Pathfinder 1E What IS Pathfinder's design goal? Forked: Pathfinder's casters.

Forked from: A question about Pathfinder's casters.

heratyk said:

Pathfinder, above all else, is meant to be compatable with D&D 3.x and the SRD (and the multitude of products based on it). Creating an entirely different spellcasting system, whatever its merits, would pretty much derail that goal.

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So I've been thinking...

Its obvious that Pathfinder has one major design goal: keep the 3.x edition rules in print and allow them (and others) to continue making 3.x compatible material with a "core book" still in print. But as we all know, Pathfinder has used the opportunity to "fix" some of the problems people have had with 3e.

The question is; what were the design goals of those changes?

The question is twofold. First, what problems does Pathfinder address (which gets into what nagging problems in 3.5 was there) and how does it address them (that is, what doe it do to fix them.) Granted, we don't have the final rules to answer that, but generalities and assumptions based on beta and blog-posts might be sufficient for now.

For example, some people have complained about high-level math breaking down, creating areas where only characters with "good" babs or saves can make the AC/DC and everyone else might as well not bother. Is Pathfinder fixing that problem? How so?

People familiar with the system (designers especially), what problems is Pathfinder attempting to fix and how?

For example, some people have complained about high-level math breaking down, creating areas where only characters with "good" babs or saves can make the AC/DC and everyone else might as well not bother. Is Pathfinder fixing that problem? How so?

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I'm under the impression that Pathfinder is powering up PC classes in part for this reason: that a class with more HP and better saves and AC will make the game a little less binary at high levels.

Ultimately, the problem is just one of numbers: if the monster's AC is so high that only the truly dedicated can hit them, you can either have a different formula for monster AC (which might mess with that npc/pc transparency) or you can have classes give PC's slightly more power so that you don't have to quite be as dedicated to hit that AC (but you still probably won't hit it with a wizard).

I could be wrong on that, but that's what I see.

Honestly, some transparency on these things would be pretty useful to me, as I don't really know what specific 3e problems Pathfinder wants to fix, and which it is leaving alone as not really big problems. I know low-level staying power is one of those things (and Pathfinder classes have more low-level staying power in the form of more starting HP), but I don't know much about many of the others....

The primary design goal is and remains "get the core rules of the game back in print so we at Paizo can continue to produce supplements and adventures for it." Not only does having a game without an in-print rulebook make it difficult for new players to get into the game, but it makes it VERY difficult to get distributors and stores to stock your products. If we hadn't done the PFRPG, we would have basically lost our shelf space in stores for our products, and that's not good.

We couldn't just reprint the SRD though, since that would have meant a game with no rules for generating ability scores and no rules for advancing characters in level.

At the same time, there's a lot of areas in 3.5 that, over the past several years, players and designers have come to see as awkward. Of course, what person A sees as awkward isn't necessarily what person B sees as awkward, but in designing the PFRPG, we drew upon Paizo's years of experience with the game and the years of experience of about 50,000 playtesters, and it became apparent what parts of the game were causing the most problems.

Since the actual game isn't out yet, and since we're still in the preview stages to ramp up excitement for it, I can't really go all transparent on the rules yet but once the game is out, myself, Jason, and Erik will likely be all over the internet talking about the game and answering questions.

One thing I can talk about real quick though is the reason behind the "power increase." It's mostly because at 1st level, we felt that PCs were too fragile. By increasing the power of the core races a bit, increasing HD for several classes, and overall addressing the baseline power, low level characters have a better chance to survive. We didn't want to go TOO far, though; playing low-level characters who don't feel too far removed from comonfolk is a popular part of the game, and it allows for a more satisfactory feeling of rising power when you become high level but remember the days where a couple of goblins were scary stuff.

Also, we wanted to make it an attractive option to stick with a single class all the way to 20th level, so that meant adding powers to a lot of "dead levels." The end result is that the previous overlords of power in the game (clerics and druids) may have decreased in power slightly, while the other classes increased (in power AND in options) to be more competitive. Of course... "power level" for a class like a fighter (who's job is to fight) and a bard (who's job is to bolster allies and vex foes with enchantments and illusions) and a rogue (who's job is to be fast and sneaky and elegant in combat) means different things...

Anyway... I hope this cleared up a few things, but I'm afraid it won't clear up everything because, again, there's not a LOT we can talk about until the game releases in August.

But, if you loved 3.5, chances are good you'll love PFRPG. If you hated 3.5, there's a good chance that what you hated about 3.5 will still be there in PFRPG, but maybe not.

James Jacobs said:

At the same time, there's a lot of areas in 3.5 that, over the past several years, players and designers have come to see as awkward. Of course, what person A sees as awkward isn't necessarily what person B sees as awkward, but in designing the PFRPG, we drew upon Paizo's years of experience with the game and the years of experience of about 50,000 playtesters, and it became apparent what parts of the game were causing the most problems.

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That's truly an amazing number. Is it based on the number of downloads of the beta versions, on polls or sign-ups on your board, or something else?

Good luck with PFRPG

Jack99 said:

That's truly an amazing number. Is it based on the number of downloads of the beta versions, on polls or sign-ups on your board, or something else?

Good luck with PFRPG

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I believe the number is based on the unique downloads per account of the beta rules from Paizo.com. The number's probably higher, actually, since we have no way to tabulate versions of the rules folks got from other sources (such as photocopies or printouts given them by their GMs). It's certainly WAY higher than we'd expected the playtest numbers to be before we went public with the Alpha rules, and it's a pretty encouraging number.

James Jacobs said:

I believe the number is based on the unique downloads per account of the beta rules from Paizo.com. The number's probably higher, actually, since we have no way to tabulate versions of the rules folks got from other sources (such as photocopies or printouts given them by their GMs). It's certainly WAY higher than we'd expected the playtest numbers to be before we went public with the Alpha rules, and it's a pretty encouraging number.

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I agree the numbers are encouraging....

But I am an example of one that downloaded the rules and skimmed them once. I hope that I am not considered a playtester by your definition.

And each of the other 5 guys at my game table are just like me. DL'ed, skimmed, never really looked at it again.

I am waiting for the final rules to come out and I might buy it because I am getting rid of many of my 3.x books (for space), but I wasn't a playtester just because I downloaded it.

catsclaw227 said:

but I wasn't a playtester just because I downloaded it.

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I'm willing to be, if I get my name in the book!

/M

James Jacobs said:

But, if you loved 3.5, chances are good you'll love PFRPG. If you hated 3.5, there's a good chance that what you hated about 3.5 will still be there in PFRPG, but maybe not.

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This quote is the most telling I've seen. Thanks for your reply.

There has been some hyperbole on these (and other boards) that wistfully call Pathfinder "3.75", "the real 4th edition" or similar touts (not from Paizo staff, just some ardent enthusiasts). Now I know its mostly a reprint with some well-thought out house rules applied and some added depth at lower-levels. While I'm both happy to see Pathfinder remains close to its roots (for compatibility sake), I'm also dismayed to hear that many of my chief complaints will most likely still be there (even if in diminished form).

As I always intended, I will examine (and more likely purchase) the rules in August, but its nice to know I should expect miracle fixes for some of my major complaints.

(Without deriding the thread into a "3e does/doesn't do that" thread, my chief complaints are: Magic always trumps mundane skill, Big Six magic, CoDzilla, high level math, stacking bonuses, 15-min workdays, large monster stat-blocks & SLAs, and CR/EL balancing nightmares).

James Jacobs said:

I believe the number is based on the unique downloads per account of the beta rules from Paizo.com. The number's probably higher, actually, since we have no way to tabulate versions of the rules folks got from other sources (such as photocopies or printouts given them by their GMs). It's certainly WAY higher than we'd expected the playtest numbers to be before we went public with the Alpha rules, and it's a pretty encouraging number.

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Thanks for clarifying.

Cheers

catsclaw227 said:

I agree the numbers are encouraging....

But I am an example of one that downloaded the rules and skimmed them once. I hope that I am not considered a playtester by your definition.

And each of the other 5 guys at my game table are just like me. DL'ed, skimmed, never really looked at it again.

I am waiting for the final rules to come out and I might buy it because I am getting rid of many of my 3.x books (for space), but I wasn't a playtester just because I downloaded it.

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Your experience may well be offset by any single GM who downloaded the rules and implemented some or all of them with his group of three or more players. That would require only one out of five DLers to be using the rules in-game to achieve a similar number of those "playtesting."