Pathfinder 1E So what do you think is wrong with Pathfinder? Post your problems and we will fix it.

[Lord Mhoram]

That is not realistic. If they do a "second edition" it would happen much sooner than that. Of course, they may never do one.

It came out in production form in August of 2009 so it is approaching 5 years old. If it follows the original AD&D as an "old time" example it could be around 9-10 years before 2nd edition of it happens. If it follows more modern RPG examples (Star Wars, Savage Worlds, Doctor Who, Firefly, D&D itself, etc.) it could go into a second edition at any minute. Games seem to only go 2 to 3 years before "new editions" anymore.

I know. I was posting when I wanted, and a little tongue in cheek.

But there is one thing to consider about Pathfinder and a Second edition. Almost all games that have a longer lifespan run on the rulebook/splatbook model. The understanding is that adventures don't sell is a given. The Pathfinder rules were made explicitly as a rulesystem to keep in print so they could keep selling adventures. I see thread in multiple boards of "I love Golarion, how would I play it with [System]. As long as the rules are "good enough" that their adventures and world books don't see a huge hit in sales, that likely won't be an issue.

Each year they only put out 3 big hardcovers - and so far one of those is a Bestiary or NPC book. And they put the rules up for free, very quickly on the website (unlike D&D back when), usually within a month. They have subscriptions for their different lines, so that tells them pretty much how many books they will sell, a brilliant concept if you ask me.

There is also the fact that Pathfinder was created and marketed to people who didn't want to switch to 4E in the first place, and who likely don't want to see a new edition where they have buy all new books for.

All of that combined means that the primary reason to make a new edition - flagging sales of the core books, and less sales of later rulebooks, are not as big a factor in Paizo's business model. I could realistically see another 5 or 10 years without a new edition.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

To actually answer the OP...

I would like to see fighter/martial have more "nifty" stuff to do, but not something that is totally gamist like per encounter abilities or martial dailies. This would also include Monks and Rogues.

Multiclassing made more attractive. The class abilities were structured to make MC less attractive than in 3.x, where it was abused. I'd like to see it a bit more in between the two.

Make grappling a little easier.

Remove ranged Touch for the Gunslinger's attacks, just a normal ranged to hit roll.

Make the summoner more clearly written. The class itself isn't completely broken, but it is easily abused.

In general do something about pets and the action economy.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Just for a counterbalance; things about Pathfinder I like...

Much better way of handling Favored Classes.

Capstone abilities for classes

The artwork; goblins in particular

Getting rid of 'dead levels' as much as possible.

Agreed with all of those.

And one other thing I really like, although this is more corporate culture and approach than actual rules:

The relationship with 3PP. The Paizo store highlights a few different products each week on their front page. Half the time it isn't Paizo's own product. A lot of the time it is Pathfinder 3PP, and sometimes it isn't even a Pathfinder product. When they released the books in the first couple of years, I would see feats and spells that were open content for 3.x. Even now, I'll see an occasional bit that was from a 3PP. I like that.

And likely as an outgrowth of this attitude, and the fact that many 3PP are made up of Paizo freelancers anyway, most third party publishers work well with each other, including some support for each others product. Dreamscarred who did Psionics has had 2 campaign words, and 3 other supplements use their Psionics. Heck there is even a Kickstart going on (for Mythic rules) that is Primarily Legendary games, but Kobold Press, Rogue Genius Games and Dreamscarred Press are all supporting it, and doing content for them.

That is just a good thing in my mind.

 

[Alzrius]

My biggest gripe with Pathfinder is that, like 3.X, it ostensibly allows for any character theme you can come up with, while still using the class/level system of character generation. That's a problem because the class/level system is built around exception-based design, which means that the default assumption is that you can't do something unless you have a power or special ability (whether from a class ability, feat, or something else) that says you can, and what abilities you get are collected into bundles, limited by prerequisites, and otherwise subject to restrictions that limit thematic possibilities.

That flies in the face of "make any sort of character you want," since some sorts of characters - typically those that aren't represented by an existing class or related mechanic - simply can't be made like that, or (more often) they'll simply operate at a substandard level compared to characters whose theme is better served by the existing game rules. If you want a spellcasting martial artist, your monk 5/sorcerer 5 will be terrible compared to a sorcerer 10 or monk 10, in terms of how effectively they can contribute to the group.

Exception-based rules are simply a poor match for the promise of near-infinite possibilities. Of course, that works out well from a sales point of view, since it means you can endlessly publish splatbooks full of new exceptions (e.g. classes, archetypes, feats, prestige classes, etc).

The only answer I've found for this, without simply abandoning the game altogether, is to use a point-buy character-generation system. There are a few out there for d20 games, but they tend to be limited to what mechanics are represented in terms of how many "points" they cost under such a system. Hence why I think that the best one by far is Eclipse: The Codex Persona, since it's flexible enough to allow for pretty much anything, as the book's co-author showcases over on his blog.

 

[DaveMage]

My biggest gripe with Pathfinder is that, like 3.X, it ostensibly allows for any character theme you can come up with, while still using the class/level system of character generation. That's a problem because the class/level system is built around exception-based design, which means that the default assumption is that you can't do something unless you have a power or special ability (whether from a class ability, feat, or something else) that says you can, and what abilities you get are collected into bundles, limited by prerequisites, and otherwise subject to restrictions that limit thematic possibilities.

That flies in the face of "make any sort of character you want," since some sorts of characters - typically those that aren't represented by an existing class or related mechanic - simply can't be made like that, or (more often) they'll simply operate at a substandard level compared to characters whose theme is better served by the existing game rules. If you want a spellcasting martial artist, your monk 5/sorcerer 5 will be terrible compared to a sorcerer 10 or monk 10, in terms of how effectively they can contribute to the group.

Exception-based rules are simply a poor match for the promise of near-infinite possibilities. Of course, that works out well from a sales point of view, since it means you can endlessly publish splatbooks full of new exceptions (e.g. classes, archetypes, feats, prestige classes, etc).

The only answer I've found for this, without simply abandoning the game altogether, is to use a point-buy character-generation system. There are a few out there for d20 games, but they tend to be limited to what mechanics are represented in terms of how many "points" they cost under such a system. Hence why I think that the best one by far is Eclipse: The Codex Persona, since it's flexible enough to allow for pretty much anything, as the book's co-author showcases over on his blog.

I wonder if we'll ever see a rulebook from Paizo (like 3e's Unearthed Arcana/Optional Rules) that lets you do exactly what you're suggesting. It would be interesting to turn the game on it's head like this.

 

[Argyle King]

Agreed with all of those.

And one other thing I really like, although this is more corporate culture and approach than actual rules:

The relationship with 3PP. The Paizo store highlights a few different products each week on their front page. Half the time it isn't Paizo's own product. A lot of the time it is Pathfinder 3PP, and sometimes it isn't even a Pathfinder product. When they released the books in the first couple of years, I would see feats and spells that were open content for 3.x. Even now, I'll see an occasional bit that was from a 3PP. I like that.

And likely as an outgrowth of this attitude, and the fact that many 3PP are made up of Paizo freelancers anyway, most third party publishers work well with each other, including some support for each others product. Dreamscarred who did Psionics has had 2 campaign words, and 3 other supplements use their Psionics. Heck there is even a Kickstart going on (for Mythic rules) that is Primarily Legendary games, but Kobold Press, Rogue Genius Games and Dreamscarred Press are all supporting it, and doing content for them.

That is just a good thing in my mind.

I can agree with that. As a company, I currently have a good opinion of Paizo. I like that they appear to be willing to work with other companies. A good example is Munchkin Pathfinder; Paizo (along with Steve Jackson Games) worked together with a different company to make a product. That product turned out (in my opinion) to be very good. While it's still Munchkin, there are some tweaks to the rules and artwork and a few other things (such as plenty of 3.5 and Goblin-related puns) which gave me a chuckle.

If I can offer a few more things about PF that I liked, I would also add: The Beginner Box was very good; changes to some of the most problematic 3.5 spells seems to help.

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However, this thread is about what I feel is wrong with Pathfinder, so back to that...

I'll again say that something about the PF Bard doesn't seem to work. On paper, it looks like you get a lot of new abilities to make you better. In actual play, it seems weaker than the 3.5 Bard. In particular, the signature ability of a Bard (perform) doesn't seem as good.

For some reason, I have a hard time remembering the cosmology and divine set up of Pathfinder. This may simply be due to not playing PF much. However, when I have played, there's little about the deities and similar things which seem to grab me and cause me to remember them.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The title says it all. Post what you think is wrong with Pathfinder and we will fix it.

My problem is it changed just enough of 3.5 to make me have to relearn rules and buy new books including missing my fav classes (ninja warblade warlock marshal dragon shaman knight) and created classes with the same 4e style non sense ( gunslinger grit and alchomists that make no in world sense) but without the 4e balance. Then they gave MORE to classes already at the upper end (why did wizard or cleric need more features?)

In general it took the worst of 3e and the worst of 4e and made them worse



To be fair they improved skills and I love cmb/cmd although I think that could use some work

Basically it feels like a heavy house ruled 3.5 witch is great but not something worth buying especially since I had my own 3.5 house rules but they were very diffrent

 

[oxybe]

Golarion as a setting just leaves me feeling underwhelmed. from what i've played it's effectively just another generic fantasy setting with rebranded stand-ins for earth cultures. it could simply be the GM not being the Golarion Guru and strongly emphasizing certain key aspects i missed, but the setting as-is is pretty bog-standard.

i've got an easy half-dozen settings, if not by wizards/tsr alone, i can use should i want to run a faux-europe setting, doubly so if i'm only using the setting in a superficial manner. beyond being capable of pointing at a map and going "hey this is where the adventure path is occuring" i don't see the immediate benefit of using golarion over, say grayhawk or faerun (copyright issues notwithstanding).

even then, if you're running an AP you'll be going where the AP wants you to go so the world as an entity is pretty inconsequential. what's going on in Cheliax or even it's existence is of little to no matter to the PCs if they're in the middle of the River Kingdoms unless the AP says something is going on and it's important.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Basically it feels like a heavy house ruled 3.5 witch is great but not something worth buying especially since I had my own 3.5 house rules but they were very diffrent

Same here.

I think that PF is probably an overall improvement over 3.5, but it's an incremental improvement. During my 3.5 days, I came up with quite a few house rules to address the things I have issue with -- and PF's changes address maybe 5% of those things.

If 4e hadn't addressed 95% of my issues with 3.5, PF might have become my go-to ttrpg as 'the next best game,' with the addition of 95% of my 3.5 house rules -- but as things are, I only play PF once in a blue moon when I hang out with some local PF fan friends.

 

[billd91]

To tell you the truth, I have a lot fewer problems with PF and the game's rules than I have with the player community and their complaints. Just about any problem people have had with the game (including 3.5), I can address as a DM or as a player at the table with little muss or fuss. If the particular tool in the game doesn't work for our game table, we omit it whether that's a summoner (which we are having fun with so no problems there), magic item creation, the magic item economy, scry-teleport-fry and other problematic spell combinations, or play style issues. Most of the changes I would make to the system are evolutionary tweaks in nature to even those problems out rather than taking too radical a redesign approach.

In other words, there's not that much wrong with PF as far as I'm concerned. If I want to play a different game, I'll go out and get a different game.