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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5789707" data-attributes="member: 75065">I play both.Differences that stand out (and I think most of these are true of 3.5 from which it grew):It takes me longer to build my charcters in Pathfinder. This may have to do with my familiarity and rules mastery of 4e however. But some of this stems from my next observation. Equipment is far more important and interesting in PF, even mundane equipment. And not all mundane equipment is necessarily within the reach of your PC immeadiately due to the cost. This is a difference I very much prefer. It has a few fiddly features lie working out the price of magic items combining the masterwork cost etc which are a little too on the fiddly side for my liking, but that's a very minor complaint. If you play a weak character you are really going to have to measure exactly hom many arrows you carry, and how many days food you take. Funnily enough, having to actually carefully choose exactly what gear you carry I quite enjoy. Which leads me to my next observation.Character stats are 'harder' to dump. Well not really. In PF you can drop more than one stat below 10 if you choose in order to pump up other stats using the point buy system.But it hurts more to do so because each stat is fairly important in its own right to every character. In 4e its a no brainer for a fighter to dump INT as it only affects skills that the fighter has no business being good at in any case (religion, history, arcana). No sacrifice at all. But in PF skill points, which are very important (no scaling level bonus like 4e) are generated based on INT. So if you dump INT your fighter will gain very very few skill poinnts to distrinute each level, which really hurts. Same for Strength. Your cleric if planning to be involved in melee whatsoever can't dump strength and build a purely wisdom based character. For a start they won't be able to carry the weight of the armor due to encumberance issues. Second all attacks are based off strength for all characters. No using wisdom for your attacks. Even a rogue has to think twice about dumping strength. Even with weapon finesse feat to use DEX to attack, dmg remains based on STR.Battles are far less tactical. At least in the games I have played in here on EnWorld (pbp) I have seen no use of interesting terrain whatsoever for example. In Pathfinder winning initiative is far more important as you can die/kill in one or two hits. It's more important to have the right weapon to avoid Damage Reduction to avoid this. Blunt/piercing/slashing is important.As a melee character you just attack. There are combat manuevers like trip, but you draw an OAtk to use them. Being prone is far worse in Pathfinder as you get smacked when you stand up or if you stay prone your AC and atks are at -4. As a spell caster you have far more limited resources and so you have to be careful with them, however cantrips and orisons are at will so you should always have something to do. You are not forced to fall back on drawing a crossbow. Spells are far more powerful, many of them can end a battle instantly. In general I find battles in Pathfinder far more boring. Thankfully they tend to end more quickly.I'm not sure how I feel about skills. Each style has its charm. PF, more rigid but more extensive, 4e, simple but more free. In PF there are things you simply can't do if you don't have training. Your dumb orc fighter can't remember an old legend that his mother use to tell him unless he has invested a skill point. In 4e anyone can have a shot at something like that even with 8 intelligence. Who knows, you could roll a 20. In PF, you can't roll. Which makes having knowledge of History more important/special in a way ... but ... I'm not sure which I prefer. I think the jump between alive and dead can happen far more quickly in PF. Eg. Our groups barbarian failed a save vs Will against a spell called Murderous Command. This meant he came over to me, the spindly wizard and in 1 hit reduced me to 0 hps from full. I saw my life flash before my eyes. This is not a criticism. I enjoyed that greatly and lead to some great character/relationship building between our two characters. Those are the things which stand out the most to me. That said I enjoy both systems. I'm sure if you are feeling like you want a change of game system you will very much enjoy PF.</blockquote>

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