Nerd Pride Radio

Has anyone read or played Pathfinder 2nd ed? I’m curious how it is.

I'm working my way through the core rulebook right now!

It looks great, I think! Much more intuitive for those who did not jump on from 3.5 when it branched off. I think it looks very flexible, too. Haven't gotten to play, but the read is good!

Own it. Reading it. Creating characters. Haven't played yet.

I'm really excited, because it looks pretty straightforward.

Everything is feats now. Ancestry feats, heritage feats, background feats, class feats, general feats.

And then your skills, attacks, saves, etc all follow the same categories where you are either:
Untrained (+0)
Trained (+2)
Expert (+4)
Master (+6)
Legendary (+8)

Now when you take an action, every roll is 1d20 + character level + ability bonus + "skill" level

On top of that, there's a very limited number of bonuses you can add to that roll. Magic bonus, item bonus, condition bonus, situation bonus? (I can't remember them exactly, but it's like 3 or 4 categories and that's it.) Something like that. All bonuses fall into a category and you only get the largest in each category. However penalties stack all day.

There's no multiclassing specifically, but there are options to take an "archtype" feat in another class, giving you class abilities from that class.

Character creation appeals to me on a very fundamental level. They've gone with a version of Starfinder's system, so you build your stats piece by piece with no more random rolls. This means that every starting character has a total of +9 for their ability bonuses, and that's A-OK with me.

I need to actually play now, but I think I'm going to like it after I get a couple games under my belt.

I'll be honest- after everything was destroyed in the flood, I was going to switch to 2E-- the only thing that was salvaged was dice and my adventure paths (and I have a lot of them). But in the weeks after the flood, a friend who made the move to 5E D&D gave me all his pathfinder books. I was so excited that I filled out the collection by getting the paperback versions of everything I didn't have of the core books. And I also have a lot of the supplemental stuff too (Healers Handbook, blah blah blah). So I kind of own all of 1E, so I think I'm going to play that until I'm dead.

Picked up PDFs of everything that's available so far, and am reading my way through the core rulebook currently. Looking forward to getting to play it eventually.

BTW, I really wish Paizo would offer a PDF-only subscription option.

1E problem (sorry to derail, if I am)- I went to buy the paperback copy of book one of the Carrion Crown adventure path- but it's not in print anymore. Used copies start at $60- for something I should get for under $20 on amazon. It's only available from third party sellers- not Paizo.

This isn't really a problem for me because I know a website that has all of paizo's books available to download DRM-free. Which I know is highly illegal, but I generally use the site for when I've bought a physical copy of a book, but need to reference something real quick when my physical copy is somewhere else (i.e., I'm at the office, and the book is at home). I only use it to reference books that I own, not for things I haven't purchased.

Anyhow, I rationalized to myself- hey! Paizo isn't even selling this anymore. So I'll just download the first book and print it out- which I did. I mean, they're not even profiting off it anymore, so I don't really see the problem here. I mean, I TRIED to throw my money at them, but couldn't. So this seems okay.

ANYWHO, I get home and show it to my middle son. He turns a stink eye on me and says, "So you're telling me that Paizo isn't even selling the PDF?" I responded, "I don't even know, but who cares. They're clearly not printing or looking to monetize this product." He goes online and sees that Paizo is selling the pdf for $13.99 and glares at me.

He's right. So even though i already illegally downloaded and printed it, I've also now bought the pdf. I've raised my kids WAY better than I was raised, apparently.

Kyle - Did you have a subscription? Because if you did, you should be able to get the PDF's for free from Paizo.

Added Pathfinder 2E to my HeroLab Online subscription, and have started creating a few characters. So far, I like what I'm seeing!