Comparing Pathfinder and 4th Edition for 5Next

[innerdude]

But, but . . . can't you just quickly make up a house rule on the fly that says your Dragonborn can use his / her power to fly up to x minutes per day, at a fixed movement, and then use a DEX check to see if they're up to it?

I mean, you can EASILY houserule that instance . . . can't you just as easily houserule the other 1,200 side cases all the other powers could invoke out of combat?

(This is totally tongue-in-cheek, by the way....as in, do not take seriously.)

The real point I think, though, is that the 5e designers with their "three pillars" of exploration, combat, and socialization have recognized that to reach the broadest possible audience, D&D must include a robust set of out-of-combat options . . . and that is a TERRIFIC thing.

 

[Gorgoroth]

my

DMs were only fond of house rules that lower player power, not ones that fix broken PPs or underpowered builds or powers. To stay within RAW, i.e. rules legal character sheets, and achieve what I did, I had to re-spec to a light armored (but same AC, in the end) mc'ed with another class (avenger) to gain a fly speed which would allow flight while in air.

I agree, support for house ruled PPs or custom PPs would have been much, much better, but there was no motivation for that in the official builder, and with the glut of news feats/powers + erratas it was next to impossible to keep everything going. DM fiat was rarely exercised, except usually in bad ways. Sure, it's a leap (no pun intended) in power once you can fly all day, or even stay afloat and fight, but every edition of D&D has had that since level 5, and that's usually achieved after a couple months.


I find it...almost arrogant, on the game designer's part, to assume one would grind up to level 16, anticipating what you would have wanted earlier but would have traded off less duration or ability (such as Flight checks, or Dex checks, or whatever thrown in to do fancy stuff), or that a campaign would never dissolve, before level 16. I mean, I don't know what planet they live in, but campaigns often die and new ones replace them. Am I do keep rolling the same character, back at level 1, each time, in the hope that it will arrive there?

No thanks, Lucy, I'm not falling for the "take the ball away"-trick this time. I'll stick to systems where I can be a shunned dragon man abomination that can actually do things regular joe bloe human, walking down the street, wouldn't be able to. In games I play in, dragon-men, or wolf-men, or whatever, are often uncommon if not rare, there has to be some kind of balance. What I'm saying is, 4e is unbalanced, because it doesn't account for fluff interacting with the world as much as it should. If I'm a flying dragon man, I expect to be pelted with arrows if I fly towards the castle wall. Same thing if I'm a wizard. Ever watch a piegeon shooting range? bang bang, bang. *watch the birdies heads splat open as they spiral to their dooms. Flight is a risky, dangerous thing. The antidote is a 5cp arrow drawn in the bows of 20 town's guards. No matter how tough you are, one round and you are dead.

//rant over

 

[Dornam]

The problem is that flight screws with 2D battlemat combat and 4e is optimized to be balanced and "fair" in round by round battlemat combat.

Which it really is, it is just that there should have been more and maybe 5e is delivering.

Problem is, that I feel somehow attached to Paizo. They are such nice people and I love their Adventure Paths (and I am an old sentimental fool) so we will see how these things turn out.

 

[DEFCON 1]

DMs were only fond of house rules that lower player power, not ones that fix broken PPs or underpowered builds or powers. To stay within RAW, i.e. rules legal character sheets, and achieve what I did, I had to re-spec to a light armored (but same AC, in the end) mc'ed with another class (avenger) to gain a fly speed which would allow flight while in air.

I agree, support for house ruled PPs or custom PPs would have been much, much better, but there was no motivation for that in the official builder, and with the glut of news feats/powers + erratas it was next to impossible to keep everything going. DM fiat was rarely exercised, except usually in bad ways. Sure, it's a leap (no pun intended) in power once you can fly all day, or even stay afloat and fight, but every edition of D&D has had that since level 5, and that's usually achieved after a couple months.

Seems to me your problem was the Dungeon Masters. Not the game.

4E's exactly like every other version in that regard... the DM makes a choice to "break the rules" as he sees fit to fulfill the narrative of his campaign. If you had DMs that refused do that... it ain't the game's fault.

 

[GreyICE]

I nearly lost it when I realized at level 12, after three years of playing my dragonborn, that the at-will "flight" I was looking forward to, was nothing more than a fancy chicken-hop. Our DM too, was like, shaking his head : this is lame.

Please Wotc, no spells with "+you can shift" in their descriptions. It just encourages / forces more combat-only tunnel vision. If anything, I'd prefer less initiative rolls / distinction between combat and non-combat, not more. E.g. if I'm standing next to a guard, and stab him in the back. Bam, combat starts, with my action. Why is initiative needed? Why should there be the "surprise round". Just re-act to what I did, in the round I did it, after me. How does it make sense for the rogue to go before I did, if I'm the one who began things? I absolutely hate having my suprising, bold actions, constantly foiled (not just in 4e, but PF too), by the surprise round. You do something surprising that starts combat? Done, it starts now, everyone else reacts, in some ordering fashion, but I should be first in this case.

To be honest, that just sounds like bad DMing.

You should make a stealth check to beat the target's passive perception when you attempt a backstab, and if you make it you stabbed him in the back. Congrats. He's on the floor bleeding out (Coup de Gras). Now combat begins, with him laying there bleeding.

Now if you fail the stealth check and he notices you, well then there's a combat, and there's no surprise round, but that's the risks.

 

[Hussar]

Wait, what?

You attack the unsuspecting guard - you get a surprise round, which means you get a free shot at the guard. THEN you roll initiative. That's the whole point of surprise. After that initial surprise round, then you roll initiative and you might lose at that point - fine and dandy, the bad guy recovered a bit faster than you expected and hits you back.

I'm not really sure what Gorgoroth is talking about.

 

[Dausuul]

And from the ICV2 article to which your linked article is referring: "This chart of the Top 5 Roleplaying Games (hobby channel) reflects sales in Q2 2011. The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers." Numbers from a single quarter, and figures based on interviews... no mention of sample size of interviewees or how the interviewees got their numbers. Also no analysis of how many products were released in and around that quarter from the various publishers, which would certainly affect the numbers from a single quarter. So like @mkill said, no convincing figures.

More to the point, it does not include DDI. My group has pretty much ceased to buy D&D books, but we still pump a couple hundred dollars a year into WotC's pocket. Then consider that WotC doesn't have to set aside any part of that money to pay for printing, binding, and shipment of physical books. They're probably making more net profit from us now than they did in the 3E days*.

I'm not saying Pathfinder hasn't taken a big chunk out of D&D. Obviously it has, and the "unity edition" focus of D&DN is the proof of that. But any analysis of the relative popularity of the editions which relies on physical book sales alone is worthless.

[SIZE=-2]*Of course, our collective Magic purchases dwarf anything we spend on D&D.[/SIZE]

 

[billd91]

More to the point, it does not include DDI. My group has pretty much ceased to buy D&D books, but we still pump a couple hundred dollars a year into WotC's pocket. Then consider that WotC doesn't have to set aside any part of that money to pay for printing, binding, and shipment of physical books. They're probably making more net profit from us now than they did in the 3E days*.

I'm not saying Pathfinder hasn't taken a big chunk out of D&D. Obviously it has, and the "unity edition" focus of D&DN is the proof of that. But any analysis of the relative popularity of the editions which relies on physical book sales alone is worthless.

As as been pointed out in other threads on the topic, it also doesn't include Paizo subscription sales nor does it include a variety of physical material outlets like Amazon. The ICv2 surveys are focused primarily on the specialty hobby market and distribution.

None of that, however, makes the analysis worthless. It makes it focused on a particular aspect of the competition between the two product lines. That's merely a part of the overall picture, even if it turns out to be an important one.

 

[Hussar]

I was listening to an interview with Eric Mona on Fear the Boot a while ago. ((Is it safe to mention FTB here? )) Eric Mona made the comment:

Erik: Oh, that feels pretty good. I mean, I think what most people are talking about when they say that is there’s a trade publication called ICv2 that posts a quarterly top 10 RPG sales, and we actually did outpace Wizards of the Coast’s D&D in the last time they released that.

Exactly how true that is really kind of depends on your point of view, I mean, ICv2 interviews hobby distributors and hobby retailers, so that’s like your local game store, so I think basically from my perspective, the anecdotal reports that we’ve gotten is that I think that’s probably true. I think at this point in time, Pathfinder probably is outselling D&D in the hobby stores, but then again, you’ve got the DDI, their online initiative, which is not tracked by that, you’ve got bookstore sales, which is not tracked by that, you’ve got our own subscriptions, which are not tracked by that.

So it’s kind of like we… in this industry, we go by the least crappy evidence that we have, and in this case, in that one specific sales channel, which is hobby/game stores, yeah, we are apparently outselling D&D. And that, even though I’ve spent the last minute undercutting that, that’s a pretty big deal.

Found here at Scriptorium.

"The least crappy evidence" is pretty much the long and the short of it. You have to take it for what it is. I mean, in the Ryan Dancey interview, you get this:

In 1995, when I was writing the business plan for the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, I assumed, based on the conventional wisdom at the time, that there were approximately 5,000 full line hobby gaming stores in the North American market. After arriving at Wizards of the Coast in 1997, I was surprised to discover that Wizards had been able to identify (after extensive work) only about 2,500 stores. In addition, there were about 2,500-3,000 mass-market book stores that sold some hobby gaming products; mostly TRPGs, and mostly just D&D.

Today, the best data I have been able to assemble leads me to believe that there are less than 1,000 full line hobby gaming stores left, and there may be as few as 500.

As few as 500 full line hobby gaming stores left.

When you think about it that way, just how important are brick and mortar gaming stores to the health of the hobby?

Now, I'm totally not saying that Paizo isn't kicking WOTC's ass currently. That might very well be true. But, I think there's a real sense that people want to make a lot more of this than it is. It's a very complicated issue and there are a whole lot of factors going on. We can't really draw any broader conclusions based on this.

 

[mkill]

I like 4e, but LOVE PF.

Uh-oh, the PF brigade is here.

I mean, the archetypes, the rebalancing, the skill system, the combat maneuver system, it feels like you're not railroaded.

Read the definition of Railroading. It doesn't refer to abilities on your character sheet.

Just looking at the massive character sheets in 4e is enough. How much space is devoted to skills in either one?

Interesting question. <grabs pile of charsheet>

3E: Official Living Greyhawk sheet. 7.5 cm x 19 cm
PF: 8.5 x 18 cm
4E: 6 cm x 9 cm

OMG you're right... Or wait... 4E needs less space, because the skill list is much more condensed. The longer list for 3E/PF just takes more space. If the lines were empty and you write down the skills the char actually has, the lists would be of similar length.

not to mention the fact that everyone who made their own characters in 4e, from scratch, by hand, had tons of misc modifiers they weren't adding in right, and having to up all your stats every two levels, changing your powers a lot means wasting tons of ink. I can go through many levels in a PF game with the same sheet. Try that, and weep.

Huh? Let's let Pathfinder speak for itself, shall we?
Gnome - Pathfinder_OGC

Gnome

Racial Traits

• +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma, –2 Strength: Gnomes are physically weak but surprisingly hardy, and their attitude makes them naturally agreeable.
• Small: Gnomes are Small creatures and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty to their Combat Maneuver Bonus (CMB) and Combat Maneuver Defense (CMD), and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
• Slow Speed: Gnomes have a base speed of 20 feet.
• Low-Light Vision: Gnomes can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light (see low-light vision.)
• Defensive Training: Gnomes get a +4 dodge bonus to AC against monsters of the giant subtype.
• Gnome Magic: Gnomes add +1 to the DC of any saving throws against illusion spells that they cast. Gnomes with a Charisma of 11 or higher also gain the following spell-like abilities:
  • 1/day—dancing lights, ghost sound, prestidigitation, and speak with animals. The caster level for these effects is equal to the gnome's level. The DC for these spells is equal to 10 + the spell's level + the gnome's Charisma modifier.
• Hatred: Gnomes receive a +1 bonus on attack rolls against humanoid creatures of the reptilian and goblinoid subtypes due to special training against these hated foes.
• Illusion Resistance: Gnomes get a +2 racial saving throw bonus against illusion spells or effects.
• Keen Senses: Gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
• Obsessive: Gnomes receive a +2 racial bonus on a Craft or Profession skill of their choice.
• Weapon Familiarity: Gnomes treat any weapon with the word “gnome” in its name as a martial weapon.
• Languages: Gnomes begin play speaking Common, Gnome, and Sylvan. Gnomes with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Giant, Goblin, and Orc.

I can't copy the 4E gnome here for copyright reasons, but I hope you get my point.

But, I'll say this : 4e did a number of things well : ranger's twin strike

*facepalm*

The problem with all those things is that the community was not allowed to fix the game.

I could houserule 4E just fine without being arrested.

Check the char op boards, that's where the life of a system lies. It's almost completely dead there. And why?

Because 4E was never 3E-level broken to start with. 3E has Pun-Pun. 4E has a guy who does maybe 20% more DPR than the standard well-build striker. At some point, players realized that it's more fun just to play the game than to spend hours over the books squeezing out that extra little bonus. Also, the frequent errata destroyed popular charop builds frequently, which frustrated a lot of the hard core.