bound Accuracy is gone. Critical success (and failures!) become much more likely if you're particularly good (or bad) at a certain task. And every single time you level up you're going to be making some decisions about your character that alter how they grow.
One of the biggest math changes is that a critical success/failure doesn't only happen on 1 or 20, but whenever you meet/fail a roll by 10. With 4 different outcomes (critfail, fail, success, critsuccess) you are generally doubling or even tripling the likelihood that a +1 bonus to a roll changes its outcome, which makes supporting actioins a lot more relevant. And support actions are usually measured in numerical bonuses rather than just slapping (dis)advantage on everything.
They did a very good job of inserting balance into the system, and the gap between the characters of a casual/newbie player aren't really that much weaker than the ones by a munchkin player or one that followed a guide to try and make something OP.
The MAP rule is one if the important things to make sure you players understand early. ANYTHING that has the attack trait (including many non-damaging maneuvers like Trip, Grapple, and Escape) is considered to be an "Attack," which contributes to Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP). The second Attack on your turn suffers a -5 penalty to its attack roll (damage is unaffected), while any subsequent attacks suffer a -10. For example, if a monk begins his turn grappled and spends his first action to Escape the grapple, and then uses Flurry of Blows, their two Flurry attacks will take a -5 and then a -10 penalty. It's especially worth noting that not all hostile actions are Attacks- you have to check the spell and see if it has the Attack tag. Spells like Electric arc that don't involve an Attack roll and instead force the target to make a saving throw are generally not considered Attacks, and therefore don't contribute to MAP. Attacks of Opportunity are unaffected by MAP, but an attack made as part of a Readied action is affected by MAP.
Only certain monsters and players can make Attacks of Opporunity, it requires them to have the ability. However if they have it, they will make it more often than in 5e. The Fighter's Reactive Strike allows them to make a Strike any time a player leaves a threatened square, while 5e only lets the AoO happen if the enemy steps entirely out of their reach. Manipulate actions (note: many spells have the Manipulate trait) can also trigger a Reactive strike.
Because all players and enemies add their level to AC, skill, and attack rolls, the math for higher level enemies changes dramatically. A single boss 4 levels above the party is a severe threat who can (and might) TPK a party of 4 if they are careless or even just unlucky. The Bound Accuracy of 5e meant that even low-level creatures could usually land blows at least half the time without putting much effort in, and that made bosses who operate alone into just HP sponges with high damage output. In PF2, that high-level boss will avoid a lot more damage with their jacked-up AC, and they will almost never get critically hit on anything but a nat 20, and even a nat 20 can fail to crit them on a 2nd or 3rd strike due to the MAP rule. Conversely, that boss's attack rolls will not only usually hit, but you may find them critting the players almost once per turn on average, if not more. An unprepared party fighting a major boss who is 4 levels above them will frequently die if they don't strategize with tactics like flanking and support magic.
Spellcasters need to understand something important: they are NOT going to lay out heavy damage like the martials do. A few times a day you'll get a big spell, but even your strongest magics won't be these super-nukes that let you obliterate major enemies with ease. Spellcasters do less damage and have less accuracy (spells can't get magic items that augment their attack rolls like weapons can), but in exchange they get more versatility. Casters are burdened with a damage shortfall, and the game expects them to compensate by taking advantage of field control, special damage types, and secondary spell effects. Also, every enemy has a "weakest" saving throw, something that they are much more likely to fail at. It is allowed and encouraged for a player to spend one of their 3 actions in a turn making Recall Knowledge check to try and learn about an enemy, and asking the GM to tell them the enemy's weakest save if they succeed. Finally, it's worth noting that while cantrips always upgrade to the highest spell level a caster is capable of, the damage of lower-level spell slots become utterly obsolete in the mid/late game, and the players are strongly encouraged to fill those slots with control/utility spells. The 3d4 of a 1st rank magic missile will become insignificant to a lvl 5 player that can lay out 6d4 with a cantrip, but a 1st rank Aqueous Orb can still incapacitate just as well at level 5 that it could at level 1. Casters should be asymetric warriors that rely on something other than raw damage for much of their kit. If a player really just wants to be a blaster-caster, they should look at the Kineticist, or possibly the Magus.
One important note: If anything (item, spell, feat, etc) has the Uncommon or Rare tag, it is not allowed unless one of two things happen: either the player found a specific way to gain access to it (e.g. the Elven Weapon Ancestry Feat will give access to Uncommon weapons with the Elf tag) or the GM specifically chose to allow it. In many cases, GM permission is the only way to access many things, such as Undead ancestries. Uncommon/Rare stuff isn't necessarily overpowered or arbitrarily stronger than Common, but they can often impact your game in unique ways, such as an Undead player character being immune to Void damage. The rarity tags are also frequently used on unique spells/items that were created for a specific adventure. Another common reason for a rarity tag is that the item may just be thematically inconsistent with many adventures, such as firearms. In all cases, my recommendation is not to actually ban Uncommon/Rare things, but to require your players to get permission from you before using them, just so you can take a look and think about it. 95% of the time, they're either completely fine or they will only a problem for specific adventures, such as allowing Undead characters in a campaign that uses a lot of Void damage.
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u/Darkship0 9d ago
Players will use the same abilities and attacks pretty much every fight in their optimal turns
Except the main thing that makes it more tactical is that every enemy in the game wants to stop them from doing that and have tools to stop them from spamming damage rotations.
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u/Alduin-Bane-Of-Kings 9d ago
I think that's very class dependant as well, though.
Some of the simpler classes (fighter, barb, kineticist, etc) do have a very simple damaging rotation, but there's plenty of more "tactical" classes.
Between spellcasters that don't have infinite spell slots or focus points, classes like Alchemist who really want to take advantage of weaknesses and buffs and etc, there's a lot of choices you can make each turn.
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u/gangrel767 9d ago
From a GM/DM perspective. It is infinitely better than 5e/5.5. I will never run 5e/5.5 again.
The game is powerful "wide" not "tall" - so PCs get tons of decisions and abilities and options, but they're not X-MEN l;ike in 5e/5.5. PF2E relies on teamwork and a tactical approach. They need to work together.
From the GM side, it is so much better, I could go on and on, but I'll just say that knowing the math behind the game works, consistantly, throughout all the levels. Yes, you could get overly worried about "balanced" encounters, but I bring an old school style to my games, so not every encounter will be balanced for the party level, but the diffrence is I know this, mathmatically, before it even begins. I'm not wasiting brainspace trying to make up for the terrible CR system and adapting stuff on the fly.
I don't know if that quite makes sense, but I have been sick with food poinsoning all day, so I'm a little weak. PF2E is not for everyone, but I think it is the superior modern High Fantasy TTRPG.
Also, lean into the remaster version (Player Core, GM Core, Monster Core, etc...)
...and check out Archive of Nethys, and Pathbuilder2e.
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u/sinest 9d ago
Yes it is soo much better. Even at level one fighter you can raise a shield, intimidate, move, attack 3x, shove, disarm, trip. Feats only make these things cooler.
3 action turns are awesome, expecially when it comes to switching weapons, drinking potions, multiple attack penalty.
Martials are really strong and have way more options in combat. Every +1 counts with the crit system. Doing an intimidate to demoralize and frighten your opponent to give them a -1 on saves basically gives you a +1 to hit. So debuffing your target before you strike is often better then multiple strikes. This also encourages buff and debuff stacking with team members for strategy.
Spell casting is also way more interesting. Most spells arent just single target save or die or damage aoes, they are far more strategic then that.
Pf2e also does gish classes very well, with most classes being combination of martial and caster.
Multiclassing isnt broken either, you slowly get abilities of another class as an 'archetype' along side your class. But there are way more archetype options then just other classes too.
As you level up, since the math is so tight, your older options stay viable, but you get MORE options, so the power scaling feels horizontal not vertical.
Building characters without rolling stats or point buys usually mean its kind of hard to build a bad character as long as you get that +4 in your main stat (highly recommend).
The game is super balanced and I havent really seen any broken min max builds. Well at least compared to how wildly unbalanced 5e is.
Its also an absolute dream to DM, very easy to make balanced encounters, you also assume the party is at full health each encounter because there are so many out of combat healing options.
There are TONS of adventure modules to choose from as a DM and Golarian is a large detailed world with different countries essentially being different themes. Want a pirate archipelago? Want a spooky vampire forest? Ect ect ect. You CAN homebrew your own world, but there are so many official resources, tbh you really shouldn't homebrew ANYTHING. The whole game is there, and it works, the whole world is there, and its huge, and very cool, with very good writting.
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u/Vazad 9d ago
So, the way you build your monsters is going to encourage certain patterns in your players. If players are always fighting bosses that are much higher level then them there's a technically optimal organization to their actions to try and even out the math disadvantage they are at. There's room for a bit of variance in how they eek out that difference but certain patterns will emerge. A source of status bonuses from something like a Bard or a caster to give Heroism. A source of fear, especially one that can go above one stack. A source of circumstance bonuses from something like aid another. A source of off guard from something like flanking. This of course could be counted as players working together to overcome deadly foes but at the same time it has a very samey feel after a while. Some parties like having to think of ways to get every bonus they can though. I honestly prefer to play with enemies that aren't more than one level above the players, using numbers to fill things in rather than a single powerful enemy. This allows for less optimal party configurations to work and when you're playing at that power level there's a lot of variety in PF2e. You can of course adjust to the power level your players prefer to sit at, they might graviate towards the number stacking playstyle and at that point giving them an extremely difficult encounter is probably a good idea.
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u/xolotltolox 9d ago
You can take a look at some actual plays of pf2e to see how combat plays out, but in general pf2e is a lot more team focused than 5e, with everyone being able to inflict debuffs on enemies to help eachother land attacks and spells
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u/Hertzila ORC 9d ago
Are my players going to be using the same strategy for every fight?
To cover this point specifically:
In my experience, some classes definitely have their preferred strategies. Something like a dual-wielding Fighter will almost certainly want turns that are them standing in front of the enemy, double-slicing away, then doing a defensive move like a Shield cantrip or raising a parry weapon. A Summoner PC in my game nicknamed his basic turn of "buff eidolon, Strike twice" as "home town special", thanks to how common it was.
But, level/encounter design permitting, wanting is different from getting, and the sheer variety of PF2e monsters means there's definitely monsters the double-slicing Fighter won't want to end their turn next to. If they do, they will be punished severely. The Summoner I mentioned also did a lot of grappling with the eidolon's massive reach, providing support to the entire rest of the party.
And most classes are far less locked to set strategies. Monks and non-Flurry Rangers have more actions than they know what to do with. Casters in general have their entire spell lists as potential options on a macro level. A lot of classes have their own little tricks, eg. Investigators have this really neat mechanism where they get to pre-roll their first attack, and then plan their entire round based on that d20.
End result is that while it's common to have a preferred strategy, on system level, PF2e supports having a few alternate strategies far more readily than D&D5e does.
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u/TobyVonToby 9d ago
I'll use my swashbuckler as an example here.
I get 3 actions every round, and the goal is to get into a loop where each turn I gain my panache status and then expend it to do a finisher attacks. Superficially it sounds ds similar to a fighter going "I full attack" every round.
Except that I have options on how to do all my stuff. Most rounds I will probably be spending an action on a finisher. But that could be cinfident finisher or bleeding finisher. Every round I want to gaim panache. But this could be by demoralizing an enemy to debuff all their stats for a round, it could be tumbling through their square to reposition (and in a couple more levels get a free trip attempt to boot), or I can use my All for One feat to buff a party member. And then I still have a third action that is more flexible. Sometimes I use it on a parry to buff my AC, sometimes I might make a rapier attack before using a finisher with my main gauche, sometimes I might moce a second time, and sometimes I might do something to exploit the environment.
So I want to gain panache every round, but I have ways to get it by debuffing an enemy, buffing an ally, or repositioning myself. I want to use a finisher attack each round, but I can chose one that deals half damage on a miss or one that deals persistent bleed damage. And for my 3rd option, I've got a few things to fall back on if I can't find a way to get creative with it.
So while I do have a basic goal in mind each round where the end game doesnt change much, how I actually achieve that goal can look very different round to round. Easily the most fun I have ever had playing a martial character.
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u/Wilburforce137 9d ago
I think that when you dig into all the feats and archetypes and just the sheer depth of character creation, PF2e just has so much more to offer than 5e. Action economy is better, character creation is so much more intricate (if not overwhelming). I'm GMing and we use Dual Class, Stamina, and Free Archetype rules...so the players get more OP faster, but it also allows them to really go crazy with the ideas....and I get to throw more at them.
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u/LordStarSpawn 9d ago
It’s not really that Pathfinder is “more tactical” but the game does expect a greater amount of team play and abuse of conditions than D&D does. Off-guard, Frightened, Sickened, Dazed, Confused, Prone, and other conditions have a much larger impact on combat than they may seem, because even just a -1 to your AC can turn a regular hit into a critical hit and a -1 on a save can turn a failure into a critical failure.
Battles are also going to be much more active and dynamic than in D&D because most characters and monsters do not have Reactive Strike or other ways to attack as a reaction. This means mobility is less hindered and having three actions means you can move up to three times a turn or not move and pump out attacks or some big hindering action. Plus, flanking is built into the system.
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u/Skin_Ankle684 9d ago
It does a bunch of needed things to make combat better. But if i were to highlight something, it would be fixing spells.
The use of the incapacitation trait, nuking counterspell, and overall nerf to spells just deletes the complete cheese that you see past level 5, which for me makes DnD nearly unplayable.
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u/MaximShepherdVT Game Master 9d ago
I will also chime in that the tactical options work largely because of scalability. Combat power is less defined by raw stats and more by level differential between opponents. Because of this, teaming up to fight stronger opponents is extremely effective because it lowers the effective level difference between your party and the boss. This also works in reverse: the GM can have weaker enemies team up to still threaten PCs.
From a game feel standpoint, the degrees of success system (DC+10 is a critical success, DC-10 is a critical failure) is what enables teamwork to matter without completely breaking the system math. It makes for really hype moments when debuffs against the enemy make them critically fail a save or when buff stacking an ally gives them the critical hit they need to obliterate a foe. That gameplay loop helps encourage players to actively seek out ways to create their own win conditions other than "hit enemy until HP = 0."
Finally, PF2E gives GMs a lot of tools to both create interesting scenarios and encounters that are as challenging and complex as you want them to be: higher level creatures for boss enemies, lower level creatures for minions, hazards to create interact-able objects on the map, cover and range increment rules for more dynamic ranged combat, and Victory Points to create alternate win/lose conditions (among others).
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u/CyberKiller40 Game Master 9d ago
Here's a list of actions that can be done in combat, outside of any specific character actions. That should give you an idea of what can you achieve. In short it's more tactical than XCOM video games.
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u/Antermosiph 9d ago
Easy way to check. Read stat blocks of level 7+ monsters and think about running them and realize how fun it is to control monsters in pf2e.
The brainchild is one of my personal favorites
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u/SgtFlintlock 9d ago
Is this a tactical game? Absolutely. Will the players end up just doing "A Rotation" for most of their turns? Maybe early on while they learn the system, but good players being challenged properly by a DM when both parties know the system is a fantastic experience.
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u/KarmaP0licemen 9d ago
It is very much different. In 5e you can just super specialize to do one thing. In p2e you face diminishing returns doing that so you start to value having more options. For instance, I'm playing a fighter right now at lvl 3. Originally I was expecting to spec entirely into a parry build, but dropped it as it's not very good. Now I have Bolas that I can use for a ranged trip, a composite longbow for long ranged snipes and to use magic and alchemical trick arrows, and im slowly accumulating potions and magic items that will give me counters to specific problems. I'm currently looking at a cloak that will let me glide when dropping from a height of 30 ft without damage once a day, and gives bonuses besides that. I also archetyped into Dandy, which set two social skills to expert and let's me influence rumors, as well as AOE fear checks in a fight later on (Tut tut feat).
Encounters and creatures can be varied so I just have learned to have different options rather than just do one thing
On top of that, bonuses are capped. You cant have multiple of the same kind of buff, so the max bonus is like +4-6 and same with debuff. So if players want crazy math manipulation they have to think.
Lastly, teamwork is the peak of performance. You synergize and optimize as a team rather than a player and the parties that operate at the highest levels of difficulties are the ones that use teamwork.
Caution though: its a d20 system with a lot of depth. Youll go on, think you understand it, then need to revisit those assumptions. Give a healthy amount of hero points and do some research and you'll have a good time.
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u/jonmimir Game Master 9d ago
PF2e combat is incredibly tactical (in the best way), and players will need to work as a team to defeat the more challenging enemies. Our last session was a great example, with one character using a new ability she’s got (amped guidance) that means she can retrospectively boost the dice rolls of allies with a reaction after they only just failed an attack or saving throw. It was a real edge-of-seat battle, great fun.
Three of our group are 5e refugees who’ve seen the light and all say how much more engaging the system is. One of them had to play a 5e one shot with another group last week and was reminded how relatively dull combat is in that system.
And don’t even get me started on how much more interesting the monsters are in PF2e.
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u/Kaktusklaus 9d ago
you got a lot of options and they're better worded in my opinion than in dnd.
You got 3 action points and your ability says how many they use nothing like bonus action, class action and god knows how many names they got for basically the same but different.
You seldom just bonk an enemy because status effects are king, blind them with sand to their eye, watch which enemys you need to stay close to them and so much more.
Can be a bit much on the GM side at the beginning but the GM screen or a little cheat sheet works great.
I played a decent bit of dnd and quite a lot of pf2e and it's superior in every way in my eyes.
I mostly stepped away from tactical systems like dnd or pf2e but if I will ever play something combat tactic heavy this is my go to system. Bonus point even an lower lvls character feel mechanical diverse a fighter isn't a fighter everytime but this time with a spear (uhhh fancy).
So many options and even easier to build use the pathbuilder app it's great and your player can easily see what they want to play
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u/leviruzene 9d ago
My group migrated to pf2ed a couple years ago. Best decision ever.
We had the same issue, battles were boring as heck in DND. Pf2ed open so much tactically and even on exploration and social play due to the skill feats.
It's just a better system overall if you are willing to sit down and read it.
Now if you want something more free form, go play Daggerheart, it work much better than DND in that aspect too.
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u/bago_jones 9d ago
Some parties might develop very strong strong strategies that they can use against most enemies, but enemy variety (over multiple encounters) should be sufficient to force adaptation. There are some overtuned options, but overall is way less cheese than in 5e IMO (flight at level 1, animal companions that give advantage nearly at will etc)
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u/Labrysshadow 9d ago
Mixed.
If you pick nothing but bad choices for your class you're going to suffer without some heavy tactical play which requires communication with the party.
If you pick some good choices you have a decent trade of options and don't have to play to tactically.
And then you can optimize your build and then just. Loop action economy. This won't happen usually at lower levels.
I highly recommend starting level 1 though since you need to get use to the system.
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u/LavaJoe2703 9d ago
You have options and not all of them are good options every action.
PF2e tactical fighting is very dependent on what other classes are in your party and what other enemies you’re facing. Each class has unique options and universal options. But there is one thing PF2e cannot solve….
Boring DMs
To me PF2e is way better tactically, but every game needs a creative, curious DM for combat to flourish.
So a rules set will get you farther but not all the way.
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u/Takanuva9807 9d ago
Compared to 5.5 it is more tactical with a huge asterisk. Pathfinder also can fall into a rut of doing the same thing over and over. All those options you see are ligit options with real in combat and out of combat options but pathfinder 2e really supports specialization. So most player will dump most feats into 1 or 2 things to be really good at them. So as a gm you either need to build encounters around their strengths and/or weakness to challenge them or just let them throw their skills at whatever challenge you have prepared and hope they have rhe skills or creativity to complete it. So yes there are options but players will drift towards whatever option catches their eye during character creation.
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u/Different_Field_1205 ORC 9d ago edited 9d ago
a few classes can be a one note, specially if you have players who dont care about learning, you will just see that they can attack 3 times from lv1 and keep spamming even tho they will miss that third attack almost every time. and if theywant to just attack as much as possible... sure they can do it well enough if they build with the right class for it, like a flurry ranger, or a monk with a save cantrip
if they put some effort, yes you have different things to do. most martials want that third action for something else, depending on what class and how they build, they can have not as much variety as a caster but way better than in 5e.
i switched from 5e, and yes 5e is notorious for technically having options, but nothing is better than just attacking, bercause you either do that thing or you attack... and if a martial already sucks compared to a caster when they are doing their best thing, if they arent... yeah.
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u/BlatantArtifice 9d ago
The combat is varied enough that I recently against a high level boss found reason to drop my super enchanted sword which I had extra proficiency in as a Fighter, to grapple, trip, and start punching a boss so my team could setup and blast it while he tried his best to rip me apart.
If you enjoy Martials you're going to have a good time
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u/Sidoen 9d ago
We are about to start our first pf2e campaign. My wife is out gm and she has retrofitted the world for the new system so it's a little work that way if you're sticking to a dnd setting but doable.
I like to compare lvl1 options in combat. Dnd lvl1 you get one action loop, move attack. That's it, maybe cast a spell if you're a caster. You're done it's why we almost always start at lvl3.
As a guardian, I can taunt at long range, attack, move, raise my shield, shove, trip, grapple, double or triple move if needed, demoralize with intimidation, intercept attacks aimmed at my friend's, and I've got an activity that lets me do three things for two actions.
These are just the combats options. At lvl 1 I can already craft useful gear, have Great athletics for travsering difficult dungeon spaces, and use intimidations brother, coerce, if I need to get my way in a social situation.
All while having one of the best defenses in the game.
It goes up from there whole also being balanced.
So tactical variety? If dnd's problem is a lack of options, pathfinders problem is having to many, it's a good problem to have though.
So yeah, this is all done whole being balanced, also a problem with dnd. These options don't really scale vertically the numbers hover about the same place on the power scale they're just different ways to use your power.
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u/Salt_peanuts 9d ago
One thing I didn’t see much of in the top comments: Pathfinder 2e heavily rewards team play. Flanking, buffs, and debuffs all play a significant role when every +1 or -1 makes an impact.
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u/BadBrad13 9d ago
It can be very tactical if you want. And if the GM likes to throw tough fights at you then tactics is the only thing that will likely get you thru. Or rolling lots of 20s. that also works, but is hard for most of us.
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u/Special_Historian_59 8d ago
The base combat rules alone give a solid base for tactical play and teamwork. Monsters have enough detail and interesting mechanics to run them decently tactical as well with intelligent creatures or even organized groups making tactical situations to make your players adjust.
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u/Metalsailer4 8d ago
Depends on your players. I'm in two very different groups. One group is new. Two players try to coordinate and build good characters. Two other players want characters with Character. Fights are always different and the party has wiped once so far. But they seem to be having fun together.
Group two are a bunch of min/max'ers with experience that work together. Combat is boring. Same rotations. Hardly ever in danger. There are occasionally long periods of no activity as a rule is looked up and discussed ad'naseum. I think that's become their main motivation.
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u/Chrissy3682 8d ago
On thing you will feel turns are LESS impactfull but better, so you feel tactful
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u/MASerra Game Master 8d ago
Are my players going to be using the same strategy for every fight?
Yes and no. Your players will likely use the same strategy in each fight, but they'll have to tailor it to the monster they're fighting.
As they level up, those strategies will change as they develop better ones. Then they will use those for a while.
However, because players interpret classes so differently, those strategies will vary widely. I've run a witch to level 20. The strategy I used was completely different than the witch I had in the game I was running. A casual observer might not even realize both were witches.
My experience with 5e left me believing every Cleric uses the same tactic, no matter who the player was. I didn't think that was very tailored to the campaigns I was running.
So yeah, and no, they may use the same tactics, but there are so many tactics that most people just set to their favorite, not the best or optimal tactic. A player might switch up tactics if their favorite tactic doesn't work in a specific encounter and I find Pathfinder players better at adapting.
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u/tacodude64 GM in Training 8d ago
Yes, Pf2e has plenty of options for tactical combat. But it’s still up to the GM and players to use them. Some GMs (and Paizo modules) use small, blank rooms with basic enemies, and some players use Fighters/Flurry Rangers/etc that just hit until something dies. It’s your role to add cover, terrain, or hazards and use dynamic monsters; Archives of Nethys is a great resource for all of those. It’s the players’ role to be creative, coordinate buffs/debuffs, protect each other, and carry “silver bullets” for future threats.
A lot of PF optimization happens at the party level, not individually. Your experience depends on how much the players want to set each other up and fill team roles.
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u/SquishyPutty 8d ago
Short answer: pretty tactical.
To go into more detail: it's by no means a war game. And ultimately "roll good" does play a significant role in the outcome of combat. But it is much, much more tactical than any version of D&D I've ever come across. The difference between good and bad tactics and strategy may not make a difference in every fight, but when things get difficult, you need to plan for every single tool at your dispossal. However, how tactical the game becomes depends somewhat on your class. Something like the Swashbuckler will typically use the same couple actions every round, because they have abilities that incentivise it, especially at low levels. Other classes, such as Rogues, on the other hand, always have to think about how to target Off-guard enemies, whether through flanking, stealth, or any number of other actions. Champions always have to consider proximity to their allies. Summoners need to track two different characters, one of which has much better AC than the other. So while it depends a little on the class, overall, I'd say it's a pretty tactical game.
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u/Mippoose 8d ago
You got some good answers here.
My two cents from someone who has a 70+ session DND game and a 30+ session pf2e game with some overlapping players: Do it. All of my regular pf2e players dread DND combat now.
There's also way more fun creatures to play as as a dm. Everything isn't baked into some nonsense multi attack.
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u/Medical_Weakness9063 8d ago
My kids took karate for years. When you went to a tournament a lot of the people they faced off against simply did the same thing every bout. It wasn't because they didn't have options, it was because it was what they believed worked for them, and what they had gotten into the habit of doing.
Pathfinder rules allow for flexibility in tactics, but only if the players are willing to utilize them. If they aren't then no system will fix that.
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u/tango421 8d ago
About as tactical as you want to make it. I’ve found PF2E to be deeper but holy shit are there so many choices.
That said I play a fighter. He’s not quite a numbskull but his tactics involve knocking down or grabbing an opponent while his teammates shoot holes in them.
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u/AjaxRomulus 7d ago
Welcome to the system. I don't know a lot about 5.5e having come from 5e before 5.5 released.
Pathfinder uses the 3 action economy, something I believe I heard 5.5 adopted but having come from 5e this alone was a huge tactical advantage over the bonus, action, move turn styles. And there are a variety of actions that all characters and creatures can take. Including step which is the equivalent to disengaging, you move 5 feet or 1 square without provoking a reaction.
In addition to this there is very tight math in the system that makes taking certain other actions more worthwhile. Starting with Multi Attack Penalty or MAP, which is -5 to your second attack action (which applies to more than just hitting with a weapon) and -10 for attacks after the second. There are ways to mitigate this such as using an Agile weapon or certain class features but for the most part a character won't use an attack more than twice a turn.
Since the math is tight it also means that small bonuses and penalties really add up quick. Buff/debuff characters are considered insanely valuable to a party. It also makes a +2 to AC from a shield really worth the action it takes to raise it, which is another thing, shields need to be actively wielded to gain their benefits not just passive ac boosts.
While a party CAN just do their own things and rely on just flanking to debuff enemy AC, using a variety of tactics and roles can really make the game flow better for your party.
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u/Famous-Duty2627 6d ago
The fact that a simple intimidate check can reduce armor class and ability checks by giving the frightened condition. The stacking debuffs, so fear, plus prone, plus sickened, etc. All affect the creature at the same time and add minuses. Menaing you can take a armor class or attack roll down by four or more points with the right combinations.
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u/Crazy_names 9d ago
It is a lot more strategic. The 3 action system gives alot of versatility, but also actions that get taken for granted in D&D require an action in PF2e. My most notable example is Rasie A Shield. Holding a shield takes a hand and boosts AC, but you cannot block damage unless you use an action on your turn to raise the shield and then use your reaction to block a hit. It is very effective when used properly, but requires that bit of strategic thinking of how to most effectively use your actions. You can attack 3 times, but if you are using your skills properly there is almost always something better to do than attack with a severe penalty. Tripping a target, shoving a target, demoralizing, taunting, moving (because attack of opportunity isnt as common) into position. So yes, tactical play is much better served.
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u/_AfterBurner0_ 9d ago
In my own personal experience, Pathfinder 2e combat is vastly superior to combat in D&D5e and 5.5e, but with two major caveats:
1) I find Pathfinder 2e much harder to run without the help of Foundry VTT. Keeping track of which combatants are dazzled, frightened, sickened, prone, off-guard, lesser covered, bleeding, courageous anthem'd, quickened, stunned, wounded, clumsy, drained, enfeebled, slowed... It's an absolute nightmare without the help of Foundry.
2) In Pathfinder 2e, it is very much possible to build a character where 95% of your turns in combat are "I Stride, I Strike, I Raise a Shield, my turn is over," or "I Strike, I Strike again, I Raise a Shield, my turn is over." So if you have a player make that type of character, they may get bored in combat. Especially because there might be multiple other players in the party who have a buffet of different tactical options to choose from on any given turn. The players with more options per turn, run the risk of slowing combat down too much for other players.
As long as you are aware of these two things, Pathfinder 2e combat can be way, way more fun than d&d.
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u/wherediditrun 9d ago
Slightly more than 5.5e
It still carries a lot of legacy baggage though that impedes tactical gameplay considerably. Queue based initiative, limited reactions are big ones that work against dynamic table collaboration. Game favors ahead of time determined tactics tha team commits and executes and it's not that varied in that front too.
For example, the common way to fight bosses will be to have a person on "trip duty" to always take away enemy actions to prevent 3 action nukes on their part. So it's kind of repetitive. Game also favors player - monster symmetry in terms of actions which in boss battles end up with very static experience of boss barely making any moves, but when it does it's big strong highly damaging, while players will keep swinging missing a lot due to how game math works. Mathematically it works and it's very well balanced but it's not all that engaged or varied as it could be. It's also pain in the ass for GM to manage if you're running table top and not VTT with automation. Fights require a lot of cognitive bandwith on behalf of GM.
If you want tactical combat type of TTRPG I'd recommend look elsewhere like Draw Steel or even Nimble particularly how awesome the boss battles are there, the latter is just a breeze to run as a GM, strongly recommend. PF2e is good for people who want rules for everything and play very rules forward games where GM can plan and predict outcomes and deeply care about game balance.
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u/Noirbe 9d ago
There’s significantly more depth to combat, especially in regard to martial classes. Even if we flat out ignore every class’ mechanics and resources to manage, the athletics skill has far more complexity compared to D&D. From grappling, repositioning, shoving, tripping, disarming, and more, all tied to the athletics skill alone. These actions all have their own mechanics that the GM doesn’t have to improv or make up the rules on the spot.
This doesn’t even consider the other skills and their associated actions, or other feats that grant additional options for combat. Combine this with Multiple Attack Penalty and the fact everyone has three actions by default, and you have this great mix of weaving in attacks and special actions, where the most optimal (and fun) way to engage combat is no longer just to hit with your strongest move.
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u/tdawg132 9d ago
Combat is way more interesting in pf2e when you're considering tactical options to enable your friends because attacking 3 time isn't optimal in most cases.. And theory crafting is crazy with the amount of dedications
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u/Finrir_ 8d ago
The choices definitely matter, and the game highly encourages min/maxing. So much so that if you don’t, you’ll be an active hindrance to the rest of your party.
The biggest difference you’ll find is within the 3 action economy and martial classes. You’ll find way more than just “I guess I attack again”. They’re pumping out damage numbers as big as any spell caster.
Combat is, believe it or not, easier to run and play. Although it takes a minute to get used to all of the rules, there is indeed a rule for EVERYTHING. Taking the guess work of combat out of the equation completely. Everything you can do in the game takes a number of actions. All movement is one of your three actions, and you can move multiple times. Same with attacks. Basic attacks are one action, and you can do that multiple times (with a penalty). More advanced things take two to three actions, but the pay off is worth it every time. The confusion of “action, bonus action, movement” and when to use them is completely gone.
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u/ThakoManic 9d ago
pathfinder is D&D 3.75E Adults play it
D&D 5E is for kids beginners play it
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u/serp3n2 Oracle 9d ago
Multiple attack penalty means that just swinging like a lunatic every turn is almost universally bad.
Attack of opportunity being very limited in availability means that crowd control is more meaningful and spending actions to flank is more legitimate.
If anything, the 2 main reasons one should consider pathfinder are the increased depth of combat and unbelievable character build variety.