People seem to want me to do a “direct” response to his video. Okay, here is a response to various quotes from his video with my responses. "For our Pathfinder Ranger, they currently have 18 dexterity which after being moved to Expert for martial weapons from the Weapon Expertise class feature, that gives them a +13 modifier to hit with their longbow." RESPONSE: Why didn't he give the 5th level Ranger a +1 weapon potency rune (+1 to hit), which is relatively standard at 5th level for any melee-based class, as well as a striking rune (weapon deals two damage dice instead of one). The +1 weapon potency rune is "expected" to be earned by level 2, and the "striking rune" rune is "expected" to be acquired by level 4. For better or for worse, the PF2 math "expects" melee-users to have these runes in their builds to keep up with the same math used by the monsters. As someone with several published monsters by Paizo in several PF2 Adventure Paths and the lead on the RPG Superstar contest, I can tell you that this is the case with the "expected" math of PF2. A +1 to hit might not seem like much, but with the new critical hit rules, it's a big difference in overall damage. It looks like a pretty big "mistake" to have outside the build as the math changes a fair amount with two those included -- I expect that wasn't a mistake on his part as it makes the to-hit and damage much higher for the PF2 Ranger vs. the 5e Ranger. "So I'm replacing the word 'best' here with 'most obvious' set of actions, and I think it describes what I think I'm talking about even better. It's the most obvious choice of actions." RESPONSE: What is interesting in his example is that he's assuming this is the "most obvious" attack option. It's AN option, but there are many others as well depending upon the battlefield conditions, what the other PCs are doing, how many creatures there are, and so forth. This is probably a "good" option for a very simple combat with obvious choices, but by no means is this the "best/most obvious" option. "In this instance, I'm assuming the Ranger has a short sword equipped instead of a rapier for that versatile trait to deal slashing if need be and because the shortsword has the Finesse trait so they can use their dexterity modifier in place of the strength. That gives us a single attack at a 80% chance to connect with the same 30% crit chance as the bow's first strike, and guess what? A single attack at 55% chance with 5% chance of that being our critical range." RESPONSE: Again, no +1 weapon potency rune? At Level 5, most melee-based PCs only have one striking rune, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the "extra" rune went to the Fighter instead. "the Grapple would be a -5, and it would, of course, use the ranger's Strength not their Dexterity modifier, and the ranger would also be prone" RESPONSE: He got several items wrong in this example. If the Ranger grapples the Wight, the Ranger does NOT become prone. In addition, only the Wight suffers from the Grabbed condition, NOT the Ranger. This is actually a very common rules mistake as PF1 had both parties being "grabbed" when one does the grabbing action. However, in PF2 this is no longer true. I have covered this rule in my podcast and have it confirmed by Paizo on how it works. "Now, the wight, of course, doesn't need to be standing to use the Strike action, so it only takes a -2 to hit the ranger who is grabbing, but technically the ranger also has the prone condition that's actually a wash" RESPONSE: Incorrect, only the Wight has the -2 to their AC and the flat-footed condition. The Ranger does NOT suffer from this condition, even though they are grabbing the Wight. "It's not just that the other options are worse, notice how I used the word worse and not bad, is that they are so much worse than choosing them clearly, purposely, extending the combat for the group unnecessarily." RESPONSE: So basically, he argues that the first attack option is the only option that makes sense, period. Perhaps the Ranger wants to move up to the Fighter (1 action), heal them using Battle Medicine (1 action when using a bandolier, again confirmed by Paizo on our show), and then attack/trip/grab the Wight (1 action). Or maybe you want to use a Ranger Focus Spell? Or maybe move into a Flank to help the Fighter? Or maybe move in and try to trip the Wight to help out the others if the Ranger went right after the Wight and can then give the entire party a +2 to hit for the rest of the round? It's completely disingenuous to say that Option 1 is the ONLY option used by the Ranger because it's the "best/most obvious" option. "The 5e ranger, unlike the Pathfinder 2e in this snapshot does actually have an additional concern: spacing." RESPONSE: Not correct. He forgot to mention in all of his examples the Volley condition on the Longbow used above. Volley requires the Ranger to be 30-feet away; otherwise, they take a -2 attack penalty. "but because of the games mechanics and how the game is designed and how the feats work versus the basic combat choices presented to us by Paizo, none of those options are really to even close to being genuinely decent options in combat as just standing there and shooting your bow because the feats that you've taken." RESPONSE: If you don't like the feats you've taken, then retrain. It's in the core rules and very simple to do. "unlike our Pathfinder example, might dissuade the wight from piling into the fighter's combat because the 5e ranger could then trigger an opportunity attack." RESPONSE: PF2 Fighters also get Attack of Opportunity, not sure why that was completely ignored. The point is that Taking20 seemed to adjust the numbers for PF2 to make it APPEAR to be similar to 5e (it's not), assumed that ONE option and only ONE option is the "best/most obvious" option (it's not), that Grab somehow makes the Ranger prone and grabbed (it does not), and so forth. I am sure that nothing I will say will persuade anyone, but I would like Taking20 at least to get their "assumptions" and PF2 rules correct.
Thank you! Also folks looking for a direct response should see this video was posted on the PF2 subreddit with the title: "I remade the example Taking20 gave in his last video, showing how many options the player had in that simple encounter" th-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/w-d-xo.html&feature=emb_logo
I've said this elsewhere but comparing a CR 3 in DND to a level 3 in pf2e is not equivalent. Given the encounter building guides for a moderate challenge equates to 4 wights in pf2e and 2 wights in dnd 5e. That changes the math for the systems to be internally consistent and comparable.
I can't be bothered watching Cody's recent video. What I do know is that sometimes my level 7 Ranger uses Hunted Shot with a bow. Sometimes Disrupt Prey with an axe and sometimes Skirmish Strike. No two combats are the same. Maybe I even need to use Battle Medicine to save our Cleric... I have said this before but it's worth repeating - Unimaginative players is not a system issue
You're essentially proving him right with this response. It's so drenched in "*snort* actually" it seems almost done on purpose. His point does not lose momentum because he forgot to mention the must have or 'optimal' runes, if anything throwing that in makes his point even stronger. You're dissing him for not being optimal LOL.
Not sure he said all PF2 PC end up the same compared to each other. I heard what he was saying was they are the same ... throughout all levels. The PC plays the same at 1st level and 10th level. Same rotation... iver and over. Not saying the ranger and the rogue and the fighter and the wizard were all the same. That was DnD 4e
Yeah, this video got it all wrong. Cody said that the issue with PF is that the 'optimal' choice is too obvious, so the players don't have any reason to deviate from the one leveling path designed for each class
What I got from his two vids was not that each class was balanced well to one another but the synergies made combat one dimensional for the players I think your suggestion of designing encounters as puzzles to be solved is spot on
I think a lot of people missed Cody's point, probably because he didn't really state it clearly up front. His main issue is simply this - There is a very obvious set of choices to make both in combat and in building a character. Not because of lack of creativity or hyper min/maxing, but because the other options are SO punishing that it's just a bummer to go with them. His example comparing 5th ed was meant to demonstrate how 5e has similar obvious choices, but the other choices are not always as punishing. I get the "make a sub-optimal character and have fun with it" thing. I do it a lot. But sometimes people just want to play that Aragorn fantasy. Problem is they can't choose to forego shooting a bunch of arrows (or whatever) and attempt to catch the Orc's dagger and throw it back at him because it is SO sub-optimal it will extend the combat and have this negative cascade effect on the group and encounter. More so then in other systems, where maybe it's not so punishing and it just becomes a cool thing to try. (Disclaimer - This is just an example to illustrate the point. I have no interest in figuring out how this exact scenario would play out in different systems. Just an example.)
The only thing Cody demonstrates is that if you want to specialize in archery you can do so in PF. What he doesn't say is you can ALSO not ultraspecialize and be successful anyway while having more options. Let's take his ranger "example" (that, btw, was cherry-picked, biased and managed to misrepresent the options avaiable to a PF ranger while conveniently forgetting abot PF rules like "deadly d10" and "volley" for longbows): a human ranger in PF can have 2 ranger feats at level 1, there are other options but this is the most powerful one avaiable. Since we are talking about "optimized builds" the PF ranger should be a human with the "versatile heritage" (+1 general feat at character creation) and the "natural ambition" ancestry feat (+1 class feat). If you want to do a bow ranger in PF2 you take the "hunted shot" class feat (and Cody did) but then, in an optimized build, you ALSO have a second class feat. By CRB, at lvl 1 you can choose among 5 different ranger class feats. If you want to be a switch hitter you also get "twin takedown" (the same as hunted shot but for 2 weapon rangers), if you want to be more of a team player you take "monster hunter" (gives you the option to increase your and your allies chance to hit your target if you suceed at a recall knowledge check), "crossbow ace" is powerful allright but works with crossbows so it's not an option here, and of course you can have an animal companion thanks to the appropriately named feat "animal companion". In other words, no other option avaiable to an optimized PF ranger at level 1 directly increases the bow proficency of said ranger but it has other options not thematically conflicting with bow use (like having an animal companion or being an expert in hunting monsters) it can and should take. Now, try to picture Cody "example" with a real PF 2E ranger instead of the nerfed version he utilized for his example. From lvl 1 that ranger has other options than just going through the same routine. Just adding an animal companion in the simulations he presented completely changes the picture since now the PF ranger has way more options at its disposal and can effectively hinder the wights while shooting and keeping the distance (which btw should be more than 30 ft... in PF bows are penalized if you are that near to your target, also, Cody "forgot" abot the "deadly d10" rule longbows have, which make you roll an extra d10 every time you suceed at critically hitting something). So you see Cody just wanted to be right (while, in my opinion, being a dishonest bully about it) and framed his example in a way that made him right, knowing fully well 90% of his audience was made of people playing D&D 5E and had zero interest in learning a different (and admitedly more complex) system like Pathfinder is. As a side note this video is actually right when claiming that in PF2E teamwork is more effective than building a super PC winning encounters all on its own like it was possible in D&D 3+ and PF1 (which btw was also called D&D 3.75). The way the math works giving opponents negative statuses like flat footed or increasing the to hit chance or making AoOs trigger is often preferable to attacking 3 times in a row (with the third attack almost never hitting).
Actually his main point was that if he is going to play a system where the characters eventually end up in a "set rotations" he might as well use the more simpler system. which he then used PF2 to compare 5E and showed that even though both systems will fall into this whole using the obvious rotation in combat every turn that 5E was just simpler to run and enjoy and felt less punishing. the entire thing comes down to using a simpler system because all the extra work and math and illusion of choices making the game more complicated to achieve the exact same thing another simpler system will do is just a pain and doesnt feel good.
@@Zertryx yes but that's actually not really true UNLESS you build for specialization in which case you repeating your moves over and over is a pretty obvious consequence of your choice. Fact is despite what Cody claims in PF you don't absolutely "need" to specialize to survive. Also, claiming PF2E is bad because of the illusion of choice is simply false. Keeping up with the archer ranger's example, check out the ranger class for PF2E: there are a few "mandatory" feats you need in order to be great at shooting arrows, the rest you can use to make your build more versatile increasing your effective options. At the same time you need to keep in mind PF2E favors teamplay over just making you more powerful than your opponents. Doing "your thing" and ingnoring the rest of the party is never a great idea in a RPG but PF2E actually makes this hard to pull off. This may not appeal to everyone, but it has nothing to do with the so called "illusion of choice", because in combat you actually have to think about the "best strategy" which changes based on encounter and that means repeating the same routine over and over in some cases is just going to put you at a disadvantage. That said, yes, D&D 5E is a simpler game system where you have to deal with less rules and that makes it easier and more immediate to run and play it. As a trade off you have less choice (meaningful choice, mind you) than in PF2E though. This simplicity is by itself one of the greatest strengths of D&D 5E, one that made the system accessible and appealing to a lot of new people who don't want (or don't have the time) to learn a whole complex system. Personally I accept this and I also think it's fine that players favor the simpler system over the more complex one, what I don't like is for people like Cody to claim PF2E is bad because of a nonexistent "illusion of choice", a concept I find expecially egregious after listening to a guy who insults those who disagree with him (mostly respectfully as far as I can tell), belittles their arguments, calls them "commoners", ignores rules and cherry-picks an "example" where he proceeds to make it seem he's right while conveniently "forgetting" about a plethora of factors that would prove he's wrong because the PF2E simply has more options than a 5E archer ranger from the start (i.e. taking hunted shot and animal companion at level 1, which increases the amount of viable tactical options you have quite a bit compared to Cody's example)
@@Tulkash01 Wait, is your example saying that, if you build an extremely specific race and background combination, you can effectively have twice as many class feats as another equivalent level ranger, and thereby pack in a whole additional ranger worth of ranger options into your character....and THAT is what gives you real options? Whoosh. Cool, I guess, but pointing to such a min maxed option a novice or even intermediate player might not think of, or discard because it isn't actually what they want to play, and saying, see this works fine...as long as you take this one option, you have options seems like pretzel logic..tied in knots. Correct me if I'm off, I picked up the 2E playtest book, played it once, and put it back down and went back to first. But..it seems a touch convoluted...
@@jaredkelly4866 Humans in PF2E are equivalent to variant humans in D&D 5E, they can get more feats than other races. And no, right at the start with the correct human build you can get +1 general feat (no other race can have a general feat at level 1 but they are different and generally less powerful than class feats) and +1 class feat (other races get a single class feat at level 1). Obviously other races get other stuff which may be powerful but is less customizable and in the course of play the gap between what feats a human gets and another race gets tends to grow smaller. That said, humans are probably the most common race in play and therefore cannot be considered "extremely specific". A built with an hobgoblin or a leshy may be "extremely specific" but a built with a human is just "the most common one avaiable", really.
It seemed his problem was players using the same abilities every combat. That's going to happen in Every RPG. In DnD 5e the Warlock casts Eldritch Blast/Hex, the Ranger uses Hunters Mark & the Wizard casts Fireball! If anything, PF2e takes these things and builds upon them making everything more dynamic.
I enjoyed this. Your comments on team work made me think about my group. In the beginning we found combat really hard and discussed strategy like flanking and taking down one opponent together. I often play support characters so we start with some teamwork but as we have played more I definitely see how working together is how we have made it to book 6 of Ashes. I don't even think it is conscious but it is definitely there and we are a tight party. So, I think you are right team work and strategy make a huge difference in 2e. I love it and it has never felt like I'm repeating the same actions.
"All the classes feel the same" is... not his actual complaint, though? It's that once you've specialized into a build, all combats with that particular character feel the same because the math encourages you to focus on the One Thing you're good at.
In one video he had a specific example of the Ranger, but if you combine what he was saying between the two videos, he was saying that with all classes there was only one "optional" way to play each class. Hence, each class would feel the same in the sense that you only had one path to follow ... i.e. the "illusion of choice" he was talking about. I also broke down the Ranger in my pinned post above, but I extrapolated what he was saying to all of the PF2 classes.
It's almost like it simulates a character having strengths and weaknesses, instead of being able to do everything all the time. If only there was a group of people that could make specialized characters that compliment each other.
@@RollForCombat No that's not his point at all, being able to make 50 different rangers or only 1 different ranger has no bearing whatso ever on his complaint. His complaint is specifically that take any of those 50 different rangers and put them in 20 different combats with different monsters, different terrains, different condition and that particular ranger will do the exact same thing in each of those 20 different combats. Sure what they do might be different from a different ranger but that doesn't matter because the player isn't playing a different ranger, they are playing their ranger, and that player is just doing the exact same thing in every combat, the mechanics never ask that player to consider doing something other than their particular specialty.
@@RollForCombat in your video you really did not clarify this. It sounded like a disingenuous take of what he was arguing. That every combat falls into a repetitive rhythm because builds result in the same set of actions being obvious/best/optimal. With so many of these reply videos misintepreting I feel like we watched different taking 20 videos.
I think cody's approach really is telling of his playstyle. maybe its cause i mainly play casters, but i feel like im very rarely doing the same thing in every combat. the idea of pursuing only the most optimal perceived strategy is such a depressing way to look at an rpg i feel. when making a character my concern is rarely ever "how can i do the most damage" as opposed to "what sort of interesting character can i make". one of the characters im playing now is a kobold poison draconic sorcerer with poisoner archetype thats focused heavily on melee combat. could i do more damage if i kept to the back and just threw fireballs at things? probably, but it would be less fun
He wasnt saying that the classes arent different. He was saying that once you go down a certain path with your character your stuck doing the one thing youve developed and that it's so much worse doing anything else youd be purposefully handicapping yourself to try.
The argument above is completely disingenuous as retraining in PF2 is extremely easy to do and part of the core rules. You are never "stuck" doing anything you don't want to do in PF2. In our Three Ring Adventure podcast, the character Hap has retrained her character nearly every level because new books have been coming out while we have been playing and she wanted to try out new abilities and feats. Nobody is ever "stuck" doing anything in PF2, ever.
@@RollForCombat @Roll For Combat no YOU are very disingenuous since none of these people talked about retraining, nobody mentioned retraining . you are litterally putting words into people's mouth, stop it, it won't make your argument any better. nobody talked about ''being stuck'' that's just you not understanding the argument, nobody talked about PF2e as if: you have no choice, what was said there is NO INTERRESTING CHOISE, what is this bullshit that you're just pulling out of your ass???? at this point just admit you never watched the original video or the follow-up, you missed so much and left so much out, it's telling.
@@RollForCombat yeah, the argument Cody was making is that whatever choices you made, as long as you are playing a non-caster, when you are in combat, you are limited to doing the same thing. He didn't argue that classes were the same, nor that things weren't changeable when you level. I think there are a ton of problems with that argument, but that's what needs to be addressed.
I 100% agree with you. Pathfinder 2e is much more fun when the players communicate during tactical combat. In fact, I think the thing that Cody criticises is the core essence on what makes this part of the game so accessable. The fact that your character build wants to go for a sequence of moves every turn might be boring in a vacuum but when you know what your ally wants to do you can start to use your turn to enable them. Optimizing a character for damage solo makes no sense to me. I want to build a character who works well with the party. Love your podcasts. You guys are really chill. It clearly shows that you are very experienced.
I just finished a session where we took down a boss. Mid combat I relayed information to remove trophies it was carrying that were giving it power and pulled attention away from the giant so that we could cut them off so it would stop it’s regen. They were more specialized to take the task ahead (one of the guys I gave a special weapon mid battle to that helped GREATLY in this context) while I drew its attention, which played out over two hours and ended with one PC summoning a giant spider to pin it down with webs, pulling the last totems off, and poisoning it while it had other debuffs applied to it which ultimately killed it. It was fucking awesome, and I couldn’t imagine it going any other way. That’s why love it. A good DM will recognize this strength as well an will make the sessions fucking amazing with that in mind.
Exactly. That's the experience I have with pf2e group assaults worked sooo much better than the front line fighters just going in. I'll have to say pf2e needs to be mastered much much more than d&d 5e (which IMO has spoiled these players into making it too easy and when you play a harder system you get frustrated when (in the case of Cody's group) you get a tpk.
I spotted my players playing as individuals so i gave them the accidental meat grinder method. One spell/ability accidentally combining with other spells and abilities. It took my group a couple of attempts to understand what I was doing but some of the smarter ones got creative and I rewarded them. Eventually they all realised what was happening and began working together and becoming scary. Then my job was to slow their murder rates and make it so mass slaughter did not become the only solution.
I think a genius and fun way to introcude the "teamwork makes the dream work" thing is: if the campaign allow it: make an arena fight, but instead fo the pc vs a other group, make it like a competition: pc group vs a other group, who needs to fight other groups and which of the main group success in speed or in hps or so, wins stuff the pc group plays like the pc and the npc group, who is 1:1 like the players, like same classes, same abilities and stats and so use teamwork and so, maybe not perfect or they are weaker, so the players win maybe, ift hey do it right 15:50 I think the reason is: most teamwork stuff reduces the "level" of the enemy by 1 or two like frightion: -1 to like everything. except for feats and improvement, you are 1 level lower I often go like it: if the enemy takes a -1 or -2 to something, they are like one or two levels lower in that area, as that is the best to describe it. lvls are going always up by 1 and they are involved in everything 23:04 I think the same is like with superman: a superhero with no weakness isn't fun, so cryptonit got invented so he has a weakness and combat should be usual spicy: players should feel a bit in danger, but if they don't go dumb, they should win it. someone said it should be like players have 55% to win or to hit. still tighty, but the players can feel strong once and a time, but still feel one or two hits back
I think you're misunderstanding what he's saying. He's not saying that the 9th level character is no more powerful than the lower level versions of itself but rather that the optimal choice is still the same. The 9th level version is still using the exact same rinse/lather/repeat set of actions and that the intervening levels didn't offer viable/competitive options to use instead. That same ability is indeed stronger at 9th than at 1st but the issue is that it's still by far the optimal choice to use by far.
You're a little late to this one. But you deserve at least one like for it nonetheless. I really enjoyed how many PF2E Supporters came out to appropriately call Taking20 out on this nonsense. I particularly enjoyed theruleslawyer's video on it , the title of that video escapes at the moment. I'll make an edit if remember 😂.
Your healing after a rest is CON(min. of 1)×your level. And CON is used for hitpoints and fortitude saves. The heal spell is powerfull enough, the 2 action version being capable of giving around 40-50% of someones health back and treat wounds can be repeated and buffed with skill feats
That wasn't his argument though? He said that his issue was his players did the same thing all the time in combat, not that every class was the same. This entire video is a misrepresentation of what he said and I don't even think he's right.
@@johnwolfe7596 lol let me just respond in how you're wrong. What!! That's not what you said? Well I never said I was talking about THAT part. Just dodging doesn't make it right
Yeah, the argument being presented here doesn't address taking20s. In fact, it arguably amplifies his point. If teamwork plays such a heavy role in PF2 combat, then when players take suboptimal actions in combat, it punishes EVERYONE not just you. Taking20s point is not suddenly made moot by having THE ENTIRE PARTY form a rotation
Great video! I wrote down the TEAMPLAY aspect on a different notepad and totally forgot to mention it in my response. I am so glad you covered the secret sauce in your video!
I hate to sound mean or rude, but there is one of two things going on in your video. 1. You completely missed Cody’s point as if you didn’t watch his videos on this. 2. You are being disingenuous and not even talking about what Cody said because there is no defense against it, he proved his point with math. Now to be fair in your first pinned comment you did actually go through what he said much better than your video, but still missed the point. Cody was not talking about power of your characters as you level, he was not saying that each class feels the same, he was saying that every character does the same thing throughout the game because it’s the most optimal choice. And this is by no small margin as he shows with the math. He doesn’t say that you CAN’T do anything else, but that anything else feels like you’ve wasted a turn compared to your optimal action. The runes wouldn’t change this either, as they would keep the % differences between the PF2E’s Ranger choices the same. I’m not here to defend Cody either, before the second video I felt he was being partial even though he said D&D 5e isn’t perfect and has similar issues. But once his second video came out you cannot argue the math, it’s just factual information. The one thing you said that would slightly change things is that the Ranger grappling the Wight would not prone the Ranger. But it would still be noticeably better for the Ranger to just attack as Cody says.
He didn't prove anything with math when the math is wrong. The rules are incorrectly applied. And every issue he has is purely a player/dm issue not a mechanics issue. It's all subjective.
The major problem is that not only isn't his information factual (since his math was wrong and ignored rules), his example was the clear definition of cherry-picking. His entire experiment was assembled for him to display his point, while ignoring very fundamental rules and options the system provides that would end up debunking his entire argument. He not even once clarified that you can build your ranger in a non specialized way (but still optimal), that can have a more versatile approach to combat. He used an example of a ranger specialized in archery, in a system that allows for ultra specialization, and compared to a system where characters are by default more versatile. This is incredibly dishonest and will fool anyone that didn't bother to check the system beforehand, for the exact reason you mentioned - because he used "the maths and stuff"... That entire "scientific show" he put on was akin to flat-earther experiments on a bathroom. It will fool people who are not versed enough to counter-argue it. What bothers me is that all he achieved was discouraging potential consumers from ever trying out that system. But given that 90% of his viewers are 5e players, I guess that in the end it will only serve as confirmation bias anyway...
You know. We not long ago played the box set for a new GM. We stumbled upon the boss fight ahead of time. I told everyone to stay in the room. I stood at the door forcing the Gremlin horde to bottle neck. Missile folk pounded past me, spellcasters pounded on monsters and buffed us. It was glorious, and the GM was blown away by is surviving. It also help I Crit on a Spellstrike on the boss lol
@@TheMysticLemur I dunno. At about level 28 or so, each round of combat took about 90 minutes. When we were at 30, I remember one session in particular where we got 3 rounds accomplished in the entire session. Every single turn, there were 10 or so immediate actions.
@@jameswhite3043 Yeah, we used a virtual tabletop, and frankly I don't know how anyone could play high level 4e or a similar game without one. I certainly couldn't play pf2 without one. Aint nobody got time to track all that stuff by hand.
You are missing the point. The problem is not the math being tight, nor the characters being weak or feeling the same. The point was as follows: in Pathfinder 2E there is a set of actions for each character in combat so superior to every other choice, that almost invalidates doing anything else. So much so, that his players were getting bored of doing the same things in every fight. The math he shows is just a way to ilustrate his point. We were not talking about minmaxing or balance. The math shows that with a normal class using his most natural/common build, doing anything but said set of actions is way worse than anything else the character Is able to do, making you feel like you are not doing your part or like if you have just made a poor decision. The most inmediate comparation, 5ED&D, even being repetitive and having the same issues, doesn't come close to having such an incredible difference between said optimal actions and other alternatives. As such, it feels like the players have much more options. Also, 5E is able to archive almost anything Pathfinder does with half of the rules, and gives much more roleplaying freedom to his players. So between two sistems that have the problem of being repetitive, why would you choose the one that limits your players the most?
He compared one build of a 2e ranger against THE 5e ranger. He spent a lot of time and math showing that a bow ranger shouldn't use a sword, while also showing that there is no meaningful difference between a 5e bow ranger or a sword ranger. The ranger example that consumed so much time and math didn't even take into account that the 2e ranger can also use his core mechanic in melee. He compared a 5e ranger acting optimally in melee to a 2e ranger that wasn't. Of course the 2e ranger will be lacking. But somehow the fact that you can (have to?) build your character towards a strategy means that there is an "illusion" of choice vs a character that doesn't have to make any choices, because all 5e rangers are equally effective right out of the box. Pathfinder 2e allows you to build for strange or flavorful builds as well. You want to make a combat wizard? 2e supports that. You want to make a finesse barbarian? 2e supports that. You want have two or more characters of the same class in your party that feel like different characters? 2e supports that. The choice isn't illusory. You get tired of TURNING INTO A T-REX ALL THE TIME (omgwtf)? Then you can completely retrain your character using options already built into the game!
@@TheMysticLemur Yes, he compared one build to the class without taking into account all the options that the subclasses gives you. Do you really belive that giving the 5e Ranger access to even more options that are equaly valuable in a fight is going to make the comparation better for the 2e ranger? Because remember, no matter what you choose as a ranger in 5e, all of your habilites except the fighting style and some feats can be use with a bow or a sword. And he does mention the archery fighting style, so he is actually focusing in the same type of ranger. But this is not the point, nor the fact that you can build original or strange characters (btw every build you have listed is also possible in 5e). When he mentions the "ilusion of choice" he is not refering to the way of building your character nor that you are forced to build it like this or that. Not in any of his videos does he say that. He's talking exclusively about your options in combat. About how, when you have a set build, doing anything else but what the build is supposed to do is so much worse that it feels like you are doing something wrong, aka, you are forced to do it in order to be usefull. "You can do anything you want in this complex battle simulator, but doing this three things over and over in every encounter against any enemy outshines everyting else you might think of at such a degree that not doing it feels wrong". That's the ilusion. Remember, the 5e Ranger is still more usefull with a bow in Taking20 build. But, for the sake of argument, let's say I build my ranger to be fully ranged. Max dex, archery fighting style, gloom stalker, sharpshooter feat. Yes, I will be much more powefull using a bow, yet it doesn't feel like you are usseles when you decide to do something else. I might not be as effective, but I'm effective to the point that It becomes an option to fight with swords or to grapple the enemy. Also, when the enemy closes the distance, I'm forced to make a choice. A difficult choice. Do I move and risk taking an oportunity attack, maybe losing concentration? Do I keep using my bow at dissadvantage, making me far more likely to miss? Do I swich to a sword, doing much less damage but making me much more accurate? Let's do the same in Pathfinder. Max dex, Hunted shot, hunter's aim, far shot. I am now very powerfull at ranged combat, as the 5e version, and worthless at anything else. So why would I do anything else? Even when the enemy gets close, my best option is still shoothing with the bow in the same way I've been doing until now. YET STILL, even if you want to ignore, contradict or deny everything I said, this is not the fact that made him not want to play anymore, since he also says that 5e is guilty of the same at some degree. The things is, if I have two roleplaying games, both slightly underwelming and repetitive, why would I choose the one that limits roleplaying the most and forces you to memorize more rules? This is the most important point, yet nobody defending Pathfinder 2e talks about it. Maybe because he's right.
@@swarleymanlagranbombilla9575 Maybe because many of us stuck with Pathfinder 1e over 5th edition because we prefer the complexity and what we feel it adds to the game. Those of us who still prefer 2e over 5th edition still prefer that complexity and what it adds to the game. Character building feels like a game all on it's own. You can plan your build, decide what to focus on, and be good at that. Yes, spending resources to be good at something should mean you are worse at other things. Yes, if you are really good at shooting a bow, that's probably what you're going to be spending most of the fight doing. If you build for Intimidation, you had better like doing that at least once per round as well. Same with grappling, or spellcasting, or any other damn thing you decide you want to do when you make the character. And if you change your mind, there's a way already built into the game to change your focus and try something new. Why do we spend so much time debating something that "wasn't the point?" Maybe because he spent so much time whinging about it in the first place. Either his "real" point is not really his point, or his exceedingly long, passionate video could have been done in five.
Broken characters are always more fun. Many players, at least "back in my day" (I started TRPGs in 79 for a one shot, but regularly in 81) avoided this because if you did it, DMs would use that weakness to kill your character off. If you can get a DM who's willing to let you fail repeatedly without it being fatal, then playing the "Bad New Bears" vs Thanos is always more fun than showing up with the Avengers to a 7-11 robbery.
Just a kind of point that threw me off. I'm a bit OCD. The first box set was Basic and the classes were Mage, Thief, Fighter, Cleric, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. Paladin came with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Rangers and Bards came in Advanced DnD but were a combination of classes (Ranger=Druid/Fighter and Bard, I can't even remember). Barbarians and some classes didn't show up until the first Unearthed Arcana book in the 80s. All this to say, DnD was pretty much a hot mess until 3.0 where Monte Cook, Sean Reynolds and crew started to solidify rules.
Just wanted to say I appreciated this insight. I know this is an old video. But I wasn't aware of your channel back then. I had a very similar response to Pathfinder 2 as Cody from Taking 20. I never understood why people enjoyed P2. But this video... plus a new and better understanding of the 3 action system helped me appreciate the game more. Its still not for me, but I'm not as judgemental now.
In your chess analogy, you forgot that if the magic-user got a pawn to the back rank, it would promote into 3 queens... so by the end the magic-user could have a dozen queens vs. the fighters 8 rooks.
Hahah yes. Wizards sucked till level 5 but then quickly dominated after that. That is why they had to get almost twice the experience to reach 20th lvl
My group still run pathfinder 1st but were a large group(6+gm) so scale up a lot of purchased content and constantly rebalance encounters. GMing our groups is chaos, half will mix max and half will make janky heroes. Hell they'll split up when they shouldn't and it's all equally wonderful as it is stupid. 1st ed adventure paths keep us going even with a lot of work to shape to our group. One day we may drift to 2nd ed pf but tbh after 15+ years with 3/3.5/pathfinder we are kinda content and break it up with cthulu, adventure age, fallout, star wars and other systems. I don't want to disparage any single role play system not every system is for everyone. Maybe this guy running from 2nd ed pf is for the best, maybe 1st ed would suit him better 🤔 But pazio gambled in moving away from D&D 3rd as honestly i feel it's a sweet spot in terms of balancing what i personally want from pnp rpgs. But as i said what's good for me isn't nessisarily good for everyone i like rolling dice with friends be it in world of darkness or dark herasy, i just like the escapism of advemture story telling.
Honestly this seems kind of obvious. While rarely used outside of hunters teamwork feats are one of the most powerful tools in the game. By making it more mobile and team oriented teamwork feats seem like a more optimal choice. Heck, in the kingmaker video game there are a lot of teamwork feats. I played in several games where the party tried to be a group of solo heroes in 1e. I would build something like a stone lord paladin with a reach weapon. The idea being that I stand as a linchpin that the rest of the party stands beside and hit things with attacks of opportunity as they come in and the rest of the party picks them apart once they are close. What happens instead? They spend 2 turns buffing themselves and charge in two different directions. I play a luck cleric with all sorts of party buffs and aura spells. What does the pary do? Spreads out to try and flank a enemy group and have to fight on two fronts with only one group being able to damage the demons cause the other guys don’t have good aligned weapons. It seems 2e is made for my play style just so long as I don’t have that group again.
He didnt say all classes feel the same. He said in building the choices are limited in that there is only one bow ranger build and then in combat the most powerful combat sequence remain best and is too good. Other combat option are massive downgrades in damage output and character safety.
Yes, and he did so giving a cherrypicked example that conveniently ignored A LOT of stuff a PF ranger can do (at level 1 an “optimized” PF2 bow ranger can ALSO have an animal companion which obviously gives the player of said ranger quite a lot more options than what a 5E ranger’s player gets) while at the same time “forgetting” about other PF rules (like volley for bows). The problem here is a lot of people believe what Cody claims because he confirms their bias and have 0 interest in learning if he’s actually telling them the truth). P.S. Cody has one thing right: PF2E is much more rules heavy than D&D 5E. This alone makes the latter game better suited for some players and GMs than the former
Go ahead make your own response video on P2 e tactics that shows significant tactical choices are roughly equal. You would the first since none of the other response deal with this.
@@michaelciantar2674 I don't have the time nor the motivation for doing such thing and btw at least one of those videos has been posted in this very same discussion thread. Also, I'm actually saying FF2E gives more significant options than what D&D 5E does, unless, of course, you build to specialize in one thing and one thing only despite that not being "optimal" at all in PF2E
A fascinating retrospective on different fantasy systems over the years, and your own journey through the evolution of group Dynamics and teamwork. Bravo. It also had practically nothing to do with the source video you are theoretically responding to. Good points you are making, but tangential to the other videos at best.
This video explains why I hate superman players. "It doesn't feel as powerful" if hitting harder is what you mean by powerful why are you even playing RPGs?
1:13 That’s not what he said. He was talking about all characters based on what feet they take emend up developing a repetitive play style because to take any other action than those that focus on benefits granted by the feet greatly impact the survivability of your character.
That's not what he said. In fact, it's not even close. He said the most optimal way for a character to fight almost never changes. He said there is only so many ways to build up a character that no matter what you do, you'll end up doing repeating the same set of actions every turn. He never said optimizing or min maxing. In fact he said exactly the opposite of that. Min max or don't min max, all characters end up the same.
I'm mostly annoyed about this whole debacle because I had gotten tired of taking 20's videos long ago(they... Weren't really informative about 5e and were kind of clickbaity and generic), so I'm not going to start watching them just to take part in this conversation :p So its annoying to watch people arguing back and forth about what was said or not said. Like over here I'm just like "Why the heck he couldn't have just presented his opinions as opinions rather as fault in system and avoid edition flame wars". Like roleplayers always get touchy when someone claims their favorite system isn't good for roleplaying :p
He wanted the flame war, it drives views for his channel. I originally got annoyed by Cody's video until I realized that the beginning of it told the whole story: COdy hates the fact that he's not on WOTC's radar and he doesn't get free stuff from them, while smaller content creators do. IMO this was all a tactic for attention from D&D higher ups. I'm done with Cody and his channel
@@davidbamatter7334 I don't think it's really about clickbait tbh, which is part of the issue with his aggression and disdain of 2e. The point of clickbait is to pull in people who would otherwise not watch your content and even hate it through causing controversy. The PF2e audience is nowhere near big enough to generate revenue from clicks or sway the algorithm enough to have him pop up more. If he really wanted to drive up clickbait, he'd condemn 5e and put 2e on a pedestal, like he did in his initial 5e vs 2e video; THAT was good clickbait. I think this is just him having investment in Paizo's products and feeling insecure about his own opinion about a game system he wasn't able to fully grasp. He obviously puts a lot of stock in his ability to understand multiple systems, but really, it's pretty clear to anyone who's actually played 2e that he just wasn't understanding the system. So instead of being humble and bowing out gracefully, he had to make a big deal about it to validate himself amongst people who haven't actually played the system (i.e. most of his audience) and then got mad when people who had called him out on it. It's basically the whole Principle Skinner 'am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong' meme in TH-camr/TTRPG form.
@@DanTalksGames disdain?????????? He said he wouldn't discourage anyone from playing 2E he very clearly stated that the issues he has with 2E were for him personally, he still claimed that its a great game.
@@redrumssam5888 yes... that's why he felt the need to make a video about it making a lot of outlandish claims like "my druid player is getting bored just turining into a tyrannosaurus and can't anything else"... with the druid being a full caster with a plethora of good options at its disposal... then he did a second video acting like a bully while claiming that "everyone was talking about my ranger example so here's the math that proves that I'm right!" (while no, most people were talking about the druid example because it was so outlandish) then he proceeds to present a cherry-picked encounter, ignores half the options for a PF2E archer ranger, ignores PF rules for bows and despite all that "proves" the 5E ranger is more or less the same as the PF ranger... Good Job! But of course it works because his audience is composed by vast amounts of people who don't know PF2E, don't want to learn about it and feel reassured that the "influencer" confirmed their bias...
I think you misunderstood the premise of his argument. He said that every character is unique, but once you roll initiative, you will take the same sequence of actions. Player A builds and wizard and Player B makes a ranger, both players will play differently, but Player A will repeat the same combat pattern and Player B will repeat their own combat pattern. The illusion of choice he alludes to is actions in combat, not character creation options.
But it does... his ranger and Druid examples both go for specific builds that dont diversify feat choices which create an optimal path. My ranger has twin strike, hunted shot and, Monster hunter at level 5 with str and dex middling. Gives me lots of flexibility in combat. My sequence of actions depends on the combat.
This video shares his experience that what is most *optimal* is teamwork and cooperation, which is inherently not doing "the same sequence of actions" in a vacuum which Cody's examples were. Cody's examples only looked at individual DPS
@@TheNeoanomally> create an optimal path. > choice during combat. I think you missed the point? The fact you HAVE an optimal path is what makes it boring since the point was it makes "doing damage" the best option VS the rest accomplishes so little
Why is everyone talking about every class' action silo in a vacuum? Where PF2E really shines is in the teamwork. If you're stuck in your action silos and not using teamwork in PF2E, then of course you're going to TPK!
As the person who made the video, I can at least tell you why I made it. The people at Paizo are amazing people. They are some of the most amazing people I have ever meet and they kill themselves making the Pathfinder product so that we can have fun. Paizo is a small company and Pathfinder is their main product. The people at Paizo don't make a lot of money and what they do is literally a passion of love for them all. If Pathfinder fails, then Paizo will fold and bye-bye Pathfinder. Meanwhile, WoTC is owned by Hasbro, which is worth $12.6 billion dollars. D&D makes up a TINY portion of Hasbro AND their D&D division is a fraction of the size Paizo. If D&D disappeared, Hasbro wouldn't even notice. It's that small to them. When Cody, a person with a huge audience and always appearing at the top of the TH-cam search results, comes out with a video that trashes Pathfinder AND Paizo and says "I'm not playing their game anymore because the 9th level spellcaster is BORED playing a dinosaur all the time", it makes my blood boil. Paizo deserves better. Paizo is giving everything of themselves into this product and Pathfinder is their lifeblood. The community and the people at Paizo deserve better. And the part that made me the angriest is when he actually came out and said at the beginning of his video how amazing everyone at Paizo is and how WoTC doesn't give him the time of day. Yet he then goes out of his way to trash Pathfinder 2e with arguments that can be easily be said of nearly ANY RPG with tactical combat. And if your 9th level druid is bored with their character ... then maybe, just maybe, it's not the fault of the system...
I know you’re coming from a good place but you misinterpreted many of his points and arguments, even out of the gate. If you want to defend Paizo that’s amazing, but there’s better ways to do it than misrepresent someone’s argument.
Again with the horrible misrepresentation of Cody's videos and not even a coherent argument on your part. Deciding a game system is not for you and your group is not the same as trashing it. Cody never trashed PF2E, he showed various examples of game mechanics that he disliked playing with. His reasoning had nothing to do with what you claimed. He has not made over an hour of content going into great depth as to what he disliked, the trends that pop up, etc. And he has stated numerous times that other games have the same problems, which is why he would prefer a simpler game rather than a more complex one. You seem to be constantly getting hung up on random points, like the Druid thing, instead of actually responding to points he actually made in his video, it is honestly like you never watched the video and instead are just getting your info from reddit or something. Overall you are just coming off as a fanboy for PF. Someone not thinking PF is a good fit for their table is not them trashing the game or attacking Paizo, and it does not mean that they think D&D is better. And even if they do think 5e is better why do you care?
What I don't get is why everyone is talking about class' action silos in a total vacuum. Where PF2E really shines is in the teamwork. If you're stuck in your individual action silos and not using teamwork in PF2E, then yeah, it's only a matter of time before your party experiences a TPK.
@@JuddsonIvines thats not what Taking20s video was about at all, so I have no idea why its being brought up. Especially since he went over it even more in his second video
Well, at least that makes the dissonance between what various people are observing between forums make more sense. You've been refreshingly clear. The impetus to publish this wasn't so much "Hey, I have a different perspective or constructive criticism to offer on the points this other person made." And more "Hey, I feel that the points this other person made were critical of the system made by people I personally like, and therefore feel like my 'Team' is being attacked...so I'm going to try and attack/undercut back" Refreshingly self aware and honest. But it doesn't really do much to help shine any informational light onthe issues for those of us who don't play either system, and were just curious without having skin in the game in what appears to be a tribal stand off. Meh.
I know this is an old video. As a board gamer, I appreciate tight math. I remember a time in our 3.5 campaign where one of our group rolled a new chat and as part of the process the rest of our party attacked him. His psionic char wiped the floor with the rest of our party. As to your 4e comments, I will say that while chars feel the same, you can definitely break your character through poor planning and build choices. I went to a couple of the play days at a local shop. Those were tough one offs and if the other players didn’t show up with optimal choices it was a disaster. Personally I like the system to allow flavor choices that won’t make you suck unless you are trying to make that happen.
But Taking 20 was not wrong even in your example w/the monk & the need to work together it means his best actions are to do the same things each time to make the fighter better. It the illusion of choice sure the monk has cool stuff it can do but the best thing it can do each time is the attack that will aid the fight on the next turn.
Actually no. The combat system is built around the idea that attacking 3 times in a row is suboptimal (you get a -5 to the second attack and a -10 to the third). This means an optimal strategy for PF2E involves doing different things than just attacking and you have useful options for it, unlike what Cody claims.
I'm playing an online town colony character whose ,largely, non-violent cleric who is a cleric and teacher (school marm), carpenter and wood artist so was fun building her and she as a cleric of a deity preferring to avoid combat so is a go to negotiator. It was fun as hell to build. And anyone know an MMO that lets me play a o-violent business person or Quaker cleric who shuns all violence? I also had a power gamer group and solved it with a game that combat and power was useless but they dealt with an evil gods LN cult that were LOVED in the city and never carried weapons (Bane was the deity) serving Tyranny but supported a strong LN tyrant. They killed a cleric and everyone backed hanging them for murder from the beggars to the warlord and in between. The quest was to establish a church of a lesser good deity who was now getting bounties on them in the kingdom. It was a mess.
In the past few years I found the rules for retroclones of B/X and older editions. I've never had more fun playing/DMing!!! I was interested in PF2e at first... but the book is so chunky... ill take my character creation in 10 to 15 minutes lol. Also, I've only had one death in a year and that was the first old school module I played in.
The length of Pathfinders 2E Core Rulebook is roughly the same as the D&D Players Handbook and DMs Guide put together, and contains roughly the same content.
I don't have an opinion on the main topic. I haven't played PF2 yet so I'm neutral. But I have watched both of his videos and listened to this one. And unfortunately your response just doesn't respond to this argument. It misunderstands and misstates his point, and then responds to that instead. I think maybe there's an implicit premise issue? You see his position as having certain implications and you're responding to those without making the connection explicit. That's my charitable guess. Apologies.
DM:"The treasure is the character development you yourself get as a person along with your character's experiences. That is why you lose all of your level 20 equipment and are now naked." PLAYER:"Tomb of Horrors suck! I hate this game!"
Stephen great video. Been listening since 3 Ring started and I gotta say my players had the same realization around level 3. The action economy in PF 2e is so good. That Cody's players keep doing the same thing is a referendum on them not the system.
Sure...but what does that tell you about the game, then? If the onus where to be on Cody's group like you suggest, then the game is sort of wrong too for not being able to curb that behavior and make it obvious that they are doing something wrong. Because that's the problem. You can't point anywhere in the book where it says that Cody and his group where playing the game wrong. If anything they were playing completely right. They are following the system of incentives that PF2 has established for them. Optimization is a core activity in this game; the feat creation system makes it so. PF2, like 5e, like any other trad game, does a very poor job at explaining how to create interesting dynamic combats that don't rely exclusively on the damage per turn vector for success. They just don't provide tools to deviate from that.
I'm at the point where I just find this whole "controversy" kind of funny. I play 2e all the time, and it's like people are talking about a whole different game. Your point about cooperation is right, but isn't that how folks were playing before? If not, why are you even playing with other people? So they can watch you play "solo?" If so, why? And all of the commentary assumes you are playing Paizo's adventures. When you homebrew, you can still have "wade through a sea of goblins" type fights if you want. In fact, those can be super fun precisely because your PCs gets uber powerful. At level 12, you will have something like a +22 to hit. A typical level 8 monster has an AC around 26. This is why you're told not to even bother putting creatures more than 4 levels lower than your players on the board. They won't even be able to hit your players, and your players will routinely one-shot them. So... if you're unsatisfied with the game and have only played published adventures, then the problem is very likely that their adventures (not the game) is not to your taste--Paizo seems to like to make tough, grindy, combat focused adventures. You don't have to play this way. For example, last year, I ran a Middle Earth based game where the players, FOR ALMOST A MONTH, managed to avoid all combat. We have a solid 4 sessions of RP, sneaking around, gathering info. It was kind of fantastic, and it became a mini-game with the players to see how long they could keep the streak going. Another great thing about 2e, is that there are robust mechanics for that kind of game too. It is NOT just a combat system. I mean, there are rules for “making an impression” for God's sake, that’s a ruleset designed by folks that have thought a lot about “social encounters.” There are also a ton of cool things to do in downtime… So, if you’re having the problems described by Cody & others, convert an older older adventure, or (as RFC suggests) give the PCs a level or the very powerful weapons the game assumes they posses. The APs are designed to continually challenge you, not make you feel that your PC is powerful (and vicariously to make you feel that). If you want something different, build it. 2e is a great game, go have fun playing it.
You realize the problem still exists right? Just because you can play a less combat focused adventure doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist in combat. So you've literally either just missed the point entirely or you're blaming the adventures/DMs for how combat work?
@@onedankind8168 As far as I can tell from my own experience, there is no problem. I've played and DM'd 2e a ton, and I just haven't seen the repetition to boredom thing happen at all. Players are constantly doing new things all the time. That's why I find this thing funny. It really seems like a totally different game is being talked about. And, if something like this is happening at your table, it is 100% on the DM for not finding new ways to challenge the players in ways that call for new strategies, even if using a published adventure. If a PC is built to only do one thing well, and each encounter is basically the same, so you keep doing that one thing, yeah, that's going to be damn boring. I put that on poor encounter/adventure design. My advise is, if this is the problem, alter the encounters, change the game. Basically the same fight over and over would be boring in any system. So, if that's the campaign you've chosen to play for some reason, yeah choose a simpler system, so at least you can get through them quickly. For me, it makes more sense to me run combat so its engaging, and you have a ton of options. But if just want to get through the encounters as quickly as possible, OK, go play with Basic/OSR rules. Combat is super fast, and that game is really fun too. Its my second favorite system in fact. Where Cody is completely correct is that, if a system isn't working for you and your group, for whatever reason, than it is best just to move on. It's why I play 2e now, I moved on from another system that just wasn't working. This one is for us, and really well.
@@jameswillaman your players just frequently make decisions that dramatically lower their performance. You’re entire post ignores the math. Yeah of course the dm can force the characters to act differently by eliminating the option to use their best skills through terrain or other engagements. But that’s completely missing the point.
@@onedankind8168 You are confusing adapting to a specific encounter and playing stupidly. And changing up encounters so that players naturally gravitate toward building balanced PCs with varied abilities is exactly the point. Cody is saying the complexity of 2e is pointless because there is really only one way to build and play a PC--you create your optimal rotation. If every encounter you're in is exactly the same, he is right, and your GM is running a suboptimal adventure. If you find yourself facing an array of challenges, he is wrong because optimal builds have blindspots that will sooner or later catch up to the PC. If every problem is a nail, then your players will only build hammers. Out of curiosity, what game(s) do you play, and how do they avoid this problem?
@@onedankind8168 Adapting to a situation by using a different option than your go to move is not playing stupidly, its playing strategically. Cody's point is that the complexity of 2e is useless because there is only one real option to both builds and play, so why bother with all the useless crunch. You're just fooling yourself. He is right, and so are you, if every encounter can be handled the same way with the same tactics. If the situations vary, however, it will naturally lead to characters that are built more flexibly and have more than one tool in their toolbox. If you only ever show your plays a nail, they will only build hammers. Hammering is repetitive and boring. If you present a wide array of problems to solve that can't just be hammered, your players will develop a lot of tools. None of them will be as powerful as the hammer only build, but those type of PCs have blind spots and weakness that make them vulnerable. Sometimes you need a wrench or pliers. And when you do, you'd better not be left holding only a hammer. That's a truly suboptimal bild in this game, and it gets PCs and Parties wiped out. Out of curiosity, what game(s) do you play? And in your favorite system, do you feel like you have a lot of choices that are all equally optimal? Or do you agree with Cody that it is sort of an issue with TTRPGs in general, so why not just deal with a simpler system?
The only thing I agree with him is that the positioning in combat doesnt feel as important compared to something like 5e where every enemy got AoO. If 3 goblins "circle" a wizard then he can just move out, or run away and just attack, or people with ranged attacks can just attack into someones face (With a crossbow for example). And because you can take the move action 3 times you can move like 75 feet which is most of the time enough to move across the battlefield
D&D 5e Wizard's all range spell attacks are with disadvantage and you don't want to fireball yourself so you ask yourself "Do I Disengage and wont cast a spell or do I take 3 opportunity attacks so I can cast a fireball?" and dies from 1d4 brain thinking dmg 👍
@@coolboy9979 Never disagreed. Edited my comment 👍Combat can be fun and D&D 5e has more opportunities to mix things up, but it is not the miracle solution. All games suffers from "Min-maxing the fun out of the game" was it Guild Wars 2, Elder Ring or D&D 5e. Also it depends how player's play how fun the combat is. If you only do the best thing to do and never improvise anything then you are just NPC and when you find the game boring perhaps it is you 👍
The best campaign of my life was 4e and it was roleplay heavy. Your assumptions on 4e are plain wrong, but I appreciate the video and analysis in terms of Pathfinder. :) Btw, Pf2e is 90% borrowing ideas from 4e, as most of the modern adventuring games do. The actual reason people don't like 4e is because it is party based and most of modern players are power gamers. With a group of cooperating beings, 4e is superior by aeons. Still, I love Pf2e and I'm really happy with it, especially for those 4e similarities.
Good video Definitely, a good, experienced DM is needed for this plan to work. The tight numbers helps new DM's, but can hinder experienced ones who aren't ready to bend the rules. And those two types of DM's seem to be the most common.
It’s amazing how many people think because something is written down, that is the end of the story. The number of times you will see someone ask a question somewhere and people will jump down their throat saying you can’t do that because of this rule or that text. Break the fucking game people. You don’t like the math, break jt. Give out +5 weapons. Let em stack the same bonus. Who cares. As the gm it might take a few encounters to balance it back out but it will be just fine. It’s not a board game where it can ruin it. The who point of TTRPG’s is they are super flexible. Stop stressing and do what is fun not what is written down, and you find the balance.
I giggle like a little child every time someone complains about THACO. I guess for people who can't do basic arithmetic it would be very scary and complicated to understand.
It is also depends of the tactics of the the monsters. The monsters should also take advantage of all there abilities and powers. I had this problem as far back as 2 nd edition. I could not challenge them. That is when I went to the monster manual and learn to used tactics and there abilities and powers to there full advantage. they also tend to make there characters like a video game. Complaining that they spam the same powers over and over. I have seen this as far back as 2nd edition Adnd and all the way up to dnd 5e. It is all over the place there. That is why game designers for MMOs took there ideas from dnd and Adnd ! So it has always been there. How many times I have seen players in 2e use the same powers over and over. I looking at you mage.... shield, mage armor, magic missles ! That is why it is up to the GM or DM to come up with tactics that breaks them from there mold. I for some reason get the legolas in my group and who ever plays this character tend to take to take the same group of feats and abilities for his or her Archer. So I find ways to counter the archer in some of his or her attacks legitimately. Or where there feats will not work. I remember making a dungeon with only one fight and it was at the end of the dungeon and the dungeon was field with traps and all kinds of things that challenge them. It comes to how you challenge them and show that each encounter does not half to be the same spam like in a video game.
My thoughts are toward banning D&D Beyond! I would REALLY love to hear analysis on why DnD 2024 color covers have a print-digital discount on d&D Beyond, while alt covers have no similar offer of 2 digital books free with alt cover purchase. It all says to me WoTC is not supporting local stores at all, nor users wanting the alt covers. Digital code with alt cover purchase would be as easy as Ultima Online's CD + code in 1989!!!!! Good grief, it's 2024, folks, digital code with print at local stores, please. It should an extraordinary embarassment to WoTC, but instead stores and content creators are scared crazy to even talk out against WotC. So many ways to do this better!!!! Seems like a full and needed discussion to me. Thanks for all you do!
Bravo. There are so many choices in RPGs today. Find the one that works for you. Or create your own, there's a lot of that going on and it's a perfectly valid option if you have the passion and the skills. Peace.
The optimal "choice" is nearly 200% better than any other choice for combat and it's usually the same thing literally every time. That doesn't even include things like receiving extra attacks because now you're beside the enemy and they don't have to spend an action to move to you now. That's what he means by tight math. Because in 5e the similar example Cody gave the optimal "choice" was only about 40% better than the other choices. That is orders of magnitude less punishing for making different choices. This is basically the entire argument.
This is a great response. I am telling people all the time that Pathfinder 2e is the system that saved me from giving up on TTRPG altogether. I was bored with 3.5 / PF1, and I hated 5e. After nearly 30 years of playing RPG's there just were no systems that were grabbing my attention until PF2 came along. I was a bit hurt by Cody's initial response, and appreciated the clarifying video, but I am not going anywhere either.
Look, I'm a gaming gronard too.. I've been playing since the early 80's. 4e failed because it tried to emulate something it was not. Pathfinder should be well aware of this because that fact was the reason why they exist. The fact of the matter is that if people wanted to grind though an MMO they'd be playing an MMO not reading a 600 page rulebook, trying to organize sessions etc. The hook of table top RPG's for a lot of people is, "I can't wait till I get 'X' ability" or having thier chance to shine in combat. Otherwise, yeah, you might as well be playing a video game that you can have running in 15 minutes at 2am on a Tuesday, if you want.
Ya this "controversy" was fun at first but at this point it's stupid. Literally everyone in the youtube community is dog piling him with dumbass remarks that basically equate to "get gud" "learn to be creative" or just straight up talks about shit he didn't even reference like this video. If you guys like pathfinder, cool beans you do you. But don't sit here and act like your system doesn't have fucking problems and that there aren't actually any issues and that people just need to "get gud" or "learn to rp"
"Balance" is also an "illusion of choice" ! Using the same rules, i can make a better character than many other people, so for "balance" you need to me. If normal characters got 21 points in point buy, you would need to give me 12-15 points for point buy, if you want my character to be balanced!
Just reading through these comments... you kids want to play a different game. Your RPGs should be heavily anti combat if keeping your character alive is so important to min max the crap out of them. If you want to min max to death, play 40k. Such an awful abusive relationship with the dice 🎲 I get attached to my character, I don’t want them to die but it is BORING if they are not in danger.
Fuckng thank you. This war gaming smooth brains who want to only fucking cool fights where they win are not playing RPG to it fullest and Cody and his idiotic Druid and Ranger are best examples of this kind of people
I honestly don’t get anyone saying “I’m not doing any better at level 10 than I did at level 1”. To me that screams “I don’t think or strategize at all I just do the same thing over and over” because sure the way the math works with scaling you’ll see a lot of same effectiveness on just a base attack as you would at lower levels… except at as you gain levels you have a bigger and bigger toolbox. By this I mean I may have attacks that target multiple saves meaning I know have MORE options to hit the enemy in a weak spot as opposed to fewer where I’m forced to target one or at best two things. Maybe you have the ability to cause fear 2 on an intimidate or you can deal damage when you grapple or any number of other things that literally make you more effective as you level. This does play very much into the team play you mentioned but the issue taking20 and his players had seemed to me that they where trying to play the game the same, they where CHOOSING to do the same thing over and over and instead of figuring out why that wasn’t working they blamed the game.
With all due respect, the point that Cody was making is that if you had the choice between 100$ primary abilities 20$ secondary abilities 2$ combat maneuvers 1$ positioning/other People would pick 100$ 90% of the time and the game’s mechanics make your staple abilities that much better mathematically and by telling the player they will get more damage and more to hit for using those than grappling or flanking or anything else in the 2$ category. If one choice is that much better then you don’t really have many choices.
Point Buy always favors Min-Maxing, but rolling for stats, particularly if you only allow one set of dice rolls, will produce these 'broken but fun to play' characters (I.e., 'Old Style Dungeons and Dragons' ^_^)
I feel bad, I really want to try Pathfinder, but for some reason the art really puts me off. I way prefer the art of D&D. A simple example is the goblins, they feel so uncomfortable like some sort of physiological uncanny valley, if I could bare the courage to look at them long enough I would want to put the poor disgusting things out of the misery purely out of mercy. I don't love the D&D goblin, but at least it doesn't hurt my eyes or brain. Is there any way I can overcome this or maybe a version of Pathfinder without the horrific art?
the art for gobs if i remember right is paizo wanted wayne reynolds (main artist that does alot of pathfinder art, also known as head artist for dnd eberron setting back in 3.5e, which also some setting designers of eberron joined pathfinder when it was made.) to make them look chaotic with a unique design to them with an interesting backstory. so the look they got is this. what backstory they got? besides pillaging, steal, being nuisance to players they like to yoddle, pickles is their delicacy and they are afraid of all dogs except goblin dogs which is ironic.
You're responding to a video about statistical path of least resistance and the illusion of choice by saying that its min maxing AND that you can be more powerful working as a team. Ergo your solution makes your premise faulty and it is kinda nonsensical to replace one path of least resistance with another because it's more powerful. A further limitation of choice, that you're saying was designed into the system. Highlighting the core issue of the subject you're "responding" to ... whilst rambling about how when its played in a specific way, is what makes P 2E better ... it feels like deliberately missing the point to look for an opportunity to refute the notion that P 2E is bad, which was clarifed as not being the position of the person you're responding to. So everything you discuss comes across as a bit of a bad faith misrepresentation, to talk about your own tangentially related and separately valid experience that would've been better served not being framed as a response as it is a separate subject regarding how P 2E can make you feel powerful as a group, not directly addressing the funnelling of repitious choice. This makes me sad.
@@anfiach if you don't watch it I can see how you think that, but the awnser is no, not enough vidros who do the same thing, so maybe Roll For Combat is just a click-baity asshole who has to parasyte of other youtubers to get traction.
I feel this is exactly why I think Gygax back when they created the original game and the few reiterations of it, opted to make it 3d6 straight down the line for ability scores, because otherwise you would always Min-Max and get bored fairly quickly. People may say that this would be the game pidgeon-holing you into playing something you don't want to play, but also people don't know the advantage of doing 3d6 straight down the line, because then you play random characters that you normally wouldn't think are interesting and come out the other end realizing the exact opposite. Now, I agree to a degree, sometimes some characters are what many called back then as "hopeless". Yes, if the DM/GM deems the character unplayable for a game that is going to be ran, then fine, roll up a new character. To keep within the original spirit of the game, I combine a little of the old school with the new school, there's things that can be taken from both. And this is what I've come up with, just simple rules you can follow as well (i.e. this is for 5E, because I don't know PF all that well, but know it well enough to know that the same concepts can still apply): 1. No character is seen as a superhero (i.e. another term for demigod), but they are a little above average, so that would make them a hero. 2. All players roll 4d6, dropping the lowest die roll, for each ability score straight down the line; every player accepts their rolls, and doesn't ignore 1's, because if they ignore 1's and get to reroll 1's, they are essentially Min-Maxing, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 3. No player gets to place their ability scores where they want; the first roll will always be Strength, the second roll will always be Dexterity, and so forth on down the line to Charisma; because if the players get to place their ability scores where they want, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 4. No player is allowed to use the Point Buy system, because then they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 5. No player is allowed to use the Standard Array, because again, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 6. No player is allowed to use the exchange rate of removing 2 points in the ability score over here, to bump another up by 1 over there, because again, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 7. If any character is deemed to be hopeless by the DM/GM, then the DM/GM may give permission for the player to reroll their characters stats, and therefore, everything is still random generation preventing Min-Maxing by the players. 8. Before the start of any game, the DM/GM, must make Prime Requisites for each class that will be played in the game, requiring at least a score of 14 in each class's main ability score and a score of 12 in each class's secondary ability score (i.e. for example, the Paladin requires at least a 16 in Strength and a 14 in Charisma); this is required in the ability scores to play those classes (i.e. again, the players are not allowed to move their ability scores around to meet those standards, if they don't meet the standards, then they don't get to play that class), and racial benefits do count if a player choses a race that raises an ability score to meet the Prime Requisites of a class, and then would be allowed to play that class. 9. Ban the player section of Tasha's Couldren of Everything from games, because again, they would then be Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent. 10. No player is allowed to take feats (i.e. my reasons for this are many, because for one example and my largest reason for this, is because if a Fighter decides to take for example, the shield bash feat, now does that mean the Paladin in the same party who has a shield as well doesn't get to attack with their shield just because they didn't take the same feat?), and they may only multiclass one time at 8th level if they so chose but requires that the XP they earn to get split evenly between the two classes (i.e. for example, let's say the PC is a Fighter, and decides to multiclass with Rogue at 8th level having been able to do so by meeting the Prime Requisites by the 4th level ability score bump they received, and say the PC receives 1,000 XP, they must put 500 XP into Fighter and 500 XP into Rogue at the very moment they receive the XP); and once each class combined equals together as 20th level, neither class gains anymore XP (i.e. for our previous example, the PC would be a 13th level Fighter and a 7th level Rogue, equalling 20th level together).
It means that even the smallest change in a character's dice rolls will result in a big change. i.e. +2 to an attack roll in PF2 is a big deal, while in PF1 a +2 was not. Having "tight math" means that bonuses are very small throughout the system (i.e. PF2 only goes up to +3 weapons and armor rather than +5).
Cody's problem wasn't "the game is too hard and you don't feel powerful", the problem was, it feels like you are stuck doing the same actions over and over again because doing anything else doesn't seem worth it. And he went over the support thing, using flanking and maneuvers, and that still didn't seem as good as doing thevsame three actions the character was doing since level 1. And the way the game is built, it seems like once you choose your play style, you will be shoehorned into the same rotation of actions all game long. Having more options at character creation doesn't change anything, because once you made those choices, you are stuck doing the same again and again.
Thank you for sharing this very well thought out response. I really hope Cody AND HIS PLAYERS see this video! Player skill is so under appreciated by many in this hobby. Skill in optimizing a charater sheet is not the same as skill at the table. Totally agree with you on conflict (and flawed PCs) as key to an interesting game and story, but I don't think Cody wanted to focus on that aspect. He seems obcessed with combat like that is all that matters. If that is what Cody wants to focus on, I would say that it is his right to play the way he chooses. Blaming a system for choices you make in how to play the game seems to be the real issue.
I thought you were making some decent points... then you claimed D&D 3.5 had ballance and its math held up. Nope. 3.5 was notorious for how unballanced (and bloated) classes were compared to each other (god wizards and shapeshifting druids, oh my...) while math stopped making any sense around level 7 (10 to be extremely generous).
Actually, it was balanced in the sense that there was a system that tied all of the classes, systems, monsters, spell, and combat together and tried to make a coherent structure from the numbers. COMPARED to any other version, 3.5 was an amazingly balanced system in comparison. The problem was that it was balanced at the "low end" of the numbers. Meaning as long as people didn't go crazy with their character and try to break the system in every way possible, it worked just great. That was the failing of 3.5 was that they didn't expect people to go crazy and break the game in so many ways. So it would start to become incredibly unbalanced around the mid-way through to level 20 (like you said). PF1 did a much better job at tackling this, but they still had the same problem, in the end, it was closer. But they were stuck with the 3.5 framework, so they did the best they could. PF2 wen the OTHER way and instead of balancing for the "low end" of the numbers, they balanced for the "high end" of the numbers, basically they assumed that people would min-max their characters and they balanced around that. That is why it can feel like you can never get "ahead" in PF2 ... because you can't. The game is designed that way. That is where a good GM has to step in and adjust things to make up for this math difference. Or just give everyone an extra level, both work out well.
@@RollForCombat Mmmh, ok seems like I misunderstood your point then. I still disagree about D&D 3+ (which obviously includes PF1) holding up well if people didn't try to break the game. "Wish machines" (which only work if the DM let's itself be duped into allowing them) aside, full casters were so much more powerful than martials that by level 7 they could be playing a different game on their own. The "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" conundrum was and hard reality. And I've personally seen "experienced players" telling other players not to take martials because they'd only be a "drain" on the party's resources (D&D 3+ assumes the wizard will gladly spend a spell slot to haste the fighter or to give him flight in order to tackle a dragon... it turned out a lot of wizard players preferred defeating the dragon by casting a "save or suck" spell with a plethora of metamagic conditions attached making the encounter trivial and what the fighter brought to the table, i.e. a bit single target damage, completely redundant. As for PF2, I think you "optimize" in a different way compared to D&D 3+, because as you correctly stated in this video in PF2E teamwork is rewarded more than making super solo characters. The game is more tactical and strategic than just entering the dungeon and killing everything coming at you because you can. Planning moves in advance instead of just reacting may be important (depending on the type of DM and the style of game you are playing of course) and in order to suceed you often need to coordinate with the rest of the party. Therefore "optimization" is not just about having big modifiers at the start of combat but also increasing their effectiveness during combat by setting up advantages for your companions and disadvantages for the opposing NPCs. It's a very different kind of game style than D&D 5E's and the only thing I agree with Cody's argument is simplicity makes for a powerful incentive when playing an RPG because keeping all those rules and exceptions in mind can be a drain on the DM while slowing down play (which is bad). His claim that PF2E only has an "illusion of choice" is false though. In PF2E you can have a lot of choice without sacrificing efficency as the most optimal strategy is not just full attacking every round (quite the contrary considering how the system is built) or just always repeating the same routine. That can happen BUT ONLY if you build your character that way, which is not mandatory.
I feel like nobody understands Cody's point here... Having the ability to choose a course of action that is nearly 10% as effect as the optimal choice isn't really a choice. So you repeatedly make the best and often only choice. Over and over because even roleplaying in combat, "oh my character would want to move here instead of doing far more damage and remaining safe" is just a silly move and unless your character is an idiot they wouldn't RP it either. 5e was less punishing for non-optimal choices 80% as effective as the optimal choice, meaning you could more often make those choices without getting punished as hard. So for everyone saying be more creative or blaming the adventures or the players... you all are missing the point. The math is in. PF2e forces you to make the same moves over and over in combat because of how much more effective they are compared to others by enormous margins. If you have to choose between 10 damage or 100 damage. You're picking 100 damage every time, you know you are.
Agreed, this is why I myself as a DM/GM have never ran PF1E or PF2E, because both essentially end up nudging the players to do the same actions and make the same builds over and over regardless of how many options are there. If the system ends up punishing the players for playing suboptimally that's exponential enough to threatening the PC's lives (i.e. whether then or in the future down the road because they have two or three battles back to back), then I want nothing to do with the system. PF1E was already full of optimizers, which is a result of the players of D&D 3.0-3.5 showing their true colors, when they switched over to PF when it came out. It was actually something that was said on many occasions about 3.5 and PF in the past before 2E ever came out and is the reason I stayed away from it; because that's not the kind of game I want to run. It's also the reason why I no longer play video games, because that is not the kind of game I want. If that's the kind of system they want, then fine, I won't hold that against them; but not everyone wants EA Games to come in and take over. For the record, most people hate EA Games, look at what they did to Bioware when they took over and their brain child games Dragon Age and Mass Effect. For example, Dragon Age: Origins was one of the greatest games ever to come out, but then EA games took over Bioware, and ran their normal plan as usual: Make everything accessable to everyone so that everyone likes it so more people buy it, dumbed it down, and we got Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. What exactly do I mean by dumbing it down? Look at Mass Effect on the other hand, ME1 for example, look at all the options you have and everything is equally viable: but then here comes EA Games, takes away the 10 talents you could of had and trained in for ME1 for each class, and reduces them to about 5 to 8 talents to train in by ME3 for each class. In case you're wondering, these are the talents you can train in just one class in ME1. Class: Soldier Assualt Training Fitness Assualt Rifles Pistols Shotguns Sniper Rifles Combat Armor First Aid Charm Intimidate Spectre That's 10 in total. Now here's for ME3, same class. Class: Soldier Adrenaline Rush Consussive Shot Fitness Cryo Ammo Disrupter Ammo Incendiary Ammo Frag Grenade Spectre That's 8 in total, reduced by 2. The other classes got hit harder than this with fewer options. In other words, they began to limit your options or place the option as something passive rather than having direct control over it (i.e. such as Charm and Intimidate, they made it a passive thing through conversations with NPCs, all in the name of EA Games' All Inclusiveness plan to get more people to buy it, and now we know what All Inclusiveness really means, fewer options and nudging by a system to get you to subconsciously make the "better" choice, or in other words, it's brainwashing the way you think and do things; they want sheep, not free thinkers; which is what tabletop rpgs are supposed to offer, free thinking). In other words, what seems like a cool new ability, it was there all along in the system (i.e. same thing is true in any tabletop rpg), however, now you are limited by what the rules say because you have more rules. And what exactly do I mean by the "better" choice? Well, Bioware actually made a subtle but simple statement in the ME series that most people miss through their Paragon and Renegade system; that basically the Paragon path (i.e. political correctness) seems like the good and "better" option, but it will inevitably beat around the bush all day without actually ever saying what needs to be said because nobody ever wants to think about the world coming to an end or that they themselves would ever be effected by something and everyone must walk on egg shells and have a "don't say that, you'll scare everyone" mentality: while the Renegade path seems mean to everyone but in reality it is actually your best friend and gets to the point even when nobody else likes the cold hard truth. Most people feel this was a jab at EA Games by the Bioware team when EA Games took over. And don't even get me started with Andromeda, they make the claim that everything is customizable, but in truth most options just plainly suck as compared to others; which brings us to our point, in PF2E, most other options for a particular class or build just point blank suck (i.e. compare them options to D&D 5E Ranger Beaster Master Archetype, nobody ever takes the Beast Master Archetype, because it just point blank sucks compared to the other options you have), so much so that no one in their right mind would even consider taking those other feats or attacking in a different way, otherwise either the party suffers as a whole where it is actually noticable and it eventually results in a TPK. No, no, I like my games to be balanced, so much so, that my players never feel like that they have other options, but will never do any of them because they feel like it's never worth the trouble of doing them or building a character that's off the wall with mechanical flaws. PF2E unfortunately is the system that makes players feel like they can never do anything else, even though they have other options, because they don't want their character to die and don't want to go through the trouble of rolling another one up. Now watch the politically correct people comment on this and never get to the point, or just point fingers in any other direction but to the fault of the system itself.
@@memorylapsedm8262 You put a lot of effort into that post and I read every word. But I feel bad that my answer is basically just. Exactly! I'm assuming you play 5e? I'm basically switching fully to 5e from PF1e.
@@onedankind8168 Yes, I play 5E, and with good reasons. Yes, the system does have a few imbalances within it, but it was designed that way on purpose by both the design team at WoTC and by the community (i.e. 5E is the Cherry Picker edition because it took the best of what each edition before it had to offer while streamlining it and working out the kinks and adding a couple new things of its own, where the community also had a say in how 5E was designed, and people often forget this), so that DMs can tinker with things or for the players who like the unexpected result. There's only one class that I can think of that is suboptimal, that would be the aforementioned Ranger archetype Beastmaster (i.e. easily remedied, which Tasha's will show you how to do that through the Sidekick option for PCs, and is what I've been doing this whole time to remedy it before Tasha's), and a few niches in the community might debate over a couple others which is the one Monk and also the one Sorcerer subclasses, that's it as far as I know to the best of my knowledge. 5E doesn't ever suffer from what 3.0-3.5 or 4E or PF ever does, because 5E scrapped the Conveyor Belt system and flaw that was just one of many reasons people rejected 4E because the issue wasn't addressed in 4E, and replaced it with it's own system called Bounded Accuracy (i.e. meaning, you can throw anything at the PCs if you so chose, and the PCs are always guaranteed to hit it each round though it be only a 5% chance if the AC is too high, and the same is true when throwing mediocre or worse monsters at 20th level PCs). These are the list of core books you want for a certainty if you plan on being a DM: 1. Player's Handbook 2. Dungeon Master's Guide 3. Monster Manual 4. Xanathar's Guide to Everything 5. Tasha's Cauldren of Everything What you want after that are secondary but will have some reiterations in them of the previous 5 but as well as expand your arsenal a little if you plan on being a DM: 1. Mordekainen's Tome of Foes 2. Volo's Guide to Monsters If you plan on running some pre-written adventures, I suggest these, because if you're willing to take the time and put the effort forth with the help of the DMG to weave some things together, you can create sandbox games and remold them to suite things and players will never know the difference if you've done your job correctly that you are running the same thing over and over when you repurpose them and break them down to the nuts and bolts and rebuild them from the ground up, or you can just run them as is if you so chose, but I would still recommend them first before anything else; three of which are actual adventures while being an adventure and setting book in-one while the one listed as #1 is the most recommended out of them all, and the two others are simply setting books with one having a short adventure and the other listed as #2 has a few simple adventure ideas all throughout it: 1. Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Adventure and setting book) 2. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (Setting book and adventure ideas all throughout) 3. Eberron: Rising From the Last War (Setting book with short adventure) 4. Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Multiple Adventures and setting book) 5. Tales From The Yawning Portal (Multiple Adventures and setting book) (Note: Mix and match ability with Saltmarsh and Yawing Portal; modules that were converted to 5E from previous editions, and don't run Tomb of Horrors from Yawning Portal unless you want the players to feel it's a DM vs. Players game, skip it; other than that, you can potentially run the #1 rated campaign of all time if you're willing to convert Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth, Vault Of The Drow, and Queen Of The Demonweb Pits, of which you can find on DriveThruRPG, by running Sinister Secret Of SaltMarsh through to The Final Enemy, splash in Dead In Thay which is what I have done and still do, then run Against the Giants, and then finally run the aforementioned afterwords in the order as I listed them after you've converted them) I suggest those five first because it will give you some mix and match options as a DM and give you a solid foundation for sandbox games. After that, pick up whatever you want. May I recommend Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Balder's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. And yes, you still have optimizers in 5E, but as Cody said, he would rather go with the system that's easier to run if there's going to be optimizers. But you can easily have fun doing it with the PCs as the DM, or just outright prevent it from ever happening, by that ever so crucial session zero; so that the players realize they don't need to do that, or otherwise open up the minds of players who never thought of "optimizing in a different way," such as giving mechanical flaws that match their charcter's personality flaws.
Having played 5e from when it came out, including the playtest, all of the points he made apply to 5e. It's ok Cody doesn't like PF2E, but his response examples made no sense. It was akin to saying, "My mage can't do as well in melee combat vs slinging spells, so choice in an illusion." I have a PF2E Ranger that can do pretty well in melee as well as range, since he didn't give the ranger in his example a STR score, which in PF2E you need dex AND str to play a good ranger. I enjoy both 5e and PF2E, but all of Cody's complaints also applies to 5e, as doing sub optimal things can get your party wiped pretty quickly.
@@Masterom2000x The math is in. The same exact scenario for Cody’s example. While the issue still exists in 5e it was 5 times more punishing in pf2e. Which means it’s a bigger issue. Cody’s examples were also not about making stupid alternate decisions like a mage trying to melee. Though to your point I could argue that you could build a melee mage. You’re just doing it wrong. You need str to melee. Your mage just didn’t have str.
Good video, lots of good points. I picked up PF2E and still reading it through. When you mentioned rp in your game, I play Mythras as my go to game. I can't say enough about Mythras. The combat system is very intuitive and even after playing for several years find many interesting combinaitons players have come up with as the action unfolds. Also, there is ample room for role play which we do a lot of and it usually surprises players coming over from any D20 based game. I recommend Mythras to anyone wanting to try their hand at a really brilliant D100 game. I look forward to running PF2E, since I've been revisiting all my D&D 3.5 material. Currently running 2 D&D 3.5 games and 1 Mythras game online. Keep up the good work!
Boy so many Cody sycophants here chomping at the bit. I wonder how many have actually played PF2E and aren't just taking a contrived and factually inaccurate white room scenario at face value.
I would say it’s hugely outnumbered by people who believe they know Cody or his players and their demeanors and play style and they are obviously at fault. The sycophants are out on both sides bud, don’t be so biased.
@@II-wu7mx except his last video has proven that Cody doesn't actually know how to effectively play 2e or how the maths in it works, so it IS actually his fault. (video showing proof of this is here: th-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/w-d-xo.html) As for his players, no-one who's know they are. They aren't doxxing them or calling them shit people, they're just saying they don't know how to play a game. If Cody doesn't want to let them get criticised, he shouldn't have thrown them under the bus for his own incompetence as a GM.
@@DanTalksGames The ranger being built in this video isn’t the same ranger. They aren’t the same character being played the same way. This is some apples to oranges shit. Could you imagine a game in which you could glean that ‘he doesn’t know how to play’ because he didn’t pick an actually minmaxer build (which was the the main attack against he and his group after the first video). The 5e ranger was built for arrows too. You’ve either missed the point of his video or lost the plot. I’d argue you are helping to make his point with this goalpost moving. Secondly the idea that you can sort of casually add things like runes because you *should* have them by now is a non-starter. It’s not a part of your character and cannot be considered. Also, this character is being built for using both a sword and a bow from the start, which isn’t the discussion being had here. If your only response to say they don’t know how to play based on the build he gave in the second video you have some gnarly verification bias going on here. This happened on a continuum, not a series of totally unrelated events to be discussed separately. “I’m not having fun with 2e it feels like you do the same “best” thing while the game acts like you have lots of choices during combat” “Well it’s not about the best option you’re being a minmaxer! You are a bad player!” “That’s extremely rude from someone I don’t know but okay cool here’s a non optimized build showing the thing I’m talking about then.” “Well if you don’t minmax your character for varied combat of course you don’t have options! You’re a bad player!” This is called a Kafka trap and you shouldn’t do it.
@@II-wu7mx Have you even played PF2e? I'm assuming not based on comments like 'the idea that you can sort of casually add things like runes because you should have them by now is a non-starter. It’s not a part of your character and cannot be considered.' The game explicitly expects that by level 5 you have those runes. It's literally in the rules on how to run the game. It's an integral part of level scaling and investment with your funds, to the point that there's an optional rule that if your players aren't happy with investing gold on something so integral, you can grant the progression for free. It's not like 5e where magic weapons are an optional part of the game (and arguably do far more to break the game's design and scaling if utilised). I don't expect people to know this if they haven't played the game. And to be fair, the sort of rules obtuseness of those expectations ARE a legitimate failing of 2e that they require that level of explaining. But if you want to have a pure mathematical discussion, don't pretend you know what you're talking about. You can't argue things from a mathematical standpoint and discount those elements of the game, otherwise it proves ignorance of the system. If his argument was 'this system is obtuse because you need to learn stuff like this to play effectively', I might actually agree. But it isn't, as his fans have been arguing time and time again, it's that he believes that there's no meaningful decisions in combat, which the video I linked proves there actually is if you understand the context of 2e. Some other quick things Cody got wrong/dismissed: - The build isn't 'apples and oranges' because Cody's build only addresses Hunted Shot being the taken option. If anything, *that's* the build that's working in a vacuum with no context. It doesn't take into account other feats that grant more options as the video I linked did. And that video I linked only touched on one potential build, it didn't even touch on things such as warden spells, and dedication feats that grant multiclassing and archetypes. - Volley reduces his chance to hit with composite bows at close range, meaning Cody actually *does* have a reason to consider moving and not just 'standing there and shooting' - There's a much bigger difference between a CR3 monster in 5e, and a CL3 monster in 2e. Characters scale far more heavily with their stats in 2e, compared to 5e where monsters have bounded accuracy. A weaker monster doesn't suffer as much against a higher level foe in 5e than it does in 2e. To give context, a creature two levels higher than the party in 2e is considered a *boss monster*. That means a creature two levels lower is basically trash mobs. Also, if one of the best arguments he has in favour of 5e is 'if you want more options, pick variant human,' then really he's not helping that game's case considering how toxic that race option is to the game's meta. Ala the min-maxing debates, tbh even I haven't been particularly cared much for the arguments about 'you don't *have* to min-max.' It comes from a well-intentioned place, but ultimately it doesn't address Cody's points, you're not wrong. But part of the reason it annoys me is that the thing about 2e is there is an element of min-maxing that needs to be done to achieve a level of viability. It's generally intended you'll have the maximum possible score in your primary stat. But ultimately the reason Cody's example is bad is because the difference between 'optimal' options and non-powergamer options aren't as inherently black and white as he's making out. Even in the video I linked, the difference between straight attacking, helping flank with melee, tripping, etc. isn't as clear cut. It also feels he's putting too much of a premium on raw DPR, which isn't as big of a deal in 2e as getting those bonuses from things like flanking and status conditions, etc. If he doesn't care for that sort of thing, of course a system like 5e is better because it's more straightforward. But if you want more depth to strategy and enjoy the nuance, 2e isn't just a one-note system where there's one obvious thing to do all the time.
@@DanTalksGames It seems obvious you’re very familiar with the 2e rules, much more so than I admittedly. That being said, to argue there is no nuance or discretion between dpr, flanking, and inflicting status effects in 5e is patently false and I think you’re well aware of that. I personally find the required prior knowledge of the system to make a functioning character to be a detriment to the system overall. I also think you’re inadvertently arguing that you really don’t have as much choice in 2e as advertised because you cannot choose any combination and have a functioning character. You have to build a very specific way to have truly varied options in combat. Also I think it’s important you’re aware that Cody thinks pf1e is a better game than d&d5e to diffuse this dnd vs pf thing you’re setting up. He set up the comparison because he has the same complaint about 5e and has stated it multiple times. Overall the argument from my viewpoint is that the level of esotericism in the pf2e rule book is not worth evening out to about the same combat options as a much simpler contemporary system.
From the very start I feel like you are missing the point from the start. It doesn’t matter if it feels strong or not, it’s that any given build plays the same as any other, it’s that once you have a build you can only effectively take one set of actions.
In a AD&D campaign I played a Fighter with a 3... as in 03 Dexterity. My AC in Chain Mail was 10. At the time that meant I was as well armored as a regular Unarmed PC. No one in the party let me fire my crossbow out of fear lol
I feel like you didn’t watch his second video. He specifically said you had chose when making your character. After you make your character, your choice is mostly set. He didn’t talk about how the math was close. He showed it wasn’t tight at all. It was bad to use your character against how you made your character. Yes you had chose when building your character. The mechanics pidgin holed you into particular things. The things you made your character good at.
To be fair Taking20 has his math and rules wrong: A. They would get precision damage in melee from hunter's edge B. He never mentions the crit specialization that changes up combat on a critical hit, like pinning the wight to the wall with an arrow or slowing them down using the short sword. C. He was using a longbow in the example, so the wight closing the gap causes a -2 to attacks(volley trait). D. His point about the 5e variant human would be the same as PF 2e using Human with Natural Ambition, taking Twin Takedown to be just as effective in melee.
@@beaverkoin fair points. I was wondering about that hunters edge bit. That certainly helps and would make other options a little bit more impactful. I do think the core of the issue though is just how much feat selection matters. Even without minmaxing, if someone were to make a ranges base character then everything else they could do is not worth it. I think the solution would be to give more impactful options that would break up the routine.
@@screwinglogic4564 Thanks, I do understand that some people do fall into certain repetitive roles and actions, but that is part of any game. In 5e, at 3rd level your path is set before you. I have had my players and own characters retrain feats that changed their combat styles, not to mention for melee characters the plethora of weapons that have a lot of different traits. He did choose a specific example to suit his argument as well. Take a barbarian with an enemy 50 feet away. 5e has to spend movement and an action to close the distance, probably raging at the end of their turn. PF 2e can use 2 actions to move, move then make the choice whether to rage or attack. As he said in the end, to each their own and no system is perfect. I personally had a document clarifying how i interpreted rules in 5e so the players and I were on the same page, so I was adding my own crunch. Nothing sucks the fun out of a game more than having to debate a ruling or having the player upset with an interpretation of the rules. I had a player almost quit over whether Dispel Magic would dispel both quicklings summoned by Conjure Fey or each one individually.
Call of Cthulhu makes dying and going insane a feature, not a bug. Cyberpunk 2013 & 2020 would be my vote for the most unbalanced game ever made (single shot PC kill on a regular basis - game is more lethal than Call of Cthulhu) D&D 3.5 would be my vote for second most broken game ever *looks at 15th level Psion with Astral Construct army*. My Psion singlehandedly rendered the rest of the group redundant. Great play testing there - NOT!
Going above level 12 makes things "broken". Nothing was really well thought out past that level. Most games should stop around level 12 because some gaps, melee vs casters, make some options not worth it. Psions are tier 2 for a reason where a fighter is tier 5.
Yeah he tries to argue he's not a power gamer and then basically runs a bunch of numbers showing why choices are the most optimal. I did see your direct response post where you point out he under powered the PF 2E ranger which is something I noticed as well and figured he did that to pad the numbers so they would line up more with 5E. Though I haven't even looked at 5E in years as it just didn't speak to me because of the fixed classes with the only real choice being at level 3 and your locked into archtype which I view more as an "illusion of choice". That said though I bring it up because I don't understand HOW his 5E Ranger does what it does. He seems to get 2 attacks and moves around without needing the change out weapons cause it's assumed the Ranger starts with bow in hand. And I know back in previous DND versions melee characters needed a full turn attack to multi-attack so they couldn't move. Did that change? And does Ranger in 5E have some sort of quick draw? Given your post on all the mistakes he made with PF2E, some of which I didn't catch I wouldn't be surprised if he made mistakes on 5E as well. On a slight side note the other thing that sealed him as a power gamer is him criticizing the out of combat skills and how as a DM he should just be able to rule which way things go and not need to rely on a roll. That sounds like DM Railroading and a DM who likes to maintain control rather than go with the flow. Like if the players wanna do something out of combat and there no rules for it the DM simply goes, "Nay I don't wanna deal with that, NPC says NO." or "Sounds interesting, such lets give it a go." I love PF2E also and like it a lot more than 5E because of the freedom it gives in all areas. And I agree that you do get a lot more with team work. I also had a similar experience early in PF2E with the same module, Plague Stone, as my group was very self focused, though it was to be expected cause most in the group it was their first time with PF. But looking at tightness of the numbers and how to improve the struggling fights I noticed we weren't really taking full advantage of our abilities and things like flanking. While it did take some coaxing at times by the end of the campaign we were using our CC abilities and flanking a lot more and powering through fights. I do disagree on the saying it's not like a video game, I'd say it's not like a ARPG such as diablo or other single character RPGs. But I find PF2E is much like a lot of RPGs where you have a group, even the old DND 2E games. The thing is you are in charge of a group so you think nothing of assigning one character to the role of support and often do better than just having pure DPS. However when you sit down for PnP you only get one character and most people tend to not want to be that support character and/or think the only way to contribute is with DPS which is Cody's problem. Some example support while still powerhouse characters I made was Fighter/Marshal with had 2H Power Attack with Marshal's dread stance to cause frighten plus other feat choices like Battle Cry as the theme was a power house character that strikes terror in his foes. I also made a Cleric/Champion/Medic of the Protection Domain. Basically he had tons of ways to buff the party defenses could quickly heal the party out of combat by treating multiple characters at the same time with Ward Medic feat and had the champion's react ability Redemption to further hinder enemies ability to hurt the part. So basically great damage reduction boost to the party with great healing and pretty much very little was a threat, the cleric wasn't all that great at damage but was decent enough. I love the freedom of PF2E the Cleric/Champion/Medic is a great example of the flexibility. It's pretty easy to do with curtain archtypes as they have "Skill" feats which means you can use your skill feats to get feats from them and thus meet the requirement for having 2 feat of that archtype to pick another one. Also you can use the Human Ancestory Feat to get a Archtype feat thus letting you dip in without needing to spend one of your limited class feats on just getting access to the field. Ancient elves can do the same thing as well only right from the start. And with the numbers being so tight none of these make you any stronger they just give you options. Which again comes back to Cody's complaint about needed to build optimally and him taking the most obvious (aka best) choice. Personally I like breaking the mold and making unique character that are still strong in their own right even if they are "completely optimal". And a lot of them are designed to work in a team not as a solo must get highest DPS roll type way.
Which is a bad arguement, versatility is a form of power as well. If they didn't want their characters to be hyper specialized at doing one thing and useless outside of that, they shouldn't have hyper specialized to only be good at one thing.
You know, I feel like Taking 20’s “Quitting Pathfinder 2E” video is doing a pretty good job getting more than himself some extra views. I wonder how this would be panning out if said video was more along the lines of “A discussion of my issues with Pathfinder 2E” instead.
@@ryanbentzinger9608 Its kinda semantics of whether it counts as click bait or "shit stirring", but either way its definitely title that provokes emotional response.
You say teamwork is important in P2e but do they have choices to choose a different attack each turn to repond to other players or or is the Monk's best choice stun stun every turn. Fixing P2e build system sounds like a hell of a task- it is not minmaxing situation rather lack of decent alternatives to fit a character style.
Even if Stunning Fist was the best option at all times (and given it's just one level 2 feat and you have many choices left make, that's unlikely to be the case 100% of the time), it only costs you one action to flurry to attack a target twice. You've got two other actions to do literally anything else. With two other actions, you can easily move in and out of the opponent's range. Maybe the situation you're in, you want to grapple your foe, then throw them with Whirling Throw. Strength +1d6 damage per ten feet moved isn't bad, and it could help you in a situation where you desperately need repositioning. That's teamwork right there. Perhaps you need to reduce the number of foes you're facing fast, so you instead opt to do a Sleeper Hold. That Critical Success would render the foe unconscious for a minute. Even a regular success gives it Clumsy 1, which is something. Perhaps your foe is a grappler themselves. Using Disrupt Ki not only does persistent negative damage, but also leaves them Enfeebled 1 until they end the persistent damage, which will hurt their Athletics checks. Maybe you need to damage a crowd, so if you've invested into Ki, you could use the Ki Blast Ki Spell, which considerably damages enemies in a 15-60 cone and also potentially pushes them away. If we're talking about costing a foe actions, the Medusa's Wrath Ki Spell can not only slow a foe, but possibly permanently petrify them. What about Dragon Stance users? If they use Dragon's Roar, they can cause all enemies in a 15 foot emanation to become frightened 1 (frightened 2 on a Crit Success) and they get to deal more damage to the first frightened foe they hit after that by the end of their next turn. Maybe they're in their Monastic Archer Stance and would like to pin their foe down with Pinning Fire. Yes, the Arrows are easy to remove...but that's going to cost actions to remove. Back to pushing a foe, perhaps you want to combine One-Inch Punch with One-Millimeter Punch and do a large amount of damage and push a foe away all with one strike (making a fort save vs an Athletics check from you). Honestly, if you're doing any grappling, you'll want to do that first before Flurry since you'll be stuck with a -8 to -10 with your last action, unless you can succeed with an Assurance, in which case, taking ten, no penalties is nice. Of course, you could take Flurry of Maneuvers to make one or both of your Flurry attacks into Maneuvers if you just want to make a single attack and do a maneuver, all with only one action cost. You won't have Stunning Fist, but still useful at times. Speaking of Stunning Fist, Triangle Shot is a great upgrade for Stunning Fist if you're a Monastic Archer Stance user. Get three arrows for the cost of two actions at a -2 penalty to hit, you can trigger Stunning Fist, and if you hit with all three arrows, 3d6 Persistent Bleed Damage. And, of course, none of that is considering skill usage outside of class feats. Perhaps your Monk is Legendary in Intimidation and uses Scare to Death to try and kill a foe outright, or you're using Cloud Jump to position yourself out of reach of a foe by leaping 50 feet to the top of a nearby rock structure (combining Cloud Jump with Flying Kick will let you deal with airborne threats well). What about taking advantage of Battle Medicine to heal an ally mid battle? What about Archetypes? Maybe you took Snare Crafter and are riddling the battlefield with Snares for your advantage. Maybe you took a Spellcasting Multiclass Archetype to be a decently effective mage with up to 8th level spells. You could have augmented your Archery ability from Monastic Archer Stance with either Archer or Eldritch Archer. Even if some options aren't always 100% equivalent, there are situations where a variety of options can save you, or change a battle. You're only doing the same thing every battle if you choose to do the same thing every battle. Sometimes that might be fine, but don't be afraid to experiment if you want to change things up.
"We spent 6 weeks roleplaying. I don't think we even rolled any dice." Why play the game at that point?! Why are you attributing your theatre amateur hour to Pathfinder 2e. Why not play a system that doesn't require dice at that point? Pal-ing around with friends is fun but I don't think that the game system should get credit for something outside of it.
Sometimes that's just how the story plays out, in the 20+ years on gaming there are absolutely times where no dice get rolled, for my group yhe characters and story are first. But combat and conflict resolution is very important and a part of the fun
I agree. If you're going weeks without dice rolls, that means everything you're doing is completely outside of the game and that means you're either ignoring the rules the game has for those situations or the game doesn't have rules for those situations. Neither scenario is to the system's credit. Going weeks without dice rolls (even understanding that claim as hyperbole) means the GM is essentially not contesting the PC's actions, or at least not as far as the game mechanics are concerned which while might be super fun, isn't the same thing as playing Pathfinder. If they're "sneaking around and gathering info" then why are you not making them roll the Stealth checks and Diplomacy checks that are part of Pathfinder?
How did nobody actually listen? He said people end up doing the same thing every turn because thats how you get through combat without unnecessarily wasting time. Good on you for catching that.
@@TheAttomisk In Call of Cthulu, your actions choices in combat are certainly limited based on your build, or "illusion of choice" as Taking20 puts it. I haven't played the other two games you mentioned, but I suspect they also "suffer" from this, as any RPG will. Nevertheless I will check them out. The reason I asked is because no one can really address this "problem", without removing a fundamental aspect of RPGs: To improve and specialize your character is core to the genre.
Its really tiring to see so many people immediately starting a comment with "you don't understand what cody said" I watched both Cody's video start to end multiple times. He misleads, mis represents, condisends, insults and is deliberately inflammatory. The "every character plays the same" is BS. Rougue and Paladin in 5e have sneak attack and smite evil. Cody doesn't talk about why he's quitting 5e though did he. His combat encounter in the 2nd video was laughably simplistic.
I’m a neutral voice, I came across both these channels around the same time, it subscribed to neither. The approach this page took was childish and slanderous, aimed at attacking someone’s intellect rather than their very legitimate reasonings for criticizing a fucking rpg system.
@@Tulkash01 stating that there ARENT problems with the system but rather with the TH-camrs intelligence and levels of creativity is slanderous, as it is deliberately attacking him, not simply disagreeing with an opinion of his
@@andrewculross9421 where in this video it is claimed that there are problems with "TH-camrs intelligence and levels of creativity"? The author of this video goes out of his way to say that Cody has a point but that he had faced the same problem years ago and found ways to deal with it. Personally I think the author of this video tried hard to stay polite and civil and avoided antagonizing Cody, which in turn acted like a bully in his second video, while making a whole lot of less than honest claims to "prove" his point. But that's just me, not the author of this video.
@@andrewculross9421 Well, Mr. Andrew, may I ask you to timestamp the exact time the youtuber's intelligence is being slandered? In this video specifically. Thank you
Finally someone said this. I lost interesst in the Channel "Taking20" ... Someone with this oppinion i can not respect or belive he can tell me somethink worthwhile about TTRPGs. Its sad.
Did you watch his videos? It seems like you’re forming your opinion based on what you’re being told here, that seems to lack intellectual rigor friend.
@@II-wu7mx Dude, i watched his video twice and it seems so, that you are just on the same side of your own argument and belive that shit that is told you by Cody. So think of your own intellectual rigor my friend.
Within the first 2 minutes you completely misrepresented his points, which he made clear in both videos. He never said all classes end up at the same place. He never said the only way to have fun is to minmax and went to great lengths in his second video to show that even within a sub optimal character build the same problems persist. He also shows that his game is far from being a game of minmaxers. He also never said PF2E is primarily combat focused, he said that the vast majority of the rules are combat focused. You also asserted pretty early on that Taking 20 thought that PF2E doesnt lend itself to roleplaying, which is again something he just never said. He did however show in his second video that he and his group ARE big on the roleplay side of things, and mention that he was not talking about roleplay but combat specifically. I am not really sure the point of this video since the entire basis for it is arguing against things he never said. Are you intentionally misrepresenting his points and ignoring the things he actually said, or did you just misunderstand the majority of what he talked about in both videos? He also clarified in video 2 that he and his players did not feel it was a significant problem, or even really a problem, in video 1 he said that as a DM he felt that a system like 5e, which has the same issues, are better for him and his group since, as he put it in video 1, if he needs to choose between 2 systems with the same issues he will prefer the less complex one as it makes combat less difficult to manage and prep and gives he and his group more time for roleplaying.
@@TheNeoanomally At this point dude its like you are intentionally misrepresenting the videos. He never said that the system does not encourage roleplay. At 14 minutes into his video he says that he would recommend the game highly to people that like to have well designed crunchy rules for pretty much everything. He uses diplomacy as an example to show that people who might not like to engage in roleplay by speaking in character or to a DM speaking as an NPC can still fully participate thanks to the rules, which he sees as a benefit. As for literally everything else I pointed out, do you really think the points you attributed to him are in any way accurate?
@@TheNeoanomally wrong, he never said that and the quote was to show how much stress the system puts on the GM by making status effects have more then one option. Dude how fucking blind where you when you made that comment, he never said anything about diplomacy rules other then: the desginers don't think you can figure this one out therefore 4 outcomes.
@podrek @@draakgast It's ignorant to say misrepresenting it. Here around this timestamp ~14:30 minutes into Cody's video: after saying this is a game for a certain type of group: "If you enjoy a game style of play where your game master never talks in the first person because you all find that super cheesy play this game. I mean it on that last one by the way. If you want to look at your GM and say I want to use a Diplomacy check to make an impression I want to spend 1 minute in dialog...." and then continues. He spends a minute for that essentially bashing people who like the rule system of PF2e as people who only use mechanics in order to accomplish a goal and states that this is a game that only people who want to do a lot of damage play.... He reinforces this point in his second video.
@@michaele1373 no misrepresentation if he's right, no seriously how is he wrong the mechanics are there for you to do damage and work with the team. how can it be misrepresentation when nothing he said was wrong, even in your own comment you couldn't give an example on what he was wrong about, all you did was repeat his point, then were is the mistake if there is one???? like be fair, why does the book need to explain what a critical fail is every time we see a condition, how good is the build of this game if every time a condition is met the system FORCES the GM to make/look up a decision rather then...... use his brain. if you need a system that tells you that rolling low is bad and rolling high is good, good for you. most people already understood this and don't need someone else to tell them: hey, he rolled low, that's bad.
People seem to want me to do a “direct” response to his video. Okay, here is a response to various quotes from his video with my responses.
"For our Pathfinder Ranger, they currently have 18 dexterity which after being moved to Expert for martial weapons from the Weapon Expertise class feature, that gives them a +13 modifier to hit with their longbow." RESPONSE: Why didn't he give the 5th level Ranger a +1 weapon potency rune (+1 to hit), which is relatively standard at 5th level for any melee-based class, as well as a striking rune (weapon deals two damage dice instead of one). The +1 weapon potency rune is "expected" to be earned by level 2, and the "striking rune" rune is "expected" to be acquired by level 4. For better or for worse, the PF2 math "expects" melee-users to have these runes in their builds to keep up with the same math used by the monsters. As someone with several published monsters by Paizo in several PF2 Adventure Paths and the lead on the RPG Superstar contest, I can tell you that this is the case with the "expected" math of PF2. A +1 to hit might not seem like much, but with the new critical hit rules, it's a big difference in overall damage. It looks like a pretty big "mistake" to have outside the build as the math changes a fair amount with two those included -- I expect that wasn't a mistake on his part as it makes the to-hit and damage much higher for the PF2 Ranger vs. the 5e Ranger.
"So I'm replacing the word 'best' here with 'most obvious' set of actions, and I think it describes what I think I'm talking about even better. It's the most obvious choice of actions." RESPONSE: What is interesting in his example is that he's assuming this is the "most obvious" attack option. It's AN option, but there are many others as well depending upon the battlefield conditions, what the other PCs are doing, how many creatures there are, and so forth. This is probably a "good" option for a very simple combat with obvious choices, but by no means is this the "best/most obvious" option.
"In this instance, I'm assuming the Ranger has a short sword equipped instead of a rapier for that versatile trait to deal slashing if need be and because the shortsword has the Finesse trait so they can use their dexterity modifier in place of the strength. That gives us a single attack at a 80% chance to connect with the same 30% crit chance as the bow's first strike, and guess what? A single attack at 55% chance with 5% chance of that being our critical range." RESPONSE: Again, no +1 weapon potency rune? At Level 5, most melee-based PCs only have one striking rune, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the "extra" rune went to the Fighter instead.
"the Grapple would be a -5, and it would, of course, use the ranger's Strength not their Dexterity modifier, and the ranger would also be prone" RESPONSE: He got several items wrong in this example. If the Ranger grapples the Wight, the Ranger does NOT become prone. In addition, only the Wight suffers from the Grabbed condition, NOT the Ranger. This is actually a very common rules mistake as PF1 had both parties being "grabbed" when one does the grabbing action. However, in PF2 this is no longer true. I have covered this rule in my podcast and have it confirmed by Paizo on how it works.
"Now, the wight, of course, doesn't need to be standing to use the Strike action, so it only takes a -2 to hit the ranger who is grabbing, but technically the ranger also has the prone condition that's actually a wash" RESPONSE: Incorrect, only the Wight has the -2 to their AC and the flat-footed condition. The Ranger does NOT suffer from this condition, even though they are grabbing the Wight.
"It's not just that the other options are worse, notice how I used the word worse and not bad, is that they are so much worse than choosing them clearly, purposely, extending the combat for the group unnecessarily." RESPONSE: So basically, he argues that the first attack option is the only option that makes sense, period. Perhaps the Ranger wants to move up to the Fighter (1 action), heal them using Battle Medicine (1 action when using a bandolier, again confirmed by Paizo on our show), and then attack/trip/grab the Wight (1 action). Or maybe you want to use a Ranger Focus Spell? Or maybe move into a Flank to help the Fighter? Or maybe move in and try to trip the Wight to help out the others if the Ranger went right after the Wight and can then give the entire party a +2 to hit for the rest of the round? It's completely disingenuous to say that Option 1 is the ONLY option used by the Ranger because it's the "best/most obvious" option.
"The 5e ranger, unlike the Pathfinder 2e in this snapshot does actually have an additional concern: spacing." RESPONSE: Not correct. He forgot to mention in all of his examples the Volley condition on the Longbow used above. Volley requires the Ranger to be 30-feet away; otherwise, they take a -2 attack penalty.
"but because of the games mechanics and how the game is designed and how the feats work versus the basic combat choices presented to us by Paizo, none of those options are really to even close to being genuinely decent options in combat as just standing there and shooting your bow because the feats that you've taken." RESPONSE: If you don't like the feats you've taken, then retrain. It's in the core rules and very simple to do.
"unlike our Pathfinder example, might dissuade the wight from piling into the fighter's combat because the 5e ranger could then trigger an opportunity attack." RESPONSE: PF2 Fighters also get Attack of Opportunity, not sure why that was completely ignored.
The point is that Taking20 seemed to adjust the numbers for PF2 to make it APPEAR to be similar to 5e (it's not), assumed that ONE option and only ONE option is the "best/most obvious" option (it's not), that Grab somehow makes the Ranger prone and grabbed (it does not), and so forth.
I am sure that nothing I will say will persuade anyone, but I would like Taking20 at least to get their "assumptions" and PF2 rules correct.
Thank you! Also folks looking for a direct response should see this video was posted on the PF2 subreddit with the title:
"I remade the example Taking20 gave in his last video, showing how many options the player had in that simple encounter"
th-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/w-d-xo.html&feature=emb_logo
You should pin this so it doesn't get lost in the dreg.
I've said this elsewhere but comparing a CR 3 in DND to a level 3 in pf2e is not equivalent. Given the encounter building guides for a moderate challenge equates to 4 wights in pf2e and 2 wights in dnd 5e. That changes the math for the systems to be internally consistent and comparable.
I can't be bothered watching Cody's recent video.
What I do know is that sometimes my level 7 Ranger uses Hunted Shot with a bow. Sometimes Disrupt Prey with an axe and sometimes Skirmish Strike.
No two combats are the same. Maybe I even need to use Battle Medicine to save our Cleric...
I have said this before but it's worth repeating - Unimaginative players is not a system issue
You're essentially proving him right with this response. It's so drenched in "*snort* actually" it seems almost done on purpose. His point does not lose momentum because he forgot to mention the must have or 'optimal' runes, if anything throwing that in makes his point even stronger. You're dissing him for not being optimal LOL.
Not sure he said all PF2 PC end up the same compared to each other. I heard what he was saying was they are the same ... throughout all levels. The PC plays the same at 1st level and 10th level. Same rotation... iver and over. Not saying the ranger and the rogue and the fighter and the wizard were all the same. That was DnD 4e
You are correct, which is why Cody compared Rangers to Rangers in the 2 systems as opposed to different classes in PF2
That wasn't even true in D&D 4E!
Yeah, this video got it all wrong. Cody said that the issue with PF is that the 'optimal' choice is too obvious, so the players don't have any reason to deviate from the one leveling path designed for each class
What I got from his two vids was not that each class was balanced well to one another but the synergies made combat one dimensional for the players
I think your suggestion of designing encounters as puzzles to be solved is spot on
I think a lot of people missed Cody's point, probably because he didn't really state it clearly up front. His main issue is simply this - There is a very obvious set of choices to make both in combat and in building a character. Not because of lack of creativity or hyper min/maxing, but because the other options are SO punishing that it's just a bummer to go with them.
His example comparing 5th ed was meant to demonstrate how 5e has similar obvious choices, but the other choices are not always as punishing.
I get the "make a sub-optimal character and have fun with it" thing. I do it a lot. But sometimes people just want to play that Aragorn fantasy. Problem is they can't choose to forego shooting a bunch of arrows (or whatever) and attempt to catch the Orc's dagger and throw it back at him because it is SO sub-optimal it will extend the combat and have this negative cascade effect on the group and encounter. More so then in other systems, where maybe it's not so punishing and it just becomes a cool thing to try. (Disclaimer - This is just an example to illustrate the point. I have no interest in figuring out how this exact scenario would play out in different systems. Just an example.)
The only thing Cody demonstrates is that if you want to specialize in archery you can do so in PF. What he doesn't say is you can ALSO not ultraspecialize and be successful anyway while having more options. Let's take his ranger "example" (that, btw, was cherry-picked, biased and managed to misrepresent the options avaiable to a PF ranger while conveniently forgetting abot PF rules like "deadly d10" and "volley" for longbows): a human ranger in PF can have 2 ranger feats at level 1, there are other options but this is the most powerful one avaiable. Since we are talking about "optimized builds" the PF ranger should be a human with the "versatile heritage" (+1 general feat at character creation) and the "natural ambition" ancestry feat (+1 class feat). If you want to do a bow ranger in PF2 you take the "hunted shot" class feat (and Cody did) but then, in an optimized build, you ALSO have a second class feat. By CRB, at lvl 1 you can choose among 5 different ranger class feats. If you want to be a switch hitter you also get "twin takedown" (the same as hunted shot but for 2 weapon rangers), if you want to be more of a team player you take "monster hunter" (gives you the option to increase your and your allies chance to hit your target if you suceed at a recall knowledge check), "crossbow ace" is powerful allright but works with crossbows so it's not an option here, and of course you can have an animal companion thanks to the appropriately named feat "animal companion". In other words, no other option avaiable to an optimized PF ranger at level 1 directly increases the bow proficency of said ranger but it has other options not thematically conflicting with bow use (like having an animal companion or being an expert in hunting monsters) it can and should take.
Now, try to picture Cody "example" with a real PF 2E ranger instead of the nerfed version he utilized for his example. From lvl 1 that ranger has other options than just going through the same routine. Just adding an animal companion in the simulations he presented completely changes the picture since now the PF ranger has way more options at its disposal and can effectively hinder the wights while shooting and keeping the distance (which btw should be more than 30 ft... in PF bows are penalized if you are that near to your target, also, Cody "forgot" abot the "deadly d10" rule longbows have, which make you roll an extra d10 every time you suceed at critically hitting something).
So you see Cody just wanted to be right (while, in my opinion, being a dishonest bully about it) and framed his example in a way that made him right, knowing fully well 90% of his audience was made of people playing D&D 5E and had zero interest in learning a different (and admitedly more complex) system like Pathfinder is.
As a side note this video is actually right when claiming that in PF2E teamwork is more effective than building a super PC winning encounters all on its own like it was possible in D&D 3+ and PF1 (which btw was also called D&D 3.75). The way the math works giving opponents negative statuses like flat footed or increasing the to hit chance or making AoOs trigger is often preferable to attacking 3 times in a row (with the third attack almost never hitting).
Actually his main point was that if he is going to play a system where the characters eventually end up in a "set rotations" he might as well use the more simpler system. which he then used PF2 to compare 5E and showed that even though both systems will fall into this whole using the obvious rotation in combat every turn that 5E was just simpler to run and enjoy and felt less punishing. the entire thing comes down to using a simpler system because all the extra work and math and illusion of choices making the game more complicated to achieve the exact same thing another simpler system will do is just a pain and doesnt feel good.
@@Zertryx yes but that's actually not really true UNLESS you build for specialization in which case you repeating your moves over and over is a pretty obvious consequence of your choice. Fact is despite what Cody claims in PF you don't absolutely "need" to specialize to survive.
Also, claiming PF2E is bad because of the illusion of choice is simply false. Keeping up with the archer ranger's example, check out the ranger class for PF2E: there are a few "mandatory" feats you need in order to be great at shooting arrows, the rest you can use to make your build more versatile increasing your effective options. At the same time you need to keep in mind PF2E favors teamplay over just making you more powerful than your opponents. Doing "your thing" and ingnoring the rest of the party is never a great idea in a RPG but PF2E actually makes this hard to pull off. This may not appeal to everyone, but it has nothing to do with the so called "illusion of choice", because in combat you actually have to think about the "best strategy" which changes based on encounter and that means repeating the same routine over and over in some cases is just going to put you at a disadvantage.
That said, yes, D&D 5E is a simpler game system where you have to deal with less rules and that makes it easier and more immediate to run and play it. As a trade off you have less choice (meaningful choice, mind you) than in PF2E though. This simplicity is by itself one of the greatest strengths of D&D 5E, one that made the system accessible and appealing to a lot of new people who don't want (or don't have the time) to learn a whole complex system. Personally I accept this and I also think it's fine that players favor the simpler system over the more complex one, what I don't like is for people like Cody to claim PF2E is bad because of a nonexistent "illusion of choice", a concept I find expecially egregious after listening to a guy who insults those who disagree with him (mostly respectfully as far as I can tell), belittles their arguments, calls them "commoners", ignores rules and cherry-picks an "example" where he proceeds to make it seem he's right while conveniently "forgetting" about a plethora of factors that would prove he's wrong because the PF2E simply has more options than a 5E archer ranger from the start (i.e. taking hunted shot and animal companion at level 1, which increases the amount of viable tactical options you have quite a bit compared to Cody's example)
@@Tulkash01 Wait, is your example saying that, if you build an extremely specific race and background combination, you can effectively have twice as many class feats as another equivalent level ranger, and thereby pack in a whole additional ranger worth of ranger options into your character....and THAT is what gives you real options?
Whoosh. Cool, I guess, but pointing to such a min maxed option a novice or even intermediate player might not think of, or discard because it isn't actually what they want to play, and saying, see this works fine...as long as you take this one option, you have options seems like pretzel logic..tied in knots.
Correct me if I'm off, I picked up the 2E playtest book, played it once, and put it back down and went back to first. But..it seems a touch convoluted...
@@jaredkelly4866 Humans in PF2E are equivalent to variant humans in D&D 5E, they can get more feats than other races. And no, right at the start with the correct human build you can get +1 general feat (no other race can have a general feat at level 1 but they are different and generally less powerful than class feats) and +1 class feat (other races get a single class feat at level 1). Obviously other races get other stuff which may be powerful but is less customizable and in the course of play the gap between what feats a human gets and another race gets tends to grow smaller.
That said, humans are probably the most common race in play and therefore cannot be considered "extremely specific". A built with an hobgoblin or a leshy may be "extremely specific" but a built with a human is just "the most common one avaiable", really.
It seemed his problem was players using the same abilities every combat. That's going to happen in Every RPG. In DnD 5e the Warlock casts Eldritch Blast/Hex, the Ranger uses Hunters Mark & the Wizard casts Fireball!
If anything, PF2e takes these things and builds upon them making everything more dynamic.
I enjoyed this. Your comments on team work made me think about my group. In the beginning we found combat really hard and discussed strategy like flanking and taking down one opponent together. I often play support characters so we start with some teamwork but as we have played more I definitely see how working together is how we have made it to book 6 of Ashes. I don't even think it is conscious but it is definitely there and we are a tight party. So, I think you are right team work and strategy make a huge difference in 2e. I love it and it has never felt like I'm repeating the same actions.
"All the classes feel the same" is... not his actual complaint, though?
It's that once you've specialized into a build, all combats with that particular character feel the same because the math encourages you to focus on the One Thing you're good at.
In one video he had a specific example of the Ranger, but if you combine what he was saying between the two videos, he was saying that with all classes there was only one "optional" way to play each class. Hence, each class would feel the same in the sense that you only had one path to follow ... i.e. the "illusion of choice" he was talking about.
I also broke down the Ranger in my pinned post above, but I extrapolated what he was saying to all of the PF2 classes.
You nailed it on the head, he didn't say all classes felt the same but that each combat for any given class becomes super repetitive
It's almost like it simulates a character having strengths and weaknesses, instead of being able to do everything all the time. If only there was a group of people that could make specialized characters that compliment each other.
@@RollForCombat No that's not his point at all, being able to make 50 different rangers or only 1 different ranger has no bearing whatso ever on his complaint. His complaint is specifically that take any of those 50 different rangers and put them in 20 different combats with different monsters, different terrains, different condition and that particular ranger will do the exact same thing in each of those 20 different combats. Sure what they do might be different from a different ranger but that doesn't matter because the player isn't playing a different ranger, they are playing their ranger, and that player is just doing the exact same thing in every combat, the mechanics never ask that player to consider doing something other than their particular specialty.
@@RollForCombat in your video you really did not clarify this. It sounded like a disingenuous take of what he was arguing. That every combat falls into a repetitive rhythm because builds result in the same set of actions being obvious/best/optimal. With so many of these reply videos misintepreting I feel like we watched different taking 20 videos.
I think cody's approach really is telling of his playstyle. maybe its cause i mainly play casters, but i feel like im very rarely doing the same thing in every combat. the idea of pursuing only the most optimal perceived strategy is such a depressing way to look at an rpg i feel. when making a character my concern is rarely ever "how can i do the most damage" as opposed to "what sort of interesting character can i make". one of the characters im playing now is a kobold poison draconic sorcerer with poisoner archetype thats focused heavily on melee combat. could i do more damage if i kept to the back and just threw fireballs at things? probably, but it would be less fun
He wasnt saying that the classes arent different. He was saying that once you go down a certain path with your character your stuck doing the one thing youve developed and that it's so much worse doing anything else youd be purposefully handicapping yourself to try.
Yeah I don't understand why they don't adress it, seen alot of youtubers do this where I as a vieuwer have to ask: did you watch the original vids??
Took this video 90 seconds to be wrong.
The argument above is completely disingenuous as retraining in PF2 is extremely easy to do and part of the core rules. You are never "stuck" doing anything you don't want to do in PF2. In our Three Ring Adventure podcast, the character Hap has retrained her character nearly every level because new books have been coming out while we have been playing and she wanted to try out new abilities and feats. Nobody is ever "stuck" doing anything in PF2, ever.
@@RollForCombat @Roll For Combat no YOU are very disingenuous since none of these people talked about retraining, nobody mentioned retraining . you are litterally putting words into people's mouth, stop it, it won't make your argument any better.
nobody talked about ''being stuck'' that's just you not understanding the argument, nobody talked about PF2e as if: you have no choice, what was said there is NO INTERRESTING CHOISE, what is this bullshit that you're just pulling out of your ass????
at this point just admit you never watched the original video or the follow-up, you missed so much and left so much out, it's telling.
@@RollForCombat yeah, the argument Cody was making is that whatever choices you made, as long as you are playing a non-caster, when you are in combat, you are limited to doing the same thing. He didn't argue that classes were the same, nor that things weren't changeable when you level.
I think there are a ton of problems with that argument, but that's what needs to be addressed.
I 100% agree with you. Pathfinder 2e is much more fun when the players communicate during tactical combat. In fact, I think the thing that Cody criticises is the core essence on what makes this part of the game so accessable.
The fact that your character build wants to go for a sequence of moves every turn might be boring in a vacuum but when you know what your ally wants to do you can start to use your turn to enable them. Optimizing a character for damage solo makes no sense to me. I want to build a character who works well with the party.
Love your podcasts. You guys are really chill. It clearly shows that you are very experienced.
I just finished a session where we took down a boss. Mid combat I relayed information to remove trophies it was carrying that were giving it power and pulled attention away from the giant so that we could cut them off so it would stop it’s regen. They were more specialized to take the task ahead (one of the guys I gave a special weapon mid battle to that helped GREATLY in this context) while I drew its attention, which played out over two hours and ended with one PC summoning a giant spider to pin it down with webs, pulling the last totems off, and poisoning it while it had other debuffs applied to it which ultimately killed it. It was fucking awesome, and I couldn’t imagine it going any other way. That’s why love it. A good DM will recognize this strength as well an will make the sessions fucking amazing with that in mind.
Exactly.
That's the experience I have with pf2e group assaults worked sooo much better than the front line fighters just going in.
I'll have to say pf2e needs to be mastered much much more than d&d 5e (which IMO has spoiled these players into making it too easy and when you play a harder system you get frustrated when (in the case of Cody's group) you get a tpk.
There was a TPK?
@@onedankind8168 No there wasn't.
I spotted my players playing as individuals so i gave them the accidental meat grinder method. One spell/ability accidentally combining with other spells and abilities. It took my group a couple of attempts to understand what I was doing but some of the smarter ones got creative and I rewarded them. Eventually they all realised what was happening and began working together and becoming scary. Then my job was to slow their murder rates and make it so mass slaughter did not become the only solution.
I think a genius and fun way to introcude the "teamwork makes the dream work" thing is: if the campaign allow it: make an arena fight, but instead fo the pc vs a other group, make it like a competition:
pc group vs a other group, who needs to fight other groups and which of the main group success in speed or in hps or so, wins stuff
the pc group plays like the pc and the npc group, who is 1:1 like the players, like same classes, same abilities and stats and so use teamwork and so, maybe not perfect or they are weaker, so the players win maybe, ift hey do it right
15:50 I think the reason is: most teamwork stuff reduces the "level" of the enemy by 1 or two
like frightion: -1 to like everything. except for feats and improvement, you are 1 level lower
I often go like it: if the enemy takes a -1 or -2 to something, they are like one or two levels lower in that area, as that is the best to describe it. lvls are going always up by 1 and they are involved in everything
23:04 I think the same is like with superman: a superhero with no weakness isn't fun, so cryptonit got invented so he has a weakness
and combat should be usual spicy: players should feel a bit in danger, but if they don't go dumb, they should win it. someone said it should be like players have 55% to win or to hit. still tighty, but the players can feel strong once and a time, but still feel one or two hits back
I think you're misunderstanding what he's saying. He's not saying that the 9th level character is no more powerful than the lower level versions of itself but rather that the optimal choice is still the same. The 9th level version is still using the exact same rinse/lather/repeat set of actions and that the intervening levels didn't offer viable/competitive options to use instead. That same ability is indeed stronger at 9th than at 1st but the issue is that it's still by far the optimal choice to use by far.
You're a little late to this one. But you deserve at least one like for it nonetheless.
I really enjoyed how many PF2E Supporters came out to appropriately call Taking20 out on this nonsense.
I particularly enjoyed theruleslawyer's video on it , the title of that video escapes at the moment. I'll make an edit if remember 😂.
On the healing, make it heal 1d8+CON modifier, that way CON doesn't suck.
Your healing after a rest is CON(min. of 1)×your level. And CON is used for hitpoints and fortitude saves.
The heal spell is powerfull enough, the 2 action version being capable of giving around 40-50% of someones health back and treat wounds can be repeated and buffed with skill feats
That wasn't his argument though? He said that his issue was his players did the same thing all the time in combat, not that every class was the same. This entire video is a misrepresentation of what he said and I don't even think he's right.
"This is probably, actually not incorrect."
That is a quote from this video.
@@johnwolfe7596 lol let me just respond in how you're wrong.
What!! That's not what you said? Well I never said I was talking about THAT part.
Just dodging doesn't make it right
Yeah, the argument being presented here doesn't address taking20s. In fact, it arguably amplifies his point. If teamwork plays such a heavy role in PF2 combat, then when players take suboptimal actions in combat, it punishes EVERYONE not just you. Taking20s point is not suddenly made moot by having THE ENTIRE PARTY form a rotation
@@joshuasorey6031 Just want to ask a question here. How is it punishing if the party is having fun? Isn't that the main thing?
@@kelvinphillips7140 Zzzzz boring.
Great video! I wrote down the TEAMPLAY aspect on a different notepad and totally forgot to mention it in my response. I am so glad you covered the secret sauce in your video!
I hate to sound mean or rude, but there is one of two things going on in your video.
1. You completely missed Cody’s point as if you didn’t watch his videos on this.
2. You are being disingenuous and not even talking about what Cody said because there is no defense against it, he proved his point with math.
Now to be fair in your first pinned comment you did actually go through what he said much better than your video, but still missed the point. Cody was not talking about power of your characters as you level, he was not saying that each class feels the same, he was saying that every character does the same thing throughout the game because it’s the most optimal choice. And this is by no small margin as he shows with the math. He doesn’t say that you CAN’T do anything else, but that anything else feels like you’ve wasted a turn compared to your optimal action. The runes wouldn’t change this either, as they would keep the % differences between the PF2E’s Ranger choices the same.
I’m not here to defend Cody either, before the second video I felt he was being partial even though he said D&D 5e isn’t perfect and has similar issues. But once his second video came out you cannot argue the math, it’s just factual information. The one thing you said that would slightly change things is that the Ranger grappling the Wight would not prone the Ranger. But it would still be noticeably better for the Ranger to just attack as Cody says.
He didn't prove anything with math when the math is wrong. The rules are incorrectly applied. And every issue he has is purely a player/dm issue not a mechanics issue.
It's all subjective.
The major problem is that not only isn't his information factual (since his math was wrong and ignored rules), his example was the clear definition of cherry-picking. His entire experiment was assembled for him to display his point, while ignoring very fundamental rules and options the system provides that would end up debunking his entire argument.
He not even once clarified that you can build your ranger in a non specialized way (but still optimal), that can have a more versatile approach to combat.
He used an example of a ranger specialized in archery, in a system that allows for ultra specialization, and compared to a system where characters are by default more versatile. This is incredibly dishonest and will fool anyone that didn't bother to check the system beforehand, for the exact reason you mentioned - because he used "the maths and stuff"...
That entire "scientific show" he put on was akin to flat-earther experiments on a bathroom. It will fool people who are not versed enough to counter-argue it.
What bothers me is that all he achieved was discouraging potential consumers from ever trying out that system. But given that 90% of his viewers are 5e players, I guess that in the end it will only serve as confirmation bias anyway...
You know. We not long ago played the box set for a new GM. We stumbled upon the boss fight ahead of time. I told everyone to stay in the room. I stood at the door forcing the Gremlin horde to bottle neck. Missile folk pounded past me, spellcasters pounded on monsters and buffed us. It was glorious, and the GM was blown away by is surviving. It also help I Crit on a Spellstrike on the boss lol
4e went to 30, not 20, although the epic tier was near unplayable. But I loved 4e.
The Epic tier was amazeballs and the Warden I played from 1st to 30th level is still my favorite character of any edition bar none.
@@TheMysticLemur I dunno. At about level 28 or so, each round of combat took about 90 minutes. When we were at 30, I remember one session in particular where we got 3 rounds accomplished in the entire session. Every single turn, there were 10 or so immediate actions.
Yeah, my 4e games had combs and slog from level 11 on up. So many statuses to keep track of...
@@jameswhite3043 Yeah, we used a virtual tabletop, and frankly I don't know how anyone could play high level 4e or a similar game without one. I certainly couldn't play pf2 without one. Aint nobody got time to track all that stuff by hand.
You are missing the point. The problem is not the math being tight, nor the characters being weak or feeling the same. The point was as follows: in Pathfinder 2E there is a set of actions for each character in combat so superior to every other choice, that almost invalidates doing anything else. So much so, that his players were getting bored of doing the same things in every fight.
The math he shows is just a way to ilustrate his point. We were not talking about minmaxing or balance. The math shows that with a normal class using his most natural/common build, doing anything but said set of actions is way worse than anything else the character Is able to do, making you feel like you are not doing your part or like if you have just made a poor decision.
The most inmediate comparation, 5ED&D, even being repetitive and having the same issues, doesn't come close to having such an incredible difference between said optimal actions and other alternatives. As such, it feels like the players have much more options. Also, 5E is able to archive almost anything Pathfinder does with half of the rules, and gives much more roleplaying freedom to his players.
So between two sistems that have the problem of being repetitive, why would you choose the one that limits your players the most?
He compared one build of a 2e ranger against THE 5e ranger. He spent a lot of time and math showing that a bow ranger shouldn't use a sword, while also showing that there is no meaningful difference between a 5e bow ranger or a sword ranger. The ranger example that consumed so much time and math didn't even take into account that the 2e ranger can also use his core mechanic in melee. He compared a 5e ranger acting optimally in melee to a 2e ranger that wasn't. Of course the 2e ranger will be lacking. But somehow the fact that you can (have to?) build your character towards a strategy means that there is an "illusion" of choice vs a character that doesn't have to make any choices, because all 5e rangers are equally effective right out of the box.
Pathfinder 2e allows you to build for strange or flavorful builds as well. You want to make a combat wizard? 2e supports that. You want to make a finesse barbarian? 2e supports that. You want have two or more characters of the same class in your party that feel like different characters? 2e supports that. The choice isn't illusory. You get tired of TURNING INTO A T-REX ALL THE TIME (omgwtf)? Then you can completely retrain your character using options already built into the game!
@@TheMysticLemur Yes, he compared one build to the class without taking into account all the options that the subclasses gives you. Do you really belive that giving the 5e Ranger access to even more options that are equaly valuable in a fight is going to make the comparation better for the 2e ranger? Because remember, no matter what you choose as a ranger in 5e, all of your habilites except the fighting style and some feats can be use with a bow or a sword. And he does mention the archery fighting style, so he is actually focusing in the same type of ranger.
But this is not the point, nor the fact that you can build original or strange characters (btw every build you have listed is also possible in 5e). When he mentions the "ilusion of choice" he is not refering to the way of building your character nor that you are forced to build it like this or that. Not in any of his videos does he say that. He's talking exclusively about your options in combat. About how, when you have a set build, doing anything else but what the build is supposed to do is so much worse that it feels like you are doing something wrong, aka, you are forced to do it in order to be usefull. "You can do anything you want in this complex battle simulator, but doing this three things over and over in every encounter against any enemy outshines everyting else you might think of at such a degree that not doing it feels wrong". That's the ilusion.
Remember, the 5e Ranger is still more usefull with a bow in Taking20 build. But, for the sake of argument, let's say I build my ranger to be fully ranged. Max dex, archery fighting style, gloom stalker, sharpshooter feat. Yes, I will be much more powefull using a bow, yet it doesn't feel like you are usseles when you decide to do something else. I might not be as effective, but I'm effective to the point that It becomes an option to fight with swords or to grapple the enemy. Also, when the enemy closes the distance, I'm forced to make a choice. A difficult choice. Do I move and risk taking an oportunity attack, maybe losing concentration? Do I keep using my bow at dissadvantage, making me far more likely to miss? Do I swich to a sword, doing much less damage but making me much more accurate?
Let's do the same in Pathfinder. Max dex, Hunted shot, hunter's aim, far shot. I am now very powerfull at ranged combat, as the 5e version, and worthless at anything else. So why would I do anything else? Even when the enemy gets close, my best option is still shoothing with the bow in the same way I've been doing until now.
YET STILL, even if you want to ignore, contradict or deny everything I said, this is not the fact that made him not want to play anymore, since he also says that 5e is guilty of the same at some degree. The things is, if I have two roleplaying games, both slightly underwelming and repetitive, why would I choose the one that limits roleplaying the most and forces you to memorize more rules? This is the most important point, yet nobody defending Pathfinder 2e talks about it. Maybe because he's right.
@@swarleymanlagranbombilla9575 Maybe because many of us stuck with Pathfinder 1e over 5th edition because we prefer the complexity and what we feel it adds to the game. Those of us who still prefer 2e over 5th edition still prefer that complexity and what it adds to the game. Character building feels like a game all on it's own. You can plan your build, decide what to focus on, and be good at that. Yes, spending resources to be good at something should mean you are worse at other things. Yes, if you are really good at shooting a bow, that's probably what you're going to be spending most of the fight doing. If you build for Intimidation, you had better like doing that at least once per round as well. Same with grappling, or spellcasting, or any other damn thing you decide you want to do when you make the character. And if you change your mind, there's a way already built into the game to change your focus and try something new.
Why do we spend so much time debating something that "wasn't the point?" Maybe because he spent so much time whinging about it in the first place. Either his "real" point is not really his point, or his exceedingly long, passionate video could have been done in five.
Man, you talking about 1st Edition D&D brought back some fun, frustrating, and interesting memories..
Broken characters are always more fun. Many players, at least "back in my day" (I started TRPGs in 79 for a one shot, but regularly in 81) avoided this because if you did it, DMs would use that weakness to kill your character off.
If you can get a DM who's willing to let you fail repeatedly without it being fatal, then playing the "Bad New Bears" vs Thanos is always more fun than showing up with the Avengers to a 7-11 robbery.
Just a kind of point that threw me off. I'm a bit OCD. The first box set was Basic and the classes were Mage, Thief, Fighter, Cleric, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling. Paladin came with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Rangers and Bards came in Advanced DnD but were a combination of classes (Ranger=Druid/Fighter and Bard, I can't even remember). Barbarians and some classes didn't show up until the first Unearthed Arcana book in the 80s. All this to say, DnD was pretty much a hot mess until 3.0 where Monte Cook, Sean Reynolds and crew started to solidify rules.
Just wanted to say I appreciated this insight.
I know this is an old video. But I wasn't aware of your channel back then.
I had a very similar response to Pathfinder 2 as Cody from Taking 20. I never understood why people enjoyed P2. But this video... plus a new and better understanding of the 3 action system helped me appreciate the game more.
Its still not for me, but I'm not as judgemental now.
In your chess analogy, you forgot that if the magic-user got a pawn to the back rank, it would promote into 3 queens... so by the end the magic-user could have a dozen queens vs. the fighters 8 rooks.
Hahah yes. Wizards sucked till level 5 but then quickly dominated after that. That is why they had to get almost twice the experience to reach 20th lvl
My group still run pathfinder 1st but were a large group(6+gm) so scale up a lot of purchased content and constantly rebalance encounters. GMing our groups is chaos, half will mix max and half will make janky heroes. Hell they'll split up when they shouldn't and it's all equally wonderful as it is stupid. 1st ed adventure paths keep us going even with a lot of work to shape to our group. One day we may drift to 2nd ed pf but tbh after 15+ years with 3/3.5/pathfinder we are kinda content and break it up with cthulu, adventure age, fallout, star wars and other systems.
I don't want to disparage any single role play system not every system is for everyone. Maybe this guy running from 2nd ed pf is for the best, maybe 1st ed would suit him better 🤔
But pazio gambled in moving away from D&D 3rd as honestly i feel it's a sweet spot in terms of balancing what i personally want from pnp rpgs. But as i said what's good for me isn't nessisarily good for everyone i like rolling dice with friends be it in world of darkness or dark herasy, i just like the escapism of advemture story telling.
Honestly this seems kind of obvious. While rarely used outside of hunters teamwork feats are one of the most powerful tools in the game. By making it more mobile and team oriented teamwork feats seem like a more optimal choice. Heck, in the kingmaker video game there are a lot of teamwork feats. I played in several games where the party tried to be a group of solo heroes in 1e. I would build something like a stone lord paladin with a reach weapon. The idea being that I stand as a linchpin that the rest of the party stands beside and hit things with attacks of opportunity as they come in and the rest of the party picks them apart once they are close. What happens instead? They spend 2 turns buffing themselves and charge in two different directions. I play a luck cleric with all sorts of party buffs and aura spells. What does the pary do? Spreads out to try and flank a enemy group and have to fight on two fronts with only one group being able to damage the demons cause the other guys don’t have good aligned weapons. It seems 2e is made for my play style just so long as I don’t have that group again.
He didnt say all classes feel the same. He said in building the choices are limited in that there is only one bow ranger build and then in combat the most powerful combat sequence remain best and is too good. Other combat option are massive downgrades in damage output and character safety.
Yes, and he did so giving a cherrypicked example that conveniently ignored A LOT of stuff a PF ranger can do (at level 1 an “optimized” PF2 bow ranger can ALSO have an animal companion which obviously gives the player of said ranger quite a lot more options than what a 5E ranger’s player gets) while at the same time “forgetting” about other PF rules (like volley for bows).
The problem here is a lot of people believe what Cody claims because he confirms their bias and have 0 interest in learning if he’s actually telling them the truth).
P.S.
Cody has one thing right: PF2E is much more rules heavy than D&D 5E. This alone makes the latter game better suited for some players and GMs than the former
Go ahead make your own response video on P2 e tactics that shows significant tactical choices are roughly equal. You would the first since none of the other response deal with this.
@@michaelciantar2674 I don't have the time nor the motivation for doing such thing and btw at least one of those videos has been posted in this very same discussion thread. Also, I'm actually saying FF2E gives more significant options than what D&D 5E does, unless, of course, you build to specialize in one thing and one thing only despite that not being "optimal" at all in PF2E
A fascinating retrospective on different fantasy systems over the years, and your own journey through the evolution of group Dynamics and teamwork. Bravo.
It also had practically nothing to do with the source video you are theoretically responding to. Good points you are making, but tangential to the other videos at best.
This video explains why I hate superman players. "It doesn't feel as powerful" if hitting harder is what you mean by powerful why are you even playing RPGs?
1:13
That’s not what he said.
He was talking about all characters based on what feet they take emend up developing a repetitive play style because to take any other action than those that focus on benefits granted by the feet greatly impact the survivability of your character.
That's not what he said.
In fact, it's not even close.
He said the most optimal way for a character to fight almost never changes.
He said there is only so many ways to build up a character that no matter what you do, you'll end up doing repeating the same set of actions every turn.
He never said optimizing or min maxing.
In fact he said exactly the opposite of that. Min max or don't min max, all characters end up the same.
I'm mostly annoyed about this whole debacle because I had gotten tired of taking 20's videos long ago(they... Weren't really informative about 5e and were kind of clickbaity and generic), so I'm not going to start watching them just to take part in this conversation :p So its annoying to watch people arguing back and forth about what was said or not said.
Like over here I'm just like "Why the heck he couldn't have just presented his opinions as opinions rather as fault in system and avoid edition flame wars". Like roleplayers always get touchy when someone claims their favorite system isn't good for roleplaying :p
He wanted the flame war, it drives views for his channel. I originally got annoyed by Cody's video until I realized that the beginning of it told the whole story: COdy hates the fact that he's not on WOTC's radar and he doesn't get free stuff from them, while smaller content creators do.
IMO this was all a tactic for attention from D&D higher ups. I'm done with Cody and his channel
@@davidbamatter7334 I don't think it's really about clickbait tbh, which is part of the issue with his aggression and disdain of 2e. The point of clickbait is to pull in people who would otherwise not watch your content and even hate it through causing controversy. The PF2e audience is nowhere near big enough to generate revenue from clicks or sway the algorithm enough to have him pop up more. If he really wanted to drive up clickbait, he'd condemn 5e and put 2e on a pedestal, like he did in his initial 5e vs 2e video; THAT was good clickbait.
I think this is just him having investment in Paizo's products and feeling insecure about his own opinion about a game system he wasn't able to fully grasp. He obviously puts a lot of stock in his ability to understand multiple systems, but really, it's pretty clear to anyone who's actually played 2e that he just wasn't understanding the system. So instead of being humble and bowing out gracefully, he had to make a big deal about it to validate himself amongst people who haven't actually played the system (i.e. most of his audience) and then got mad when people who had called him out on it.
It's basically the whole Principle Skinner 'am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong' meme in TH-camr/TTRPG form.
@@DanTalksGames disdain?????????? He said he wouldn't discourage anyone from playing 2E he very clearly stated that the issues he has with 2E were for him personally, he still claimed that its a great game.
@@redrumssam5888 yes... that's why he felt the need to make a video about it making a lot of outlandish claims like "my druid player is getting bored just turining into a tyrannosaurus and can't anything else"... with the druid being a full caster with a plethora of good options at its disposal... then he did a second video acting like a bully while claiming that "everyone was talking about my ranger example so here's the math that proves that I'm right!" (while no, most people were talking about the druid example because it was so outlandish) then he proceeds to present a cherry-picked encounter, ignores half the options for a PF2E archer ranger, ignores PF rules for bows and despite all that "proves" the 5E ranger is more or less the same as the PF ranger... Good Job! But of course it works because his audience is composed by vast amounts of people who don't know PF2E, don't want to learn about it and feel reassured that the "influencer" confirmed their bias...
I think you misunderstood the premise of his argument. He said that every character is unique, but once you roll initiative, you will take the same sequence of actions. Player A builds and wizard and Player B makes a ranger, both players will play differently, but Player A will repeat the same combat pattern and Player B will repeat their own combat pattern.
The illusion of choice he alludes to is actions in combat, not character creation options.
But it does... his ranger and Druid examples both go for specific builds that dont diversify feat choices which create an optimal path. My ranger has twin strike, hunted shot and, Monster hunter at level 5 with str and dex middling. Gives me lots of flexibility in combat. My sequence of actions depends on the combat.
This video shares his experience that what is most *optimal* is teamwork and cooperation, which is inherently not doing "the same sequence of actions" in a vacuum which Cody's examples were. Cody's examples only looked at individual DPS
@@TheNeoanomally> create an optimal path.
> choice during combat.
I think you missed the point? The fact you HAVE an optimal path is what makes it boring since the point was it makes "doing damage" the best option VS the rest accomplishes so little
@@ronaldsanfran nope he had a partner in there
Why is everyone talking about every class' action silo in a vacuum? Where PF2E really shines is in the teamwork. If you're stuck in your action silos and not using teamwork in PF2E, then of course you're going to TPK!
As the person who made the video, I can at least tell you why I made it. The people at Paizo are amazing people. They are some of the most amazing people I have ever meet and they kill themselves making the Pathfinder product so that we can have fun. Paizo is a small company and Pathfinder is their main product. The people at Paizo don't make a lot of money and what they do is literally a passion of love for them all. If Pathfinder fails, then Paizo will fold and bye-bye Pathfinder.
Meanwhile, WoTC is owned by Hasbro, which is worth $12.6 billion dollars. D&D makes up a TINY portion of Hasbro AND their D&D division is a fraction of the size Paizo. If D&D disappeared, Hasbro wouldn't even notice. It's that small to them.
When Cody, a person with a huge audience and always appearing at the top of the TH-cam search results, comes out with a video that trashes Pathfinder AND Paizo and says "I'm not playing their game anymore because the 9th level spellcaster is BORED playing a dinosaur all the time", it makes my blood boil.
Paizo deserves better. Paizo is giving everything of themselves into this product and Pathfinder is their lifeblood. The community and the people at Paizo deserve better.
And the part that made me the angriest is when he actually came out and said at the beginning of his video how amazing everyone at Paizo is and how WoTC doesn't give him the time of day. Yet he then goes out of his way to trash Pathfinder 2e with arguments that can be easily be said of nearly ANY RPG with tactical combat.
And if your 9th level druid is bored with their character ... then maybe, just maybe, it's not the fault of the system...
I know you’re coming from a good place but you misinterpreted many of his points and arguments, even out of the gate. If you want to defend Paizo that’s amazing, but there’s better ways to do it than misrepresent someone’s argument.
Again with the horrible misrepresentation of Cody's videos and not even a coherent argument on your part.
Deciding a game system is not for you and your group is not the same as trashing it. Cody never trashed PF2E, he showed various examples of game mechanics that he disliked playing with.
His reasoning had nothing to do with what you claimed. He has not made over an hour of content going into great depth as to what he disliked, the trends that pop up, etc. And he has stated numerous times that other games have the same problems, which is why he would prefer a simpler game rather than a more complex one.
You seem to be constantly getting hung up on random points, like the Druid thing, instead of actually responding to points he actually made in his video, it is honestly like you never watched the video and instead are just getting your info from reddit or something.
Overall you are just coming off as a fanboy for PF. Someone not thinking PF is a good fit for their table is not them trashing the game or attacking Paizo, and it does not mean that they think D&D is better. And even if they do think 5e is better why do you care?
What I don't get is why everyone is talking about class' action silos in a total vacuum. Where PF2E really shines is in the teamwork. If you're stuck in your individual action silos and not using teamwork in PF2E, then yeah, it's only a matter of time before your party experiences a TPK.
@@JuddsonIvines thats not what Taking20s video was about at all, so I have no idea why its being brought up. Especially since he went over it even more in his second video
Well, at least that makes the dissonance between what various people are observing between forums make more sense. You've been refreshingly clear. The impetus to publish this wasn't so much "Hey, I have a different perspective or constructive criticism to offer on the points this other person made." And more "Hey, I feel that the points this other person made were critical of the system made by people I personally like, and therefore feel like my 'Team' is being attacked...so I'm going to try and attack/undercut back"
Refreshingly self aware and honest. But it doesn't really do much to help shine any informational light onthe issues for those of us who don't play either system, and were just curious without having skin in the game in what appears to be a tribal stand off.
Meh.
I know this is an old video. As a board gamer, I appreciate tight math. I remember a time in our 3.5 campaign where one of our group rolled a new chat and as part of the process the rest of our party attacked him. His psionic char wiped the floor with the rest of our party.
As to your 4e comments, I will say that while chars feel the same, you can definitely break your character through poor planning and build choices. I went to a couple of the play days at a local shop. Those were tough one offs and if the other players didn’t show up with optimal choices it was a disaster.
Personally I like the system to allow flavor choices that won’t make you suck unless you are trying to make that happen.
But Taking 20 was not wrong even in your example w/the monk & the need to work together it means his best actions are to do the same things each time to make the fighter better. It the illusion of choice sure the monk has cool stuff it can do but the best thing it can do each time is the attack that will aid the fight on the next turn.
Actually no. The combat system is built around the idea that attacking 3 times in a row is suboptimal (you get a -5 to the second attack and a -10 to the third). This means an optimal strategy for PF2E involves doing different things than just attacking and you have useful options for it, unlike what Cody claims.
I'm playing an online town colony character whose ,largely, non-violent cleric who is a cleric and teacher (school marm), carpenter and wood artist so was fun building her and she as a cleric of a deity preferring to avoid combat so is a go to negotiator. It was fun as hell to build. And anyone know an MMO that lets me play a o-violent business person or Quaker cleric who shuns all violence? I also had a power gamer group and solved it with a game that combat and power was useless but they dealt with an evil gods LN cult that were LOVED in the city and never carried weapons (Bane was the deity) serving Tyranny but supported a strong LN tyrant. They killed a cleric and everyone backed hanging them for murder from the beggars to the warlord and in between. The quest was to establish a church of a lesser good deity who was now getting bounties on them in the kingdom. It was a mess.
In the past few years I found the rules for retroclones of B/X and older editions. I've never had more fun playing/DMing!!! I was interested in PF2e at first... but the book is so chunky... ill take my character creation in 10 to 15 minutes lol. Also, I've only had one death in a year and that was the first old school module I played in.
The length of Pathfinders 2E Core Rulebook is roughly the same as the D&D Players Handbook and DMs Guide put together, and contains roughly the same content.
@@makraiz for 5e true. I'm talking about some older retro clone games I've been playing, where the rulebook is maybe 176 pages, digest size.
I don't have an opinion on the main topic. I haven't played PF2 yet so I'm neutral.
But I have watched both of his videos and listened to this one.
And unfortunately your response just doesn't respond to this argument. It misunderstands and misstates his point, and then responds to that instead.
I think maybe there's an implicit premise issue? You see his position as having certain implications and you're responding to those without making the connection explicit. That's my charitable guess. Apologies.
So Glick, it basically boils down to "The players need to level up with the characters."
DM:"The treasure is the character development you yourself get as a person along with your character's experiences. That is why you lose all of your level 20 equipment and are now naked."
PLAYER:"Tomb of Horrors suck! I hate this game!"
Stephen great video. Been listening since 3 Ring started and I gotta say my players had the same realization around level 3. The action economy in PF 2e is so good. That Cody's players keep doing the same thing is a referendum on them not the system.
Sure...but what does that tell you about the game, then? If the onus where to be on Cody's group like you suggest, then the game is sort of wrong too for not being able to curb that behavior and make it obvious that they are doing something wrong. Because that's the problem. You can't point anywhere in the book where it says that Cody and his group where playing the game wrong. If anything they were playing completely right.
They are following the system of incentives that PF2 has established for them. Optimization is a core activity in this game; the feat creation system makes it so. PF2, like 5e, like any other trad game, does a very poor job at explaining how to create interesting dynamic combats that don't rely exclusively on the damage per turn vector for success. They just don't provide tools to deviate from that.
I'm at the point where I just find this whole "controversy" kind of funny. I play 2e all the time, and it's like people are talking about a whole different game.
Your point about cooperation is right, but isn't that how folks were playing before? If not, why are you even playing with other people? So they can watch you play "solo?" If so, why?
And all of the commentary assumes you are playing Paizo's adventures. When you homebrew, you can still have "wade through a sea of goblins" type fights if you want. In fact, those can be super fun precisely because your PCs gets uber powerful. At level 12, you will have something like a +22 to hit. A typical level 8 monster has an AC around 26. This is why you're told not to even bother putting creatures more than 4 levels lower than your players on the board. They won't even be able to hit your players, and your players will routinely one-shot them.
So... if you're unsatisfied with the game and have only played published adventures, then the problem is very likely that their adventures (not the game) is not to your taste--Paizo seems to like to make tough, grindy, combat focused adventures. You don't have to play this way.
For example, last year, I ran a Middle Earth based game where the players, FOR ALMOST A MONTH, managed to avoid all combat. We have a solid 4 sessions of RP, sneaking around, gathering info. It was kind of fantastic, and it became a mini-game with the players to see how long they could keep the streak going. Another great thing about 2e, is that there are robust mechanics for that kind of game too. It is NOT just a combat system. I mean, there are rules for “making an impression” for God's sake, that’s a ruleset designed by folks that have thought a lot about “social encounters.” There are also a ton of cool things to do in downtime…
So, if you’re having the problems described by Cody & others, convert an older older adventure, or (as RFC suggests) give the PCs a level or the very powerful weapons the game assumes they posses. The APs are designed to continually challenge you, not make you feel that your PC is powerful (and vicariously to make you feel that). If you want something different, build it. 2e is a great game, go have fun playing it.
You realize the problem still exists right? Just because you can play a less combat focused adventure doesn't mean this problem doesn't exist in combat. So you've literally either just missed the point entirely or you're blaming the adventures/DMs for how combat work?
@@onedankind8168 As far as I can tell from my own experience, there is no problem. I've played and DM'd 2e a ton, and I just haven't seen the repetition to boredom thing happen at all. Players are constantly doing new things all the time. That's why I find this thing funny. It really seems like a totally different game is being talked about.
And, if something like this is happening at your table, it is 100% on the DM for not finding new ways to challenge the players in ways that call for new strategies, even if using a published adventure. If a PC is built to only do one thing well, and each encounter is basically the same, so you keep doing that one thing, yeah, that's going to be damn boring. I put that on poor encounter/adventure design.
My advise is, if this is the problem, alter the encounters, change the game. Basically the same fight over and over would be boring in any system. So, if that's the campaign you've chosen to play for some reason, yeah choose a simpler system, so at least you can get through them quickly. For me, it makes more sense to me run combat so its engaging, and you have a ton of options. But if just want to get through the encounters as quickly as possible, OK, go play with Basic/OSR rules. Combat is super fast, and that game is really fun too. Its my second favorite system in fact.
Where Cody is completely correct is that, if a system isn't working for you and your group, for whatever reason, than it is best just to move on. It's why I play 2e now, I moved on from another system that just wasn't working. This one is for us, and really well.
@@jameswillaman your players just frequently make decisions that dramatically lower their performance.
You’re entire post ignores the math.
Yeah of course the dm can force the characters to act differently by eliminating the option to use their best skills through terrain or other engagements.
But that’s completely missing the point.
@@onedankind8168 You are confusing adapting to a specific encounter and playing stupidly.
And changing up encounters so that players naturally gravitate toward building balanced PCs with varied abilities is exactly the point.
Cody is saying the complexity of 2e is pointless because there is really only one way to build and play a PC--you create your optimal rotation. If every encounter you're in is exactly the same, he is right, and your GM is running a suboptimal adventure. If you find yourself facing an array of challenges, he is wrong because optimal builds have blindspots that will sooner or later catch up to the PC.
If every problem is a nail, then your players will only build hammers.
Out of curiosity, what game(s) do you play, and how do they avoid this problem?
@@onedankind8168 Adapting to a situation by using a different option than your go to move is not playing stupidly, its playing strategically.
Cody's point is that the complexity of 2e is useless because there is only one real option to both builds and play, so why bother with all the useless crunch. You're just fooling yourself. He is right, and so are you, if every encounter can be handled the same way with the same tactics.
If the situations vary, however, it will naturally lead to characters that are built more flexibly and have more than one tool in their toolbox. If you only ever show your plays a nail, they will only build hammers. Hammering is repetitive and boring. If you present a wide array of problems to solve that can't just be hammered, your players will develop a lot of tools. None of them will be as powerful as the hammer only build, but those type of PCs have blind spots and weakness that make them vulnerable. Sometimes you need a wrench or pliers. And when you do, you'd better not be left holding only a hammer. That's a truly suboptimal bild in this game, and it gets PCs and Parties wiped out.
Out of curiosity, what game(s) do you play? And in your favorite system, do you feel like you have a lot of choices that are all equally optimal? Or do you agree with Cody that it is sort of an issue with TTRPGs in general, so why not just deal with a simpler system?
The only thing I agree with him is that the positioning in combat doesnt feel as important compared to something like 5e where every enemy got AoO.
If 3 goblins "circle" a wizard then he can just move out, or run away and just attack, or people with ranged attacks can just attack into someones face (With a crossbow for example).
And because you can take the move action 3 times you can move like 75 feet which is most of the time enough to move across the battlefield
D&D 5e Wizard's all range spell attacks are with disadvantage and you don't want to fireball yourself so you ask yourself "Do I Disengage and wont cast a spell or do I take 3 opportunity attacks so I can cast a fireball?" and dies from 1d4 brain thinking dmg 👍
@@xezzee disadvantage doesn't exist and not everyone has AoO. I'm talking about PF2e ranged positioning mattering less
@@coolboy9979 Never disagreed. Edited my comment 👍Combat can be fun and D&D 5e has more opportunities to mix things up, but it is not the miracle solution.
All games suffers from "Min-maxing the fun out of the game" was it Guild Wars 2, Elder Ring or D&D 5e. Also it depends how player's play how fun the combat is. If you only do the best thing to do and never improvise anything then you are just NPC and when you find the game boring perhaps it is you 👍
Question does the the Discord have thiner of the mind games?
The best campaign of my life was 4e and it was roleplay heavy. Your assumptions on 4e are plain wrong, but I appreciate the video and analysis in terms of Pathfinder. :) Btw, Pf2e is 90% borrowing ideas from 4e, as most of the modern adventuring games do. The actual reason people don't like 4e is because it is party based and most of modern players are power gamers.
With a group of cooperating beings, 4e is superior by aeons.
Still, I love Pf2e and I'm really happy with it, especially for those 4e similarities.
Good video
Definitely, a good, experienced DM is needed for this plan to work. The tight numbers helps new DM's, but can hinder experienced ones who aren't ready to bend the rules. And those two types of DM's seem to be the most common.
Thank you Stephen, I was hoping to get your take on this.
It’s amazing how many people think because something is written down, that is the end of the story. The number of times you will see someone ask a question somewhere and people will jump down their throat saying you can’t do that because of this rule or that text.
Break the fucking game people. You don’t like the math, break jt. Give out +5 weapons. Let em stack the same bonus. Who cares. As the gm it might take a few encounters to balance it back out but it will be just fine. It’s not a board game where it can ruin it. The who point of TTRPG’s is they are super flexible. Stop stressing and do what is fun not what is written down, and you find the balance.
I giggle like a little child every time someone complains about THACO. I guess for people who can't do basic arithmetic it would be very scary and complicated to understand.
I would trade every support spell in my Evoker's kit to just be a little bit more accurate.
It is also depends of the tactics of the the monsters. The monsters should also take advantage of all there abilities and powers. I had this problem as far back as 2 nd edition. I could not challenge them. That is when I went to the monster manual and learn to used tactics and there abilities and powers to there full advantage.
they also tend to make there characters like a video game. Complaining that they spam the same powers over and over. I have seen this as far back as 2nd edition Adnd and all the way up to dnd 5e. It is all over the place there. That is why game designers for MMOs took there ideas from dnd and Adnd ! So it has always been there.
How many times I have seen players in 2e use the same powers over and over. I looking at you mage.... shield, mage armor, magic missles !
That is why it is up to the GM or DM to come up with tactics that breaks them from there mold.
I for some reason get the legolas in my group and who ever plays this character tend to take to take the same group of feats and abilities for his or her Archer. So I find ways to counter the archer in some of his or her attacks legitimately. Or where there feats will not work.
I remember making a dungeon with only one fight and it was at the end of the dungeon and the dungeon was field with traps and all kinds of things that challenge them.
It comes to how you challenge them and show that each encounter does not half to be the same spam like in a video game.
My thoughts are toward banning D&D Beyond!
I would REALLY love to hear analysis on why DnD 2024 color covers have a print-digital discount on d&D Beyond, while alt covers have no similar offer of 2 digital books free with alt cover purchase. It all says to me WoTC is not supporting local stores at all, nor users wanting the alt covers.
Digital code with alt cover purchase would be as easy as Ultima Online's CD + code in 1989!!!!! Good grief, it's 2024, folks, digital code with print at local stores, please.
It should an extraordinary embarassment to WoTC, but instead stores and content creators are scared crazy to even talk out against WotC.
So many ways to do this better!!!! Seems like a full and needed discussion to me.
Thanks for all you do!
Thank you for your thoughtful video as you echoed many of the same thoughts I had watching Cody’s original video.
Bravo. There are so many choices in RPGs today. Find the one that works for you. Or create your own, there's a lot of that going on and it's a perfectly valid option if you have the passion and the skills. Peace.
I wish he would define "Tight" math
The optimal "choice" is nearly 200% better than any other choice for combat and it's usually the same thing literally every time. That doesn't even include things like receiving extra attacks because now you're beside the enemy and they don't have to spend an action to move to you now.
That's what he means by tight math.
Because in 5e the similar example Cody gave the optimal "choice" was only about 40% better than the other choices. That is orders of magnitude less punishing for making different choices.
This is basically the entire argument.
This is a great response. I am telling people all the time that Pathfinder 2e is the system that saved me from giving up on TTRPG altogether. I was bored with 3.5 / PF1, and I hated 5e. After nearly 30 years of playing RPG's there just were no systems that were grabbing my attention until PF2 came along. I was a bit hurt by Cody's initial response, and appreciated the clarifying video, but I am not going anywhere either.
All want 'G..d Mode '
If Real Works Wealth/Power/
Pleasure is involved...
Look, I'm a gaming gronard too.. I've been playing since the early 80's.
4e failed because it tried to emulate something it was not. Pathfinder should be well aware of this because that fact was the reason why they exist.
The fact of the matter is that if people wanted to grind though an MMO they'd be playing an MMO not reading a 600 page rulebook, trying to organize sessions etc. The hook of table top RPG's for a lot of people is, "I can't wait till I get 'X' ability" or having thier chance to shine in combat. Otherwise, yeah, you might as well be playing a video game that you can have running in 15 minutes at 2am on a Tuesday, if you want.
Ya this "controversy" was fun at first but at this point it's stupid. Literally everyone in the youtube community is dog piling him with dumbass remarks that basically equate to "get gud" "learn to be creative" or just straight up talks about shit he didn't even reference like this video. If you guys like pathfinder, cool beans you do you. But don't sit here and act like your system doesn't have fucking problems and that there aren't actually any issues and that people just need to "get gud" or "learn to rp"
"Balance" is also an "illusion of choice" ! Using the same rules, i can make a better character than many other people, so for "balance" you need to me. If normal characters got 21 points in point buy, you would need to give me 12-15 points for point buy, if you want my character to be balanced!
Just reading through these comments... you kids want to play a different game. Your RPGs should be heavily anti combat if keeping your character alive is so important to min max the crap out of them. If you want to min max to death, play 40k. Such an awful abusive relationship with the dice 🎲 I get attached to my character, I don’t want them to die but it is BORING if they are not in danger.
Fuckng thank you. This war gaming smooth brains who want to only fucking cool fights where they win are not playing RPG to it fullest and Cody and his idiotic Druid and Ranger are best examples of this kind of people
Wasn't the whole point that it was like mmo combat and that is always the same thus boring to some people?
*take notes*
I honestly don’t get anyone saying “I’m not doing any better at level 10 than I did at level 1”.
To me that screams “I don’t think or strategize at all I just do the same thing over and over” because sure the way the math works with scaling you’ll see a lot of same effectiveness on just a base attack as you would at lower levels… except at as you gain levels you have a bigger and bigger toolbox.
By this I mean I may have attacks that target multiple saves meaning I know have MORE options to hit the enemy in a weak spot as opposed to fewer where I’m forced to target one or at best two things. Maybe you have the ability to cause fear 2 on an intimidate or you can deal damage when you grapple or any number of other things that literally make you more effective as you level. This does play very much into the team play you mentioned but the issue taking20 and his players had seemed to me that they where trying to play the game the same, they where CHOOSING to do the same thing over and over and instead of figuring out why that wasn’t working they blamed the game.
With all due respect, the point that Cody was making is that if you had the choice between
100$ primary abilities
20$ secondary abilities
2$ combat maneuvers
1$ positioning/other
People would pick 100$ 90% of the time and the game’s mechanics make your staple abilities that much better mathematically and by telling the player they will get more damage and more to hit for using those than grappling or flanking or anything else in the 2$ category. If one choice is that much better then you don’t really have many choices.
Point Buy always favors Min-Maxing, but rolling for stats, particularly if you only allow one set of dice rolls, will produce these 'broken but fun to play' characters (I.e., 'Old Style Dungeons and Dragons' ^_^)
I feel bad, I really want to try Pathfinder, but for some reason the art really puts me off. I way prefer the art of D&D. A simple example is the goblins, they feel so uncomfortable like some sort of physiological uncanny valley, if I could bare the courage to look at them long enough I would want to put the poor disgusting things out of the misery purely out of mercy. I don't love the D&D goblin, but at least it doesn't hurt my eyes or brain. Is there any way I can overcome this or maybe a version of Pathfinder without the horrific art?
the art for gobs if i remember right is paizo wanted wayne reynolds (main artist that does alot of pathfinder art, also known as head artist for dnd eberron setting back in 3.5e, which also some setting designers of eberron joined pathfinder when it was made.) to make them look chaotic with a unique design to them with an interesting backstory. so the look they got is this. what backstory they got? besides pillaging, steal, being nuisance to players they like to yoddle, pickles is their delicacy and they are afraid of all dogs except goblin dogs which is ironic.
You're responding to a video about statistical path of least resistance and the illusion of choice by saying that its min maxing AND that you can be more powerful working as a team. Ergo your solution makes your premise faulty and it is kinda nonsensical to replace one path of least resistance with another because it's more powerful. A further limitation of choice, that you're saying was designed into the system. Highlighting the core issue of the subject you're "responding" to ... whilst rambling about how when its played in a specific way, is what makes P 2E better ... it feels like deliberately missing the point to look for an opportunity to refute the notion that P 2E is bad, which was clarifed as not being the position of the person you're responding to. So everything you discuss comes across as a bit of a bad faith misrepresentation, to talk about your own tangentially related and separately valid experience that would've been better served not being framed as a response as it is a separate subject regarding how P 2E can make you feel powerful as a group, not directly addressing the funnelling of repitious choice. This makes me sad.
He's just using his video as a net to catch people who stumbled onto his video and recodnize cody's template
@@draakgast maybe Cody's video was clickbait trash?
@@anfiach if you don't watch it I can see how you think that, but the awnser is no, not enough vidros who do the same thing, so maybe Roll For Combat is just a click-baity asshole who has to parasyte of other youtubers to get traction.
+
I feel this is exactly why I think Gygax back when they created the original game and the few reiterations of it, opted to make it 3d6 straight down the line for ability scores, because otherwise you would always Min-Max and get bored fairly quickly. People may say that this would be the game pidgeon-holing you into playing something you don't want to play, but also people don't know the advantage of doing 3d6 straight down the line, because then you play random characters that you normally wouldn't think are interesting and come out the other end realizing the exact opposite. Now, I agree to a degree, sometimes some characters are what many called back then as "hopeless". Yes, if the DM/GM deems the character unplayable for a game that is going to be ran, then fine, roll up a new character.
To keep within the original spirit of the game, I combine a little of the old school with the new school, there's things that can be taken from both. And this is what I've come up with, just simple rules you can follow as well (i.e. this is for 5E, because I don't know PF all that well, but know it well enough to know that the same concepts can still apply):
1. No character is seen as a superhero (i.e. another term for demigod), but they are a little above average, so that would make them a hero.
2. All players roll 4d6, dropping the lowest die roll, for each ability score straight down the line; every player accepts their rolls, and doesn't ignore 1's, because if they ignore 1's and get to reroll 1's, they are essentially Min-Maxing, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
3. No player gets to place their ability scores where they want; the first roll will always be Strength, the second roll will always be Dexterity, and so forth on down the line to Charisma; because if the players get to place their ability scores where they want, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
4. No player is allowed to use the Point Buy system, because then they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
5. No player is allowed to use the Standard Array, because again, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
6. No player is allowed to use the exchange rate of removing 2 points in the ability score over here, to bump another up by 1 over there, because again, they are essentially Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
7. If any character is deemed to be hopeless by the DM/GM, then the DM/GM may give permission for the player to reroll their characters stats, and therefore, everything is still random generation preventing Min-Maxing by the players.
8. Before the start of any game, the DM/GM, must make Prime Requisites for each class that will be played in the game, requiring at least a score of 14 in each class's main ability score and a score of 12 in each class's secondary ability score (i.e. for example, the Paladin requires at least a 16 in Strength and a 14 in Charisma); this is required in the ability scores to play those classes (i.e. again, the players are not allowed to move their ability scores around to meet those standards, if they don't meet the standards, then they don't get to play that class), and racial benefits do count if a player choses a race that raises an ability score to meet the Prime Requisites of a class, and then would be allowed to play that class.
9. Ban the player section of Tasha's Couldren of Everything from games, because again, they would then be Min-Maxing again, and this is what I'm trying to prevent.
10. No player is allowed to take feats (i.e. my reasons for this are many, because for one example and my largest reason for this, is because if a Fighter decides to take for example, the shield bash feat, now does that mean the Paladin in the same party who has a shield as well doesn't get to attack with their shield just because they didn't take the same feat?), and they may only multiclass one time at 8th level if they so chose but requires that the XP they earn to get split evenly between the two classes (i.e. for example, let's say the PC is a Fighter, and decides to multiclass with Rogue at 8th level having been able to do so by meeting the Prime Requisites by the 4th level ability score bump they received, and say the PC receives 1,000 XP, they must put 500 XP into Fighter and 500 XP into Rogue at the very moment they receive the XP); and once each class combined equals together as 20th level, neither class gains anymore XP (i.e. for our previous example, the PC would be a 13th level Fighter and a 7th level Rogue, equalling 20th level together).
What do you mean by "tight math"?
It means that even the smallest change in a character's dice rolls will result in a big change. i.e. +2 to an attack roll in PF2 is a big deal, while in PF1 a +2 was not. Having "tight math" means that bonuses are very small throughout the system (i.e. PF2 only goes up to +3 weapons and armor rather than +5).
Cody's problem wasn't "the game is too hard and you don't feel powerful", the problem was, it feels like you are stuck doing the same actions over and over again because doing anything else doesn't seem worth it. And he went over the support thing, using flanking and maneuvers, and that still didn't seem as good as doing thevsame three actions the character was doing since level 1. And the way the game is built, it seems like once you choose your play style, you will be shoehorned into the same rotation of actions all game long. Having more options at character creation doesn't change anything, because once you made those choices, you are stuck doing the same again and again.
Yeah, you missed his point completely
Yeah, everyone agreeing with him didn’t watch his video either
Thank you for sharing this very well thought out response. I really hope Cody AND HIS PLAYERS see this video! Player skill is so under appreciated by many in this hobby. Skill in optimizing a charater sheet is not the same as skill at the table.
Totally agree with you on conflict (and flawed PCs) as key to an interesting game and story, but I don't think Cody wanted to focus on that aspect. He seems obcessed with combat like that is all that matters. If that is what Cody wants to focus on, I would say that it is his right to play the way he chooses.
Blaming a system for choices you make in how to play the game seems to be the real issue.
I thought you were making some decent points... then you claimed D&D 3.5 had ballance and its math held up. Nope. 3.5 was notorious for how unballanced (and bloated) classes were compared to each other (god wizards and shapeshifting druids, oh my...) while math stopped making any sense around level 7 (10 to be extremely generous).
Actually, it was balanced in the sense that there was a system that tied all of the classes, systems, monsters, spell, and combat together and tried to make a coherent structure from the numbers. COMPARED to any other version, 3.5 was an amazingly balanced system in comparison.
The problem was that it was balanced at the "low end" of the numbers. Meaning as long as people didn't go crazy with their character and try to break the system in every way possible, it worked just great. That was the failing of 3.5 was that they didn't expect people to go crazy and break the game in so many ways. So it would start to become incredibly unbalanced around the mid-way through to level 20 (like you said).
PF1 did a much better job at tackling this, but they still had the same problem, in the end, it was closer. But they were stuck with the 3.5 framework, so they did the best they could.
PF2 wen the OTHER way and instead of balancing for the "low end" of the numbers, they balanced for the "high end" of the numbers, basically they assumed that people would min-max their characters and they balanced around that. That is why it can feel like you can never get "ahead" in PF2 ... because you can't. The game is designed that way.
That is where a good GM has to step in and adjust things to make up for this math difference. Or just give everyone an extra level, both work out well.
@@RollForCombat Mmmh, ok seems like I misunderstood your point then. I still disagree about D&D 3+ (which obviously includes PF1) holding up well if people didn't try to break the game. "Wish machines" (which only work if the DM let's itself be duped into allowing them) aside, full casters were so much more powerful than martials that by level 7 they could be playing a different game on their own. The "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" conundrum was and hard reality. And I've personally seen "experienced players" telling other players not to take martials because they'd only be a "drain" on the party's resources (D&D 3+ assumes the wizard will gladly spend a spell slot to haste the fighter or to give him flight in order to tackle a dragon... it turned out a lot of wizard players preferred defeating the dragon by casting a "save or suck" spell with a plethora of metamagic conditions attached making the encounter trivial and what the fighter brought to the table, i.e. a bit single target damage, completely redundant.
As for PF2, I think you "optimize" in a different way compared to D&D 3+, because as you correctly stated in this video in PF2E teamwork is rewarded more than making super solo characters. The game is more tactical and strategic than just entering the dungeon and killing everything coming at you because you can. Planning moves in advance instead of just reacting may be important (depending on the type of DM and the style of game you are playing of course) and in order to suceed you often need to coordinate with the rest of the party. Therefore "optimization" is not just about having big modifiers at the start of combat but also increasing their effectiveness during combat by setting up advantages for your companions and disadvantages for the opposing NPCs.
It's a very different kind of game style than D&D 5E's and the only thing I agree with Cody's argument is simplicity makes for a powerful incentive when playing an RPG because keeping all those rules and exceptions in mind can be a drain on the DM while slowing down play (which is bad). His claim that PF2E only has an "illusion of choice" is false though. In PF2E you can have a lot of choice without sacrificing efficency as the most optimal strategy is not just full attacking every round (quite the contrary considering how the system is built) or just always repeating the same routine. That can happen BUT ONLY if you build your character that way, which is not mandatory.
I feel like nobody understands Cody's point here... Having the ability to choose a course of action that is nearly 10% as effect as the optimal choice isn't really a choice. So you repeatedly make the best and often only choice. Over and over because even roleplaying in combat, "oh my character would want to move here instead of doing far more damage and remaining safe" is just a silly move and unless your character is an idiot they wouldn't RP it either.
5e was less punishing for non-optimal choices 80% as effective as the optimal choice, meaning you could more often make those choices without getting punished as hard.
So for everyone saying be more creative or blaming the adventures or the players... you all are missing the point. The math is in. PF2e forces you to make the same moves over and over in combat because of how much more effective they are compared to others by enormous margins. If you have to choose between 10 damage or 100 damage. You're picking 100 damage every time, you know you are.
Agreed, this is why I myself as a DM/GM have never ran PF1E or PF2E, because both essentially end up nudging the players to do the same actions and make the same builds over and over regardless of how many options are there. If the system ends up punishing the players for playing suboptimally that's exponential enough to threatening the PC's lives (i.e. whether then or in the future down the road because they have two or three battles back to back), then I want nothing to do with the system. PF1E was already full of optimizers, which is a result of the players of D&D 3.0-3.5 showing their true colors, when they switched over to PF when it came out. It was actually something that was said on many occasions about 3.5 and PF in the past before 2E ever came out and is the reason I stayed away from it; because that's not the kind of game I want to run. It's also the reason why I no longer play video games, because that is not the kind of game I want. If that's the kind of system they want, then fine, I won't hold that against them; but not everyone wants EA Games to come in and take over.
For the record, most people hate EA Games, look at what they did to Bioware when they took over and their brain child games Dragon Age and Mass Effect. For example, Dragon Age: Origins was one of the greatest games ever to come out, but then EA games took over Bioware, and ran their normal plan as usual: Make everything accessable to everyone so that everyone likes it so more people buy it, dumbed it down, and we got Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. What exactly do I mean by dumbing it down? Look at Mass Effect on the other hand, ME1 for example, look at all the options you have and everything is equally viable: but then here comes EA Games, takes away the 10 talents you could of had and trained in for ME1 for each class, and reduces them to about 5 to 8 talents to train in by ME3 for each class.
In case you're wondering, these are the talents you can train in just one class in ME1.
Class: Soldier
Assualt Training
Fitness
Assualt Rifles
Pistols
Shotguns
Sniper Rifles
Combat Armor
First Aid
Charm
Intimidate
Spectre
That's 10 in total.
Now here's for ME3, same class.
Class: Soldier
Adrenaline Rush
Consussive Shot
Fitness
Cryo Ammo
Disrupter Ammo
Incendiary Ammo
Frag Grenade
Spectre
That's 8 in total, reduced by 2. The other classes got hit harder than this with fewer options. In other words, they began to limit your options or place the option as something passive rather than having direct control over it (i.e. such as Charm and Intimidate, they made it a passive thing through conversations with NPCs, all in the name of EA Games' All Inclusiveness plan to get more people to buy it, and now we know what All Inclusiveness really means, fewer options and nudging by a system to get you to subconsciously make the "better" choice, or in other words, it's brainwashing the way you think and do things; they want sheep, not free thinkers; which is what tabletop rpgs are supposed to offer, free thinking). In other words, what seems like a cool new ability, it was there all along in the system (i.e. same thing is true in any tabletop rpg), however, now you are limited by what the rules say because you have more rules.
And what exactly do I mean by the "better" choice? Well, Bioware actually made a subtle but simple statement in the ME series that most people miss through their Paragon and Renegade system; that basically the Paragon path (i.e. political correctness) seems like the good and "better" option, but it will inevitably beat around the bush all day without actually ever saying what needs to be said because nobody ever wants to think about the world coming to an end or that they themselves would ever be effected by something and everyone must walk on egg shells and have a "don't say that, you'll scare everyone" mentality: while the Renegade path seems mean to everyone but in reality it is actually your best friend and gets to the point even when nobody else likes the cold hard truth. Most people feel this was a jab at EA Games by the Bioware team when EA Games took over. And don't even get me started with Andromeda, they make the claim that everything is customizable, but in truth most options just plainly suck as compared to others; which brings us to our point, in PF2E, most other options for a particular class or build just point blank suck (i.e. compare them options to D&D 5E Ranger Beaster Master Archetype, nobody ever takes the Beast Master Archetype, because it just point blank sucks compared to the other options you have), so much so that no one in their right mind would even consider taking those other feats or attacking in a different way, otherwise either the party suffers as a whole where it is actually noticable and it eventually results in a TPK. No, no, I like my games to be balanced, so much so, that my players never feel like that they have other options, but will never do any of them because they feel like it's never worth the trouble of doing them or building a character that's off the wall with mechanical flaws. PF2E unfortunately is the system that makes players feel like they can never do anything else, even though they have other options, because they don't want their character to die and don't want to go through the trouble of rolling another one up.
Now watch the politically correct people comment on this and never get to the point, or just point fingers in any other direction but to the fault of the system itself.
@@memorylapsedm8262 You put a lot of effort into that post and I read every word. But I feel bad that my answer is basically just.
Exactly!
I'm assuming you play 5e? I'm basically switching fully to 5e from PF1e.
@@onedankind8168 Yes, I play 5E, and with good reasons. Yes, the system does have a few imbalances within it, but it was designed that way on purpose by both the design team at WoTC and by the community (i.e. 5E is the Cherry Picker edition because it took the best of what each edition before it had to offer while streamlining it and working out the kinks and adding a couple new things of its own, where the community also had a say in how 5E was designed, and people often forget this), so that DMs can tinker with things or for the players who like the unexpected result. There's only one class that I can think of that is suboptimal, that would be the aforementioned Ranger archetype Beastmaster (i.e. easily remedied, which Tasha's will show you how to do that through the Sidekick option for PCs, and is what I've been doing this whole time to remedy it before Tasha's), and a few niches in the community might debate over a couple others which is the one Monk and also the one Sorcerer subclasses, that's it as far as I know to the best of my knowledge. 5E doesn't ever suffer from what 3.0-3.5 or 4E or PF ever does, because 5E scrapped the Conveyor Belt system and flaw that was just one of many reasons people rejected 4E because the issue wasn't addressed in 4E, and replaced it with it's own system called Bounded Accuracy (i.e. meaning, you can throw anything at the PCs if you so chose, and the PCs are always guaranteed to hit it each round though it be only a 5% chance if the AC is too high, and the same is true when throwing mediocre or worse monsters at 20th level PCs).
These are the list of core books you want for a certainty if you plan on being a DM:
1. Player's Handbook
2. Dungeon Master's Guide
3. Monster Manual
4. Xanathar's Guide to Everything
5. Tasha's Cauldren of Everything
What you want after that are secondary but will have some reiterations in them of the previous 5 but as well as expand your arsenal a little if you plan on being a DM:
1. Mordekainen's Tome of Foes
2. Volo's Guide to Monsters
If you plan on running some pre-written adventures, I suggest these, because if you're willing to take the time and put the effort forth with the help of the DMG to weave some things together, you can create sandbox games and remold them to suite things and players will never know the difference if you've done your job correctly that you are running the same thing over and over when you repurpose them and break them down to the nuts and bolts and rebuild them from the ground up, or you can just run them as is if you so chose, but I would still recommend them first before anything else; three of which are actual adventures while being an adventure and setting book in-one while the one listed as #1 is the most recommended out of them all, and the two others are simply setting books with one having a short adventure and the other listed as #2 has a few simple adventure ideas all throughout it:
1. Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Adventure and setting book)
2. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (Setting book and adventure ideas all throughout)
3. Eberron: Rising From the Last War (Setting book with short adventure)
4. Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Multiple Adventures and setting book)
5. Tales From The Yawning Portal (Multiple Adventures and setting book)
(Note: Mix and match ability with Saltmarsh and Yawing Portal; modules that were converted to 5E from previous editions, and don't run Tomb of Horrors from Yawning Portal unless you want the players to feel it's a DM vs. Players game, skip it; other than that, you can potentially run the #1 rated campaign of all time if you're willing to convert Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth, Vault Of The Drow, and Queen Of The Demonweb Pits, of which you can find on DriveThruRPG, by running Sinister Secret Of SaltMarsh through to The Final Enemy, splash in Dead In Thay which is what I have done and still do, then run Against the Giants, and then finally run the aforementioned afterwords in the order as I listed them after you've converted them)
I suggest those five first because it will give you some mix and match options as a DM and give you a solid foundation for sandbox games. After that, pick up whatever you want. May I recommend Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Balder's Gate: Descent Into Avernus.
And yes, you still have optimizers in 5E, but as Cody said, he would rather go with the system that's easier to run if there's going to be optimizers. But you can easily have fun doing it with the PCs as the DM, or just outright prevent it from ever happening, by that ever so crucial session zero; so that the players realize they don't need to do that, or otherwise open up the minds of players who never thought of "optimizing in a different way," such as giving mechanical flaws that match their charcter's personality flaws.
Having played 5e from when it came out, including the playtest, all of the points he made apply to 5e. It's ok Cody doesn't like PF2E, but his response examples made no sense. It was akin to saying, "My mage can't do as well in melee combat vs slinging spells, so choice in an illusion." I have a PF2E Ranger that can do pretty well in melee as well as range, since he didn't give the ranger in his example a STR score, which in PF2E you need dex AND str to play a good ranger. I enjoy both 5e and PF2E, but all of Cody's complaints also applies to 5e, as doing sub optimal things can get your party wiped pretty quickly.
@@Masterom2000x The math is in. The same exact scenario for Cody’s example. While the issue still exists in 5e it was 5 times more punishing in pf2e. Which means it’s a bigger issue.
Cody’s examples were also not about making stupid alternate decisions like a mage trying to melee.
Though to your point I could argue that you could build a melee mage. You’re just doing it wrong. You need str to melee. Your mage just didn’t have str.
Good video, lots of good points. I picked up PF2E and still reading it through. When you mentioned rp in your game, I play Mythras as my go to game. I can't say enough about Mythras. The combat system is very intuitive and even after playing for several years find many interesting combinaitons players have come up with as the action unfolds. Also, there is ample room for role play which we do a lot of and it usually surprises players coming over from any D20 based game. I recommend Mythras to anyone wanting to try their hand at a really brilliant D100 game. I look forward to running PF2E, since I've been revisiting all my D&D 3.5 material. Currently running 2 D&D 3.5 games and 1 Mythras game online. Keep up the good work!
Boy so many Cody sycophants here chomping at the bit.
I wonder how many have actually played PF2E and aren't just taking a contrived and factually inaccurate white room scenario at face value.
I would say it’s hugely outnumbered by people who believe they know Cody or his players and their demeanors and play style and they are obviously at fault. The sycophants are out on both sides bud, don’t be so biased.
@@II-wu7mx except his last video has proven that Cody doesn't actually know how to effectively play 2e or how the maths in it works, so it IS actually his fault. (video showing proof of this is here: th-cam.com/video/nTsFZ-GbxMM/w-d-xo.html)
As for his players, no-one who's know they are. They aren't doxxing them or calling them shit people, they're just saying they don't know how to play a game. If Cody doesn't want to let them get criticised, he shouldn't have thrown them under the bus for his own incompetence as a GM.
@@DanTalksGames The ranger being built in this video isn’t the same ranger. They aren’t the same character being played the same way. This is some apples to oranges shit. Could you imagine a game in which you could glean that ‘he doesn’t know how to play’ because he didn’t pick an actually minmaxer build (which was the the main attack against he and his group after the first video). The 5e ranger was built for arrows too. You’ve either missed the point of his video or lost the plot. I’d argue you are helping to make his point with this goalpost moving.
Secondly the idea that you can sort of casually add things like runes because you *should* have them by now is a non-starter. It’s not a part of your character and cannot be considered. Also, this character is being built for using both a sword and a bow from the start, which isn’t the discussion being had here. If your only response to say they don’t know how to play based on the build he gave in the second video you have some gnarly verification bias going on here. This happened on a continuum, not a series of totally unrelated events to be discussed separately.
“I’m not having fun with 2e it feels like you do the same “best” thing while the game acts like you have lots of choices during combat”
“Well it’s not about the best option you’re being a minmaxer! You are a bad player!”
“That’s extremely rude from someone I don’t know but okay cool here’s a non optimized build showing the thing I’m talking about then.”
“Well if you don’t minmax your character for varied combat of course you don’t have options! You’re a bad player!”
This is called a Kafka trap and you shouldn’t do it.
@@II-wu7mx Have you even played PF2e? I'm assuming not based on comments like 'the idea that you can sort of casually add things like runes because you should have them by now is a non-starter. It’s not a part of your character and cannot be considered.'
The game explicitly expects that by level 5 you have those runes. It's literally in the rules on how to run the game. It's an integral part of level scaling and investment with your funds, to the point that there's an optional rule that if your players aren't happy with investing gold on something so integral, you can grant the progression for free. It's not like 5e where magic weapons are an optional part of the game (and arguably do far more to break the game's design and scaling if utilised).
I don't expect people to know this if they haven't played the game. And to be fair, the sort of rules obtuseness of those expectations ARE a legitimate failing of 2e that they require that level of explaining. But if you want to have a pure mathematical discussion, don't pretend you know what you're talking about. You can't argue things from a mathematical standpoint and discount those elements of the game, otherwise it proves ignorance of the system. If his argument was 'this system is obtuse because you need to learn stuff like this to play effectively', I might actually agree. But it isn't, as his fans have been arguing time and time again, it's that he believes that there's no meaningful decisions in combat, which the video I linked proves there actually is if you understand the context of 2e.
Some other quick things Cody got wrong/dismissed:
- The build isn't 'apples and oranges' because Cody's
build only addresses Hunted Shot being the taken option. If anything, *that's* the build that's working in a vacuum with no context. It doesn't take into account other feats that grant more options as the video I linked did. And that video I linked only touched on one potential build, it didn't even touch on things such as warden spells, and dedication feats that grant multiclassing and archetypes.
- Volley reduces his chance to hit with composite bows at close range, meaning Cody actually *does* have a reason to consider moving and not just 'standing there and shooting'
- There's a much bigger difference between a CR3 monster in 5e, and a CL3 monster in 2e. Characters scale far more heavily with their stats in 2e, compared to 5e where monsters have bounded accuracy. A weaker monster doesn't suffer as much against a higher level foe in 5e than it does in 2e. To give context, a creature two levels higher than the party in 2e is considered a *boss monster*. That means a creature two levels lower is basically trash mobs.
Also, if one of the best arguments he has in favour of 5e is 'if you want more options, pick variant human,' then really he's not helping that game's case considering how toxic that race option is to the game's meta.
Ala the min-maxing debates, tbh even I haven't been particularly cared much for the arguments about 'you don't *have* to min-max.' It comes from a well-intentioned place, but ultimately it doesn't address Cody's points, you're not wrong. But part of the reason it annoys me is that the thing about 2e is there is an element of min-maxing that needs to be done to achieve a level of viability. It's generally intended you'll have the maximum possible score in your primary stat. But ultimately the reason Cody's example is bad is because the difference between 'optimal' options and non-powergamer options aren't as inherently black and white as he's making out.
Even in the video I linked, the difference between straight attacking, helping flank with melee, tripping, etc. isn't as clear cut. It also feels he's putting too much of a premium on raw DPR, which isn't as big of a deal in 2e as getting those bonuses from things like flanking and status conditions, etc. If he doesn't care for that sort of thing, of course a system like 5e is better because it's more straightforward. But if you want more depth to strategy and enjoy the nuance, 2e isn't just a one-note system where there's one obvious thing to do all the time.
@@DanTalksGames It seems obvious you’re very familiar with the 2e rules, much more so than I admittedly. That being said, to argue there is no nuance or discretion between dpr, flanking, and inflicting status effects in 5e is patently false and I think you’re well aware of that.
I personally find the required prior knowledge of the system to make a functioning character to be a detriment to the system overall. I also think you’re inadvertently arguing that you really don’t have as much choice in 2e as advertised because you cannot choose any combination and have a functioning character. You have to build a very specific way to have truly varied options in combat.
Also I think it’s important you’re aware that Cody thinks pf1e is a better game than d&d5e to diffuse this dnd vs pf thing you’re setting up. He set up the comparison because he has the same complaint about 5e and has stated it multiple times. Overall the argument from my viewpoint is that the level of esotericism in the pf2e rule book is not worth evening out to about the same combat options as a much simpler contemporary system.
Your intro is wrong, because its not what he said.
Also pls Paizo, go back to improving Pathfinder 1.
My whole thing is. Did he need to make to make the video in the first place?
@To Release is To ResolveOK
From the very start I feel like you are missing the point from the start. It doesn’t matter if it feels strong or not, it’s that any given build plays the same as any other, it’s that once you have a build you can only effectively take one set of actions.
To be the monk you had to have basicly rolled perfect stats to begin with so of course you get 20 queens
In a AD&D campaign I played a Fighter with a 3... as in 03 Dexterity. My AC in Chain Mail was 10. At the time that meant I was as well armored as a regular Unarmed PC. No one in the party let me fire my crossbow out of fear lol
I'mma be honest
I just throw a strong enemy at the party and one level higher I throw the same enemy making them see that it is way easier
I feel like you didn’t watch his second video. He specifically said you had chose when making your character. After you make your character, your choice is mostly set.
He didn’t talk about how the math was close. He showed it wasn’t tight at all. It was bad to use your character against how you made your character. Yes you had chose when building your character. The mechanics pidgin holed you into particular things. The things you made your character good at.
Yeah, I got that same vibe from the moment he started the video and said something about min maxing. That or he genuinely didn’t understand the video
To be fair Taking20 has his math and rules wrong:
A. They would get precision damage in melee from hunter's edge
B. He never mentions the crit specialization that changes up combat on a critical hit, like pinning the wight to the wall with an arrow or slowing them down using the short sword.
C. He was using a longbow in the example, so the wight closing the gap causes a -2 to attacks(volley trait).
D. His point about the 5e variant human would be the same as PF 2e using Human with Natural Ambition, taking Twin Takedown to be just as effective in melee.
@@beaverkoin fair points. I was wondering about that hunters edge bit. That certainly helps and would make other options a little bit more impactful. I do think the core of the issue though is just how much feat selection matters. Even without minmaxing, if someone were to make a ranges base character then everything else they could do is not worth it. I think the solution would be to give more impactful options that would break up the routine.
@@screwinglogic4564 Thanks, I do understand that some people do fall into certain repetitive roles and actions, but that is part of any game. In 5e, at 3rd level your path is set before you. I have had my players and own characters retrain feats that changed their combat styles, not to mention for melee characters the plethora of weapons that have a lot of different traits.
He did choose a specific example to suit his argument as well. Take a barbarian with an enemy 50 feet away. 5e has to spend movement and an action to close the distance, probably raging at the end of their turn. PF 2e can use 2 actions to move, move then make the choice whether to rage or attack.
As he said in the end, to each their own and no system is perfect. I personally had a document clarifying how i interpreted rules in 5e so the players and I were on the same page, so I was adding my own crunch. Nothing sucks the fun out of a game more than having to debate a ruling or having the player upset with an interpretation of the rules. I had a player almost quit over whether Dispel Magic would dispel both quicklings summoned by Conjure Fey or each one individually.
@@beaverkoin yeah, I guess interpretation really matters. Anyway, have a good one man!
Call of Cthulhu makes dying and going insane a feature, not a bug.
Cyberpunk 2013 & 2020 would be my vote for the most unbalanced game ever made (single shot PC kill on a regular basis - game is more lethal than Call of Cthulhu)
D&D 3.5 would be my vote for second most broken game ever *looks at 15th level Psion with Astral Construct army*. My Psion singlehandedly rendered the rest of the group redundant. Great play testing there - NOT!
Going above level 12 makes things "broken". Nothing was really well thought out past that level. Most games should stop around level 12 because some gaps, melee vs casters, make some options not worth it. Psions are tier 2 for a reason where a fighter is tier 5.
Yeah he tries to argue he's not a power gamer and then basically runs a bunch of numbers showing why choices are the most optimal. I did see your direct response post where you point out he under powered the PF 2E ranger which is something I noticed as well and figured he did that to pad the numbers so they would line up more with 5E.
Though I haven't even looked at 5E in years as it just didn't speak to me because of the fixed classes with the only real choice being at level 3 and your locked into archtype which I view more as an "illusion of choice". That said though I bring it up because I don't understand HOW his 5E Ranger does what it does. He seems to get 2 attacks and moves around without needing the change out weapons cause it's assumed the Ranger starts with bow in hand. And I know back in previous DND versions melee characters needed a full turn attack to multi-attack so they couldn't move. Did that change? And does Ranger in 5E have some sort of quick draw?
Given your post on all the mistakes he made with PF2E, some of which I didn't catch I wouldn't be surprised if he made mistakes on 5E as well.
On a slight side note the other thing that sealed him as a power gamer is him criticizing the out of combat skills and how as a DM he should just be able to rule which way things go and not need to rely on a roll. That sounds like DM Railroading and a DM who likes to maintain control rather than go with the flow. Like if the players wanna do something out of combat and there no rules for it the DM simply goes, "Nay I don't wanna deal with that, NPC says NO." or "Sounds interesting, such lets give it a go."
I love PF2E also and like it a lot more than 5E because of the freedom it gives in all areas. And I agree that you do get a lot more with team work. I also had a similar experience early in PF2E with the same module, Plague Stone, as my group was very self focused, though it was to be expected cause most in the group it was their first time with PF. But looking at tightness of the numbers and how to improve the struggling fights I noticed we weren't really taking full advantage of our abilities and things like flanking. While it did take some coaxing at times by the end of the campaign we were using our CC abilities and flanking a lot more and powering through fights.
I do disagree on the saying it's not like a video game, I'd say it's not like a ARPG such as diablo or other single character RPGs. But I find PF2E is much like a lot of RPGs where you have a group, even the old DND 2E games. The thing is you are in charge of a group so you think nothing of assigning one character to the role of support and often do better than just having pure DPS. However when you sit down for PnP you only get one character and most people tend to not want to be that support character and/or think the only way to contribute is with DPS which is Cody's problem.
Some example support while still powerhouse characters I made was Fighter/Marshal with had 2H Power Attack with Marshal's dread stance to cause frighten plus other feat choices like Battle Cry as the theme was a power house character that strikes terror in his foes. I also made a Cleric/Champion/Medic of the Protection Domain. Basically he had tons of ways to buff the party defenses could quickly heal the party out of combat by treating multiple characters at the same time with Ward Medic feat and had the champion's react ability Redemption to further hinder enemies ability to hurt the part. So basically great damage reduction boost to the party with great healing and pretty much very little was a threat, the cleric wasn't all that great at damage but was decent enough.
I love the freedom of PF2E the Cleric/Champion/Medic is a great example of the flexibility. It's pretty easy to do with curtain archtypes as they have "Skill" feats which means you can use your skill feats to get feats from them and thus meet the requirement for having 2 feat of that archtype to pick another one. Also you can use the Human Ancestory Feat to get a Archtype feat thus letting you dip in without needing to spend one of your limited class feats on just getting access to the field. Ancient elves can do the same thing as well only right from the start. And with the numbers being so tight none of these make you any stronger they just give you options. Which again comes back to Cody's complaint about needed to build optimally and him taking the most obvious (aka best) choice.
Personally I like breaking the mold and making unique character that are still strong in their own right even if they are "completely optimal". And a lot of them are designed to work in a team not as a solo must get highest DPS roll type way.
Which is a bad arguement, versatility is a form of power as well. If they didn't want their characters to be hyper specialized at doing one thing and useless outside of that, they shouldn't have hyper specialized to only be good at one thing.
You know, I feel like Taking 20’s “Quitting Pathfinder 2E” video is doing a pretty good job getting more than himself some extra views.
I wonder how this would be panning out if said video was more along the lines of “A discussion of my issues with Pathfinder 2E” instead.
@@ryanbentzinger9608 Is it click bait though? I mean, he delivers on what he advertised
Yeah next video is him expressing people weren't listening so I'm not suprised people are stil missing the point like in this part of commentsection
@@ryanbentzinger9608 Its kinda semantics of whether it counts as click bait or "shit stirring", but either way its definitely title that provokes emotional response.
You say teamwork is important in P2e but do they have choices to choose a different attack each turn to repond to other players or or is the Monk's best choice stun stun every turn. Fixing P2e build system sounds like a hell of a task- it is not minmaxing situation rather lack of decent alternatives to fit a character style.
Even if Stunning Fist was the best option at all times (and given it's just one level 2 feat and you have many choices left make, that's unlikely to be the case 100% of the time), it only costs you one action to flurry to attack a target twice. You've got two other actions to do literally anything else. With two other actions, you can easily move in and out of the opponent's range. Maybe the situation you're in, you want to grapple your foe, then throw them with Whirling Throw. Strength +1d6 damage per ten feet moved isn't bad, and it could help you in a situation where you desperately need repositioning. That's teamwork right there.
Perhaps you need to reduce the number of foes you're facing fast, so you instead opt to do a Sleeper Hold. That Critical Success would render the foe unconscious for a minute. Even a regular success gives it Clumsy 1, which is something.
Perhaps your foe is a grappler themselves. Using Disrupt Ki not only does persistent negative damage, but also leaves them Enfeebled 1 until they end the persistent damage, which will hurt their Athletics checks.
Maybe you need to damage a crowd, so if you've invested into Ki, you could use the Ki Blast Ki Spell, which considerably damages enemies in a 15-60 cone and also potentially pushes them away.
If we're talking about costing a foe actions, the Medusa's Wrath Ki Spell can not only slow a foe, but possibly permanently petrify them.
What about Dragon Stance users? If they use Dragon's Roar, they can cause all enemies in a 15 foot emanation to become frightened 1 (frightened 2 on a Crit Success) and they get to deal more damage to the first frightened foe they hit after that by the end of their next turn.
Maybe they're in their Monastic Archer Stance and would like to pin their foe down with Pinning Fire. Yes, the Arrows are easy to remove...but that's going to cost actions to remove.
Back to pushing a foe, perhaps you want to combine One-Inch Punch with One-Millimeter Punch and do a large amount of damage and push a foe away all with one strike (making a fort save vs an Athletics check from you).
Honestly, if you're doing any grappling, you'll want to do that first before Flurry since you'll be stuck with a -8 to -10 with your last action, unless you can succeed with an Assurance, in which case, taking ten, no penalties is nice.
Of course, you could take Flurry of Maneuvers to make one or both of your Flurry attacks into Maneuvers if you just want to make a single attack and do a maneuver, all with only one action cost. You won't have Stunning Fist, but still useful at times.
Speaking of Stunning Fist, Triangle Shot is a great upgrade for Stunning Fist if you're a Monastic Archer Stance user. Get three arrows for the cost of two actions at a -2 penalty to hit, you can trigger Stunning Fist, and if you hit with all three arrows, 3d6 Persistent Bleed Damage.
And, of course, none of that is considering skill usage outside of class feats. Perhaps your Monk is Legendary in Intimidation and uses Scare to Death to try and kill a foe outright, or you're using Cloud Jump to position yourself out of reach of a foe by leaping 50 feet to the top of a nearby rock structure (combining Cloud Jump with Flying Kick will let you deal with airborne threats well). What about taking advantage of Battle Medicine to heal an ally mid battle?
What about Archetypes? Maybe you took Snare Crafter and are riddling the battlefield with Snares for your advantage. Maybe you took a Spellcasting Multiclass Archetype to be a decently effective mage with up to 8th level spells. You could have augmented your Archery ability from Monastic Archer Stance with either Archer or Eldritch Archer.
Even if some options aren't always 100% equivalent, there are situations where a variety of options can save you, or change a battle. You're only doing the same thing every battle if you choose to do the same thing every battle. Sometimes that might be fine, but don't be afraid to experiment if you want to change things up.
This is a great video. I like this. Your experiences mirror mine a lot.
"We spent 6 weeks roleplaying. I don't think we even rolled any dice."
Why play the game at that point?! Why are you attributing your theatre amateur hour to Pathfinder 2e. Why not play a system that doesn't require dice at that point? Pal-ing around with friends is fun but I don't think that the game system should get credit for something outside of it.
Sometimes that's just how the story plays out, in the 20+ years on gaming there are absolutely times where no dice get rolled, for my group yhe characters and story are first. But combat and conflict resolution is very important and a part of the fun
I agree. If you're going weeks without dice rolls, that means everything you're doing is completely outside of the game and that means you're either ignoring the rules the game has for those situations or the game doesn't have rules for those situations. Neither scenario is to the system's credit.
Going weeks without dice rolls (even understanding that claim as hyperbole) means the GM is essentially not contesting the PC's actions, or at least not as far as the game mechanics are concerned which while might be super fun, isn't the same thing as playing Pathfinder. If they're "sneaking around and gathering info" then why are you not making them roll the Stealth checks and Diplomacy checks that are part of Pathfinder?
Brilliant analysis
Having watched all three videos all I can say is that you sadly completely missed the point.
How did nobody actually listen? He said people end up doing the same thing every turn because thats how you get through combat without unnecessarily wasting time. Good on you for catching that.
@@TheAttomisk Can you point out any turn based RPG with combat where this isn't the case?
@@makraiz edge of the empire, call of cthulu, maybe vampire. I don't think this is an issue personally. I like 5e over pf2, but i will play anything.
@@TheAttomisk In Call of Cthulu, your actions choices in combat are certainly limited based on your build, or "illusion of choice" as Taking20 puts it. I haven't played the other two games you mentioned, but I suspect they also "suffer" from this, as any RPG will. Nevertheless I will check them out. The reason I asked is because no one can really address this "problem", without removing a fundamental aspect of RPGs: To improve and specialize your character is core to the genre.
Its really tiring to see so many people immediately starting a comment with "you don't understand what cody said" I watched both Cody's video start to end multiple times. He misleads, mis represents, condisends, insults and is deliberately inflammatory. The "every character plays the same" is BS. Rougue and Paladin in 5e have sneak attack and smite evil. Cody doesn't talk about why he's quitting 5e though did he. His combat encounter in the 2nd video was laughably simplistic.
I’m a neutral voice, I came across both these channels around the same time, it subscribed to neither. The approach this page took was childish and slanderous, aimed at attacking someone’s intellect rather than their very legitimate reasonings for criticizing a fucking rpg system.
How's this video slanderous, exactly?
@@Tulkash01 stating that there ARENT problems with the system but rather with the TH-camrs intelligence and levels of creativity is slanderous, as it is deliberately attacking him, not simply disagreeing with an opinion of his
@@andrewculross9421 where in this video it is claimed that there are problems with "TH-camrs intelligence and levels of creativity"? The author of this video goes out of his way to say that Cody has a point but that he had faced the same problem years ago and found ways to deal with it.
Personally I think the author of this video tried hard to stay polite and civil and avoided antagonizing Cody, which in turn acted like a bully in his second video, while making a whole lot of less than honest claims to "prove" his point. But that's just me, not the author of this video.
@@andrewculross9421 Well, Mr. Andrew, may I ask you to timestamp the exact time the youtuber's intelligence is being slandered? In this video specifically. Thank you
We’re we watching the same video lol?
Finally someone said this. I lost interesst in the Channel "Taking20" ... Someone with this oppinion i can not respect or belive he can tell me somethink worthwhile about TTRPGs. Its sad.
Did you watch his videos? It seems like you’re forming your opinion based on what you’re being told here, that seems to lack intellectual rigor friend.
@@II-wu7mx Dude, i watched his video twice and it seems so, that you are just on the same side of your own argument and belive that shit that is told you by Cody. So think of your own intellectual rigor my friend.
@@Clotenno1 both of them? Or just the one this video is reacting to? Your own statement proves my point.
@@II-wu7mx Ofcourse both... And its silly. Just my oppinion. Stick to yours and dont bother me
Great comment.
the conflict in minecraft is you vs the world atleast in survival
Within the first 2 minutes you completely misrepresented his points, which he made clear in both videos.
He never said all classes end up at the same place.
He never said the only way to have fun is to minmax and went to great lengths in his second video to show that even within a sub optimal character build the same problems persist. He also shows that his game is far from being a game of minmaxers.
He also never said PF2E is primarily combat focused, he said that the vast majority of the rules are combat focused.
You also asserted pretty early on that Taking 20 thought that PF2E doesnt lend itself to roleplaying, which is again something he just never said. He did however show in his second video that he and his group ARE big on the roleplay side of things, and mention that he was not talking about roleplay but combat specifically.
I am not really sure the point of this video since the entire basis for it is arguing against things he never said. Are you intentionally misrepresenting his points and ignoring the things he actually said, or did you just misunderstand the majority of what he talked about in both videos?
He also clarified in video 2 that he and his players did not feel it was a significant problem, or even really a problem, in video 1 he said that as a DM he felt that a system like 5e, which has the same issues, are better for him and his group since, as he put it in video 1, if he needs to choose between 2 systems with the same issues he will prefer the less complex one as it makes combat less difficult to manage and prep and gives he and his group more time for roleplaying.
He actually did say in the first video it doesn’t encourage role-playing and immediately quoted the diplomacy rules.
@@TheNeoanomally At this point dude its like you are intentionally misrepresenting the videos.
He never said that the system does not encourage roleplay.
At 14 minutes into his video he says that he would recommend the game highly to people that like to have well designed crunchy rules for pretty much everything. He uses diplomacy as an example to show that people who might not like to engage in roleplay by speaking in character or to a DM speaking as an NPC can still fully participate thanks to the rules, which he sees as a benefit.
As for literally everything else I pointed out, do you really think the points you attributed to him are in any way accurate?
@@TheNeoanomally wrong, he never said that and the quote was to show how much stress the system puts on the GM by making status effects have more then one option.
Dude how fucking blind where you when you made that comment, he never said anything about diplomacy rules other then: the desginers don't think you can figure this one out therefore 4 outcomes.
@podrek @@draakgast It's ignorant to say misrepresenting it. Here around this timestamp ~14:30 minutes into Cody's video: after saying this is a game for a certain type of group: "If you enjoy a game style of play where your game master never talks in the first person because you all find that super cheesy play this game. I mean it on that last one by the way. If you want to look at your GM and say I want to use a Diplomacy check to make an impression I want to spend 1 minute in dialog...." and then continues. He spends a minute for that essentially bashing people who like the rule system of PF2e as people who only use mechanics in order to accomplish a goal and states that this is a game that only people who want to do a lot of damage play.... He reinforces this point in his second video.
@@michaele1373 no misrepresentation if he's right, no seriously how is he wrong the mechanics are there for you to do damage and work with the team.
how can it be misrepresentation when nothing he said was wrong, even in your own comment you couldn't give an example on what he was wrong about, all you did was repeat his point, then were is the mistake if there is one????
like be fair, why does the book need to explain what a critical fail is every time we see a condition, how good is the build of this game if every time a condition is met the system FORCES the GM to make/look up a decision rather then...... use his brain. if you need a system that tells you that rolling low is bad and rolling high is good, good for you. most people already understood this and don't need someone else to tell them: hey, he rolled low, that's bad.