Pathfinder 1E Are people still playing Pathfinder 1e?

[FormCritic]

Yes

 

[John R Davis]

It's not really that funny, but Strange Ians really tickled me

Running my third session of The Half Dead City after Easter. The theme and old school feel of this module has been very popular with my players.

Yeah. We were very close to everyone being called Ian

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I just moved recently and uncovered all my Pathfinder 1E books. Good memories, and I have decided to drag them out of retirement to run another game soon.

 

[Arcanra]

Are folks still playing Pathfinder 1e? Because I just came into a LOT of Pathfinder 1e stuff last night (rulebooks, pawn collections, flip mats, APs, etc). Is there a good online community for PF1e players other than this forum?

My group still plays PF1e weekly, and a once a month all day Saturday Game. We've been playing PF 1e since it came out. We love it. We left ADnD 1e for 3.5 and then moved from 3.5 to PF 1e as soon as it came out.

 

[earthsea_wizard]

My group still plays PF1e weekly, and a once a month all day Saturday Game. We've been playing PF 1e since it came out. We love it. We left ADnD 1e for 3.5 and then moved from 3.5 to PF 1e as soon as it came out.

Have you all ever gone back and tried 1e in those years?

 

[haakon1]

Though I think the question was for Arcanra, I’ll answer too:

OD&D: never
D&D Basic, BECMI, RC etc.: never
AD&D 1e: 1982-1988, 1996-2001
OA: 1987-1991
AD&D 2e: 1988-1989
D&D 3e: 2001-2003
D&D 3.5e: 2003-now
D&D 4e: 2007-2008
Pathfinder 1: 2010-2018 (rarely, only at PaizoCon)
D&D 5e 2014: 2020-2022 (rarely, only GenCon Online), 2024-April 2025
D&D 5e 2024: Starts next month

I’ve converted materials from all but the first and last for D&D 3.5e games, which fit nicely in the middle.

I also played Pathfinder: Kingmaker and BG3, which are sort of PF1 and D&D 5e.

 

[Jahydin]

D&D 3.5e: 2003-now

Why 3.5 over PF1? Did PF just never click?

Have your tried PF2R yet?

 

[haakon1]

Why 3.5 over PF1? Did PF just never click?

I didn’t see an advantage to switching. I have used PF1 adventures, iconics as NPC’s, and rarely a rule or two from PF1, but the further it gets from AD&D or 3/3.5, the less interested I am.

Have your tried PF2R yet?

No.

 

[haakon1]

That reminds me …

What do folks think of the Companions in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and/or the iconics?

I was thinking about them this morning.

From Pathfinder: Kingmaker, I remember after years, with a little help from looking at the list.

Amiri. The female human barbarian with a giant’s sword. The most iconic of the iconics, and I believe the only iconic who made it to the console. I remember her fight with the boar.

Linzi. Your female Halfling bard chronicler. Fun character concept, acted well.

Valerie. Female Human Fighter specialized with Tower Shield. Fairly fun, specialized in drawing attacks rather than dealing damage.

Regongar. Male Half-Orc Magus. I didn’t particularly like the Magus concept, but he was effective in his own odd melee caster way. I remember rescuing him and …

Octavia. Female Human Wizard/Rogue. Sort of boring. I remember her relationship with Regongar, but I forgot her name. I forgot the name and anything about the others below until seeing them in a list.

Harrim. Male Dwarf Cleric. Eeyore personality. I kept him around feeling I needed a cleric, but didn’t like him much - or remember his name - I had him confused with Harsk the iconic.

Ekundayo. Male human Ranger. I remember meeting him, but I don’t recall using him much.

Jaethal. Female undead elf inquisor. Seemed like an interesting concept. I remember learning some lore from her.

From the iconics, my players once met several in a party. I think it was: Amiri, Seoni (female human sorcerer), Valeros (male human fighter), and Harsk (male dwarf ranger).

Off topic for PF, but my newest D&D 3.5e party met Karlach from BG3 (converted by me to 3.5e, and stranded in Greyhawk - she comes from the BG in the Forgotten Realms, went to Avernus, and was hit with Dismissal back to the Prime Material Plane, “randomly” ended up on a planet she never heard of). I had fun with her not being able to speak Common, and they decided to recruit her.

 

[earthsea_wizard]

Why 3.5 over PF1? Did PF just never click?

Have your tried PF2R yet?

For my group, a lot of the changes in PF1e were a reaction to how people were playing (and in reality, mostly just how people were talking about playing on internet forums) 3.5 towards the end of its cycle. My group never played like that and still doesn't today, we don't run into the issues that other people cite. We like the power level of 3rd edition characters more, PF1e ramped them up across the board, more abilities and feats for everyone each level, as if 3e wasn't already a lot of bookkeeping. "Dead levels" don't scare us and indded there could even be less of them and we would be fine. They added a lot of mechanics that looked like what 3.5 was doing towards the end, "dissociated" mechanics if you will, rather than simulationist ones. We didn't like that either. We also prefer that cantrips are not infinite. Vancian casting is cool to us, especially as some of us are actually long time fans of the Dying Earth stories, Pathfinder (and much of later 3.5) moves away from that. We don't love the artwork (to be fair we don't love the 3e artwork either, but it is less over the top at least in the early books) or the Golarian setting being so ingrained in the books. We like prestige classes and use them as they were intended (our campaign has a select handful that are flavored for the campaign and have certain RP requirements to acquire). Basically 3e is quite rooted in AD&D, 3.5 was a very small step away from that, Pathfinder was a much bigger step.

We play 3.5 with some 3e stuff mixed in (natural spell doesn't exist, keen and improved crits still stack, some prestige classes etc, small things like that). We are a group who finds the "deadliness" and "balance" in games like AD&D to be just fine. 3.5 "issues" sure don't occur to us. We don't use content from the second half of the 3.5 run, with a few exceptions here and there.

3e really does feel like a culmination of AD&D 1e, 2e Combat & Tactics with a healthy dose of Runequest and Rolemaster thrown in (all of these, in addition to Ars Magica, indeed having been cited as the main influences for the edition), and that's pretty perfect for us.