How Pathfinder’s Math Tells a Better Story - D&D vs PF2e

i think u suk!

What i learned with d&d 5e was that six kobolds can be more dangerous than a dragon.

I'm glad we as a community have decided to not let WotC live down the fact they actually hired the Pinkertons over a freaking card game.

I joined my first ever TTRPG, an in-progress game of Pathfinder, and somehow wound up with a +19 to perception. The greatest line this created was the DM saying “I guess you see her scent?!” while tracking a missing ally

"Why settle for a system that you have to fight with duct tape and nail gun?" Brilliant line

Opening the Pathfinder rule book, and seeing the dozens upon dozens of things I needed to homebrew in D&D baked into the system already was an amazing moment for me.

One thing not brought up by this video, is the fact that this fighters "mothers greatsword" can stick with the player their ENTIRE journey, as the player will find runes to buff the weapon they WANT to use, rather than just tossing your sentimental sword for a shiny and new +2 one

D&D used to be like this. It was 5E that introduced "bounded accuracy".

It's really nice to see someone point out that math actually matters for narrative

In one of my Pathfinder games, one of the party members was a Hobgoblin Ranger named Raeleus with +19 to stealth. One of my favorite running gags in the campaign was rolling a Stealth Check, checking the rest of the party's passive perception checks, and declaring that another game of "Where's Raeleus" had begun. To this day, years later, "Where's Raeleus" is still a recurring joke in my group. Big numbers make the fantasy more fun.

I also prefer the way PF2 changes the narrative regarding weaker enemies. In four levels you can go from fighting something as a boss, to an even battle, to cutting down several of them easily. In 5e you might have improved by +2 to attack and damage, and if you're a spellcaster you have 2 tiers of spells to help. But there's a good chance as a martial that only one of your levels mattered and the rest only gave you hp. I enjoyed 5e quite a bit with my friends, but the numbers don't bug me so much as the inconsistency of progression between classes. Choosing between base numbers and feats that are required to do more than standard attacks as a martial is a pain.

"subscribe so you can fight me in the next video" is solid advertisement. Shades of the argument clinic from Monty Python.

Supported by a dice with no bell curve, I think 5e is designed so that you can always succeed (i.e crits), however sometimes you can't deal damage (such as when a creature has immunity to non-magical damage). I think it's ok to make players actions useless - it can add huge narrative effect. But you NEED to make sure a player has decent alternatives, otherwise they have no agency and no effect. Which is very bad. I had an encounter recently where we were facing were-rats, and the rogue couldn't do any damage due to having no magic or magical weapon. Setting up a challenge so that player's actions are futile can be a good narrative tool (such as when faced with a creature you can only run from), but you should always do it wisely.

This videos basic take away was yes you progress more in Pathfinder, but you are more powerful at early level and can potentially hit a dragon in DnD.

Personally I like it, from a storytelling perspective, that a low lever character could hit (not damage) a much higher level enemy. It shouldn't be too much trouble to make contact with a dragon's skin with a spear, but will it go through the scales? It's like in Elden Ring. Sure, eventually you'll be able to be dismissive of Demihumans, but if you're nor careful they can and will still hit you.

I'd argue that PF2e level scaling introduces other narrative issues; it supports the fantasy as far as heroes and villains are concerned, but fails to simulate the rest of the world. I think it's essential for fantasy worldbuilding to have meaningful mechanical relationships between the archetypal inhabitants of the world - the commoner, the guard, the adventurer, the royal guard, the king, the vizier, the great hero, etc. Yet, PF2e's scaling is so steep that those relationships disintegrate completely if the gap is more than 3-4 levels. One level -1 commoner, of fifty million commoners for that matter, might as well not exist for the level 7 royal guard. That's good news for the level 5 king he's guarding (although the king could easily take a few million angry peasants on as well), yet that same genocidal royal guard, or fifty million of them for that matter, is completely powerless against a level 14 rampaging beast. But that beast, and its fifty million siblings, are all fleeing from a single level 21 world-devourer.

This video makes a lot of sense. However, when my group tried Pathfinder 2nd Edition we were struck by how many things you had to keep track of. We like to play in person, but it almost felt like a necessity to use some kind of computer program to keep track of how many stacks of every condition were affecting every creature in combat. It bogged us down, turns took forever and we still made tons of mistakes. We were new to the system, so pace could have picked up over time, but to me it felt daunting to administer without lots of careless mistakes, expecially since I like to play without apps and computers. This is not meant as a pro D&D 5E argument. It's just my groups initial reaction to P2E and why we didn't stick with it. Feel free to write it of as "You just sucked" but that was our experience.

As someone who used to hate Pf1e's ridiculous amounts of math and stuck with the unfinished mess of 5e forever because of how simple it was, the WotC drama last year was so fortunate because it made me realize how absolutely beautiful 2e is as a system. Our table alternates between a few different campaigns and the ones that started with 5e aren't going to switch midway through, but everything new that's starting is absolutely going to make the switch. It's a bit more complicated but infinitely more rewarding.

I know it's nitpicky, but an increase from 30% to 50% is an increase of approximately 66%. It's a growth of 20 percentage points, yes, but that's not same as the relative percentage increase

A funny caveat that went unmentioned is that while pf2e supports the fantasy of the lvl 1 hero being unable to touch the dragon, conversely it also HURTS the fantasy of the lvl 1 hero being able to survive the dragon's response and go on to become the lvl 17 hero, when it's likely to crit for 100+ damage on anything but a natural 1, and even then it'd still hit. In 5e, the same math that allows the lvl 1 hero to hurt the dragon also allows the dragon to nat 1 and miraculously miss long enough so he can get away. Although in either case it's breath weapon would be game over, most likely. But in 5e, it could fail to recharge it's breath with bad luck, while in pf2e it's guaranteed after 1-4 rounds and might even just get it back by slapping the nearest town guard with a critical! Of course, the Dragon could decide to ignore the hero entirely because it doesn't see him as a threat(and so the story can happen), which is probably more likely and believable if the hero is incapable of damaging it at all! So pf2e has that going for it too. Don't get me wrong, I think pf2e is awesome in a lot of ways, and it's so refreshing after only playing/DMing 5e for years. Just thought this was funny.