# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 >  Newbie to PF2

## EggKookoo

So I'm curious about PF2, but I can't for the life of me figure out what a good book is to start with. Any Pathfinder 2 players out there? What's a good place to start?

Also, I guess just as important, is PF2 good? I intend to find out for myself but it can't hurt to get a lay of the land.

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## Mark Hall

*The Mod Ogre:* Assuming that by PF2 you mean "Pathfinder 2nd edition", I have moved it to the appropriate forum.

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## EggKookoo

> *The Mod Ogre:* Assuming that by PF2 you mean "Pathfinder 2nd edition", I have moved it to the appropriate forum.


Thank you sir.

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## DrMartin

Hi!

start with the core book, add the monster manual, and you can finish there if you want. later book add stuff but do not expand significantly on the core rules.

everything's online as a reference on archive of nethys, just like for PF 1.

In my opinion it is quite good, but is not a world shaking revolution. Took a few lessons from everything that happened in game design between 2008 and now, while still trying to be the same kind of game as PF1. 
It's like a new fast food chain which does things just a bit differently. there's another thread on PF2 active right now which collects a few top-level introduction to the system, maybe take a look over there.

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## Kurald Galain

> What's a good place to start?


Go to warhorn.net and find yourself an online game to join.




> Also, I guess just as important, is PF2 good?


The stories are pretty good, because Paizo is good at storyteling (although, they are very much "lighter and softer" than PF1; less edgy and aimed at a young family / all ages audience). The mechanics are highly complex in a way where this complexity makes almost no difference: there are tons and tons of feats that in practice do little or nothing, so you can spend a lot of time paging through them to see what you want for your character but in practice it ends up all the same. Likewise, combat has lots of tiny little modifiers and conditions that in practice do little or nothing (e.g. if you get -5% chance to hit on your attack, you're going to... attack anyway because that's what you always do). Notably, combat is all about HP damage, and anything that doesn't do HP damage (including almost all spells that aren't blasting) is in practice mostly irrelevant.

The upside: it's very hard to upstage anyone or to make a useless character. The downside: both character creation and combat are exceedingly slow to resolve in a way that ends up changing very little. Basically, 3E/PF has lots of choices and they make a big difference. 5E has few choices and they make a big difference. P2 has lots of choices and they make very little difference.

So personally I would not recommend. But by all means, go to warhorn.net and find an online game, it's easy as pi. HTH!

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## Mark Hall

> start with the core book, add the monster manual, and you can finish there if you want. later book add stuff but do not expand significantly on the core rules.


Depending on where you live, you might also be able to check out the core book from the library. I did so and paged through a bit; not for me.

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## Anonymouswizard

> Notably, combat is all about HP damage, and anything that doesn't do HP damage (including almost all spells that aren't blasting) is in practice mostly irrelevant.


Not really, penalties for multiple attacks scale fast enough that warriors don't want to be spending all their actions on them, and it's generally agreed that anything that can deny or waste monster attacks is better than sitting there and taking damage. Part of the issue is that degrees of success take too long to rack up, so you're not going to get the good effects on many level appropriate monsters, but casters should still be focusing on control over blasting.

Mostly though it is a lot of fiddling for little real benefit. Some ideas are good, like the heritage feats bringing more differentiation, but there's a lot of complexity that the game doesn't actually need.

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## EggKookoo

> start with the core book


By which you mean the big 600-pager? I've seen a few different books (that look like "core" books) on their site and Amazon.

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## Kurald Galain

> Not really, penalties for multiple attacks scale fast enough that warriors don't want to be spending all their actions on them


True enough, attacking a third time in your turn doesn't usually do anything. Instead, the third action is usually for moving, or sometimes for e.g. raising your shield, or raging, or the investigator's "make a new cunning plan every single turn" ability. Of course sitting there and taking damage is not going to help anyone.

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## Palanan

> Originally Posted by *Mark Hall*
> _Depending on where you live, you might also be able to check out the core book from the library._





> Originally Posted by *EggKookoo*
> _By which you mean the big 600-pager? I've seen a few different books (that look like "core" books) on their site and Amazon._


Also, if your library doesnt have the core book, you can probably get a copy through interlibrary loan.  Should cost about $5 for postage, so much less risk and potential hassle than buying it on Amazon.

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## DrMartin

> By which you mean the big 600-pager? I've seen a few different books (that look like "core" books) on their site and Amazon.


yeah the core rulebook is the 640 pages one. I have it  in paper form but if i'm honest I don't bring it to games - the pdf has good enough indexing. plus everything is on archive of nethys: https://2e.aonprd.com/PlayersGuide.aspx

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## Snowbluff

> Also, I guess just as important, is PF2 good? I intend to find out for myself but it can't hurt to get a lay of the land.


I think it depends where you are coming from. As a 3.5/PF1/5e player, I would say there are definitely some issues I think exist compared to these older systems. The three action system, at it's core, is simple and easy to learn. However, internal portions of this I think hinder the streamlining effect this was meant to have with what I like to call the Ouroboros of Pathfinder. Due to the issues with being able to attack 3 times, you have Multiple Attack Penalties, but also because of this, some effects alter it. There's a rule to balance a rule with in turn has it's own set of extra rules. Your attack scoring being different from action to action also affects the way critical hits work in the system, since each one essentially has its own crit ranged, and an operation is need to determine each one. 

This also extends to "Everything is an Action." Stride isn't a very good movement action. It's nowhere near as useful or flexible as 5e's movement allotment. It pales in comparison to PF1's version, which allows you to swim, jump, climb, hide, draw a weapon etc. Your action economy can get eaten pretty quickly by just traversing the field. 

I will try to avoid repeating everything Kuruld Galain says on the matter. I generally agree that there is an issue with the complexity being high with little payout. I think managing expectations is important. I was pretty burned on it during playtest and its early life, but it's possible to have fun in most table tops as long as you have a group you like.

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## Tanarii

Just ordered the core books in support.  And 3 board games while I was at it.  Core rule book is hard to get on Amazon right now, almost a month delivery time.  :Small Amused: 

I'm already soliciting playtest players from my old player base.  Unfortunately everyone has heard how complicated the system is, which IMO from my previous research appears to be somewhat true. Despite that, I keep hearing that it's pretty easy to PLAY, and that most of complicated is in the character creation.  I think the biggest mental block for folks is the HUGE core rulebook.  

I did just find that Paizo has a Basic Rules Cheat Sheet on their downloads.  Unfortunately zipped and my current device doesn't want to play nice, but I plan to take a look as soon as I'm on a more convenient device.  Hopefully it'll be comprehensive but short and sweet, so I can sell the concept better to my potential players.

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## EggKookoo

It looks like the Cheat Sheet is for PF1. I might trek down to my local brick & mortar. Always good to have an excuse.

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## gesalt

While there are a lot (a lot!) of useless feats and spells, this shouldn't be new to anyone familiar with 3.5 or pf1. As it is, for all that the game is mostly balanced, there are a couple of traps to avoid and some build choices that are much stronger than others the system has. As much as paizo tries to make sure new content isn't strong enough to exceed (or match 90% of the time) the options in the core rulebook, enough has slipped through to make sifting out the good stuff a noticeable power bump for the party. 

I will disagree on hp damage being the only thing that matters though. In throwaway fights (anything moderate or below for a competent party) there isn't much point in expending resources, sure. In harder fights (severe or above) you can get more value out of your typical area control spells to cut enemy action economy against large groups or buffs/debuffs to increase your fighter's hit/crit rate and/or reduce incoming damage rather than throwing out anemic damage spells.

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## Kurald Galain

> In harder fights (severe or above) you can get more value out of your typical area control spells to cut enemy action economy against large groups


But that unfortunately doesn't work. Compared to PF1 and _every single edition_ of D&D, your "typical area control spells" in PF2 are either single-target, or have a negligible effect, or only do something useful on a _crit-failed_ save (meaning the spells don't work 95% of the time).

You can't crowd control in PF2; the designers took great care to remove that aspect. Unfortunately.

(edit) For instance, the classic Web spell in all other editions immobilizes or restrains creatures until they succeed at a check for breaking out; whereas in PF2 all it does is give 10' penalty to speed for a single turn - in addition to being much smaller, and a three-action casting. Yeah, that's pretty sad.

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## gesalt

> But that unfortunately doesn't work. Compared to PF1 and _every single edition_ of D&D, your "typical area control spells" in PF2 are either single-target, or have a negligible effect, or only do something useful on a _crit-failed_ save (meaning the spells don't work 95% of the time).
> 
> You can't crowd control in PF2; the designers took great care to remove that aspect. Unfortunately.
> 
> (edit) For instance, the classic Web spell in all other editions immobilizes or restrains creatures until they succeed at a check for breaking out; whereas in PF2 all it does is give 10' penalty to speed for a single turn - in addition to being much smaller, and a three-action casting. Yeah, that's pretty sad.


 The baseline CC in pf2e is calm emotions. AoE, on fail enemies are banned from hostile actions. You only ever need to CC groups of mooks, so they actually have a good chance to fail and incapacitation's level limit doesn't come into play so long as you use a high enough slot. 

Alternatively, illusions all require spending an action to even have a chance at saving against (aside from enemies with passive true seeing). Given that the offered example for the level 1 illusory object is a waterfall, it's easy enough to drain one or more enemy actions in a large AoE from level 1, regardless of their saves or level.

You basically don't ever want to try to CC a single target before maze though. At best you use hideous laughter to remove their reaction or slow to remove an action.

Edit: martials can trip single targets though. Skills scale fast and high enough for that to always be good.

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