D&D 4E [4E Players, mainly] Ever thought of defecting to Pathfinder?

[Gryph]

Well any 3.x D&D would be the last thing I would play, so Pathfinder is out for me.

Still, I understand some of the disillusionment with Wizards and 4e, at the moment. It has led me to think about pulling out Fantasy Hero and role with some crunchy point buy system goodness. I'm not sure how my players will respond, so I may just stay with 4e if my group isn't up for the experiment.

 

[mneme]

Not really, no. Pathfinder didn't even change the things that itched me the most about 3.x (crap defenses; +2/+0 (rather than smooth progression) for save progression when multiclassing; +0 (rather than smooth progression) for BAB progression in non full-bab classes when multiclassing).

I -could- see branching and working on an indie power-based system, though. Wizards opened the system space nicely with 4e, both proving it could be done and that it was interesting; there's plenty of other stuff one could do in that space, given a fresh canvas.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I thought about defecting, but the Pathfinder uniform doesn't fit my style. The green doesn't go well with my eyes, and the boots are far too rigid. Sure, the Wotc uniform looks like a jumpsuit from planet space, but at least you don't need a riding crop.

Additionally, defecting from 4e is treason, punishable by installing the unpatched etools on your PC and trying to create a Wiz6/Sorc4/ASC8 half-drow.

 

[Scribble]

Defect is a weird way of putting it...

Would I play Pathfinder? Sure... I'll pretty much play anything if the group wants to.

I don't know if I'd ever run it as the DM... 3e took way too much time to run for me, and always felt like a lot of work.

I just don't have that kind of time anymore.

 

[Ajar]

If issues with the company were enough to make me switch systems, I would still likely not switch to Pathfinder. I wouldn't turn down an opportunity to play it, but I'm not interested in creating that opportunity myself. If I do migrate away from 4E it will probably be to a different system entirely.

 

[hetzer]

As a player? Sure why not? As long as another is going to be the dm.

"Unfortunately" i am the dm most of the time and so its a "no way!". Wotc could burn all books that they have and go batshit crazy with new content for all i care. I have the books that i need, i like the system and i dont give a d%&/ over wotc being nice ,bad or whatever.

Of course just my 5 cent

 

[ChristianLindke]

Though I have been, until recently, a Pathfinder Superscriber there is no way I would go to the Pathfinder rpg from 4e. This isn't because their product is deficient in some way, it's perfectly good warmed over 3.x with excellent adventures/setting. It's because I already have a bookshelf of other 3.x material to draw from. If I were to play a 3.x game, it would be a fully 3.x game, and would I do that?

Heck no! Not as a GM anyway. Have you built high level encounters in 3.x? The hours spent stating up the bad guys, making sure to select all the appropriate "buff" spells and stating those up on multiple sheets depending on whether the players surprise the villain or not, could much better be spent playing a board game or 4e.

I love the fact that 4e can essentially be run with only 4 pages of information. Is the opponent a soldier? Then I know the HP/Defenses/Damage of attacks on the fly if necessary.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Play what you want.

If buying WotC products leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you probably shouldn't play that.

If they're fine, then keep going.

Ditto Paizo.

Everything else is politics.

 

[mkill]

I live in a city where gamers are scarce, so I have to play whatever I find a group for. I can't afford to be picky or elitist in game systems. I found that my fun in a game session entirely depends on the people I play with anyway. Give me awesome gamers and it will be an awesome session, regardless of whether it's Rolemaster or just blank sheets of paper and improvisation.

That said, I wish WotC would sell the D&D license to someone who cares. Seriously, they've pretty much stopped supporting it as an RPG, and they're just milking the IP for board games and novels. Screw that, it will fail, and I don't need my business school degree to see that. Their RPG line is dead, they're just looting the bodies for spare change.

For me, the best thing that could happen now is that WotC hands over D&D to Paizo. Paizo publishes a revised, errata'd and polished 4th ed PHB1 with proper layout and artwork, resurrects the paper magazines, and converts their adventure series to dual 3rd/4th edition stats. After a lot of playtesting and customer feedback, they publish a converged 5th edition in 2015 to reunite the player base.

Maybe that ain't gonna happen, but I can still dream.

If things continue like this, however, the RPG market has no leader to drive it, and this is bad for all companies in it. D&D was always the entry product that brought in the new generation. If that is gone, RPGs will retreat even further into the niche that they are already in, and nobody could want that, regardless of the game system or edition that they prefer.

Mhh, not sure what the D&D license is worth at the moment, it can't be much. TSR was worth $25m at the time. However, if they refuse to sell it, you'd need to raise $8bn for a leveraged buyout of Mattel...

 

[catastrophic]

For me, the best thing that could happen now is that WotC hands over D&D to Paizo. Paizo publishes a revised, errata'd and polished 4th ed PHB1 with proper layout and artwork, resurrects the paper magazines, and converts their adventure series to dual 3rd/4th edition stats. After a lot of playtesting and customer feedback, they publish a converged 5th edition in 2015 to reunite the player base.

Not only have paizo expressed no interest in 4th edition products, but they've shown no evidence that they can seriously design an rpg.

Dual statting products would also be a huge undertaking.

As for customer feedback, i'd love to see what paizo's base would have to say about the best way to 'polish' fourth edition. Really, it would be very amusing. I can't wait to see the debates over wether orcus has the rope use skill.

Not to mention all the 'step one, bring back terrible vancian magic and make fighters boring as hell again' posts people have made about a possible fifth edition design.

You can talk all you like about how WOTC doesn't care about dungeons and dragons, but at least they cared enough to try and fix it. That's more than paizo can say. They didn't even buff fighters for crying out loud (and again, we have customer feedback to thank for that, in part).