ethancf's review against another edition
3.0
Going full on into neckbeard territory on this one folks, bear with me.
There are some clever twists to formula here that I think go a long way in changing up hardline traditions that needed to die, but I maintain my previous position that Paizo writes games for *players* and not GMs. There's a wealth of customization for your PC here and I'd love to play in a campaign where I can be a chirurgeon, or a spell blender, or a druid with a little mushroom familiar...but I'm far too lazy to run a game with this much rules baggage. It doesn't help that the book is horrendously organized.
Great concepts:
- Focus points instead of concentration (only downside is more bookkeeping)
- Classes are more "a la carte": picking feats as you go means you're not locked into a subclass, you're making your own. The downside here is that at a certain point it feels like they're only sticking with the class system because of tradition (and that's what people are used to). It also clashes terribly with the forced racial ability score bonuses (and penalties! GET RID OF THE PENALTIES). There's a weird mix of tradition/innovation here that really stops this game from shining.
- The TEML system is really interesting and much more nuanced than 5e's Proficiency system. Again, more bookkeeping, but leads to a more realized PC.
- Anathema is a cool mechanical concept
- The class sections starts with a description of what you might do in any one of the game's pillars: social, combat, downtime, exploration etc. Really smart move.
Bad:
- Fighters seem...eh. Shield block as a class feature means ranged fighter will always feel like you should just something else, or at least be a switch hitter. Their core feature is...attack of opportunity?? Ok.
- Why bother renaming Paladin to Champion, then only including good-aligned as an option for the class? Not necessarily bad, just...why?
- I'd thought this edition was aiming to streamline some things but it seems even more complicated, honestly. Maybe it's just because I've taken a break from 3.x systems for so long, or maybe it's because the book is truly badly organized (it took me way too long to figure out what Focus points were, despite it being a core feature of one of the druid options).
If I was still playing PF, I'd absolutely want to make the jump to 2e. PF was already the "build whatever you want" as a character, and 2e leans into this with full force. 5e is still my system of choice, though.
There are some clever twists to formula here that I think go a long way in changing up hardline traditions that needed to die, but I maintain my previous position that Paizo writes games for *players* and not GMs. There's a wealth of customization for your PC here and I'd love to play in a campaign where I can be a chirurgeon, or a spell blender, or a druid with a little mushroom familiar...but I'm far too lazy to run a game with this much rules baggage. It doesn't help that the book is horrendously organized.
Great concepts:
- Focus points instead of concentration (only downside is more bookkeeping)
- Classes are more "a la carte": picking feats as you go means you're not locked into a subclass, you're making your own. The downside here is that at a certain point it feels like they're only sticking with the class system because of tradition (and that's what people are used to). It also clashes terribly with the forced racial ability score bonuses (and penalties! GET RID OF THE PENALTIES). There's a weird mix of tradition/innovation here that really stops this game from shining.
- The TEML system is really interesting and much more nuanced than 5e's Proficiency system. Again, more bookkeeping, but leads to a more realized PC.
- Anathema is a cool mechanical concept
- The class sections starts with a description of what you might do in any one of the game's pillars: social, combat, downtime, exploration etc. Really smart move.
Bad:
- Fighters seem...eh. Shield block as a class feature means ranged fighter will always feel like you should just something else, or at least be a switch hitter. Their core feature is...attack of opportunity?? Ok.
- Why bother renaming Paladin to Champion, then only including good-aligned as an option for the class? Not necessarily bad, just...why?
- I'd thought this edition was aiming to streamline some things but it seems even more complicated, honestly. Maybe it's just because I've taken a break from 3.x systems for so long, or maybe it's because the book is truly badly organized (it took me way too long to figure out what Focus points were, despite it being a core feature of one of the druid options).
If I was still playing PF, I'd absolutely want to make the jump to 2e. PF was already the "build whatever you want" as a character, and 2e leans into this with full force. 5e is still my system of choice, though.
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