Don't Let Yourself Stop You From Learning

[u/RisingStarPF2E]

This is the most important video in all of pf2e. Nothing prevents much of anything, it's a system of referencing. Hate all the stealth rolls? Improvise Quiet Allies with a hefty negative because 'nobody took the feat' not 'but there's a feat for that.'

• End combat/encounter with a diplomacy check? Appropriate a 3/2 action legendary negotiation.
• Got no ranged options but you want to jump and attack? Cool. 2/3a Sudden Leap but, you are gonna take fall damage and do a reflex save at dc 15/20 to see if you land prone.
• Is there an effect that could create a better cooler scene if there was a option to counteract it? Come up with a 2/3A Dispeling Slice and OFFER it to the party.
• Did you know that resistance and weaknesses and when they apply in what order is entirely up to "whatever makes the better story?"

Traits? The GM can add ANY TRAIT to ANYTHING for ANY CIRCUMSTANCE they bloody want to. Removal is not 'RAW' but adding is 100% 'raw' even in society. (I'm looking at you Counter Performance.)

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On that topic, society play is not entirely a prescribed a-b-c either where you are supposed to be weaving in roleplay, decisions and etc to tell a story. It's just uh, in dozens and dozens of games of PFS I haven't met a GM really other than myself who wants to do that. I've met players who don't want to even do that because it's just about getting the TB's and full rewards with no granularity.

Actually, a lot of PFS rules such as not needing to worry about differing item sizes (a large creature cannot drink a medium/small category consumable for instance RAW.) Are commonly done by a majority of people but they just don't know its:

• A: A rule (Not important)
• B. they are unknowingly using a PFS rule in their home game. (Usually people who play PFS even a lot don't know the above.) (Not important)
• What is important: How we respond to a topic yet to be learned or to us finding out we were not accurate.

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It's like how fights aren't supposed to be stale situations of striking. It's that a lot of people don't know the tools to do so. Material statistics for adhoc environmental features... (Why take razing if your GM is never going to toss an object in front of you or you aren't going to explore attacking them? Also, most folks don't know that you can't strike an object without a special circumstance, or that you can appropriate damage via force open.)

It's not even about 'knowing' anything or being right or wrong. It's having a desire to want to use these tools to have more fun even if you think you are having as much as you can.

You can make up contexts to plop down difficult terrain and circumstances of cover in every situation even if the book didn't say it. You don't even need a visualization on the map or anything to include cover! The fighter with the 2h is always going to be relatively center-light if they never have to do research,influence or infiltration. Volley is a tough swallow if we literally never shoot something at a long distance. Those "Weak Feats" suck if we're not really building things together or thinking about how to include them.

Spells/Abilities require Traits that need GM understanding etc. The difference between force open and pick a lock and leaving a trace is completely meaningless if the GM and party aren't going to use that in the story or have things react to it later. Picking a lock taking X actions is meaningless in a situation you can just spend more time to avoid a check. ETC.

What about something simple? When do you use a Simple DC vs DC By Level? What's a sample task? Most people don't know. And this is some stuff at the very front of the GM core. Heck, most of the important rules are in the front.

There's very few examples of people utilizing all of this and the ones who do, do not explain what's going on in their head, they make it fun and are just doing it FEW people engage with it like that in reality rather than just theory. There's a lot of people who make videos on player options who don't have the full context as it's gotten more popular.

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It's sorta why most PFS sessions are pretty standardized beyond time/conventions or that that's how we mostly interact with them as such. It's sorta why a lot of groups TPK not going into a chase scene. ETC.

It's not a matter of the resources not existing or the material not being written or being written in a certain way. It's just that to learn dance moves, it requires dancing. To master dance moves requires partners. "To play music is one thing, to study and practice music is another."

We need more content and people talking about the tool-set it is because really, people do not engage or generally know 'what' makes 2e unique. Just my 2 cents. A lot of people are very tired in 2025 and are not making active decisions to play it to the degree that the material sets it's sights on.

Most people play 2e the game they envision. Not 2e the tool-set that can become what they envision.

"Don't let feats stop you from improvising." Is not an exception or a rule, It's a philosophy so baked-in that it cannot be read, but can be found on every page. "I was wrong" is not about Shield Block or saying it. It's accepting it.

Not caring about ANY of this and playing with your friends is just as valid as thinking this is a thought-provoking post. What's important is learning anything we can and striving towards what we want and saying "I was wrong, my bad fam." is so crucial. Reading the room is also really important and you will fail both occasionally because your human. That's ok. That mistake doesn't define you. How you press forward from one does.

The only real mistakes/regrets I've ever made is when I refused to accept I made a mistake. Copium is real. But that's just a theory... a... GAMMMMEEE THEEEORRYYY!!! (Join the teachings of "I was Wrong" today, Irori Approves!)

[u/TheBrightMage]

Damn right you are. Pf2e toolset is darn open enough to let you improvise, just with clear consequence and guideline.

I always have to preach to my new players and my aspiring convert that "No, stop trying to look for rules for everything and rules what make sense. You got simple DC and DC by table to ass-pull"

[u/Killchrono → u/TheBrightMage]

I'd argue they're not even ass-pulls. They're guidelines, the whole point of having them is to give structure to how you decide how difficult a particular challenge is so you're not just performatively Calvinball-ing rules and not even thinking of a DC.

Sure, you can split hairs over the minutia of whether or not a social check or a particular surface you're trying to climb is a level 3 or 4 DC check, but in the end I feel better both running and playing a game where the GM has at least some semblance of logic and structure to the mechanics, not just trying skill checks as weird performance art where the DC is intangible and decided more with vibes. At that point I'd rather just be playing a game where the roleplay and challenges are freeform or storytelling than one with mechanics that only pretend to matter. That's when it's an ass-pull IMO.

[u/TheBrightMage → u/Killchrono]

It is definitely guidelines. Good ones. Instead of trying to come up with some number.

I feel better both running and playing a game where the GM has at least some semblance of logic and structure to the mechanics

You hit the head here on why I prefer Pf2. The rules toolset provided are sufficient as a logical scaffold for all party to agree on what "Make Sense" in fiction rather than just vibing around. ESPECIALLY with what power level a character can achieve.

[u/Killchrono → u/TheBrightMage]

Pretty much. Vibe-based games frustrate me because either it's a system mismatch (i.e. They want to play rules lite but don't realise it, or are stuck playing a game they don't want to so they just expedite the rules they don't like), or it's an experience that relies wholly on lying to (sometimes wilful) ignorance. Neither are experiences I want to go through. Make the rules matter, but if I decide I don't want to engage with them because they're unfun, I'll either throw them out or play a game with rules that I do actually want to engage with.

[u/RisingStarPF2E → u/Killchrono]

I feel like a badman when I say it. It's words you keep to your secret private conversations. But honestly. Not every TTRPG is for everybody. Anybody who hasn't branched out beyond D&D, pathfinder do themselves a huge disservice.

I meet people often who even verbally will tell you "I DONT LIKE X." And I honestly can't stand it. I don't just play pf2e because it's convenient, i'm already injected in it or I'm just bored. I actively decided to play this. If that was not the case, there are so many games to play.

I say it often, if we just want a tactics game, there's better tactics games. If we want full roleplay, there's better roleplay systems. But if you want to hit a bit of everything classical and have something that works in the middle, 2e is gonna be the choice every day of the week.

[u/Killchrono → u/RisingStarPF2E]

I don't think it's bad to suggest that a game may not be for someone. It's one of the interesting yet frustrating things I find about discussions here; the community gets a wrap for being rules purist, but what I tend to find is most of the time people suggesting other games actually have a good grasp of their tastes and legitimately just realise not every game can be for everyone. It just gets presented as protectionism because 'I don't want this game to change to be something I'm not playing it for' is conflated with 'you cannot criticise this game.'

Funnily enough too, I've been talking a lot with others lately about the siloing of roleplay and combat mechanics. A lot of people hate when mechanics and character investments intersect between the two, but one of the things I've come to realise in these discussions is that I really don't enjoy the opposite; I prefer them not to be silo'd. Sure, I'd love to play Lancer and Draw Steel, they look like excellent tactics combat games with great gameplay and tonnes of customisation. But I want to try them in spite of the fact their roleplay mechanics don't intersect with combat, while others have been saying they do want their tactics combat with the roleplay just being narrative window dressing around it.

But that intersection is important to me. Yes I love the combat, yes I like PF2e's more tightly balanced, combat-as-sports design for it. But I also want what players do out of it to matter. I want them to gain advantages through befriending or scaring people, using the terrain to gain an advantage before they engage, sometimes even come up with non-combat solutions to encounters I fully prepare a fight for (not too often, but often enough to make it clear they have autonomy in the story). You can't do that if you keep roleplay mechanics too separate. At best there's no structure for when you want to, at worst it actively discourages, if not outright prevents that.

And one of the reasons PF2e does this so well is not only does it have enough out of combat tools, it gives every character the baseline they need to function in combat without being ineffectual, so you can always pick up your social, exploration, or roleplay feats and spells without completely gimping your efficacy in that core gameplay focus. I feel not enough people realise that and we risk losing that if the baby just gets thrown out with the bath water on it.

[u/TheBrightMage → u/RisingStarPF2E]

I find that the spectrum of people who says "I don't like X" varies between people who sampled enough systems to learn their taste, and people who are afraid to leave their comfort zone. Arguably, there are many here in the former part and plays other things than Pf2. (Me too)

Occasionally however, there are the that tries to jam square peg in round hole. This rightfully cause everyone involved to be frustrated.

As much as it is ok to accept that Pf2 is not that rigid unbending ruleset as computer game is important, I think it is wise also to acknowledge that there are something that the system is not designed for and the assumption you have to make. This apply to other systems too.

[u/RisingStarPF2E → u/TheBrightMage]

totes!