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

[The Little Raven]

I've got a very extensive 3X library and can't think of a single title that can't work with it very easily.

The Player's Handbook. The classes in the core are useless next to the classes in PF, no contest. Then we've got books like Oriental Adventures, where the classes need heavy revision (akin to what they did to turn the PHB classes into the PF classes) to be on the same level as PF classes.

That is an absurd claim.

Not really.

PF is still weak compared to come of the latter classes that wotc put out. And those classes were still close enough to be perfectly playable.

Yeah, notice how I said some just like you did, which would obviously mean that I'm only talking about some of the classes. Some classes, like Bo9S classes, aren't weaker than PF classes. Some, like samurai, marshal, shugenja, and a number of others are weaker than PF classes. The core classes in the PHB are definitely weaker than their PF counterparts.

I understand why they had to make some drastic changes, as you can't fix problems without doing real work, but this claim of 100% backwards compatibility isn't true, especially since it requires a whole lot of design work on the DM's part to get it that way. They've still got a year until their final release, so let's hope that's enough for them to get into some of the deep problems they've been putting off.

 

[AllisterH]

So, I guess I should start from the top.
: Races

Um, this may sound weird, but did Pathfinder actually shrink the available choices for race-class combinations?

There's a VERY strong correlation between elf and wizard for example. Much more so than before....same goes for gnome and sorceror.

+2 str is not equivalent to +2 INT due to how magic spells function.

Throw in the added feature of favoured class AND the fact that they bumped up the HD of the low-HD class, there's a BIG slant towards making only elven wizards (An elven wizard gets +1 hp/level from favoured class AND and extra hp from the wizard now getting d6 instead of d4. That CON penalty just disappeared....)

re: RAGE points
There's one thing that concerns me. Rage points run off of CON and I hope Paizo eliminates any CON changing in mid-battle....

There's STILL the problem of having Profession and Craft not maing sense given how they are used by most. Ex: Profession (Sailor) with regard to Balance and Climb or even better Profession (Cat Burglar) and the rogue skills....The Profession skills being too broad interact funny with the rest of the more specific skills.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

re: RAGE points
There's one thing that concerns me. Rage points run off of CON and I hope Paizo eliminates any CON changing in mid-battle..

If I remember correctly, the Rage Point description explicitly states that changes to the constitution score do not affect rage points. So that shouldn't be a problem.

(Unfortunately, the extra hit points granted by Raging are still not temporary hit points, and you can still die when you end your rage...)

 

[Kaisoku]

but this claim of 100% backwards compatibility isn't true,

People really need to sit down and read the actual book they are trying to tear apart here before they make comments...

Here's what the actual book says on Compatibility:

Compatibility: Of all the goals I set out with when designing this game, compatibility ranked near the top. I wanted to make sure that any rules we changed were adaptable to the extensive body of work that exists for the 3.5 rules set. In addition to being compatible, I wanted to ensure that any conversion work would be minimal. In most cases, this meant adding to existing rules, instead of subtracting from them. So, while we changed the way turning undead works, we did not remove turning undead from the game. We added options to the fighter without removing any of them. This design philosophy doesn’t always hold true, however. Some skills were combined and a few disappeared altogether (goodbye, Use Rope). Whenever I broke this rule, it was because the other guidelines took precedence.


Please, please, PLEASE keep this paragraph in mind when talking about "backward" compatibility. If you read through that text, there isn't even a point where it's stated "Backward" compatible.. rather, just "compatible".

This means, you can plop an old book's rule or stat block or class, etc, into a PF game, and run it fine, with only a little change required, if that. And any time that this has become explicitly impossible, it's because "Improve the Game" and "Add Options" took precedence over it: they felt that removing that compatibility made the game more fun, enough to warrant the loss.

Look, the words they use even imply that at least a bit of change is going to be required. The goal is "MINIMAL" change, and easily "ADAPTABLE", not 100% backward compatibility. 100% backward compatible would, in fact, be against their design goals...

 

[Vael]

I'm in agreement with Mustrum Ridcully, I find the current rage point mechanic to be in opposition to the very nature of playing a barbarian. I'm not familiar with the Iron Heroes beserker, but it sounds like a better implementation.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Big thread; cool, interest level is high! Good thoughts all around, and some common misconceptions too.

Barbarians do have d12 hit dice.

There's an entire section on how to quickly and accurately create NPC's without all the work expected before.

The reasons for the class tweaks in general are explained in the book-to make the core classes more attractive through all 20 levels in this era of splatbooks and prestige classes.

We know there is a ton of work at Paizo going into improving high-level play while retaining compatability, it's on the CEO's most-wanted list.

All in all the playtest period so far for my group has been very positive. Then again, that may just be because the things we asked for change (or not to change) so far on their boards were all implemented across the Alpha stage, proving they are listening to us.

I don't expect that through the entire stage, but it is comfortable knowing they are listening.

-DM Jeff

 

[Voadam]

I'll put myself down as not liking the resource management of rage points.

I want my combats to be mechanically simple to run, I dislike lots of resource management and book keeping work. I want to focus on the combat and not the mechanics numbers.

Iron Heroes token acquisition and choices of when to spend your tokens is not to my taste.

The judgment calls of whether to use my limited resource prepared spells or daily powers or limited points or save them for later in the fight or for other fights or in reserve in case we are attacked at night are aspects of the game I live with but do not enjoy.

I want to use my powers in combat and focus on fighting foes, not counting my ammo and holding back from fighting.

Rage gives you a decision point on whether to rage for an encounter or not. You have to judge how many encounters you expect in a day of how tough and ration uses of rage accordingly.

With rage points I expect to make the calculation based on how many rounds I expect to be in encounters during a day and how tough I expect those encounters to be.

When I played barbarians I used to take the extra rage feat and have enough daily rage uses to rage every fight I came across and not worry about the resource management aspects. I would rage, have my raging combat stats predone out and always dive into combat.

I don't expect to do that with rage points, its now a round by round resource management judgment call.

I like warlocks and dragonfire adepts and recharge magic. I like combat choices such as "do I use my dragonfire fire cone or the dragonfire lightning line attack this round against these foes" and not "do I use my cone of cold against these foes this round or hold off because I might need it later in the fight or in another planned fight or if we are jumped unexpectedly during the night or if things go real bad when we don't expect them to."

My ideal 3e combat class model is a soulknife with psionic focus feats. Always available powers, special powers that can be expended and recharged effectively during active melee combat or used 1/encounter with binary on/off book-keeping.

I also like fighters without power attack who do combat well without worrying about anything mechanically changing on my end. I get to focus on smacking enemies and the battle conditions.

I'm currently playing my first PC with power attack and going the all power attack all the time route.

When I played an archer ranger I used an efficient quiver so I wouldn't sweat the number of arrows I shot, I'd just choose improved rapid shot or manyshot and go with my predone bonuses.

I prefer combat resolution to be swift. Predone unchanging stats does this well. I decide whether to attack the beast before me or run over to help out the cleric who is being swarmed. I make that decision, say I attack the beast, roll a d20 add in the bonus and be done.

Calculating whether to spend 3/17 points to get a +2 to hit and +3 to damage this round adds in an extra judgment step and then book keeping steps of reducing the points and adjusting the numbers for the attack.

Some people like resource management in combat, fiddling around with numbers to match the situation and judging when is the best time to hold off on using powers or expending them with an eye kept on factors outside of the immediate combat.

For me those are not aspects of the game I enjoy.

The less book keeping, the less resource management, the more my character is fully in the combat the more satisfying it is for me.

It comes down to style of play and what aspects of the game appeal to you.

Rage points are not an improvement for me.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Please, please, PLEASE keep this paragraph in mind when talking about "backward" compatibility.

Sorry, but begging an internet troll to keep something in mind, you might as beg a real troll to not eat you. If someone is going to point out that the 3.5 PHB isn't going to be 100% compatable with PFRPG when the PFRPG book is meant to be a replacement for the PHB and DMG, then they're not going to let a little thing like facts stand in the way of making their argument.

Best to simply not feed the troll.

 

[AllisterH]

Ah, but then it raises the question,

What's your defininition of minimal conversion?

For every DM that's going to be different.

Take for example using PAthfinder's version of the Elf versus the core 3.5 elf. For some DMs, the fact that said elf is now a much better wizard will affect the combat encounter.

Or how about Cleave. Same feat, but it works differently now so any NPC or PC will be using it differently.

There are more changes in Pathfinder than the switch from 3.0 to 3.5 and there ARE DMs that got frustrated using the two because of those small details.

Personally, I could handle the 3.5 to 3.0 changes. I'm still not sure the PAthfinder changes are as small. THey basically changed almost every little thing....

It's those small things that snowball into bigger issues I find...

 

[Badkarmaboy]

Sorry, but begging an internet troll to keep something in mind, you might as beg a real troll to not eat you. If someone is going to point out that the 3.5 PHB isn't going to be 100% compatable with PFRPG when the PFRPG book is meant to be a replacement for the PHB and DMG, then they're not going to let a little thing like facts stand in the way of making their argument.

Best to simply not feed the troll.

Wow. That wasn't mean or anything.