Pathfinder 1E Opinions on Pathfinder

[Dragonblade]

Scribble's post is very useful when comparing 4E to 3.5. And even though I prefer 3.5 over Pathfinder, it must be said that Pathfinder's Bestiary contains dragon stat blocks usable "out of the book":

+++++++++++

Adult Blue Dragon CR 13
XP 25,600
LE Huge dragon (earth)
Init +4; Senses dragon senses; Perception +22
Aura electricity (5 ft., 1d6 elect.), frightful presence (180 ft., DC 21)
Defense
AC 28, touch 8, flat-footed 28 (+20 natural, –2 size)
hp 184 (16d12+80)
Fort +15, Ref +10, Will +13
DR 5/magic; Immune electricity, paralysis, sleep; SR 24
Offense
Speed 40 ft., burrow 20 ft., fly 200 ft. (poor)
Melee bite +23 (2d8+12), 2 claws +22 (2d6+8), 2 wings +20 (1d8+4), tail slap +20 (2d6+12)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (15 ft. with bite)
Special Attacks breath weapon (100-ft. line, DC 23, 12d8 electricity), crush, desert thirst (DC 21)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 16th)
At will—ghost sound (DC 13), minor image (DC 14), ventriloquism (DC 14)
Spells Known (CL 5th)
2nd (5/day)—invisibility, resist energy
1st (7/day)—alarm, mage armor, shield, true strike
0 (at will)—arcane mark, detect magic, mage hand, mending, read magic, resistance
Statistics
Str 27, Dex 10, Con 21, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 16
Base Atk +16; CMB +26; CMD 36 (40 vs. trip)
Feats Combat Casting, Dazzling Display, Deadly Stroke, Hover, Improved Initiative, Multiattack, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills Appraise +22, Fly +11, Intimidate +22, Knowledge (local) +22, Knowledge (geography) +22, Perception +22, Spellcraft +22, Stealth +11, Survival +22
Languages Auran, Common, Draconic, Giant
SQ sound imitation

--------------

Basically, the PF Bestiary gives you complete stat blocks for all age groups of dragons (that's a lot), and then references the SQ once:

-------------
Special Abilities
Desert Thirst (Su) A blue dragon can cast create water at will (CL equals its HD). Alternatively, it can destroy an equal amount of liquid in a 10-foot burst. Unattended liquids are instantly reduced to sand. Liquid-based magic items (such as potions) and items in a creature's possession must succeed on a Will save (DC equal to the dragon's breath weapon) or be destroyed.
Electricity Aura (Su) An adult blue dragon is surrounded by an aura of electricity. Creatures within 5 feet take 1d6 points of electricity damage at the beginning of the dragon's turn. An old dragon's aura extends to 10 feet. An ancient dragon's damage increases to 2d6.
Mirage (Su) An old or older blue dragon can make itself appear to be in two places at once as a free action for a number of rounds per day equal to its Hit Dice. This ability functions as project image but the dragon can use its breath weapon through the mirage.
Sandstorm (Su) As a standard action, a great wyrm blue dragon can create a sandstorm centered on itself with a radius of 1,200 feet. Creatures other than the dragon inside the storm take 2d6 points of damage per round in addition to the normal sandstorm penalties (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 431). This sandstorm lasts for up to 1 hour, but can be dismissed by the dragon as a free action.
Sound Imitation (Ex) A very young or older blue dragon can mimic any voice or sound it has heard by making a successful Bluff check against a listener's Sense Motive check.
Spell-Like Abilities (Sp) A blue dragon gains the following spell-like abilities, usable at will upon reaching the listed age category. Young—ghost sound; Juvenile—minor image; Adult—ventriloquism; Old—hallucinatory terrain; Ancient—veil; Great wyrm—mirage arcana.
Storm Breath (Su) An ancient or older blue dragon can use its breath weapon to create a storm of lightning. This functions as call lightning storm, but the damage is equal to the dragon's breath weapon. The dragon can call down 1 bolt per round as a free action for 1d6 rounds. The save DC is equal to the dragon's breath weapon DC. Additional uses of this ability extend the duration by an additional 1d6 rounds.
--------------


PS. Both things posted from here.

UGH!

Thanks for posting that hideous stat block and reminding me why I grew to despise 3e, and why I continue to have minimal interest in Pathfinder.

Listing out monster abilities in terms of feats and spell names is a deal breaker for me. I never again want to have to literally memorize every feat and spell in the PHB in order to be an effective DM. After 8 years of suff...err...I mean playing 3e and its derivatives, I've become convinced that that particular aspect of 3e is just flat out bad game design.

4e has its own issues, but the fact that I can run 4e games on the fly right out of the Monster Manual without ever once needing to crack open a PHB to look up spells and feats is pure win for me as a DM.

Hell, we go through entire 4e sessions with no one needing to open any books at the game table at all. All the players need are their character sheets, and I need only my monster stats. THAT is what I call good game design.

Running D&D games has always been a labor of love, but since dropping 3e there is much less labor and a lot more love.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm hoping that the next edition, or perhaps some kind of new book for 4E edition, has a good combination of both. For instance, a dragon monster book in my vision would have all 4E style combat stat-blocks for the easy to run encounters, and then something like an Special Abilities stat block that covers the special, sometimes combat-useless, things that say all Red Dragons have, which say could take up an entire page. Basically, a big pile of imaginative stuff about red dragons that doesn't have to be attached to every single stat-block, for stuff that may not be relevant in every battle. For instance, having an ability that allows a Red Dragon to 'consume' a zone that deals fire damage, and spit it back out. Having that on every Red Dragon's statblock would be a sore, because it might not ever come up, but a special attributes page would make the perfect place. Most of the 3.5 style spell-casting dragon stuff could be imitated on this list as well. (EDIT: Not most; some. Tip of the iceburg for the higher level dragons.)

The same book, in this vision, would have rituals that players can learn that are modeled after some of the more spell-like abilities. That way, there is a still a gap between monsters and players world consistency, but not a chasm.

Just thinking.

Yes, I think I would like this approach, too.

Basically, there could be sections:
- Monster Stat Block(s)
- Tactics
- Lore
- Rituals & Special Non-Combat Abilities
- Organization (Stuff like "Tribes", "Lair considerations")
- Example Encounters

Rituals and Organization of course would be entirely irrelevant for determining the level of challenge the monster puts in a fight, so it also causes no issues if you throw that away and insert something else.

Of course, we don't have to wait for 5E - it could be done now.

 

[Bluenose]

One game is about making everything be what it should be within a complete and reasonably self consistent artificial world. The other is about the math working in simple to run conflicts (be they combat or otherwise).

And this is pretty much exactly why I reject 3e in favour of 4e. As far as I'm concerned 3e fails completely at providing the "complete and reasonably self consistent artificial world" you are in favour of. It may pay lip service to the idea, but that's all it is. After that, choosing between two systems neither of which provide the 'simulationist' concepts I get from other systems comes down to deciding which I prefer as a Game.

 

[Celtavian]

That is what makes me leery about switching to Pathfinder - the issue of the buffs and all the math related to it.

We just finished a high level 3.5 campaign where it was common for at least one side in the battle to have several rounds of prep time, if not both sides... so then you have to calculate the bonuses from (for example) Haste from the sorcerer, plus Prayer, Heroes Feast and Holy Aura from the cleric. Plus, everybody drinks their Fly potions and the psion manifests his personal protections, while the paladin casts "Bless Weapon."

Not to mention, remembering that everybody has evasion vs Fire attacks now because the sorcerer also cast Mass Fire Shield and that everybody has immunity to death effects and negative energy from Mass Death Ward. And, don't forget, the +4 deflection bonus from Holy Aura replaces the various +2 and +3 deflection bonuses from the various rings of protection... and, then if Holy Aura is dispelled, each person then would then have their AC lowered by 1 or 2 depending on how powerful their original ring of protection was. And, if Holy Aura isn't dispelled, but Haste is, everybody loses the +1 dodge bonus to AC, in addition to losing 30 off their movement.

And, then you have to recalculate everything from the top if a beholder pops up and envelops you in its anti-magic field, because you have to take off bonuses from items as well as all the buffs.

While it was a fun campaign overall, once it got past level 10-11 or so, it was a lot of work for me to have fun as a DM. I mean, we had a long-awaited showdown with some drow in the campaign that was 3 combats before the finale. The session ran over two hours longer than normal and at the end and the PC cleric cast her Mass Heal and all the PCs were basically back up to full hit points again - so, basically down a few spells and power points... and, I found myself secretly being thankful when the PC dwarf fighter cut down the drow cleric immediately before she was able to cast her own Mass Heal on the bad guys.

If the drow cleric had managed to cast her spell, we'd likely have been there for another 3-4 hours, or (more likely) called a timeout & started Phase II of the combat the next session.

How exactly is buff math any different from tracking round to round modifiers that refresh when a person hits?

You cast the buffs and they're up for the duration the majority of the time. What buffs are you talking about? Bull's Str is +4 enh to str. That's +2 hit and damage on average. How hard is that? And tracking off a hash mark every round isn't that hard.

I never really understood the dislike of long-term buffing magic. I could do all the adjustments in my head on the fly. I knew every feat in the book. I always figured any DM had the rules memorised and only had to pull out the books for odd situations that might require a bit of research. Buffing magic was never a problem in any campaign I've been in.

I had more trouble with the round to round modifiers in 4E as the characters leveled and fought monsters with powers that gave them modifiers. Tracking which Hobgoblin fighter marked which PC from round to round was a much greater pain because it could change every round. In 3E cast a buff and track it. It wasn't going to change for the duration.

And the lack of non-combat abilities by monsters was ridiculous. I read the Pit Fiend and was surprised. Not a single manipulation ability on the stat block. Just pure combat.

 

[Celtavian]

I agree totally.

4e combat mechanics for humanoids are a great addition to D&D.

I didn't like them. Made the races seem artificial rather than a real racial type. It would be like giving all people of African descent "Dunk Basketball" as a special attack ability in the real world. It's ludicrous and doesn't at all take into account the diversity of a racial group.

I want races that are just what they are supposed to be. Not some artificial racial creation with abilities that are added because they have to have one. I'll take care of creating monster fighting styles, preferably with feats that simulate a fighting style rather than balance-based powers. I like that monster races have the same classes and learning curve as PC races. Seemed like a more real simulation of how it would be.

 

[Jhaelen]

I completely reject this claim as silly. I'm sorry that your game had this result and assure you that in the absence of artificially injecting this concept into play, 3E works awesome.

I completely reject your rejection as silly
Seriously, this is _exactly_ the kind of effect 3rd edition had, maybe not in your game group, but definitely in mine.

One player compared it once to the difference between playing 'Age of Empires' and 'Warcraft' against the AI: The former 'cheats', by allowing the computer controlled units to start with a (significant) material advantage and the latter has all parties start from the same base. Naturally, said player scoffed at the former game!

Particularly if you consider that I DON'T find the buffs to be a pain.

That surprises me. I've recently been in a similar situation as NewJeffCT and had two encounters involving beholders. Before we started the first encounter I told them to calculate their stats without any magical effects, so we wouldn't have to interrupt the action later. We still ended up stopping early so I could look up several rule questions and started the next session rolling back one combat round.

And this was far from a worst case situation, we once had a massive encounter against a npc party and their retinue that devolved into a dispelling duel.

But why settle for C- when I have a solid A already?

Umm, what is that solid A?

4e dragons, from what I remember, are basically big dumb flying lizards. They scratch, they bite, also maybe gore? Then there is the breath weapon (of course!) and the fact that they are scary. OK. What else? Perhaps an aura of auto-damage, or a burst thingy, I dunno. All damage, alla time.

But I might not be remembering right - it's been a while.

Well, you don't
4e dragons are basically big clever flying lizards

They're all about damage _and_ status effects in combat.

Anyway, you can think what you want about 4e, but it definitely had a positive effect on my 3e group: It showed me areas where I could improve my game and save lots of effort at the same time.

Recently there was a thread asking about how much time it would take to create certain encounters involving advanced, templated monsters with class-levels. I was a bit surprised by how many DMs apparently don't bother to use 3e rules for this.

I wonder how many of them were influenced by their knowledge how 4e is handling this stuff.

I definitely remember a time when after every new 3e book release threads would be full of people pointing out the many, often minor, mistakes in stat blocks. Times seem to have changed

 

[Celtavian]

BryonD answered this well ("Mechanics should should be about capabilities and leave behavior to the players.") but I'd like to spell it out for everyone: a lot of the great things in 4E stat blocks is simply information that got shifted from accompanying background text into the stat block itself. I documented a striking example of this on this site not long ago.

But since you brought up humanoids, I thought it pertinent to provide a supplementory example. Let's ask what differentiates gnolls from other humanoids like orcs. 4E designers told us that they don't differ (or at least, not enough) in editions pre-3E but now they do. I strongly suspect their answer highlights the gnoll's "Pack Attack" power in its statblock:

So basically what differentiates a gnoll from an orc in 4E is that one guy has Pack Attack and the other doesn't. Fair enough.

If you then compare this to the gnoll entry in the 3.5 MM (page 130) you see no such thing as "Pack Attack" crop up in the stat block. However, in the flavour text it says (emphasis mine),

And if you look up the enormous combat flavour that Paizo gave to gnolls in Classic Monsters Revisited (e.g. page 15 therein on horde tactics) you can see the shift in emphasis: information that previously (in 3E) belonged to "flavour text" was shifted to stat blocks in 4E.

So for me the following two things are actually false::

1. Humanoids had too little to differentiate each other in editions pre-4E.
2. Monster entries in the 4E MM are awefully short on flavour text.

As to 1.: I said why I deem it false already.
I also disagree with 2., since 4E monster statblocks tell a story of their own. I love those stories (the MM being my favourite 4e book), but I absolutely understand people who'd rather work with flavour text.

So the real debate is whether you want to codify monster tactics mechanically, or whether as a DM you simply make up mechanical repercussions for "horde tactics" and their ink on the fly - which gets us back to BryonD's point. I think it's a good point, but it really merited spelling out.

I'm in the camp that prefers flavor over mechanics when it comes to humanoids. I have gnolls attack in a pack focusing on one target. No real need to give them a bonus as any creature could do the same thing in sufficient numbers. Why one creature group does it better I do not know.

I don't see the difference between a pack of humans and a pack of gnolls attacking a single target. I don't know why the gnolls would get a bonus. In 4E I'm supposed to explain this with "They just do because it's their special ability". I'd rather have it work mechanically simliar as it does in 3E and have it be a tactic of the racial group. If I want to work in fighting styles for a particular racial group I can work that in like the did with Sahuagin with the pincer claw weapons. At least the pincer claws involved weapon design rather than innate racial traits that didn't seem necessary.

 

[Celtavian]

Why can't the behavior develop into a special ability? Like wolves attacking and pulling their target down resulting in an easier chance to trip? Like any other special ability or racial ability in any edition of the game? You see it as the cart before the horse because gnolls in previous edition received no benefit for acting like gnolls. Others see it as a natural progression for a behavior that a creature practices from birth.

Because the trip feature of wolves and dogs was worked in because the game designers knew this is how such animals fight. If you watch any specials on dog and wolf packs, you see they lock on their jaws and try to pull the prey down. So this is a mechanical means to simulate this real world fighting style.

Whereas giving gnolls +5 damage when attacking in a pack simulates nothing. A fighting style of a pack of gnolls would be something like "The gnolls use hook spears to bring prey to the ground, then set upon them until they are dead". That would incorporate a trip type attack and a pack training mindset that is easily simulated in either 4E or 3E, but doesn't incorporate an unexplainable bonus like +5 damage for no real good reason.

A fighting style should be a fighting style. I don't mind humanoids getting one. Tossing in bonuses for the sake of differentiation is lazy game design in my opinion. If their fighting as a pack, then give them some of the tactical feats that give bonuses while flanking for working as a group to simulate the fighting style. Flat damage bonuses are pretty nebulous.

The gnoll swings his short sword and gets +5 damage because his pal is also swinging his short sword? Why not just give them an innate sneak attack ability if they are hitting vital points? Why make it a flat number? Why wouldn't a higher level gnoll be even better at pack fighting? Seemed way to much like giving a bonus to differentiate versus thinking about how a gnoll pack fights. That is what 4E did alot of. Cool Crunch over Logical Crunch. I prefer logical crunch that at least attempts to make sense.

 

[AllisterH]

Which of course raises the question I asked earlier....

Why have gnolls AT ALL then. Simply fold all the 1-3HD monsters under one entry and simply state that different tribes have different tactics.

Indeed, this _WAS_ how my DM back during the 1e era ran his games. He had no gnolls or goblins since there was no reason to have them and he assumed that by stating that there were different tribes of orcs in the 1e MM, you WERE supposed to do as you say Celtavian.

And that personally has influenced me when I started DMing in 2e. My campaign world made no use of evil humanoids other than orcs.

If there is no mechanical difference between an orc and a gnoll other than a feat that EITHER race could take, then realy, wrap everything under 1 heading. Troglodtyes see use, trolls see use all because of their unique abilities but I never really saw the point of having gnolls, orcs, goblins, kobolds and hobgoblins occupying the same world.

You can see the same thing with regard to aquatic humanoids...How many people used more than 1 or2 types since they were all the same.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I never really understood the dislike of long-term buffing magic. I could do all the adjustments in my head on the fly. I knew every feat in the book. I always figured any DM had the rules memorised and only had to pull out the books for odd situations that might require a bit of research. Buffing magic was never a problem in any campaign I've been in

Perhaps you'll understand it better when you understand that many DM's -- possibly even most DM's, certainly the more casual/newbie DM's -- don't have every feat and spell memorized. Asking that a DM has the ability to memorize about a thousand pages of rules seems to ask WAY TOO MUCH, IMO.

It works for you, and that's fine, but that's not something I think the game should make a prerequisite for running a fun D&D game.

What's easier than bull's strength giving you +4 strength which is +2 attack and damage (if using a melee weapon without Finesse or some other feat that modifies the ability used to hit)?

Bull's Strength (Encounter): +2 to to your next melee attack roll. If you hit, +2 to your damage as well.

Fire-and-forget.

Because the trip feature of wolves and dogs was worked in because the game designers knew this is how such animals fight. If you watch any specials on dog and wolf packs, you see they lock on their jaws and try to pull the prey down. So this is a mechanical means to simulate this real world fighting style.

Whereas giving gnolls +5 damage when attacking in a pack simulates nothing.

Why can't it simulate a fighting style? Just like the wolf does? Why can't this be how such creatures fight? Why can't it be that any naturalist in a D&D world sees that gnolls standing next to each other work in concert much more efficiently than even well-trained creatures of other species, having a keen awareness of exactly how to move to take advantage of their ally's position.

I don't see the difference between a pack of humans and a pack of gnolls attacking a single target. I don't know why the gnolls would get a bonus.

The same difference that exists between a pack of humans and a pack of gnolls exists between a pack of wolves and a pride of lions, for instance. They have different natural capabilities.

Why have gnolls AT ALL then. Simply fold all the 1-3HD monsters under one entry and simply state that different tribes have different tactics.

Well, the similar mechanics don't invalidate the varied stories. The whole "demon-worshipping fallen beast people" angle feels different from the whole "brutal nomads who take what they want and they want it all" angle.

Not that it's THAT different, but still.