(Header image by Irina Iriser on Unsplash)
Pathfinder 2e is probably the easiest way to run a consistent weekly game.
I think it is a real shame that Pathfinder1 is almost exclusively reviewed through comparison to other systems.
“The three action economy is way more intuitive than move, objection interaction, action, and bonus action!”
“Magic is actually balanced so there is no martial/caster divide!”
“Pathfinder fixes this!”
All those things are true, and I have seen countless other reasons attempting to sway you from playing D&D 5e, but basing all of the game’s value on how it’s better than another system feels like a dead-on-arrival argument to me.2 Pathfinder 2e is a good game regardless of the quality of the alternatives.
What makes it good?
The community, mostly. While I do think the base systems of the game are elegant, and the game’s overall complexity is overblown, I would not play it without the free Foundry VTT module, which is supported by a team of volunteer engineers. I am on record as saying that it is the best VTT implementation, full stop, and it’s free. 3 Then there is the character creator, Pathbuilder, which is mostly free,4 and the free rules reference hosted on Archives of Nethys.5 Again, no one is making money on these. They do it for the love of the game, literally.
I just want to pause for a second in stunned awe and appreciation for the amount of free labor that exists in the world. The sheer magnitude of work people will put in during their limited free time to make their hobby more accessible for others is astounding. In a time where every day I wake in fear of what terrible news lies in wait on my phone, this is beauty. This is art. This is community in the realest sense.
“Wait, how is Pathfinder making any money?”
Great question, since the community-developed free tools are generally more useful for running the game than the books and pdfs Paizo sells. The answer is adventures! (probably)
Paizo doesn’t publish their revenue numbers at all,6 so I don’t actually know. I am sure it is a mix of rabid fans that buy every hard cover book that comes out, but all my money was going to Paizo’s premium VTT adventure modules. I’m sure n = 1 is a big enough sample size when that 1 is as tall and cool as me.
Paizo was publishing adventures for years before they created Pathfinder. It’s in their veins. These premium modules take that strong base and kick it up a notch. They include maps with dynamic lighting; adversary, trap, and treasure tokens; journal entries for each room; and even sound effects. The partnership with Sigil Games, Syrinscape, and Foundry to create these was genius!
I played 15 sessions of Pathfinder 2e using adventures I wrote compared to 50 – 60 sessions of playing and running adventure paths (AP) and at this point I would never even consider running Pathfinder again if I am not running an AP. They are just too good!
It’s not that Pathfinder is particularly hard to prep for. The encounter design rules make balanced combats a breeze to throw together, and a few well spent dollars on the CzePeku patreon gave me all the foundry VTT ready maps I could ask for. But in most cases, I am just too busy to write an adventure that will be as good and well thought out as what Paizo will give me.7 This value grows exponentially when the premium module reduces my prep down to just reading for 30 minutes each week. It’s truly incredible.
Do you wish you could act more like a player and just show up to game night and have everything already set up for you? Do you wish that prep for your high fantasy game wouldn’t stretch over multiple nights as you curate maps, calculate encounters, and write wiki entries for the new goblin centaur NPC? Do you wish you had more time to spend with your loving friends and family, but always find yourself saying, “Not tonight, I gotta prep for game night?”
Pathfinder fixes this.
Recommendation
There are a dozen other reviews that go into the mechanics of Pathfinder and why they are great. At this point, I assume you know if you like the system or not. If you do, but you haven’t found the right starting place, I recommend the fabulous adventure path Season of Ghosts. It is a story of a small lumber village feeling the weight of industrialism and the retaliation of supernatural forces. My players elected to all be orphans and we had a beautiful found family dynamic, would highly recommend.
Despite being my most played rpg, I don’t even think pathfinder is the best tactical heroic fantasy rpg anymore, much less the best rpg generally. But if you want a game that lets you pay a bit of money for a cool ass module that will get you through a couple months of weekly sessions with little to no prep, Pathfinder might be for you.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Mark Seifter8 and the whole team that designed the core engine of Pathfinder 2e, and all the fine folks currently at Paizo that continue to pump out these great adventures. Seriously, just look at their insane release schedule. All Paizo products can be found on their website.
Thank you to Abby, Andrew, Gabi and John for playing in my many pathfinder games. And an extra special thank you to Andrew for lending us your extensive knowledge of the game. I genuinely don’t think we could have gotten more than a few sessions in without you.
If you want to talk more about how sweet these adventure paths are, feel free to send me an email at brett@birdmilkcafe.com.
P.S. While researching for this review, I found THIS COOL ASS NEW ADVENTURE PATH! I am so hungry for that Greek myth inspired ish. Inject that into my veins! I cannot describe how much I do not have time to run a three book adventure path right now, and yet! There is a good chance that by the time you are reading this I have already purchased Myth Speaker and am poring over it.
- Unless I specify Pathfinder 1st edition, you can assume all references to Pathfinder are to Pathfinder 2nd edition. Additionally, I don’t make any distinction for the remaster. I played both for an extended period of time and the differences aren’t notable enough to go into for this level of review. ↩︎
- I know this is true, because I spent months trying to sway people away from D&D using these arguments and was unsuccessful. ↩︎
- Yes, I know you need to own a Foundry license, but the module itself is free, neither Paizo nor the module developers see money for that. ↩︎
- It is a one time payment to get access to some of the alternate build rules. Certainly much cheaper than the main competitor Demiplane. ↩︎
- There was recently some concerning movement on this front, where the agreement between Pathfinder’s publisher Paizo and the Archives of Nethys was abruptly and radically changed. It seems that many of the changes were reverted and they have found a sustainable path forward. https://www.archivesofnethys.com/movingforward.html ↩︎
- While researching this I found this very cool piece from Cannibal Halfling Gaming. ↩︎
- Okay, APs do have some flaws, usually in book two of multi book series. I think it has to do with the rate at which they are putting out books and the fact that they rarely have the same author between books. Gatewalkers is a notorious example of a fantastic setup in book one to a pretty disjointed book two. ↩︎
- Praise Mark ↩︎
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