5 MAJOR Differences Between D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e

so recently for absolutely no reason at all people have decided to stop playing Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and have been looking for its next replacement ideally something that fits the same mold so a lot of eyes have been falling onto its biggest competitor Pathfinder second edition and for good reason at their core they feel very similar niches they're both fantasy action adventure RPGs with dwarves elves and wizards where you level up cast spells kill goblins and take their Treasures so why should you try Pathfinder second edition instead of DnD 5e you know aside from the obvious reason well that's what I'm here today to tell you at first glance the games seem incredibly similar but once you've actually started playing them you'll realize they're two very different means to the same end sure they might tell a similar story but the mechanics and experience of how you tell that story are very very different so today I'm gonna list five major differences that separate Pathfinder 2E from D and D fifth edition and if you like this video and it gets enough traction maybe I'll make another one because trust me there's way more than five but before we jump into that I want to give a huge reminder to the Sinclair's Library backers there's about 60 or 70 of you who have not answered your backer kit surveys yet and we want to know exactly what we need to prepare to print so we're going to be closing those off in just about a week or two so make sure you fill out those surveys while you can now don't panic if you watch this video in two weeks and you missed the deadline just reach out to us we can still get you the products you want it's not the end of the world just easier for us if you finish it within the next week and a half additionally if you haven't pre-ordered Sinclair's Library yet click the link in the description and check it out this is my own company's published work for Pathfinder second edition and DND 5th edition currently it is two brand new books available for both systems one of which is the almanac which is full of player options like classes ancestors archetypes and all that good stuff the other one is an NPC codex full of amazing NPCs that you can just rip out of there and plug right into your game everything from the local blacksmith to an Angelic aeon of Destruction so if you want to pre-order that you can get it right now at our website link in the description and all backers and pre-orders get access to our play test packages the first of which is live right now and contains both the cronag ancestry bovian ancestry a bunch of art types an example of one of our massive Nemesis NPCs which are like 10 plus pages long with a bunch of information about them how to use them stat blocks magic items it's huge this play test package is massive and it's available to all backers and pre-orders right now so go check it out we're so proud of Sinclair's library and we're getting closer and closer to its release date thank you all for your patience and support let's get on with the video difference number one character creation if your only experienced with a fantasy RPG is Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition character creation might feel like something that doesn't need to be expanded upon you pick a race you pick a background you pick a class you're done maybe you roll for stats if not you use standard array Pathfinder 2E takes that whole classic style of building a character throws out the window Stomps on it and rewrites all of it now rather than rolling for stats or picking from a standard array every choice you make during character creation will decide your starting ability scores your ancestry gives you boost your background gives you boost your class gives you boost and there are free boosts you get to assign yourself this all leads to a process that rather than getting stats and then making your character making your character becomes much more like assembling them out of Legos with each piece making them good at something else this means that every choice matters not only for role play but for mechanics as well if you want to make that super knowledgeable High Intelligence wizard you might pick an elf for the bonus to intelligence The Scholar background for another bonus to intelligence you're playing a wizard for another bonus to intelligence and then you can apply a free boost to crank it to 18. this means if you want to you can always start with an 18 in your main stat it's not required you can still experiment and diversify your assets if you want to but there's no more hoping you roll three sixes another huge difference at character creation that can feel overwhelming is that every class has options right at level one every class gets their subclass right away at the start of the game and on top of that most classes can also pick from class Feats at first level so right when you're making a level one character you're picking your class you're picking your subclass you might be picking a feat you might be picking spells there are so many options available right for a level one character look at this those are just level one fighter feats inference number two types of Feats if you're used to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition you might be used to only receiving an optional feat every four levels well Pathfinder 2E is completely different in that regard and that Feats are not only mandatory they are not optional in this system but you get them every single level but they're also a bit more organized you're no longer picking from one master list of Feats rather each time you level up you gain access to a new type of feat in the game there are four distinct types of Feats and those are ancestry Feats skill Feats General Feats and class Feats most of these are honestly pretty self-explanatory An ancestry feat represents your genealogy or upbringing with things like Goblin lore or kobold breath these will typically be abilities or knowledge or little quirks related to who you are or where you came from class Feats are a little more complicated their feats you gain from your class these will typically be your upgrades to your combat abilities though rarely will they ever be direct numerical upgrades rather they'll give you new options or reactions to use in combat to make you more flexible but not usually directly more powerful a level one fighter doesn't have any Feats that say do 10 more damage but they do have Feats that let you grab for free or attack twice at lower penalty or attack once for extra damage but it costs more actions none of them are necessarily direct upgrades but they're new options skill Feats are gained every even level and are used to Grant you new ways to use your character's skills this is what takes people a little bit to get used to because they'll see something like intimidating glare which lets you intimidate with your eyes instead of your mouth a lot of first-time players will just say why can't I just do that why can't I just glare at somebody why do I need a feat for that and it's a totally fair complaint they're mostly added as a mechanical balance because it grants you an upgrade of some kind you need to spend a feat to gain it this isn't really written in the rules but it's how I handle it I will let anybody attempt anything even if it's locked behind a skill feat like intimidating glare but I will not make them as good at it if you have the intimidating glare skill feat it means you have practiced and trained to make your glare as intimidating as possible if you don't have the skill feat maybe I'll reduce the penalty rather than getting rid of it all together like defeat does but I can't let you have the same bonus as someone who took the feed I hope that makes sense and general Feats are General Feats that are available to all characters you get them at level three and then every four levels afterwards and these are typically the most direct upgrades you will have access to things like improved proficiency with armor faster movement speed improved initiative roles Etc they're some of the most interesting Feats out there but you only get five of them by level 20. so make your choices count they're very powerful but there's only so many you can take so while it might sound overwhelming that there's four different types of feet that you get every single level it's really not as bad as it sounds and at most you'll be getting two feets per level difference number three all the rules are free I posted this on Twitter yesterday and it got so many likes and I'm realizing more and more people don't actually know that every single mechanical rule for Pathfinder second edition is on archives of nephis completely for free this is not illegal this is not pirating Piezo endorses this website they want you to play their game so if anybody ever uses the excuse I don't want to invest in Pathfinder 2E I don't want to spend all that money on new books you don't have to everything is there if you go to Google and type in anything space 2E nephis will pop up if you type in Barbarian 2E you'll get the class page if you type in Goblin Warrior 2E you will get the monster stat block if you type in Greatsword 2E you will get the items information always at the top of the page as Archives of nephis is just so useful for anybody playing this system now there is is one exception for what is not on Archives of nephis and that is lore any lore book is not on archives of Memphis you will not find information on specific noteworthy NPCs you also will not find the pre-written adventure paths on archives of nephis but you will find all of the mechanical content from those Adventures meaning you can monster stat blocks magic items unique archetypes unique spells anything mechanical from those books is still on archives of nephis this website is insane and I cannot stress that enough but like still by the books because the art is really pretty and everyone is hot difference number four conditions if you're used to playing DND 5e you might see conditions as advantage or disadvantage if you inflict some kind of penalty on a creature it usually gives disadvantage if you give yourself some kind of bonus it typically just means you get Advantage Pathfinder 2E goes a lot further than this and for the most part removes the advantage disadvantage system except for a few Niche cases rather each condition in Pathfinder 2E does something completely unique some of them reduce ability scores like clumsy or stupefied some of them can completely shut you down like petrified or sleep and even others can reduce everything a character does seriously if you have played Pathfinder 2E and you have not used the frightened or sickened conditions yet get on that those reduce everything by their value if you inflict something with frightened two by like critically hitting a demoralized check they get minus two to to attack roles skill checks saving throws freaking Armor class is reduced by the frightened conditions are so freaking powerful in this system and if you don't use them they will be used against you plus it's so funny when the GM has this really fancy intricate boss fight setup and the cleric just hits them with a spell and they crit fail their fortitude save so they get sickened too and they take a -2 penalty to everything almost effectively leveling them down two levels so the party just gangs up and murders the boss as the boss proceeds to miss every single attack because the GM can't roll above a difference number five teamwork is important Pathfinder 2E has put some special stress on the fact that a team working together will always be more powerful than a single character and this is due in no small part to the way they've handled bonuses in this system Pathfinder 2E only has three distinct types of bonuses and those are circumstance status and item a circumstance bonus is something you gained from the circumstances if you raise your Shield you get that circumstance bonus to your armor class because the circumstance is that you're hiding behind The Shield a status bonus is typically provided by either a spell special ability or condition for example if somebody casts heroism on you that bonus to attack rolls is considered a status bonus and an item bonus is self-explanatory if you have a plus two long sword it's giving you a plus two item bonus to your attack rolls because it's coming from an item so why does this inherently make single characters less power powerful well Pathfinder 2E has a very specific rule that you can only be affected by one type of each bonus meaning maximum you can have one item bonus one circumstance bonus and one status bonus on the same effect if you have a plus one long sword item bonus to attack rolls and you have a ring that gives you a plus one item bonus to attack rolls you still only have a plus one item bonus to attack rules they do not stack you only take the highest one and you'll be hard pressed to find much of anything in this game that gives higher than a plus two maybe a plus three at higher levels so even if you manage to get three plus two bonuses to attack rolls from item status and Circumstance you're getting plus six which is still huge don't get me wrong but it's a lot easier to get that and stack that on top of teamwork with teamwork you can do things like get better bonuses like the aforementioned heroism on someone like a fighter who would be unable to Grant themselves a status bonus additionally maybe the wizard will cast fear to inflict a frightened condition to reduce the target's Armor class while you flank with your Rogue granting them flat-footed which also reduces their Armor class combine all of this with a champion who can reduce damage dealt to allies a ranger who has insane single Target damage a monk who can chase down any enemy with their crazy movement speed or any of the spell casters and their 5 million different special effects depending on their spells and your sheer breadth of options wide array of conditions and various bonuses will make you so much stronger than you could ever be by yourself additionally action economy is more important than ever in this game because Pathfinder 2E uses its three Action System where any action can be used on anything three actions might mean three more attacks or three more movements or three more anything a 2v2 is six actions versus six actions but a 2v3 is suddenly six actions versus nine actions not only is it more hit points and more attacks per round but that's just nine more actions you get to add to your side of the economy which can change everything teamwork has never been more important than it is in Pathfinder second edition and those are five huge differences between D and d5e and Pathfinder second edition there is so much more I could cover especially when we dive into actual character progression monster stat blocks the way the game is run combat role play Everything has massive differences but I figured I'd start with these five easily digestible ones just just for you if you do want to see more like this like another five differences please leave a like on the video and subscribe to the channel for more I see all you like four thousand five thousand new subscribers hello how are you I'm glad to have you all here and I really hope you'll stick around and enjoy some Pathfinder content I want to give a huge shout out to my patrons and YouTube members for supporting the channel if you would like to also support the channel financially there is a join button right below this video hit it you can pledge for as little as 99 cents a month and it really goes a long way another huge shout out to Sinclair's Library finish off your backer kit surveys and your emails or if you want to pre-order it link is in the description thank you so very much for watching I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and until next time no not once

Channel: Nonat1s

Views: 172,369

Keywords: Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder Second Edition, Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder 2e APG, Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Nonat1s, Pathfinder 2e Level 1, Pathfinder 2e new features, Pathfinder 2e New Ancestries, Pathfinder 2e Gamemastery Guide, differences between dnd and pathfinder, dnd 5e vs pathfinder 2e, 5e vs 2e, switch from 5e to 2e, leaving D&D, quitting dnd, OGL 1.1, Wizards of the coast, Pathfinder OGL, ORC License, D&D to Pathfinder, Switching from D&D to Pathfinder

Id: I1QFjfe9laU

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023