So it turns out I again got the rule wrong, as usual.
If I cast a spell with a BA, I can't cast another spell during the turn except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1A.
Except you can't cast spells during your hasted action. It's one of the few things you can't do during that action.
Though a Wizard X/Fighter 2 can action surge to cast two spells
Most of us are wizards but on a coffee-lock's lifestyle time table; long rest ain't available past age 30 when your 4hour = long rest previlege has been revoked
Yep. Although it is possible to get 3EBlasts in a turn, possibly 4.
Get 3 levels of sorcerer and take quickened spell to turn one EBlast into a BA spell
Get 2 levels of fighter
Get hasted by friend, use action surge
Use BA EBlast, then 3 regular ones.
The idea of someone doing this sounds absurd though
Add in things like Hex and you’re really starting to cook. Maybe take Hexblade to make single targets get cooked even faster. And because you don’t really care about Warlock progression after Hexblade’s Curse and Agonizing Blast, you can just level in Sorcerer to get more spell slots and sorcery points for your hexes and unending eldritch blasts
And the whole point of this idea is just replacing movement and BA with regular actions, so I don't think that matters?
Although if I were to do this, I'd probably want to use that quicken rule like you said
Well Pathfinder balances it by making most spells use more than 1 action and Quicken reduces the amounts of actions needed by 1. So you actually can cast e.g. 2 fireballs in the same turn that way.
Not the only way, several spells can be cast as reactions, and action surges can allow an extra spell. You can currently cast 3 leveled spells in a turn.
Then in that case you would have to make, like Pathfinder, BA spells cost 1 action and Action spells cost 2 or 3 actions, so that you couldn’t cast multiple action spells without a feature to permit it, but still cast a BA and an Action spell on the same turn.
Something like leveled spells usually costs more than 1 action. So 2 actions for a fireball and 1 action to move or do something smaller than 2 more fireballs.
Fireball takes 2 actions to cast
[As can be seen here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=119)
Like the people who thought to use 3 actions also thought about things like this
Multiclass into fighter for action siege, sorcerer for quickened metamagic, and DM to handwave casting 3 level spells in one turn. Yeah, totally possible.
Weird, that doesn't look like any D&D book I've read...
The whole point is to move the 3 action idea to D&D, I understand if you try to use other rules to make it balanced but the more you do that the less D&D you're playing
If 'D&D-ness' is the standard, Pathfinder is closer to the game's roots than 5e- not by much, but it takes more leafs out of 3.5e's book than 5e does.
They're sibling systems, from the same family tree. The only difference is one of then inherited the 'official' D&D title cause it was developed by the company who owned the rights, while the other did not. Pathfinder was even created by 3.5e staff veterans.
Don't worry, multiple other people already corrected me on that
And do worry, I read the meme and got the idea that this means 3 actions in D&D not PF (which apparently makes me an idiot in some people's eyes)
thats why at level 4 my barbarian is capable of dealing 6D12+3D8+30 damage per turn currently, once i reach lvl 8 (if nothing else changes) i can get Incredible Beastmaster's Companion and up that to 6D12+6D8+36
....And it does. The average of 2d12+6 is 6.5x2+6=19. Even if we're comparing this to 5e of 8d6 on a fireball, that's 3.5x8=21.
Also pf2e has almost every damaging spell take 2 actions
The way this is handled in pathfinder is fireball takes two actions. The only way I can think of to cast two fireballs in a round is with quickened casting which is a 10th level feat that's limited to once a day.
Spells in 3.5 did feel more powerful. I remember time stop being especially nice if you got high enough level for it. Now time stop is basically useless for anything except running away
I'm just saying, and this isn't RAI but it is RAW:
The spell's instantaneous. The spell ending means nothing. You can attack in it without ending the time stop.
Do with that information what you will.
In 5e the spell states that if affect another creature the spell ends. It's hard to get around that and get off multiple actions. In 3.5 you could cast aoe spells and they would all go off when the spell ended. The classic play was a bunch of delayed blast fireballs or horrid wiltings stacked on top of the bad guys for insane damage.
A spell ending and its effect ending are two different things for instantaneous spells, because the duration of the spell ends on cast.
That’s what I was alluding to. The classic example would be animate dead, or maybe feeble mind. But again, not RAI in this case.
I love that the 3 action economy basically forces you to narrate your actions! "I move foward, swing my sword, and raise my shield" sounds so much better than "I use 10 of my movement, take the attack action to swing once, and use my bonus action to Second Wind"
I've played both. 1E suffers from too much sprawl, 2E fixes this by getting rid of multiclassing and relying on Archetypes instead, giving it a more stable platform for adding abilities while maintaining balance. The only thing I don't love about 2E is that money is so closely tied to level that crafting your own gear doesn't actually add value over all.
i hope you know about [Archives of Nethys](https://www.aonprd.com/)! every Tuesday when my PF game starts i open that up as well to make sure i can quickly look up anything i might need
You can't deceive us. You are memeing this to actually atratc more ppl towards the system. Can't Blame ya though I found it quite fun. Shame that myy table is full of hypocrite hipster that won't give it a chance.
Pathfinder except most spells don't cost two actions and martial attack even more often.
On a somewhat related note, do martial's attacks get more dices when they level up/gain magic items in DnD?
In pathfinder you can sneak attack as many times as you want, provided the enemy is still flat-footed. That being said, you will still rarely use the third attack that way and your sneak attack damages increase much slower than in DnD
I am aware of that detail, though I must admit my knowledge of Pathfinder is not as strong as my knowledge of 5e.
Rogues in 5e give up number of attacks for increased damage from a singular attack, and also everything else rogues get.
[Elemental Toss](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=505) is the closest thing in pf2e to eldritch blast and it's 1 action, attack trait, 1d8. the big difference is that it's a focus spell and not a cantrip.
[Clinging Ice](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=793) is a Winter Witch exclusive cantrip.
It's a single action damaging cantrip.
Buuut it can only deal damage to a creature once per minute.
If you have more enemies though, you can deal damage with every action spend on it
As far as i can see only the movement penalty is kept with the sustain, right?
The spell doesn't say otherwise, and sustaining a spell doesn't mean that you cast it again every time
Oh you're right, reading spells is weird. I would think looking at it that it would do more because the damage is listed in the save itself.
I realize now that the sustain is just the effect. I was reading while hurrying to make dinner so it figures I'd get something wrong.
Except you can only cast it a number of times per combat equal to the number of focus points you have and you can only get one focus point back between fights (with a 10 minute refocus activity) until later levels, unless you're a psychic.
So it would never be like casting 3 eldritch blasts every round.
Couple things.
1. I acknowledged it was a focus spell and not a cantrip in my comment.
2. You get your full focus pool during your daily preparations.
3. Sorcerer, the Class that gets Elemental toss as a focus spell at level 1, can have a focus pool of 3 by level 6 with a dedication, a focus spell feat and the Advanced Bloodline feat. Meaning that once per day you can, in fact, be casting 3 'eldritch blasts' per round.
I mean, you're right. It's not going to be like that. Pf2e is well balanced. Sorry it doesn't keep up to one of the most unbalanced spells in another game.
I'm not a fan either. Haven't played in about 7 years. Been playing pf2e since the playtest.
None of that affects my ability to not be condescending though.
To be honest with you eldritch blast in 5e isn’t even *that* unbalanced. Would be in pf2e though 100%, since cantrips and weapons scale differently. In 5e it’s just the baseline.
"You just reinvented Pathfinder/4e/other system" is a common phrase when people bring up ideas for 5e that are similar to things said other system includes. It doesn't retroactively make their idea a direct copy of the implementation of the concept. Nothing in what Jesse expresses in the meme indicates that it would be a 1 to 1 translation. The fact that Walt expresses an immediate difference (spellcasting being a single action) *proves* this difference.
I mean, it'd basically be like how the upcoming Kineticist will work. You have a magical attack available that's basically the same as attacking with a weapon.
Or. We have 5 action points and things that are actions cost points and things that are bonus actions cost 1 point. Things like cunning action, that make actions bonus actions can be used once a turn. If you leave points unspent, you get them next turn, but they won't stack above 7.
Reactions cost 1 point (so if you want some, better save some).
Oh wait now I'm making 5e into Divinity Original sins with more steps.
ive played DND 5e since 2018ish, and ive been playing pathfinder 2e since july 2022, i will say for a fact that the 3 action system is far FAR better than the 5e action/bonus action, movement system for both martial AND caster
Since discovering the 3 action system i have fallen deeply in love with it. It feels generally perfect and I have noobies at my 5e table that go 'uhh what's a Bonus again' once a week.
It definitely doesn't help that certain classes (martials) don't even have a use for a ba most of the time, and that the uses are locked behind two weapon fighting or feats
I like that movement is something separate, I makes everything more dynamic.
If I have to choose between an eldritch blast and moving, I will always choose the blast. ALWAYS!
Spells usually use 2 actions out of your 3.
Some spells like Magic Missile can use 1,2 or 3 actions and shoot that many magic missiles.
.
Also some magic classes have to choose a spell slot and "put" a spell in it, and that spell slot can only use that spell until you rest.
For example:
I have 1 third level spell slot and 2 first level spell slots. In the third level one I put Fireball, in one first level spell slot I put Cure Wounds and in the other Magic Missile.
In fairness, if a person only has an issue with 1 area of the game, it's not really necessary to switch the whole system just to fix that one aspect, especially for 5e being pretty easy to homebrew even big rules for, especially if these complaints come up mid-campaign.
I had an opportunity to play pathfinder and gotta say that 3 action system is God awful as hell.
We actually all were new to this system, including our dm (i think) and we couldn't wrap our heads around how unfun it was to play like this.
Why did you find it bad though? Like, it's totally fine if you do. I'm just curious because almost everyone really likes it. It lets you be creative with what actions you can do on your turn rather than be restricted to the same rotation every time (though I gotta say, at lower levels this is less true because you've got less stuff to play around with and if you've played at low level I can see why you didn't enjoy it as much)
The reasons i didn't liked it:
First of all if you use your actions to move you have to spent it all at once. You can't do it like in DND that you, let's say move 10 feets, attack and move the remaining 20 feets. In pathfinder if you use your action to move but move only half of your movement speed then the rest of it is wasted.
Also if you miss your first attack then making the 2nd one or the 3rd one is basically pointless because the chance of hitting is extremely low on fallowing attacks
Also i extremely dislike how resting in this game looks. Like you can't get a short rest in this system. No you have to get full on 8 hours of sleep to rest at all. And HP points you regain after it is just pathetic in comparison to what you get in DND. I had fights when one two hits take away more health in 5 second than 8 hours of sleep would give.
Also i kinda dislike how classes and their feats works. Like i played only Barbarian and only on a pretty low level, but put a 5th level DND Barbarian against 5th level P2E Barbarian and the second one will run like a little b#th he is.
Over all i just found the entire experience of playing this system unfun. It was actually so bad that my group just decided to cancel the campaign after 2 sessions.
Okay, so a couple of things about how the entire thing went (from what you've told me).
The movement thing is mostly for balance. Bear in mind that unlike in dnd you could theoretically use all your three actions to move, letting you cover 75 feet at level one. 90 if you're an elf (or another nacestry with 30 feet of movement). Letting you split it would be a bit harder to track/would mess with the three action system a bit. But I can see why you didn't like it.
The attack thing. A second attack doesn't have that great of a penalty (a -5 might look like a lot, but martials have ways around this. Like fighters whi get double slice. Or monks, who get flurry of blows, letting you "cheat" the action economy of your attacks). There are also agile weapons, that get a -4 and -8 respectively, which is cool (specially if you play a flurry ranger because then you can get to -1 and -2 against your hunted prey, can't remember which level though). A third attack is almost always better off not done though.
This is also balanced around the fact that you're supposed to debuff the enemies (being the main job of the casters and actions such as demoralize, or flanking enemies, which gives them a -2 to AC letting you hit more easily).
Resting in this game might look like ass, just a long rest each day? What were they thinking?!
But then there are many, *many* out of combat actions that take ten minutes to perform (being the main one treat wounds. Which, on a successful check heals 2d8. This heal scales when you bump up the DC if you're trained or higher in medicine. AND you can choose which DC to roll for before rolling. So if you're feeling unlucky, even as a master proficiency, you can still check against the base DC 15 rather than the DC 30). There are also many skill feats based around the medicine skill, making non-magic healing the primary source of healing out of combat.
This also brings me to a side note, which is that pf2 assumes you are at full resources (or almost full) when starting an encounter. That's why casters get focus spells. They are a rechargable spell pool (10 minutes to regain one focus point, same time it takes to treat wounds) that they can have every encounter of that day.
Also, the Barbarian point. idk which insctinct you got but let's compare the two barbarians from the two systems (berserker for 5e and fury for pf2, since I feel their thematic is very similar). At level 5 too, which is the one you said.
They both get rage, and a +2 bonus to damage while raging. The 5e version gets to rage 3 times, while the pf2 gets to rage as much as they want (with a 1 minute cooldown iirc). It's true that the 5e version gets resistance to physical damage while raging, but the 2e version gets temporary hit points equal to lvl+con (so a minimum of 5 temp hp at lvl 5). The class features are very simple for both of them, 5e gets advantage on dex saveing throws at lvl 2. And the pf2 version can't be flanked by creatures their level or lower (they can still help a higher level ally to flank though) by level 3. They both get ability score increases by then as well. The 5e version also gets a speed increase while not wearing heavy armor (but this was covered in the movement part), and reckless attack. Which is cool in the 5e context.
Now onto subclass territory, berserker vs. fury. The 5e version gets to make an attack as a bonus action and then gets a level of exhaustion. The pf2 version gets an extra class feat at lvl 1, which is very cool in the pf2 context.
This means that by lvl 5 a pf2 (fury insctinct) barbarian gets 5 class feats, 2 skill feats and 1 general feat and two class feature (Rage and Deny advantage).
The same 5e barbarian gets 7 class features and one ability score increase.
By sheer number of options a pf2 Barbarian *is* stronger than a 5e one
But maybe you dislike the way the classes get options via feats instead of a set path of features, which I can respect and sorry for making this the longest part of the response.
I'm sorry you didn't get to enjoy it as much as you could. I would recommend giving it another go trying to play as how the system wants you to play (if you don't want to it's fine, just a recommendation).
I would also say that pf2 has a much greater focus on teamwork, making a good party one that can work well together to defeat the enemy, rather than having everyone be a main character doing their own thing and eventually taking down the big bad.
Hope this was useful, and sorry it turned out long as fuck for a meme sub lmao
> And yes, I realize these opinions will get me downvoted here, because the PF2E crowd is **passionate**.
Posting a terrible take then calling out downvoters doesn't actually make you right. I mean seriously, copy and pasting the mechanics? Concentration, incapacitation, heightened spells and cantrips, critical failures and successes - sure, they still take similar amounts of time to cast and use the same components, but what are you expecting? They've changed the background mechanics of how players interact with their world, but it's not like there's been some giant magical catastrophe that's completely rewritten the laws of magic in between editions. You'd have to be a complete hack to do something like that.
No, it's a terrible take because you claimed they copied and pasted the mechanics. That's why I talked about how the mechanics aren't copied and pasted immediately after calling it a terrible take. I mean, I could have talked about "the math all turns up the same values", but the other guy did that.
They're patently untrue claims about the system that show you deeply, deeply misunderstood everything about it, possibly including what system you were actually using, or, y'know... are just making it up.
Interesting. I don’t get that feeling that casters were thrown into an arena with martials and got the same numbers, they get demonstrably LOWER numbers because of all the creative versatility they get. It feels like you’re describing a wizard with a “magic blast” and a ranger with a “bow shot” and they’re basically re-flavors of one-another, but that’s just not true.
I think taking a fun, powerful aspect of your game that was too strong and tuning it down and keeping the unique aspects of it isn’t lazy… it’s just the only way to not have people riot that they’ve lost what’s unique about their classes. Also PF2e has such ridiculous variability between even two builds of the exact same class that I’m not sure how anything could be described as samey.
Their listed reason for why spellcasting is usually two actions is as according to the designers they found if too many spells were variable (akin to how they made heal/harm/magic missile work in the system) then it lead to extreme amounts of decision paralysis as the players are both juggling like 15 different options for spells as well as having to decide how many actions to use on each one, unlike martial whom whilst they have get to play with the action economy more usually have far fewer options to pick between.
I doubt this'd change your opinion + this doesn't apply quite as much if you're just saying you'd prefer more spells to be 1 action specifically (instead of variable) that only partially applies, but I thought you'd appreciate the reasoning for why it is the way it is (well, beyond "we've learnt from 4e that if you gut too many sacred cows at once it can cause everyone to quit. As such, things like ability scores (instead of just mods) and vancian (in the broad sense including things like spontaneous casting) can't get removed", but that's a bit different).
Personally, I'm hoping for the Kineticist to help fulfill more action-variable styles as well as blasting, but honestly at this point the amount that people have said how much they're hoping for it is an impossible to meet thing
What do you mean? Witches are the only class people seem to consistently have issue with (patrons feel a little flat and uninvolved with the class and lessons should be interegrated into the class features maybe) and warpriest cleric is the only subclass people complain about much (not the same as 1e warpriest, probably should've been named different while warpriest was made into a future class). Otherwise, everyone delivers on flavor and mechanics as far as I can tell.
If you needed to get the windows of your car replaced, you wouldn't complain if they didn't replace your perfectly fine tires. The caster framework was fine the way it was, it just needed to be re-tooled into the code of the game. Which means they need interesting way to interact with the 3 action economy. Spell have varying action cost and you have more to do with the rest of your turn for most 2action spells. Spells themselves are sick and creative doing things like making a shadow clone of your allies projectile, various curses available to players (some of which are hilarious and permanent), spells thay force the target to declare its next turn and devote a certain amount of actions to doing that or losing it all, a wildfire that can expand in radius with each action your pour into it, or maybe using a minion under your control as a bomb and doing massive aoe dmg. You even have adjustable action spells like scorching ray and magic missiles. You have spells that can charge up for 6 actions. Vancian magic still exists in order to give sorcerors a reason to still exist which they don't in 5e. Not really until tashas. And it's not fucking bad. I don't get where the issue is. It's way harder to make a bad spell line up than anyone thinks. Take whatever you want and you'll do well.
And are we ignoring the innovations of the degrees of success system which casters interact with far more than martials? Nearly every spell having 4 different outcomes instead of the stupid save or suck isn't lazy. Debuffs are actually valuable and fun because you're not "choosing" between "effectively removed from the game" or "disadvantage on attack for 1 round." Getting something nice and valuable on a successful save is so much better than the swingy and ridiculous all or nothing of 5e. You say less effective spells, but slow in pf2e only does nothing on a crit fail and wrecks bosses otherwise while slow, and most other spells that don't deal direct damage (and some that do), does nothing about 50% of the time.
It's honestly more opinion than anything but I feel it's the prime reason why PF2E feels so homogenised to me. I like the idea in concept but I think it's too limiting to expression despite ironically seeming to offer relative freedom in actions.
If I had to make an argument against it, I'd argue that the little details of the system totally kill any sort of verisimilitude and turn the game into a War sim. I'm thinking about things like 'move' where if you don't use your full movement and stop to do something else... you just don't have that movement anymore.
It feels very robotic imo.
Ok but what if casting a spell takes up all 3 actions? The idea that a martial and caster gameplay divide would be set up by one using resources like spell slots and the other not kind of works but it's never really balanced in 5e. But this would make Jesse's idea for balancing the game actually work, and it would give martials and casters distinct gameplay.
no no we’ll just make some spells take more actions! some spells like magic missile could even depend. if you use one action, that’s one dart. two actions is two darts and three actions is three. also, we will give martial characters a penalty for attacking more than once in a turn cuz that’d be op
Fighters don’t do as much damage, if not more, than casters already?
Edit: Oops, seems I made the mistake of not subscribing to the “martials bad!” mentality of this sub, my bad.
Somewhat. An optimized fighter, with action surge, and magic weapons could deal as much damage as a caster of a similar level for most of the game, however and optimized caster with magical items can usually out-damage martials. This comes mostly from the aoe spells dealing good damage to multiple targets, as well as a few over-tuned spells that poop out minions to attack or deal too much damage (imo). This discussion pops up pretty regularly in this sub, but for optimized builds I believe there’s another sub that has better information.
An unoptimized martial deals less damage than an unoptimized caster.
An optimized martial is in the same situation.
If both sides are given magic items relevant to their classes, the same case appears again.
On top of that, casters have more utility and versatility.
.
Though, luckily, this issue doesn't come up in most games as often as people like me make it seem to.
Fuck it, we ball.
You could make this work if you made action spells take 2. That's all you'd have to do, aside from adjusting monsters. I'd have to run numbers, but I *THINK* just maxing their hp rolls consistently would be enough rather than using averages.
"Dealing as much damage as a caster" Yes, the 2d12+6 totally helps me keep up with their #THREE FIREBALLS
Wait, lemme check the rules for multiple leveled spells
There isn't really any, because they don't expect wizards to have 3 actions
So it turns out I again got the rule wrong, as usual. If I cast a spell with a BA, I can't cast another spell during the turn except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1A.
Therefore you can cast with an action, then another action (such as a hasted wizard sending 6 magic missles with 2 level 1 spell slots)
Except you can't cast spells during your hasted action. It's one of the few things you can't do during that action. Though a Wizard X/Fighter 2 can action surge to cast two spells
Sorry, I thought you could. I don't have all the spells memorized (though it'd be cool if I did)
Well wizards need to reread their spellbooks every day after all
Haven't gotten my long rest in for a while
Most of us are wizards but on a coffee-lock's lifestyle time table; long rest ain't available past age 30 when your 4hour = long rest previlege has been revoked
you can't cast spells with your haste action tho
Really? Dang, I thought I memorized every spell ever
Yep. Although it is possible to get 3EBlasts in a turn, possibly 4. Get 3 levels of sorcerer and take quickened spell to turn one EBlast into a BA spell Get 2 levels of fighter Get hasted by friend, use action surge Use BA EBlast, then 3 regular ones. The idea of someone doing this sounds absurd though
Hate to break the theory crafting but haste specifically says that you can't cast spells with the haste action Edit: in 5e at least
Thank you. So we're back at 3 EBlasts per turn. Given this strategy needs at least W1/S3/F2, that's 2 beams per EBlast and about 6d10. Juicy
Even better at level 6 when you can get agonizing blast and start adding your CHA mod to each one Edit:7, not 6. Numbers hard
Add in things like Hex and you’re really starting to cook. Maybe take Hexblade to make single targets get cooked even faster. And because you don’t really care about Warlock progression after Hexblade’s Curse and Agonizing Blast, you can just level in Sorcerer to get more spell slots and sorcery points for your hexes and unending eldritch blasts
There is rules for multiple spells from quicken. "You can't cast another spell unless it's a cantrip".
Isn't that specifically for quicken though?
That's because Quicken is usually the only way casting more than one spell in a turn would even be conceivable.
And the whole point of this idea is just replacing movement and BA with regular actions, so I don't think that matters? Although if I were to do this, I'd probably want to use that quicken rule like you said
Well Pathfinder balances it by making most spells use more than 1 action and Quicken reduces the amounts of actions needed by 1. So you actually can cast e.g. 2 fireballs in the same turn that way.
Jesse you've just made Pathfinder again
Also martials are generally stronger than casters in PF2E
There are plenty of bonus action spells that also come under that rule. Misty Step, Hex, Divine Favour, Spirit Shroud, Tasha's Otherworldly Guise...
Not the only way, several spells can be cast as reactions, and action surges can allow an extra spell. You can currently cast 3 leveled spells in a turn.
Any spell cast with a bonus action locks you out of leveled spells and Mending for the turn.
But they're saying 3 *actions* - Ah nevermind, no one cares anymore
That’s for any BA spell.
We aren't talking about BAs though, we're turning them into regular actions
Then in that case you would have to make, like Pathfinder, BA spells cost 1 action and Action spells cost 2 or 3 actions, so that you couldn’t cast multiple action spells without a feature to permit it, but still cast a BA and an Action spell on the same turn.
At that point just say martials can melee attack on BAs Allot simpler
That's what they can do if they're two weapon fighting (pre-OneD&D)
Something like leveled spells usually costs more than 1 action. So 2 actions for a fireball and 1 action to move or do something smaller than 2 more fireballs.
It's just a picture of a sternly looking man with the words "No." Under it.
Fireball takes 2 actions to cast [As can be seen here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=119) Like the people who thought to use 3 actions also thought about things like this
Multiclass into fighter for action surge #THREE FIREBALLS
Multiclass into fighter for action siege, sorcerer for quickened metamagic, and DM to handwave casting 3 level spells in one turn. Yeah, totally possible.
Weird, that doesn't look like any D&D book I've read... The whole point is to move the 3 action idea to D&D, I understand if you try to use other rules to make it balanced but the more you do that the less D&D you're playing
If 'D&D-ness' is the standard, Pathfinder is closer to the game's roots than 5e- not by much, but it takes more leafs out of 3.5e's book than 5e does. They're sibling systems, from the same family tree. The only difference is one of then inherited the 'official' D&D title cause it was developed by the company who owned the rights, while the other did not. Pathfinder was even created by 3.5e staff veterans.
Now we're on a whole different topic :/
It's the last line of the meme dude come on, yeah it's just pathfinder There's no using 3 action in DnD without using what makes 3 actions balanced
I know the last line, but the idea is putting 3 actions in
Just make most spells take two actions to cast.
Summon Three Dinosaur
PF2E a spell is generally 2 actions
Don't worry, multiple other people already corrected me on that And do worry, I read the meme and got the idea that this means 3 actions in D&D not PF (which apparently makes me an idiot in some people's eyes)
thats why at level 4 my barbarian is capable of dealing 6D12+3D8+30 damage per turn currently, once i reach lvl 8 (if nothing else changes) i can get Incredible Beastmaster's Companion and up that to 6D12+6D8+36
This is why action surge pairs very well with casters.
....And it does. The average of 2d12+6 is 6.5x2+6=19. Even if we're comparing this to 5e of 8d6 on a fireball, that's 3.5x8=21. Also pf2e has almost every damaging spell take 2 actions
The way this is handled in pathfinder is fireball takes two actions. The only way I can think of to cast two fireballs in a round is with quickened casting which is a 10th level feat that's limited to once a day.
Maybe that could mean Pathfinder is the more fitting PnP for that player... Just sayin (Edit: Don't get me wrong, it's a good meme/joke)
What's a PnP
Pen and paper.
Ah, well I'd say yeap. Magic in 5e is just broken (op and makes little sense sometimes)
You think magic is broken in 5e? It’s the most “balanced” edition of D&D yet! (excluding 4e)
Idk what that's supposed to mean tbh. Highkey 3.5e was balanced frfr ong like 5e is perfectly balanced for being more balanced than 3.5e /s
Spells in 3.5 did feel more powerful. I remember time stop being especially nice if you got high enough level for it. Now time stop is basically useless for anything except running away
I'm just saying, and this isn't RAI but it is RAW: The spell's instantaneous. The spell ending means nothing. You can attack in it without ending the time stop. Do with that information what you will.
In 5e the spell states that if affect another creature the spell ends. It's hard to get around that and get off multiple actions. In 3.5 you could cast aoe spells and they would all go off when the spell ended. The classic play was a bunch of delayed blast fireballs or horrid wiltings stacked on top of the bad guys for insane damage.
You can't target creatures during time stop. Horrid Wilting would definitely not do anything.
A spell ending and its effect ending are two different things for instantaneous spells, because the duration of the spell ends on cast. That’s what I was alluding to. The classic example would be animate dead, or maybe feeble mind. But again, not RAI in this case.
r/wooosh?
I prefer digital
Penguins and Pitchforks
Nah I play human and houseparties
Humans and Households anyone?
Real estate ttrpg sounds like a fun idea.
Happy Cake day!
Pungeons and Pragons
Plug and Play
I too came in here to preach about our Lord and Savior Pathfinder 2E. /s But for real, it’s a fun system. Been enjoying a change of pace from 5E DnD.
I love that the 3 action economy basically forces you to narrate your actions! "I move foward, swing my sword, and raise my shield" sounds so much better than "I use 10 of my movement, take the attack action to swing once, and use my bonus action to Second Wind"
Actually I have no idea about PF 2e only been playing 1e so far 😅
Haven’t tried 1E myself. But 2E is pretty awesome. Definitely worth a gander
I've played both. 1E suffers from too much sprawl, 2E fixes this by getting rid of multiclassing and relying on Archetypes instead, giving it a more stable platform for adding abilities while maintaining balance. The only thing I don't love about 2E is that money is so closely tied to level that crafting your own gear doesn't actually add value over all.
Crafting is like the one thing I immediately went 3rd party on, even after treasure vault.
i hope you know about [Archives of Nethys](https://www.aonprd.com/)! every Tuesday when my PF game starts i open that up as well to make sure i can quickly look up anything i might need
The only way I am able to make sense of my class haha. Couldn’t stress how useful this site is: also pathbuilder. Great tools
Summoner and Investigator are a lot of fun
I’m playing a Kobold dragon summoner :)
Well my active character right now is a cat person, who became a slime-bender, so basically I'm a squishy cat, proving that cats are indeed fluid
Actually I have no idea about PF 2e only been playing 1e so far 😅
You can't deceive us. You are memeing this to actually atratc more ppl towards the system. Can't Blame ya though I found it quite fun. Shame that myy table is full of hypocrite hipster that won't give it a chance.
You all sound like you really just want to play pathfinder. Okay!
I started reading that and thought "Wait, isn't that just pathfinder?". And alas, it was.
Pathfinder except most spells don't cost two actions and martial attack even more often. On a somewhat related note, do martial's attacks get more dices when they level up/gain magic items in DnD?
Not really. Monks get higher dice, rogues do get more d6s on sneak attack, but mostly the damage scaling is from more attacks and static bonuses.
And iirc rogues only sneak attack once each turn?
Well, that first sneak attack kinda gives up the element of surprise. Also, I'm pretty sure rogues only get one attack unless they are duel wielding
In pathfinder you can sneak attack as many times as you want, provided the enemy is still flat-footed. That being said, you will still rarely use the third attack that way and your sneak attack damages increase much slower than in DnD
I am aware of that detail, though I must admit my knowledge of Pathfinder is not as strong as my knowledge of 5e. Rogues in 5e give up number of attacks for increased damage from a singular attack, and also everything else rogues get.
Eldritch Blast probably wouldn't be 1 action to cast but even if it was, it's an attack roll so each subsequent one would be less likely to hit.
Yeah, most cantrips (apart from, like, Guidance and Shield and such, none of the damaging ones) are two action spells.
[Elemental Toss](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=505) is the closest thing in pf2e to eldritch blast and it's 1 action, attack trait, 1d8. the big difference is that it's a focus spell and not a cantrip.
[Clinging Ice](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=793) is a Winter Witch exclusive cantrip. It's a single action damaging cantrip. Buuut it can only deal damage to a creature once per minute. If you have more enemies though, you can deal damage with every action spend on it
It deals damage each time you sustain it for up to a minute.
As far as i can see only the movement penalty is kept with the sustain, right? The spell doesn't say otherwise, and sustaining a spell doesn't mean that you cast it again every time
Oh you're right, reading spells is weird. I would think looking at it that it would do more because the damage is listed in the save itself. I realize now that the sustain is just the effect. I was reading while hurrying to make dinner so it figures I'd get something wrong.
Except you can only cast it a number of times per combat equal to the number of focus points you have and you can only get one focus point back between fights (with a 10 minute refocus activity) until later levels, unless you're a psychic. So it would never be like casting 3 eldritch blasts every round.
Couple things. 1. I acknowledged it was a focus spell and not a cantrip in my comment. 2. You get your full focus pool during your daily preparations. 3. Sorcerer, the Class that gets Elemental toss as a focus spell at level 1, can have a focus pool of 3 by level 6 with a dedication, a focus spell feat and the Advanced Bloodline feat. Meaning that once per day you can, in fact, be casting 3 'eldritch blasts' per round.
And I said you wouldn't be doing it "every round." 3x per round is, in fact, not every round unless your combat is once round long.
I mean, you're right. It's not going to be like that. Pf2e is well balanced. Sorry it doesn't keep up to one of the most unbalanced spells in another game.
Idk why you're being condescending, but you may want to reconsider that approach to life. ❤️
I just really hate 5e.
I'm not a fan either. Haven't played in about 7 years. Been playing pf2e since the playtest. None of that affects my ability to not be condescending though.
To be honest with you eldritch blast in 5e isn’t even *that* unbalanced. Would be in pf2e though 100%, since cantrips and weapons scale differently. In 5e it’s just the baseline.
Also cantrips, can in fact, be focus spells. Like a bard's inspire courage.
You are assuming it is taking the entire 3 action system, which the meme didn't suggest at all.
>You just reinvented Pathfinder for the third time this month ?
"You just reinvented Pathfinder/4e/other system" is a common phrase when people bring up ideas for 5e that are similar to things said other system includes. It doesn't retroactively make their idea a direct copy of the implementation of the concept. Nothing in what Jesse expresses in the meme indicates that it would be a 1 to 1 translation. The fact that Walt expresses an immediate difference (spellcasting being a single action) *proves* this difference.
Exactly what Jesse meant
Eldritch blast would work like scorching Ray or Magic Missile, it would be a 1,2, or 3 action choice to fire 1-3 bolts based on actions spent.
Not in the implementation suggested by Jesse.
I mean, it'd basically be like how the upcoming Kineticist will work. You have a magical attack available that's basically the same as attacking with a weapon.
I love when this template has an actual punchline. 5 stars, no notes.
I'm a little disappointed it's not 3 stars, though I'll take the 5 non the less :3
I need this three action eldritch machine gun
Metamagic adept for quickened spell (or illusionists bracers) 2 lever fighter dip for action surge, that gets you 12.
Or. We have 5 action points and things that are actions cost points and things that are bonus actions cost 1 point. Things like cunning action, that make actions bonus actions can be used once a turn. If you leave points unspent, you get them next turn, but they won't stack above 7. Reactions cost 1 point (so if you want some, better save some). Oh wait now I'm making 5e into Divinity Original sins with more steps.
ive played DND 5e since 2018ish, and ive been playing pathfinder 2e since july 2022, i will say for a fact that the 3 action system is far FAR better than the 5e action/bonus action, movement system for both martial AND caster
Since discovering the 3 action system i have fallen deeply in love with it. It feels generally perfect and I have noobies at my 5e table that go 'uhh what's a Bonus again' once a week.
It definitely doesn't help that certain classes (martials) don't even have a use for a ba most of the time, and that the uses are locked behind two weapon fighting or feats
My fighter actually has too many bonus action options being a Mindataur and telekinetic knight with a dip in artificer.
Guys a love this sub, but find a new meme my god
We're expecting to get a new batch in a week or two
I like that movement is something separate, I makes everything more dynamic. If I have to choose between an eldritch blast and moving, I will always choose the blast. ALWAYS!
How does pathfinder handle spells?
Spells usually use 2 actions out of your 3. Some spells like Magic Missile can use 1,2 or 3 actions and shoot that many magic missiles. . Also some magic classes have to choose a spell slot and "put" a spell in it, and that spell slot can only use that spell until you rest. For example: I have 1 third level spell slot and 2 first level spell slots. In the third level one I put Fireball, in one first level spell slot I put Cure Wounds and in the other Magic Missile.
Congrats, you've invented Pathfinder 2e!
This sub just keeps making pathfinder
Pathfinder uses 3 action economy. To cast a spell, usually you use 2 actions.
.... just go play PF2E instead of trying to make 5E PF2E
Ye, that's the meme
In fairness, if a person only has an issue with 1 area of the game, it's not really necessary to switch the whole system just to fix that one aspect, especially for 5e being pretty easy to homebrew even big rules for, especially if these complaints come up mid-campaign.
I had an opportunity to play pathfinder and gotta say that 3 action system is God awful as hell. We actually all were new to this system, including our dm (i think) and we couldn't wrap our heads around how unfun it was to play like this.
Why did you find it bad though? Like, it's totally fine if you do. I'm just curious because almost everyone really likes it. It lets you be creative with what actions you can do on your turn rather than be restricted to the same rotation every time (though I gotta say, at lower levels this is less true because you've got less stuff to play around with and if you've played at low level I can see why you didn't enjoy it as much)
The reasons i didn't liked it: First of all if you use your actions to move you have to spent it all at once. You can't do it like in DND that you, let's say move 10 feets, attack and move the remaining 20 feets. In pathfinder if you use your action to move but move only half of your movement speed then the rest of it is wasted. Also if you miss your first attack then making the 2nd one or the 3rd one is basically pointless because the chance of hitting is extremely low on fallowing attacks Also i extremely dislike how resting in this game looks. Like you can't get a short rest in this system. No you have to get full on 8 hours of sleep to rest at all. And HP points you regain after it is just pathetic in comparison to what you get in DND. I had fights when one two hits take away more health in 5 second than 8 hours of sleep would give. Also i kinda dislike how classes and their feats works. Like i played only Barbarian and only on a pretty low level, but put a 5th level DND Barbarian against 5th level P2E Barbarian and the second one will run like a little b#th he is. Over all i just found the entire experience of playing this system unfun. It was actually so bad that my group just decided to cancel the campaign after 2 sessions.
Okay, so a couple of things about how the entire thing went (from what you've told me). The movement thing is mostly for balance. Bear in mind that unlike in dnd you could theoretically use all your three actions to move, letting you cover 75 feet at level one. 90 if you're an elf (or another nacestry with 30 feet of movement). Letting you split it would be a bit harder to track/would mess with the three action system a bit. But I can see why you didn't like it. The attack thing. A second attack doesn't have that great of a penalty (a -5 might look like a lot, but martials have ways around this. Like fighters whi get double slice. Or monks, who get flurry of blows, letting you "cheat" the action economy of your attacks). There are also agile weapons, that get a -4 and -8 respectively, which is cool (specially if you play a flurry ranger because then you can get to -1 and -2 against your hunted prey, can't remember which level though). A third attack is almost always better off not done though. This is also balanced around the fact that you're supposed to debuff the enemies (being the main job of the casters and actions such as demoralize, or flanking enemies, which gives them a -2 to AC letting you hit more easily). Resting in this game might look like ass, just a long rest each day? What were they thinking?! But then there are many, *many* out of combat actions that take ten minutes to perform (being the main one treat wounds. Which, on a successful check heals 2d8. This heal scales when you bump up the DC if you're trained or higher in medicine. AND you can choose which DC to roll for before rolling. So if you're feeling unlucky, even as a master proficiency, you can still check against the base DC 15 rather than the DC 30). There are also many skill feats based around the medicine skill, making non-magic healing the primary source of healing out of combat. This also brings me to a side note, which is that pf2 assumes you are at full resources (or almost full) when starting an encounter. That's why casters get focus spells. They are a rechargable spell pool (10 minutes to regain one focus point, same time it takes to treat wounds) that they can have every encounter of that day. Also, the Barbarian point. idk which insctinct you got but let's compare the two barbarians from the two systems (berserker for 5e and fury for pf2, since I feel their thematic is very similar). At level 5 too, which is the one you said. They both get rage, and a +2 bonus to damage while raging. The 5e version gets to rage 3 times, while the pf2 gets to rage as much as they want (with a 1 minute cooldown iirc). It's true that the 5e version gets resistance to physical damage while raging, but the 2e version gets temporary hit points equal to lvl+con (so a minimum of 5 temp hp at lvl 5). The class features are very simple for both of them, 5e gets advantage on dex saveing throws at lvl 2. And the pf2 version can't be flanked by creatures their level or lower (they can still help a higher level ally to flank though) by level 3. They both get ability score increases by then as well. The 5e version also gets a speed increase while not wearing heavy armor (but this was covered in the movement part), and reckless attack. Which is cool in the 5e context. Now onto subclass territory, berserker vs. fury. The 5e version gets to make an attack as a bonus action and then gets a level of exhaustion. The pf2 version gets an extra class feat at lvl 1, which is very cool in the pf2 context. This means that by lvl 5 a pf2 (fury insctinct) barbarian gets 5 class feats, 2 skill feats and 1 general feat and two class feature (Rage and Deny advantage). The same 5e barbarian gets 7 class features and one ability score increase. By sheer number of options a pf2 Barbarian *is* stronger than a 5e one But maybe you dislike the way the classes get options via feats instead of a set path of features, which I can respect and sorry for making this the longest part of the response. I'm sorry you didn't get to enjoy it as much as you could. I would recommend giving it another go trying to play as how the system wants you to play (if you don't want to it's fine, just a recommendation). I would also say that pf2 has a much greater focus on teamwork, making a good party one that can work well together to defeat the enemy, rather than having everyone be a main character doing their own thing and eventually taking down the big bad. Hope this was useful, and sorry it turned out long as fuck for a meme sub lmao
So.. everything that you disliked (which are fair, those are actual critics one can make) has nothing to do with the 3 actions system
You just used all your actions to attack, didn't you.
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Why is balanced in quotation marks. It’s true they are pretty much only nerfed compared to 5e, but casters are beyond overpowered in 5e.
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> And yes, I realize these opinions will get me downvoted here, because the PF2E crowd is **passionate**. Posting a terrible take then calling out downvoters doesn't actually make you right. I mean seriously, copy and pasting the mechanics? Concentration, incapacitation, heightened spells and cantrips, critical failures and successes - sure, they still take similar amounts of time to cast and use the same components, but what are you expecting? They've changed the background mechanics of how players interact with their world, but it's not like there's been some giant magical catastrophe that's completely rewritten the laws of magic in between editions. You'd have to be a complete hack to do something like that.
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No, it's a terrible take because you claimed they copied and pasted the mechanics. That's why I talked about how the mechanics aren't copied and pasted immediately after calling it a terrible take. I mean, I could have talked about "the math all turns up the same values", but the other guy did that. They're patently untrue claims about the system that show you deeply, deeply misunderstood everything about it, possibly including what system you were actually using, or, y'know... are just making it up.
Interesting. I don’t get that feeling that casters were thrown into an arena with martials and got the same numbers, they get demonstrably LOWER numbers because of all the creative versatility they get. It feels like you’re describing a wizard with a “magic blast” and a ranger with a “bow shot” and they’re basically re-flavors of one-another, but that’s just not true. I think taking a fun, powerful aspect of your game that was too strong and tuning it down and keeping the unique aspects of it isn’t lazy… it’s just the only way to not have people riot that they’ve lost what’s unique about their classes. Also PF2e has such ridiculous variability between even two builds of the exact same class that I’m not sure how anything could be described as samey.
Their listed reason for why spellcasting is usually two actions is as according to the designers they found if too many spells were variable (akin to how they made heal/harm/magic missile work in the system) then it lead to extreme amounts of decision paralysis as the players are both juggling like 15 different options for spells as well as having to decide how many actions to use on each one, unlike martial whom whilst they have get to play with the action economy more usually have far fewer options to pick between. I doubt this'd change your opinion + this doesn't apply quite as much if you're just saying you'd prefer more spells to be 1 action specifically (instead of variable) that only partially applies, but I thought you'd appreciate the reasoning for why it is the way it is (well, beyond "we've learnt from 4e that if you gut too many sacred cows at once it can cause everyone to quit. As such, things like ability scores (instead of just mods) and vancian (in the broad sense including things like spontaneous casting) can't get removed", but that's a bit different). Personally, I'm hoping for the Kineticist to help fulfill more action-variable styles as well as blasting, but honestly at this point the amount that people have said how much they're hoping for it is an impossible to meet thing
What do you mean? Witches are the only class people seem to consistently have issue with (patrons feel a little flat and uninvolved with the class and lessons should be interegrated into the class features maybe) and warpriest cleric is the only subclass people complain about much (not the same as 1e warpriest, probably should've been named different while warpriest was made into a future class). Otherwise, everyone delivers on flavor and mechanics as far as I can tell.
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If you needed to get the windows of your car replaced, you wouldn't complain if they didn't replace your perfectly fine tires. The caster framework was fine the way it was, it just needed to be re-tooled into the code of the game. Which means they need interesting way to interact with the 3 action economy. Spell have varying action cost and you have more to do with the rest of your turn for most 2action spells. Spells themselves are sick and creative doing things like making a shadow clone of your allies projectile, various curses available to players (some of which are hilarious and permanent), spells thay force the target to declare its next turn and devote a certain amount of actions to doing that or losing it all, a wildfire that can expand in radius with each action your pour into it, or maybe using a minion under your control as a bomb and doing massive aoe dmg. You even have adjustable action spells like scorching ray and magic missiles. You have spells that can charge up for 6 actions. Vancian magic still exists in order to give sorcerors a reason to still exist which they don't in 5e. Not really until tashas. And it's not fucking bad. I don't get where the issue is. It's way harder to make a bad spell line up than anyone thinks. Take whatever you want and you'll do well. And are we ignoring the innovations of the degrees of success system which casters interact with far more than martials? Nearly every spell having 4 different outcomes instead of the stupid save or suck isn't lazy. Debuffs are actually valuable and fun because you're not "choosing" between "effectively removed from the game" or "disadvantage on attack for 1 round." Getting something nice and valuable on a successful save is so much better than the swingy and ridiculous all or nothing of 5e. You say less effective spells, but slow in pf2e only does nothing on a crit fail and wrecks bosses otherwise while slow, and most other spells that don't deal direct damage (and some that do), does nothing about 50% of the time.
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Very well, long life to you.
Pathfinder three action system fucking sucks and I will die on this hill.
In which ways? I've not had an actual campaign in the system but have learned the essentials just in case, so your input would be very valueable.
It's honestly more opinion than anything but I feel it's the prime reason why PF2E feels so homogenised to me. I like the idea in concept but I think it's too limiting to expression despite ironically seeming to offer relative freedom in actions. If I had to make an argument against it, I'd argue that the little details of the system totally kill any sort of verisimilitude and turn the game into a War sim. I'm thinking about things like 'move' where if you don't use your full movement and stop to do something else... you just don't have that movement anymore. It feels very robotic imo.
Ok but what if casting a spell takes up all 3 actions? The idea that a martial and caster gameplay divide would be set up by one using resources like spell slots and the other not kind of works but it's never really balanced in 5e. But this would make Jesse's idea for balancing the game actually work, and it would give martials and casters distinct gameplay.
Or make it two and you’re reinventing pathfinder again lmao
Then you are back to having 4e
no no we’ll just make some spells take more actions! some spells like magic missile could even depend. if you use one action, that’s one dart. two actions is two darts and three actions is three. also, we will give martial characters a penalty for attacking more than once in a turn cuz that’d be op
That’s smart! We should release an adventure with it about finding paths or smth as well!
Soo pathfinder
Pathfinder players try not to repeatedly convince other people to play their game challenge
Fighters don’t do as much damage, if not more, than casters already? Edit: Oops, seems I made the mistake of not subscribing to the “martials bad!” mentality of this sub, my bad.
Somewhat. An optimized fighter, with action surge, and magic weapons could deal as much damage as a caster of a similar level for most of the game, however and optimized caster with magical items can usually out-damage martials. This comes mostly from the aoe spells dealing good damage to multiple targets, as well as a few over-tuned spells that poop out minions to attack or deal too much damage (imo). This discussion pops up pretty regularly in this sub, but for optimized builds I believe there’s another sub that has better information.
An unoptimized martial deals less damage than an unoptimized caster. An optimized martial is in the same situation. If both sides are given magic items relevant to their classes, the same case appears again. On top of that, casters have more utility and versatility. . Though, luckily, this issue doesn't come up in most games as often as people like me make it seem to.
They should. They don't. Unless a caster is unoptimized and a fighter is optimized, anyway. Your mistake was being wrong that's why you got downvoted.
You do realize you just reinvented Pathfinder 2e, right?
That's le meme
the last panel quite literally says "you reinvented pathfinder the third time this month"
Give martials a full attack action as a BA at higher levels (like 10 or 12)
The amount of people that would mald is immense. Also, idk how that would effect action surge tbh.
Fuck it, we ball. You could make this work if you made action spells take 2. That's all you'd have to do, aside from adjusting monsters. I'd have to run numbers, but I *THINK* just maxing their hp rolls consistently would be enough rather than using averages.
99% of spells in PF2e take 2 actions for this very reason
I mean this could work as long as you keep the rule of one Cantrip and one level spell max per turn to keep spellcasters in balance
Samurai fighter getting even MORE attacks
Oh dear god no
Question is there a sci-fi version of Pathfinder 2e? I feel like the 3 action system would be great for X-com style campaign.
There exists Starfinder, but it uses the pf1 action system mostly. If Starfinder 2e ever releases I hope they use the 3 action system.
what if, what IF, we had a movement, a slow action, and a fast action?? it'd be perfect!
Pathfinder compensates for that by making it so casting a spell takes 2 of your 3 actions
Working on my own RPG system that revolves around guns and this is how my turn system works
Flintlocks & Firearms?
No. LMGs, shotguns, flamethrowers, and low magic etc
Flamethrowers & FABARMs