Pathfinder 1E Sell me on Pathfinder!

[wayne62682]

I think I've found a new podcast to listen to!

 

[Crothian]

It's good but not great. They made improvenments they though t the game needed so depending on what you liked and disliked the changes may or may not be there. I find the little changes the most annoying like to feats and spells. Many work differently but they kept the exact same name so it can be easy to get them confused between the old and new one especially if you are not sure it changed. Looking them up all the time can be a hassle.

All the classes got more powerful and I'm not a fan of that. In my mind it was a lateral move and that's one of the reasons I didn't want to switch over to it; we are still playing 3e and it works well for us.

Now, their modules and adventure paths rock. Hell, I'd be buying these even if we were playing a different fantasy game all together. The Pathfinder ones are very easy to convert back to 3e so no issues there.

As laways do what is best for you and your group.

 

[D'karr]

I found it not to my taste, so I can't really "sell" you on it. We played the Savage Tide campaign using Pathfinder. It was unsatisfying because of the changes.

What I found was a lot of annoying little changes, similar to when 3.5 came out and made a lot of little changes that made you go back and double-check everything. In addition they increased the power level of all classes, which made most of our previous 3.5 books a lot of trouble to balance out with the current classes. We had a few of the players that had classes from Arcana Unearthed, Complete Warrior, etc. Those players were always playing second fiddle to the much more powerful Pathfinder Classes. Higher levels are still very difficult to run and balance. I'd say it's even harder since the classes are more powerful.

They did change some things for the better. They made things like trip, disarm, grapple, etc., simpler to use. They even balanced some spells better. However, druids, clerics and wizards still reign supreme at higher levels, and you definitely don't want to try to incorporate any of the previous books to work with them.

Overall, I found the system had some good ideas, but not enough of the things that had plagued our games got fixed satisfactorily.

As far as the Paizo adventures go, they are very good and I would highly recommend them. We still use them for our games with other game systems.

 

[Azgulor]

Pathfinder exceeded my expectations and continues to do so with the expansion of the line. Whether that's due to superior game design, an alignment with my personal gaming tastes, or both I can't say for certain.

Pros:

• Maintains 3e flexibility yet also managaes to produce a stronger old-school vibe (better trap, poison, & cursed magic item design).
• Skill system is elegantyet addresses the flexibility issues of limited skill points.
• Greater mechanical differentiation between the wizard & the sorceror. If I played more than I GM'd, I'd be hard pressed to choose between the two.
• While the classes got an slight power bump overall, I'm finding smaller power variance between the classes as a result. The general design approach of more feats and no dead levels has gone a long way to address things without changing the power level to make things unrecognizeable.
• GM choice on advancement rate: Slow, Medium, Fast.
• Sexier class design results in strong case for single-classed characters.
• Skill system changes and preserved multi-classing system results in strong case for multi-classing.
• New feats result in greater class/character variance & extension of feat-chain options (e.g. archer, sword-n-board, 2-wpn fighting, etc.)
• Unifying BAB & HD (Low-BAB = d6; Med-BAB = d8; High-BAB = d10). I only wish they'd done the same with skill points (4-pt, 6-pt, 8-pt progressions).

Cons:

• Did not remove reliance upon magic items
• No specific changes on high-level play; no epic-level rules (neither is really an issue for me but they're somewhat frequent complaints)
• Focus on standard races rather than monsters as races (this is actually a feature for me but again)

Some argue that Pathfinder didn't diverge from 3.5 enough while others argue it diverged too much. My assessment, Pathfinder stays true to the 3.5 design while removing some of the more noticeable issues. Also, for those who feel Pathfinder didn't change enough, it appears that products like the upcoming Advanced Player's Guide will go a long way towards addressing those complaints.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

3. Pathfinder classes are more powerful than 3e classes. To make up for that, you should find a balance such as granting an extra feat to the 3e classes every 3rd level.

jh


..

A note on this part - Pathfinder classes actually balance pretty well with most (not all) of the later base classes for 3.5, and most (not all) prestige classes. Essentially the power bump is there to encourage sticking with the core classes, rather than taking the prestige classes. Balance against core 3.5, yeah, I will agree - the Pathfinder classes are stronger. Balanced against some of the base classes from the Complete series... feels like about the same power level. (With the exception of a few classes, like the Scout. I love the scout, but all powerful it was not.)

And my favorite part of Pathfinder, as I have said many times now, sorcerers rock! (I never considered the bard to be the weakest class - I always felt that sorcerer managed to be both weak and flavorless. Now they have some of the best flavor in the game. )

The Auld Grump

 

[Votan]

It's really the case that if you liked 3.5E then Pathfinder is a well tweaked revision of the 3.5E D&D rules. It has the advantage of being based on familiar rules, addresses some weak spots and changes about a much as a modest house-ruling DM would. It's quite playable with 2 books and a lot of it is free online for reference material.

In my case, it was the adventure paths that sold me. I subscribed to avoid the hit or miss nature of going to the gaming store. But solid adventure frameworks can really make it fun to game . . .

 

[Azgulor]

Also, while it's nowhere near the tidal wave of product that 3.x received, Pathfinder receives active 3rd-party support. The Genius Guide classes and Fist Full of Denari classes are considered PF-core in my group.

Finally, all of that niche 3rd-party supplement product I acquired over the years is largely plug-n-play with Pathfinder!

 

[Argyle King]

While I do not play Pathfinder, one thing I've noticed recently is that the quality of the Pathfinder minis is very very good.

 

[Gothmog]

If D&D 3e/3.5 was a game you enjoyed and thought was the bees knees, then Pathfinder will likely be a game you love. It did clean up some of the messier bits of 3.5 (namely unarmed combat, grapples, some skill consolidation, etc), and made some classes more interesting (the sorcerer especially benefits). The cleric domain powers and abilities are also much better than those found in 3.5. The XP system for awarding experience is better too- the CR/EL stuff is largely gone now. Any of your old 3.5 stuff should be easily convertable to Pathfinder as well!

However, Pathfinder also has retained all of the 3.5 design flaws. Magic item Xmas tree (reliance on magic items) is still a big problem, as is the complete dominance of caster classes. Skill points are still few and far between for most classes, and massive bonuses to d20 rolls that largely make the d20 roll irrelevant are still there. Armor class doesn't scale with level, and there are numerous small changes to feats and spells that mean you really have to carefully reread everything to understand how the system works now. Some folks love the feat trees and prereqs for Prestige Classes, and enjoy planning out a character from level 1 to 20; but for my group, it was a turn-off to have to pre-plan everything to get a desired feat or PrC instead of letting the character grow over time in an organic way. Finally, DM prep time hasn't been improved upon at all- the guy who ran it was constantly frustrated by his prep time and having to double-check every spell, feat, and magic item he thought he knew from 3.5. For my group, things were a bit too regimented and rules-opaque under Pathfinder for our enjoyment (a problem we also had with 3.5).

My group tried Pathfinder for about six months after the beta came out, and tried a short campaign with our updated beta characters when the main rulebook was released last summer. I played a human sorcerer up to level 9, and while the character was more flavorful, in the end our group had the same issues with Pathfinder as we did with 3.5, and we dropped it. We've been playing 4e the entire time we were playing Pathfinder, and the difference isn't even close- for my group, 4e is a far superior game. Each group is different though, and Pathfinder may fit your gaming style better.

Finally (and this is the area Paizo really kicks ass), you're going to have a LOT of great adventures to work with. I'm not quite as big of a fan of the Adventure Paths as some folks (they feel a little too railroady to me), but I do LOVE their 32 page modules, and have used several (or parts of them) in my 4e campaigns. Good luck, and enjoy your gaming!

 

[Stormonu]

1. No minions unless you house rule them in. WFRP3e and D&D4e are on the right track with this thing. Having a 1hp mook that can ACTUALLY HIT YOU is necessary for the fun of the game. This is one thing that bothers me about the Open Play scenarios. Combats are either impossible or a cakewalk.

Can't you replicate this with same-CR creatures (or maybe 1-2 CR's lower) with minimum hit points instead of average? and deals minimum damage on a hit? This is more or less the formula 4E uses.