I started off with DND 5E and still enjoy it, but I started playing Pathfinder 2E a few months ago and just adore it. I think it’s a better system overall and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys TTRPGs. It’s complicated, probably more so than DND, but it’s worth it imo. The three-action economy, four degrees of success, and sheer amount of character customization are my favorite features.
I’ve played a pretty broad variety of characters. Mechanically, my favorite was my first ever character–a draconic sorcerer. I like blowing stuff up, what can I say. Roleplay-wise, it’s a tie between my swashbuckler rogue and my celestial warlock. All of those were in DND, since I haven’t been playing PF for very long. I’ve liked every character I’ve played, but I tend to enjoy characters with high CHA the most.
Right now, I’m playing a DND campaign and two PF campaigns. My characters are a grave domain cleric, a barbarian with the titan wrestler archetype, and a champion with the sorcerer archetype.
I’ve also played a little Dungeon World and a tiny one-shot called (iirc) The Witch Is Dead. One of my DMs is getting into Daggerheart, so I may be picking up a game in that system soon. I think I may play a rogue.
Tell me about your TTRPG experiences!
I don’t feel like it was that long ago, but I guess it was.
I started on 3.5/PF1 and played a loose few games on those. Once 5e came out, we switched over and had a ton of fun with it.
Inevitably I started DMing for 5e. I just… I’m not gifted in the least with Game Design, so I struggled really hard once my players hit 8th level. I couldn’t build a strong enough encounter to challenge them without having to flub so much on my end. It became a source of frustration and I was often harried. Unfortunately big life events ended that campaign. I’ve tried to start up a few more as a DM, but I feel like I’ve lost that little je ne sais quoi that made me a good DM.
After my third DnD campaign crashed and burned, I started looking into PF2e, joined a game, and then another, and another and another. Lol.
Right now we’re going through Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and having so so much fun.
I absolutely adore a lot of what 2e is about, but I do have some things I’m starting to notice grate at me after having been starry eyed for a few years, now. Still, it’s incredibly fun.
I’ve played, in 2e,
Monks are my favorite class and have been forever, but the kineticist is making leaps and bounds to be my #2. It might also bee that we’re level 13, so she can do a lot, but still. Fun fun fun.
The kineticist herself is an oread (earth genasi, basically), who was born in a village that was blessed with earth magic, but cursed at the same time by a wicked Dao. Her and her people have little spots of their skin that turns to stone, but it grows and grows and grows to eventually immobilize and kill them. She, herself, has a fair few patches that she’s hiding from the party because she’s a fucking idiot (lovingly). But yeah! She’s very stoic and this is very out of my usual play zone, I typically make jokesters or shit-stirrers with loud attitudes. But being stoic and calm and just ready to silently sacrifice herself for her team is difficult - though a lot of fun.
… Sorry for the rant. I love talking about these things ahaha
No need to apologize for the rant! I enjoyed it.
I LOVE the concept of being cursed/blessed with earth magic in that way. And I love that you’re playing her as a fucking idiot who hides that shit, haha. (Fingers crossed she and her village get cured.) Incidentally, two of my characters were/are hiding things from the party as well, though nothing of that magnitude. My cleric is hiding that she’s literally haunted–her childhood friend’s ghost, who blames my cleric for her death, is hanging around and pestering her. (The players know as of recently, but iirc their characters don’t.) And my champion is hiding her ancestry. She wears a magical scarf that makes her look like a human, but she’s secretly a
fucken furrykitsune. No big dramatic reason for that; she just dislikes the attention it draws in an area where kitsune are relatively uncommon.I really want to try playing a kineticist sometime, and not just because I’ve always wanted to be a firebender haha.
Yeah!!! I love characters with things that play into how they act.
I’m really interested in the ghost - does the party see her as well? Does she mess with your character? Hahaha
And I love hiding that she’s a
fucken furrykitsune. Little tidbits like that - that don’t have to be some grand reason - make me love characters more. Like fuck yes your wizard’s familiar is an inch worm that no one ever notices just because an inch worm once crawled out of a spell book you were learning from and you laughed so hard, you snorted your health potion.It’s immersive. And I love it. Cute!
One time in a steampunk gunslinger campaign I played a half-elf sniper/artificer who was secretly a prince running away from his tyrannical king/queen parents to join the grassroots resistance against great evils conspiring with the crown. It was one of the most complex/fun characters I have ever played, and getting the party to avoid interactions with royal guards (so I wasn’t recognized) without outing myself was a fun silent puzzle between myself and the DM. It was also funny that I was basically The Handsomest Fellow ™ who wanted to be judged on merit instead of beauty and had to deal with a ton of unwanted attention from NPC’s, and tried to make myself look as haggard and disheveled as possible at all times, lots of fun all around.
We played this campaign for almost 2 years, and the LAST session before we all graduated and moved away and went our separate ways ended with me getting recognized and outed to the party and I am still salty about that cliffhanger like 8 years later lol
Also our Paladin was basically Rob Halford (Judas Priest), his holy mount was a motorcycle, and I convinced the DM to let me craft and attach a permanent charm of flight to said motorcycle…
Only my character can see her. The ghost does mess with her, though it’s mostly via making snide comments. But she’s also useful, since sometimes she can be convinced to go check something out for my character and report back on what she finds. Also, my character often talks to no one lol.
That’s beautiful. I may have to steal that someday.
Thank you!