Pathfinder 1E I’ve Forgotten How to Play Pathfinder

[Reynard]

"How to play Pathfinder" here doesn't mean what to roll to hit or whatever, I don't think. It seems to mean how to engage in the character creation and optimization minigame, as well as the resource management minigame.

By that metric, I never did know how to play PF1. I ran it for years but almost never played, and the GM while having a lot to manage doesn't actually have to play the spreadsheet.

 

[John R Davis]

We play PF 1 every week and have since the book came out.
We still don't know all the rules
No one does
And we always forget stuff we house rules a year back

 

[GreyLord]

So I decided this weekend to give the Kingmaker CRPG another go. I had previously finished the game but that was before the dungeon add on was a thing. I’d love to have a group strong enough to tackle that. I reckon I had pretty good system mastery. I must have put hundreds of hours into that game when I last played it. Not to mention that it follows the PF1 ruleset for characters pretty faithfully and we played Pathfinder One TTRPG once or twice a month for entire weekends for the best part of eight years. Plus a lot of time on 3e.

Yet when I loaded up the game I realized after eight years of playing 5e I don’t remember Pathfinder 1 at all. It has been wiped from my mind. I don’t remember the feat prerequisites. I don’t remember which spells are good. I don’t remember the racial abilities. I don’t remember what a Paladin can do let alone at which levels. What the hell is a Power Attack and whybI recall this game being tough. The DCs were pretty punishing. It required system mastery to get though. The question is do I want that back?

I was was expecting picking up Pathfinder again to be like riding a bicycle. Instead I feel like a new player. Anyone else that switched from PF1 found it erased from their mind, or am I likely to have early onset Alzheimer’s?

I haven't stopped playing Pathfinder over a long period. I have over short periods but haven't forgotten how to play.

I am currently slowly making my way through Pathfinder Kingmaker (CRPG). There are different levels of difficulty and control. The Computer doesn't make the best decisions if you are wanting to munchkin/optimize, but it doesn't do a bad job. If you can't remember anything, turn it over to the computer to do the leveling for you.

I find the Kingdom management (I'm still in Chapter 2...as I said, I'm slowly getting through the game) far harder to figure out what I'm doing and to do it well.

 

[TheSword]

I haven't stopped playing Pathfinder over a long period. I have over short periods but haven't forgotten how to play.

I am currently slowly making my way through Pathfinder Kingmaker (CRPG). There are different levels of difficulty and control. The Computer doesn't make the best decisions if you are wanting to munchkin/optimize, but it doesn't do a bad job. If you can't remember anything, turn it over to the computer to do the leveling for you.

I find the Kingdom management (I'm still in Chapter 2...as I said, I'm slowly getting through the game) far harder to figure out what I'm doing and to do it well.

That is a good idea actually yes.

On the other hand I remember many DCs being pretty punishing - particularly for some of the kingdom quests. Even things like perception tests not being high enough could lock you out of entire areas.

I’m also pretty sure Monster saves are ridiculously high.

I mean I could play it on easy mode but then that isn’t very satisfying right?

 

[GreyLord]

That is a good idea actually yes.

On the other hand I remember many DCs being pretty punishing - particularly for some of the kingdom quests. Even things like perception tests not being high enough could lock you out of entire areas.

I’m also pretty sure Monster saves are ridiculously high.

I mean I could play it on easy mode but then that isn’t very satisfying right?

It depends. I've read some things online and I've missed a few items (including one character, I'm trying not to read ahead of what I've already played, so found out after I passed that point that I could no longer get a certain character, especially because I failed the rolls). However, optimizing skills is pretty simple, just focus all your skill points on one skill each skill point to maximize their values, and spread it around the party to make sure your entire party has every skill at a maxed level.

The bigger thing is to get familiar with buffs. I buff before every battle now and prepping is a pretty big thing to make sure you can get through the battles.

Luckily, because you start at a lower level, you can gradually get introduced to which buffs to use and which are important (right now Haste falls on the top of the List for me). There was one encounter that was tough as all nails (won't spoil it in case you haven't gotten there, but it happens at Olegs and it's a one on one combat that is aggravating. The character I had fight it had a 29 AC, so the fight went on a LONG time with a LOT of whiffs. On my third try going in and trying to beat it I figured that I could buff things up and cast a bunch of spells before the combat began which made it so I narrowly eeeked out a win that third time...and a bunch of luck).

Some of the same ideas which apply to 5e still apply to PF (3.5 revised), so you still have a little system knowledge that you can put into play if you want to.

 

[Corinnguard]

Wasn't it just D&D 3 with a Combat Maneuver Bonus?

For some, Pathfinder 1st edition was seen as 3.75e D&D. I gravitated towards it because of its' familiarity. It was a slight improvement over 3.5 but it still gave you the feeling that you were still playing D&D.

 

[James Gasik]

I got together with some gaming friends I hadn't played with in awhile recently. It was decided we'd each take turns running a game. For my turn, I wanted to run a silly older D&D adventure (Fluffy Goes To Heck, from Dungeon #4). I assumed I'd be running 5e since everyone was A) familiar with it, and wouldn't have to learn a new game (like say, Draw Steel). To my horror, it seems two of the people had never even tried 5e, and after some discussion, it was decided I would run Pathfinder 1e.

I kept tripping over things like how invisibility works, opportunity attacks for daring to make a ranged attack, balancing encounters (the CR 7 dragon the game told me was just fine as a solo encounter had an AC of 21 and +13 to hit), the DR on regular zombies stopped my group in their tracks (one was playing an Arcanist with an exploit to summon monsters as his main way to attack), CMD's were through the roof any time someone tried to trip anyone- and one player couldn't even remember how to build a character, forcing me to do it for them, despite having played Pathfinder 1e before I did!

 

[Bravesteel25]

I'd like to say I remember Pathfinder (and 3.5) well, but I think I'm pretty much in the same boat. I'm more of a PF2 guy these days even though I'm actually only playing in a 5E game right now.

I find the bigger problem is how I bring rules from older editions forward without realizing it. I think 4E and then PF2 were one of the few that this hasn't happened as much in due to how mechanically distinct the game systems themselves are from the main "trunk" of "D&D" games.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I haven't played it in about 3 years. Although I've done some adventure design in that time.

I reckon I still have most of it in my head. And by most of it I mean those bits that we use in our game; complete with the half-arsed interpretations of RAW that we use. I'm quite sure I have made many rules interpretations that are very not the way it was intended. e.g. My rule for holding actions is straight out of HERO system.

But some strategies will never fade - the muscle holds action until the casters have thrown out the buffs. Then the muscle gets stuck in. Usually works very well.

 

[Koloth]

My problem is sometime remembering too well. Was that spell/rule from PF1,3.5,3.0,2,1,Original?