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

[Votan]

Good point about Evasion, although they are not the only class to get that feature. As far as Balancing on a cloud, without trawling through the books for numbers I'd suggest that by the time you were high enough level to do that, not only would you have used a hefty chunk of skill points (and possibly a feat or two) but magic items and/or simple spells will equal or better that ability every time.

What I liked about sneak attack is that it got the lightly armored guy to race into combat to make a key blow. They had the skills to do it (tumble) and the class appealed to people who liked calculated risks. I just liked the idea of doing it to the Drow Lich as well as the annoying High Priest.



Balancing on a cloud was the highest DC in the epic level handbook (120, IIRC). Maybe magic has it beat, but it pointed out the extremes to which the rules could bring mundane abilities.

Which is one of the gripes with 3.5 model, and time will tell whether Paizo are inexorably sucked down the same black hole due to player pressure. In 3.5, take a class feature like Track. Who gets it: only the Ranger, and it is his *thing*. Somewhere, accompanied by a string quartet of the world's tiniest violins, a player of a wizard has said 'but I should be able to do that with a spell!'. An enterprising soul at WotC has thought 'hmm, if we write one up in a splatbook somewhere then the party will be able to compensate if nobody at the table plays a Ranger - everybody wins'. Well, except the player of the Ranger, who sees one of his core abilities eroded, turning him into an even more useless warrior - because, yes, people can whine about the rogue's inability to sneak some things, whereas the Ranger is a featless fighter, whose class ability is a whopping +2 damage (and +2 on a load of skills, some of which he's not very good at anyway) vs 1 type of creature. Got a great idea for a character whose favoured enemy is outsiders of the Earth subtype? Good luck getting much us out of that in the game, buddy... Oh, and let's not forget a combat style that's not only perfectly accessible to any other class, but which he SOMEHOW FORGETS HOW TO USE IN A SET OF PLATE MAIL!

Somehow no edition post-1E has had any idea how to create an interesting Ranger. The 1E ranger worked really well and had notable abilities which were unique and interesting (including fun trade-offs like a d8 but more HD at 1st level and more HD at peak) plus tracking abilities that couldn't be duplicated. When the game got more systematic, they seemed to lose inspiration for the class and it never really recovered (until, possibly, 4E).

Again, to be as fair as I can to Paizo, they said they wanted backward compatibility with 3.5 so they were kind of stuck with a number of millstones/albatrosses round their neck. The sneak attack tweak was simple and easy to implement so it was kind of a no-brainer - for the record it's the way sneak attack is implemented that bugs me more than anything. But I'm afraid there is an element of 'the emperor's new clothes' about some of the supposed balancing that has gone on with the class tweaks in PF. The 'weak' classes have had a new paint job but under the hood their basic function and the way the rules support them is fundamentally the same - you can't polish a turd as they say.

Personally, I'd have had my cleaver out and made shoes and stew out of some of the supposed sacred cows of 3.5.

I think that this is the key point. One could imagine a rogue class that looked more like the AD&D thief (which still had the cool backstab ability). Paizo had a tough choice about how to rebuild the system to work close enough to 3.5 that it kept the old base but try and change small elements. Whether a more complete re-imagining of the chasis would have been a better idea is a very good point.

 

[grufflehead]

If I really wanted a 3.5 game that truly attempted to balance things, I would go buy Trailblazer.

I bought Trailblazer on a whim, and it has sat in my 'big folder of things Grufflehead has bought but never got further than flicking through'. Time to have a proper look at it and see what it's all about.

Wandering away from the original topic, but I was thinking about it as I was making dinner last night and wondered if a reductionist type approach a la True 20 might be the way to go on redressing some of the balance (I don't imagine that it would sell books so a theoretical project only!). Take skills out of the equation by giving all classes 'equal' access to them; extra skills could be gained through feats if you still want a 'skill monkey'.

Your 'Warrior' class would basically encompass the current Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Monk *and* Rogue. Their primary purpose is to hit things, it's just the flavour that's different. You could create a series of 'paths' via a selectable set of feat lists (as the PF Ranger and Monk get) to describe the fighting style - not too dissimilar I suppose from what Iron Heroes did.

If you want a 'precision' based fighter - which I suggest would cover Ranger's favoured enemy, Rogue's Sneak Attack and Monk's Unarmed Strikes - pick that tree. It would cover things like Weapon Finesse, Improved Unarmed Strike, some way of replicating the 'Sneak Attack' idea of hitting weak points etc. It works all the time, no need for flanking, denying of DEX etc, it's just the way they do damage. Barbarian is 'power' and would cover the Rage powers, plus obvious things like Power Attack, Cleave, Bull Rush etc. Others may be 'training' based - the PF Fighter's weapon training plus Weapon Focus and Specialisation. There would probably be one for missiles (and then when the splatbook comes out you can add in other styles ) and off hand I can't think where Paladin's would fit.

Note that these are effectively bonus feats, so you would be free to pick other feats with your normal allocation. One thing I would enforce though is a way to cut down on the 'stacking' issue that is another plague on my house. Hands up who has been down a game with someone playing a PC who has Sneak Attack and the Power Attack feat? One which relies on very...careful...placement...of...blows and another which relies on A...HUGE...YAHOOOO. I take it I'm not alone is seeing the 'problem' with this?

On the casting side, you've got the equivalent 'Wizard' class. Their style of casting would be the trees to pick from, so prepared casters do it one way, spontaneous casters another, ritual casters have a style etc etc. The arcane/divine split can be handled via spell list; the mechanics are the same eg the cleric is a 'prepared' caster who picks off one spell list, the wizard picks off another. If you want a spontaneous divine caster just put the building blocks together. Next, restore the uniqueness of spell lists so you no longer find the same spell on multiple lists, and restore the 1st Ed idea that you JUST DON'T CAST BESIDE WARRIORS/MONSTERS - or you will get your ass handed to you. No combat casting, no concentration checks, just no! Maybe make things like Lunge, Step Up, Disruptive and Spellbreaker abilites that all warriors get as class abilities at various levels to reinforce this.

I can already imagine people spluttering into their cocoa, but until you narrow the gap between the predominantly melee focussed classes and the casters, the balance things is always going to be there.

 

[Gorrath]

I agree with the person who posted that destroying an undead's pelvis (or cutting a construct's arm) hasn't the same impact as doing the same on a human.
So, here's the house rule I think I'm gonna use in my PFRPG campaign:

Sneak Attacks on undeads and constructs (and other monsters previously immune to SA/critical):

-Sneak attacks do half damage
-Critical hits for weapon with 18-20 or 19-20 threat range only happen on a 20.
-Critical multipliers higher than x2 are reduced to x2.

Thinking about not changing the threat range and just ruling that x2 does x1.5 and anything higher than x2 does x2.

Any thoughts?

 

[Herobizkit]

Your house rule seems perfectly fine, so long as Criticals apply to all classes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I agree with the person who posted that destroying an undead's pelvis (or cutting a construct's arm) hasn't the same impact as doing the same on a human.
So, here's the house rule I think I'm gonna use in my PFRPG campaign:

Sneak Attacks on undeads and constructs (and other monsters previously immune to SA/critical):

-Sneak attacks do half damage
-Critical hits for weapon with 18-20 or 19-20 threat range only happen on a 20.
-Critical multipliers higher than x2 are reduced to x2.

Thinking about not changing the threat range and just ruling that x2 does x1.5 and anything higher than x2 does x2.

Any thoughts?

As a person who espoused that position, I think its a reasonable "happy medium" between the two RAW positions (3.5 vs Pathfinder).

One thing I might change is that I might make the change vary from particular critter to particular critter. (Yeah, its more work, but hey!)

IOW, Zombies might have that vulnerable head spot if they're "modern", which would mean that there isn't (as much of) a reason to minimize SA damage (or possibly a crit)- on them, it gets defined as a "head shot."

Undead like Liches or Vampires, OTOH, should remain virtually immune to crits or SA damage without some kind of additional skill checks, gear, feats, spells or what have you.

Constructs, too, should vary. A construct made of glass (like a Stained Glass Golem) might be fully vulnerable to all of that stuff, while a Clockwork Horror might have a weak spot that requires a skill check to find before any SA or Crits could be applied.

 

[grufflehead]

Like that last bit about the constructs DA, so to borrow something from Arcanis, how about this for a fairly straightforward way to handle it that doesn't add much overhead: create a new special ability for monsters called something like 'Protected' (or something more descriptive!) - undead, constructs, oozes etc have it plus others at GM's discretion. Benefit is immunity to crits and sneak attacks UNLESS you can find its weakness. Which is done by making the appropriate Knowledge check about that type of critter as a Move (Free?) action (as all monster types fall under one of the Knowledges). DC = 10 (15?) + CR of monster. Make your check and it's open season This info can be relayed to others as a Move action.

Suddenly the wizard has something to do with all those Knowledge skills other than just max out Arcana and the Bard becomes even more useful in a supporting role. And the Rogue has plenty of skill points to be able to pick up enough of a knowledge of the workings of a couple of types; a perfect justification for some of the Traits in PF which give new class skills - the Rogue wants to be an undead hunter, so take a trait that gives Knowledge:Religion as a bonus.

 

[Jhaelen]

Here's the thing. The rogue, nor any other class should be able to fight like the - what's his name again - oh yeah, FIGHTER. The entire premise that all classes should be equal in combat needs to go. Each class should be best at what it does. Rogues should be good at subterfuge, pickpocketing, disarming traps, etc.

Well, as grufflehead correctly noted, here's the thing, though:

If every class should have a particular niche it is good at, the DM has to make sure all of the niches that are represented in the party have a roughly equal part in the spotlight.

E.g. if a game is all combat, all pcs except the fighter will feel bad about choosing a class that sucks at combat.

And even if every niche is spotlighted equally over time, you'll still have periods of time when only one of the pcs is really effective and the rest is just hanging around. To remedy that situation, systems strive to create a 'balance', allowing every character no matter what class to be at least somewhat effective in every niche.

If you don't mind the occasional 'downtime', a balance of this kind is not required. But if you do, balance can increase your enjoyment of the game.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Like that last bit about the constructs DA, so to borrow something from Arcanis, how about this for a fairly straightforward way to handle it that doesn't add much overhead: create a new special ability for monsters called something like 'Protected' (or something more descriptive!) - undead, constructs, oozes etc have it plus others at GM's discretion. Benefit is immunity to crits and sneak attacks UNLESS you can find its weakness. Which is done by making the appropriate Knowledge check about that type of critter as a Move (Free?) action (as all monster types fall under one of the Knowledges). DC = 10 (15?) + CR of monster. Make your check and it's open season This info can be relayed to others as a Move action.

Suddenly the wizard has something to do with all those Knowledge skills other than just max out Arcana and the Bard becomes even more useful in a supporting role. And the Rogue has plenty of skill points to be able to pick up enough of a knowledge of the workings of a couple of types; a perfect justification for some of the Traits in PF which give new class skills - the Rogue wants to be an undead hunter, so take a trait that gives Knowledge:Religion as a bonus.

"You must spread some Experience Points around before giving it to grufflehead again."

I am now strongly considering making this a house rule in my games! (It even makes Rangers incredibly useful - if they picked the right favored enemy . . .)

 

[IronWolf]

Like that last bit about the constructs DA, so to borrow something from Arcanis, how about this for a fairly straightforward way to handle it that doesn't add much overhead: create a new special ability for monsters called something like 'Protected' (or something more descriptive!) - undead, constructs, oozes etc have it plus others at GM's discretion. Benefit is immunity to crits and sneak attacks UNLESS you can find its weakness. Which is done by making the appropriate Knowledge check about that type of critter as a Move (Free?) action (as all monster types fall under one of the Knowledges). DC = 10 (15?) + CR of monster. Make your check and it's open season This info can be relayed to others as a Move action.

Suddenly the wizard has something to do with all those Knowledge skills other than just max out Arcana and the Bard becomes even more useful in a supporting role. And the Rogue has plenty of skill points to be able to pick up enough of a knowledge of the workings of a couple of types; a perfect justification for some of the Traits in PF which give new class skills - the Rogue wants to be an undead hunter, so take a trait that gives Knowledge:Religion as a bonus.

I don't really have issues with the new crit damage rules/sneak attack rules in Pathfinder, but of all the options to house rule it I think this one makes the most sense. Still gives characters the option of getting past it with a hurdle that is passed easily enough if one is motivated to do so. Good idea!

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

'Protected'

Wow, I really like this idea.

BUT, I think that it would make sense to decouple monster knowledge checks from CR if this is going to work well. I really think that campaign settings should assign all monsters a rarity (common, uncommon, rare, very rare, unique) and these rarity ratings should determine the DC of the knowledge check. Perhaps the formula could remain the same, save that instead of CR, you used common=0, uncommon=5, rare=10, very rare=15, and unique=20.

Ken