Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Lite?

Ugh. Typo in the thread title. Just great.

I really enjoy Pathfinder. Or maybe a more accurate way to say it is I really WANT to enjoy Pathfinder. However, lately I've become concerned that the rules bloat is doing away with my enjoyment of the game.

First some caveats and background. I've been playing D&D since the AD&D 1st edition days. However, when I started DMing the game, I started with 2nd ed. Back in those days I never used miniatures or battlemaps, and I never felt the need to or even gave any thought to it.

When 3rd edition came out, I made the switch, and I really liked it. My 2nd ed. games had so many houserules that I literally had to give new players a handout explaining them all. This was very common where I grew up, and I took it as a sign that the game was broken (I still do). I really liked 3rd edition because I felt I could (for the most part) run the game with no, or very few, house rules. However, due to some of the new rules and some of the feats (attacks of opportunity, feats like mobility, combat reflexes, etc.) I started using miniatures and battle maps. I felt it added a new dimension to the game, and I liked it.

I made the switch to 3.5 and liked the tweaks that were made. When Pathfinder came out, I gave it a try, and I really liked it. I still do. I like the many ways you can customize your character. I love the concepts of alternate racial traits, class archetypes, and all that. However, I've found that now the miniatures and battle map are pretty much required, unless you're going to throw a bunch of feats and abilities out of your game.

I've played Pathfinder in quite a few different groups with different players. What is starting to bother me, is it seems we spend more time talking about and dealing with the mechanics of the game, then we do with roleplaying or story. More thought seems to go into positioning and map tactics during a battle than seems to go into playing a character.

This phenomenon is especially pronounced on the Paizo boards where people swap "builds" and I see players asking for "builds" from other players. Back in the day I would have never considered asking someone else to build my character, and I still wouldn't. To me the fun of an RPG is imagination and story and getting into a role, it's not about mechanics and numbers and coming up with the best build. I don't want to try to recreate an MMO experience in my tabletop RPG.

Now, I know that there are other games that can give me what I'm looking for. I'm really looking forward to Numenera, and I think it will be just the thing.

However, my question to you all, is do you think there's a way to trim the fat from Pathfinder and trim it down so play can be more streamlined? I'm afraid that there's not. The ruleset has become so bloated and complex, that I think if I start tinkering, it will all fall apart.

Have any of you tried to do this? What were your results? What did you do?

The one idea I've been kicking around is getting rid of the miniatures and battle map. That seems to be where the troubles started, as it really encourages an almost boardgame-like or MMO mentality. I seemed to get much better roleplaying from my players when I described the scene and maybe drew a picture to give a general idea, but otherwise it was all in our heads.

However, to do that you would have to do things like remove attacks of opportunity, threatened squares, and any feats or abilities that involved them. You would have to remove or repurpose a lot of feats that directly tie into the whole battle map thing, feats where when you take the battle map away, they become useless.

I just wonder if it could be done, and even if it could, would it be so much work you're basically designing a whole new game? At that point I might as well just play something else. I just hate to give up on Pathfinder completely, because I've been playing D&D so long and I really like Golarion.

I ran a 3.5 campaign that went to 20th level, and by then combat was ridiculous. It would take hours to do one combat. That isn't fun for anyone. I haven't run Pathfinder yet beyond 10th level, but I've heard it's even worse.

What do you guys think? If any of you feel in a similar way, have you found a solution? Is it even possible, or should I just run something else?

I don't know much about Pathfinder, but for what it's worth, D&D Next sounds a lot like what you're looking for. The only downside is, there's not the absurd amount of character customization available yet. The upside is, it's simple, very quick to play, and doesn't require the grid. Oh yeah, and it's free. You can probably convert Pathfinder stuff to it pretty easily.

I don't see how you're going to satisfactorily strip all the fiddly mechanical bits from pathfinder without stripping the fiddly mechanical bits that differentiate PF from something like castles and crusades.

(I mention C&C because after a similar lukewarm burnout on d20/3e, I went to C&C, which is compatible enough that I can still slip in the occasional 3e adventure or other content. Presumably PF/Golarion materials could be shoehorned in as well.)

There have been a few projects to make "d20 lite" games (Microlite d20, the Errant rpg and others I'm sure), but I can't think of any that would strip out the numeric micromanagement or the onus to carefully map character builds while still keeping the minor variability within races and classes and immense customization that you say you enjoy with PF.

Aside from the Beginner Box, which is a slightly "Lite" version for levels 1 - 5. Not including Combat Maneuvers, nor most feats, spells and monsters, as well as only including cleric, fighter, rogue and wizard as the only classes available - but I don't think that's what you meant by "Lite".

Regarding rules bloat, that's an easy problem to solve. Limit what books you allow in your game. For instance in our game, we allow the rules from the Core, APG, only the magus from UM, and only the Ninja, Samurai from UC - all other rules are out of bounds in our game. We limit the rules bloat, and that's all you need to do. Pick those books you'll allow for a given campaign, or pick the parts of those books - and don't allow everything. Simple.

We also allow plenty of 3PP material, but then I've got no concerns at all for rules bloat, in fact I want more rules. Or better to say, as a game designer/developer/cartographer for Rite Publishing of PFRPG material - I create more rules, with no plans of stopping.

This phenomenon is especially pronounced on the Paizo boards where people swap "builds" and I see players asking for "builds" from other players. Back in the day I would have never considered asking someone else to build my character, and I still wouldn't. To me the fun of an RPG is imagination and story and getting into a role, it's not about mechanics and numbers and coming up with the best build. I don't want to try to recreate an MMO experience in my tabletop RPG.

Click to expand...

Have you considered that, perhaps, the people who are interested in mechanics and numbers and builds are not, in fact, trying to recreate an MMO experience in their tabletop RPG?

I visit the Paizo boards often, and there are threads where people trade builds, sure, but that isn't the majority of members of that forum. There are all kinds of gamers in any RPG forum including optimizers, power builders, those heavy on role playing, those not. I don't know anyone wanting to recreate an MMO experience in any RPG - I certainly don't want that. An MMO can never capture the immersion or the means of thinking out of the box for solutions for any given encounter like a tabletop RPG - it's a joke to attempt the comparison.

For any kind of trimming of rules, I highly recommend E6 or possibly E8 in the PFRPG. You stop leveling at level 6, and every 5000 experience after that you gain 1 feat.

I have run E6 games in Pathfinder and I really like it. A build is less important because the characters can branch out with some new ideas. Tactics vs a Kraken? Ha! You need to go and find Medusa, slay her, bring her head back, and use that to save the city from the Kraken. You can easily ditch the miniatures at these levels, which I have found really helpful in promoting stuff like "I shoot the rope holding chandelier to drop it on the Baron!"



You can simplify AoO to simply, cut down on some of the things that trigger and AoO you find unappealing. Migrating to narrative combat allows you to just get rid of them easily. Another option is that you can only move half your speed when you leave an enemy's threatened space, but there is no AoO.

E6 is a good suggestion for this. I've been playing around with "M6" (since Pathfinder has Mythic instead of Epic) here.

But, that said, I think you're better off talking to your players about the situation and what you want out of the game than tinkering with the rules. If they want a tactical war game and you don't, trying to fix the situation by updating the rules will be a nightmare.

What helped me a lot with combat burnout was actually tossing the Pathfinder monster and NPC systems, replacing them with something more lightweight. For me, it was really just that running multiple PC-complexity opponents was dragging on combat and burning me out.

Cheers!
Kinak

What, specifically, do you consider rules bloat? I don't think there are many rules additions in PF. There are a ton of character options, but they tend to follow the same rules as all the other characters. Are you feeling that there are too many character options and you can't memorize them all and get set back when a character does something you weren't expecting? That issue isn't a result of PF, but rather play expectations. Do you need to know all the fiddly bits of character options? I think 3.5 had way more bits than PF does. If you could give some examples of the rules issues that are coming up (ie new rules issues unique to PF, since most of the rule issues in PF date back to 3e and have been hashed over for 13 years).

There are plenty of little issues that can emerge from character options, spells, feats, etc. However, I think they can be resolved with consistency based on how other parts of the game work. If you're getting into rules discussions during the game, then that's a play expectation issue. This can be resolved by making rulings (or simply doing group votes, which I prefer) and then discussing the issue after the game.

Personally I enjoy rules discussions as they present themselves during game play, but it's not for everyone. It's possible that other players have the same enjoyment. This could be discussed with the players and see what they're interested in.

There's not much you can do about combat prep time, other than not use miniatures. This isn't a PF problem but a 3e/4e/PF issue. Combat can take a while to play out as well, but the enjoyment of this is individual and some people enjoy the tactical nature of combat, so again, this is a player discussion. I know that my enjoyment of combat has nothing to do with wether or not I'm a good roleplayer. There's not really a connection between the two. You might be more concerned about the meta-game discussions going on during combat, which is something different, but this is a group conversation and not one that can be resolved by a change of rules. I know that we had plenty of rules discussions and meta-game talk in 1e and 2e back in the day. It's about they players, not the game.

Have good conversations with your fellow gamers and see what they want/expect out of the game.

I don't think I should have said rules bloat; that's a separate problem. I really don't mind all the character options, because in my game it's the responsibility of the players to understand their characters.

What I'm more referring to is all the rules & systems that slow down play, especially during combat. Things like all the movement and positioning rules, individual initiative, etc. The problem really began with 3.0 and the addition of (the requirement for) miniatures. I've looked into E6, and it doesn't totally solve the problem. Yes, it eliminates the issues of higher level play, but there are pacing issues at level 1.

As for the MMO comment, what I meant is that the person isn't necessarily trying to recreate an MMO experience (they may have never even played one), but instead I meant to refer to a similarity of mentality. A mentality where one is more concerned with numbers, mechanics, min-maxing, optimizing, and creating the most combat-capable character they can as opposed to creating an interesting character from a story perspective.

I'm also not passing judgment on those who like to play that way; there are obviously a lot who do. It's just not the experience I want to have at my gaming table. More and more, though, I think this is a mentality that is hardwired into Pathfinder. If you look at just the core book at the number of words devoted to combat mechanics as opposed to things like roleplay, social encounters, character development (as in personality not combat effectiveness), it's obvious what the game focuses on. You can't really blame the players for picking up on that.