Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder BETA - Some Sizzle, Not Much Steak

I was very excited When Pathfinder was announced. Not because I hated 4E or anything (I'm pretty much indifferent towards it) but because I glad that there would be something for those sticking with 3ed and I'm a huge fan of Paizo so I was curious to see what they came up with. I had a pretty solid list of things in 3ed that I wanted to see addressed and fixed and there was no better choice than Paizo to undertake that task. On top of which I knew they would deliver an incredibly high-quality product.

So Pathfinder Beta is finally here. This is the version that is supposed to be fairly "complete" and that Paizo wants the community to playtest. So after spending some time giving the pdf a once over, I and myself feeling very under-whelmed and quite honestly, somewhat letdown by the Paizo development machine.

I can summarize my disappointment as follows:

1. Failure to address core issues

Almost nothing on my "what needs to be fixed in 3ed list" has been addressed. This includes, but not limited to, multiclassed spellcasters, the 15-minute adventuring day, and high-level play.

Sure, some of the fixes they've done are nice - and needed: grappling, combat maneuvers, (some) skill consolidation - but I see these changes as giving the house a new coat of paint while the framework is still shaky.

I know Paizo has said they would still like to address some of these issues (even Lisa the CEO has made her feelings about high-level play known!) but to me, these things should have been addressed from the very start. They should have been the priority. They are not "Beta" fixes. In the software world, Beta, heck even Alpha, assumes all the major features you are introducing are already developed and are at least stable enough to use and test. Alpha is for testing and bug fixes. When the build gets to Beta, it is essentially a release candidate, meaning it's ready for prime-time assuming nothing catastrophic is found at the last minute.

In the development process, you prioritize your workload and feature list first. I feel Paizo (although ultimately, this is probably Jason Bulmahn) had their priorities backwards from the start. Revising the classes and races, for example, is the easy stuff but it doesn't addressed the core mechanics. It doesn't change the way the game is played, which I feel, is what 3ed needs.

2. Crunch overload

From what I've seen, the design philosophy for Pathfinder has been "more, more, more!" While options are fine, it's not what 3ed really needs at this point in time. I have more ranger variants than I can shake two scimitars at. I like a lot of the class and race revisions but I still feel like I'm talking to a used car salesman who is trying to distract me by cranking the car's sweet stereo so I can't hear the grinding sound coming from the engine.

There's a lot of nice, new, shiny crunch in Pathfinder but I find that I'm asking myself if it's really what I need. I have bookshelves full of class variants and I have my own. Is this really what I need Pathfinder to deliver? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding "no".

What I do need are developers willing to look at the core of 3ed and fix it. I need developers to fix the things that I don't have the time to do myself. I don't need developers to spend their time further bloating an already heavily patch-worked system.

3. Change for change's sake

Along with the lack of addressing core issues and the massive amounts of new crunch, what I find most annoying is some of the things they did change didn't need to be changed at all. This further supports my feeling that the design goal at the start wasn't clear or well-defined.

Just to illustrate my point, take something as small as the Cleave feat. Did it really need to be changed. If you were to go about revising the 3ed ruleset, would you even think twice about feats like Cleave, or Great Cleave, or Combat Expertise? I think Mr. Bulmahn should have had a plaque made and hung it above his desk that said "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

To take this one step further, did the barbarian need rage points? The barbarian, to me, was one of the most well-designed classes already. The mechanic might be sound but truely ask yourself, is this change needed.

Part of why I was excited for Pathfinder was that I was looking for a single resource, a single set of rules, for 3ed. But now I'm finding the more I read it, the more things I already want to houserule or change back to the way they were originally!

Conclusion

Trust me, I'm fully aware that nothing will make everyone happy. I'm fine with that. I also thing it's commendable what Paizo has undertaken with this process. I thought the open playtest would be a mess but they've certainly made it work and I fully support their decision to open the rules to the fans.

Perhaps some of my disappointment stems from the fact that I hold Paizo to such a high standard. I think they one of, if not the best, RPG publishers in the business right now. I want them to succeed. Which is why my enthusiasm for Pathfinder has waned the more and more I've seen in each release. I want Paizo to step up and create a memorable and lasting 3ed ruleset and truly improve the very core of the game. Superficial changes won't do that.

There is also the change that my goals don't coincide with Paizo's. And that's fine too. I hope it's not the case because I want to support them. But as of right now, Pathfinder isn't for me.

I was hoping Pathfinder would do something about multiclassing also (maybe adapt the 4E model or something). Is there anyone who has seen the Beta, who has also read the last Alpha, that can tell us the differences from the last Alpha to the Beta?

GlassJaw said:

What I do need are developers willing to look at the core of 3ed and fix it. .

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There is the possibility of course that some of us are happy with the core of 3e and thats why we want to stick with it.

Have you playetested the Alpha rules or just read them? I am genuinely curious. You say that the 15 minute adventuring day needs addressed but a lot of the changes do address it. We never had much problem with it anyway, its mostly a mental problem, but the Alpha changes removed it completely.

As for multiclassing, the mechanics have not yet been addressed but I suspect the fixes are going to be pretty simple. For one thing, by making the core classes better , the felt need by some to multiclass should be removed.

That's disappointing...

It's how I kinda felt Pathfinder was shaping up, after looking at the Alpha rules. I was assured it would all be fixed by the release. It seems like it had a lot of ramping-up of power levels, and didn't seem all too backwards-compatible...

Of course, part of the problem is that the design goals are contradictory.

(1) Keep backwards compatibility so everyone can keep using their 3.5 stuff.
(2) Fix the deep problems in the system especially in regards to high-level play and multiclassing.

Paizo rocks, though, so I was hopeful, at least.

A few subsystems have been fixed (skills, grapple), a few have been tweaked unnecessarily (barbarian rage), but no deep mechanical revision can evidently happen if they also want to keep backwards compatibility.

I want Pathfinder to succeed, just in case my 4e campaign goes south, so this is disheartening.

-O

I won't comment on PFRPG (because I haven't read it, and probably won't if it's not much different than the alpha). What I will comment on is the OP's post: It's excellent.

Here we have a guy who states his opinion, lays down concise information supporting his view, and ties it up nicely. There's no hysterics, insults, or other B.S.

I need to learn from that, and so do many other folks around here.

GlassJaw said:

Just to illustrate my point, take something as small as the Cleave feat. Did it really need to be changed. If you were to go about revising the 3ed ruleset, would you even think twice about feats like Cleave, or Great Cleave, or Combat Expertise? I think Mr. Bulmahn should have had a plaque made and hung it above his desk that said "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Click to expand...

Did Cleave need to be fixed? Probably not. But does the change make it a more useful feat, particularly at higher levels when cleave is probably going to be seen less often than mid-levels? Yes.

Combat Expertise now gives the fighter a reason to have an intelligence higher than 13, which means there can be some benefits for having a build that isn't all str, dex, and con. Is this definitely a good thing? I don't know. That's why we're having a year-long play test.

Keep in mind that this game isn't in final form. If some of these changes don't improve the game and rigorous play testing can show that, I have no doubt they'll change.

GlassJaw said:

I have more ranger variants than I can shake two scimitars at.

Click to expand...

That's a funny line and worth repeating IMHO

Good post Glassjaw, and you're points are very well stated and valid. I downloaded the PF rules and played in 4 adventures using the PF alpha (level 1, 6, 9, and 14) to see how the system played, and had the same issues with it you do. I did download the PF beta yesterday, and it looks like its almost identical in content.

Like you, I think Paizo completely glossed over the major issues of the 3.x system, and revised the minor things (classes, races, cleric domains, grapple, etc), but didn't address some of the bigger problems with 3.x (magic item dependence, mechanical system mastery emphasis, tedious preparation, buff stacking, multiclassing, etc). And no doubt, a lot of new crunch was added (barbarian rage points, monk ki points, etc), which really don't add much of anything except a lot of extra bookkeeping. On a more personal level, the power level of the game has been turned up to 20, which doesn't appeal to me. I know why it was done (to make core classes more attractive than PrCs), but IMO it went way too far, and my play experience bears that out- PCs tend to roll over CR-appropriate encounters now even easier than they did in 3.x.

I know after my buddies and I tried the PF alpha, we all thought "wow, that didn't improve anything at all- its just more complicated with extreme power bloat, and didn't address any of our issues with 3.x". Most of the other gamers I've talked to around here seem to feel the same way. That said, I know some folks are really looking forward to the PF ruleset, and I'm happy for them that they will have something to play and enjoy. Paizo as a business is a class act, and some of their more system-neutral products are really good (some of the Gamemastery modules and Classic Monsters book were pretty cool IMO, and I have used the Critical Hit and Fumble decks in my 4e game- those are a ton of fun). PF isn't to my tastes, and thats fine- a wide variety of games for people to play is a good thing.

Jason is a good Designer, but he needs a good Developer to keep him on track.

Hopefully this is the role that SKR will provide.

I think there is a sizeable faction that seem to think that that Pathfinder is striving to be an alternate 4th edition of D&D instead of being essentially the next progression of 3rd and 3.5.

A lot of things people seem to be expecting, (I.e. changing Multi-classing, changing Spell Progression, Changing Crunch Overload,) is not and probably never will be on Pathfinder's agenda. It is essentially a revision of the ruleset for people who do not think areas of it are fundamentally broken.