D&D 5E Character Advancement versus Pathfinder

Friends, my game group is changing directions and we're looking to take a more traditional RPG (moving from The One Ring). Pathfinder is in the running, but so is D&D 5. The main thing we're looking for is something to help strike a balance between the players who want to have a lot of options for character customization (min-maxing) and those who are just there to have fun.


Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

Welcome to the boards! Have some XP!

Though 5e doesn't have near the amount of PC customization options as Pathfinder, if you turn on Feats and Multi Classing as options there will be a fair amount of decisions to be made each time they level up, while also providing a straightforward path for those less interested in customizing. The 5e encounter builder is balanced for a party without these options, so if some players use them they will be ahead of the expected power curve. Whether this makes said players feel like they are being rewarded for system mastery (they are better at encounters) or punished for it (encounters become trivial) depends on the players.

ShorelessSkies said:

Friends, my game group is changing directions and we're looking to take a more traditional RPG (moving from The One Ring). Pathfinder is in the running, but so is D&D 5. The main thing we're looking for is something to help strike a balance between the players who want to have a lot of options for character customization (min-maxing) and those who are just there to have fun.


Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

Click to expand...

Nothing can compare to the creation possibilities of Pathfinder. That said, the fact that there's endless choices and that not all of them are balanced lead to more problem than its worth if not all your players are interested in min-maxing; there's a high risk that you'll end up with a great power disparity between players.

I'd say try 5e with all classes+multiclass+feat. There's enough for everybody for a first time.

Btw, I you didnt know, there's a D&D 5e conversion of the One Ring called Adventure in Middle-Earth made by Cubicle7.

The primary difference between Pathfinder and 5E is the difference between optimized and non-optimized characters. While there are a few things that can be done to min-max your character in 5E, regular characters don't lag very far behind, making min-maxing less efficient than Pathfinder. This means that character creation and leveling don't have to take nearly as long to do, but players who like system mastery benefits sometimes find it lacking.

Something else to consider, is that Pathfinder is about to release a second edition. If you can, you are probably better off waiting for that to be released, rather than trying to get all the books for the first edition system.

pathfinder is about to undergo an edition shift / playtest starts after gen con this year, if that plays in to your thinking

5E has more solid choices.

Pathfinder has more choices in total.

What do I mean by that? If your players know how to navigate Pathfinder, they'll know how to avoid the bad options, the traps, and the out-dated content. If your players don't, then they're more likely to have a poor experience with Pathfinder given that there is such an overwhelming amount of material.

5E by contrast has a much shorter list of material, but all of the choices are more balanced.

Beyond that, what I would call attention to is the sort of gameplay experience you'll get between these two editions.
In 5E, even low-level creatures remain relevant at high levels. A fight against CR 12 dragon, for example, becomes noticeably harder with the addition of even something as simple as kobolds. BUT, because of this a skilled party can very easily "punch up" thanks to bounded accuracy. In my last game with 3 players, all of whom were power-gamers and even with what little 5E offers in that direction, the players could routinely take on things WELL above their level.

In Pathfinder to make an at-level challenge harder you'd need to include near-level enemies. Adding kobolds to a CR 12 dragon fight would be largely meaningless. Pathfinder lacks 5E's bounded accuracy, so a party will have a more difficult time taking on threats substantially(like +5 CR) above their level. That's not to say a clever and powerfully built party can't, they'll just have to work for it a little more.

5E is somewhat easier to run from both a player and a DM side, but outside of starting at high levels, I would not call it dramatically easier. If your players are familiar with Pathfinder, they may be disappointed with the options available in 5E.

Something I really like about 5e is the backgrounds - they aren't "just roleplaying" anymore. If your background is "criminal" - you get some thieve's skills! It's a great way to easily customize your character, without having to multi-class. You can end up with a fighter who knows a lot about nature, a sneaky wizard, a sailor cleric and a rogue-sage (think indiana jones haha).

But the above answers are correct - with PF there are so many options - and some so much better than others - that a PC could end up being a lot stronger (or weaker!) than the others.

ShorelessSkies said:

Friends, my game group is changing directions and we're looking to take a more traditional RPG (moving from The One Ring). Pathfinder is in the running, but so is D&D 5. The main thing we're looking for is something to help strike a balance between the players who want to have a lot of options for character customization (min-maxing) and those who are just there to have fun.

Click to expand...

As has been pointed out, Pathfinder is about to launch it's second edition in three-ish months. If you can wait until then, you can playtest the new game and give pretty valuable feedback on the system as a brand new Pathfinder player unfamiliar with the previous edition.

Alternatively, when the new edition launches, some game stores might be trying to unload old Pathfinder books, and you might be able to snag some with sale prices.

Regardless, both Pathfinder and 5th Edition are effectively free to test.
Pathfinder has the all its core books online: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/
D&D has it's Basic Rules as a free PDF: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

ShorelessSkies said:

Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

Click to expand...

5e does have some options. Each class has a subclass/ build chosen in the first three levels, and you have feats you can opt into every 4 levels. Plus choices of spells for half the classes.
But there's often fewer choices each level. Once you make the big subclass choice, you're often locked in from then on with fewer additional choices. You can still multiclass for additional options, and some classes have features with choices, but not always.
There's a lot fewer choices than Pathfinder where characters have feats every other level and most classes have options that they choose from every two or three levels.

This is a bit of a feature/bug for 5e. Players who like building characters for fun (sitting down and planning out their character for the next 5 to 10 levels) have less to do in 5e. But players who don't like having to spend 30 minutes levelling their character every other session will find 5e more fun.

ShorelessSkies said:

Friends, my game group is changing directions and we're looking to take a more traditional RPG (moving from The One Ring). Pathfinder is in the running, but so is D&D 5. The main thing we're looking for is something to help strike a balance between the players who want to have a lot of options for character customization (min-maxing) and those who are just there to have fun.

Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

Click to expand...

In Pathfinder, you make tons of choices when making a character, with each choice having a relatively minor effect but with the sum of them adding up. This is particularly true if you're using Traits from the Advanced Player's Guide (which is pretty much assumed in all the adventure paths), and when using classes like the rogue or barbarian who get to choose new stuff every level or two (the newer classes in various sourcebooks tend to use this model). In 5e you instead make fewer choices, but each choice has more impact.

An additional feature of Pathfinder that adds more choices is the magic item system. I believe it was one of the original 3e designers (or possibly Ryan Dancey) who describe the magic item economy as being a point-based system bolted on top of the class-based D&D system, and whomever said it wasn't wrong. In PF, there's a table specifying how much money you're supposed to have at each level, and the default assumption is that you can either buy or have someone make magic items to spec, according to a great big list of items in the Core rulebook. On one hand, this gives many possibilities for PCs to gear up as they desire and to use magic items to shore up deficiencies ("We sure seem to fight a lot of airborne foes, so maybe I should buy a pair of winged boots so I can get to them"), but on the other hand it creates expectations as to what items you're supposed to have (generally a magic weapon, a suit of armor, a belt or headband increasing your primary stat, a ring of protection, a cloak of resistance, and an amulet of natural armor - also known as the Big Six). 5e, by comparison, doesn't have a magic item economy - gold, beyond a relatively low amount, generally does not translate into more personal power. The DMG has some guidelines on what sort of items you might start with at a higher level, but there's not really an expectation of having a certain amount of buff items.

So, let's compare two 8th level monks in both systems and see how many choices they have had to make. Monks are on the low end of customizability in both systems.

Pathfinder: Race, possibly exchanging some racial features for others, class, optionally an archetype (a way to trade in some class features for others in order to reflect a particular version of the class), two background traits, a total of 32 + 8* Int modifier skill ranks to be spent (no more than 8 in any one skill), 8 instances of choosing favored class bonus (+1 hp or +1 skill rank), a total of 7 feats (3 of which have to be taken from a limited list based on your class), 2 stat increases of +1 to any one stat, 33,000 gp to be spent.

5e: Race, subrace, Class, subclass, Background, 2 skills, ~700 gp worth of stuff, two instances of getting either +2 to one stat, +1 to two stats, or one feat.

In both cases, some options lead to more choices being made - for example, a 5e monk who has chosen the Way of the Four Elements will also get to choose two elemental disciplines.

Another thing to consider is that not only do Pathfinder characters make more choices, they also have more options for what they can choose. For example, in the 5e PHB there are about 40 different feats - in Pathfinder there are about 150 (with many, many more in various expansions). Of course, not all feats are available or desirable to all characters, but the figures demonstrate the wealth of options available.

ShorelessSkies said:

Pathfinder is in the lead because there is, apparently, a nigh-infinite number of ways to customize one's characters, but I understand that the rules for 5E are a little easier to follow.

Can any of you please speak to character advancement options in 5E versus Pathfinder? Are there a lot of options or are the classes pretty narrow? Thanks!

Click to expand...

I picture it as the choice between Ikea and Lego. 5e only gives you a few choices, so maybe you can't get as close to the idea of the character in your head, but you can be fairly sure that no matter what choices you make the end result will be solid and functional. Pathfinder gives you a lot of choices, and with enough system mastery you can be really creative in ways 5e doesn't allow, but that equally means that you're free to make mistakes that leave the character a broken mess.

If everyone is willing to invest the time and effort in attaining the system mastery to use Pathfinder, or are at least willing to contract out character creation to the people who have it, the system can be very rewarding. If people want to just sit down and play, where they don't have to cross reference six books for character creation and leveling up takes less than five minutes, then 5e is what you want to be using.