Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Players: What would you be playing/buying if PF didn't exist.

[Imaro]

To be fair, the 4E stealth rules ended up a lot more clear than those of Pathfinder.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the end results were bad... but there were some pretty valid reasons for that incomplete feeling that some people got from the first 3 corebooks for 4e.

 

[pemerton]

I think one of the differences from previous editions was that the design team admitted that they purposefully held back elements they knew many of their customers expected to be in the first 3 corebooks in order to drive supplement sales.

Perhaps.

In my own case, given that they told me (more or less) what would or wouldn't be in the books, I shaped my expectations accordingly. They also explained why they weren't going to include gnomes (still working out their place within the fiction) and sorcerers (still working on distinguishing them from wizards).

I also think there were other issues with the mechanics of the game like the stealth rules, and the skill challenge DC's/structure that weren't up to snuff upon release

The system was aiming at a degree of tightness that was atypical for D&D, so I was prepared to forgive these issues, which were cleared up pretty quickly - though with skill challenges, the real revisions, which fully integrated a set of DCs useful for one-off checks with the same DCs being useful for complex resolution, came in Essentials via the "advantage" mechanic.

 

[Matthias]

I'd have stuck with D&D 3.5 with some house rules. d20-style games are what I like best, but 4E changed far too much from 3rd Edition to tempt me to convert over.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

From my very first impressions of picking up the 4e PHB...

You know how they say 'Men are from Mars, and women are from Venus'? I think we need an adage along those lines for gamers, 'cause I can relate to literally nothing you wrote here.

 

[meien]

I would have stuck with 3.5/Iron Heroes for my fantasy gaming. We actually tried 4e before going to PF but most of the group didn't like it. We also rotate games though playing Star Wars Saga Edition, Mutants & Masterminds, and D20 Modern along with PF. We also still go back to Iron Heroes for low end fantasy, usually in Middle Earth.

 

[Starfox]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the end results were bad... but there were some pretty valid reasons for that incomplete feeling that some people got from the first 3 corebooks for 4e.

I am not generally a friend of 4E. Overall, I feel it failed at what it set out to do. I do generally like Pathfinder. But I try to give credit when credit is due. The 4E people listened to criticism of their Stealth rules and published new ones that were understandable and which worked. Which is more than can be said of Pathfinder's Stealth rules.

Now, this is just one of dozens of skills, which is but a small slice of the entire game. Both 4E and Pathfinder cut back on skill rules, which I feel is bad in both cases as skills are the very basis of the rules IMO. Reading the 4E skill description of Diplomacy, which basically said this is a skill only used in social skill challenges was highly disappointing. Reading Pathfinders Stealth is more confusing that disappointing, but it is still bad.

In my homebrew, skills have taken over much of the role of ability scores and all of the roles of attack and defense bonuses, so I guess I'm partial to skills.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is a question that spins off another thread about how much Pathfinder sales effects D&D sales.

My guess is that there are some missed sales from new people that see PF is popular and hear bad things about 4e from the PF and OSR crowds, but who around here would have bought more 4e stuff if PF didn't exist? What would you be buying and playing if PF didn't exist?

Would have house ruled 3.5 and switched to retroclones.

 

[Alzrius]

Presuming that there was no Pathfinder, I'd still be playing 3.5 - my current group was burned out on 4E when I joined them, and half of them had that as their introduction to RPGs. Given how much they like Pathfinder now, I don't think that getting them to play 3.5 (again for those that already had, and to try it for those that hadn't) would have been a very tough sell.

As for what I'd be buying, I'd focus on filling out my collection of older, out of print D&D materials, along with select 3.5 OGL products that caught my eye from time to time.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

If there were no PF, we'd be playing our....er...waitaminute. I'm gonna have to reverse this a bit. We play 1e AD&D, but we do play PF as a one-off session. If we didn't have PF, it would probably be 2e. We don't play PF as a "core game" (we find it hard to take 'seriously').

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Mainly 3.5 D&D but also a few others such as 2nd edition D&D, Shadowrun, Changling, Buffy RPG,CthulhuTech, and a slew of other RPGs.


Wouldn't be playing 4th edition though.