Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder 1.5 rumblings: Corefinder

[LegendaryGames]

I've seen plenty of people I disagree with who LIKE the super complicated "PC/NPCs have same rules" dealios though <_< So even changing that is somewhat controversial depending on who you ask

Oh sure, no system or product is ever going to please everybody. We just need to see what things resonate with our experience playing the game and creating hundreds of products for the game for LG (and hundreds more as freelancers on official products) plus what we hear from our customers and fellow gamers, and see what seems to fit the best.

On a certain level, anyone playing Pathfinder in any of its iterations has already made their peace with the idea of it being a complex game with lots of levers to pull, so we're certainly not going to be shy about that. We do want to increase the creature comfort of designing things on the GM side and collecting and condensing a lot of scattered, incomplete, conflicting, hidden, or otherwise wonky rules in PFRPG and filling in gaps for things that PCs would like to be able to do but require a lot of GM fiat on the fly to handle now, even simple stuff like passing an item to another character or carrying someone else around.

 

[LegendaryGames]

I think I mentioned this on paizo.com but honestly feel pretty cynical about all "try to continue 1e" projects so far, same with Poryphyra same here.

Like people keep saying they want better version of 1e, but they also keep saying things like "I want combat feel like this game that is nothing like 1e": There are lot of people who in truth want different things having those different expectations aimed at same thing, so as long that keeps being true, there can be no "true successor" that people actually approve of.

That and 1e has lot of inherent problems beyond game balance, magic utility leaving martials in dust and such, such as npc/monster creation at high levels being painfully involving process equivalent of creating multiple high level pcs and the whole problem with "okay, you can't just have monster that deals x amount of damage and has x amount of ac, you have to make sure their stats, equipment and such are correct so they add up to desired target damage/ac"

You're certainly welcome to feel how you feel. We'll be as transparent about the things we're doing as we can, introducing ways to deal with what we see as problems in the rule set while still remaining faithful to the general structure and philosophy of PFRPG and the 3.x rules that support it. We aim to create a game that does still feel mostly like PFRPG but that streamlines the kludgier parts of it and enhances the best parts of it. Whether we end up creating something that enough people love to really adopt as their favorite way to play Pathfinder, time will tell. For some, it will undoubtedly be a hard no for any number of reasons, to which I say play on with whatever is fun! I started with AD&D and BECMI in 1981 and I've played and GMed and written material (professionally only since 2002) for every edition since, and each of them has their charms and people who still play them.

All I can ask is to keep an eye on things as they come out and as all the pieces start coming together see what you think. When playtest opens up, give it a try and see how it feels at the table. Give feedback if you like. And we'll see where it all comes out in the end. For the Alpha version, we're leaning into trying more things to see how they go. I'd rather cast the net wider and see what can be caught and places we can perhaps come up with better ways to get to the same place than just do a round of spit polish and call it a day.

Check out the new updates in the post above, and happy gaming!

 

[LegendaryGames]

The way Pathfinder replaced 3.5 edition shows it can be done, but it remains to be seen whether Pathfinder 1st edition was the result of a perfect set of circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated.

If someone brings out a Pathfinder version I think is better then I'll play that instead. If I find myself with a lot of time on my hands I might even write my own version. If not, I'll carry on playing 1st edition for as long as I can find people willing to play it with me.

I will disagree with you about how "we can't just have a monster that deals x damage and has an AC of x". In practice we have that situation already - many monsters have ludicrous natural armour bonuses and silly ability scores that have clearly been arrived at by working backwards (an astral deva is as strong as a triceratops, and actually has thicker skin than one). There is no reason why a revised edition couldn't dispense with the pretence and give a monster a simple "awesomeness" bonus to all its numbers.

As a player I tend not to worry about where a monster's numbers come from, so long as they seem reasonably level appropriate. I'd prefer an unspecified bonus to the current system, as the current system can have unintended consequences.

In our last session our 9th level characters were attacked by what appeared to be a random gang of street thugs. In order to give them a chance of hitting us, they had a lot of levels on top of their racial hit dice - giving them each a BAB of at least +12. As a result they were attacking 3 times a round, whereas we were only attacking twice. So this gang of street thugs, who we had never seen before and who were attacking us for no apparent reason, were at least 12th level. You'd think they'd have better things to do.

There are definitely ways in which the Pathfinder RPG's ascendancy and success were a result of a unique set of circumstances that left fertile ground for it to grow and fertilized it in ways that would be hard to replicate.

But that doesn't mean we're not gonna try!

 

[RangerWickett]

From digest 16, what's the point of kneeling? How is it different from being prone?

Like, I figured at first that you were making prone really nasty, where it took your whole turn to stand up - a move and an action. In that situation, it made sense that the Pull Up option might let you lift an ally one 'step' without needing a check, and all the way with a successful Str check.

I also rather prefer a design mentality where you generally don't worry about people making checks to accomplish tasks that don't hurt an enemy. Like, 5e just lets you climb, no check needed. It speeds things up. And you're already investing an action from your turn, so that should accomplish something.

 

[LegendaryGames]

From digest 16, what's the point of kneeling? How is it different from being prone?

Like, I figured at first that you were making prone really nasty, where it took your whole turn to stand up - a move and an action. In that situation, it made sense that the Pull Up option might let you lift an ally one 'step' without needing a check, and all the way with a successful Str check.

I also rather prefer a design mentality where you generally don't worry about people making checks to accomplish tasks that don't hurt an enemy. Like, 5e just lets you climb, no check needed. It speeds things up. And you're already investing an action from your turn, so that should accomplish something.

Kneeling is actually a condition that already exists in PFRPG, it's just a "hidden" rule that's buried in the fine print of Table 8-6: Armor Class Modifiers (Core Rulebook, p. 195) and explained nowhere else. Kneeling or sitting is basically half the effect of being prone (+2 AC vs. ranged attacks, -2 AC vs. melee attacks) but doesn't affect your attack rolls.

Since it already exists, it did allow us a bit of design space to build in an alternate way of getting up from prone. Standing up from prone is a move action that provokes AoOs. Kneeling isn't described fully anywhere, so we built the idea that prone > kneeling doesn't provoke, and going kneeling > standing doesn't provoke, so if you want to spend 2 move actions (trading your standard for a move) you could stand up without taking AoOs.

 

[nevin]

I'll be interested to see what come's of this. I want to see something that is a bit less tactical. with something that encourages more role play, and helps new DM's understand how to not let rules lawyers bog thier games down.
When I play with people that love the nitty gritty detail of every move I feel like I'm playing a minatures war game instead of a roleplaying game. I really think that is what keeps pathfinder from being able to be a bigger competitor to D&D. A lot of it's customer base are nit picky detail oriented people that don't want to roleplay they just want to kill things in the "optimal way". I just recently told a party member of a game I play with friends that I wasn't going to play that way. I understand killing things is part of the game but when that's all the game is then I go find other things to do.

 

[nevin]

I think I mentioned this on paizo.com but honestly feel pretty cynical about all "try to continue 1e" projects so far, same with Poryphyra same here.

Like people keep saying they want better version of 1e, but they also keep saying things like "I want combat feel like this game that is nothing like 1e": There are lot of people who in truth want different things having those different expectations aimed at same thing, so as long that keeps being true, there can be no "true successor" that people actually approve of.

That and 1e has lot of inherent problems beyond game balance, magic utility leaving martials in dust and such, such as npc/monster creation at high levels being painfully involving process equivalent of creating multiple high level pcs and the whole problem with "okay, you can't just have monster that deals x amount of damage and has x amount of ac, you have to make sure their stats, equipment and such are correct so they add up to desired target damage/ac"

I'll be honest, I think 1e and 2e were far better games than pathfinder. I came to this recently after an argument with a good friend of mine that lead to a read through of the rules of both. I read through a lot of the spells and other things that people complain about in pathfinder. What i found was that almost everything that people complain about in pathfinder had more consequences or downsides to balance them out in 1st and 2e than in pathfinder. 1e balanced out a lot of things by lower hitpoints for mages and how they handled surprise rounds. 2e did it by trying even out some of what 1e did, and putting in the spheres for clerical magic. (one of my favorite features ever), 3rd just gave up on balance and the publicly stated design goal was the DM was who controlled balance and decided what was allowed. 3.5 and pathfinder have been trying to balance the mess that was 3.0 ever since because of blowback from players who bought splat books DM's wouldn't let them use. I love prestige classes and a lot of features of 3.0 on. But the more I've been rereading 1st and 2e rules the more I realize that they were far more balanced than anything from 3.0 to 1e pathfinder. Assuming you use the core rules. Splat books in all editions have some wacky stuff.

I'd like to see some of the magical reductions rolled back. I'm not sure on this but I'm starting to lean towards different experience point curves for different classes. If every class is different then it shouldn't be a big deal if some classes gain levels faster. it also mitigates the High level spellcaster issues, if warrior based classes level faster. I'd like Surprise rounds to become more deadly, I think full Magic using classes should have less hit points. I think casting while being physically attacked in combat should be very difficult. I generally play casters and I'd be ok with the old 1e you lose your spell if you get hit at all, that solves most of the overpowered mage arguments, because then an adventuring mage by themselves are monster food. And please don't try to nerf magic for the 4th time. Do that and I'm out. I'd like to see a game where the melee is punished for not protecting thier spellcasters and the spellcasters suffer if they end up in melee. Things like that encourage teamwork. I'd also love to see a more workable crafting system that doesn't punish players for being crafters. No edition has ever had that.

and Please fix the stupidity of Staffs in 1e. Cost benefit analysis for staffs is that they are always better sold to buy other resources. They are too expensive, too expensive to charge, too much time to charge.

 

[zztong]

Interesting, and hard to say at the moment. I'm in a D&D 5e game that bailed on PF2. I suspect they might just stick with 5e. I'm also in a PF1 game that didn't go to PF2. They might be interested in taking a look at CoreFinder.

EDIT: I also suspect that unless CoreFinder ends up with Hero Lab (native version) support, we probably wouldn't use it.

I forgot about the CoreFinder effort.

That group I mentioned above has been playing 5e and some folks are interested in going back to PF1, but we like parts of 5e too. It might be a good time for one of us to read through CoreFinder. I don't suppose there was any automation to go with character generation for CoreFinder?

 

[LegendaryGames]

I forgot about the CoreFinder effort.

That group I mentioned above has been playing 5e and some folks are interested in going back to PF1, but we like parts of 5e too. It might be a good time for one of us to read through CoreFinder. I don't suppose there was any automation to go with character generation for CoreFinder?

There are some design ideas we're incorporating from 5E and from PF2E where we feel like they've got something to add to the design conversation on Corefinder.

As for automated chargen, that's definitely outside my skill set so it's in the realm of "it might be possible, but we're not waiting around for it." There are a lot more logistical hurdles to clear in creating our own version of PCGen or HeroLab or whatever than there are to just writing the books, and working with the companies that do make those products... let's just say there are challenges there as well.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Kneeling is actually a condition that already exists in PFRPG, it's just a "hidden" rule that's buried in the fine print of Table 8-6: Armor Class Modifiers (Core Rulebook, p. 195) and explained nowhere else. Kneeling or sitting is basically half the effect of being prone (+2 AC vs. ranged attacks, -2 AC vs. melee attacks) but doesn't affect your attack rolls.

Since it already exists, it did allow us a bit of design space to build in an alternate way of getting up from prone. Standing up from prone is a move action that provokes AoOs. Kneeling isn't described fully anywhere, so we built the idea that prone > kneeling doesn't provoke, and going kneeling > standing doesn't provoke, so if you want to spend 2 move actions (trading your standard for a move) you could stand up without taking AoOs.

I gotta be honest, everytime I read a thread and get interested in thinking about a return to PF1E or D&D 3.5, then a discussion on the finer points of (to use this example) kneeling vs. prone or something grapple related pops up, and a cold chill grips my heart and I realize I'm just fine with PF2E and D&D 5E.

Hopefully despite focus on Corefinder Legendary will still release future Aegis of Empires adventure paths for use with PF2E, I finally ordered my copies and love the two that are out so far.