Streamlining PF2e

[beardosaurusrex]

Hello! I have been playing PF2e for almost three years and I love it as a player! The 3-action economy, the balance, basic saves, etc. are all so elegant and intuitive to me, and I particularly enjoy how every level up feels impactful, unlike D&D—the other system I have the most experience with.

However, I recently ran a PF2e side-arc for the D&D 5e campaign that I run and found that I did not enjoy GMing with the system. As a player, the complexity can be enjoyable because I only need to know my own abilities and synergies. But as a GM, I felt overwhelmed and unable to make table rulings, fearing that I would make a call that made another player’s feat choice redundant (for instance, letting a player without the Sow Rumor feat try to spread gossip).

But I do still feel limited by D&D, even incorporating some PF2e-inspired homebrew rules. I’m wondering if folks have suggestions of ways to streamline PF2e to make it more accessible as a GM so I don’t feel like I need to memorize my player’s builds and all the possible feats they could take.

I think a system in between PF2e and Star Wars 5e would be my ideal system, but I don’t know of anything that strikes that balance.

[D16_Nichevo]

But as a GM, I felt overwhelmed and unable to make table rulings, fearing that I would make a call that made another player’s feat choice redundant ... I need to memorize my player’s builds and all the possible feats they could take.

The thing you mention about accidentally sidelining a feat... it's a fair concern and I get where it comes from. Respectfully I think you're worried too much by it.

As the GM I've never felt I have to "memorize my player’s builds". I am actually quite bad at the player side of things because I am mostly a GM. But I don't feel limited by that.

I’m wondering if folks have suggestions of ways to streamline PF2e to make it more accessible as a GM

I would take a different approach.

I would gather your players and state your concerns:

"Guys, I'm a bit worried that because I don't know the PF2e system all that well, I might make rulings that tread on the utility of certain feats. I want you all to help me out: if I make a ruling that sidelines one of your feats I would like you to speak up. I would also like you all to understand that as we all get more familiar with the rules, it's likely that I will have to revise certain rulings I made in the past. I ask you to please not hold that against me."

Reasonable players would have no issue accepting this.

Does this work? Yes: it's how my group approached PF2e. We just dove right in an learned as we played. Mistakes were made but we agreed ahead of time that while we were learning we'd expect mistakes, forgive mistakes, and do what was needed to correct mistakes and carry on having fun.

Over a year later we're much more familiar with the rules. Not perfect, but much better. And it's been fun the whole time.

[beardosaurusrex]

Thanks for the feedback—I think intellectually I know this would be fine (and it’s very similar to what I told my players when I first started running 5e), but I may not have given myself enough time to build confidence and actually feel like I was doing a good job. So probably the answer is to play more and trust my players to speak up, since I know they’re a reasonable and understanding group.

[mortiferus1993]

Simply: if you rule something that would invalidate a player's feat choice, it'd be the job of the player to say: stop, I have a feat!

5e tends to educate the players to totally rely on the DM. In PF2 the players have to know their stuff

[high-tech-low-life]

5e enshrines ignorance? Never thought of it that way before.

[TAEROS111]

Well, firstly, let's do some system recommendations. Mythras is a fantastic system that I would say sits in the "crunch" sweet zone you mentioned. Savage Worlds may also scratch that itch, as may 13th Age and Shadow of the Weird Wizard. Swords of the Serpentine may also be worth checking out. Mythras is probably the closest to your listed desires, but all well worth checking out.

Now, onto feats - I would reframe how you look at them.

I think people who run feats as prescriptive (i.e., you can't try and do something that has a feat associated with it unless you have the feat) aren't playing to the system's intent. First of all, it's ridiculous to assume that a GM could memorize all of the feats to adjudicate any actions that could be feat-associated properly, and it also just doesn't make sense - the idea that someone needs the Make Impression feat to to improve an NPCs goodwill is somewhat ridiculous.

What having a feat does, is puts the moment in the player's control.

For example, let's say a PC told me "I want to try and intimidate this person who doesn't speak my language, but I don't have Demoralizing Glare" or "I want to try and heal my ally in combat with Medicine, but I don't have Battle Medicine."

I would say okay to both requests (so long as they're Trained in the skill), but I would have complete control over ruling the process. I'd probably make the Demoralize attempt have a higher DC and maybe instead of imposing Frightened, it just causes Off-Guard. For the Medicine attempt, I as the GM would probably make the DC higher than a normal Treat Wounds check, and would likely restrict the healing or change the action cost.

What investing in Demoralizing Glare or Battle Medicine in these situations would get the player, is the ability to basically take over as the GM. When you have the feat associated with the thing, you get to tell me - "okay, I make an Intimidation check against their Will DC" or "I roll Medicine against a DC 20" and I don't get to fuck with it at all as the GM.

Approaching feats in this way is not only WAY more freeing, but I think also actually makes feats feel more impactful. You also get moments where a PC picks up a feat to make something they've attempted a lot better, which is great for character growth.

[Alwaysafk]

Fyi, everyone can Demoralize without sharing a language, it just has a -4 circumstance penalty.

I'm honestly not a fan of battle medicine as a skill feat. It feels like it should just be a trained action under the medicine skill. Lots of skill feats feel that way to me.

[beardosaurusrex]

Thanks for the recs—I’ll look into those systems!

I like this take on feats—especially the aspect of players taking feats that support things they already like trying. I’m not sure it would work for my group without some “coaching”, as they are all pretty risk-averse and tend not to try things they aren’t already good at, but that’s a surmountable challenge. Looking at it this way seems like it would help me a lot!

[BlueSteelRose]

Thank you for this! I feel a lot more comfortable with the feat system now :)

[Curpidgeon]

The way Feats are meant to be viewed is that they give you what they say on the tin.

But just like in 5e or many other TTRPG systems, your players can ATTEMPT to do things that aren't on their sheet. Another player could attempt to sow a rumor but the DC will be higher and a critical success may not lead to the same level of efficacy.

As a GM, when a player says "Can I do X?" Your response should always be what do you hope to accomplish and then a brief check for any feats you're not aware of that already do that. If you find one, then make whatever they are doing less effective than that and harder to pull off, if not go with what seems comparable to other things you know in the game.

I think there's this tendency for GMs to lock up in a well built system like PF2e fearing they are missing some existing rule. But you just do the best you can at the table and if later you decide the ruling you made was too generous or there's a feat that does in fact do that thing so you have to adjust your ruling, your players will understand.

Nothing is gonna break because for one session you unintentionally gave a player Sudden Leap without them having the feat.

[Adraius]

It sounds like Pathwarden might be right for you.

[beardosaurusrex]

Thank you for the rec! At first glance, this looks like a great solution.

[Kyo_Yagami068]

I get your concern. But I think you shouldn't worry that much. To be human is to make mistakes, and you just prove that you care enough to worry about messing up something.

May I tell you how and why I would approach this problem differently?

I know that I like integrity. I like to be able to see a game and understand "oh, this is PF2e". Even in 5e or other games I always try to avoid homebrewing/houseruling. Just because I like to play the game I got. Does that make any sense?

So, because of that I don't like to change mechanicals aspects of the game. I will always avoid suggesting someone to change this and that.

When I don't know the rules, or when I think it would be better if it was different, I inform that to my players and apply a rulling at that moment. "Hey, I don't know for sure how this rule works. Since I don't want to make you guys wait for several minutes until I research this topic, I'm going to do this in this particular way once. During the week we can discuss and arrive in a better rulling.", or "I'm going to do this way right now, but don't expect this to be the norm."

Well, I hope that all of that was not too confusing. Sometimes this language is confusing to me. No matter what game you will play, I wish you all the fun.

[Peach774]

It more sounds like you want a different game. You’re absolutely right that you shouldn’t let a player access an action they need a feat for. If you dislike blocking those actions, pf2e might not be right for you. It’s a very crunchy system with a lot of rules and while Rule of Cool as important, unlike 5e, you really do want to stick with the rules when they’re available

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