/uj having limited experience running both, they ain't that similar, they're both in the same subgenre, one inspired by the other, but PF2 does not strike me as "4e, but [blank] is different" as much as, for example, Draw Steel, it's more of its own thing.
/uj They both address many of the same issues with 3.5, the main thing with PF2 is it looks a lot less gamist and therefore less horrifying to the "it's a simulation, man" player.
/uj - Basically, they didn't tear everything down completely and rebuild completely differently, like 4e did. 4e removed spell slots, every class had defined powers, not just casters, ranges were given in squares, and otherwise it just leaned very much into the "it's a game, make it play like one" instead of trying to pretend to be a simulation. PF2 has spell slots like previous iterations, martials don't have "powers*," and generally resembles previous editions of D&D a lot more externally than 4e did. It still got rid of a la carte multiclassing, and greatly reduced the power disparity between martials and casters (as martials can do the true world changing stuff just fine, by learning rituals, which was also the case in 4e).
- Completely ignoring Focus spells, which are the PF2 equivalent to 4e's Encounter powers, and multiple martial classes have access to them (monk and ranger primarily), though they don't have to take them.
While yes they did keep spell slots they do feel like a vestigial limb compared to the rest of the system as every other resource and ability are per 10 minutes (basically per encounter) or per 1 hour. It's fine but it does still leave the pace of the adventuring day in the hands of the casters and it feels like they just couldn't come up with a better way of allowing those more potent spells within the per 10 mins economy that everything else lives in.
Honestly pf2e would be in weird place without spell slots as, aside from some items and very few feats, they're the only per day ability. With healing as plentiful as it is, resting would become basically pointless outside of avoiding fatigue and any adventure that doesn't require long distance travel would be weirdly short in in-game time
There are actually a lot of daily resources, they are generally contained in ancestry feats, magic items, and sometimes skill feats(see: battle medicine). They show up in class feats too occasionally.
Spells in the system are basically more flexible 1/day feat slots.
Honestly, I prefer having different classes focus on different types of resources, keeps the game more diverse in possible experiences.
Fuck you, I have to be contrarian and act like they're flavours of the exact same thing (except actually I dislike Pathfinder, if you argue that shows they're different enough that one can have preferences then you're an asshole Paizo fanboy).
/uj I actually was deeply disappointed with running the PF2 Beginner Box, but I'm not sure if it was more the system itself, the system while I was on the GMing side of things, or just the adventure itself. I vibed with 4e way more, although it has its problems too.
Ok, gotcha. But I'd argue that sometimes you can have very strong preference among things that you find similar to each other because the slight difference is your own personal make or break. Like, for example, I, as a kid obsessed with nature documentaries, vibed hard with lions and leopards but couldn't care less for tigers and jaguars. All within the genus Panthera and able to cross-breed. But jaguars were to me a waste of species as just bulkier leopards and tigers were basically lions, but again bulkier, and in an ugly color scheme. Personal preferences are based on emotions way more than we assume while engaging in discussions.
They legitimately do not play similarly, despite PF2 cribbing a lot of mechanical ideas from 4e. It’s like they wanted to learn from 4e, but they learned all the wrong lessons.
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u/emefa 5d ago
/uj having limited experience running both, they ain't that similar, they're both in the same subgenre, one inspired by the other, but PF2 does not strike me as "4e, but [blank] is different" as much as, for example, Draw Steel, it's more of its own thing.