D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 E, older D&D and Pathfinder. What do D&D vets think of pathfinder

[Shoe]

I would prefer the return of the thief. A weaker character in combat, with more emphasis on sneaking and trap finding. But the ninjaesque rogue is here to stay, I'm afraid.

Amen to that....if you are playing a rogue for the combat abilities you really meant to play a fighter or BBN...rogues excell in times of intrigue, guile and sneakery....I play a rogue 80+% of the time and I could give a rat's @$$ about sneak attack....If i kill something, its USUALLY a Coup de grace or a fluke. On the other hand I can acquire most items i need for free, persuede any NPC of just about anything, solve any riddle and disarm any trap....let the meatshields and Missile Launchers (wizards) do the fighting.

-Shoe

 

[Shoe]

Almost that but Magic Items creation also requires skill checks (appropriate craft or spellcraft). The DC ca be increased to ignore a pre-requisite for the item creation.

A failure on the check can lead to the creation of a cursed item.

what page is all the new magic item creation rules on? i cant seem to find it

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Amen to that....if you are playing a rogue for the combat abilities you really meant to play a fighter or BBN...

-Shoe

I mean no offense, but I must (partially) disagree. If you play a rogue for the combat abilities you meant to play something else.

When I play a rogue I typically do so both for their particular skill set and for their style of fighting - which style I'm glad is no longer hamstrung by the sheer number of foes immune to sneak attack.

When I do play fighters, I prefer a style that emphasizes critical hits over base damage - it's just plain exciting to me to get that extra oomph. So I'm likewise very happy that this style is no longer hamstrung either.

However, this is purely a statement of what's fun to me - as is much of the stuff I post here, 'cause it's a game and I play it to have fun!

 

[Shoe]

I mean no offense, but I must (partially) disagree. If you play a rogue for the combat abilities you meant to play something else.

When I play a rogue I typically do so both for their particular skill set and for their style of fighting - which style I'm glad is no longer hamstrung by the sheer number of foes immune to sneak attack.

When I do play fighters, I prefer a style that emphasizes critical hits over base damage - it's just plain exciting to me to get that extra oomph. So I'm likewise very happy that this style is no longer hamstrung either.

However, this is purely a statement of what's fun to me - as is much of the stuff I post here, 'cause it's a game and I play it to have fun!

Fair enough....my main point was that rogues were not built as a class in game to be massive damage producers and that generally if you prefer the fighting style of a rogue but are unsatisfied with the ability to be viable in combat the (generrally) better way would be to use a figter with feats made to resemble the aspects of a Rogue's fighting style that you enjoy and in turn sacrificing the parts of the rogue class you dont prefer to use. The versitily of fighters (exspecially in pathfinder) due to feat selection can pretty much create whatever fighting style you prefer

just my 2 cents

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Fair enough....my main point was that rogues were not built as a class in game to be massive damage producers and that generally if you prefer the fighting style of a rogue but are unsatisfied with the ability to be viable in combat the (generrally) better way would be to use a figter with feats made to resemble the aspects of a Rogue's fighting style that you enjoy and in turn sacrificing the parts of the rogue class you dont prefer to use. The versitily of fighters (exspecially in pathfinder) due to feat selection can pretty much create whatever fighting style you prefer

just my 2 cents

And a good 2 cents they are . . . I see your point.

 

[ancientvaults]

A little late to the party...
I really enjoy Pathfinder and I am an oldschool gamer. The depth of characters is amazing.
However, it isn't very oldschool in feel. We use Labyrinth Lord + the Advanced Edition Companion (with a few houserules) for the 1E feel. Labyrinth Lord alone will give you the old B/X game.

Pathfinder is a lot of fun, though, and a great game. My group uses the same homebrew world that I have been using for decades. The real advantage to Pathfinder to me is that the modules are fairly pointless. I just write out a bunch of NPCs, use a map and run with it. But that is an oldschool approach to a modern game.

The one game that merges the two concepts to me is the Peryton rpg, which is sort of a 3.0 and oldschool mash.

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm going to throw in something for the devils' advocate, just for fun.

Warriors don't have sneak attack and they deal with undead just fine, and other classes suffer similar issues when fighting oozes and constructs.

Plus, iirc, Dungeonscape presented an alternate class feature called Penetrating Strike that allowed Rogues to get half their SA bonus against said creatures.

Rogues are skill monkeys who happen to have decent combat skills in the right circumstances. Remember that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Warriors don't have sneak attack and they deal with undead just fine, and other classes suffer similar issues when fighting oozes and constructs.

Plus, iirc, Dungeonscape presented an alternate class feature called Penetrating Strike that allowed Rogues to get half their SA bonus against said creatures.

Rogues are skill monkeys who happen to have decent combat skills in the right circumstances. Remember that.

Agreed, 100%.

Of course, the first counterargument is that Warriors have full BAB, medium/heavy armor, better weapons.

OTOH, Warriors have almost no skills. Most warriors- those who aren't Rangers, at least- are not going to be sneaking around being stealthy; they can't set deathtraps; they can't get through locked barriers made with anything heavier than un-reinforced wood; they can't UMD...

 

[Steel_Wind]

I'm going to throw in something for the devils' advocate, just for fun.

Warriors don't have sneak attack and they deal with undead just fine, and other classes suffer similar issues when fighting oozes and constructs.

I would argue that fighters and other warrior classes don't deal with the undead "just fine" under 3.5. The restoration of critical hits to these creature types were made to readjust the game balance more in favour of such classes, who rely upon their abilities to do criticals (and in the case of rogues, also with sneak attacks) to bring them more into balance with the damage dealing power of the Wizard class.

Wizard's don't sneak attack, and a few range touch attacks like scorching ray excepted, don't rely upon criticals to do their damage in combat. They unleash with mass area attack spells and roll the damage. *BOOM BOOM BOOM*

The restoration of criticals and sneak attacks, while perhaps pushing verisimilitude to its limits, were made in order to restore this sense of balance, especially with a whole class of creatures which are encountered so often in the game: undead.

As James Jacobs has reminded us, the experience with Paizo in dealing with complaints about how rogues were useless in the later stages of the Age of Worms attempted to address this imbalance in Pathfinder RPG.

Seems to me that Paizo got it right, when assessing the rule changes overall impact upon game play.

 

[Votan]

I would argue that fighters and other warrior classes don't deal with the undead "just fine" under 3.5. The restoration of critical hits to these creature types were made to readjust the game balance more in favour of such classes, who rely upon their abilities to do criticals (and in the case of rogues, also with sneak attacks) to bring them more into balance with the damage dealing power of the Wizard class.

Wizard's don't sneak attack, and a few range touch attacks like scorching ray excepted, don't rely upon criticals to do their damage in combat. They unleash with mass area attack spells and roll the damage. *BOOM BOOM BOOM*

The restoration of criticals and sneak attacks, while perhaps pushing verisimilitude to its limits, were made in order to restore this sense of balance, especially with a whole class of creatures which are encountered so often in the game: undead.

As James Jacobs has reminded us, the experience with Paizo in dealing with complaints about how rogues were useless in the later stages of the Age of Worms attempted to address this imbalance in Pathfinder RPG.

Seems to me that Paizo got it right, when assessing the rule changes overall impact upon game play.

Undead are even worse than oozes and constructs. Clerics can turn them, for example, making the armored full caster class stronger against the exact creatures that the fighters and rogues are weakest against.

This would make more sense if there were common creatures against whom the cleric felt ineffective . . .

Similarily, the wizard has disintegrate -- the bane of so many undead creatures that I could just cry sometimes. And the spell is useful for utility (boring passages) and as a general combat spell so it's not a wasted slot for anybody.

In the first half of the game, I'd agree that it doesn't matter as much. But in the high levels you remove a lot of rogue striking power versus these common high level foes just at the same time as the casters have enough spells to really have options.

As for the skill claim, outside of an anti-magic zone, I see a wizard able to cast invisibility, fly, read thoughts, set symbols as traps, and use spider climb on walls. Clerics cast silence -- and with one domin they fly or teleport too. Bards cast glibness and suggestion is a class feature. It's not that the skills are valueless but that magic is starting to really move into this domain as well.

I'm not arguing that this, per se, makes the rogue non-viable at high levels but it does make it hard to argue (convincingly) that they work in a high level and undead focused campaign. Maybe that is a feature and not a bug -- I don't know -- but adding sneak attack damage back in doesn't make the situation worse for rogues!