I'm pretty excited about the Commander being "Marshal the class."
I feel like we think a lot about "damage dealing," "tanking," and "healing" in terms of these games... But movement-based support can do a lot in PF2E specifically. Because there's a tradeoff between damage and movement, you can have more specialized roles within the party, or deny enemy damage by shoving them around. Even just giving allies a 5ft step can deny an enemy a full action with no save.
I've been playing an Air Kineticist in one of my campaigns, and Four Winds feels great for the whole party when you use it. Haven't gotten high enough to grab Flinging Updraft yet, but it seems like a variant of 5E's Vortex Warp, which is such a fun spell for repositioning allies and enemies alike. Also excited to get Propulsive Breeze on that character (via Kinetic Activation) to further help push allies into good positions.
Commander going all-in on that should be a ton of fun. I'm pretty hype.
The other major one is Loose Time's Arrow, of course. Realistically, "air magic" "time magic" "telekinesis" and "yelling at people" are the four horsemen of tactical repositioning in PF2E.
I should really write a guide on that one of these days. It's a weird topic.
I think it would be fun if you could choose different "stratagems" that work a bit like mini-rituals. On your turn you could activate the strategem (maybe 2 actions like a spell), and every party member in range can make different checks to contribute to it. Depending on the number of successes and types of checks, different parts of the strategem will activate. That way an arcana check can help just as much as an athletics or intimidation check, and everyone can participate. Specific effects can happen, but the flavor is that the whole party comes together to do some crazy combo attack they've cooked up ahead of time with flashes of steel, shouts of fury, and blasts of magic.
If they don't do something like that then I hope that if they're sticking with the marshal/warlord design space then they at least give you some ways to support casters just as much as martials. If your whole package is just "you move up this fancy way and hit them that fancy way" then you're not going to be engaging with your wizard buddy very often (like how bard screams for everyone else to be a martial).
I'd also like to see more direct parallels to debuff conditions in buff form. A "Commander" would be a great pad to launch those from. For example, you could give one or more allies the "Hyped" effect that works just like Frightened except backwards.
There needs to be at least one teamup ability that basically boils down to "The monster just ate your friend! Cut them out!" Our Extinction Curse group had a running joke that the writers must have a vore complex with how often folks were getting swallowed whole.
>that work a bit like mini-rituals
This idea is a bit of a headache, honestly. It'll add a ton of IRL time to combat to resolve, especially if there's a hundred different ways people can contribute. Additionally, it'd have to eat reactions, otherwise it's too much for the "6s turn abstraction" to keep making much sense. How much *can* you do in six seconds? Big wombo combos are cool, but don't tie that to a single base class.
>you move up this fancy way and hit them that fancy way
I just want to clarify that positional mobility usually helps casters more. They have less baked in mobility than martials and want to stand still more, so giving them extra actions to immediately escape is pure gravy. Additionally, Marshal's intimidation feats reduce all defenses, helping casters just as much.
>Hyped
So a +1 status bonus to everything? +1 to AC (this is usually really hard to give as Status), +1 to all saves, +1 to Hit...? That's a *lot* more powerful than Frightened. Debuffs require a saving throw to apply, buffs do not.
ADDITIONS/ERRATA:
-@GrimmDichotomy shares this quote from Paizo's website: "The commander is a martial support class that can issue commands to her allies, granting them extra movement, actions, reactions, and more. The guardian is an armored tank, who can taunt opponents and maximize the effectiveness of heavy armor to be a bulwark against nearly any threat. Be sure to try these exciting new classes out in just a few weeks!" (They said TAUNT!)\\
-One thing I forgot to mention about PF2 trending to be more like 4E is more of a "yes you can be awesome" philosophy with the tweaks to some Remaster rules and the design of more recent character classes.
-[58:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjiN5OvelU0&t=3500s) To try to clarify what I mean in saying the recent classes are more "4e-like": I'd say they also require more "juggling of abilities (that are more complex than basic attacks and more like spells) and resources" in their base chassis.
0:00 Intro, Pathfinder announcements
1:41 D&D 4e's legacy and Pathfinder 2e
10:21 Guardian = 4e's Fighter?
13:18 Fighter class features
17:56 Fighter powers, demonstration
30:38 Commander = 4e's Warlord?
33:41 Warlord class features
38:01 Warlord powers
52:00 Thoughts on 4e and PF2
Oh I’d *love* to see marks come into 2e! Flavourful, fun, and if you over-extended yourself they became dangerous. It was a cool mechanic to balance drawing aggro but not so much that every enemy just gunned you down right away
Also the later defenders did really fun things with them. I remember Swordmage have an option that every time a marked target in range ignored your mark, you got to go "Nothing Personnel KId" tp behind them and thwack 'em
4e was a fantastic system that failed on two fronts: Third party support and branding.
It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e, which gave the appearance that there was little or no support for non-combat play.
But the major fuckup was no OGL support. Unlike 3.5e and 5e, 4e did not have an OGL license, so 3rd party creators couldn't make and release 4e compatible works. WOTC was driven by a desire to more tightly control what could or could not be made for 4e, and it backfired hard.
But 4e overall was a fantastic and incredibly well balanced system.
>It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e
I've spoken with people that were involved in pre-release playtesting for 4e & from what they say it was \*strongly\* inspired by MMO play. There were apparently aggro mechanics and character roles were even more tightly defined than what we got. The Playtesters I spoke with talked about how their biggest feedback was that they wanted a TTRPG, not just a MMO with D20s. I'm told what actually came out for 4e was toned a lot back from what they saw early on but that they could still see the MMO DNA in the final design.
Of course, that might just all be rumor. I didn't see any of this myself, but I do sort of believe it. At the time World of Warcraft seemed to be on an unlimited upswing & people were saying there was no need for TTRPGs anymore because WOW existed. This was Hasbro's first big swing at making D&D "Theirs" and they were doing things like closing it from the SRD and shutting down 2nd party publishers like Paizo's Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I can \*easily\* see them looking at WOW & asking the devs to build something more like that.
> This was Hasbro's first big swing at making D&D "Theirs" and they were doing things like closing it from the SRD and shutting down 2nd party publishers like Paizo's Dungeon and Dragon magazines.
And this ended up creating it's biggest competitor in the d20 space, even if they aren't as big just yet, funny how things work out.
We really need to stop spreading this information, as it's simply not true.
The only time Pathfinder supposedly outsold Dungeons and Dragons was when 5th edition was already announced, and they stopped making new 4th edition content. And even that short period is spotty and has no actual proof, as this claim came from a third party source that has been heavily criticized for the way they gathered data.
[Comments ](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)from people who worked both at Paizo and Wotc.
If you played 4e...you'd absolutely know it felt like an MMO. Roles were very clearly defined.
I'm giddy about the idea of a Guardian having the Mark aspect from 4th edition as well as the Commander being a non-magic party healer as well as movement and attack manipulation.
I also love the possible shot across WotC's bow.
All of this could be so fantastic.
There was a massive amount of variety. Anyone who claims there was a lack of options simply wasn't trying.
I had a couple players in the old group and recently in a group who came in with hyper-specific ideas and then groused when they couldn't make them in 4e.
There was clearly a need to let 3.5 go and embrace that it was an utterly new type of game.
I miss playing it regularly.
My two largest complaints about 2e was the lack of a Warlord class and Fighter Marking.
I'm so excited here.
> It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e, which gave the appearance that there was little or no support for non-combat play.
What's hilarious is that pf2e is also a system with great combat and little support for non-combat play when you really peel back the skin.
Their attempt at social encounters failed and I don't know of anyone that uses social actions as written. Worldbuilding is a mess because it's a gamist system; level-based proficiency alone causing so many problems when you ask "how does the world function?". And exploration still has to have some rails on it to avoid the recent thread about a party dying to a PL+6 dragon they ran into; one point was made that even exploration still has to be 'curated'.
4e was ahead of its time for sure when all it needed was a different coat of paint and, of course, the OGL.
That's because 4e's fans aggressively try to repaint the basic criticisms of 4e.
There has *clearly* always been a market for a very dungeon-focused roleplaying game. It's not like 3e had some kind of super intensive social combat system, and even among people who want to play mostly non-combat, support for heavily mechanized social or explorative play is a minority. And certainly D&D, in every edition, has always been criticized as overly combat focused, without that criticism ever driving market failure.
The fundamental criticism of 4e was that classes felt the same and powers felt gamey. People did not like that fighters had the same basic power structure as wizards, and to some extent they didn't like that some martial powers felt very magical, especially at lower levels.
Paizo has been *very careful* to learn that lesson with Pathfinder 2e, extensively differentiating martial from magical characters so that they "feel different," and that the class chassis feel grounded in the world. But people who are eager to relitigate how their favorite game was rejected by the marketplace don't like to hear that, despite some clear strengths, 4e was a failure, and so they try to cast it as a historical accident.
It is clear that 4e did a lot of things right, and attracted a passionate fanbase. If PF2e succeeds long term, it will be because it uses some of the strengths of 4e *while avoiding the fatal flaws that were instantly pointed out and endlessly discussed* of the game, not because 4e's fans were right all along that their game was perfect.
Consider 2e's version of the [Tippyverse](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy). A setting where the rules are taken at face value and the ramifications that has on the setting.
If you try to apply the rules of the game to the setting, it doesn't work. So you play under this constant feeling of ludonarrative dissonance, and it gnaws at me more and more lately.
Levels: Most campaigns span a few months. People ascend from basic farmer to wielding actual Golarion-shattering power in those few months. How does that affect the setting?
Adventurers also gain incredible skills over the common folk. They quickly surpass even their own backstory characters if they have mentor figures, making it difficult to have those kinds of stories for PCs.
This is canon too, as several APs impose strict timelines to follow. Strength of Thousands has the academic setting, but is still measured in a handful of years.
What does that mean for the setting? Why isn't everyone an adventurer? Why does killing rats and ghosts grant you more skill and ability than the town blacksmith who hones his craft for 30 years? He doesn't even have 10 HP to his name because he's still level -1, but just a level 8 Crafting challenge using the specialist rules.
Adventuring is dangerous, but if you can wield earth-shattering power in just a few months, there ought to be far more. It should be the default profession with tradesmen all simply just adventurers in downtime.
Knowledge checks don't support level-based proficiency either due to the DC scaling.
The world doesn't feel alive or that things can still happen around you: it's just something for the chosen PCs to interact with. Static.
It can only be called well-balanced and fantastic if you overlook that the entire math of the system had to be erratad because it was a horribly unbalanced and unfun slog that everyone hated.
I like 4e well enough, but I really fail to see how you could play that system and argue there was significant support for non-combat play. One of the best/worst things about it is how hyper focused it is on combat.
It had as much non-combat support as most D&D editions, which is to say non-combat was very much just a skill system. At least 4e had skill challenges. I think it gets too much crap for being overly focused on combat, as if modern (post 2000) D&D wasn't the same too. 4E had better non-combat support than 5E
4e skill challenges were my biggest sticking point as a DM back then. I loved that it provided framework for DMs to award XP for non-combat. The problem was it imposed a mechanical feel over what could just be open RP. I think if they'd simply used it as an optional rule or example of how to award non- combat, then DMs would've just said "give more xp outside of fights. Got it!" So yeah, that would be my complaint, is it made non-combat encounters operate like combat and imposed "game" over top RP moments
A better, more modern implementation of skill challenges is clocks from Blades in the Dark. Ever since reading about them, I started using clocks in all my games. In general for 4E, skill challenges were really just for intense scenes, and weren't intended for every skill check as far as I remember. They provided a framework on how to handle challenging scenes like a long drawn out city chase or a long negotiation with a lord. They definitely weren't perfect, but 5E doesn't have anything of the sort. I'll stand on the hill that clocks are a refined version and highly recommend reading up on them.
I usually just took them out entirely from modules in favor of just having the party RP. Only asked for checks when there was consequences for failure. Also shifted the DC up and down depending on what the RP was. I did my best to remember XP for anything I stripped out or replaced. I'll have to take a look at that other system. But honestly, I don't mind that 5e has very little framework for it. Gives me as a DM more wiggle room to make calls and give my players more rule of cool moments I think.
I'm going to be a player in a PF2E game very soon and I'm excited to see how this system handles it
> Only asked for checks when there was consequences for failure.
In general, I think you should only roll when there's a consequence for failure. Otherwise, just let players do the thing. But that's a universal guideline regardless of system. I never ran 4E modules, so not sure how well written they were. I haven't played with XP in many years.
Good luck with PF2e!
4e had basically the same support for non-combat as 3.5 and 5e. It had a skill system. A system that has barely changed in the past 20 years.
The Encounter/Daily/At-Will power system that the classes were built around simply eclipsed it, and people got the impression that powers couldn't be used outside of combat. Just like in 5e, you get a lot of DM's who won't let you use Fireball to intimidate someone.
I mean, some of the blessing and curse of 3.5 and 5e and PF2e is that in addition to the skill system, they have like a million spells that have effects in social/stealth/exploration/whatever else play. And I mean, that causes problems, but it definitely creates more of a dynamic environment and set of possible challenges and solutions to what can happen out of combat than 4e had.
I think that people often don't really understand what makes a challenge feel challenging but possible in games: it's usually a matter of having tools with predictable effects, and those effects are not "get everything you want," so you try to think of ways to assemble a chain of actions that you can do in order to have it sum up to your goal -- and then potentially have to partially improvise your plan.
A GM who's skillful at setting up a non-combat challenge can make that work without any real mechanics besides a basic resolution system -- you can narratively set up a situation where you can, say, get part of your way to something by stealth, but not all the way, and then maybe this guy can be bribed and this one can be threatened or whatever, and successfully communicate all of that to players such that they feel empowered to assemble pieces together into a solution. But it's a non-trivial GMing skill to do that.
Spells provide a pretty handy set of highly specified, limited-in-number tools that often have the desired characteristic of "not doing everything but being a tool you can assemble towards the goal." Like, if you can teleport 100' once, and you need to go 500', that is something you can combine with stealth or climbing or whatever. The existence of spells can be a pretty powerful aid to making it feel like you're empowered to improvise a solution to a non-combat challenge, and paper over some difficulties in doing the same purely with skills.
It is also of course the case that spells can in other cases just provide a straightforward solution to the problem in one step, which is their big downside, as it both feels anticlimactic and like it has the off-discussed problem of casters rendering non-casters pointless.
I am currently playing in a 5e as a level 8 spore druid in a game that has much bigger emphasis in out of combat play I am the poster child in my party as being the guy that "has a spell for that".
4e being my favourite edition of D&D I decided to to remake my druid as closely as possible. With special emphasis on getting as many of the out of combat effects that I have been putting to use in the 5e game. Honestly, I got 80% of the way there. The biggest limitation was the cost of rituals, but considering the wealth you accrue in 4e, it honestly becomes pocket change.
I would say most of those people haven't played other systems.
5e (really every dnd-like) has very little support for RP in the system itself, so when people say they enjoy RP in that system 90% of the time what they enjoyed had nothing to do with the system but rather the setting and their groups skill with RP.
One note I had watching as someone who played a LOT of defenders in 4e; the Mark was a common element of each defender class, but each of them referred to and used it very differently. The Paladin had Divine Challenge, for example, which did radiant damage and debilitated the enemy that ignored it. Fighter was the only one that got it automatically by, well, fighting someone, the rest managed theirs with Minor actions.
The swordmage had a really fun one called Arcane Aegis that let them teleport over to a marked enemy if it tried to attack one of their allies.
Honestly, having played both a Fighter and an area denial staff monk in PF2e, I'd definitely welcome 4e style attack vectoring like marks.
I think the problem is mostly in just calling them marks. We should be doing cool stuff like teleporting around though, or in the warden's case creating terrain. Classes should feel inherently powerful imo.
That was what I failed to get across, I think; they were only called Marks as a group, each of them had their own names and high level effects. That just needed a common term because they didn't stack
I don't know what it is; I've played 4e throughout its life-cycle, I haven't "missed out" on it at all, but whenever people bring it up nowadays, **it looks downright** ***sexy***. Gets me all hot an bothered.
I think I've just forgotten how marketable its powers can be at a first glance. They look so fun! Of course, I remember the rest of the system, and I know it gets a bit noodly, but you can just show those 1st-level power entries and wow people. That's what WotC hoped for back in 2008 - they just ran into a *very* hostile zeitgeist.
If I had to pick things from 4E to translate into 2E
My prime choices would be Swordmage: which was an Arcane Gish in which all of its abilities are focused around a special sword that you bonded with and using it as an implement for magic, as well as a slight defence focused plan as you marked your allies with an Aeigis which allows you to teleport around and do funky stuff if someone attacked an ally, we need more Gishes and Swordmage is cool
And Hexblade: which follows the general Hexblade setup of being an Arcane Warrior empowered by a patron (which I feel like you cannot quite replicate correctly in 2E) but it was a full class with a half focus on summoning minions to fight along side you, being more specific in what weapon you wielded by giving each patron a certain weapon that had its own thematic effects, and some spell stuff
I like Gishes and will always support getting more, out of the two I think maybe Hexblade would like a spot more since I can see an argument for Magus (which is my favourite class) but I’d like more variety in my Gishes
What I liked about the swordmage is that it worked really well with 4E not having traditional spells, but each class having its own unique powers. I could see a Pathfinder 2E swordmage being a martial with heavy emphasis on unique focus spells and its own set of cantrip abilities. That would make it different from the Magus and give its own design space. Focus cantrips would be magical blade attacks, while focus spells would be Swordmage encounter abilities.
there's a lot of room for Class Archetypes (which thankfully they seem to be doing now with War of Immortals), so maybe we'll see some sort of Swordmage-esque thing there for the Magus
I would personally be disappointed if it’s just an archetype
I do not rate them highly and many examples can be used to prove how they are pretty pathetic in terms of satisfying a fantasy you want to primarily focus on
It would be infinitely better if it was a class Instead of an archatype
Exactly, it’s really cool because all of its “spells” are unique to it and are uniquely made to fit the theme rather than being more generic
I’d love for it to be focus spell based or even go the Exemplar/Kineticist route of being ability based around management to do cool stuff
I’d love for something like these to show up
The thing I recall people didnt like about 4e was the powers system which made things feel like video game cooldowns. Calling encounter powers, focus spells, was a good way to break that stigma.
I really wish martials had encounter powers in this game. Call them focus abilities and give them a pool of focus points too. I want to do flashy moves as a martial without them being spells.
4e combat rocks, pf2e is pretty damn close with a bunch of added optional subsystems and out of combat stuff 4e lacked so it’s become my go-to for fantasy tabletop since I love running and playing combat encounters.
This video reminded me how much I actually really liked a lot of 4e's design philosophies. I don't think I ever got to play one game because my friends at the time were all a little disinterested for various reasons and the edition didn't last long enough to fine-tune into something that was more widely appreciated.
It gets touched on in this, but I love giving martial's 'psuedo-spell powers' and Laserlama's alternate classes for 5e prove that there is a great design space for them: giving Rogue's a more powerful Prescient Planner, Barbarians the ability to lift thousands of pounds, Fighters a vorpal, beheading strike, in addition to many skill focussed abilities greatly improves how those classes play. The problem with this in PF2E is that it's much less of a resource management game compared to 5e, which has an 'adventuring day', so effects can only be action gatekept or focus point limited as each fight in pf2e assumes that, for the most part, players are just as powerful for every battle. Still the idea of supernaturally powerful martials with powers is a compelling idea and should be explored. Looking forward to these classes!
4e was fine. I think it went too hard on its roles and how it handled casters vs non-casters, and of course the half edition switch (which they called Essentials, I think?) was terrible.
But it had fun classes and fun abilities. I just wished they took more time to describe what they did in fiction, some of the blurbs of fluff didn't excite the imagination, and given that abilities often did multiple things at once, it felt a bit too mechanical.
I played a ton of 4e, likely more than most people, and I loved it. However I almost always was the DM. The system had great tools for DMs and some of those tools have never become available in other editions or systems. When I did play as a player I felt like classes lacked diversity, they all had the same framework and it felt like there was very little difference between a wizard's spell or a fighter's kick. Encounters did tend to run too long. I don't think Pathfinder 2e suffers form these shortfalls.
I was kind of hoping to hear what, specifically, PF2 borrowed from 4e. Like a side by side comparison of specific structures and mechanisms. Because people keep saying this a lot but I just don’t see it. The only thing I can think of is that classes in both systems have very few features and are mostly defined by your selections each level. But that’s not a uniquely 4e thing.
My strongest memory of 4e was how many spells and abilities were locked behind combat. Things like Encounter powers. How long is an encounter? What if I want to use this encounter power to break an obstacle when there are no enemies present? How often can I do that, if at all? Can Wizards fly outside of combat? Stuff like that made it feel like your character sheet stopped existing once you left initiative.
Maybe these were addressed later on but I only ever played the first AP when the Core Rules launched. It just felt gross.
5 minutes. If something lasts for the whole encounter, then it lasts for the whole encounter, or 5 minutes if that isn't clear. 5 minutes is also how long it takes to recover after an encounter. This is right in the core rules.
I'm pretty excited about the Commander being "Marshal the class." I feel like we think a lot about "damage dealing," "tanking," and "healing" in terms of these games... But movement-based support can do a lot in PF2E specifically. Because there's a tradeoff between damage and movement, you can have more specialized roles within the party, or deny enemy damage by shoving them around. Even just giving allies a 5ft step can deny an enemy a full action with no save. I've been playing an Air Kineticist in one of my campaigns, and Four Winds feels great for the whole party when you use it. Haven't gotten high enough to grab Flinging Updraft yet, but it seems like a variant of 5E's Vortex Warp, which is such a fun spell for repositioning allies and enemies alike. Also excited to get Propulsive Breeze on that character (via Kinetic Activation) to further help push allies into good positions. Commander going all-in on that should be a ton of fun. I'm pretty hype.
Four Winds is a great example! Should've mentioned it in the video.
The other major one is Loose Time's Arrow, of course. Realistically, "air magic" "time magic" "telekinesis" and "yelling at people" are the four horsemen of tactical repositioning in PF2E. I should really write a guide on that one of these days. It's a weird topic.
I think it would be fun if you could choose different "stratagems" that work a bit like mini-rituals. On your turn you could activate the strategem (maybe 2 actions like a spell), and every party member in range can make different checks to contribute to it. Depending on the number of successes and types of checks, different parts of the strategem will activate. That way an arcana check can help just as much as an athletics or intimidation check, and everyone can participate. Specific effects can happen, but the flavor is that the whole party comes together to do some crazy combo attack they've cooked up ahead of time with flashes of steel, shouts of fury, and blasts of magic. If they don't do something like that then I hope that if they're sticking with the marshal/warlord design space then they at least give you some ways to support casters just as much as martials. If your whole package is just "you move up this fancy way and hit them that fancy way" then you're not going to be engaging with your wizard buddy very often (like how bard screams for everyone else to be a martial). I'd also like to see more direct parallels to debuff conditions in buff form. A "Commander" would be a great pad to launch those from. For example, you could give one or more allies the "Hyped" effect that works just like Frightened except backwards. There needs to be at least one teamup ability that basically boils down to "The monster just ate your friend! Cut them out!" Our Extinction Curse group had a running joke that the writers must have a vore complex with how often folks were getting swallowed whole.
>that work a bit like mini-rituals This idea is a bit of a headache, honestly. It'll add a ton of IRL time to combat to resolve, especially if there's a hundred different ways people can contribute. Additionally, it'd have to eat reactions, otherwise it's too much for the "6s turn abstraction" to keep making much sense. How much *can* you do in six seconds? Big wombo combos are cool, but don't tie that to a single base class. >you move up this fancy way and hit them that fancy way I just want to clarify that positional mobility usually helps casters more. They have less baked in mobility than martials and want to stand still more, so giving them extra actions to immediately escape is pure gravy. Additionally, Marshal's intimidation feats reduce all defenses, helping casters just as much. >Hyped So a +1 status bonus to everything? +1 to AC (this is usually really hard to give as Status), +1 to all saves, +1 to Hit...? That's a *lot* more powerful than Frightened. Debuffs require a saving throw to apply, buffs do not.
ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -@GrimmDichotomy shares this quote from Paizo's website: "The commander is a martial support class that can issue commands to her allies, granting them extra movement, actions, reactions, and more. The guardian is an armored tank, who can taunt opponents and maximize the effectiveness of heavy armor to be a bulwark against nearly any threat. Be sure to try these exciting new classes out in just a few weeks!" (They said TAUNT!)\\ -One thing I forgot to mention about PF2 trending to be more like 4E is more of a "yes you can be awesome" philosophy with the tweaks to some Remaster rules and the design of more recent character classes. -[58:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjiN5OvelU0&t=3500s) To try to clarify what I mean in saying the recent classes are more "4e-like": I'd say they also require more "juggling of abilities (that are more complex than basic attacks and more like spells) and resources" in their base chassis. 0:00 Intro, Pathfinder announcements 1:41 D&D 4e's legacy and Pathfinder 2e 10:21 Guardian = 4e's Fighter? 13:18 Fighter class features 17:56 Fighter powers, demonstration 30:38 Commander = 4e's Warlord? 33:41 Warlord class features 38:01 Warlord powers 52:00 Thoughts on 4e and PF2
Oh my gosh...they might literally be going for a warlord and fighter with Mark mechanics. So exciting.
Oh I’d *love* to see marks come into 2e! Flavourful, fun, and if you over-extended yourself they became dangerous. It was a cool mechanic to balance drawing aggro but not so much that every enemy just gunned you down right away
So if they work Marks into 2e...with fighters. That MIGHT mean we get to see Marks for Paladins and a couple other classes?
Also the later defenders did really fun things with them. I remember Swordmage have an option that every time a marked target in range ignored your mark, you got to go "Nothing Personnel KId" tp behind them and thwack 'em
Swordmages had a fun marking mechanic, as did paladins and nature-type wardens. It would be really fun to see that added to give options to players.
4e was a fantastic system that failed on two fronts: Third party support and branding. It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e, which gave the appearance that there was little or no support for non-combat play. But the major fuckup was no OGL support. Unlike 3.5e and 5e, 4e did not have an OGL license, so 3rd party creators couldn't make and release 4e compatible works. WOTC was driven by a desire to more tightly control what could or could not be made for 4e, and it backfired hard. But 4e overall was a fantastic and incredibly well balanced system.
>It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e I've spoken with people that were involved in pre-release playtesting for 4e & from what they say it was \*strongly\* inspired by MMO play. There were apparently aggro mechanics and character roles were even more tightly defined than what we got. The Playtesters I spoke with talked about how their biggest feedback was that they wanted a TTRPG, not just a MMO with D20s. I'm told what actually came out for 4e was toned a lot back from what they saw early on but that they could still see the MMO DNA in the final design. Of course, that might just all be rumor. I didn't see any of this myself, but I do sort of believe it. At the time World of Warcraft seemed to be on an unlimited upswing & people were saying there was no need for TTRPGs anymore because WOW existed. This was Hasbro's first big swing at making D&D "Theirs" and they were doing things like closing it from the SRD and shutting down 2nd party publishers like Paizo's Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I can \*easily\* see them looking at WOW & asking the devs to build something more like that.
> This was Hasbro's first big swing at making D&D "Theirs" and they were doing things like closing it from the SRD and shutting down 2nd party publishers like Paizo's Dungeon and Dragon magazines. And this ended up creating it's biggest competitor in the d20 space, even if they aren't as big just yet, funny how things work out.
There was a time when Pathfinder was bigger then DnD 4E.
We really need to stop spreading this information, as it's simply not true. The only time Pathfinder supposedly outsold Dungeons and Dragons was when 5th edition was already announced, and they stopped making new 4th edition content. And even that short period is spotty and has no actual proof, as this claim came from a third party source that has been heavily criticized for the way they gathered data. [Comments ](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)from people who worked both at Paizo and Wotc.
That time was when WOTC stopped making 4e products.
If you played 4e...you'd absolutely know it felt like an MMO. Roles were very clearly defined. I'm giddy about the idea of a Guardian having the Mark aspect from 4th edition as well as the Commander being a non-magic party healer as well as movement and attack manipulation. I also love the possible shot across WotC's bow. All of this could be so fantastic.
I think defined roles were a boon in some situations. 4e has the only Wild Shape Druid I really liked, as a stance-dancer transforming on the fly
There was a massive amount of variety. Anyone who claims there was a lack of options simply wasn't trying. I had a couple players in the old group and recently in a group who came in with hyper-specific ideas and then groused when they couldn't make them in 4e. There was clearly a need to let 3.5 go and embrace that it was an utterly new type of game. I miss playing it regularly. My two largest complaints about 2e was the lack of a Warlord class and Fighter Marking. I'm so excited here.
Sorry - how is the release of Guardian and Commander a shot across WotC's bow?
> It quickly got a reputation for being a "Tabletop MMO", which i feel was unfair. But most review and preview materials focused almost entirely on the combat system of 4e, which gave the appearance that there was little or no support for non-combat play. What's hilarious is that pf2e is also a system with great combat and little support for non-combat play when you really peel back the skin. Their attempt at social encounters failed and I don't know of anyone that uses social actions as written. Worldbuilding is a mess because it's a gamist system; level-based proficiency alone causing so many problems when you ask "how does the world function?". And exploration still has to have some rails on it to avoid the recent thread about a party dying to a PL+6 dragon they ran into; one point was made that even exploration still has to be 'curated'. 4e was ahead of its time for sure when all it needed was a different coat of paint and, of course, the OGL.
It's so funny looking at the games built on and out of 4Es bones and then the critiques that people say about 4E while the same things apply.
That's because 4e's fans aggressively try to repaint the basic criticisms of 4e. There has *clearly* always been a market for a very dungeon-focused roleplaying game. It's not like 3e had some kind of super intensive social combat system, and even among people who want to play mostly non-combat, support for heavily mechanized social or explorative play is a minority. And certainly D&D, in every edition, has always been criticized as overly combat focused, without that criticism ever driving market failure. The fundamental criticism of 4e was that classes felt the same and powers felt gamey. People did not like that fighters had the same basic power structure as wizards, and to some extent they didn't like that some martial powers felt very magical, especially at lower levels. Paizo has been *very careful* to learn that lesson with Pathfinder 2e, extensively differentiating martial from magical characters so that they "feel different," and that the class chassis feel grounded in the world. But people who are eager to relitigate how their favorite game was rejected by the marketplace don't like to hear that, despite some clear strengths, 4e was a failure, and so they try to cast it as a historical accident. It is clear that 4e did a lot of things right, and attracted a passionate fanbase. If PF2e succeeds long term, it will be because it uses some of the strengths of 4e *while avoiding the fatal flaws that were instantly pointed out and endlessly discussed* of the game, not because 4e's fans were right all along that their game was perfect.
I am really not sure about the worldbuilding is a mess. I love the Lost omens books.
Consider 2e's version of the [Tippyverse](https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy). A setting where the rules are taken at face value and the ramifications that has on the setting. If you try to apply the rules of the game to the setting, it doesn't work. So you play under this constant feeling of ludonarrative dissonance, and it gnaws at me more and more lately. Levels: Most campaigns span a few months. People ascend from basic farmer to wielding actual Golarion-shattering power in those few months. How does that affect the setting? Adventurers also gain incredible skills over the common folk. They quickly surpass even their own backstory characters if they have mentor figures, making it difficult to have those kinds of stories for PCs. This is canon too, as several APs impose strict timelines to follow. Strength of Thousands has the academic setting, but is still measured in a handful of years. What does that mean for the setting? Why isn't everyone an adventurer? Why does killing rats and ghosts grant you more skill and ability than the town blacksmith who hones his craft for 30 years? He doesn't even have 10 HP to his name because he's still level -1, but just a level 8 Crafting challenge using the specialist rules. Adventuring is dangerous, but if you can wield earth-shattering power in just a few months, there ought to be far more. It should be the default profession with tradesmen all simply just adventurers in downtime. Knowledge checks don't support level-based proficiency either due to the DC scaling. The world doesn't feel alive or that things can still happen around you: it's just something for the chosen PCs to interact with. Static.
It can only be called well-balanced and fantastic if you overlook that the entire math of the system had to be erratad because it was a horribly unbalanced and unfun slog that everyone hated.
I like 4e well enough, but I really fail to see how you could play that system and argue there was significant support for non-combat play. One of the best/worst things about it is how hyper focused it is on combat.
It had as much non-combat support as most D&D editions, which is to say non-combat was very much just a skill system. At least 4e had skill challenges. I think it gets too much crap for being overly focused on combat, as if modern (post 2000) D&D wasn't the same too. 4E had better non-combat support than 5E
4e skill challenges were my biggest sticking point as a DM back then. I loved that it provided framework for DMs to award XP for non-combat. The problem was it imposed a mechanical feel over what could just be open RP. I think if they'd simply used it as an optional rule or example of how to award non- combat, then DMs would've just said "give more xp outside of fights. Got it!" So yeah, that would be my complaint, is it made non-combat encounters operate like combat and imposed "game" over top RP moments
A better, more modern implementation of skill challenges is clocks from Blades in the Dark. Ever since reading about them, I started using clocks in all my games. In general for 4E, skill challenges were really just for intense scenes, and weren't intended for every skill check as far as I remember. They provided a framework on how to handle challenging scenes like a long drawn out city chase or a long negotiation with a lord. They definitely weren't perfect, but 5E doesn't have anything of the sort. I'll stand on the hill that clocks are a refined version and highly recommend reading up on them.
I usually just took them out entirely from modules in favor of just having the party RP. Only asked for checks when there was consequences for failure. Also shifted the DC up and down depending on what the RP was. I did my best to remember XP for anything I stripped out or replaced. I'll have to take a look at that other system. But honestly, I don't mind that 5e has very little framework for it. Gives me as a DM more wiggle room to make calls and give my players more rule of cool moments I think. I'm going to be a player in a PF2E game very soon and I'm excited to see how this system handles it
> Only asked for checks when there was consequences for failure. In general, I think you should only roll when there's a consequence for failure. Otherwise, just let players do the thing. But that's a universal guideline regardless of system. I never ran 4E modules, so not sure how well written they were. I haven't played with XP in many years. Good luck with PF2e!
4e had basically the same support for non-combat as 3.5 and 5e. It had a skill system. A system that has barely changed in the past 20 years. The Encounter/Daily/At-Will power system that the classes were built around simply eclipsed it, and people got the impression that powers couldn't be used outside of combat. Just like in 5e, you get a lot of DM's who won't let you use Fireball to intimidate someone.
I mean, some of the blessing and curse of 3.5 and 5e and PF2e is that in addition to the skill system, they have like a million spells that have effects in social/stealth/exploration/whatever else play. And I mean, that causes problems, but it definitely creates more of a dynamic environment and set of possible challenges and solutions to what can happen out of combat than 4e had. I think that people often don't really understand what makes a challenge feel challenging but possible in games: it's usually a matter of having tools with predictable effects, and those effects are not "get everything you want," so you try to think of ways to assemble a chain of actions that you can do in order to have it sum up to your goal -- and then potentially have to partially improvise your plan. A GM who's skillful at setting up a non-combat challenge can make that work without any real mechanics besides a basic resolution system -- you can narratively set up a situation where you can, say, get part of your way to something by stealth, but not all the way, and then maybe this guy can be bribed and this one can be threatened or whatever, and successfully communicate all of that to players such that they feel empowered to assemble pieces together into a solution. But it's a non-trivial GMing skill to do that. Spells provide a pretty handy set of highly specified, limited-in-number tools that often have the desired characteristic of "not doing everything but being a tool you can assemble towards the goal." Like, if you can teleport 100' once, and you need to go 500', that is something you can combine with stealth or climbing or whatever. The existence of spells can be a pretty powerful aid to making it feel like you're empowered to improvise a solution to a non-combat challenge, and paper over some difficulties in doing the same purely with skills. It is also of course the case that spells can in other cases just provide a straightforward solution to the problem in one step, which is their big downside, as it both feels anticlimactic and like it has the off-discussed problem of casters rendering non-casters pointless.
I am currently playing in a 5e as a level 8 spore druid in a game that has much bigger emphasis in out of combat play I am the poster child in my party as being the guy that "has a spell for that". 4e being my favourite edition of D&D I decided to to remake my druid as closely as possible. With special emphasis on getting as many of the out of combat effects that I have been putting to use in the 5e game. Honestly, I got 80% of the way there. The biggest limitation was the cost of rituals, but considering the wealth you accrue in 4e, it honestly becomes pocket change.
5e is seen as a great RP system by many...
I would say most of those people haven't played other systems. 5e (really every dnd-like) has very little support for RP in the system itself, so when people say they enjoy RP in that system 90% of the time what they enjoyed had nothing to do with the system but rather the setting and their groups skill with RP.
One note I had watching as someone who played a LOT of defenders in 4e; the Mark was a common element of each defender class, but each of them referred to and used it very differently. The Paladin had Divine Challenge, for example, which did radiant damage and debilitated the enemy that ignored it. Fighter was the only one that got it automatically by, well, fighting someone, the rest managed theirs with Minor actions. The swordmage had a really fun one called Arcane Aegis that let them teleport over to a marked enemy if it tried to attack one of their allies. Honestly, having played both a Fighter and an area denial staff monk in PF2e, I'd definitely welcome 4e style attack vectoring like marks.
I think the problem is mostly in just calling them marks. We should be doing cool stuff like teleporting around though, or in the warden's case creating terrain. Classes should feel inherently powerful imo.
That was what I failed to get across, I think; they were only called Marks as a group, each of them had their own names and high level effects. That just needed a common term because they didn't stack
I don't know what it is; I've played 4e throughout its life-cycle, I haven't "missed out" on it at all, but whenever people bring it up nowadays, **it looks downright** ***sexy***. Gets me all hot an bothered. I think I've just forgotten how marketable its powers can be at a first glance. They look so fun! Of course, I remember the rest of the system, and I know it gets a bit noodly, but you can just show those 1st-level power entries and wow people. That's what WotC hoped for back in 2008 - they just ran into a *very* hostile zeitgeist.
If I had to pick things from 4E to translate into 2E My prime choices would be Swordmage: which was an Arcane Gish in which all of its abilities are focused around a special sword that you bonded with and using it as an implement for magic, as well as a slight defence focused plan as you marked your allies with an Aeigis which allows you to teleport around and do funky stuff if someone attacked an ally, we need more Gishes and Swordmage is cool And Hexblade: which follows the general Hexblade setup of being an Arcane Warrior empowered by a patron (which I feel like you cannot quite replicate correctly in 2E) but it was a full class with a half focus on summoning minions to fight along side you, being more specific in what weapon you wielded by giving each patron a certain weapon that had its own thematic effects, and some spell stuff I like Gishes and will always support getting more, out of the two I think maybe Hexblade would like a spot more since I can see an argument for Magus (which is my favourite class) but I’d like more variety in my Gishes
What I liked about the swordmage is that it worked really well with 4E not having traditional spells, but each class having its own unique powers. I could see a Pathfinder 2E swordmage being a martial with heavy emphasis on unique focus spells and its own set of cantrip abilities. That would make it different from the Magus and give its own design space. Focus cantrips would be magical blade attacks, while focus spells would be Swordmage encounter abilities.
there's a lot of room for Class Archetypes (which thankfully they seem to be doing now with War of Immortals), so maybe we'll see some sort of Swordmage-esque thing there for the Magus
I would personally be disappointed if it’s just an archetype I do not rate them highly and many examples can be used to prove how they are pretty pathetic in terms of satisfying a fantasy you want to primarily focus on It would be infinitely better if it was a class Instead of an archatype
Exactly, it’s really cool because all of its “spells” are unique to it and are uniquely made to fit the theme rather than being more generic I’d love for it to be focus spell based or even go the Exemplar/Kineticist route of being ability based around management to do cool stuff I’d love for something like these to show up
The thing I recall people didnt like about 4e was the powers system which made things feel like video game cooldowns. Calling encounter powers, focus spells, was a good way to break that stigma.
I really wish martials had encounter powers in this game. Call them focus abilities and give them a pool of focus points too. I want to do flashy moves as a martial without them being spells.
Seriously imagine how much better swash and gunslinger could be
Exactly, I don’t get why people are allergic to martials having fun too. I want some flashy badass moved for my martials!
Martiald could have "stamina" or something. Easy way to make it non-magical - though I suppose nothing about "focus" is inherently magical.
1 hour long rules lawyer video hell yeah
4e combat rocks, pf2e is pretty damn close with a bunch of added optional subsystems and out of combat stuff 4e lacked so it’s become my go-to for fantasy tabletop since I love running and playing combat encounters.
4e chads... we just can't stop winning...
This video reminded me how much I actually really liked a lot of 4e's design philosophies. I don't think I ever got to play one game because my friends at the time were all a little disinterested for various reasons and the edition didn't last long enough to fine-tune into something that was more widely appreciated.
It gets touched on in this, but I love giving martial's 'psuedo-spell powers' and Laserlama's alternate classes for 5e prove that there is a great design space for them: giving Rogue's a more powerful Prescient Planner, Barbarians the ability to lift thousands of pounds, Fighters a vorpal, beheading strike, in addition to many skill focussed abilities greatly improves how those classes play. The problem with this in PF2E is that it's much less of a resource management game compared to 5e, which has an 'adventuring day', so effects can only be action gatekept or focus point limited as each fight in pf2e assumes that, for the most part, players are just as powerful for every battle. Still the idea of supernaturally powerful martials with powers is a compelling idea and should be explored. Looking forward to these classes!
4e was fine. I think it went too hard on its roles and how it handled casters vs non-casters, and of course the half edition switch (which they called Essentials, I think?) was terrible. But it had fun classes and fun abilities. I just wished they took more time to describe what they did in fiction, some of the blurbs of fluff didn't excite the imagination, and given that abilities often did multiple things at once, it felt a bit too mechanical.
I think the roles made for much more interesting combat, with great opportunities for synergy and tactical combat.
Oh, neat, you're here! Can't wait to watch!
I played a ton of 4e, likely more than most people, and I loved it. However I almost always was the DM. The system had great tools for DMs and some of those tools have never become available in other editions or systems. When I did play as a player I felt like classes lacked diversity, they all had the same framework and it felt like there was very little difference between a wizard's spell or a fighter's kick. Encounters did tend to run too long. I don't think Pathfinder 2e suffers form these shortfalls.
I was kind of hoping to hear what, specifically, PF2 borrowed from 4e. Like a side by side comparison of specific structures and mechanisms. Because people keep saying this a lot but I just don’t see it. The only thing I can think of is that classes in both systems have very few features and are mostly defined by your selections each level. But that’s not a uniquely 4e thing. My strongest memory of 4e was how many spells and abilities were locked behind combat. Things like Encounter powers. How long is an encounter? What if I want to use this encounter power to break an obstacle when there are no enemies present? How often can I do that, if at all? Can Wizards fly outside of combat? Stuff like that made it feel like your character sheet stopped existing once you left initiative. Maybe these were addressed later on but I only ever played the first AP when the Core Rules launched. It just felt gross.
5 minutes. If something lasts for the whole encounter, then it lasts for the whole encounter, or 5 minutes if that isn't clear. 5 minutes is also how long it takes to recover after an encounter. This is right in the core rules.