Pathfinder 1E What Made You Switch To Pathfinder?

Lord Mhoram · Nov 1, 2015

I loved 3.5, and tried 4E about a year after it came out, but just couldn't get into it; I'm a major rules/crunch guy, so with no reactive support for 3.5 I drifted away. When Pathfinder came out I was sorta leery - I had kept playing my primary system (HERO). Then they announced the 5E playtest...and I got excited about D&D and when the playtest came out.. but then I realized a variant of my favorite rule set for it was out - so I just jumped into Pathfinder. I tried the playtest, and 5E, but it just didn't have the mechanical depth I like. So I've been sticking with it.

Psion · Nov 2, 2015

I was already a highly sympathetic customer of Paizo and saw them as the torchbearer of all that was good about d20 by the time they announced their intent to make a d20 follow-on system. At the same time, though I loved 3e and was highly invested in it, I acknowledged that it could use a clean-up and agreed that many of the design ideas that showed up in late 3.5 were good ones, but sort of felt shoe-horned into 3.5. In short, I felt as if Pathfinder was what 4e should have been.

megamania · Nov 2, 2015

WoTC dropped the Ball...... 'nuff said.

Hereticus · Nov 3, 2015

Lord Mhoram said:
I loved 3.5, and tried 4E about a year after it came out, but just couldn't get into it; I'm a major rules/crunch guy, so with no reactive support for 3.5 I drifted away. When Pathfinder came out I was sorta leery - I had kept playing my primary system (HERO). Then they announced the 5E playtest...and I got excited about D&D and when the playtest came out.. but then I realized a variant of my favorite rule set for it was out - so I just jumped into Pathfinder. I tried the playtest, and 5E, but it just didn't have the mechanical depth I like. So I've been sticking with it.

I'm not a rules crunch type, but 5e was way to oversimplified and shallow. Some players did find ways to break the system, but they were one dimensional characters who were boring to game with.

The backgrounds were a nice but feeble way to entice role playing. But it was astroturf, it was less about being interesting and more about hitting milestones.

As bad as 4e was, it was playable with the house ruling we made (scrolls and spell costs were in silver, not gold). I disliked 5e more than 4e, because there is no easy fix.

I started playing AD&D back in 1980. We still talk about our old characters with fondness; not because they played in a balanced system, but because of what was broken and fun!

Sarac · Nov 8, 2015

My group and I started with 3.5 and the guy who taught us to play had all the 3.5 books so we kinda had to follow him,even when we started to see how much of a problem he was. I'm not 100% sure how we found Pathfinder, but when we saw that it was basically 3.5 on steroids, and that there was an SRD site for it, we cut the problem guy loose and dived, headfirst, into Pathfinder and I don't know if we'll ever look too deeply into 5E or anything else.

dd.stevenson · Nov 9, 2015

In my mind at the time, Pathfinder was the current edition of D&D.

There was no decision or vote, really. Our group just started playing pathfinder because, duh, we want to play current edition D&D.

dalmer · Nov 9, 2015

I played AD&D all through middle and high school and stopped in college. After many years I was bumping around in my FLGS and the owner showed me Pathfinder. Apparently D&D had gone through a version that folks weren't too happy about and Pathfinder was suggested to me as something I would be "used to."

I purchased a few books. I got my kids involved. My wife joined up. Two co-workers joined up. We have fun and thus have stuck with it!

Starfox · Nov 9, 2015

Starfox said:
For me, it was largely the OGL.

Continuing on my motivation for picking Pathfinder, and partially in response to post on the similar thread for 3.5, a reason I changed toPathfinder was that I felt I had done 3.5. There wasn't really anything more in 3.5 I wanted to play. Pathfinder revitalized some classes (sorcerer, fighter) and added new classes and above all archetypes. There simply are more unique concepts supported in Pathfinder, more ways to get new play experiences.

Miladoon · Nov 10, 2015

I bought a pathfinder campaign book thinking I might switch over, but 3.5 utterly sapped my will to create a system mastery character and I saw the remnants of that horrid creature in the PFSRD.

Then they gremlinified the goblin and I have now wiped my feet of anything that resembles PF/3.5.

Yeah, I switched to get away from 3.5. But moved on to OSR and pre-2000 systems. Now I am into 5E but kinda want to get into WR&M. I think I might be a rules-lite dude.

Micah Watt · Nov 10, 2015

Pathfinder fixed a number of glaring holes in 3.x. It still has its issues, but it was (and is) an improvement.

4ed was an unmitigated disaster. But I have a soft spot for D&D and 5th seems to have found its way again.

Pathfinder 1E What Made You Switch To Pathfinder?

Lord Mhoram

Hero

Psion

Adventurer

megamania

Hero

Hereticus

First Post

Sarac

First Post

dd.stevenson

Super KY

dalmer

First Post

Starfox

Hero

Miladoon

First Post

Micah Watt

First Post

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