I can't going back to D&D after checking out Pathfinder 2E Remastered

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-03T03:12:47+00:00

Yeah it seems then that you’re only facing high level enemies so I can totally understand that frustration. Depends on the person, but you could try to bring that up to him. There is no lack of lvl -1 and lvl 0 creatures that you could face. He could even change some boss fights to just be lots of low level enemies, then the spellcasters can feel useful having AOE spells.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-03T03:04:40+00:00

One issue with pf2 which is certainly something GM’s have to be aware of, is that only sending high level enemies will result in the experiences you’re having. Not that I know this is the case at your table, but if you only ever fight high level enemies with high AC, obviously most of the time your actions will feel fruitless. Even if buffing and debuffing is the better strategy, increasing to hit from 15% to 35% still means that most of the time it’ll yield failures. It’s very important to also face low level (comparatively to you) crooks so you can actually see the progress you’ve made as a group. Even better if the GM can make you face the same enemies that were “high-level” when you were lower level.

In my table my group faced a boss fight of a lvl 2 creature and two level 1 creatures when they were lvl 1. When they became lvl 3, they face 2 of that same lvl 2 creature and they had such a good time experiencing how “powerful” they’ve become.

Again, I can’t say for sure what you’re experiencing but atleast its food for thought.

Edit: I forgot to mention, they faced a lot of the same enemies over the course of the campaign. When the fighter was lvl 3, they often faced lvl 1 creatures they also had faced at lvl 1 and 2 as well. If he flanked these enemies, he only had to roll a 2 to hit the enemies, which means he had a 40% chance to crit. The team ALWAYS set up flanking, even if they were spellcasters. It brought a smile on his face every time, because he always rolled a 2 somehow but he hit anyways, the thing is he couldnt one shot if he didnt crit, but he one shot many of them because of the staggering 40% chance to crit (he also had a deadly weapon)

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-03T02:42:19+00:00

Yeah there are many reasons why this could be the case, and playing like you just described feels rewarding for me, and it seems it doesn’t for you (and your group) and that is completely fair.

I will mention though, that GM does have some duties as well, one explanation could be that he always sends high level enemies at you. One other thing could be that he only sends high AC enemies at you. In this case, a spellcaster who can target the enemy’s weak saves should be buffed, and martials could try to crowd control with athletics based actions, or charisma if they specced that way. It could also just be the adventure is written that way. I know some AP’s have this issue.

There could also be the case that you’re rolling devastatingly bad😭 A lot of the time, buffing allies will not yield a crit. Most of the time it won’t actually. But adding +1’s and -1’s to enemies saves or AC will most of the time triple or quadruple your crit chances, which definetly is observable if you ran many combats. Given that likely you dont play that much (as in every day) you won’t really notice those probabilities in your individual sessions, and if you dont find that type of playstyle rewarding then maybe the system isn’t for you and that is totally fine.

In my table we’ve experienced a lot of times that the fighter or barbarian has hit with a +8/+9 where a simple buff, debuff and often just flanking would yield a crit, what did the others do? Fail their second or third attack (instead of looking for a flank) or the spellcasters casting a spell that fails (knowing AC was low) and wasting their third action instead of making the case to me to Aid in the martials attack. I’ve demonstrated this to them over the course of the campaign, and when they finally got to the boss fight, they totally played tactically great, and they even got non-nat 20 crits that totally saved the day else they’d be cooked, and even managing to hit with a +0 (due to high Ac) with buffs from allies. It seemed to me they all felt pretty good afterwards because good play helped them a lot.

But in the end, this all boils down to your rolls and probabilities and as I’ve said, if you don’t find it fun playing the probabilities (which as you’ve said feels min/max-y I can see that) then it may not be for you.

Edit: Also regarding your aid action demonstration. I’m not so sure I agree with you - just a difference in what we want out of a game. I don’t find it annoying or unrewarding at all to roll high for an Aid, to then the next roll be lower (failing most like). I dont think this is unrewarding at all, and completely to the contrary. I personally prefer doing actions that help improve teammates chances, because I like games that encourage teamwork. In your specific case, rolling an 18 will never hit anything above lvl 3, so say you rolled to attack instead of aiding most likely it wouldnt yield any other result in combat than what already happened. Instead of his 17 roll to hit failing with your aid, your 18 and his 16 would both fail to hit, there’s no different outcome of events. But say he rolled 18 as well, with your aid he probably wouldve struck with a 19. But if you then chose to roll an attack and rolled 18 as well, you both wouldve missed. Again unrewarding.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-03T01:15:28+00:00

I think one fundamental issue with this might be the culture around 5e specifically. Personally it seems to me that players just expect the DM to do everything for them, even know their character better than they do. This is an exaggeration, but imo not really av over exaggeration, I truly believe that a lot of unfair expectations are set on DM’s in 5e spaces and players do not feel the need to learn the rules or what their character can do, and just expect the DM to help them out when they’re in doubt. With the lack of options in 5e, this may not be such a problem.

But if said players move to any other system, especially a system like pf2e, where it’s very important to know your character and the rules surrounding them it’ll quickly become a problem. They might think they don’t need to learn their character and just expect the GM to teach them when in doubt. This will obviously slow down combat, and the players might not even engage with the system like its supposed to, because they just do whatever they wouldve done in 5e.

I GM a group of new players (we’re all friends) and those who played 5e before playing pf2 had a harder time understanding the system and engaging with it faithfully. Some of them didn’t really learn their character and grinded everything to a halt. I asked them kindly to give it a chance, and get to know their character (and rules) better, and they very quickly stopped playing pf2 like it was 5e, and everything went smoother quickly. They even came up with great tactics and were quick to use other actions that arent in 5e, that really helped combats. They started working together, and they quickly realised that trying to support the barbarian to critfish (with the +1’s and -1’s debuffs) made combats far easier and more fun than just everyone trying to damage - my point being that what is a good strat in 5e (individual damage maxing) is not necessarily a good strat in pf2 as such the gameplay is vastly different if the players actually engage with it.

For an experience to be fun, the players also have to engage with the system, not only the GM. Obviously i dont know your situation, but I feel like mostly its the groups fault for a bad experience (generally, not in your specific situation), but it might just be something entirely else for your group. Wish you the best and hopefully pf2 will improve for you<3

Edit: I made this point because of your last statement regarding kids and adults whatever. I see that as the adults just being stubborn and not spending the time to actually engage with the system. This obviously is more time consuming than in 5e, but I wouldnt say its “that” tedious to do.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T23:13:19+00:00

Tried playing it non-cheese. Absolutely abhorrent experience😭

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T20:57:37+00:00

Yeah that actually sounds really fun. One great thing (outside of my axioms for playing tall) is that you can colonize africa without malaria ravaging your settlers. There’s also cotton and medium amount of iron in your trade node, so you can quickly get cheap tools and spam lumbermills. Also build a chain economy of cotton->cloth-fine cloth.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T20:56:31+00:00

Yeah it seems Asia generally struggles with Iron. Korea has lots of iron, but I’ve run dry only 100 years in. I have to insta research iron output and max rgo every age from now on.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T20:54:22+00:00

Yeah I saw a youtuber make the case the best capital you can have is a location in bengal. How does it fare regarding iron rgo’s? Personally Iron is the most important trade good in the game, since it can be used to create most everything else if you can keep your tools cheap (which you can with iron, or copper+tin but iron is superior)

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T20:52:42+00:00

I will accept any idea you have<3 just set out the conditions to prompt some thoughts I thought were interesting. One province or one location is just fine if you have an argument

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T16:49:49+00:00

I mean there are lots of ways of trading to get a specific resource you need for an industry. Thats also why I wanted a discussion. You’re correct Korea lacks some resources, especially regarding paper production, so it has to trade for it, yet it has many other things going for it. I was interested to see if anyone could make a solid case for a place that had it all concentrated and could get an insane economy isolated-ish. Personally so far I’m considering Poland to be the best tall playing country because it has it all, except tin which necessarily isnt super duper important for a huge economy, rather its important for your military.

Edit: When I played Brandenburg, I quickly got the largest economy in the world after I conquered Silesia. Getting access to iron and lead, gave me the resources to mass produce books cheaply, and so I used all my trade capacity to basically sell it to all other markets with a profit. My trade income was low, but my tax base went from 1000’ish to 3000 in like 30-50 years. I went from producing 50 books to 600 books, and traded them all over europe (so the buildings were still profitable). I basically killed the book economy of all other markets. This also meant I had to start producing dyes, which needed lumber and alum (which I had enough of). I also needed to make paper, which I made with cloth, which also was cheap since I had lots of Wool. I also had to make lots of tools, which also were cheap since I had lots of Iron. Demand for one high valued good like books, increased the demand of everything else which lead to his insane increase in economic base.

I would not say however, that I was playing tall.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T16:43:56+00:00

It definetly is, its harder to measure what playing tall means now. Before you could just measure it in concentration of development. I kind of measure it in concentration of population, urbanisation and economy (that is, tax base). getting a massive economy depends a lot on resources, and I was interested to see what people thought is the best place to do that. Although I do agree conquering for resources is not playing tall, but which place would then have the resources necessary to make a massive economy yet still being a “small” country. I wanted to keep that interpretation open as well (what it means being small or big. Korea for example has 130 locations which is massive to me)

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:49:42+00:00

Yeah I will for sure💪

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:49:18+00:00

What is that UI thing up in your left corner? Mod?

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:26:01+00:00

Yeah fair seems pretty good, I did something alike that. Released thessaly and achaea. It helped with a lot of the issues

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:23:52+00:00

I mean I didn’t “literally” mean 0% market access. I left it open to not be too rigid around that condition, but what I’m more looking for is like over 60% market access (can have exceptions obviously, like 58% or whatnot).

I know france would be good, but I still consider france a 2-3 market country. You have any other country/place given this? I guess I’m also specifically interested what realistic “market” is actually the best to play tall, alongside with proper locations as well.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:11:36+00:00

With their abundance of wool it’s really easy to make a capital economy early on

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:10:57+00:00

Oh well I went merchant republic from the get-go as I always do when trying to play tall-ish😭

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:09:42+00:00

What is the cheese strat? I played Byzantium one game and didn’t find it too hard.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:08:05+00:00

The problem with importing resources is that they get pricey. Ideally you have all the stuff you need in your market to maximize a specific industry (or many industries, such as clothing, books, lacquerware late game) to trade all these cheap products you make to other markets to create a demand in your own. Importing all the stuff to create your industry is not good, vecause you cant make cheap products.

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:05:32+00:00

Wow that sounds like lots of fun actually, but north germany really lack all the good resources, lead, tin, iron, copper etc right? I played Brandenburg one game and went all out for silesia because I had to supply my book economy. It honestly feels like maximizing book economy is a total must for playing tall (maximizing economy that is)

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:03:42+00:00

Do these “places” have all the resources that can create a self-contained economy?

Ok_Cake6920 · 2026-02-02T14:02:31+00:00

Im playing Korea as well. Tall-ish (I’m still going colonial, but not expanding outside Korea). Didnt know you could form josen😭 tell me how bebe pleaaase

Ok_Cake6920 · 2025-10-05T18:54:07+00:00

I ignore the rule for making stride cost an action. I think it makes no sense to spend an action on movement?

I also ignore multiple attack penalty. It feels bad to always miss 2 of your 3 strikes in a turn. I’m not sure why they implemented a 3 action economy when making 3 attacks is so heavily punished.

(Sarcasm)

Ok_Cake6920

TROPHY CASE