Ultramodern5 Review part 2 - combat and final thoughts

    With a second adventure under the belt, and testing the combat system, I have my final thoughts on the Ultramodern5 RPG.  And I think all those thoughts can be summed up by looking at one character, not mine, our friend Andi's Heavy "Bubbles."

    Bubbles sounded like a really cool character.  The Heavy class focuses one using the really big guns, so Bubbles shoots the minigun (aka Rotary Cannon).  Andi took the class abilities where Bubbles adds to the armor class of allies nearby - which was perfect for our party of 4, the Face was not a strong combatant and the Techie has a slightly better offense than defense, while my Gunslinger/Martial Artist was designed to run into melee range.  Bubbles' other ability was improved Overwatch, so if needed he could hold our flank and blast any number of baddies who tried to sneak up on us.  In the team or solo Bubbles looked like a good character.  But didn't play that way.
    Our first adventure was a building infiltration, it was a lot of planning and talking but no shooting.  Bubbles was able to get hired on as a guard, which gave us an "inside man" and valuable intel.  But the class didn't have any non-combat capabilities.  This is half the fault of DnD 5e, which is sadly lacking in anything non-combat, and half the fault of the Ultramodern5 team, who should have realized this limitation and tried to correct it.  So adventure one was a little disappointing, but we knew adventure 2 would be combat-focused, so finally Bubbles would get his chance to shine.
    Sadly it was not to be.  The Heavy class is all about those heavy weapons, but we found some problems.  The rotary cannon always fired multiple bullets, which meant it could hit a 10' cube and targets had to make Dex saves and took no damage on a successful save, or full damage on a failed save.
    Problem #1.  Ten feet right in front of you and ten feet a hundred feet in front of you are two very different arcs.  Let me use a diagram...

So here's my biggest problem with the square-grid system DnD and others use, things do not line up well at all.  I would much rather use a hex map, and allow objects to stand in-between hexes, which gives better positioning.  Still, 10' is two squares, which I'm spreading over 3 squares because that makes more real-world sense.  The 10' right in front of the shooter (played by the GIMP mascot) is a huge angle, while the furthest 10' is a very tiny angle.  Now, there is some validity to the concept that at close range you can cover a large angle because the targets are so close you're not likely to miss, while at a long range you have to keep to a narrower angle so that you can hit the smaller targets.  Which I can buy, with something like a machine pistol that has a relatively small ammo supply.  But something like the minigun, which carries hundreds to thousands of bullets, seems like it should be able to fill any angle with a potentially lethal amount of firepower.  So in the end the minigun just doesn't feel like it's hitting enough targets.
    Problem #2.  Weapons in U5 with "auto" fire have 2 damage values, one for firing a single bullet and one for firing auto.  Those numbers are always 1 die type apart.  So a Machine Pistol does 1d4 single, 1d6 auto.  An Assault Rifle does 1d8 single, 1d10 auto.  The "Rotary Cannon" cannot fire single shots, only auto, so how much damage do you think it does?  I'll give you a second...
    The answer is 1d10.  Yup, the same damage as an Assault Rifle.  What !?!?  The thing that fires a thousand bullets does the same damage as the thing that can, at best, fire 30 bullets?  As I mentioned in the last post, a 2-handed Greatsword does 2d6 damage.  So this is just insultingly low for such a huge weapon.  Not only is that damage low, is could be zero.  According to the rules when you auto fire (which the minigun has to) you don't roll to attack, the enemies roll Dex saves.  And on successful saves they take no damage.  The DC for that save is either 8 + Dex mod + Proficiency Bonus (if proficient) or 15, whichever is higher.  Your Ladder can get 1 attribute up to 22, or a +6 bonus max, and the max Proficiency Bonus is also +6, for a maximum possible DC 20.  That's pretty low.  Especially given that a successful save negates all damage.  I believe Bubbles had a +2 Dex (Heavies are Str builds), and we were level 5 so we had +3 Prof Mods - that's just a DC 13, below the minimum DC of 15.  And a creature with no Dex mod can beat a DC 15 save 30% of the time.  Again, that might be fine if we were talking about a machine pistol or other "small arm" - but we're not, we're talking about a huge, fire-breathing, bullet-spewing monster of a minigun!
    Problem #2a.  We played it so that Bubbles rolled his to-hit and it was applied among the number of targets the GM determined.  The other problem with making them saves is that the player now doesn't ever roll to hit, only the GM rolls for the monsters, which sucks for the player since he doesn't get the fun of rolling anything and sucks for the GM because he has to make 12 rolls for all the Small drones in that 10' cube.

    The sad story of Bubbles is that of missed expectations.  From everything we read in the book the expectation was of a hard-hitting, hard-to-kill tank.  The reality was that Bubbles was hard to kill, but while he had the advantage of being able to hit multiple opponents, did not do a lot of damage to any of them.  With my Gunslinger and Martial Arts mix I was able to do just over 100 points of damage in 3 rounds - about triple what Bubbles could do.  That's just not right.
    The other problem of our adventure is again inherited from DnD but overlooked by the U5 team - interacting with technology.  Our adventure was supposed to be a zombie outbreak (it's in the book), but one of our players doesn't like the living-impaired so the GM changed it to an android/robot outbreak.  Something so common it's cliché in the SF field.  But with only the "Computer Use" and "Engineering" skills, and literally no sample DCs, trying to figure out if something could be hacked, how hard that would be, and what modifications could be made was left entirely on the GMs shoulders.  That's extra work on the GM, and it means the payers can't read a rule to set their expectations, instead it's a big question mark until it comes up.  Which, in a science-fiction setting, anyone with a functioning brain knows it is going to come up!  And I'll illustrate that with something the U5 team did right.  My character took the "Runner" Ladder, and one of my abilities was that I could move 10' and then spend the rest of my move as a climb speed (so no Acrobatics roll needed).  That said to me that I was really good at climbing stuff.  So when we were attacked by a robo-forklift I had a crazy thought - since I was a melee-based character, could I climb on top of the forklift to do my melee attacks?  The GM decided it was just crazy enough to be plausible, and that I would make a Dex save to avoid getting run over, but if successful could climb on top without another check.  That was perfect, the Dex save gave that bit of risk and uncertainty but skipping the Acrobatics check kept it from being so uncertain it might not be worth trying.  No where in the book did it say I could climb an evil forklift, but it did say enough to logically and reasonably determine if it should be possible.  Which is where the computer use and engineering fall short, they don't have enough detail to extrapolate from, as a player trying to formulate a plan or as a GM trying to set the appropriate difficulty.


    After a second adventure my impressions have been reinforced - I don't think this is a very well-written game, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.  There are lots of other games that were designed for modern/ SF/ urban fantasy and do it a lot better.  None of us wanted to play a third adventure, though we might someday try converting our characters to another system, who knows?
    Doing some research I did find that the U5 team is working on Ultramodern Redux, and had a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year (2019), so who knows, maybe the next book will be awesome?  I hope they do learn from this version and can give those who like DnD 5e a good modern/SF system to use.
    There is going to be one more post on the game though, next I'll put up my character.


You can read all the posts in this series here

Ultramodern5 Review part 1 - An Outline of the Game

    A few months ago some friends found Ultramodern5 from Dias Ex Machina at a con and asked me to look at it.  It's a modern/sci-fi DnD 5th-compatible RPG, apparently the original Ultramodern was built for 4th.  I like SF games, I've played lots of Star Frontiers, Rifts, Battletech, Star Wars and more.  I was a little skeptical though since DnD is not just a fantasy game but also built on fantasy tropes, the whole tank/healer/dps that was codified in MMOs was really started with DnD - and that gets a little harder to model with real-world combat without magic (or super-science that equals magic).  So I did not go into the book with a lot of enthusiasm, and my first quick read-through did not make me want to read it in more detail.  Still, our friends wanted to try it, so I drafted another friend to run the thing and we had our first adventure over the last weekend.
    Our adventure was a little odd.  The book has 2 adventures but the GM came up with his own idea.  It was open-ended for us to either fight or talk our way through, and to his surprise we ended up talking in a sort-of-Leverage-styled heist.  This is not an ideal first adventure to judge the game buy just because everything not fighting is weak in DnD, I think weaker in 5th than earlier versions even.  So we really did not interact with a lot of the rules.  Still, it was enough to get a taste of the system, and our next adventure is going to be more traditionally combat focused and the GM was going to use/adapt one of the adventures in the book.  I feel like I understand the system enough after playing it and reading through it in more detail to give a basic review, but I expect this review to be in several parts as I explore more of the system.  I'm also going to post about how I made my character later.
    Okay, I think I'm just going to walk through the book and comment on it in order.  Let's start at the beginning...

Setting and Misc Rules

    U5 does not have it's own setting.  There are apparently two other books, Amethyst and NeuroSpasta by the same publisher.  Haven't read them so I can't comment on them.
    There are no rules for magic in U5, so if you want an "urban fantasy" setting you'll have to use the DnD 5e rules.  Which might be tricky, does a "mending" spell that fixes objects work on a computer?
    There are only a few new rules.  One is for auto and burst fire, which I am not a fan of on reading, but I'll comment on them after we play the combat rules.  The other is the addition of "Computer Use" and "Demolitions" skills.  I kind of want to say that with the design of 5e these should both be Tool Proficiencies, but that's more semantics than anything.  I really wish they had added some more skills, or at least how to use existing skills.  Some of the classes have things like "Tool Proficiencies: All ground vehicles and aircraft" - wow is that vague... so can I drive a tank?  MechaGodzilla?  A 747 jet airplane?  You guys really have to be more specific than that.  I'm disappointed that they didn't put any work into this, into updating the fantasy of 5e into a modern/futuristic setting.  Since they ignored important things like this, the GM has to do the work - so why bother buying a book if you have to write the rules yourself?  Right?
    The only place that does talk about piloting is the feats.  There is an "Exo-Armor Proficiency" feat.  Exo-Armor is defined on page 99, I'm on page 8 (it seems to be what most games would call "Power Armor" and mecha).  There is not a dedicated section that talks about skills, the new skills and feats are stuck in the first 8 pages of the book.  Again, crap layout - there should be a dedicated section to explain this stuff.  Page 112 also has 5 categories of vehicles: light ground, heavy ground, super-heavy ground, aircraft and watercraft.  That's a little better division (though not by much), and again why the hell isn't it in a section about proficiencies?  (why not have a 'Military Training" feat that lets you apply your proficiencies to vehicles and weapons with the "military" descriptor?)  The few feats are "meh" at best, honestly I forgot they existed when making my character.

Races

    There is one race, Human.  This is fine in a modern setting, but aliens and genetically altered humans (even animals) are staples of lots of SF, so I'm a little bummed that they didn't address creating non-humans at all.  The equipment in the game goes up to laser weapons and mini-nukes, so this is designed for modern to far-future sci-fi after all.
    All Humans get a "genetic benefit" that can give you something like "Eidetic Memory" or "Light Sleeper."  That adds a touch of the diversity from fantasy races, but it is not much.  And some of the benefits seem like they might not get used very often (Nimbleness- you can move through the space of any creature that is a size larger than you), while others seem a little overpowered (Toughness- you have DR 2 against slashing and piercing damage; so you take 2 less damage from all guns?  Wow).
    Here is a good place to mention something that has driven me nuts about this book - the naming conventions.  "Toughness" has been a feat that gave you an extra hit point per level since DnD 3, and there is a genetic benefit that gives you those extra HP, it's just called "Extreme Fortitude" instead.  One of the components to your character is called a "Ladder."  What do you think that would add to your character?  Anything come to mind?  Well, it's kinda an archetype, but where 5e uses archetypes to provide variations to a class, 5U uses them as kind of but not quite background options.  One Ladder is the "Runner" who starts off with an extra 5' of speed as the name would suggest.  But on later levels they actually become parkour masters and general acrobats - either of which would be better names.  There are Archetypes too, but they are more like the 'Prestige Classes' of Pathfinder.  One of them is named "Cleaner."  Now, I've mostly heard the word (in a profession/ability context) to refer to a type of criminal who 'cleans up' after other criminals, destroying evidence of wrongdoing.  But the archetype is really an assassin, someone who specializes at killing people with one shot, or in one round of combat.  I haven't looked into the background of this company, but the book reads as if they do not speak English as a primary language and only got a semi-competent translator.

Backgrounds

    In 5e you don't get much from your Background, just a few skills/ tools/ languages and a few tables with role-playing suggestions.  U5 manages to give you even less, removing the role-playing stuff.  So honestly you could just let people pick 2 proficiencies and take an extra $50 and drop this entire section.  This is mostly crap in 5e and I'm sad that the U5 guys didn't improve on something that needed some love.

Lifepath

    Oh boy, the Lifepath tables.  A series of random rolls to discover your character's background.  These are an old part of gaming, really big in the 80s-90s with Traveller (maybe the most famous, in  your background you could be killed, and thus have to make a new character before you even finished your first character) and Cyberpunk 2020, Star Trek, Mechwarrior and several other games.  DnD has never used them in a core game, but they've cropped up a few times in supplements.  Lifepath tables are hard to do right, you need a system that gives you at least a semi-coherent story and some sparks for your imagination to build on.  These are not that.  Frankly, the U5 Lifepath tables pretty much suck.  It can give you some funny results (one friend's character has a bunch of failed relationships, I have 5 enemies and only 2 friends) but I'd rather adapt a different game's tables.
    Why not tie this to the Background system?  Maybe you have 4 Background picks, and each has a related table.  So take a pick as a Merchant and maybe you did great with your sales and start with extra money, take a pick as a Soldier and maybe you got promoted, or wounded in combat?  Then have a few random tables for your family and friends and stuff?  That would at least tie the benefits to the Background system instead of them being a world unto themselves, and then they would, you know, describe your background.

Ladders

    So you select a Ladder at 1st level, then at 4th (and every 4 thereafter) you can take another ladder ability instead of a feat or attribute increase.  So really these are feat chains/trees.  They are also designed to give you some power spikes to make up for the fact that SF stories usually don't gain and throw away special equipment like DnD/epic fantasy.  There are 7-

• Born Leader - get bonuses to skills as long as you don't fight or cast a spell, help your allies
• Juggernaut - get extra hit points/ damage reduction
• Runner - move faster, AC bonuses
• Savant - some skill bonuses and random stuff
• Survivor - take damage, kinda weirdly similar to the Juggernaut in a way
• Veteran - get a pool of re-rolls
• Warrior - power up to OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (well, to 5 at least)

    Virtually every Ladder lets you change the attribute you use for attack and damage rolls, which kinda makes the point of having different attributes pointless.  The powers you get from the Ladders cover the whole spectrum of useless to really strong/ maybe OP.  And others are just weird.  Here is an ability from the Born Leader... after taking a long rest, if you wear no armor and wield no weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to Charisma or Intelligence (select one) until you make an attack roll or cast a spell. Select either Charisma or Intelligence as your primary born leader ability.
    Ummm... what?  You are smarter or more likable until you attack someone or cast a spell, then you have to sleep to become smarter or more likable again?  What the hell kind of sense does that make?
    I don't like the ladder system.  Some of the abilities are fine, but as a whole it just seems stupid.  It's mechanics over logic.

Classes

    The heart of and DnD based system, there are 10 classes...

• Face
• Grounder
• Gunslinger
• Heavy
• Infiltrator
• Marshal
• Martial Artist
• Medic
• Sniper
• Techie

    The classes are complicated enough I need to talk about them individually.

Face
    You're kind of a Bard.  You get an ability to roll a DC 15 Wis/ Perception each turn and gain 1 extra action, that can't be used for an attack.  Then you get to choose a few abilities, most of which can't really be used in combat.  And there are some very questionable abilities like Polyglot (you learn 3 additional languages, and gain more over time) and Possible Sociopath (you have resistance to psychic damage and Advantage on saves vs effects that sense your emotions or read your thoughts).  Languages usually are not very important (and they can be pretty boring, you really have to purposefully build an adventure around language barriers to keep them from being more annoying than dramatic).  And if you're not using magic (which again is not in this book) then the psychic damage resistance is useless - why not add Advantage on Deception rolls or something to make this more broadly applicable?
    You also get a vehicle worth up to $30,000 and an Armored Personnel Carrier costs $8,000 while a Tank is $25,000.  Ummm.... yeah....  Somebody did proofread this, right? (as a side note, not many characters get a vehicle, so I guess public transportation in really, really good in the future)

Grounder
    You're the generalist fighter.  You can focus on using automatic or single-shot weapons.  You can also select from a pool of abilities.  Some are okay, like being able to move and fire a rifle/ 2H gun without attack penalty.  Some are borderline useless.  Like Combat Ineffective (if an ally goes to 0 HP gain Advantage to attack the foe who did it) and Comrades In Arms (if ally takes a critical hit, gain Advantage to attack the foe who did it).  Just how often are either of those things going to happen?  Some abilities are pure magic, like Jump In Front (if you and 1+ allies are hit by an effect of up to 60' across, push all of them out of the way and take as many hits as the allies you moved) which allows you magically teleport and throw full-grown adults several stories with no damage to any of them.  Not a bad class overall, but kinda strange in places.

Gunslinger
    Specialize in 1 or 2 pistols.  This was one of the classes I took (my character is a multi-classed Gunslinger/ Martial Artist) and there are 3 abilities I really like.  Classic Tumble lets you take 1/4 damage from an attack or failed Dex save.  Limber Up gives you Advantage on Dex and Str rolls for one turn.  And Kinesics lets you ignore difficult terrain, movement doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity and all attacks against you have Disadvantage.  So you can flow through the battlefield for one turn.  I ended up making my character based on John Preston from Equilibrium, the gun and melee hybrid who can stand in the middle of a crowd and kill everybody.  It's actually a pretty cool class, and one of the best in the book.

Heavy
    You fire the really big guns.  This is another good class.  You get to pick from a couple of abilities, but most of them are useful and fit the class concept.  Imposing Frame means you're so scary that allies near you get an AC bonus and have cover.  Easy Target (which has a bad name, I'd call it 'Monster Hunter') means you do extra damage the larger your target is (up to a +8).  Some of them are kinda "meh" - Overwatch makes your automatic attacks hit a 10' larger area, which is not always useful and only really applies if you're using a battle grid.  Shrapnel does your Dex or Str mod in damage to a foe within 5' of one you hit - again, not always useful unless your enemies like to bunch up (and by what magic do you make your normal bullets explode?).

Infiltrator
    The Rogue, not in the 'super skilled' sense but rather in the 'assassin' sense.  This class is very strange, it is literally the only class that doesn't get to make any choices.  Every other class has some sort of pool of abilities, but Infiltrator only get fixed powers.  They aren't terrible, you can do extra damage and are harder to hit, but it's an odd design choice to make them so limited.

Marshal
    Also the Bard, at least for the stuff that buffs the party.  A weird class because every single ability applies to your allies, none of them help you.  So a Marshall by themself is basically helpless.

Martial Artist
    Another good class.  Their main mechanic is the Combo Chain.  Each successive hit does more damage and unlocks special finishing moves, which can do extra damage, push/ knockdown enemies, or attack all nearby enemies.  A good amount of flexibility, a unique core mechanic, good design.  While I think this is one of the best classes, it still shows the strange errors that run rampant throughout the book.  The MA has two powers, I'm going to quote them below, see if you can spot the problem-

Gun-Something-Something
You treat one-handed small arms as melee weapons when attacking targets at 5 feet or closer

  and

C-C-C-Combo Breaker
You treat one-handed small arms as melee weapons when attacking targets at 5 feet or closer. Additionally, all ranged attacks with one-handed small arms made against targets 5 feet or closed can be considered melee attacks.

    If you answered "the second power does everything the first one does and more, thus there is no reason to ever take the first power" give yourself a cookie, and apparently you're smarter than the editors.  (bonus if you noticed the "closed" should be "closer")

Medic
    Another support class like the Marshal, but this one can actually act on its own.  Oddly, this is pretty much a spellcaster, which feels super out of place with the class design so far (and logic).  You get spell slots, but not many of your abilities are as powerful as spells.  Also, some of your spells require a "medical kit" which has 50 uses, but at 1st level you have a whopping 2 slots.  So the kit doesn't have the medicine, you magically charge the kit to do something.  Though you do have your "cantrips" to use at-will.  Not a bad class, but the magic masquerading as technology makes my head hurt - pick a lane guys (also you have some powers to kill people with, so much for the Hippocratic Oath).

Sniper
    Decent class.  A sniper focuses on doing damage at long range, which the game shortens to 25' or more - not a bad decision given how close most RPG combats tend to be.  I'd personally make the sniper a feat or class ability for making far shots, not sure it works that well as a class, again just because of it's narrow focus.  Still, this one seems like it would work fine.

Techie
    With a name like "Techie" I'd expect the class to be good with all technology, maybe even things like computer hacking.  Nope.  This class should really be called something like "Gunsmith" since the main abilities only boost a firearm.  At 12th level you can actually make an Engineering check to create an improvised tool, which seems like something anybody should be able to do and not a special class ability.  Not a great class, even for the limited thing it does.

    The classes are a strange mix, some very good and with solid design work, some that just make no sense.  I will admit that the class design work in 5th edition is kinda spotty, so the foundation is not great, but I'm surprised at how many weak abilities and classes there are.  I'd say it's good enough, but could really, really use a re-write.

Archetypes

    These are much like Ladders, a small collection of related abilities, and kinda like Classes in that each one has some niche it's meant to enhance.  There are 25 of them total, so it's a pretty broad range.  With so many I really don't want to break them all down.  I'll say that personally I think the majority of them are middling to garbage.  A few are pretty good.  While the "Cleaner" is badly named, it makes a great Assassin, doing big bonus damage (your level x 4) to a single target, which is only usable once but if you down your target you regain a use - so the more you kill the better you kill.  The "Grandmaster" is a cool idea, you pick a specific style of martial arts and gain bonuses, but the actual effects can be weak in some cases.  "Machine of War" is cool since every time you attack someone within 30' you heal 1 HP, so you like killing and it makes you happy, which is just awesome with the right kind of character.  "Militarist" is funny since you gain points when bad things happen, like an ally rolls a natural 1, that you can then spend for bonuses.  A lot of extra bookkeeping and attention to detail, but I do really like the concept.

Equipment

    Wow, so this is the section that I hate the most.  You're lucky you can't hear all the screaming I have done at this book so far, and this chapter elicits a lot of them.  Ultramodern5 wants to be everything non-fantasy, it's designed to go from present-day tech to far future laser guns.  That poses a pretty big challenge.  And they totally drop the ball on it.  The thing they get right is using Tech Levels, broad categories of related technologies.  So Tech Level 0 is steam power, early firearms, and generally 1800s.  I kinda hate that, just because this is the lowest tech in the game, there were a ton of technological innovations before the 1800s for crying out loud.  That's a small gripe though.  So Tech Levels go up to 5 which is antigravity, disintegration and "complete body reconstruction."  With those broad categories you'd think that each TL would have it's own sub-chapter in the Equipment section, that would be the smart thing to do.  But no, instead everything is just lumped together in one big table with the TL a tiny footnote at the end of each line.  The lack of organization sucks big time, and makes it a chore to buy your gear since you have to read line by line to find which items might apply to you.  And they don't even use the TL system right.  The book says that any item without a TL is TL0 - so 1800s tech.  But the Machine Pistol and Assault Rifle don't have a TL listed; and I don't think the Pony Express rode with AK-47s!
    Prices are also all over the place.  There is Capsicum Spray (aka Mace, Bear Spray, Pepper Spray) that costs $55.  Damn!  I can buy that stuff from the dollar store.  Now there is a note that if your setting is TL1 or higher, all items of that TL and lower are half price, except for TL0.  What?  So now it's an even bigger pain in the butt because I have to divide all the prices after I figure out which ones I can try to purchase.  Come on guys, get a clue.  That makes some things even worse though - there is a dart gun, does no damage, but one of the darts for it does 12 damage (which is a lot for a single attack) and only costs $10 !!!!!!!!!  And it has no TL listed, so it's 1800s TL0 !!!!!!!!!  WTF
    There are also some really big oversights.  There is no backpack, they apparently don't exist in this alternate dimension.  No rope.  There is a Pillow (thank god) but no Bed Sheets (which I could turn into a rope) but there is Duct Tape (which even mentions it can be used to make rope) (though I've watched Mythbusters so I know that's a time-consuming process) (miss that show so much).
    Damage is another really bad thing.  We have the DnD hit point inflation, so you need to be able to do a lot of damage at higher levels (unless you like your entire 4 hour game session to be one fight).  But something as huge as a Minigun (called a "Rotary Cannon" bizarrely) does only 1d10 damage - a DnD 5e Greatsword does 2d6 for crying out loud!
    There are some vehicle rules, thank goodness since I don't think the 5e rules have anything.  Again prices are all over the place.  Military vehicles like tanks and APCs are listed alongside passenger cars with no reference as to who should be able to own what.  That is something the GM should be watching over, but they could at least acknowledge it.

NPCs and Adventures

    The last section of the book has the "monsters" and two sample adventures.  The adventures are a little weird since they are designed for level 4 and 14 characters, nothing for a basic starting character.  I can't comment on these sections because I haven't looked at them.  I'm not the GM, so I'll wait until our next adventure is over (I'm not really planning on playing this character past one more).  I do like that they included some sample characters, which are 4 and 14 to go with the adventures.  Down the road when I've had a chance to go over these I'll post on them.


Final Impressions
    This is an okay system.  There is a lack of modern/ SF material for DnD 5e, at least that I've seen, so I guess something mediocre is better than nothing.  I really don't think the book was well-written or designed.  I'm surprised that I liked the character I made so much, and our first adventure was okay, but I have no desire to play this system in the long term.  Would I recommend it?  No.  Get Shadowrun or Star Frontiers, Cyberpunk 2020, Rifts, Gamma World, Mechwarrior, Alternity - almost anything else has a more developed and focused system.

Pathfinder 2e - Character creation - Return of Devi Stoneson

    Back when the second edition playtest came out I made a Dwarf Fighter as a sample character (part 1 and part 2).  So now that the official second edition is out, let's make him again, and walk through all the choices you have at character creation.

Ancestry

    So we have a few choices in the Core Rulebook-

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Gnome
• Goblin
• Halfling
• Human (which includes options for Half-Elf and Half-Orc).

Since I'm re-creating the same character I'm sticking with Dwarf.

Dwarf comes with a few stats-

• Hit Points: 10
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 20'
• Ability Boosts: Con, Wis, free
• Ability Flaw: Cha
• Languages: Common, Dwarven + Int (which I'll revisit when I've got my final Int mod)
• Traits: Dwarf, Humanoid (duh)
• Darkvision - can see in darkness and dim light as well as bright, but in black & white

Now the choices.  First off, Dwarves have 5 heritages-

• Ancient-Blooded: gives you an ability to resist magic
• Death Warden: increases saves against necromancy
• Forge: fire resistance
• Rock: bonus to resist being moved
• Strong-Blooded: poison resistance

    I'm not writing the one sentence bit of flavor, it's not enough to be worth paying attention to.  I took a poison resistance feat with him last time, so I noticed Strong-Blooded.  But my loose concept for him is really more of a Fighter/Cleric, so I like the idea of Death Warden, maybe he guarded his clan's ancestral tombs and knows all about the old heroes and gods.  Yeah, I like that.

 Last is the Ancestry feat, you get one at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th levels.  Let's see what we've got to choose from-

• Dwarven Lore - you're Trained in Crafting and Religion (can swap if gain one of them from another source) and Dwarven Lore
• Dwarven Weapon Familiarity - considered trained in some weapons, no bonus beyond what your class gives
• Rock Runner - can move better across difficult stone and earth
• Stonecunning - bonus to skills with stone and finding stone secret doors
• Unburdened Iron - ignore some speed penalties
• Vengeful Hatred - a small damage bonus against some enemies

    Okay, first some hot takes on the abilities, most of them suck.  These are first level feats, so you don't expect them to be too powerful, but that's balanced against the fact that you only ever get 5 of them.  The Unburdened Iron seems super-useless.  Sure you get that one extra square of movement in heavy armor, but just how often is that really going to make a big difference?  As a Fighter (which I'm planning on) the Dwarven Weapon Familiarity is pretty useless, unless one of those exotic Dwarf weapons is clearly superior to all others (which I doubt, thought I haven't looked yet... okay, I looked there's 1 simple weapon and 1 martial weapon and they're decent but nothing that superior to all the other weapons).  I will concede that for non-Fighters it might be kind of worthwhile, but I can't see it being by a lot.  Stonecunning is not bad, secret things are usually worth finding.  Rock Runner is pretty specialized, not sure how often it's going to come into play.  Vengeful Hatred is extra damage, which is never a bad thing, but 1 point is not a big difference, especially with the HP bloat at higher levels.
    This one is easy, I'm taking Dwarven Lore.  Maybe not the greatest feat, but two skills that fit my concept (and whatever the hell Dwarven Lore is good for?).
    And that finishes up the Ancestry, moving on to...

Background

    I wanted to walk through all the available options and take a quick look at each with this post, but Backgrounds pose a bit of a problem.  There are a lot of them, 35 to be exact.  However, they are all very brief.  The total Background section takes up 5 pages, with pictures on 3 of those pages.  So since the book doesn't devote much space to them, I'm not either - I'm just going to list them by title below:

• Acolyte
• Acrobat
• Animal Whisperer
• Artisan
• Artist
• Barkeep
• Barrister
• Bounty Hunter
• Charlatan
• Criminal
• Detective
• Emissary
• Entertainer
• Farmhand
• Field Medic
• Fortune Teller
• Gambler
• Gladiator
• Guard
• Herbalist
• Hermit
• Hunter
• Laborer
• Martial Disciple
• Merchant
• Miner
• Noble
• Nomad
• Prisoner
• Sailor
• Scholar
• Scout
• Street Urchin
• Tinker
• Warrior

    Whew, what a list.
    Last time I made Devi I took the Warrior background.  And I thought it was very strange that I got the Quick Repair skill feat but didn't get the Crafting skill it depends on.  I'm happy that they fixed that from the playtest.  Now Warriors get the Intimidation skill and the related Intimidating Glare skill feat.
    This time though, I think I'm going for the Scholar Background.  I'm seeing this character as a special guard, that he was kind of sequestered away from other Dwarves, kind of like a scholar.  I'm thinking that maybe something was stolen, an artifact or even a body, and he's left to reclaim it.  So he would have studied the history of all the items/relics and people that he was guarding.  This background also gives him the Occultism skill, which I think could be a cool hint as to the thieves.  He also gets the Assurance skill feat w-Occult, which let's him "take 10" on a roll - yup, no longer are take 10/20 parts of the core game, now they are specific feats (well, 10, not sure if there is a take 20 feat, haven't read them all yet.) and the Academia Lore skill, which is so vague I'm going to interpret it as a list he has of notable scholars and educational institutions to help him find the thieves.
    He also gets a boost to Int or Wis and a free boost.  I'll tally those up at the end.

Class

    The big one now, Class.  There are 12 in the Core Rulebook-

• Alchemist
• Barbarian
• Bard
• Champion
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Sorcerer
• Wizard

    I'm not going to describe them all, they're the same ones from first edition with the addition of the Alchemist.  The "Champion" is the new name for the old Paladin.  I like that idea, it is long overdue to broaden the concept of the Paladin from the "generic good guy" into something more nuanced.  Sadly they didn't quite go all the way with that concept (as I'm noticing a lot in these rules).

 I was a Fighter last time and I'm sticking with that again.  So he gets a few things from the class...

• Key Ability: Strength or Dexterity.  I see him as being a Str fighter, and he gets a boost in that.
• Hit Points: 10 + Con mod
• Perception:  expert
• Saving Throws: expert in Fort and Ref, trained Will
• Skills: trained in choice of Acrobatics or Athletics, and trained in choice of 3 + Int mod
• Attacks: expert in simple, martial and unarmed
• Defenses: trained in all armor and unarmored

    And these are the Class Features-

• I'm going to write this one out verbatim from the book, "Ancestry and Background- In addition to the abilities provided by your class at 1st level, you have the benefits of your selected ancestry and background, as described in chapter 2."  What the hell is this?  Pages 21-30 have all the character creation steps and even a sample character (we're on page 142).  This is such a common thing in 2e, repeating information like you're a stupid 5 year old who can't figure anything out on your own.  I am super-sick of it, and it's killing any desire to go on reading this let alone actually run it.  Paizo, if you want to write books for children, then don't sell them for $60.  The next "class feature" is Initial Proficiencies, which is all the stuff I already mentioned above, which was in a clearly marked sidebar, and again you must be pretty damn stupid to not get that.  This crap makes me want to puke.
• Attack of Opportunity - like the 1e ability everybody had, in 2e only Fighters can attack on someone else's turn.  I'm actually okay with that, it makes Fighters a little more dangerous and special, and tracking AoOs for everybody was a fair amount of work.
• Shield Block - this is a bonus feat Fighters get.  Now, I totally hate how 2e treats shields.  Combat in Pathfinder is actually quite abstract, hit points represent luck and exertion as well as physical damage, and armor class represents the ability to dodge as well as to absorb blows.  This is the legacy that was inherited from Dungeons and Dragons.  Which is why it's always baffled me why Pathfinder 1e was so precisely simulation-ist with things like DR (which was never used with Armor by default, the one place it would make the most sense if you want to model reality) and the combat grid.  Weirdly 2e has decided to double-down on that in some ways, shields being most notable.  In 1e shields we're abstracted as a bonus to your armor class (ie, odds of not getting hurt) and that was it, you just had to remember a few times when you didn't get your shield bonus.  2e decided that was too simple, now you have to take one of your 3 actions each turn to "Raise a Shield" in order to get that AC bonus, and then you can use the Shield Block feat to spend your Reaction (ability to act on someone else's turn, you only get one each turn, period) and use your shield as DR, but both you and the shield take any damage above it's hardness and so you now also have to track your shield's HP to check for when it breaks.  Oh yeah, and since the Shield Block takes your reaction, you can't both block and use your Attack of Opportunity.  Now, this does give you another layer of defense with a shield, which is not a bad thing, but it also adds the bookkeeping of taking the action every turn just to get the bonus, guessing if you should use your AOO or block or any other reactions each turn, and it just feels super stupid that you can forget to use your shield, or watch shield after shield break while your sword never does (nothing I'm aware of yet specifically damages weapons).

   Anyways, those are the class features, so all that's left is picking our level 1 Class feat-

• Double Slice - 2 acts - when dual-wielding you can attack twice without increasing the multiple attack penalty (on these two, normally on a 3rd) and combine the damage into one attack
• Exacting Strike - 1 act, Press; this is one of the times when the keywords actually matter, "Press" means you can only use this when you have a multiple attack penalty, so this has to be your 2nd attack - if this attack misses it doesn't increase the multiple attack penalty for your 3rd attack
• Point-Blank Shot - "Open" this has to be the first thing you do in a turn, "Stance" it takes an action to start this, and it continues until you cannot maintain it or choose to end it, 1 act (so is that the action you have to take to enter the stance or is it an extra action you have to take before the shot?) - has 2 effects; (1)with a "ranged volley weapon" (the longbow, only) you "ignore the attack roll penalty from the volley trait."  Okay, so in 2e longbows apparently have -2 a penalty to hit anything within 30' (don't ask me why), with this ability you can ignore that.  (2)with a non-volley ranged weapon you get +2 damage within the first range increment (which is 60' for the shortbow)
• Power Attack - "Flourish" you cannot take a second action with flourish in the same turn, 2 acts -  take the multiple attack penalty but do an extra die of damage, with another die at levels 10 and 18
• Reactive Shield - React when hit w-shield - auto Raise A Shield and gain the AC bonus on this attack and for rest of turn
• Snagging Strike - have one hand free, 1 act - make a Strike, if hit target is flat-footed (-2 AC) until your next turn or it moves out of reach
• Sudden Charge - Open, Flourish, 1 act - Stride (move up to your speed) twice and make a melee attack

    I am thinking about multi-classing this character with Cleric, but you have to be at least 2nd level to do that.  So something for the future.
    Everything I hate about 2nd edition is right in the Point-Blank Shot ability.  In 1st edition PBS was easy, you get +2 damage within 30' with a ranged weapon.  Simple.  Useful (to a degree, not accounting for HP bloat).  So did they keep it the same (ain't broke don't fix it principle) or did they improve it in 2nd?  No.  Instead we make it a hell of a lot more complicated and clutter it with weird pseudo-realism in our non-realistic high fantasy game.  The text defining the "Stance" trait says you need to take an action to activate the stance, but the ability itself says it takes an action to use - so did they duplicate the same action out of stupidity, or does it take one action to start and then another action for each shot, and is that action in place of the shot or in addition to it?  This does not have to be confusing - in point of fact it wasn't confusing before, instead 2e took something that worked and screwed it up.  And why the hell can't longbows shoot accurately within 30'?  I have shot a kid's bow in my younger days, so I'm not a professional archer, but from what I've done and people I've watched it seems that shooting closer things is easier since you don't have to account for gravity as much as with a far away target.  And why are we trying to inject some kind of realism with bow usage into a game with fireball-throwing elves?  This ain't Riddle of Steel Paizo!
    Otherwise, Double Slice seems to be okay, make two attacks but without the penalty, allright.  Exacting Strike seems stupid, it's a re-named version of the same ability I gave the original character, all it does is let you miss better.  Wow, that makes me feel special.  Power Attack is actually okay, it's like the original - a penalty to hit for extra damage - and it even levels up a little with you to stay relevant.  I'm good with that one, wish more abilities were like it.  Reactive Shield is stupid because everything we do with shields in the game is stupid.  Snagging Strike is also good, it's a simple ability that makes it easier for your friends to hit somebody, and party cooperation is a good thing.  Sudden Charge is also alright, kind of hate that you need a special ability to do it, I'd imagine I could run up to somebody and hit them with a stick, but it's not terrible.
    Since I hate the new shield rules so much, I'm thinking of making him a two-handed weapon fighter, so I'm going to take Power Attack.

Ability Scores

    According to the character creation checklist I'm now at Step 6- Determine Ability Scores.  So let's recap the ability scores so far:

Ancestry:  +2 Con, +2 Wis, free, -2 Cha
Background:  +2 Int or Wis, free
Class:  +2 Str

    I first need to decide on those "free" boosts, each is a +2 but cannot be applied twice.  Even though Dwarves are antisocial (Cha penalty) and he's lived apart from other Dwarves as a guard, I'm thinking I want him to be decent at talking to people (he likes to share the epic tales of old), so I'm putting the Ancestry free boost into Cha to offset that penalty.  I want him to Cleric later, so the Background boost is going into Wis and the free is going to Con because he's lived a spartan life of hardship as a tomb guard.  That leaves me with:

Str  12 (+1)
Dex  10 (0)
Con 14 (+2)
Int 10 (0)
Wis 12 (+1)
Cha 10 (0)

    Finally everybody gets 4 free boosts, like the others they cannot be applied to a score twice.  I'm going for Str, Con, Wis, Cha for my final attributes as:

Str  14 (+2)
Dex  10 (0)
Con  16 (+3)
Int  10 (0)
Wis  14 (+2)
Cha  12 (+1)

Odds and Ends

    Just some final numbers and things to figure out.

• Hit Points - 10 Dwarf + 10 Fighter + 3 Con = 23
• Bonus Languages - 0 Int mod means none (too bad, I'd like the flavor of him knowing an ancient language or something)
• Skills - From my Dwarven Lore Ancestry feat I get: Crafting (Recall Knowledge, Repair, trained: Craft, Earn Income, Identify Alchemy), Religion (Recall Knowledge, trained: Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn A Spell) which I think would cover his own and enemy pantheons and Dwarven Lore (Recall Knowledge and trained: Earn Income).  Scholar gives him Occultism (Recall Knowledge, Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn A Spell - only the first untrained) and Academia Lore (Recall Knowledge and trained: Earn Income).  From Fighter I get, Acrobatics or Athletics.  Athletics is the Str one, so he can Climb, Force Open, Grapple, High Jump, Long Jump, Shove, Swim, Trip and Disarm (only the last needing to be skilled).  And he gets 3 + 0 Int bonus skills.  I'm going to take Diplomacy (Gather Information, Make an Impression, Request -no trained only actions), so I can ask people if they've seen the stolen McGuffin.  Arcana (Recall Knowledge, trained: Borrow an Arcane Spell, Decipher Writing, Identify Magic, Learn a Spell) since knowing about magic might be helpful?  Lastly Medicine (Administer first Aid, Recall Knowledge, trained: Treat Disease, Treat poison, Treat Wounds).

    I have to say that having actions anyone can do and actions only trained people can do makes sense to me, it's pretty much the definition of a skill as opposed to an attribute.  But you'd think that every skill would have trained-only actions then.  Stealth, Intimidation and Diplomacy don't.  Yet Diplomacy's actions are all personal - Gather Information, Make an Impression, Request.  Why not have Mediate (get two opposing groups to agree, which justifiably takes advanced knowledge of talking to people) or Whisper Campaign (to raise or lower the reputation of a group or person) as trained skills?

Equipment

    This is the last big step, once I get my gear I can fill out a character sheet and be good to go.  Of course I have to find a character sheet since I'm not using the backside-ugly one in the book.  One problem at a time.
    All characters get 150 SP (or 15 GP) to start, and I'm going to buy the following:

• Scale Mail - 40sp, +3 AC, Dex Cap +2, no armor check penalty due to Str, no move penalty due to Str, Bulk 2 (3 carried), composite material
• Greataxe - 20sp, 1d12 S dmg, 2 Bulk, 2 Hands, Axe group, Sweep (+1 cir attack against a different enemy)
• Hatchet - 4sp, 1d6 S dmg, 0.1 Bulk, 1 Hand, Axe group, Agile (multi attack penalty -4/-8), Sweep, Thrown 10'
• Adventurer's Pack - 7sp, 2 Bulk, contains: backpack, bedroll, 2 belt pouches, 10 pieces of chalk, flint and steel, 50 feet of rope, 2 weeks rations, soap, 5 torches, waterskin
• Manacles, simple - 30sp, 3 DC 22 thievery checks to pick, 0 Bulk
• Religious Text - 10sp
• Repair Kit - 20sp, 1 Bulk

Spent - 131sp
Money: 19sp,  Bulk: 7.1, carry 7.9 w/o penalty, max 12 lift/carry

Final Thoughts

    My character's finished.  It was a lot harder process than I expected.  It is a new game, and with every new game comes the adjustment period until you get the hang of the system.  But there were also moments of screaming at the book and harassing my friends asking them to explain some baffling choices to me (which was unfair as I don't think even the designers know what they were doing).  I'm not excited to play this game, not looking forward to seeing what my character can do.  It's way too simple and way too complicated at the same time - which I'll grant is an impressive feat.
    I managed to find a fillable pdf, not from Paizo of course but at: https://queuetimes.com/fillable-character-sheet-for-pathfinder-2e/.  Big thanks to them for working it up!
    You can download Devi from my Google Drive here.

Pathfinder 2e - First Read-through

    So I broke down and got the new Pathfinder 2nd Edition Core Rulebook and the Monster Manual.  About $100 worth of books, though I was lucky and got a sale, on top of all the books my friends and me have purchased for the 1st Edition.  I have not yet had a chance to run it, but I want to do a few articles with my first impressions, and some character creation.

My Background With the Series

    I came to Pathfinder a little late, a few years after it came out.  I co-ran a rotating GM campaign that went from levels 1 to 12, played the Rise of the Runelords campaign all the way through (to level 18), and ran a lot of 1-shot adventures.  So I have a good amount of experience with the 1st Edition, and we have a communal pile of books that include every hardback that Paizo published, and the Ultimate Psionics because that book totally rocks.
    As for what I think about Pathfinder, I don't like it as much as I used to.  I initially liked it a lot, I thought it did a good job of building on the old Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.  And at first it was neat to see the new options in each book, but soon it started to become a lot to keep track of.  One of the turning points was when talking to a friend and one of us made the comment that, "it's more fun to make a character than to play a character."  With so many options, such intricate feat chains, it takes a lot of effort to plan out your character to be effective or take advantage of a particular mechanic - which makes actually playing them a bit of a letdown.  Worse, the proliferation of options means that the quality of those options varies wildly.  Some feats are so specific that you wonder if you'd ever use them - and others seem like things anybody should be able to do, or should be covered by a skill or part of another feat.  Which means you have to wade through a ton of options and throw out lots of them to try and find the little gold nuggets.
    Still, while it is not my favorite system (none is at the moment, I like DnD 5th overall but it has some serious problems in my opinion) I have run games for it recently, and keep up on what's happening.  When I heard about the playtest I was optimistic.  I would love a simpler, more streamlined Pathfinder.  I got the Playtest Pdf and I was not impressed.  Like with DnD 5e I think it's a great idea to have fewer abilities to keep track of (and plan for), but I also think that if you're going to have fewer abilities then they need to be broader and more generally useful so you don't feel like you're wasting anything.  Which neither DnD or the Playtest seem to agree with.  So I didn't follow all the twists and turns of the Playtest, and didn't run out to buy the new 2e book.  Still, I couldn't resist (I'm weak-willed, I'll admit it), and thus we are where we are.

What I Don't Like After Reading Over The 2e Core Rulebook

    In no particular order...

1) The layout is weird to me

    The 2e book is about the same size as the 1e book, 623 to 568 counting to just before the character sheets and index/glossary.  Now, the page count only matters to me because I'm paying for it - the bigger the book the more it costs.  So I really don't want to pay for anything useless.  Let's look at the new (left) and old (right) pages of class abilities side-by-side (and I apologize for my phone camera pics, I couldn't find a Pdf to screenshot so had to do it by hand)...

    Okay, so having the name of the ability larger is a good thing, but the space under the name for the keywords (which I'll rant about next) has a lot of wasted whitespace.  Here's another sample page, from the Fighter's class feats...

     Having artwork scattered throughout the book gives your eyes a break from all the text, but it also takes up space that could be used by the text.  The art doesn't tell you anything about the game or how to play it, so it is low-value to me as a GM.  Likewise the sidebar on every right-hand page listing the major chapters of the book is kind of useful, but it also takes up space.  This book is about $60, which is $10 more than the last book, but with the layout I feel like I've paid more for less game.

2) I am not a computer

    I mentioned the keywords above, they are on everything.  Every ancestry (race) and feat has them, take a look at some fighter feats...

    I really, really hate this.  This is computer-speak.  I, as a sentient being, know that if I am reading the list of Fighter Feats, then all of these feats belong to fighters.  I don't need you repeating it EVERY TIME.  The example above at least has some other keywords, the Concentrate, Stance and Flourish keywords do at least refer to specific rules.  It's kind of annoying to have to flip back to the page that defines those rules, but eventually they'll get memorized so that's not a big deal.
    What pisses me off is insulting my intelligence by telling me that Halflings have the keywords of "Halfling and Humanoid."  No s**t Sherlock.  It says Halfling on the box, and a Humanoid is anything human-shaped.  Maybe you might have to define humanoid in the glossary, but it is not hard to figure out.  If you want to write computer rules for your game, put them in a separate document.  One of the things I love about RPGs is the human element, so computer-speak is not welcome at all, in the slightest.  Again, I'm paying for each page, so me paying you to insult me is not cool bro.

3) People have said the book contains "everything you need to play" and that is incorrect

    NO MONSTER RULES, AT ALL.  So the 1e Core Rulebook didn't have any monster creation rules either, but it did at least have 7 pages on creating NPCs.  Not much, and I'm not saying it's praise-worthy, but at least it had something.  With this book I can only make monsters as PCs, which is more work than I want to do and I'm not sure how well it would balance in the long run.  In 2e, no monsters for you, go buy the $50 book with them (Spoiler Warning- there are no monster creation rules in there either, maybe those will be in the next $80 book).  Come on people, this is a basic thing you need to run a game.  If you're going to make one super-huge and expensive book then at least make it complete.
    I have a suggestion for where those monster rules could go - in the 25 pages of useless background.  Oh yeah, who cares about stupid rules for building monsters, what you really need is a broad and so-vague-it's-worthless setting.  Here is an image for the "Inner Sea" region, note the desert area called "Golden Road" in the middle-ish...

    Now here is the entry for the "Golden Road" country/region...

      This description is crammed into the bottom-half of the page (who needs more text or a close-up map when you can stare at the lovely picture of camels?) and is full of names that mean nothing and hints at story that boil down to "like Egypt and the Silk Road."  The little setting material here is not enough to do anything meaningful with - and totally zero value to me since I'm not paying another $100 for stuff I can write on my own (or with my players).  Even for those who do want a setting, this is not enough to start writing campaigns.

4) The art is different, but not in a good way

    This is a pretty small complaint, but I'm talking about all of my first impressions here so I'm including it.  Look at this...

     I know my phone picture is bad, but this has a kind of cartoon-y feel that is at odds with the more realistic style in the last book and elsewhere in this book.  Just a random, minor complaint.  Back to more pressing issues...

5) Who the hell designed that character sheet, and why haven't they been publicly beaten with a stick?

    This is the sample character sheet in the back of the book...

     (to mis-quote Crow T Robot) I'm a color-blind robot and even I know you don't use Burnt Umber as a background color!
   

6) I was really hoping for a lot more innovation, I'm not sure who this game is written for

    Here's a page out of the combat section...

    There's the good old grid.  Hope you don't like that artsy story-game "theater of the mind" crap.  Okay, so some out there are saying/ thinking, "well, the first edition only had a grid" and they are right.  So who is this game for?  Is it only for the people who liked the first edition? (and in that case, why would they re-spend all their money for this instead of playing the game they already like?)  Why can't it also accommodate new players and styles of play?
    Here's an easy example.  In 2e, just as in 1e, all living creatures move in exactly 5-foot increments.  And if you like that, great.  But what about this extra rule...

Gridless Combat (optional rule)
    If you don't use a grid, then divide all speeds by 5, so the standard 30' movement become a "Speed 6" value.
    When using skills, if multiple characters are racing each adds their Speed value to their Acrobatics roll.
    In combat, you can spend 1 action to move towards or away from a foe that is near you (GMs call), or 2 actions to close to melee if the foe is far away (again, ask your GM about this).  With or in place of that, you can spend one action and divide your Speed value as you see fit as a bonuses to either your AC, Attack roll or Damage roll (representing your moving for an advantageous position during the turn).

    There, simple, takes as much space as one picture and gives some options to those people who don't like playing on a grid.  So why can't Pazio do that?  Why isn't this edition trying to reach a broader audience and be better than the last?
    The funny thing about reading this rulebook is that I don't see why I would recommend this to someone who either hates or likes the first edition.  If you hate the crunch, this is still pretty crunchy and is likely not going to add anything new that your current game doesn't do.  If you liked the crunch then this is likely going to be too simple, and a lot of the new stuff you could house-rule yourself into your current game (take out the stupid rule to change all of an anchetype's abilities or none, instead pick and choose from the same level or lower - and bam, you're got almost all the extra flexibility in character creation; then simplify everything down to 1, 2 or 3 actions, maybe drop or consolidate any skills you don't like - there you have it) (ie, use the stuff in Pathfinder Unchained and some elbow grease).

7) If you're going to say that Encounters, Exploration and Downtime are the 3 major pillars of play then you should organize your rulebook around them

    This one really drives me nuts.  So the rules divide the game into those 3 phases above.  Which means the game is supposed to flow between them.  So you would think the rules would be laid out around them.  Nope.  Let's look at one phase, Downtime.  Now, the "official" Downtime section - the one with the chapter title of "Downtime Mode," is on page 481.  And just page 481, that's it.  not much to go on.  Well, those are not all the Downtime rules though.  Page 294 has the table with the Costs of Living.  Pages 236-237 have the "Earn Income" skill action and the table for how much you earn based on how well you roll.  Page 240 has the "Subsist" skill action.  Pages 244-245 have Crafting (pages 577-579 have the rules for normal and special materials).  Pages 500-502 have some more downtime rules in general.  And finally page 248 has "Treat Disease" and page 251 has "Create Forgery" and I don't know how many pages have downtime-related feats.  So that's at least 9 non-contiguous blocks of rules for what is supposed to be 1/3rd of the game.
     Who wrote this?  Who proof-read it and thought it was good?  You create a system to help guide the game, for both players and GMs, from the large background stuff to the moment-by-moment stuff and back, and you decide to cut it up and scatter it across your book instead of committing to it and build on it?  Why create it in the first place?  Again, not a computer, I know that crafting a sword and swinging a sword are two different time-frames, I don't need you to call them "Downtime" and "Encounter" - don't make up these divisions unless you want to actually use them.

What I Like After Reading Over The 2e Core Rulebook

    Okay, so the whole thing isn't bad, there is stuff I like (again, in the order it came to me)...
   

1) You Build Your Attributes Over Your Background

    Rolling for attributes is no longer the default method.  Instead all attributes start at 10.  When you pick your Ancestry (used to be called Race, I'm okay with that change too) you get a +2 bonus to 2 attributes, usually a -2 to one, and then one +2 that can't go in your boosts, but can go anywhere else.  So from your culture and your free time you built up some of your abilities.  Then you pick a Background and it gives you one boost chosen from two skills, and one more boost that can't go to the one you picked.  Again, your first job gave you some abilities.  Your Class has a key ability score that gets a boost.  And finally you have 4 more boosts, they just have to be applied to 4 different attributes.
    I really like this because your character's attributes now align with their history.  If your Wizard has an 18 Strength then it's because you've been sinking every free boost (and your character his/her free time) into developing Strength.  No more all-18s from the dice gods or rolling set after set after set trying to get the scores you want.  Love this, it will be mandatory in all games of 2e I GM.

2) Multiclassing is closer to my ideal

    I have always loved multiclass characters, but I've always hated the systems.  If I want to play a Fighter/Wizard hybrid it's because I want some of both classes - like the Fighter's Melee abilities and the Wizard's spells that enhance melee.  I don't care about Charm Person or Teleport, I'm a fighter who uses magic to be a better fighter.  But in 1e (and other systems) you have to take a whole level, getting all that Wizard stuff I don't want and diluting the character instead of enhancing it.
    Now, sadly the 2e system is not exactly at that ideal (actually I should have put some of it in the stuff I don't like, but I don't fell like editing this even more - I'll address it in another post), but it is a lot closer.  You can choose individual (mostly) abilities and combine them with fewer wasted options.

3) Things have been simplified

    Bulk is a good thing to import from Starfinder.  The 3 action system is pretty good (with some exceptions, "Raise A Shield" is a f***ing joke).  I like the Arcane, Divine, Occult, Primal divide of spells and some abilities (again, some issues with it).  Choosing an ability each level instead of a fixed class and interminable anchetypes is a good change (though as I said above, you could house rule it into 1e).

Mostly Though, It's A Mix

    From what I've read I've got a few "damn"s and a few "cool"s and a lot of "meh"s.  I don't think it's a bad game, I don't think it's a good game.  I think it's a confused game, that doesn't know who it wants to appeal to or what it wants to be good at.  I think some work and house rules could make it a lot better, I'm not sure if I would want to do that work though.  Going to keep reading it, not sure if I want to run it.


    So those are my first impressions, and I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff.  So I'm going to be making some characters and looking at the rules in more detail in the future.  Let me know in the comments if you've read or run it and what you think.

Skirmish Combat part 1 - above "party" below "mass"

    Overall I've been enjoying running the "Adventures in Middle-Earth" RPG that brings Tolkeen's works to DnD 5e.  I've even been using the published campaign "Wilderland Adventures" and I don't normally like published adventures.  Sadly, the good times have come to an end - I really, really hate the last 2 adventures, and how I want to re-write the ending for my party does not work well with 5th Edition.  Why?  Because my story ends with a big set-piece battle, the party defending a town from a band of orcs/etc.
     Dungeons & Dragons has always been written and balanced around party combat.  Most RPGs are.  But that level of detail quickly breaks down when you double or triple the number of combatants.  The scenario I want is not a full-blown army vs army encounter.  DnD doesn't have any native "mass combat" rules anyways, but lots of people (and I believe an Unearthed Arcana article) have tried making some.  No, I'm looking for something like a few dozen NPCs backing up the PCs as they fight against a few dozen bad guys and a few stand-out bad guy NPCs.  Which I haven't seen anything for.
      So I need to make my own rules.  In fact, I have, and I just had a chance to playtest them a little recently.  So if you are like me and want to do a set-piece battle that isn't quite army vs army, hopefully this will help you too.  I'm going to start by outlining the system in general, the next post will fill in the mechanical details.

How Should This Feel Different From Normal Combat?

    Let's be honest, most RPG combat turns into miss, miss, miss, I hit it with my axe, miss, miss, miss, I hit it with my axe.  Boring.  You're waiting on the other players' turns, waiting on the monsters' turns, and then a brief moment in the sun when you actually get to do something, followed by frustration if you miss or back to the waiting cycle.  This Skirmish Combat system is designed for more active, grander combats.  For when a lot is on the line, the fate of a city, stopping an invasion before it can start (or starting one).  For when the players are leading dozens of allies into battle.  And this style of combat is meant to be more engaging, to keep the players interested in the combat itself - not just the loot drop after or getting past an obstacle.
   
   

Highlighting The Logistical Layer Of Combat

    I once heard logistics defined as "having the right thing at the right place at the right time."  This dynamic nature, different things that need to be in different places at different times, is what makes larger combats engaging.  Archers are strong at range, but weak in melee - so you need to get your melee troops to the enemy's archers, or keep the enemy melee troops away from your archers.  This exists even in party-scaled combat, like the MMO trinity of Tank, DPS and Healer, and it exists in RPGs like DnD.  I think the big problem with RPG combat though is the level of detail and game design that goes into creating individual abilities, which steals the focus from how those individual abilities can chain together and work in coordination.  One of the big things I want this Skirmish level to do is strip away some of the detail on the individual and put more emphasis on how individuals interact and can support each other.  In party combat you can usually survive with each person acting on their own, but in group combat (like this Skirmish or full Mass combat rules) all the individuals have to work together or else they will be defeated (called a "defeat in detail," when a large force is beaten one piece at a time, usually because that force did not stay together).
    There is something to look out for however, and that's the fact that not all role-players are also war-gamers.  Skirmish combat needs to be simple enough that its principles are easy to understand by those who are casually picking it up, and also needs to look as much like regular RPG party combat as possible so the player doesn't have to memorize a ton of extra rules.  That's going to be a tricky balance to maintain.

Player-Focused

    Another thing about this system, I'm using this for when the players are the ones leading the battle.  This is designed for the players to be heavily involved and invested in the turn-by-turn flow of the fight.  That means they have to be leaders, have to be driving the combat.  If the PCs are just in the fight but not driving it, then you don't need rules for all the battle stuff going on, just narrate it in the background, like you would a storm or fire behind the PCs while they struggled with another goal.
    Because of this, every unit in the Skirmish system is generally made up of 2 parts: the Captain and the Supports.  Captains are characters, PCs or NPCs, while Supports are abbreviated/streamlined groups of lower-level/lesser background characters.
   
   

Turning Characters Into Captains

    By and large PCs work the same way as Captains as they do in regular party-level combat.  They have the same hit points, and use their usual attacks.  Defense is a bit different.  When dealing with 12 vs 12 combats, there is no such thing as nobody getting hit.  While a few attackers may miss, others will hit, enough so that on average some amount of damage is always dealt.  Seeings how damage is already being randomized by rolling dice, that will represent how many hit out of the group.  So Armor Class needs to be re-worked.  What we do is convert it to Damage Reduction.  A Captain's DR is just a lowered form of their AC.  Any Energy Resistance works normally.
    Another big change is that Captains get a Resolve Modifier.  Since there are groups of people all working together in the fight, we need to measure how well the unit is acting as a whole.  In real life many battles have been won, or turned decisively, when a group dissolved into individuals and lost their will to fight.  I didn't want to call this Morale like in other versions of DnD or other games, I'm using this in my own way after all, so I call it "Resolve."  A unit's Resolve DC is the number a Captain has to roll to keep the unit together and following orders.  We don't use it a lot, if a unit charges a superior force in what looks like a suicidal maneuver there is no Resolve check as long as they have a Captain.  After all, combat is dangerous and so the Supports know they might be killed.  That's just to cut down on the amount of dice-rolling; I want the players spending more time thinking about and analyzing the battlefield than juggling dice.  Also, it means that breaking an enemy unit's resolve is something the players have to plan for, and they don't have to worry about their own soldiers running away at random.  Captains don't check Resolve for themselves, under the principle that the GM/system should not force a player's actions or take away their agency.  Likewise NPC Captains are under the GM's control (and the GM is always free to throw an even/odd die if they want to leave it in the hands of fate).
    Lastly, Captains can also have special abilities.  I'm not sure about exactly how to so this one.  Normally I'd say that a Captain Ability would be for characters who took the Leadership feat or such.  But that isn't as big of a thing in DnD 5e, and I don't want to limit non-fighter-centric characters from being able to contribute.  So I'm tempted to make a list of 5 or so abilities for each class, and then let every character pick one every 4-5 levels from their classes.  Speaking of abilities, since this is group combat a character's abilities need to be re-examined.  In order to effect the combat as a whole a character needs to use an ability that effects multiple people and lasts for minutes or more.  So some class abilities may not have a noticeable effect.  And spells have to be re-examined as well, which I'll talk about later.  I haven't sat down yet to pour over the books and figure out which class abilities should do what.
    Oh yeah, Captains can also lead more than one support depending on their level.

Cannon Fodder... er... I mean... Supports

    Now the real meat of the system, the Supports, the people (and maybe animals) that are following our heroic players into battle.  We can't track each supporting individual, well, individually, since that would be tons of extra bookkeeping.  But we can turn them into a special kind of character.  Now, I don't really like the mass combat systems out there that just reduce every army unit to a character.  That seems to be over-simplifying things.  But in this case, I think it can work with one change to how characters work.  In party combat each character is perfectly and fully capable in combat until they totally drop out of combat at 0 HP.  So I think if we make a Support like a character, compacting several individuals into one set of numbers, but - with Supports as they lose members they also loose effectiveness.  Supports have 3 tiers: Coherent is around full HP.  Shaken starts at about 66% HP.  And Faltering is from 33% HP to 1.  Of course 0 HP means the unit has been totally Destroyed.  For each tier the Support's attack damage gets lower, the Resolve DC gets higher, and units that depend on each other for defense (like a phalanx) lose defense as well.
    Most Supports also have a special ability, which is the main function of that unit.  So Calvary can Charge, Archers might have a Barrage, stuff like that.  Speaking of which, Supports have a class, like players, so Infantry, Calvary, Artillery.  And they have a level, since they need to scale with the players in order to stay relevant.
    Supports do just that, they Support the Captain and each other.  So each Support has a damage rating (for both melee and ranged) that gets added to the Captain's regular damage.  This creates one damage total for all the units.  However, Supports can act without a Captain, they just will do their own damage and have a flat d20 roll for their Resolve, so they will not be as effective as a Captain/Support combo, and they will be more likely to fail Resolve checks.

The Flow Of Combat

    Speaking of damage, let's go over the combat turn in general.  In party combat each round is 6 seconds long.  For Skirmish combat, each round is 1 minute.  Party combat also measures everything in feet, while Skirmish uses "zones."  A zone is a general area that's big enough for several units, say about 9 units of any number of Supports each.  Just because two units are in the same zone does not mean they are engaged in melee combat (zones are big).  By default personal ranged weapons can reach to an adjacent zone, while artillery usually reaches 3-4 zones.  A Support's movement speed is how many zones it can cover in one turn.
    The first thing is to set the battlefield.  The GM needs to know what enemies are involved and where the battle will take place.  The players need to know what Supports are available to them, and decide on who is commanding what.  Also the players need to pick a starting position for their forces, from wherever the GM allows.
    Because the goal is to get the players more involved in combat, initiative is handled differently.  The players always go first.  Whenever a player interacts with an NPC unit they both roll damage (even if one side totally destroys the other, there will still be some blows from both sides - in 12 v 12 combat the odds of "instant death" are pretty slim).  Once a player has finished commanding all their units, that player then chooses the next player to act.  Again, this is to try and reinforce teamwork between the players.  Once all the players have gone, if there are any NPC units that haven't acted the GM moves them.
    On a turn units can move once and attack/ use an ability once.  Or the unit can move twice, not attacking or using any abilities.  Other things might use an action like climbing ladders/ stairs.

Warmages and Battlepriests

    Magic is a tricky thing in general, but it gets more difficult in Skirmish combat.  Because of the longer time for each round, and the fact that multiple characters are involved, some spells (and abilities, these guidelines could work for both) would not logically have much of an impact.  Take "True Strike," a cantrip that gives the caster Advantage to hit on the next attack roll.  From a Skirmish standpoint, this spell is useless, a single attack with advantage to hit is not a big enough change to effect the round.  But from a game design standpoint, saying that a character's abilities are useless is not a good thing, we don't want players to get frustrated.  So at the moment (and this may change a little or lot with playtesting) I'm going to strike a compromise.  Some spells are useless, like True Strike.  But lets look at another spell, "Mage Armor."  As a 1st level spell that grants AC to any single character not wearing armor and lasts 8 hours, we have some room to play with here.  So, the core principle of Skirmish magic is: lowering one type of effect can be used to bolster another effect.  So that 8 hour duration is long, too long.  A first level spell should not last the entire battle.  But the single target is too weak, like with True Strike, buffing a single character is useless in group combat.  So lets create the Warmage version of the spell - by dropping the duration from hours to a single Skirmish turn we can increase the effect to cover the Captain and all attached Supports.  We don't do AC, just DR, so we'll say the spell is a DR bonus, like +2 (or +caster Int mod?), but it's supposed to only effect unarmored targets, so we'll say the DR bonus only applies to Captains or Supports with a DR of 3 or less.  Now the spell can be useful, but it is still kind of weak - which makes sense given that this is just a 1st level spell.
    So, single-target spells need a long duration to lower to make then effective.  Spells that already hit a group, like a combat spell that has a Line or Cone of effect work normally (since they are already designed to hit multiple targets).  I'm tempted to say that Burst spells, like a Fireball that hits everything within range, would actually get a bonus to damage since they completely cover their area of effect.  Skirmish combat doesn't use saving throws, this is just to reduce the amount of bookkeeping, so some spells that have a save might use a Resolve check instead.  Which brings us to...

Resolve Checks

    Every support has a Resolve DC, like 11+.  This is a d20 roll with no modifiers if the Support is acting alone, or with the Captain's Resolve Modifier if the Support has an attached Captain.  Special abilities by Supports and Captains will have a specific effect if the Resolve check succeeds or fails.  Sometimes the effect on a failed check is that the Support becomes "Broken."  Resolve represents how well the Support is acting as a single force, so when a Support's Resolve fails they have stopped acting together.  A Broken Support does half damage, has half their DR (rounded down, minimum of 0 for both), and will move away from combat as quickly as possible.  Once the Support has gotten out of combat they will stop and hold their position, only moving again to escape enemy forces.  Any Captain can move next to a Broken unit any try to re-form them with a Resolve check.  On success the Support loses the broken condition and acts normally, on a failure the unit remains broken.
    Resolve is a powerful effect.  Historically there have been many battles where units have lost their resolve and turned the tide of battle.  Penalties to Resolve also stack during the same turn.  For example, one player has a special ability that forces the enemy to make a Resolve check at -2.  The enemy passes the check.  The player hands the turn off to another player, who has the same ability.  Now the enemy has to make a check at -4, because the stresses of combat are piling up.  This is to encourage the players to work together.
    Resolve isn't just a weapon, some abilities that buff friendly units will call for a Resolve check too.
   
   
    So that's an overview of my Skirmish system/ house rules.  This was designed for DnD 5e, since that's what I'm running at the moment, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to adapt this to other systems.  Next post I'll get into the details of how the system works so you can try it yourself if you want.


You can find the rest of this series here