Pathfinder 1E Considering DMing Pathfinder

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My 3.5 campaign is almost over, after five years. (One branch is on the final part of the Freeport Trilogy, where the roguish characters fled to after things went pear-shaped in an early adventure, while the other branch has two adventures to go to save the barony against the local kobold tribe summoning an aspect of Tiamat to lead their army pouring down out of the hills to wipe out the humans, dwarves and gnomes.)

The sequel will not be 3.5. Even at level 6+, things are starting to become a real pain in the rear for me as DM, and I've let it be known that I will be running the sequel (which I've got big plans for, since saving a barony/city will have to be upped with even bigger threats at higher levels) in another system.

My personal preference is Castles & Crusades, partly because I started with 1E, and I love C&C's 1E-reminiscent tone, and partly because it eliminates many of the problems I have with 3.5. But several of my players, who only started D&D with 3E, don't like the return to more traditional D&D multiclassing, and are suggesting Pathfinder. I'm not opposed to Pathfinder, necessarily, if it addresses my problems with 3E:

1) Creating NPCs and monsters is way too time-consuming after level 5 or so. I have a job, a kid and a demanding life. I can't find time to spend several hours to prep adventures, even if I could justify it to myself.

2) Juggling all of the different feats and sources of magic items from various supplements means being asked to make game balance appraisals all the freaking time, especially given WotC's pretty rocky record with balance for much of the 3E era.

3) If the sequel campaign goes all the way to 20 -- a not unreasonable scenario, although Gygax only knows how long it'd take for that to happen -- I don't want to have to read through a three-page character write-up for the BBEG, like the Age of Worms featured. That was my first moment that I really realized that I wanted to get out of DMing 3E. Although, obviously, I am responsible for knowing what a major NPC can do, I don't want to have to search through three pages in the middle of play so that I don't miss a major ability, nor do I want to have to rewrite every NPC in a Cliff Notes version.

4) The flavor of 3E turned into something unrecognizable to me over time. Some grognards like to say this is an anime-ification, but I really think that D&D had turned into its own genre. I don't know what a character with five different classes, a templated race and a sack full of magic items is supposed to resemble, but I want characters who could rub shoulders with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Bilbo or Harry Potter: I want players playing "characters," rather than "builds."

Obviously, different strokes for different folks, and there are a lot of people happy with Pathfinder (and 3E and 4E, etc.), but I just want to know if Pathfinder is a good fit for me without dropping $100 and a year of play on it to find out.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer.

 

[RoryN]

The majority of my past RPing has been about 10% 1E, 85% 2E, and 5% 3E. Never got into 3.5 at all. I have now been playing Pathfinder for about 6 months or so, and I have found it is very rule intensive compared to pre 3.0. Of course, you probably already have heard this elsewhere.

What I might suggest for character/NPC creation is a program called Hero Lab. While it does cost money, it really speeds up character creation. If I were to want to creat a small group of druids by hand, it might take me about 2 hours total, adding feats, traits, and the like. With Hero Lab, it took me about 45 minutes to create 6 druids ranging from 1st to 5th level. Time wise, even if you know the rules inside and out, it's much quicker to click a few buttons and type in the info rather than going through the books double-checking on everything.

The Pathfinder system does seem to be more balanced overall than what I remember 3E being. And it's a huge step above and beyond 2E and all of it's varios supplements. If you have power gamers, they're still going to find feats and traits to help them optimize their characters, but it doesn't seem to be as much as 3E. There is also a conversion document from Paizo to help people move from 3.5 to PF as well.

I know it's not much, but it's a little info I can offer.

 

[Jared Rascher]

Hero Lab is very useful.

As someone that just recently left off running Pathfinder, I'll say it depends on what might cause you issues with 3.5.

If you are just planning on running Core rules only, perhaps with extra Bestiaries, overall you probably will have a smoother ride than 3.5 might have provided, and a more consistent presentation of "feel" in the rules.

I had early on been fairly happy with the Advanced Player's Guide, but upon my players reaching 9th level or so, even with the APG content, there were some speed bumps that made my head hurt (like oracles that can cast Commune every day, or tons of immediate action spells being used).

Ultimate Magic just really rubbed me the wrong way. Too many mistakes, and too much expansion of player abilities, taunting mechanics, etc.

Also, you may want to look at the pit spells before you get rolling to make sure they won't annoy the Hell out of you.

The good news is, you can always look in the PRD for the core rules and the APG.

Also, on the positive side of things, the GameMastery Guide has a lot of useful pre-built NPCs that do cover a lot of territory, and I found that to be a very useful resource to have in hand.

 

[Spatula]

Speaking as someone who burned out DMing a 3.5 campaign from 1 to 20 for similar reasons, Pathfinder is not what you're looking for.

 

[Volaran]

I think I would agree with some of the other posters here. Much as I love Pathfinder, I don't think it addresses the problems you have with 3.5. If you're finding 3.5 unwieldy at 6th level, I think you'd be better off going another way.

That said, as KnightErrantJR said, check out the PRD site. It has the majority of the Core Rules, APG, Gamemastery Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Bestiary 1 and 2 content available.

If you do run, you might want to go with an E6 variant. I keep meaning to try that myself at some point.

 

[IronWolf]

I am a big fan of Pathfinder, but I am not sure it will be what you are looking for if C&C is what seems more appealing to you. I would probably be more inclined trying to convince your players that a happy GM leads to a better game overall.

But, with that said - here are my thoughts some of your questions.

For NPC creation I highly suggest using a character gen tool. Hero Lab is great. It has a price, but well worth it. Another option is PC Gen, but these days I prefer Hero Lab even though I tend to prefer free tools when available. Hero Lab will greatly speed up NPC creation and such.

As for game balance, I don't find Pathfinder too bad so far. The Core book and APG are great. Ultimate Magic needs an errata update or two which will be coming. I would suggest only allowing Pathfinder sources and you shouldn't have to think too much about game balance.

As for higher level NPCs. Eh, I still have to make notes about the abilities I will likely need to use. But it really doesn't take that long. There are only going to be a limited number of rounds of combat in a lot of cases, so just being sure not to forget some of the major abilities an NPC has is all one needs. Easily fits on a notecard or annotated for those of us doing it via PDF.

I usually read through the NPC, read the recommended combat steps, take a look at any spells or feats that I do not already use frequently and highlight things I don't want to forget during combat.

I think Pathfinder is more about characters than builds at this point. Archetypes help with that a lot to keep people from needing to grab a level of everything to get the feel for what they want.

Like I said initially though - if you are wanting a C&C feel, Pathfinder is probably not something you will be happy with in the long run.

 

[Shisumo]

Pathfinder has basically dealt with issues #2 and 4, but issues #1 and 3 could still definitely be a problem. As much as I love Pathfinder, I don't know if you'd be happy with it.

You could consider a short, higher-level one-shot to test it out and see if it's any better for you?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the candor. I'm currently running a C&C test, and I think I'll pick up the core book and run a Pathfinder test as well.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I'm not opposed to Pathfinder, necessarily, if it addresses my problems with 3E:

1) Creating NPCs and monsters is way too time-consuming after level 5 or so. I have a job, a kid and a demanding life. I can't find time to spend several hours to prep adventures, even if I could justify it to myself.

I think there are one or two options for you here. Firstly from Paizo is the Gamemastery guide which has about 60 pages of NPC gallery or roughly 180 NPCs. Now this may not sound that useful but the NPCs chosen are very generic and so frame really well the different types of NPCs you might have in your game. As a baseline, it works really well. In terms of monsters, the Pathfinder format is clean and easy to use although you will still need to reference certain spells and assumed abilities. Certainly easier to use than the 3.5MM though.
However, better than this is Herolab, For just over $100 you can have every feat, creature or thing Paizo has produced for Pathfinder. You can literally create or tweak an NPC or Monster in just over a minute. As someone in a similar situation to you, I find Herolab excellent in helping me get the most out of what prep time I have.

2) Juggling all of the different feats and sources of magic items from various supplements means being asked to make game balance appraisals all the freaking time, especially given WotC's pretty rocky record with balance for much of the 3E era.

Core Rulebook plus Advanced Players Guide. It takes the worry out of such things. I would not include Ultimate Magic or Ultimate Combat when it comes out. This is not to say that these products are bad or anything (I think UM is excellent) but by sticking to Core + APG, you have something with heaps of depth that is still very manageable. I think Paizo nailed this aspect in fact.

3) If the sequel campaign goes all the way to 20 -- a not unreasonable scenario, although Gygax only knows how long it'd take for that to happen -- I don't want to have to read through a three-page character write-up for the BBEG, like the Age of Worms featured. That was my first moment that I really realized that I wanted to get out of DMing 3E. Although, obviously, I am responsible for knowing what a major NPC can do, I don't want to have to search through three pages in the middle of play so that I don't miss a major ability, nor do I want to have to rewrite every NPC in a Cliff Notes version.

I don't think PF or more to the point OGL in general is that much fun above 17th level. You do have to take a Cliff Notes approach where you also have to printout a collection of spell effects so that you can "study up" on them to ensure your playing your monsters properly/effectively.

4) The flavor of 3E turned into something unrecognizable to me over time. Some grognards like to say this is an anime-ification, but I really think that D&D had turned into its own genre. I don't know what a character with five different classes, a templated race and a sack full of magic items is supposed to resemble, but I want characters who could rub shoulders with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Bilbo or Harry Potter: I want players playing "characters," rather than "builds."

If you have a look at what high level 3.x/PF can achieve; magic completely dominates. There are really very few problems that high level parties cannot solve. If you wish to continue your campaign as sequel, you may be best going C&C.
If given the opportunity, I would restart using E6 or E8 or go PF and start at 1st and use the slow XP progression. I think you are more guaranteed of getting the experience you want this way than going the sequel and having to deal with high level gameplay.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[redwullf]

My 3.5 campaign is almost over, after five years. (One branch is on the final part of the Freeport Trilogy, where the roguish characters fled to after things went pear-shaped in an early adventure, while the other branch has two adventures to go to save the barony against the local kobold tribe summoning an aspect of Tiamat to lead their army pouring down out of the hills to wipe out the humans, dwarves and gnomes.)

The sequel will not be 3.5. Even at level 6+, things are starting to become a real pain in the rear for me as DM, and I've let it be known that I will be running the sequel (which I've got big plans for, since saving a barony/city will have to be upped with even bigger threats at higher levels) in another system.

My personal preference is Castles & Crusades, partly because I started with 1E, and I love C&C's 1E-reminiscent tone, and partly because it eliminates many of the problems I have with 3.5. But several of my players, who only started D&D with 3E, don't like the return to more traditional D&D multiclassing, and are suggesting Pathfinder. I'm not opposed to Pathfinder, necessarily, if it addresses my problems with 3E:

1) Creating NPCs and monsters is way too time-consuming after level 5 or so. I have a job, a kid and a demanding life. I can't find time to spend several hours to prep adventures, even if I could justify it to myself.

2) Juggling all of the different feats and sources of magic items from various supplements means being asked to make game balance appraisals all the freaking time, especially given WotC's pretty rocky record with balance for much of the 3E era.

3) If the sequel campaign goes all the way to 20 -- a not unreasonable scenario, although Gygax only knows how long it'd take for that to happen -- I don't want to have to read through a three-page character write-up for the BBEG, like the Age of Worms featured. That was my first moment that I really realized that I wanted to get out of DMing 3E. Although, obviously, I am responsible for knowing what a major NPC can do, I don't want to have to search through three pages in the middle of play so that I don't miss a major ability, nor do I want to have to rewrite every NPC in a Cliff Notes version.

4) The flavor of 3E turned into something unrecognizable to me over time. Some grognards like to say this is an anime-ification, but I really think that D&D had turned into its own genre. I don't know what a character with five different classes, a templated race and a sack full of magic items is supposed to resemble, but I want characters who could rub shoulders with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Bilbo or Harry Potter: I want players playing "characters," rather than "builds."

Obviously, different strokes for different folks, and there are a lot of people happy with Pathfinder (and 3E and 4E, etc.), but I just want to know if Pathfinder is a good fit for me without dropping $100 and a year of play on it to find out.

Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer.

I want to echo what others here have said. You're pretty much screaming "C&C" with your 3.5 woes, which I assure you Pathfinder won't fix. Having both systems on hand, C&C addresses what is probably your biggest concern - prep time. I can write volumes about my love for C&C, but I'll spare you that...

One thing I did want to throw onto the table, however, is Dingle's Games. I won't deny the power of Hero Lab, but for about 15 pounds sterling (roughly 30 bucks US) you can get a one-year subscription at Dingle's and generate Pathfinder NPCs/Monsters fairly easily. They won't be as "all-encompassing" as a Hero Lab creation, but I've found they suit my purposes for PF.